The Final Days

Is death always sudden, as most of us believe, or does it issue a veiled warning about its impending visit? I am describing below my observations of four incidents over a span of thirty years. The names have been withheld to respect individual privacy. Do you have something to share on the topic? I would love to read that!

I

She looked at the ceiling. It must have been white years ago, some bright patches nestled among the brown, the yellow, and the red revealed.

"Red?" She looked at the blood bag stand near her bed.

Her son caught her eye, "Do you need anything?"

"Some water, please!" She ran her tongue over her lips. She could taste dried blood.

Her husband looked at her with irritation. She wasn't sure whether the irritation was due to her illness or his inability to attend office. He was a key official in the office of the HRD minister PV Narasimha Rao, the second ranking guy in the government that ran India. He was on good terms with Arun Nehru, Mohsina Kidwai, Krishna Sahi, Ram Dulari Sinha and Yogendra Makwana—all ministers, holding different portfolios.

Her thoughts drifted to her father. Though Baba belonged to the illustrious Vivekananda family and was also distantly related to Subhas Bose, he never took undue advantage of his descendance.

On similar lines, her husband never asked for favours, even if it meant watching his wife rot unattended in a shoddily run government hospital with crumbling infrastructure and hardly any doctors, nurses, or janitors. She kept losing blood with stool and vomits, and the hospital kept on replenishing it. The treatment started and ended with that.  

Things changed with the arrival of her younger son. She was shifted to a referral hospital with better conditions. Tests were conducted, doctors checked her condition regularly, and a nurse always remained in the line of sight. Regardless, her fever continued and so did the blood loss and the blood transfusion.

She lost the count of days.

One morning, a friend's daughter offered her dhoklas. She appreciated the gesture, and tried a piece. It smelt and tasted of blood. Later, she could not touch the lunch provided by the hospital, as usual.

The doctor looked at the untouched food and asked, "What would you prefer to eat? You will get well only if you start eating."

"Chicken," she murmured shyly.

Her husband remarked testily, "Eat! Have the will to fight the disease, to survive, to live."

She looked at him, and got lost in thoughts. As her husband went out to have a small consultation with the doctor, she confided in her younger son, "Your father wants me to have the will to fight the disease, to survive, to live. Why? For what? For whom?"

Hers was an empty nest. The children lived hundreds of miles apart, with their own families, in different cities. The husband was home only in the nights on working days. The loneliness had eaten her up. Though just 54, she had lost the desire to live.

Her son was trying to come up with a reply. She stopped him with an impatient wave of hand, "Take care of your father after I am gone. And tell him not to lose his temper so often. Among you three, only you can do it." Her assertiveness had a tone of finality. "I am happy that each of my three children donated blood for me, but your wife's brother should not have done so. I don't know how will you return his debt!" Her eyes were fixed on the son.   

Two young doctors arrived and cheerfully announced, "Get ready. We will now take you for an endoscopic test."

The test took much more time than usual. She returned exhausted. She had difficulty in breathing. Every time she tried to draw in breath, she shook with a bout of cough and sprayed a thick mist of dark blood all around.

Ten minutes later, the blood choked her to death.

II

"All trash," he folded the newspaper and kept it aside on the bench. He looked around. Children were playing. Hawkers were selling their wares. Housemaids were flitting in and out of homes. Most people, having eaten their breakfast, were basking in the winter sun like him.

His house stood on the southern periphery of the park. The two-storey building had provided shelter to so many people! His three daughters were married from that house, the wedding tent being pitched right at the same spot where he was sitting now.

He lived comfortably, but never attempted to adopt a lavish lifestyle. Why fly when you can go by the train? Why buy an expensive shoe when a cheaper one serves the purpose? Why eat out, pay through your nose, and spoil your stomach with the over-spiced food? Were the wedding feasts and birthday bashes not enough to keep one satiated through the year?

Communism was the most desirable political option for him. One must contribute to the society till one survives. How the times had changed! Many things were either useless or totally phoney now. Political leaders were idiots, award-winning writers owed their successes to their proximity to some influential person, cinema directors produced rotten stuff, and cricket players were selected on the whims of the authorities.

There had been no retirement for him. Regardless of the remuneration, he had been taking jobs and even at the age of eighty was a regular employee. He would have been editing something today, had it not been a holiday on account of a festival.

He loved festivals. They reminded him of his younger days. The joys were so simple then! The food tasted so good! Wearing a new dress made one so happy, though few could afford new dresses on every festival. He rarely wore new clothes. To think of it, he had never purchased a car or a two-wheeler. The public transport or the common office vehicles had never failed him. It's true that his wife owned some jewellery, but the quantity was modest. Just the other day he had shown her the diary having the locker number and details of investments. She should not face inconvenience once he departs.              

It was time for lunch. He picked up the newspaper and walked slowly towards his house. The taste of the breakfast still lingered in his mouth. He would have a simple khichdi today. And after that, he would have the luxury of enjoying a siesta.

Post lunch, his wife started snoring in one room, his son in another. The house-help was singing and cleaning the utensils, "Ga ga ga ga pat pat pat pat ..." He felt the urge to go to the toilet. These days he had to visit the loo a number of times, most visits being unproductive. Even fifteen minute-long ordeals, puffs of cigarettes, doses of laxatives and spoonfuls of isabgol were usually ineffective.

He quickly made it to the bathroom. He strained. No evacuation. The festive breakfast and lunch were making things difficult. He strained again. Gas, but no solid. He strained again. Nothing.

Drenched with sweat, he emerged slowly from the bathroom and lied down next to his wife. "Holidays are bad. One overeats and falls sick. I will be much better in the office tomorrow," he thought. The 'fixed auto' would pick him up with his tiffin box at quarter to nine. He would have his simple lunch at the office, and return home at three with a perfectly normal stomach.

His discomfort grew. Breathing was becoming an effort now.

His son sensed it. "What's wrong?" he snarled. He meant well, yet always snarled out of habit.

He mumbled something in reply.

An auto-rickshaw was hailed and he was taken to the hospital. This was the first time he had covered a distance of a few hundred yards in a vehicle. The doctors started questioning him. He got irritated. In spite of being a tolerant and soft-spoken person, he burst out, "Why are you wasting time on stupid questions? Can't you see that I am unable to breathe?"

He was wheeled into the ICU. His son waited outside, to be joined gradually by other relatives. They looked at every doctor and nurse with questioning eyes. Finally, a doctor came out to speak to them.

He was no more. A lethal heart attack had finished him.

III

"Shut that off," said the woman, leaving the daughter-in-law astonished. She looked at the device and switched off the religious song. The woman had always participated enthusiastically in religious ceremonies, observed fasts, and enjoyed devotional music. Today's was the first instance when such music had failed to soothe her eighty-two year old nerves.

But then, this was not the only 'first.' She had always been fond of her brothers and especially held the eldest one in high esteem, only to have minimum eye contact in their last meeting. She surprised him by calling him by name, which was another 'first.' The same brother had broken the news about her cancer being in the terminal stage in their last meeting.

She was no longer the friendly and curious person who could hold long conversations even with complete strangers. Her last such act ended with the return of the valuables to a village woman a month ago. She had now started turning her back and feigning sleep on the visits of close relatives. She didn't need anyone now, not even her third daughter who lived far away. Why to disturb the schedule of busy people? She had to go, and she would go as peacefully as possible. She willed herself to not die on the festival of colours and dampen the spirits of the youngsters in the years to come.

The doctors had seen no point in keeping her at the hospital. Her son, a doctor himself, had arranged for medical assistance at home. At the end of the week the medical guy had recommended disconnection of all life support systems. "Let us not hold her back and prolong her suffering," he had said.

She didn't open her eyes the next morning. Her breathing became heavy, stopping and resuming abruptly. The strange sound of her laboured breathing reverberated for a while, and then she shuddered, followed by complete silence. Her doctor son peered into her eyes with a torch, and gave a sad nod of head.

She had passed with no sign of fear or pain.

IV

The ambulance was moving fast. The siren was blaring, "Wee-woo, wee-woo, wee-woo."

He looked at the two boys sitting inside. The elder one was engrossed deep in thoughts. The younger one looked at him, "Are you in pain, Nanaji?"

He was not their Nana (grandfather). Twenty years ago he had given shelter to the elder boy, who, as an infant, was fighting a losing battle with illness due to abject poverty. He had gradually ended up supporting the boy's entire family, including a grandmother who must have been in her late seventies. Both boys were now graduates, both were employed.

 "Had god not brought me on the scene, they would perhaps have not survived or would have become petty criminals like their elders," he surmised.

He hated staying in hospitals. He had never spent a night in a hospital after surviving cancer thirty-nine years ago, but this year was proving to be different. He had been in and out of hospitals a number of times in the past four months.

Hospitals were so restrictive! Chewing pan with tobacco was not permitted there. Without exception, they inserted a catheter in the vein of the hand and connected it to some stupid bag on a nearby stand. It was so painful! Once he had torn open the contraptions and tried to escape late in the night, but was caught by the security staff. He had been strapped to the bed mercilessly. There was so much blood everywhere!

It wasn't that he didn't respect doctors. He did, except when hallucinating under the impact of drugs. On his last visit he had guessed that his doctor was about a hundred-and-twenty years old. His son had initially not believed him, but when he had pointed out the gracefulness of the doctor, the son had given in. He had also asked whether his father had come to the hospital. The son had, again, acted confused (his father had died decades ago).

A pacemaker was installed in his body on that visit, and after that everything had been fine. He was certain that there was nothing serious to worry about, but the two boys didn't appear to understand. Wasn't it ironic that he, a respected author, was being forced to act on the stories created by the doctors!

He was admitted to the hospital. His sons had already been informed with the usual "nothing major to worry about" refrain. The elder son arrived the same night. The doctor confided, "He doesn't have much time left. Please call all who wish to see him one last time."

The younger son was taking the noon flight the next day. No other flight was available. The mother and sisters of the two boys came to the hospital. The man looked at them and observed, "I am going now." A drop of tear trickled down his cheek.

The next morning his son visited him in the ICU. He was eager to convey something, but the oxygen mask and the hearing impairment of the son made the exercise futile. The son spoke to the doctor and started waiting in the lounge.

The son's name was announced on the PA system at 11:55. He had passed away. The younger son's plane started taxiing around the same time.

The younger son was devastated to find the father gone. His trust on "nothing major to worry about" had proved to be misplaced. He looked at his father's lifeless body and started reading aloud from a religious book. There were some striking similarities between the statements in the book and the expressions of his father.

Amazed, he looked at the lifeless body. The half-open eyes were fixed on the younger son. A faint smile played on the lips that would never speak again—exactly as described in the death scene of his award-winning book.