For 67 year old Srinivasan it was a regular New Year Day spent with his wife Lakshmi. The year just gone by had been traumatic. His 59 year old wife had undergone a massive surgery to remove cancer tumors that had occupied her body as if it were their own. The guests who had come uninvited, without warning, were not planning to turn back. Six chemotherapies in their hometown Chennai had cost the family several lakhs in rupees, loss of her self-esteem & hair, self-induced seclusion and more sleepless nights in a year than in their three and a half decade of married life.

Today, as he watched her perform her mandatory daily worship, albeit many times slower compared to the past he once again realized how much she was a part of his own body, his thinking and his consciousness.

One part of him was watching, while another part of him was withering away, slowly, painfully, one rose petal at a time. The memory of its fragrance almost intact, but the fragrance itself changing, becoming subtler and subtler trying to merge with ether itself. How could he capture and preserve the fragrance of their lives together when every intense day filled with life-and-death crisis threatened to erase and “write over” the record of their lives? He had no answer. He had no answer to many such questions. Questions that neither them, nor their post graduate children, nor the charmingly qualified medical community, nor their religion, nor their belief systems could answer. A “Why” suspended in the Universe, as anchorless and painful as unrequited love. Is grieving for her when she is alive worse than her death itself? Are the thousands of days we spent in worship and prayer in vain? Finally, who will answer these questions?

Ironically the disease had made them live more spiritually than they had ever been inside the most sacred of temples, more chaste than the hundreds of pilgrimages they had undertaken. It had ruthlessly forced them to live in the moment. There was no time nor mind space for nostalgia. There was no point in worrying. There was too much to worry about that it just did not make sense anymore.

Their simple middle class lives had been transformed into a beast they could not behold or reign in anymore. “The only freedom available to you is that to take action”. Srinivasan found the resonating words of the Bhagavad Gita cruel to say the least.

She completed her simple cooking for two and served him his lunch on a banana leaf while serving herself. She tried her best to cook on “pain-free days”, though those were becoming more infrequent now. The least she could do to repay her husband for being her alter-ego when she was losing her own sense of identity and purpose while treating the disease. For his silent companionship during the numerous hospital visits, the relentless administration of her medicines and other special needs that had become the new reality of their life. With the unspoken knowledge that the “guests were coming back”, the couple had learnt to keep their days as normal as possible to avoid alarming the other.  

They rested a while in the afternoon and went on their usual temple visit. They had had their ups and downs with the regular milestones like any family. Intense and activity filled children-raising years had led to the daunting middle years when their children left the nest. This had forced them to take a hard look at their relationship that had revolved primarily around the children, their comforts, and careers. Along the journey theirs had matured from a roller coaster, ego-led love to a more sublime form that neither expressed nor realized. They were just settling into unconditional acceptance of the other and a rewarding grandparent-hood when an alternate plan seemed chalked out for them. At an age when a couple would like to recline, relax and reminisce, they were forced to face the shock and unpleasantness of mortality.

Suddenly all the petty squabbles and domestic fights seemed pointless. Cancer made them long for minor issues to resolve and set right as the big ones were beyond comprehension.

At the temple, neither voiced the question “what did you pray for”. Neither wanted to know. “Let me live a bit longer for him”, was hers as tears refused to stop inside the sanctum sanctorum. “Let her suffering end peacefully and painlessly” was his.