Sunday, May 27, 2007

The Desi Connect!

I'm honored that The Desi Connect's Sheena Singh and Sumaya Kazi took the time to interview me for their online mag! Running under the umbrella of The Cultural Connect, these mags feature young, driven, and forward-thinking individuals, and they've chosen me as their Young Professional of the week! Read the interview here and support their wonderful endeavours!

Friday, May 4, 2007

Biji - My Shakuntla Devi

On April 19th, at 8:55 AM, my grandmother took her last breath. There's a certain emptiness that surrounds death... a sort of spatial void full of silences and shadows. I left the hospital with a grandmother, and came back to find I no longer had one. Her last hours were spent with a dead body but a beating heart. Her last message to me was this: breathe. Breathe all the breaths you can, child, because that is the only thing you have, and the last thing you will ever need.

The house, her room, her spot on the couch, her paths - all carry a space around it where she used to be. Everything in our lives revolved around her, and now we have nothing left to revolve around. The first day in the house with just us three, where we used to be four, was the most difficult. When I leave the house, I imagine saying bye to her, and her saying bye back. When I come home, I imagine saying hi to her on my way to my bedroom, and her saying "You've come, Child?" (in Punjabi, of course - Aa gaya, Puttar), and me saying "Hanji" (yes). But there is only silence.

It will take a long time to get used to not coming home for 4 o clock tea time, and not having her box of teeth next to the sink in the bathroom. It will take some time to get used to walking past her room and not seeing her in the bed, or leaving home and not hearing the too-loud tv playing the same Indian channel every day. It will take quite a while to get used to shutting the light in the hallway because she no longer needs to see the way to the bathroom. Or filling her glass of water at 6 PM every day. I will never get used to not having to move from her spot on the couch when she was coming down the stairs, or arranging it so that someone would be home at 1 PM to make her lunch. I will never forget the laughs she laughed when I squeezed my mother, or rubbed my father's head. It will take a while to get used to not closing the closet door just such, leaving only a few inches open, or taking her teacup down when she was finished drinking. I will have to adjust to not moving my things from the path she took every day with her walker to the couch, or the way she would pull the kitchen table to her, instead of moving her chair closer to the kitchen table. Refilling her bottle of oil, fixing her audio tapes when they got pulled, or figuring out the mysteries of the stereo gone awry. I will still jump at every sound, worrying that she may have fallen, or may have dropped something. I will not forget the exactness of each sound and how I knew exactly what they meant. What she was doing when each sound was made, where she was going at each timing on the schedule. Like clockwork I knew this woman. Like a melody, I knew her.

Did I tell her I loved her enough? Did I ever hug her? Did I ever sit at her feet and listen to her stories of pre-partition India and the love that permeated her life? Did I grumble too loud, or get upset at her once too many? Did she know she mattered? Did she forgive my youth? Did she remember the days when I used to make banners and strew them across the entrance when she visited? Did she remember when I would teach her the alphabet, and give her a passing grade to join the next class? Did she know I loved her laugh? Did she know I held her hand more in her last days than I did in her whole life, but that those last days meant more to me than all the days we spent together? Did she hear me whispering to her in the coma before her death? Did she feel my hand on hers after she left our world? Did she remember I told her I loved her so much? Did she realize she would take a piece of me with her when she left?

Will she remember me?

On April 19th, 2007, at 8:55 AM, my Biji took her last breath.