From the daughter's heart

It is exactly 3 weeks since he opened his eyes to the angels of heaven. His last moment is still fresh in my mind. Just about the same time 3 weeks back, all the family members were sitting around him and praying the Quran. His eyes were half open staring at the wall in front of him. I lovingly called him "Papli" and got not response from him. The only indication that he was alive was the movement of his diaphragm. Time was ticking towards the night, and as much tired I was, there was no sleep in my eyes. I didn't want to lose sight of him. I just didn't want to! Suddenly, his eyes opened wide and he started breathing heavily, it felt like he was watching somebody up above. "The time has come" my cousin brother said.
========
I had seen him deteriorate inch by inch in the past week. The last hug he gave me was on my anniversary day. He was already a little weak and was coping with a lot of pain. My sister and I had made plans for alternative treatment to give his body strength and immunity. We were planning a trip just after my anniversary to an Ayurveda place as well. But God had something different in mind. Like they say - Man proposes, God disposes!
The next day after my anniversary, he seemed completely zoned out. He had drifted into a sub-conscious mode and had completely stopped talking. His only response was through blinking his eyes. Mom looked strong on the outside, but I could see the turmoil in her eyes. The doctor visited us and after examining him said "Please inform everybody possible". Her estimate was that he would stretch it for a week max! Honestly, I do not have the words nor the courage to explain how the days have passed after that. All i knew was, my parents need me to be the strongest daughter ever; I was and I am! That one week we saw him cripple into a skeleton. From blinking eyes, to half open eyes staring into space. From frequent anxiety attacks to a motionless body. The Doc was right, he survived exactly a week after that.
========
All through that week I was only praying to God to stop the torture and grant him relief and peace. But when my cousin uttered those words, I was not sure if I was prepared to handle that moment. For sometime, I moved away from the room. I made a list of people I had to immediately call once anything happened and gathered the courage by saying to myself "I need to see this through". I went back to his room and sat next to him. My elder aunt had taken him in her lap and had her palm on his chest. He kept breathing heavily and tears rolled down his eyes. I closed my eyes for a minute in prayer and when I opened, aunt said "I cant feel the heart beat".The entire room stood still. I looked at mom and saw here eyes fill up. I tried to see if his diaphragm was moving, no sign. Looked at his face, frozen. I shakingly held his wrist to feel the pulse, just one pulse and nothing. I stared at mom and said "No ma, nothing, I cant feel a thing". He was no more! He was my Dad.

Rambling thoughts

Well here i am finally, trying to write what i feel like, but don’t think my mind is in the right state of mind to actually make my hands write something decent or something interesting to keep you sticking to your monitor and continue reading. While reading the below post, please understand that I am using this space to blabber and vent out some things which have bothered me for a while! This post no way indicates that I am depressed and need a counselor, so just read it and forget about it!
People say i have a perfect life! Well i don’t think anything is imperfect about that statement, but when i really think deep, i kind of tend to disagree. One day my friend told me "Sak, I envy you! You have a job every techie wants, you work on a product everybody likes, you married the guy you always wanted to, you got amazing in-laws, you have the coolest parents on earth, you are Miss Popular and you have whole load of friends!" Wow! First, I would like to say a BIG Thank you for summing that up! Honestly, I had no insight! But then, when i actually read that statement all over again, i feel if that's the case, i should be happy all the time and should be the most satisfied person on earth! Shouldn’t i? But at this point of time, while i am actually writing this, I am not in my best of moods and surely not close to being happy!
You may think, “come on Sak, what's wrong with you?” The answer to that is, “Nothing”! If life was always happy and settled, then probably i was not living! So, analyzing the statement my friend made, "I have a job every techie wants?" - I doubt! May be every techie wants to work in the company i work in, but surely does not want to do what i do every single day, especially my developer friends, they would completely hate it! "I work on a product everybody likes" - well I don’t want to use this space to comment on that! So let's move on..
"I married the guy I always wanted to" - Absolutely! No doubt about it, I wouldn’t have fought and consistently and patiently waited for him if i didn’t know that he is not the one! He is the best thing that has ever happened to me and will be! But the sad part is, he is in a job which makes him travel, i mean travel a lot! I hate it when his boss calls and throws a bomb on him and asks him to go to US for a month! I have to not only support his travel and help him out but also have to behave sensible and mature and understanding wife who will be ok to see him go for a month! uuurrggh! "I got amazing in-laws" - Well if the guy is good the parents have to be better :) don't you think? They surely are amazing; I have never seen such understanding and accommodative parents in-law! They have accepted me the way I am and my work and have never complained about it!
"I have the coolest parents on earth" - well not literally, but yeah they are! If not for them, I wouldn’t have gone for all the random treks, trips and weekend outings and had the small accident which got a permanent scar on my face! They were also supportive when i wanted to stop with 10th Std and jump into Fashion Designing! (But that never happened :(...never mind!) So, yes my parents are the coolest parents, they are the most welcoming and warm hearted people i have ever seen, they have never frowned when we had friends coming home to eat Biryani and Kulfis and never complained when they saw 50 ppl in the house practicing dance and ruining the carpet! Yes, i have had my share of tiffs with them too, and may be that way we understand each other better and I get to have a small say in what goes on in the house!
Moving on to the last one: "I am miss popular and have a while load of friends" - Yes and No! My husband keeps teasing me with this "Sak knows half the world, and the rest of the half knows her!" I don’t know whether to be proud about it or not! I feel ironic, the reason being, I have 650+ friends on my Facebook account, I had close to the same number before i deleted my Orkut account. I have 300+ contacts on my LinkedIn and my Google account is overflowing with 900+ email ids and all i was looking for is 1 friend! 1 friend with whom i can share every secret, who knows me from child hood, who kicks me when i am acting weird and pats my back when i do a heroic job! A friend I would call immediately when i have something special to share! I am a loner in this crowd! At the end of the day, everybody has their own life, their own priorities, their own groups and parties to attend! It’s easier these days to say "hi" on the internet than getting somebody to come and meet you! (No bajji, I am not talking about you!). I have been trying to get our college re-union done for more than 5 years now, in my last attempt; exactly 3 people came from a class of 65! My bro is trying to do a re-union of all ex-colleagues from our ex-company for couple of years now, and we always land up with not more than 4-5 people! Our outing plans with friends from work have been canceled many times because of other priority stuff!

Now, if this how my life is, I am surely not happy at the moment and surely want this blog post and the day to end. I feel lot better just writing this down and I know when I come back tomorrow and read this post, I would be having a hearty laugh! This is hoping for a brighter day tomorrow!

See ya!