Reading,death and loneliness

When getting my nose in a book

Cured most things short of school,
It was worth ruining my eyes
To know I could still keep cool,
And deal out the old right hook
To dirty dogs twice my size.

Later, with inch-thick specs,
Evil was just my lark:
Me and my coat and fangs
Had ripping times in the dark.
The women I clubbed with sex!
I broke them up like meringues.

Don't read much now: the dude
Who lets the girl down before
The hero arrives, the chap
Who's yellow and keeps the store
Seem far too familiar. Get stewed:
Books are a load of crap.

(Phillip Larkin: A Study of Reading Habits)

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Since the death of my mother in law, I have had moments unsure of what exactly would offer my family members and myself the needed solace and help us heal an unexpected wound. Also I remained unsure if the responsibilities at my work place, that I certainly can't escape as long as I depend on that for my living, serve as a helpful detraction while tiding over the depression. At those difficult times I had to stay long hours at office. At home, the pain of loneliness was compounded by some heart wrenching questions from my wife and her sisters who lost their dearest mother to an untimely death. They were just inconsolable!

I'm indebted to Somerset Maugham for touching upon this issue in a novel dedicated to the pursuit of "truth" and "meaning" where the protagonist says:

"I want to make up my mind whether God is or God is not. I want to find out why evil exists. I want to know whether I have an 'immortal soul' or whether when I die 'it is the end'"...."if men have been asking them for thousands of years it proves that they can't help asking them and have to go on asking them"

Philip Larkin's above piece (who often wrote about death and loneliness) helped me somehow reinforce the reading habit.

Nanu Moni's revenge

Today I am writing for my little Ushashi. Too early for her to follow this diary; however, lest the oblivious mind of her dad should completely deny her this tale at a later time!

In this worldly life we lose a lot of dear things for some of which the loss even predates the phase when adequate sense of what significance these hold to our respective lives could actually develop.

Yesterday was one such day for Ushashi.

She saw her Mamoni crying for her Nanu Moni the lady who was one of the very first to see her face and keep her into two trusted loving arms on December 12, 2008 the day the kid first set her feet (!) in this planet. Both of her parents had the fortune to see respective grandma calling it a day in a fashion that allowed decent time for their grandchildren to grow up and carry along at least some random memories for rest of the life.

This is not going to be the case with Ushashi as far has her Nanu's love for her is concerned. Without any possibility that the two and half years old would be able to carry along Nanu Moni’s memories, her grandma has left her for eternity . Since birth she stayed at her Nanu's home off and on except for one year when she was in the USA. The late grandma's acquaintance with her infant granddaughter was obviously short because of their short overlapping lifespan. I feel whatever level of consciousness the short-lived lady had at her dying days, her two grand daughters- Ushashi and Arnova- must have occupied her mind! A very calm and quiet lady, in case she had a failed bargaining with the Almighty pleading extension to a prematurely ending life-her three daughters and two grand kids must be the reason. This I can say based on the substance of my conversation with her, face to face or over phone, since Ushashi’s birth.

Last few weeks, I am hardly in a mental state to chronicle for Ushashi some anecdotes centering on Nanu Moni's presence in her life. The two nights separated by the day Ushashi was born I stayed at my father-in-law's home. At that time one of the sweet sounding “re-assurances” I had from my mother in law was when she said to me, “Baba, tomar meye dekhte onek pretty hobe.” When I told her, in reply to her query if I expected a baby girl or boy, that Allah has given me what I wanted, she only smiled. At the same conversation, she shared with me in a gleaming face her memories of becoming mother of three daughters and bringing them up.

One night we together (Ammu, Swarna, Lona, Ushashi, myself and other family members) had been going to a relative’s home to attend a party. It was difficult for both Swarna and I to make out how on earth could it happen that we completely forgot to bring the baby's feeder to drink water at a hot summer night in Dhaka! Even if we bought one from a nearby store, it might not be wise to put it in the baby’s mouth before sinking it in hot water for a proper length of time which might be too late for a thirsty baby! I noticed, she all of a sudden changed her smiling face into a serious look in a bid to tackle the circumstance, “Baba, amra thakte tomar meyer pani khete kono shomoshsha hobe na!” Indeed, whenever Swarna had to come out of home, Nanu Moni was a source of reliance with whom the kid could be left without any form of mental stress.

I heard from Swarna she would off and on sound helpless that both of her granddaughters are “cruel” to her in that they engage Nanu Moni and her service from before their births to zero baby stages to early infancies. These 'heartless kids' take all the love and affection from her only to one day abandon her in an empty house as they set for respective father's home!

Barely did the two innocent girls know how mindlessly their Nanu Moni had just been counting days to take a disproportionate revenge on them!

Ammur kachhe jabo

My mother- in- law whom I would fondly address “Ammu”, along with other relatives, bade us bye at the departure lounge of Dhaka International Airport as we set for the USA. I certainly heard other people in Foreign Service telling about a common agony in this particular profession which is that a lot of near and dear ones are lost forever when they were in a painful geographical distance because of overseas postings. In my case, I barely knew Ammu would be leaving us forever in this fashion and when I am on my maiden foreign mission.

An extraordinarily caring and amicable lady, she was like ready to give her everything for the sake of the near and dear ones which included not just her immediate family members but also the people who came in contact with her, some just by chance. From the subordinate members of her husband’s office staff to a luckier chap such as me who happened to be married off to her daughter –all have found her almost the same.

A school teacher, housewife, loving mother and grandmother all these identities did apply to her when she calls it a day. Her patience, an extremely down to earth approach as well as unoffending personality made her dear to almost everybody who met her. Consequently her sudden disappearance has created a catastrophe and, more precisely, a form of insecurity to the family members whom she left “disproportionately” dependent on her.

Yesterday, I found my wife at the other end of the telephone in a condition which could not be more shocking or confusing. “The only thing I know is that I go must go to Ammu as I can’t imagine a single moment without her”-she had been inconsolable. A child’s dependence on mother is constant and universal. It is just something that can’t be less or excessive. Wise people say the Divinity never created a need without a means to fulfill.

For my wife, for myself, for my daughter, probably for anybody else there is hardly a need more immediate to this. Who can precisely guide us the “needed means”?