No Sir. I do not feel like going back to Hyderabad. I am not missing anybody except you. I love this quite environment. The months that fly during the night. The Noise of birds. Do you know I can also hear the noise of the sunrise and the sunset? This entire week I have neither missed a sunrise through the hills beyond the college nor a sunset beyond the railway line where the train chugs away on its urgent work to an unknown destination.
All these years I made you wait… in the evening everyday near the window on the bench. You waited patiently with your head down in contemplation. Sometimes you used to fall asleep sitting! I cannot say I made every attempt to visit you on time; I also admit, sometimes, I was careless, I made you wait. I am thankful for the opportunity …you allowed me make tea for you… give your favorite ‘Allam’ after the tea.
I am also grateful for allowing me to put your soiled clothes in the IFB washing machine. I always insisted to dry your clothes in the dryer. Folded your specially designed shirts, lungis and towels. You also allowed me to order nice smelling (aroma Rose) washing liquid.
Every morning 6:30am – the two of our first greetings of the day ring through my mind for my residue life: I called out every morning – “Reddy Saab… Reddy Saab”. While waking up from your deep early morning sleep you used to reply immediately: “Babu Gopi…. Gopi.
Checking whether you had the ‘Telephone Brand’ ‘SAT-ISABGOL’. Earlier we used to get 200 grams packets. But transferring the content in to a bottle, using a spoon to mix a spoonful in water proved to be a huge task. Then we decided to opt for 10grms sachets of isabgol. It was very convenient for you… through expensive. We did not mind the extra cost. It was my duty every morning to keep the used glass of Isabgol in the kitchen… throw away other waste like banana peel etc.
You felt sad, afraid whenever you soiled the clothes. “I do not want to end up in this situation on bed”, you always said. I meant when I replied… it happens to everyone sometimes… there is nothing wrong with it. You felt your dignity is affected… but before anyone arrived that morning, those soiled clothes went in to the IFB for a cleansing wash. I really enjoyed folding your ‘Father smelling’ freshly washed clothes. Foolish I was and got angry sometimes – as to why my brothers missed doing this blessed work.
Cobwebs are hanging across the wall corners and on the celling of the house; dust on the photographs; meaningless police medals given by the government; Distinguished service medal and its citation from the then Indian President Shri. K. R. Narayanan; Your wife’s photo in a small photo frame smiling with happiness, peeling wall paints; dusty sofa, a dried-up corn comb that you forgot to eat; dusted shoes; forlorn bathroom shippers you stopped wearing for your toes could not hold on to them; dusty dining table with few crumbs that fell on the dining table at the dinner time and two government calendars adorning the walls…
I am sure what you would have felt in your heart… probably wrenched feeling, for you built them, acquired them, worked your life for a meaningless medal… in that process you forgot to police your own life sir.
Giving you a haircut once in every 15 days; cutting your toe nails every month… they were hardened with age… trimming them were a Herculean but lovable task… I know my life too will be same like yours and no better… for you are my perceptible future clear, and distinct. All I ask from this existence is a second chance to become your ‘Babu…Gopi’!
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
