Baba

 It is two years since Baba is gone. Seeing this on screen looks surreal, hardly believable, but nothing could be further from truth. He had seemed invincible with his verve and spirit, but Nature proved to have a stronger spirit.

He is gone and in his stead is a deep emptiness, a hollow and vacuum of sorts. Like a cutout - a very vacuous cutout. 

I still recollect that evening when cookie called like it was yesterday. I had just finished a heart to heart conversation with her and in less than half an hour or so she called again. I was very sure she had to pass on some interesting bit of gossip that she had missed earlier. But she was terse and anxious in her message. "We have lost Baba, Sonalitai", she said in the midst of her sobs and tears. I had bent down to tie my shoe laces even as I answered her call. I could scarcely understand what she meant. "What do you mean?" I asked her stupidly. "Baba has passed away", she had replied trying to find synonyms for what she had said earlier. Everything went eerily quiet after that. Like the unending whizz of a missile which has just passed by. I was too confounded to say anything. At least I do not recall what I said thereafter. Maybe she has a memory and recollection of it. All I remember is that the laces on my shoes were undone and I was reminding myself to tie those before I stepped out of the office.

I walked down and out of the kindergarten and called Mawshi. When I heard her voice, I burst out crying, she repeated what was conveyed and I knew this fearful moment had finally come to pass.

I called Aai or maybe I called Rani, and Anand and Tejas and just about anyone who held a piece of me and baba in their hearts. I wanted those two pieces to fit again and join. Kaustubh made a video call and showed me Baba where he lay in the hall. Not his place I thought. I did not want to look at it again. Anand showed me Baba once again, but this was not the way I knew Baba. 

My last living memory of him was from January of the same year. He and Aai had come to Willows to say bye to me. I had walked them to the car thereafter and he had waived at me from the car window, shouting out happy journey as was his habit.

I felt envious that my living memory was far more outdated than that of aai or rani or cookie. They probably saw him earlier that week or at least during the month. I felt distanced and alone as I faced this big change all by myself. Mayur's presence was of little consolation. I wanted aai, rani and cookie. The four of us had always huddled together in the face of adversities, but they were missing right now. 

I walked through the university lawns, answering calls and sobbing all the time. I reached the banks of the Rhine and tried to search for Baba in the water, but it only flowed past. There was no solace to be had in this foreign country. A part of me had forever set in a part of the world where I did not stand, but only imagined.

The following days and months whizzed past in rituals and tasks. Things that needed to be done were done. Including all kinds of prayers and rituals in a hope to help Baba make his peace. Crossing the river on Balgandharva bridge towards Omkareshwar, I tried to search for Baba once again in the clouds and the turbid and sickly trickle of the river. Baba was not there, but there was a reassuring comfort that he hung around somewhere - my fertile mind was tricking me yet again.

At the tenth day ritual when a horde of crows descended to eat the ball of rice that rani cookie and I held out to them, the three of us hugged each other and bawled - if this was of any significance, then baba has met his maker and is at peace. The crows were heralds from the other world conveying baba's well-being to us.

It is two years today since he is gone and only now can I get myself to put things on paper and say a bit of what I want to.  

Baba crosses my mind more than a hundred times in a day. The only thing I wonder about is where would he be now. To imagine Baba as a flicker of light (symbolic of the soul) is difficult for me. He was a roaring fire, spitting brimstone and lava at the drop of a hat at the smallest of indiscretions. Swearing at anyone who dared to mess around with him, and he found plenty of offenders. To imagine this man full of opinions, likes and very strong dislikes with a belly full of ribald jokes to be reduced to a flicker of light is something my mind cannot wrap itself around. 

But then again that was exactly what baba was, a flicker of light longing for union with the great big Sun. There was an unspoken connection between him and Bhimsen Joshi, and when Bhimsen Joshi appealed to the Almighty with his Vitthala, maayabaapa it was almost like he was making that plea on behalf of Baba. Bhimsen's songs echoed all of Baba's unsaid words. There was the stillness of an abyss and the roar of an ocean in them. 

Was Baba an ideal father? That is a loaded question. I have seen fathers who are more gentle than he was, kinder too, more loving also. His faults were numerous but so was the largess of his soul. It is difficult to arrive at a sum total of his virtues and vices. He was what he was, and we have become what we are under a substantial influence from him.  

I don't know if I will meet him in my future lives, if this constellation will continue...

I often imagine him emerging through the dazzling tunnel of light on the other side, Tony and Bandu standing at the entrance wagging their tails and Mau walking past pretending not to have noticed him. Shashi kaka and Mukund uncle probably amble towards him and they all hug joyously. But in my mind's eye, when he met Tatya he probably feels the greatest of all joys. He probably hugs Tatya and proudly tells him he too planted a 'kalpavrukskha' for his children.