Durga

||  श्री  ||  

"तोच चंद्रमा नभात, तीच चैत्रयामिनी,

एकांती मज समीप तीच तूही कामिनी...

नीरवता ती तशीच धुंद तेच चांदणे,

छायांनी रेखियले चित्र तेच देखणे.

जाईचा कुंज तोच तीच गंधमोहिनी,

 एकांती मज समीप... तीच तूही कामिनी."

It is the same moon in the sky, the same spring night in April,

and in solitude, close to me is the same beautiful you...

It is the same silence, the stars are in a daze too,

even the shadows have sketched your perfect figurine.

It is the same jasmine laden garden, the same enchanting fragrance,

and in solitude, close to me... is the same beautiful you. 

In a habitual flow, I replaced the two monochromatic dinner plates with two colourful plastic boxes promptly labelled 'medicines'. Three for her, two for me. An exact inversion of lunchtime tablets. For a couple born in the black and white era with paling skin and greying hair, this palate of colours was still unwelcome. "Bottoms up!", I said and after a heavily practised gulp... down went the medication. In a matter of minutes, I washed the dishes and put them out to dry whilst she amused herself. Picking up the transistor on my way back from the kitchen, I carefully helped Durga off the chair. Transistor in one hand and her hand in the other, we slowly made our way outside the main door into the quiet lane.

The solitary streetlight, the bright crescent moon and her hair bore the same distinct shade of ivory. The old and forgotten songs from the transistor, albeit distorted, brought a slight smile to her face. Every wrinkle on her cheek smiled along. Her pale, white hand felt as soft as freshly plucked cotton. The blooming jasmines protruded their necks through whatever gap they could find to witness our budding romance. The untimely yet refreshing April rain had bedewed each plant. Tiny diamond-like dew drops on white flowers shimmered like jewellery on display. As we trudged through the darkish, damp lane, a single source of light threw transforming silhouettes around us. I was observing the morphing shapes of her outline when the shadow began to raise its arm. She pointed towards the disarranged diamonds in the sky. "There's Venus", Durga said, managing to angle her shaky fingers to spot an orangish looking star. As my neck made its outward movement from the earth to sky, my mind made an inward journey from the present to the past and... there she was... a young Durga. Standing right by my side, holding my hand and educating me about the celestial bodies in the April sky. "There's Venus! And do you see the three stars in a line? That's Orion's belt...."

To me, she seemed like a goddess! Nobody in my family possessed the knowledge or even bothered about constellations, planets and stars. We were a bunch of civil engineers, making our living as contractors. Our lives began and ended at the earth. Wealth was never an issue. Our large wooden ancestral home housed a good twenty of our kin under a single roof. It spanned for almost an acre on the street that had its end at the foot of a hillock. After the city Mayor's residence, the Bhide family boasted of the largest place in the entire city. The macadamized road sloped up solely to our doorstep. We had no neighbours and we didn't need any. We were doing well for ourselves. Despite all these riches, the Bhide clan had their feet firmly rooted. The head of our family, my grandfather, Appa, as we fondly called him; had always preached and practised kindness, honesty and discipline. The entire household believed (or at least claimed to believe) in these three morals more than we did in our family deity. Easier said than done though, and not everybody managed. It was a time of orthodox beliefs and conventional practices. Reputation was held in high esteem. In any setting, there was a certain code of conduct that had to be followed... even for us children. Our ancestors had worked their way up the societal ladder and Appa intended to at least maintain it, if not take us higher. But, for the same ambitious Appa, kindness remained a prime virtue. He could never say no to a needy being... even if that meant tarnishing his own reputation.

                          

I clearly remember Durga's first day at the house. The usual, collective hustle and bustle was absent; replaced with murmurs amongst bracketed discussions in closed chambers. Our little bracket of cousins was oblivious to the gossip but we knew something was amiss. The eerie daylight silence in the verandah was broken by the sound of an approaching carriage on rubble. The murmurs died down as rooms evacuated with urgency. The carriage was now at our front door. Every single member had their eyes fixated at the door of the brougham. Some watched from the terraces, some from the balconies, some stationed on the stairs while the eldest members seemed to possess the courage to line themselves in the verandah. Appa got down from the vehicle, followed by a middle-aged woman and finally, a timid, twelve-year-old girl. That was the first time I ever saw Durga. I still remember the innocent being latched herself onto a cobbled rag doll... clutching it tightly to her chest. In her state of trepidation, she could not even look straight. Poor thing. Akka, my grandmother, welcomed the two women with a traditional ceremony and walked them inside whilst everyone else just stood rooted to the spot. As the creaking of wooden stairs under Appa's sandals diminished, whispers regained hushed decibels. Our little bracket of cousins was highly curious and the Sherlock in us didn't take long.

Durga and her mother had lost the man of the house to some mental illness in the week prior to their impromptu relocation. The ignorant in-laws inexplicably managed to blame the duo for their son's fate. Their grief found an outlet in violence against the two equally grieving women. Durga's maternal grandparents were reluctant to shelter the daughter they had given away with such pomp and ceremony. 'What will society say?', their conundrum. Akka and Appa did not care about society in such situations. They deemed it their duty to help these two damsels in distress. Durga's neighbour had approached Akka with their plight in the morning and by afternoon... the Bhide family had two new members.

Initially and understandably, Durga came across as a reclusive person. It took a while for her to settle into the new surroundings. Adapting to judgmental glares of the aged sceptics in our household took longer but she managed to ignore them eventually. Our band of cousins welcomed Durga like she had always been one of us. I guess juveniles are just devoid of judgement. Why do we even grow old, eh? On a personal note, as I had always been the more emotional and sensitive of the Bhide lot... I could read Durga like a book. I anticipated most of her unsaid needs. The jasmine decked braids on her dark hair were hard to miss and I found myself loitering around her more and more as we grew older. When in college, the cousins discussed and exchanged information about medicine, law and machines. "Drab", Durga called it, quite to my amusement and the displeasure of our siblings. In search of a recluse, we realized that the terrace was one of the most amazing things made by mankind. Under the pretext of 'studying together', we spent our afternoons under the sweltering sun where I introduced her to British literature and Indian classical music. (She absolutely loved the fact that she shared her name with an Indian Raga) Come evening time, she took me out onto the little pathway which waded through the jasmine garden... We witnessed the clear moonlight creating a singular shadow as we stood beside each other. Every night, my timid self, coyly stretched an arm in her direction in an attempt to hold her hand. The shadowed secrecy was my best chance. Alas! I was left grasping at silhouettes. Talk about bad timing. My mustered courage lost all force when she raised her arm and pointed to an orangish-looking star in the sky. "There's Venus!", she excitedly exclaimed. The bedewed jasmine flowers shimmered as they laughed at my folly. All I could do in retaliation was look at this gorgeous girl and smile in the silent April night.

"सारे जरि ते तसेच धुंदि आज ती कुठे?

मीहि तोच, तीच तूहि... प्रीति आज ती कुठे?

ती न आर्तता उरात, स्वप्‍न ते न लोचनी,

एकांती मज समीप... तीच तूही कामिनी."

"Everything is just the same yet where is the haze of love?

It is the same old me and the same old you... yet where is the affection?

The heart is devoid of the same yearning, our dreams are now different,

but in solitude, close to me... is the same beautiful you."

Her soft hand tugged at mine. It was now time to retire for the night and I duly obliged. The transistor in one hand and her hand in the other, we shuffled from the main door towards the bedroom. Durga had started to look like an old cobbled doll; worn-out despite my best efforts at mending her. I sat down by the bedside to recite her favourite poems as she fell asleep without tears in her eyes... for the first time in a very long time.

The same people stared at the same stars, stood on the same street, looked at the same shadow, held the same hands, shared the same silence and yet.... nothing was the same. Her excited expressive exclamations now replaced by dry and despairing declarations. What a great leveller life is! All those years ago, I had found a best friend due to her father succumbing to mental illness. Now, it was a mental illness which was going to take her away from me... bit by bit. I had begun to find house keys in the refrigerator, groceries left on the shoe rack, washed clothes repeatedly in the washing machine. Durga had started complaining about forgetting telephone numbers, names of relatives, addresses... Initially, we made a mockery of these oddities under the pretext of old age. We joked about our naturally deteriorating health but I knew something was definitely wrong. Durga was a silent person but a sharp one. Her innocent face often hid her observant eyes. These abnormalities were quite glaring because these weren't mistakes which Durga would ever make. Even at our age, I guess we were just being immature. It is natural to be scared of the unfound truth, no? We could not have kept running any longer and life eventually caught up. One incident was all it took to squash our denial of reality. Not knowing where your seventy-year-old wife is, or rather... your seventy-year-old wife not knowing where she is, is a horror film. The truth had to be found out and we did. The day we got the test results was the worst day of our married life... I say so because I had never seen Durga cry that way. She just couldn't stop the tears from flowing down her cheek. She didn't bawl... but silently wept. All I could do was sit and witness beads of water leaving her tear duct as they mazed their way down the wrinkles on her cheek one by one. Every teardrop was a tiny part of Durga leaving her and there was nothing either of us could do anything about it. 

 'PET images demonstrate moderate hypometabolism involving the temporal and parietal lobes bilaterally. The pattern is suggestive of Alzheimer's dementia.'

Alzheimer's changed everything. For most of our lives, Durga and I had shared an unspoken wavelength and an unwavering trust. Our pair had battled through some very sticky situations. We were always a team and we kept each other sane. Like a see-saw... when I was down she lifted my spirits and vice versa. Alzheimer's took that very balance away from us. An illness became the base factor in every thought, every discussion, every topic. No matter where the conversation began, it always ended at the same juncture. I felt so helpless. Throughout the day, all we did was discuss caretakers, finances, support groups, old-age homes... our shelves, which proudly displayed a variety of novels , now converted into an exhibit of medical and self-help books. The serenity in her tranquil gaze which I loved had completely disappeared. "Are you okay?", suddenly depicted pity instead of concern. The compassionate Durga I knew snarled back saying, "What has happened to me? Why do you keep asking me this?" I was with a whole new person who was living in a world of her own! The slow and gradual decline continued. The inability to perform basic tasks resulted in an incline in frustration and rage. Durga had frowned upon dependency since childhood. Well, to be fair, she had always seen her mother depending on someone else for everything. Durga was a lady who had fought for her independence. Ill or not, it was an immoral show of pity to have someone help her change clothes or bathe her, even if it was just me. 

Two years on, Durga merely fluctuates between states of vexation and despair during the day and cries herself to sleep. I cannot help but feel guilty. "What more can I do?", a constant, nagging thought. I have never been so emotionally vulnerable in my entire life. I feel so helpless. Every day I see my wife, my best friend losing herself. Every morning is like entering a battlefield...  I know that the sole outcome is a loss and yet... and yet, it is imperative that I valiantly fight on. It is a human tendency to be selfish. We crave attention, validation, admiration... Living with a person with Alzheimer's doesn't let you have that. One has to base his / her entire day on their whims and fancies. I have to intently listen to her narration of conversations with people who have long ceased to exist. I have to face her juvenile childlike tantrums. I have to live her life as she slowly forgets to live her own. At night, when she sleeps and one battle is over, I start fighting myself. There is no reward, no victory, no adulation in this sacrifice. Just the memory of my wife snarling at me for asking about her well being. Does having all these thoughts make me a bad person? Or does it make me human? 

My unerring and excruciating nemesis defeats me every single night without offering even a slight glimmer of hope. 

"त्या पहिल्या प्रीतीच्या आज लोपल्या खुणा,

वाळल्या फुलांत व्यर्थ गंध शोधतो पुन्हा...

गीत ये न ते जुळून भंगल्या सुरांतुनी,

एकांती, मज समीप... तीच तूही कामिनी."

"All signs of the first love have dwindled now,

I search meaninglessly for the same fragrance in old, dried up flowers...

The song refuses to be composed of a broken rhythm,

Yet, in solitude, close to me... is the same beautiful you."

As I sat brooding over my misery, the high-frequency note emitting from the transistor diverted my attention. This transistor was one object in our house which had witnessed our marriage right from the beginning. The poor machine had undergone surgeries from various electricians post our amateur attempts at fixing it with first aid. No matter how much I tried to convince Durga to replace it with a modern audio system she never agreed. "It still works and I like it', her standard reply. To be honest, it did. It did operate just fine. Even as a child, she was adamant on keeping her cobbled rag doll. The idea of getting a better toy never seemed to entice her. How ironic.

It is the second year that I spend with Durga and her Alzheimer's. It is tonight, that I sit down to pen down my thoughts after an important realization. A lifeless transistor gave me a major lesson in a life lived... Better late than never. If Durga took care of an inanimate object with such dedication, I can only imagine what she would have done if I was in her place. It's the little things matter and those little things are the ones that we generally take for granted. A simple act of drawing hot water and ensuring it's the right temperature is something she did for me every day. Barring extraordinary situations, evening tea was ready and arranged on the dining table five minutes before the usual time. Nicely ironed clothes, crisply folded and consistently arranged. It would not be an exaggeration to say that she single-handedly raised all three of our children. (four of us, if I'm to be counted as well) I was the source of funds to put food on the table but our family could not have eaten money, right? There are innumerable such things that as the lady of the house, she dutifully performed and never received due recognition. Durga has always lived my life. She never complained, not a single whimper. Her soft smile was a constant feature of that beautiful face. My professional achievements were always met with pomp and ceremony but they were just a result of the personal achievements of Durga. Gratitude for efforts is acquired only through empathy. The past two years have given me complete empathy of the sacrifices Durga made day in, day out to build this home. It is today, after more than fifty years of being married that I finally come to terms with this. I wouldn't be half the man that I claim to be without her by my side. That's the extraordinary beauty of the ordinary. It doesn't stand out, it isn't marketed but it is a necessity. Trust me when I say managing a house and making it a home is not an easy task. I am learning this the hard way. A skill I never bothered to acquire because of the expertise Durga had garnered. My hand shivers as I write all of this down... There's a strong sense of guilt. A different kind of guilt than I have been experiencing till yesterday. 

I wonder whether it is Durga's Alzheimer's that subdues me or the retention of my egoistical sanity that brings me to my knees every night.

I am yet to accept the fact that my wife is unwell. I guess that is where all the disappointment and frustration stems from. I still am quite in love with the memory of what Durga used to be. Somehow, I cannot find the strength in me to serve without expectation like she did so wholeheartedly throughout her life. I long for her silent smile, her shy gait and the constant stimulation of knowledge.  I cannot imagine what she must be going through but the best I can do is return the favour. I need to live her life for her. I need to tell her that she looks beautiful. I need to recognize her efforts at helping me to stay hale and hearty. Unfortunately, Durga will never completely fathom this newfound enlightenment. It is too late for that. A regret definitely, but a regret that I accept. One I deserve. Sometimes a pricking thorn enlivens you to value an assumed state of being. I refuse to live in this cowardly denial any more. The memory of Durga that deserves to be carried out further is the one of a loving wife, a gem of a mother, a loyal friend and most importantly an intelligent and independent woman... not as a victim of Alzheimer's. I will ensure that her selfless nature gets the recognition it has so deserved. I write this tonight to remind everyone who knew this beautiful lady... even though Durga might not remember who she was by the end of her existence, we definitely will. Durga will be immortal just like her beloved Venus, way beyond her time. "There's Durga... my Durga." 

M. V. Bhide

30.04.2020

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