A Tribute to RAJI

She joined with me when I was 27 years old.

We travelled together for 15 years and then she decided to part ways and chose the road to eternity.

When I look back, fifteen years just passed like 15 days, too short a journey together. We laughed and cried together, We looked through the window panes and enjoyed the prospect. We took a nap on each other’s shoulders when exhausted. She showed me beautiful dreams and often made me realize the facts of life. It was indeed a journey to remember till the end of my time.

“ I am scared, I want you to be with me henceforth”. She told me one mid February after noon in 2002. I was working in a Japanese multinational Company in Bangalore then and she was in my home town. That was a lucrative job but I felt if she wants me with her nothing else should bother me. I resigned my job and went to her.

Cancer was spreading its arms slowly, but she used to smile at me as if nothing happened. She was in pain, but she did not show that pain. Occasionally she whispered, “don’t worry, I will be with you”. I realized the meaning of that only after her departure.

I stayed with her on and off in the hospital for eight months. The hospital room has become our world. Sometimes she talked a lot, about children and about her childhood. And then for days together we did not talk much. She was in her own world, perhaps she was going through a rewind of her life. She talked about her old friends from Zakir Husain College Delhi. Her study vacation to Mussoorie.

I learned that silence is also a beautiful way of communication. Her eyes spoke to me more intensely than words. Those were the moments I re discovered her.

Of late she has developed intense pain and one night she complained to me for the first time. She said “ I cannot tolerate this pain” I realized my helplessness. I could not do anything. I just hold her hands, and she said “I am going”.

We will have to start morphine now, Dr Mohan told me, “we want to help her to have a peaceful death, that’s all what we can do now”. Come what may I did not want her to suffer pain.
Death and dying started haunting me while she laid in a state of un consciousness, her eyes closed without suffering any pain. I started smelling the smell of death.

On one Wednesday evening she took a different route and continued her ultimate journey. I need to complete my rest of the journey alone. Children will be there with me for some more time and then it is a lonely journey.

Once in hospital bed she told me “ don’t worry I will be with you” and that always echoed inside me and every time I needed I felt the presence.

One of my friend sent Mary Elizabeth Frye’s poem to console me and I truly believe she is out there just a call away.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there ……. I do not sleep…
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn’s rain
Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am the dew flecked grass at dawn
Where tranquil oceans meet the land
I am the foot print in the sand
To guide you through the weary day
I am still there…. I will always stay

When you wake up to mornings hush
I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circles
I am the stars that shine at night
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there …… I do not die…..