To
Mrs.Judith Pinto
C\o Jesus Christ,
Heaven.
Dearest Ma,
I will not use the cliche ‘how time flies’. Because time stood still. It is 2 years since you left me. Not a day, not an hour passes when I don’t think of you.
Everytime the door bell rings, I think of you. Of your chirpy “Hi Sanjay. Where are my kutties? Hello, my babies…” Everytime I eat a pastry or ice cream or kesari or have rose milk or anything sweet, I think of you. Of how you used to buy these treats for me at the railway stall on your salary day. Everytime Vidya whips up all those lip smacking OPOS style cookies and chocolate pedas and mango lassi, I think of you. Of how much you would have loved them. Everytime someone orders coffee in a restaurant, I think of you. Of how you could never start your day without that morning cuppa. Everytime someone orders a thali meal, I think of you. Of how you, Jule and I used to order non-veg ‘sapad’ from Hotel Highness. Everytime I see someone waving, I think of you. Of how you used to wave at me from the gate in Little Mount. Everytime I rush out to participate in tv debates, I think of you. Of how I used to ask Vidya to ask you to tune in. Everytime I listen to Western Music, I think of you. Of how we used to send requests to All India Radio for our favourite songs to be played on ‘Listeners’ Choice’.
You know what, Ma, we went to a music concert at the musuem theatre on Sunday, where they belted out numbers from the sixties, seventies and eighties. As they sang ‘Rose Garden’ and ‘Never On A Sunday’, that you used to hum so often, my eyes welled up. But as I now wear glasses, yes, rimless, no one noticed.
Chennai, as you know, is water starved (remember how we used to wake up at 3 O’ clock in the morning to pump water and when things got worse, waited for the water tanker to collect our 4 pots of water?) so I cannot do a Charlie Chaplin and cry in the rain. But I always choke whenever I pass by Kauvery Hospital. Ma, the entire sequence of events are fresh as ever in my mind. From that fateful evening when Papa called to say “Mama is not well”, to your visit to Naveen Bhat’s clinic, to the next morning when you called out for me and asked me to give you something to drink as you were feeling weak, to Vidya giving you a cup of Bournvita, to your “Sorry to trouble you so early” to your “I’m finding it hard to breathe, maybe the AC is too cold”, to our dash to the hospital, to Papa telling Muniammal that he would wait for you to come home to have his breakfast, not realising that you were in for long hospitalisation, to the doctors diagnosing a heart attack, a 100 % LAD block, to the angioplasty, to 17 days in the CCU, to seeing you on a ventilator, to your sad “I can’t eat” to Vidya as she tried to feed you, to your shifting to the ward, to the kids giving you small pieces of ‘kozhu kattai’, to getting you to give us a thumbs up sign, to leaving you to chat privately with Papa, to your request for ‘rasam sadham’, to that picture of you sitting on the chair with your hair plaited and holding a bouquet that Tony & Anne had sent you from the US, (it had 2 bunnies that you wanted to give Sanvi & Vidan) to that fateful Sunday when I got a call from the hospital saying that you had suffered another heart attack, to seeing you being rushed back to the CCU, to holding your feet, pleading with God for a miracle, to seeing you taking your last few breaths. Gosh. Whoever said ‘Time is a healer’ needs to see a shrink.
Ma, how life has changed. From seeing a caring mother so full of beans to a picture framed on the wall. From visiting you at our humble ‘Pinto Villa’ at Little Mount to visiting your grave. I know what your worries were. I have done by bit. I will always live up to my promise I made at your grave when you were buried.
One of your concerns was that I wasn’t going regularly for Mass. That changed from the very week you left us, Ma. I go for Mass and receive communion every Sunday, do the readings, and even a bit of preaching. Sanvi and Vidan have joined the choir, encouraged by Maria. This Sunday as I introduced the Gospel, a new practice through which a layperson does a sort of Preamble to the Service, the brainchild of our new Parish Priest Rev Fr. Anthony (you would have really liked his sermons) I tried to picture you sitting in the front row. Sadly, only the image of your coffin came to my mind. I’ve been exercising, going easy on the fluffy cheese omelettes (Vidya makes them just like you used to) and yes, the temper too – that’s a work in progress!
Ma, I never thanked you enough for all the sacrifices you made for me when you were around. You gave me what no money can ever buy – a great upbringing, middle class values and the honour of being ‘Judy Pinto’s son’. You are not around to annoint us with holy oil but please do watch over us from above.
Love. O as you had coined – FLASK (Fond Love & Sweet Kisses),
Sanjay
