A salutation to my Tai

A heroine if there ever was!

Raju Korti
It is easy to run the temptation of using a series of cosmetic platitudes when you describe someone who you look up to and idolize. And when that someone happens to be your near and dear, the exercise is peppered by a high emotional quotient.
Take a look at the angelic, infectious smile on that face in the picture. The owner of that beaming serenity was my  sister fourteen years older than me -- old enough to cuddle me in her lap and sing lullabies to me when I was a toddler. It was well before she bore three children -- now past their thirties -- that I had seen in her a gifted mother who managed her family in a society that is often reprehended for its patriarchal leanings. Personally, it was a two-fold loss to me. When she passed away a day before, I felt orphaned because she was a mother, father and sister all rolled into one -- each office handled like she was born for it.
I have been in the business of writing long enough to realize that great biographies and tributes are not necessarily of the great people. Often, they are about unsung people whose proficiencies are taken for granted. It is as if their craft is a disqualification. But all through her epic saga of struggle and pain I could still see what potential she packed in her fragile 5 feet two frame. She was probably ordained among the few that the Gods -- if they exist -- would fight shy of replicating.
Gentle to a fault, she was an astonishing package of every virtue you could think of. A living example of human existence in its pristine form, she came across as too surreal but that's how she spent all her life. Exceptional woman with exceptional qualities, she was kicked up about life. There was no corruption in her world. Braving all odds with a genuine smile, she inspired everyone around her. All through her 73 years, no one ever saw her complain, crib, grumble and gossip. It was probably an in-built mechanism she had developed to insulate herself from the pain that first destiny -- and then a plethora of ailments -- inflicted upon her all through. Not even death could rob her of that serenity she had patented as her own. In the large circles she was known, stories about her dignity, grace and benevolence had already become part of folklore.
Even in the evening of her life, she wasn't the one to recline and watch TV soaps. Despite an affected vision, she would rather spend her time solving crossword puzzles with books and newspapers held almost close to her retina. Her cooking was as flawless as it could get with minimal ingredients, never even once faltering in her proportions. She rarely needed any resources when she was resourcefulness personified. In her simplified comprehension about life, the biggest bonding came from mere talking to people.
I remember how charged up she was to come on Facebook and Whatsapp. True to her nature, she only wrote good thoughts. "There is enough cynicism and negativity as it is. The world isn't so crooked," she said to me once, knowing very well that it wasn't true. But she was too good-humored to look at the darker side of life. Excited that she had been gifted with a smartphone barely a few months back, she was keen to be on Whatsapp and it was perfectly in sync with her complaisant nature when the first message she dashed me off was not about herself but her concern for me. "Kasa aahes tu? Jevlas ka? Tabyetichi kaalji ghe" (How is you? Had food? Take care of your health). The word "self" didn't exist in her lexicon. Till her last breath, she remained a giving person always concerned about others. Having always taken her seemliness for granted, we siblings learnt she was a much more nobler soul from friends, relatives, neighbours and even rank outsiders. She had this unique quality that endeared her to all and we ordinary souls in the family were often awe-struck when people lavished praise upon her each time her name came up. Apparently there was nothing in her that merited any attention but anyone who came in contact with her was just smitten by her persona and dignified, smiling visage.
The last four years were hell for her with almost every second day spent on this medical test and that or being admitted in one hospital or the other, but there was not a murmur of grievance. She would go to the doctors all alone, dissuading others and asking them to carry on with their work. Bombarded by steroids and potent medicines her body was wrecked beyond repairs but the smile on her face never revealed the pain she harboured. To us unsuspecting siblings, reality sunk only when we saw her battered and bruised body on the ICU bed in grip of saline drips, oxygen masks and a maze of tubes. Even in her bouts of unconsciousness, she would mumble and tell us all to stick together and live like good human beings. Souls as noble as her descend on Earth by a freak of nature. And consciously, although unsuccessfully, as I try to ward off my gushing tears, I sense her oozing affection telling me "Why do you weep? I am very close to you here." That makes the pain of losing her excruciatingly unbearable. How does one live when the meaning goes out of life? If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister when the other half of the equation is gone?
As journalist my writing has usually courted the morbidity that obtains in the society today. So it took some effort to write about someone who probably deserved all this eulogy although it would appear to some as a brother's tribute to his sister.
Here is an ode to her resilience and nobility though I have never ever dabbled in poetry.

Helpless as I was, what could I have done
To help you through your darkest hours?
I wish I could take away all your troubles
And gotten rid of your demons.
But I was blind, I could not see,
And now you are gone forever.
A crippling wave of grief,
Relentless, merciless and endless has hit us hard,
And in its might, I am hurt, devastated and shattered.
We shared so much, but I misjudged,
And did not see your struggle and sufferings.
If I could change, what fate held out,
I would do it in a heartbeat.
You will have my throbbing heart as your permanent abode
No matter where I go or where I will be
Till death unites us again.
Constantly thinking, never to be the same,
Tears gush forth, just hearing your name.
Silence is not golden anymore,
But an unending spool of memory.
The nights are sleepless, dreams out of bounds,
Crying in my pillow inconsolably, to you I beseech.
Surrounded by kith and kin, I feel forlorn and desolate,
My heart is so empty, this pain I must own.
I wish I could fall back in your lap, hug you,
And just see your face,
But now I have memories to stand in your place.
Gone but not forgotten, that's what they say,
If only you could have stayed.