August the eleventh has always had an exceptionally strange implication in our family calendar. Probably something like Friday the thirteenth. Only it does not deal with the imaginary horrors of a supernatural quality called ghosts. But a more realistic and forceful factor called Death. In the past few years, this particular day has already claimed three of our family members. And every year the D-day dawns, each one of us is on tenterhooks. This year, for the fourth time, it happened again. And the victim was Dr. Safir Ahmed.
First however, let me explain my relationship with Dr. Ahmed. He was the elder son of my Daddy’s eldest sister, which made him my first cousin. Later, he got married to my Mummy’s youngest sister Suraiya Masi, thus becoming my Uncle. But barring the intricacies of Indian relationships by domestic marriage, it was simpler to relate to the bond of blood. Therefore I called him Bhaiya.
Seven formative years of my life were spent imprisoned under the roof of the Inspector General of Prisons, Dr. Safir Ahmed. What irked me the most perhaps was his ‘silent treatment’ of everything. Unlike Suraiya Masi, who believed that a house was another name for a home where everyone relaxed in a ‘bindaas’ way (naturally we agreed with her), for Bhaiya it was where one resided with rules and regulations. But mind you, his orders were never bellowed out in a thunderously Army like voice. They were mere mute commands.
Often when we would be sprawled on the bed giggling and gossiping about the Cine trivia, Bhaiya would arrive stealthily and quietly start to fold the clothes that were strewn across. Or he would run his fingers across the dressing table to inspect the dust and silently wipe it off. Or he would gather all the scattered cups and saucers and take them to the kitchen- every unspoken gesture of his, enhancing our guilt and depicting our sloppiness. Unlike other households, where the shrill ringing of the clock jolted everyone from their dreams, Bhaiya’s alarm system activated with the silent click of the fan switch. On a hot summer morn, the droning of the tiny helicopter would slowly start to fade, its blades still, the sudden soundlessness terminating the background symphony in our dreams, forcing us to drag our sweating selves out of the beds. As a teenager I hated it. But I was also not averse to the fact that it was precisely this disciplinary device that carved me out into a livable human being. Silently I respected it. But like I said, it was only silently.
Twenty years later, Suraiya Masi died. I immediately regretted my decision- of not having said the things I so much wanted to say to her. But I have always felt that a hastily spoken speech in a direct confrontation, whether it conveyed love or hate, can also amount to acoustic terrorism- often ending up as a noisy bombing of meaningless sentences. Therefore, a week after her death, I did the only thing I thought I was capable of. I resorted to the well thought out written word. I penned down ‘An epistle of regret’. It went something like this…………..
“My Dear Suraiya Masi,
How do I transport this unaddressed epistle
to a place unknown, unseen?
Yet I write
hoping that one day
somehow, someway
it will travel to this new abode of yours.
My dear Suraiya Masi,
Have I ever told you
how much I have relished those tender moments of loving care
when I nested in your warm and sheltered home?
Have I ever told you
how much your sensitive nurturing of discipline
has helped water my green and budding years?
Have I ever told you
how I have never been disparaged
of the fondness and commitment that you bestowed upon me
like your own flesh and blood?
Indeed I have not!
And now I mourn my reticence.
I feel myself drown in the tide of my emotions
of procrastination, repentance and regret.
Wherever you may be
my 'dua' is the sole attire
that will garb and protect you from all evil.
My dear Suraiya Masi,
It is still never too late
to try and impart this passionate missive of mine.
I hope in earnest
this fragment of paper wafts its way
across the azure vault of the blue skies
athwart the gateways of heaven
beyond those frolicking cherubic angels
over the psychedelic fields of glorified flowers and supernal fruits
to finally dock at your feet.
Lovingly yours,
Nargis.”
Obviously the letter could not be delivered, in a personal manner so to say. Therefore, I gave a copy of it to Bhaiya. There were tears in his eyes as he read it. He then folded it gently and as quietly got up and left. Without a word! I don’t know whether it was an indirect way of telling him that those words of gratitude were meant as much for him as it was for Suraiya Masi. I don’t know whether it was my way of a ‘silent appreciation’ for his ‘silent treatment’. I don’t know whether he understood it or not. But being a connoisseur of silence, I think he did.
Death, apart from altering lives, also has a funny way of expressing the temporal relations between what is reported in a sentence and the time of its utterance. What I would have written sometime ago as ‘Dr. Safir Ahmed is a remarkable man of few words’, I now write as ‘Dr. Safir Ahmed was a remarkable man of few words.’ How simple to change the format of a statement. How difficult to accept it.
Nargis
Natarajan.