A World Within

by Minakshi Chaudhry

  ‘No, Dadoo, I will not do that.’

  ‘I have heard that my pension has increased.’

  ‘Yes, Dadoo.’

  ‘By how much?’

  ‘About two thousand rupees.’

  He laughs happily, ‘So now I am a rich man.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ I reply affectionately.

  ‘Even your father-in-law’s pension has increased.’

  ‘Yes. Everyones’ pay has increased.’

  ‘I see. Where are you?’

  ‘In the library.’

  ‘Yes, yes, you told me. I forgot.’ he says. ‘How long will you be there?’

  ‘Another two hours.’

  ‘Okay, when you go home call me,’ and he disconnected the call.

  These two minutes were so different, it was as if I was talking to a different man. But I know I should not be over ambitious. There is no cure for this disease. It is just as the doctor says that in between he will have flashes of normality and I guess this was one.

  What kind of a person have I become? When he behaves normally I feel he is not normal, it is just a phase. How very comfortably we adjust to situations.

  48

  11 August 2011

  Today was ‘plant day’ for my darling Dadoo. Since morning he had called up more than ten times and interestingly on all the three phones – my cell phone, Rohit’s cell phone and the landline. Surprisingly it has been after a long time that Dadoo talked about his plants.

  His passion is gardening and for several years after retirement he has been concentrating on it. Our house is popularly known as phoolon wali kothi (house of flowers).

  And as they say everything is fair in love and war so is it for my Dadoo in terms of plants. He will steal, beg and lie to procure the plants that he wants. Several times he has embarrassed us by entering peoples’ houses uninvited, requesting them to give him specific plants. Any town he visited, he would always go to the nursery or park. Even in hospitals where he went to visit family members or friends, he would get engrossed in the plants around.

  Once I remember, in Rock Garden, Chandigarh, he kind of, well to put it bluntly, stole a plant and hid it in his coat pocket. I was so worried that someone would catch hold of us. This was wrong and it was pure theft but you could not argue with Dadoo. He said, ‘Don’t worry, I am going to give life to this plant.’ And then as months went by he started neglecting this passion and concentrated more on other stressful things – land, files, income tax, and of course what was happening to him.

  Any way, it was a delight for me to talk to him in the morning. All the ten times the conversation went on like this:

  ‘Rewa, when are you coming?’

  ‘Day after tomorrow,’ pat I replied. I am getting comfortable in this mould of pretension and lies, knowing very well that my replies would give him momentary joy and he would forget about it soon.

  ‘Mera ek kaam tha [I had one job for you].’

  ‘Yes, Dadoo,’ I murmur. Dread clutching my heart, what would it be and will I be able to do it. May be he had lost a file or is going to ask me whether there was any remedy for his illness but he surprised me, ‘When you come day after tomorrow bring some plants.’

  Delightedly I said, ‘Of course, how many do you want?’

  ‘Bring around twenty or twenty-five and two types of plants.’

  Though I did not understand, I was happy.

  ‘Aadhe jo zameen par lagte hain aur adhe jo gamlon mein [some that can only be planted on the ground and others for the pots],’ he says explaining.

  ‘I got it, very well, Dadoo, I will get these,’ I replied.

  ‘From where will you bring them?’

  ‘There is a nursery nearby,’ I said.

  ‘When are you coming?’

  ‘Day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Toh mera ek kaam hai.’

  ‘Hanji, Dadoo, your plants.’

  ‘Yes, but do not bring rose, I have many.’

  ‘Achha ji,’ I say.

  ‘How much would they cost?’

  I quickly say, ‘One plant for five rupees.’ I have no idea about the rate of plants but this price seemed comfortably low.

  ‘Five rupees, that is very expensive,’ he exclaims.

  ‘I will try to bring them for free,’ I reply blatantly lying.

  ‘Do you know someone in the nursery?’

  ‘Of course, my friend works there.’ Another lie.

  ‘Okay,’ he was satisfied with this reply. I put the phone down and then after every two minutes it rang and the same conversation took place. On Rohit’s phone too he spoke about plants. Only there was one difference, once during these phone calls he said, ‘When you go to the nursery and you are selecting the plants give me a call. I want to speak to the gardener personally about what I require.’

  Oh, how I wish I could make him talk to the gardener!

  49

  11 August 2011

  Today was another difficult day, after a long time. By a long time I mean two weeks since the medicine has been changed again. Yesterday Dadoo was so calm. I can’t say happy but I can’t even say that he was restless. Things were fine but today in the morning everything went haywire.

  Just as I took a bath he woke up. There was so much misery, helplessness, insecurity and fear on his face. ‘How can you go? Don’t go? What will happen to me? I don’t know anything about myself, my mind does not work. I don’t remember anything, I have so many problems. I don’t know where my papers are. The whole night I did so much of work,’ he poured out. He has started hallucinating, he dreams but he thinks they are real.

  ‘I sorted out everything but now in the morning there is nothing. What should I do? My name is Jagdev Verma, isn’t it?’ and he started sobbing. There was so much of agony on this beloved face. I sat down taking his hand in mine and murmuring assurances, ‘Dadoo, there is no problem.’

  He kept crying, ‘You don’t understand, I am no more a man now. What will happen? Who will solve all my problems?

  ‘There is no problem,’ I assured him.

  Mamma said, ‘Why are you behaving like this?’ and then instantly realized he was so helpless; he just did not know. Tears brimmed in her eyes when he said, ‘Can I go with you to Shimla?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘No,’ Mamma said. I fiercely looked at Mamma. He was still weeping and then I asked, ‘Why do you want to go to Shimla, Dadoo?’

  Between sobs he said, ‘I have to go for a check-up, to a doctor. I want to show myself, my mind is not working, my body is not well.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said taking a long breath to cool my mind, ‘We will fix an appointment.’

  He stopped crying instantly and looked up at me with a ray of hope in his eyes, ‘Is he a good doctor?’

  ‘Yes, a very good doctor.’

  ‘He checks brain?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Will he give me a certificate?’

  ‘A certificate?’ I asked surprised.

  ‘Yes, I need a certificate that my brain is not working. Nothing is in my hands, I am no more a normal person.’

  ‘But Dadoo—’

  ‘—Then I can use that certificate when they come to catch me.’

  ‘Who will come to catch you, Dadoo?’ I am perplexed.

  ‘The ones who will take away my money and also the other ones,’ he mumbled.

  I looked at Rohit enquiringly who had joined us. He too was confused I could sense.

  ‘It is not a fake certificate,’ Dadoo persists, ‘My brain is really not working.

  I nod, ‘Okay.’

  He is a little relieved but pain throbbed in my whole being. He must be feeling so very helpless to plan about such a certificate: An open letter declaring that he is not well and cannot do anything, so whatever goes wrong he or his family should not be punished whether monetarily or otherwise.

  What a paradigm shift! Till now he was always very reluctant to share what was going on in his mind with anyone else except his family. He pre
tended to be normal so that people didn’t laugh at him or realize that he is losing his mind but today he is openly saying he wants a certificate for that. Then he starts crying again, ‘Don’t go, don’t go,’ he mumbles, ‘Let Rohit go.’

  I decide not to go and convey it to him. Mamma intervenes again, ‘She has to go, how can Rohit go alone?’

  Dadoo is confused with tears running down his cheek. I hug him and say, ‘Dadoo, don’t worry, I am not going.’ And then a little later he mumbles, ‘No, you go. I am not in a good mood, it’s all out of my control.’

  ‘It is fine, Dadoo.’

  ‘Will you come in the evening?’

  ‘Yes.’ All lies again but just to reassure him. And as we move away two things strike me: One, he does not come down on the road to say bye as he always did earlier; and second in the last fortnight I had received very few phone calls from him. Both these thoughts lay heavy on my heart because it is another shift. When I reach home in Shimla I call him, thankfully he is calm.

  50

  Yesterday I went to meet Sapna again. I got strength from her. She actually knew what was happening to Dadoo. I liked listening to what happened to aunty and how they coped with it, this reassured me. There was no pretension, no formalities, no polite talk with Sapna as I talked about Dadoo. She, on the other hand, narrated her trauma and how her healthy, sane mother-in-law changed.

  Once they had to go to attend a marriage and Sapna got ready, she was all decked up with jewellery and a fine sari. They instructed their maid to take care of her. As their pet dog had a special bonding with her, they left it in her room. When they came back from the marriage they heard that the dog was making a lot of whimpering noise. Anxiety ridden they went in and saw that Rahul’s mother was sitting on the floor clutching her disheveled hair and crying. She was mumbling that someone had taken all her jewellery and ran away. Then she saw Sapna and started screaming and attacked her, ‘Give all my jewellery back, you have stolen it. How dare you wear my jewels.’ A stunned and hurt Sapna made up a story that she had taken the jewellery after taking permission from her. This did not pacify her and she screamed, ‘I know that you had taken the permission from me but I had not asked you to go to the market with this jewellery, what if someone had stolen it. You should have stayed inside the house with it, this is not to be shown to anyone. It belongs to my mother.’ Sapna was bewildered, because it was the jewellery given to her by her mother!

  Then Rahul’s mother took all of it from Sapna and hid it in the clothes so that no one steals it again.

  ‘It was a traumatizing period, we did not know how she will react,’ said Sapna, ‘Then she developed this craze about cleaning the cupboards, she would throw everything on the floor and then tried to put the things back again, but she failed to put the things properly. Or she would pick up clothes from the cupboard and look at them intently for a while and then start crying inconsolably. It became so unbearable for us that in the end we had to empty the cupboards. We feared that it will somehow hurt her emotionally.’

  ‘But then at times she would sit in front of empty cupboards,’ added Rahul, ‘and she would act as if she was folding the clothes and putting those in the cupboard, whereas there were no clothes. It was so painful for us to see her like that but what to do?’

  ‘I used to cry for hours, but it never helped,’ said Sapna.

  ‘In fact I think she cried more than my mother during this phase,’ said Rahul sympathetically.

  ‘That is why I say to you, Rewa, please do not cry, you and your family have to go a long way. Crying does not help, it makes things worse, much worse for everyone,’ she said taking my hand.

  ‘We could not share this with anyone, that was another burden,’ she mumbled. ‘People made fun of her initially when we tried to tell them, the expression on their faces and their questions were such that we decided not to tell anyone, that made us more vulnerable and alone in this long struggle,’ she added.

  ‘In her last years my mother thought that Sapna was her daughter. She felt that this daughter is the only one who takes care of her, who knows who she was and who gave her food and took care of her daily needs. That helped at times to keep her in control but then that meant that Sapna had to be with her all the time. She became so restless if Sapna moved away even for a minute,’ Rahul recalled.

  ‘Yeah, she did not even allow me to go to the loo. Sometimes she would think that I was her mother or sister. And that was sad and funny at the same time,’ remembered Sapna. ‘For ten years I was inside the house, with her, I could not go anywhere. I was scared to leave her. I feared that she would hurt herself if I was not with her. But yes this disease changed me completely, it changed the way I looked, behaved, talked and did things. I aged so quickly. Rahul’s brothers and sisters are abroad. They would come once in a year or two years, and that did not add to comfort. In fact that meant more work. I dreaded anyone coming to our house, my hands were full and that is why I did not keep in touch with anyone for years.’

  ‘Oh Sapna, what all have you gone through!’ I cried in anguish.

  ‘The best ten years of her life, when she was young and full of desires and energy, were spent taking care of my mother,’ said Rahul looking lovingly at her, ‘now we have decided to do whatever we want to do. To hell with everything, we try to enjoy every moment,’ he added.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder about life, it changes gears with a situation and we think what if … but that does not change things a wee bit. We all have our paths to follow, I don’t know if these are pre-decided or we choose them but there is no escape. We might think that we could have done a thing differently but that is just thoughts, in the end it is only one way and rest is all thoughts and imagination. Reality is always what you are living,’ Sapna said philosophically.

  51

  4 October 2011

  The report of Dadoo’s second MRI had come. It was unexpected, a very bad report. His brain cells have degenerated to a large extent and the degeneration was in a very fast mode. The doctor wrote that he was a patient of acute dementia.

  I was waiting for a miracle but the truth is the truth. The doctor also said that soon he will lose all his senses and the name of the dreadful disease, which I have read so many times but never thought would happen to my loving and brilliant father – Alzheimer’s – would hit him.

  Lot of things ran in my mind, I saw my grandmother now sure that she too had Alzheimer’s. My friend Sapna’s mother-in-law for nearly one year had been kept locked in a room because she would stroll out alone in the night and she had also become dangerous: Once from the kitchen she had taken a knife and reached Sapna’s bedroom; thankfully they were awake.

  Sapna told me that in the beginning her mother-in-law used to go to the kitchen and start cutting vegetables, onions, potatoes at two in the morning. The whole day she would sleep and in the night she would remain awake, she had also started going out of the house alone, so in the end they had locked her in the room.

  Will the same happen to my father? My heart clutched with fear, though a practical part told me that if we have to keep him safe, we too would have to take this route.

  I discussed this with Rohit. Positive that he is, he said, ‘Daddy is very lucky that he will not be dependent financially on any one. What we should concentrate on doing as his children is to make his life comfortable and respectful. Give him all the love that he had showered on us. It doesn’t matter if he will not be able to understand anything. The other thing is to keep a full-time nurse with him.’ I agreed but it was so difficult to find someone suitable. Some times even money cannot help.

  52

  18 October 2011

  How time flies. For the last couple of years it was in my mind that a day would come when he will forget me too. He has started forgetting Rohit already.

  Last night after Rohit had finished going through his accounts and informed him of being a rich man – a crorepati, we left for our room.

  Dadoo giggled like a small boy.
He was elated about becoming such a wealthy man. When we left he asked Mamma, ‘Who is this man who was checking my accounts?’

  ‘He is our son-in-law.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Rewa’s husband.’

  It is a Catch-22 situation. I want him to know who I am and on the other hand I want this transition phase to be over so that he is oblivious of everything around him. It is so painful watching him going through this, straining his brain, asking questions – how much money do I have, who opened this bank account, when I go to Shimla where do I stay, do I stay with you, how many children does my son have, where does Rohit stay, have I taken my medicine, is Rohit a doctor, can he check my brain, does he know good doctors – it just kills me. Though I know that he has lived a good life.

  Often he tells us, ‘You have to take care of your mother. Now I am nothing, Asha has no one else.’ Only if he knew how much he has taken care of her, both financially and emotionally. When he disappears, she will be the richest lady in our extended family. She came from a rich background and she will remain rich till the end. The amount of money, and houses that he is going to leave behind, which he had invested sensibly on a teacher’s salary is mind boggling.

  One thing that brings him out of depression but also in a way puts him in tension is his land record and money in the banks. How very difficult it must be for him to not know exactly what he has or for that matter what he has but no one knows that he has. Presently he has only vague recollections.

  And when he puts strain on these vague recollections, they become a reality for him. For example, if he had seen a piece of land somewhere sometime in his past, he thinks he had bought it. Explaining to him is of no significance because it gets more firm in his mind that he has a land there. He frantically searches for its detail in his files. And when he gets nothing he feels that the papers and files have been lost and now duplicate copies have to be taken. We too have become so used to all this, we just say yes, a plot is there and another one there, duplicate papers will be taken from the officials.