A World Within

by Minakshi Chaudhry

  When we reach the first chowk of the market and I am still contemplating about this I remember that I have to buy kishmish. The kishmish that Dadoo always bought for me. I enter the first grocery shop asking for kishmish.

  The shopkeeper opens a jar and says it is for three hundred and eighty rupees a kilo. Dadoo too has followed me and snaps, ‘Theek theek lagao [give it to me for a reasonable rate].’

  The shopkeeper says, ‘Verma sahib main apko hamesha theek lagata hoon [Verma-ji, I always give you at reasonable rate].’ There is a pleasant surprise on Dadoo’s face and he laughs whole heartedly.

  ‘You know me?’ he asks and then looks at me, ‘Come, come we will ask in some other shops too.’

  I smile at the shopkeeper and we come out of the shop.

  ‘How does this man know me?’ he asks bewildered.

  I shrug because now it is clear why he meets no one that he knows. As we stroll in the busy bazaar he stops many a times enquiring about the rates of vegetables from the hawkers and every time he asks, ‘Should we buy this?’

  ‘No, no, Dadoo, we don’t need it.’ I murmur sometimes pulling him and sometimes nudging him. Suddenly he remembers kishmish and brightly says, ‘We have to enquire about kishmish.’ I nod though I am cursing myself for being so stupid to have enquired about something so expensive in front of him. I could have gone quietly and bought the damn thing! Now he will remain all worked up. I am searching for a grocery shop when suddenly he stops in front of a medicine shop.

  ‘We will ask him.’ he says. I am bewildered, I glance at him to judge whether he is joking.

  ‘No, no,’ I murmur, ‘they don’t have kishmish.’

  ‘What is the harm in asking?’ he frowns and despite my hissing he enters the medicine shop. I have no choice, I follow him in. There is a middle-aged man behind the counter and Dadoo, to my sheer embarrassment, in his polite English enquires, ‘Do you have kishmish?’

  The shopkeeper looks at him and then at me. This is my Dadoo, I have to take care of him and I will not allow anyone to be rude to him or hurt him. I move forward, I shake my head and murmur, ‘You must not be having kishmish,’ and immediately catch hold of Dadoo’s hand and say, ‘they don’t have it here, Dadoo, let us go to the next shop.’

  Dadoo says ‘Thank you,’ to the stunned salesman as we move out.

  I have not yet taken a sigh of relief when he enters the next shop pulling me with him, it is a hardware shop. All I can see is paint tins and pipes. There is an elderly gentleman sitting at the counter and Dadoo asks him, ‘Do you have kishmish?’

  The man smiles and looks at me, may be he understands because he says, ‘Verma sahib, I don’t have kishmish but I can give you orange.’

  Dadoo laughs whole heartedly, ‘You know me?’

  ‘Aap itne purane aadmi ho aap ko kaun nahin janta [you are an old resident, who doesn’t know you],’ and places a Tupperware box full of orange wedges in front of us. We both take a piece and thank him. Now I am getting comfortable, but I am realizing how very difficult life is for him. A simple purchase is such a big mission and how bravely he handles it everyday. When he is out on the road he is a different man – living, acting and finding his own way in his own style.

  The next place that we stop at is a shop of leather bags and purses. The shopkeeper though free, turns out to be quite rude and looks at both of us as if we are bonkers when Dadoo enquires about kishmish. I become possessive, no one is going to hurt my Dadoo and firmly say, ‘Dadoo, he doesn’t have kishmish. No wonder there is no one in his shop. He earns nothing.’ As we move out of his shop I can see the shopkeeper’s nasty expression conveying what kind of idiots we are. I shrug, I don’t care. The next shop that he enters is a clothes merchant. Now I am hoping for a grocery shop to turn up quickly.

  Dadoo asks the sardar-ji at the clothes counter, ‘Do you have kishmish?’ A little behind I give the sardar-ji a small smile and hug my Dadoo fondly. He understands and says, ‘Bauji, kishmish toh nahin hai par kapra le lo [I do not have raisins but you can buy cloth]. I have a lot of variety.’

  Dadoo laughs whole heartedly, ‘Nahin, nahin kishmish chahiye thi sardar-ji [No, no we needed raisins].’ I murmur my thanks and we move out and then to my delight I see a grocery shop a few metres ahead and we confidently march into it. This time when he asks for raisins, I am so happy. The salesman places three jars all containing different kinds of raisins. We ultimately buy one kilogramme for two hundred rupees.

  I may have lost exact count of the people who greeted him by now as we reached the mall. Must be in dozens, Dadoo you bare wrong so many people know you, I tell myself.

  It is getting difficult for me to make him understand that we are short of money. After the kishmish purchase we are left with just hundred rupees and he is persistent on shopping where he sees eatables – fruits, vegetables, mithais, snacks, namkeen. A part of my mind is furiously working on how to tackle this maniac desire of his to buy anything and everything.

  And the other part is planning where to go next. And then just near the coffee house he sees a wholesale shop and exclaims, ‘They have kishmish.’ Exasperated I say, ‘Dadoo, we have bought it now.’

  ‘No, still we should enquire at what rate he is selling, if it is cheap we can buy some more.’ And he moves into the shop, I have no choice. I follow him. The owner is busy with a couple of workers loading and unloading quintals, I vaguely register – soya bean oil, ghee, sunflower oil, as we wait for the shopkeeper to finish his work. Though Dadoo is getting impatient, but I squeeze his hand and whisper, ‘Let him finish his work.’ I am also dreading how he will react to our query. After a long slow minute the man looks at us enquiringly. Dadoo looks at me blankly. Of course he has forgotten. I am left now to deal with the situation. And to cover my nervousness I loudly ask, ‘Do you have kishmish?’ For a moment he stares at me and then says, ‘No, we do not have kishmish.’ Now Dadoo brightens up, ‘Where can we find it?’ I exhale deeply and nudge him out, ‘Dadoo, we don’t need it, we have already bought.’ I hiss. But he hardly listens to me as his eyes light up and he starts to enter Khadi Emporium, ‘They will have kishmish.’ Now I am irritated, I pull him away from the shop. ‘This is an emporium, no kishmish here,’ and then a plan forms in my mind. We will go to the new mall in Anand Complex. That will keep him busy. And I happily guide him to our destination.

  ‘Are you sure there will be kishmish there?’

  ‘Let us see,’ I say as we enter the underground complex.

  I am right, he is excited. The first section at the entrance is piled with belts, bags, purses and shoes. I have to go slow and steady so that we can spend about an hour here. It is the best place, safe and exciting to keep him busy.

  I pick up a purse here, a belt there to check the quality and also the price he follows me and also curiously picks up these items. As I move towards the shoes section, he is a little sceptical. ‘You want to buy shoes?’ he asks.

  ‘No, Dadoo, I am just looking,’ I murmur.

  He reluctantly follows me.

  Suddenly I remembered that shoes and clothes never were of interest to him. They were just necessities. He repeats three-four times, ‘You want to buy?’

  In the end, I succumb.

  ‘Let’s go, Dadoo.’ I am hoping to spend as much time as possible.

  As we walk down on the ramp there are some huge baskets full of chips and namkeens. Now he is engrossed. He picks up a bright orange coloured packet. ‘What is this?’ he takes out his glasses to read.

  ‘Ek ke saath ek free [buy one get one free],’ he reads loudly. ‘This is good,’ he says looking at me.

  I nod.

  ‘We will buy this,’ he says happily.

  ‘Dadoo, first we will go around the store and then we will buy,’ I say taking the packet from his hands to put it back. He is reluctant to move from the place.

  ‘We will come back,’ I assure him and tuck my hand in his elbow pulling him forward. We reach the clothes section and as I start
looking at the things in the men’s clothing section.

  He again asks,‘You want to buy this?’

  ‘No, Dadoo, I am just looking.’

  He follows me frowning. After he has repeated more than half a dozen times and frankly made me feel quite foolish for going around and seeing things, which I have no intention of buying. I succumb again and happily announce, ‘Let us go to the food section.’

  As we move ahead, we are encountered with several other baskets full of chips and namkeens. Gleefully, he picks up a packet. ‘I tell you this is very cheap,’ he says. ‘Ek ke saath ek free!’ I again keep back the packets that he had picked soothingly murmuring, ‘Let us have a look and then we will decide.’

  In the end he has selected a number of biscuit packets along with chips and namkeens and a gulab jamun mix which is also under the same scheme ‘Buy one get one free’. I calculate mentally, all this is going to cost about two hundred and fifty rupees. As we move towards the counter I keep on leaving one item after the other so that Dadoo does not see this. When we are out of the store Dadoo is happy carrying the bag containing potato chips – ek ke saath ek free. That was the only thing we bought.

  58

  15 January 2012

  This time when we went to Solan, Dadoo told me about his dream and said that he gets tired in the night.

  ‘Don’t you sleep?’ I asked.

  He shook his head.

  ‘But, Dadoo, Mamma says that you are always sleeping.’

  He shook his head vigorously, ‘Either I am working or I am dreaming, all night, every night.’

  I am intrigued. ‘What do you dream about?’ I ask.

  ‘Bahut darawne hain [they are very scary].’

  ‘Oh,’ but I plunge deeper, ‘what are they about?’

  ‘I always lose my way,’ he says, looking philosophically towards the mountains.

  ‘Lose your way, on the roads?’

  He shook his head, ‘In houses. I want to go to the kitchen but I cannot find it. Bathroom I cannot find and where Asha is I cannot find. Everything is upside down. It makes me scared, and I realize that I am finished. How can there be sleep?’

  This disease has followed him even in his sleep, the most private and safe place.

  He has uncontrolled anger. Small things like his inability to find his spectacles; his wallet; his shoes or wanting to talk to Mamma but there are too many people around disturb his emotional equilibrium. Mornings are the worst for him as they begin with unfamiliar surroundings and unknown faces.

  As the disease shrouds him, he leads a handicapped life. Simple routine tasks that he did all his life like reading a newspaper, watering plants and taking a stroll are becoming difficult and require special effort. He is suspicious and probably feels that the world around him is full of the unknown where he would lose his way.

  ‘Earlier when I used to close my eyes it was dark – everything around me was dark. But now even with my eyes open during the day, it is the same – dark,’ he says in anguish.

  As he tells me about his nightmares I recall that in the past he always had a good sleep, he even took a nap in the afternoon. Now he tosses and turns. There are dreams of confusion. He wakes up howling, and sobbing uncontrollably as Mamma pacifies him, telling him he is in his own house, not lost somewhere and that she is with him. I can sense that my Dadoo is dying bit by bit.

  Long back he used to say bravely, ‘So what if I am forgetting things, what do I have to do with memory now, it does not matter.’ How simple it would have been if things had stayed that way. With this disease he struggles to focus on the lost and unknown worlds. Gradually it has created a deathly silence where he hears nothing. Questions and answers all become the same.

  Life in him is ebbing away – where his past once bubbled with memories, now it is silence. His memories disappear the instant they are created.

  When the brain is not ticking you are always alone, no matter how many people are around you. His phone calls to us have nearly ended; earlier he would call several times a day. His conversations with Mamma have reduced to minimal and it shows that the disease is catching up with him.

  When we would ask him, ‘Why is your mood so down?’ he would say, ‘I do not know.’ We just let go, we never realized what it really meant till now. The sheer uselessness, futility of life was burdening him. He would keep on repeating ‘Mann nahin lag raha [I am bored],’ and we would keep on snapping ‘Mann lagana parega [you will have to be busy].’ ‘Yeh aap ki galti hai, TV mein lagao, paper mein lagao, read something [this is your mistake, try watching some TV, or reading the newspaper].’ Oh how naïve were we! He would try to spend as many hours as possible away from the house and Mamma would irritatingly say, ‘Jiska mann apne ghar mein nahin lagta uska bahar kya lagega [if you can’t find something of interest at home, you will not find anything outside].’ It was not inside or outside the house, it was inside his mind, inside the very soul of his. If happiness comes out of this, so does sadness and loneliness. It is just not in your hands.

  59

  No one would find anything out of ordinary in his demeanour. If he spoke, which he now rarely does, with an outsider it would be in a normal conversational tone, ‘Hello, how are you? Is everything fine?’ That is all and then he would sit quietly. I am amazed at his ability to act even in the midst of his mental chaos.

  I try my best, whenever he comes to my place and when we call friends, that he should be part of that gathering but now he is there and yet not there. I do not even know whether he understands the conversation and my heart sinks as I realize that a few years back he would have actively participated – in any discussion – the lively conversationalist that he was. But now he is so quiet, he just keeps staring at the faces of the people around him.

  He begs us to take leave and stay with him, he whispers that something very bad has happened to him and it needs to be sorted out. He is looking for his shoes, purse, glasses, asking about his children who are not present and when would they come to visit him. All he is doing is asking, asking and asking more.

  60

  Patient with dementia becomes unhygienic. Same thing happened with Dadoo. A couple of years back he had started hating changing clothes, cutting nails, washing hands and this irritated Mamma to no end.

  ‘I learnt many bad things about myself,’ Mamma told me one day, ‘It never occurred to me that there will be times when I would not love him. All this gandagi [filth] makes me so angry with him that sometimes I hate him for it. I am besides myself with anger when he blows his nose and throws the snot on the floor, wipes his hands on his pyjamas after eating food, picks salad and cut fruit with his dirty hands.’

  Giving him clean clothes had become a mission. Sometimes Mamma would hide soiled clothes, sometimes she would dip them in water on some excuse or the other, sometimes she would fight with him and there would be loud arguments whether or not the clothes were dirty.

  61

  27 January 2012

  On many occasions I feel that I too am suffering from this disease. I know it is not true but yes you do get involved and you find yourself straining unnecessarily on trivial things. Small errands become big tasks as you run hither and thither to find his spectacles, cell phone, shoes and diary. On not being able to find them, you go mad with tension that probably you too are forgetting. You also turn into a smooth liar and many a time lies become truths.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Dadoo says, I nod happily busy reading the newspaper. He asks, ‘It is a good thing that has happened.’

  I nod. He asks, ‘Today is a party?’

  I nod again.

  He asks, ‘What happened? Why is there a party?’

  Earlier I used to be frantic but now I coolly say, ‘Deepak has been promoted.’ He is elated, ‘What is Deepak now?’

  I mumble, ‘President of Deutsche Bank.’

  ‘Is it an important post?’

  I nod, ‘Of course, he heads the bank.’

  He is excited, ‘You mea
n in the world?’

  I merrily say, ‘Yes, Dadoo, your son is the most important person in the bank.’

  And then he goes on, ‘Congratulations. Is there a party today?’ But now I change gears probably I am bored or I too have forgotten what I said the last time.

  ‘Rohit has been promoted.’

  He is elated, ‘What is he now?’

  ‘He is an IAS officer.’

  ‘Oh this is a great news,’ he says beaming, ‘What is he posted?’

  I say, ‘Deputy Commissioner.’ (Sometimes I say secretary, sometimes commissioner.)

  And then he starts to congratulate me.

  This is how you become a smooth liar. A person listening to the conversation will think it is the truth and nothing but the truth. Now I am calm and composed.

  ‘I must be having five hundred pieces of land.’

  I nod.

  ‘There is one in Shimla too.’

  I nod.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Tara Devi.’

  ‘Is there a house there?’

  I shake my head, ‘Only land.’

  ‘Who is taking care of it?’

  I say, ‘Lalit and Gopal.’

  ‘Are they close to you?’

  I nod.

  ‘They are your friends?’

  I nod.

  ‘Who is taking care of it?’

  ‘Lalit and Gopal. They have built their houses nearby.’

  He is relieved, ‘Thank God then it will be safe.’

  After a couple of seconds he repeats, ‘Who is taking care of the land?’

  ‘Lalit and Gopal.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  And this goes on for hours, I try to be patient but once in a while I snap, ‘Dadoo, can you change the topic?’ Not realizing that I have said this so severely that he has forgotten what the topic is and somewhere in his mind the brain cells start shouting, tension, tension and more tension.