He used to say we all meet the end of our lives at some point or the other, regardless of age. But this was how I felt. I was angry at him for leaving us. I was angry for the way he left us. I was angry at the sadness he caused my mother, the void he left behind in the room, his closet, the armchair, the dining table and in her heart. I was angry because it took her weeks to stop taking out two cups with the tray of tea every morning. I was angry because I could not alleviate her pain. I was angry because I could not throw away his things….the old magnifying glass, the push pins, the green ink pen, the writing pads, the journals….I could not. I was angry because death was never easy. I was angry because I was so hurt, because ma was so hurt.
“Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.” Anne Carson
11 years and now I understand my anger was not anger in a violent and vindictive way. It was a mask for sadness. I was angry because I was so sad.
Dad would always ask us to keep some part of him in the temple when he is no more. We used to laugh at times, get very angry at other times. Nobody took his words seriously. For obvious reasons. He was only 58. We brought back bit of his ashes after immersing the rest in Haridwar. He rests there now. It was a difficult day when I sprinkled the ashes in the structure that you see. It was heavy. I hope he is resting in peace, one with the soil he considered his home & heaven. One with his Sai.
Make that call, get your appointment. Because, Dentistry is not expensive…..neglect is!
Dear friends, this post is unlike other posts I normally write. Important nonetheless. Last few weeks has taught me that nothing is worse than a dental pain irrespective of the nature and reason. Also, it purely depends on the pain threshold of the person….because what might be just sensitivity for few can be sleepless nights for someone. According to the IDA https://ida.org.in/ as I was being informed, pain related to swelling, inflammation, fracture tooth, and bleeding come under “severe dental emergencies.”
Now, the problem arises when we think the pain will go on its own. Reasons are far too many. Maybe you’re new to your dental plan or you just haven’t had time for a checkup. Perhaps you’re worried about the cost, or you’re a little scared of the dentist’s chair. Or, a lot scared. Like me. Whatever the reason, I hope this post might put your mind a bit at ease. Sharing information from my recent experiences ( might differ from person to person ).
What you can expect at your dental checkup
Before we dive into what happens at the dentist, let’s address the elephant in the exam room: fear. Many people are scared of going to the dentist. If you have any fears or concerns, you’re not alone and it’s totally okay. Let the dental hygienist (your dentist’s assistant) know right away what it is about the visit that makes you nervous or uncomfortable. They’re sure to have some solutions to help. Dental checkups may vary, but here are a few things you’ll likely experience.
First the dental hygienist may check on your overall health by:
Taking your blood pressure. It helps give them a picture of your overall health. After all, our mouth is connected to our body.
Discussing the foods and drinks you consume. They want to make sure you’re getting enough vitamins and minerals. They’ll also help you understand which kinds of foods and drinks cause the most damage to your teeth.
Then, your dentist will come in to examine you.
They will:
Look over your teeth and gums to make sure everything looks healthy.
your dentist may want to take X-rays. To do this, your dental hygienist or dentist will:
Take you into the clinic X-Ray room.
Place a heavy apron across your body for protection.
Insert a small piece of plastic in your mouth. You’ll bite down on it to align your teeth properly. Repeat this several times to thoroughly evaluate your teeth.
Ta-da! Your visit is (most likely) over!
See? Dental visits are usually simple and quick! If your dentist sees any red flags, such as signs of gum disease or tooth decay, they’ll likely share tips on better brushing and flossing habits. In some cases, your dentist may suggest other dental treatment. Your dentist may also provide you with a risk assessment, helping to measure your overall health level from low risk to high risk.
So my dear friends, you need not have to live with dental pain. If your teeth or gums hurt or bleed when you eat, drink, brush or floss, time won’t heal them. Contact your dentist at the first sign of pain or irritation. Always remember, having healthy teeth is key to a healthier you.
Here are a few tips I was given that might help you maintain good oral hygiene at home during Covid-19.
Wash your hands – aim for at least 20 seconds before and after any personal dental care
Brush at least twice a day– be sure to get those hard-to-reach spots
Floss once a day – this helps remove bacteria and plaque in places your brush can’t reach
Eat a well-balanced diet – limit sticky, sugary snacks like cake and cookies
Limit frequency of snacking – frequent snacking increases your risk of cavities
Limit sugary drinks – soda and fruit juices can harm tooth surfaces
Drink plenty of water – drink water with meals and between meals
Avoid smoking – smoking limits blood flow to your mouth, making it easier for bacteria to grow
And always remember, visiting the dentist regularly can help ensure that you’re living your best, healthiest life.
I had left somewhere in the middle of the conversation to take a phone call. The recorder was on though. Documented the moment.
The conversation between them was mostly in Assamese. The man tells his wife who was keeping little unwell, ‘should I shut the windows dear? You must be feeling cold.’ She smilingly said no, it was clearly evident from her voice. ‘Keep them open. Let me see my blooming periwinkles, they make me so happy, they smile back at me you know.’ The husband said, ‘I know my love, I will plant some more for you.’
Today as I gathered the flowers for puja, they looked at me with such profound joy that it smoothened the ruffled feathers of my heart. Their conversation started to play on my mind…..those small thoughtful gestures, the feeling of buoyancy, simple acts of kindness, a balmy sensation, warmer than the summer sun, cooler than a winter’s day, pinker than the pinkness of the periwinkles…..pure, pure love.
I have kept their photos framed together in my temple. Most of days I put periwinkles before them. The flowers bloom and bare, as each petal shrivels in front of the photo and is tossed. To be replaced soon enough by the daughter.
Objects lock up vivid memories & can be used as catalysts for remembering. And the curious thing about the history of the objects is that it continues to be forged, no matter how much it’s environment changes. Every generation, every space lends a new facet to the object. It’s also confounding to think that objects which inherently have no voice and cannot speak actually embodies stories that help us piece together the past.
The earthen mug was gifted as a birthday present by a close aid of Ma. And it’s not just any other mug. It sustains a past.
Ma would cook simple food on earthen pot at times, she would pour water in similar mugs gifted as a set by a humble potter. Simple habits, simple people, very simple food; steamed rice & dal….food nonetheless.
I was touched by the gesture. I smiled and glanced back at my new treasure for a long time. An earthen mug entwined with memories carrying untold tales of love.
It was about a year ago when I had experienced a toothache, my first. I thought if I ignored it for long enough, it would get settled & sort itself out. I was wrong. A year after that niggling toothache, I underwent the most excruciating pain of my life last week.
I came back home and informed my loved one who immediately started to google what the treatment was all about since none of us had any clue about it. I was told,” Your dentist will open your tooth through the crown, the flat part at the top, to access the soft tissue at the centre of the tooth (pulp). They’ll then remove any infected pulp that remains. If you have a dental abscess, which is a pus-filled swelling, your dentist will be able to drain it at the same time…..”
I finally got a dental appointment and the dentist told me the tooth could be saved. I agreed to undergo the first step of a root canal treatment.
Really?!?
I couldn’t sleep the entire night. I don’t remember the last time I cried so hard. I was utterly scared.
The next morning I made a silent prayer before leaving for the clinic, “be with me Sai.”
At the clinic I was warmly settled by the doctors. They have been really kind. I closed my eyes as they were getting ready for the procedure.
Deep within I said again, “be with me Sai.” And there He was; in my mind’s eye I saw the vision of Baba. He had an endearing smile and a happy countenance which drew my focus onto His face instead of the pain. He looked at me & I understood that I am the reason He is smiling. He caught me up in His presence which surrounded me as I laid awake on the surgery chair.
The attraction of His magnetic eyes drew my attention away from the pain. He settled my soul and changed an overwhelming anxiety into an incomprehensible quietness of soul that enabled me to see and hear Him. He gave me a peace that surpassed understanding.
Somehow He was communicating verbally to me but without speaking or moving His lips. As I uttered in my spirit, “I trust You,” a heaviness was removed. I was surprisingly unafraid.
With tears streaming from my eyes, I groaned from a depth inside that I had not known before, and I silently exclaimed, “You are good. You are good. You are good!” My spirit fought and refused to declare anything less than the truth of Who He is. He is good.
Sai knew I was on the surgery chair and the amount of pain I was in. My spirit responded to Him, “If You are ok with this [the surgery], then I’m ok with it, too.”
There were times I got distracted by the doctor crushing my nerve, there were times I lost my focus. But Baba allured me to Himself again and kept my attention on Him. He came close to me and I knew He was in control and had authority over my situation.
There were times I felt shocks of electricity on my forehead, my eyelid, and down my nose. The progression of the surgery was easily felt throughout. At times the pain or the doctors’ conversations distracted me from the vision of Baba but each time I became distracted, Sai faithfully allured me back to Himself with His eyes.
After about an hour the doctor tells me that the procedure was over. I opened my eyes and realised that in every way I had been taken care of and comforted by Him.
Sometime this week, I took a long and hard look at myself in the mirror and really noticed the difference. It was the first time I saw the way my face has changed over the years….how subtle, soft lines are starting to form around my eyes and mouth. How my eyes tell the truth, right down to my core. It was the first time I noticed that my hair falls a bit differently than it did when I was younger. How I am more prone to letting it fall naturally than to straighten or curl it. How I no longer feel the need to hide behind a smokey eye. Yes, I can now feel the actual shift and the whole idea of ageing.
” Women should be like ornaments Majoni, like flowers, soft and fragile…beautiful. Go check the old albums, my hair was so immaculate and my skin so flawless. My daughters are a work of art too. During my days Majoni, we washed our face with milk cream and hair with lassi. Such a shame these things are gradually dying,” Aai said.
”Now we have face packs, creams and shampoos Aai.”
”Shut up! What do you think? We didn’t have such stuff? But we knew better. We were smarter. Ask your Aata what a beauty I was when he married me. He couldn’t take his eyes off me. His family said I looked like some doll.”
Agreed. She is still so beautiful.
”I think I’m getting old Aai,” I said.
”You are growing my child. It’s very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty. Ageing is not just decay, you know. It’s growth,” Aai said.
”Ignorant how? I became a mother at twenty. And I remember you saying how I was your best, super intelligent grandchild,” I said.
”Yes, you were and always will be my best, my Guxani, now keep quiet,” Aai said.
Then she starts fiddling with my hair. Aai partitioned my hair into two zones and proceeded to weave two plaits. I good-naturedly complied and held my head still while she tried to get the motions right. Quietly, a feeling crept up on me. I was transported to another place, another time. I was on the floor in front of my mother, her hands working deftly on my hair to produce two plaits on either side of the back of my head. Ma would tell me stories, sing Saibhajans. These were such important sessions while I was growing up. From memorizing the shlokas to bhajans, so much happened on the mat during those sessions. And like every time her memory brings with it that sickening weight. My eyes were flooded. Aai reaches out to give her gamusa. We didn’t exchange a single word.
I took out my phone and opened the photo gallery. There she was, Ma, with her most warm and vibrant smile. Instantly I began smiling, touching the screen lovingly and wishing to relive that moment. Time slowed down. Minutes became minutes again. And I remembered to breathe.
”You see this line here…told you, I’m ageing Aai,” I said.
”Hmmm but they don’t make you any less beautiful my child. Look at me, as long as I am breathing, I am just beginning. And by the way, your pants are old, they are torn.”
When someone leaves your life, its not as if they disappear completely. They linger, they remain, but most importantly, they leave a person shaped void inside your heart which is difficult to fill by anyone else.
You see the things that belonged to them- shirts, sarees, shoes, files, papers, combs that still hold their tangled hair. You eat the foods they used to love, listen to the the songs they used to sing, you even read the books that lined their shelf. You try, in every way, to fill the gap between what used to be their daily life and yours. But there is always that distance. The fine line of mortality separates us from them and this line treads on heartbreak.
But what if you have something of theirs, what if you succeed in keeping such a lively, tangible part of them with you that it seems as though they haven’t left at all?
There she was, dressed in a brilliant jade sador mekhela and simple gold bangles. Her silver hair was styled into a bun, fastened with clips. In her ears, sat gold earrings and on her fingers were stacked multiple rings. Her gaze still fixed on me. Small wisps of silver escaped her bun and crawled down her neck. I inched forward to greet her.
Under the glorious October sun, I hold her hand in mine. Soft, aged, wrinkled. And as I’d held it, I had felt the beat of her pulse pass through; regular and timely. Silently counting them in the same way one would mechanically count the stars that made up a constellation, I’d imagined each pulse to be as brilliant as a star. Each such star, I’d further imagined to be a verse of a poem. A poem running through her veins, mixing with her blood. A constellation flowing into the sky. This is what I have of Ma. And nothing beats this.
Today is Ma’s birthday. She would have been 63 today. I would have hugged her tight and she would have cupped my face with her soft hands and planted kisses….one on my forehead and each on my eyes. And we would have hugged each other for a long, long time.
He did not look me in the eye as I folded the piece of cloth around his head. Some priest said this act non-verbally announces others that the concerned members are in a state of mourning and that some untoward incident had happened in their family. Therefore, the sight of mundan shall mentally prepare the acquaintances to move with them with a note of caution. Indeed. The sight.
Let me not weigh you down today. Instead, allow me unfold the history, beauty and intricacies of Hindu traditions and customs.
Our priest told us about the the circle of life. He told us that everything in our belief system can be explained by science. That we are just a small fragment of the Universe, yet all the Universe resides within us. First came the explanation of the Tonsure; the act of cutting the hair or shaving the head after the death of an elder member of the family. In Hinduism, the underlying concept is that hair is a symbolic offering to the Gods, representing a real sacrifice of beauty. Hence shaving your head shows your grief for the departed soul.
Hair on the head is treated as an adornment and as a symbol of vanity. On the death of an elderly person in a family, the Hindus consider the children not to be egoistic in nature but humble, devoted and submitted to nature. So they need to give up their adornment and vanity in humility. The death of the elderly member makes the inmates feel that they have lost the elderly protective guidance they had been always enjoying. The removal of hair indicates them that they must now prepare for the change with a sense of detachment and vairagya.
Then comes Pind Daan. In the Shastras, there is a line that says, ‘Yat Pinde Tat Brahmande’, meaning whatever is present in this little body is present in this Universe; our body is a miniature Universe.
The Earth is round, every person in this world is born into a life cycle, also round. Whether it’s a human child, the child of a cow, of an elephant or of a bird, it doesn’t matter; its very first form is an egg. There is nothing in this world that does not originate as a circle, whose life isn’t cyclical and infinite. Round. Body. Pind. Accordingly to the Shlok above, everything is a Pind and within the Pind, there is everything.
When we cremate the body, only the soul remains. It is said that the person that cremates it also has the right to give that soul another body. So we do something called a Pind Daan. A daan denotes charity, therefore a Pind daan means giving charity to the body of the deceased. All obstacles are said to smoothen out {for the soul} once this ceremony is performed. Every family adheres to this custom in their own ways, but giving is essential.
Round balls of dough mixed with honey and sesame seeds, signifying the Pind, are donated to the Bramhaputra.
“You presume you’re a small entity, but within you is unfolded the whole universe.”
Aum
Mundane: Ritual of shaving head
Vairagya: Detachment
Shastra: Sacred scriptures of Hinduism
Pind Daan: Giving charity to the body of the deceased
Brahmaputra: The Brahmaputra (/ˌbrɑːməˈpuːtrə/ [brɔmmɔput̪rɔ nɔd̪] is a trans-boundary river in Asia. It is also one of the major rivers of Asia that cuts through 4 countries: China, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
In David Mitchell’s ‘Cloud Atlas’, there was a line that comes back to me time and time again. It said, our lives are not own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.
How true is this. We are connected by invisible threads, forged over the course of days, months and years, and secured by bonds of community. We depend on each other, we rely on each other. Especially here in India, each small tradition and custom is inherently societal. It is based on the fact that it will bring us closer to our culture in some way. Every small action, from a prayer to a chant, to fasting, or to coming to grieve at the time of death; every one of these actions binds us to each other, our lives become inextricably linked.
I have seen so much love in the last few days. I have seen people come home and mourn for the loss of my mother in law in ways I did not know was possible. I have seen my family depend on each other physically, mentally, morally and emotionally in ways I did not know were possible. I have seen the young teach us about life and the old teach us about death. I have seen a holiness that can only be achieved through a kind of mutual dependency and respect.
Yesterday I walked into my father in law’s room and saw my man helping his father put on his shirt. No words were spoken, but so much was said in the quiet act of helping a loved one in the most mundane of gestures, at a time when their hearts were too broken to carry on. The wife and the mother ain’t coming back to them again. But they have each other. And for now this is enough.
To write, to write, to write. I am always struggling to write. I am always looking for the deepest cut, the kind that scrapes out part of the flesh, the layers beyond the epidermis. I don’t want words that leave fleeting scratches or marks, or those that simply graze the surface. I need words I can swim in, can luxuriate in, that leave my fingers and toes wrinkled and pink from being immersed too long.
My words are the quintessential essence of my being. At the end of the day all I have are words. Words to describe the hotness of the heat, slowness of my breath, wetness of my sweat, tiredness of my body. I sit at my desk and drain out my words, but are those enough to induce love in another, enough to feel the intensity of pain? I wonder? Can I be distilled, wrung dry, squeezed completely into a string of words? I wonder.
This is my attempt to describe the indescribable, struggling with myself about something I never thought I could write about. On 26th September, my mother in law passed away. It happened in the hospital within a matter of seconds and the best way to describe the moments that followed after are that they were filled with ineffable numbness. That was it. And I am failing here to find the right words. I am failing.
I cannot believe that everything I say now will be in the past tense. I am trying to, but I cannot comprehend the fact that Ma just won’t be there anymore. My heart feels like it can’t breathe, like it’s full of oil, like its expanding and only grief is being able to fill that cavity. Is there any way to erase this feeling? She left behind her son and daughters, grandchildren and her best friend, her husband, the strongest, bravest, self-made person I know who now hides his face with his two hands and weeps like a child.
All eyes have been wet. My arms have felt heavy like cement and I have wanted to rip my heart out and give it to my man. I want to collect all his sadness; his, my sister in law’s, my nephew’s, my niece’s and mine, I want to collect it all, wrap it up really tight and hurl it across the edge of the world. Is this possible? How does one feel light again?
But here I am, writing this note, taking a deep breath and acknowledging one of the kindest and most loving person there were. What a life she led, what a grand, grand life.
Arunima Dutta 