The Dark Years: Part One

 #USA

Post#28

In the course of my narration several people wrote to me how my story makes them happy and sad with me. It is really sweet that many feel that connection. However, my message to the readers is that please do not identify with me and with what I went through. I made that mistake and learned it the hard way how subconsciously we identify with our loved ones and it hurts more than you can think or know. Empathy and identifying is not the same. 

The following few posts tell my story through some difficult phases in my life. I debated whether to share these or not but decided I would because it is part of the human experience. I advise discretion if you are a sensitive person who can get affected easily when hearing about sad incidents 🙏🏼🙏🏼

The Dark Years: Part One

After his wedding in February 1997 Milind ( my brother) had started his orthopedic practice in Khopoli on my parents’ hospital premises. An entire floor was for his use. His professor Dr.Sancheti made a special call to my parents to praise his surgical skills. Milind was a kind hearted young man who would treat the poor and needy for free. Once he found a tribal man( Katkari) on the roadside with a broken leg. He put him in a rickshaw and brought him home, operated him, fed him until he was healed and back on his feet before dropping him off to his village outside Khopoli. All this without charging a dime. Despite his charity, his income was picking up very well as the word of mouth spread.

To give the newly weds privacy,my sister and me invited my parents here for a few months. I used to call Milind regularly and each time when I asked to speak to my vahini he would say she is in Mumbai visiting her parents. After 2-3 months of these excuses I started to wonder, these people are newly married, they don’t have interference from in-laws, why are they not together? Hope all is well. 

My suspicion proved right. All wasn’t well. One day I was cooking dinner and the phone rang. My vahini’s parents wanted to speak to me.  They told me their daughter and Milind are not getting along and she seeks separation. I told them not to make hasty decisions and that I would send my parents back, they could sort out the issues with a calm mind. As promised I sent them back promptly. My mom was terrified at the thought of a divorce.She knew how much her son was in love with his wife. She pleaded for them to work on the marriage. Alas there was no reconciliation. Milind was sensitive but proud . He told my mother not to intervene. Much to my mom’s sadness he signed off on the divorce papers on September 21, 1998. It was a little over a year after his wedding. He remained heart broken but immersed himself in his work. Or so we thought. 

Baba was a practical man. He could read the sadness in his son’s eyes. He thought the best way for Milind to get back on with life would be to find him a nice girl to spend his life with . Sure enough he found a really caring young girl who was a gynecologist and gone through a divorce soon after wedding, for no fault of hers. Baba introduced her to Milind. Although Milind was being nice to her, retrospectively we know his heart was still not freed from his ex wife.

In 1999 my sister who was in Dallas at the time was expecting her first baby. She summoned my mother for her delivery. My niece was born in June 1999 and mom stayed over to help my sister. In the interim my sister had moved from Dallas to Denver to start her residency there.

Sometime in mid September I was having lunch with a colleague and had a dark cloud over me . She asked me are you ok? I said I don’t have anything going wrong , just this sense of impending doom that I cannot explain. 

Less than a week from that conversation, the night of September 20th( September 21st early morning in India) Abhay and me were getting ready for bed when the phone rang. I picked the phone. It was Milind’s good friend from childhood who was known to me and was also a physician now. He told me Milind is not well , he is unconscious. Please send your mom back ASAP. 

My immediate response was please call an ambulance and take him to Mumbai to a good hospital. He said he would but kept saying to send mom immediately. I got a sense that he didn’t have the urgency about getting help for Milind.

A few minutes later I called back to make sure he had arranged to take Milind to the hospital. Instead of replying to me with a confident yes he was back to his original tune asking me to send my mom. I got my doubts. Intuition told me he was hiding something from me.

When he called back few minutes later I told Abhay to get the phone this time. Perhaps he didn’t want to tell me the truth which I had started to suspect by then. I told Abhay to find out whether it is too late that’s why he is not making a move to take Milind to a hospital? I was right. He told Abhay what he could not tell me.

I sat there in a shock. Don’t have words to tell you what went through my mind. I did not process the feelings . I disconnected my intellect and my emotions and within minutes got into action mode.

I had to call my sister. It was probably close to midnight in Denver by then. That is the most cruel phone call I have ever made. Minal (my sister) broke out crying. She was close to Milind . They went to the same medical school and he cared for her immensely. Poor Minal had to swallow the news and hide her grief from mom. We decided not to tell mom that everything was over.  We cooked up a story that Milind was in a bad motorcycle accident and she should be there by him. 

Overnight Minal booked aai’s flight from Denver to Los Angeles. I drove myself to Los Angeles . I had to go pick up our tickets from a travel agent’s  office somewhere in the suburbs before driving to the airport to pick up aai. Once she arrived I had to take her to another terminal to board a flight to Chicago. Our direct flight to Mumbai was from Chicago . At O’Hare it was a long walk from the domestic terminal to the Air India gate at the international terminal. I was trying to make aai walk faster because we didn’t have too much time between the flights . Poor thing she was trying but was getting short of breath. 

When we reached the gate the flight had not departed but the gate was closed. The officers were firm that we had to be there 45 minutes before the departure time. We were there 42 minutes before the flight time !! I couldn’t open my mouth in front of aai. So I made her sit and went in to tell the supervisor what had happened. He was sympathetic but would not overrule the check-in rules. He told us the earliest next flight was the following day that too not from Chicago, but from New York. I had to book a separate flight from Chicago to New York for us. And find a place to stay in Chicago that night as well. That was the longest night of my life so far. 

The next morning we flew from O’Hare to New York. 24 hours were lost. Once aboard the flight Aai was refusing to eat anything from the meal they served. I was trying to force her to eat a bit because she had not touched anything much except water since we left Los Angeles. She was crying. I was a bit envious because I couldn’t even do that. I had to hide my tears lest she suspect . Finally a few hours into the flight she turned to me and bluntly asked “ where is the body ?”. 

I didn’t know how to answer. I said what makes you ask that ? She said I heard the way Minal cried . I knew it can’t be just an accident.

A mother’s intuition can see through any lie especially about her offspring ! I told her it is at home. 

Alas! I wish it was at home ! It was the morning of September 21st 1999, exactly a year from the date he had signed the divorce papers! He wasn’t able to process his pain and while both parents were away the young man, for me just a kid , my baby brother, 31 at the time and with the best of life still ahead ,decided to free himself from worldly misery !! Because it was a suicide the police needed an autopsy. To add misery to the tragedy the freezers that stored the postmortem remains broke down that day and the remains started to decompose. As a result Baba ,who was in Mumbai for some event the night everything happened, had to hurriedly complete the last rites without waiting for aai to arrive. In a way it was a blessing that only Milind’s  happy face was what she last saw and would remember. Baba wasn’t that lucky. For years he would be harrowed by the sight of what had ultimately become of his handsome son.

I was a mere witness to see the devastation descend on my parents. All day the town folks would flock at our home to pay their condolences. All night both Aai and Baba would hug each other and cry. I had suddenly become their parent  !! I stayed until the 2 weeks of traditional mourning rituals were completed. And  reluctantly flew back.

 Alone !! 

The saree is a naturally dyed Ponduru khadi cotton in a shade of brownish grey with delicate hand print in black.