I need time to move on

Today afternoon I didn't feel like attending the Computer graphics lab and so, I asked a friend if he could stay with me and spend sometime in the college without attending any class. He agreed. But he said it openly too that I wanted others to be there. My other friends were also not so interested in attending the classes and we were together till almost 4:30 pm. A few left before. I was happy being there with everybody around. I wanted some time.

Yesterday late in the evening I got a cell phone activated. It was gifted to my by my uncle and I was afraid that my parents wouldn't let me use it. I didn't even had to ask for it and I my number with me.

Several years back when cell phones in India were new, my uncle - father's elder brother - purchased one. Then and even now whenever somebody calls him, he receives the call by having the first word said by him as his name. He hardly looks as the phone number of the calling person. He simply says his name and then proceeds with the conversation. Even level.since I saw him doing this, I had decided that I would be emulating him.

But now that this style has been viewed my several people in the movie 'Don', I guess I will have to abjure this idea of doing it like my uncle. It's disheartening to me that a movie of Shah Rukh Khan is stopping me from doing it. I won't be doing it as I don't want anybody to say that I am imitating Don. I just wanted to be like my uncle - walking tall, professional and independent.

My grandfather used to fill water in a glass and keep it in his room so that he will not have to make frequent trips to the other room where water is kept. On Saturday too he might have done the same thing. On Sunday when my aunt and I were moving some furniture in his room we found the glass in a shelf. It was full, filled with water, and covered with a plastic cover. That Saturday my grandfather didn't know that he was not going to drink it.

There was a table in a corner of his room on which he had some books, his medicines, shaving kit in a corner, some boxes having scissors, a set of magnets for magneto therapy, his toothbrush and paste and a few other things. There was a box that stacked biscuits for him. He ate them a few times everyday at fixed timings. The box i still there with the biscuits. He is not going to eat them. The same is the case with a box that has some dry fruits in it. He had to eat them to maintain his cholesterol level. There is a bottle of honey too. It's full.

On Saturday I reached his house at 3:20 pm. Unlike every time I go there, I didn't go to his room to greet him. Even he calls out my name and asks me how I am and if I was coming from my college. That day he didn't. I was very hungry and I told the same thing to one of my two aunts there. At 3:30 pm my mother arrived from her office. I told my aunt that it was after many years mother was coming early on a Saturday. Allah sent her early with a purpose.

My aunt asked me if I can skip the class at CL that evening. She wanted me to o some packing as she was scheduled to leave for Mecca on 26th. I told her that I would do it the next day - Sunday. I said that it is important that I attend the class. I didn't know I was not going to attend.

The moment my mother entered the room she started shouting. On her way home she received around 10 calls from her office asking for some file which was in one of the several cabinets in her room. She had to instruct people to search for that file and she was thinking that she might have to go back should the file be not found. She was almost crying saying that life for her was so unfair. Then finally the file was locate and she was relieved. But in those 30 minutes she said a lot of rubbish. She didn't know that her father was lying dead in the room just next to where she was standing.

While she was shouting on the phone and even at herself, for a second I thought about my grandfather. He always becomes a part of all conversation that takes place in the home. He also greets my mother and always waits for her to come on Saturdays. There was no sound from her but I thought he was sleeping. I didn't strike me that he never slept this way. He always used to get disturbed very easily.

Around 4 pm, like daily, my grandmother went to his room with a cup of milk. She tried to wake him up. He didn't respond. She shouted to call my aunt. She went and shook him and shouted several times. We were there already. My grandfather was cold by now and he looked a little blue. I couldn't believe it.

My mother, grandmother and aunts started crying. Hearing this our neighbor came. There was a doctor too. She checked my grandfather's wrists. She was already negative when she asked us to take him to hospital. I ran out to get an rickshaw. He never ran that way on a street before. By the time I reached home the neighbor had already put a sheet of cloth on my grandfather's face. I shouted and told that we should take him to the hospital. Somebody said that it was all over. I still wanted to take him to the hospital. I couldn't believe that he could leave us this way. I had not even met him. I had to talk to him like I do every Saturday. My mother had to meet him. that day he was taken to a doctor int he morning and we had to ask him how he was feeling now. The doctor had told him that he was a little better.

It took some time to understand what had happened. Just fine minutes back I was sitting in the other room waiting for my mother to finish her phone calls so that we could have our lunch. I was so hungry. I had not had my breakfast that morning. I had the first meal of the day around 10pm. My grandfather never took rest until he saw me eating food in the afternoons on Saturdays. He wasn't there to scold me this time. If he had know that because of him I was having my meal so late, he would have cried.

the last one month he spent his time in a very depressed state. He used to weep literally for simple things. He had lost all his sheen and might but still used to shout so much at ever small thing that was not in its place. That morning he had scolded the servant maid and had made her clean some blocked drains. He had taken a walk outside. He spoken for an hour with my aunts. My youngest aunt was leaving on 26th so he used to tell her that he would not be here when she would visit the country in 2008. He would cry.

He always said that my uncle shouldn't come when he dies. My uncle had initially told him that he would be arriving here on 20th. Some problem with his passport delayed his arrival. My grandfather left us on 20th. Uncle came on 22nd. We completed the funeral rights after the fajar of 21st. My grandfather had a smile on his face when I saw his body for the last time. It was just after the bath given to him.

I was asked be there when the bath was being given. My uncle asked me to get down in the grave and do the rituals. I was afraid to do either of the two things. I felt myself weak. Perhaps I should have done it. I remember the days when he used to take me out to buy me chocolates holding my small and weak hands. I was afraid now to hold him and help him into his final place on the earth.

He left so much behind. So many things, so many memories. Every single things hurts me now. tears roll down simply without me having to think anything. It simply hurts and I can't define it. It is terrible. There seems to be no way out of this change I have to live with. I know many more of such things are ahead on my way to the grave.

My grandfather always wanted me to have a cell phone Now that I have it, he is not there to see. It looks so unfair. But it's all Allah's wish and I complain not even a bit. He is great.