Rama, my brave friend
I wrote this for Rama's son Aakash and daughter Varshini - soon after she passed away. I wanted them to know what their mother was as a friend. Every now and then I feel a sharp pain when I remember her, and miss her terribly. Somehow her deathj has made not only made mortality a very real aspect of life - like a brightly coloured image on an otherwise black and white canvas - but has also underlined the importance of making the most of one's life.
"Where do I begin? How does one try to tell 2 youngsters about the friend/person the mother they've just lost was to me? It's 28 days since Rama 'passed away' - I prefer that phrase to the D word, somehow it makes it feel less irrevocable, less final, less harsh.
The most prevalent emotion in me when I think of Rama is the unfairness of it all. She was young, always endeavoured to keep mind & body fit & healthy. She worked hard... she was a soft & gentle person...but one with a steely determination giving a firm shape to all these subtle strands...while I went for the emphatic NO, hers was a gentle - almost timid! - but nevertheless very firm 'no'. The message was one & the same...and so she strived to succeed, always doing whatever she did to the best of her ability. Ensuring her success didn't make her arrogant, never flaunting the wealth or status she had acquired.
One had to know her to get her humour, and she didn't 'get to know' just anybody. And this makes me feel quite privileged...while we had lost touch after she left HSBC, somehow news of her working for Covansys trickled in after almost a decade. And so I contacted her, a little diffident while doing so. And to my pleasant surprise, I heard my friend Rama on the other end of the line! Just the same friendly, gentle warmth that in one easy sweep brushed aside the past decade we had lost in between our chats.
The next visit - a year or so later - had a shock in store for me, for cancer had invaded her body, she was so frail that I warily hugged her. We sat chatting for nearly 3 hours or so, and I now desperately try to remember our conversation...only snatches of it come back to me...but one thing I remember for sure is that there were no complaints or resentments, no 'why me?'s. No mention of pain - something she continued to maintain right until her very end. I wonder from time to time why I didn't brush aside her constant reply of , 'I'm ok...its only the people around me who're suffering' and demand to know what she was actually going through. And smile when I realise that one could only get her to say what she wanted said! For each time I called to reassure, comfort and encourage Rama, I was the one who felt all that when I put the phone down! While I strived to have a 'normal' chat with her, the times I did not she would gently shift the focus from her illness to me and the goings on in my life!
And now she is gone. Forever. I'm yet to come to terms with the unfairness of it all. The days speed by, as if in a rush to reach her and offer her the time that was so cruelly stolen from her. Daytimes are easy, for the coward I'm I greedily latch onto the day to day normalities of life. But night time brings back the last image I've of her, and the faces of her children. Varshini crying out, 'amma...amma' in a familiarly soft voice.....and Aakash looking bereft. But then I remember the calm & peace on Rama's face - perhaps some relief too? For no matter how the living may struggle to cope without her, Rama was herself free from the torture that the disease and its so called cure had imposed on her. And one has to take consolation from that fact.
Goodbye and God bless, Rama. I hope I'll be able to stay in touch with Aakash & Varshini, and also with Nalina and Vasu. I hope you knew that you meant a lot to me and Bhanu. I also hope you know that even while leaving us, you've enriched us - for your passing away has strengthened the bond of friendship between me and Bhanu. We will however always miss our gentle, sweet, unassuming friend - Rama.
Vasanthi
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