Dada - My eldest friend bid adieu... Deepu... Which way you going??? Could you please get me my paans if you can... If you goin that way, Then, tell them to give you Govardhan-Nagar-Wale-Dadaji ke paan. These words keep echoing in my ears as hes left for the heavenly abode. So fond was he of his paan that this habit of his was cultivated since his teenage years & continued till his last days. He used to buy his paan only from two selected paanwalas located hardly at a distance of 300m- 400m from our residence. Sometimes I would get him his paans and sometimes he would accompany me on my bike en route to the Haveli for his routine darshan. He would ask me to drop him at the paanwala and go home as he would walk a little till the temple. Initially, he would walk comfortably without any support but age related weakness ate his strength and he had to rely on a walking stick. He was a lil apprehensive of carrying the stick as it would make him look old compared to his OLDIE friends. His mind strongly resisted the idea of relying on a stick but again when nature strikes, even the strongest human on earth has to obey it. Whenever I would go to meet him, I remember asking him what was their source of fun & entertainment in their hey days & he would be like watching TV, roaming, playing different games with friends. Talking about friends, I would tease him about his lady friends if any & he would be like Thats a rubbish question...!!! We didnt interact with any girls. Never. Our parents would choose the girl for us and we had to marry her, start a family & stay committed. We used to stay in a small home with a large family and now it’s the other way round around us. He was hardly on medication and was often keen on taking brisk walks at the park, opposite our building. Slowly Health deteriorated and he kept losing his balance in spite of having his stick & fell head first & injured himself quite often. This weakness brought a restriction on his walks & he was limited to a few mins of walking under someones strict supervision within the building premises. One would rarely find stubble on his face as he preferred to have a clean shaven look which he somehow managed on his own. Counting, from the last 3-4 weeks from his departure, He frequented hospital once or twice a week. This resulted in him being a wheelchair bound passenger with a personalized chauffeur assigned to him. He couldnt speak much towards the end but would very well recognize faces & gestured a Hi using his body language on his four-wheeler. This gave me an indication that he was about to complete his journey on earth, sooner or later as I used to sense that, though he tried his level best, his body kept cheating on him, his mind and finally one day, against his willpower, won, as it was determined to. I got the news one afternoon & came to see him. After everyone was done visiting him, it was the time to take his corpse complete its journey from home till the buildings foyer & from there till the crematorium. While the corpse lay down there, I realized that almost everyone from family to friends was in tears; after all they were bound to be. May be we all missed him for everything he did and everything he was; to everyone from his daughter to son-in-law & sons to daughter-in-laws to his grand children Roshni Shah Gandhi, Dhara Shah Majithia, Riddhi Shah, Lokesh Shah, Neil A Shah, Vrija Shah, Nirali & great grand children Friya & Nysha. Though I never saw my grandparents in their last days, I was, indeed, Lucky to have him in my Life, as one of my own. Time came to lend a shoulder to him & I lent it happily with all due respect and pride. After reaching the crematorium, his entire body was pasted with the Desi Ghee from head to toe & with a final worship, was lit with fire by his three sons. After around 1 -2 hours, I saw a few people going near the fire and doing something with a large bamboo. On enquiring, I got to know that the mid section wasnt burnt properly as Dada had got water accumulated & hence this was mandatory. Waiting there, the following saying got equally justified word by word, with his passing away which goes... BINA LIBAAS AAYE THE IS JAHAN ME HUM, BAS EK KAFAN KI KHATIR ITNA LAMBA SAFAR KARNA PADA... While leaving the cremation ground, I asked Lokesh whether Dada asked for a paan by any chance in his last moments. He, surprisingly, replied in affirmation that 2 days ago, in the hospital, Dada, did want a paan but looking at his condition, was denied due to the medications he was on
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 15:33:39 +0000