Dead, with no ID card

Optimism is in the air. Chidambaram has just announced a budget that's making farmers, salaried people, and even captains of industry happy. Very rarely do you find such diverse groups nodding their appreciative heads in unison, but elections are around the corner, and our clever finance minister has waved a magic wand!

It may seem churlish, when the mood is so upbeat, to talk about death. But death was what my uncle was grappling with, and death was what he succumbed to last Sunday. I have no intentions of spoiling the general cheer, and will only talk about some aspects of the grim act of departing that may amuse you.


My uncle was 86 when he died. He was fit and active till he was 85. When he retired from HAL three decades ago, he looked a very handsome 30, and didn't sport those grey streaks many of us do by the time we are in our forties. He took regular walks, and could do difficult yogic postures, such as the mayurasana and shirsasana, till last year, when he had a heart attack.

Subru (short for Subramanyam) prided himself on his health, and believed he would live till he was at least a hundred. Just five days before he died, he was outraged that a nurse had called him grandpa. He scolded her a full 15 minutes for making that mistake.

He was also very proud of his English, and knew such words as "inveterate". I remember he once told someone not to go out in the sun. "You'll get skin affection," he warned. He had coined the word "vomission".

Subru had no children. Ten years ago, his wife lay on her deathbed, ravaged by diabetes, almost blind, and with a failed kidney. He believed every disease in the world could be cured with exercise, and Amritanjan. Which was why he did not pay much heed to what the doctors were telling him about her critical condition. He asked her to rub the pain balm wherever it hurt, and rationed a month's medicines to cover many months. He was very frugal, but I know some others who are more distinguished in that department.

Ten years ago, when his sister and mentally ill brother were bedridden and desperately needed attention, he was busy playing rummy and taking his regular walks. He knew bits of Sanskrit verses, and quoted one that said God takes care of orphans. He believed he would never be one. In the last two months of his life, Subru wasn't able to walk, but still felt it was beneath him to hold a walking stick.

He was in and out of hospital three times in the last six months, and each time he was hospitalised, I believed he would have someone to care for him round the clock. But, every hospital expected an attendant to stay with him, and that meant more work than having him at home.

For someone so frugal, he had done something unusual. He had booked himself his post-death ceremonies at an organisation called Aryavartha, and paid them a fee. I went to their office in Banashankari two days after he died, and they said they couldn't help unless I brought them the ID card they had issued him. Asking him where he's saved the little card is a little difficult, considering his present address, but Aryavartha steadfastly refused to look in their books.

So it looks like the one time uncle Subru spent some money generously is going to go in vain. Clerkdom reigns, and not just in government offices. And elsewhere, we have Chidambaram extolling the virtues of the private sector!

(MiD DAY, 3 March 2008)