At 82 his spine was bent, bags below his eyes, edema in his legs, his activity levels reduced, but his sense of hearing and eye sight was just fine and voice was never short of cheerfulness and enthusiasm. The last time he was hospitalized for hernia surgery doctors were not happy with his heart condition – fist size pump in his chest had slowed down considerably. When I visited him a few hours after the surgery, he asked me to sit beside him and he held my hand. The same hand that gave me my first glass of milk for 20 years, the hand that gave me an oil bath Saturdays, and hand that rubbed Neem leaves over my body when I was down with chicken pox. I massaged his legs, but he pulled them back and I was shocked at his reaction. It was those legs that pedaled the in the sweltering heat and brought my lunch for 12 years, the very legs that drove me to the neighborhood park when I was young. His eyes were closed, the effect of anesthesia was weaning but his lips kept murmuring tales from my childhood and he punctuated every sentence with a blessing for me.
Gopali, as we call him is more a family member than a caretaker. Sixty years of service or should I say sixty years of nurturing our family tree and seeing 4 generations of our family grow and cherish. My dad was hardly a year old when he came home in 1949. Not sure if he was sent by God, but hardly 10 years after his arrival my grandfather passed away. My grandmother was the only daughter and Gopali stood besides the family like her brother for 60+ years. He moved with the kids to erstwhile Madras and took care of my dad and his siblings and that continued for 60 years. The only male member in the family after my grandfather. Wow!
A palatial house, few cars, half a dozen cows, 2 dogs and 6 children, the man was both mother and father. He has nurtured our family tree for 4 generations and still the love and care for the family has not reduced an ounce. He was a mother to the fatherless children, grandfather to us and great grandfather to the 3rd generation kids. Dropped them at school, brought them lunch, picked them in the evening and stayed late till they all went to bed. He never let an insect get near any of us and would always watch kids in the house like a Hawk. This continued for 3 generations, with love and care. This seems like something beyond gratitude.
He was not only a member in the family, he was a midwife to the cattle in the house, a friend to both the dogs in the house, and he was everything everyone wanted. With all these responsibilities he never had a minute to think about his life, marriage and kids. Atlast, he was forced to get married in his early 50’s, and to him marriage was more a companionship than have children and grow his family tree.
Whenever Gopali fell ill (fever, cold, Malaria) kids would visit him multiple times a day to enquire about his health and sit around him and hear anecdotes. It could be stories from the 40’s, days of annas, paisa, furlong, his admiration for my grandfather, narrate my father’s childhood pranks. It was definitely a trip down his memory lane. Ancestral stories are always pride and ego boosters. He is a repository of all our family details, important occasions, events, etc.
How can there any festival without Gopali. Be it Navrathri, he would be the first one to talk about it month in advance and get dolls from the attic and decorate the steps single handedly, be it Diwali he would buy fireworks and sun dry them every day and the day before he would never rest his eyelids. He would be up by 1 am in the morning and make hot water in the huge copper vessel on the traditional brick lined stove in the backyard and be it Pongal a week before he would start painting horns of cattle and getting ready for the festival. More than the festivals and festivities it was his hype and happiness that we remember and will recant.
A healthy, clean, and extremely active lifestyle (even at the age of 80 he went around the town in a bicycle) kept diabetes, blood pressure, dementia, Alzheimer’s and other age related illness at bay. They always say selfless soul don’t suffer and depart quickly. A fortnight ago during his regular morning ablutions he banged his head in the toilet. The fall and head concussion had given rise to thrombus, the embolization brought his weak heart and pulmonary system to a halt the same day by midnight.
A selfless human and an angel that guarded the family for 60 years was gone. I still don’t have an answer for the question – what bonded us? When some lives end they end with a big question for the rest to answer. Was it just love and affection or was it unbreakable karma?
