The shrinking blackhole

 The other day, Dad called and said, "Appu, Pathare kaka is no more." The tremble in his voice clear yet it was unclear to me who was Pathare Kaka? Any of my father's cousins? His friends? Our old or new neighbors? None. My RAM seemed in no mood to answer. Before I could conjure the identity of this dead and offer a sensitive condolence to my Dad, he hurriedly hang up saying someone was calling. God bless that someone else! 

Going about my futile, mundane activities, my mind went through various images of aging, old men but none accepted the tag of Pathare Kaka. He must be really important that Dad had called me on a sultry afternoon amidst no where. These are his post retirement snoozing times! Empty as a gas balloon my thoughts soared higher and higher to get an eagle's view of my social circle. The mind encircled numerous rounds of childhood memories to locate Pathare Kaka. Five year old me-Nah! 10yr old me- no, no! Twenty year old me- this was only about Chavas and not Kakas, so a absolute NO! Then where was this so very important Kaka? Not that I was expected to attend the funeral and say few heartfelt lines for him but now my distraught self sort clarity. 

Dad had not called after that. Consciously and subconsciously, too, he loved hanging me on ropes of doubtful uncertainties. Like clothes clipped to nylon ropes, the sun soaking their waters, I was left to dry in my pools of confusion and mistaken identities. Who was Pathare Kaka? I considered calling ACP Pradyumann but he too would have no Daya on me. How about crime patrol? But there was no blood soaked crime here. Only a crime of forgetting someone who must have been important to me.

After all the ruminations, I could even remember the watchman of our old housing society but not Pathare Kaka. In the evening, as I entered my consulting cabin, the good Lord blessed me. The Ganpati Bappa painting I had painted during my rendezvous with my first(up till now only and forever only) pregnancy, answered my prayers! 

EUREKA!! I jumped with joy as the identity of Pathare Kaka surfaced the muddled waters. My drawing teacher during pregnancy. An acquaintance of the last trimester. A teacher with palettes and patient instructions. He helped me pass time painting Bappa's belly when my belly restricted other activities. We both waddled around the canvas. He suffering from Parkinson's and me out of Pregnancy. Together we tided over the bulge of our maladies and painted a happy God. I remembered he walking into our living room sharp at 10am and wait for me to drag myself out of the lazing sickness. I was given the comfort chair stuffed with cushions while he rested on a metal stool. 

In-between our painting endeavors, I was offered kesar milk while he happily gulped down his sugary tea. The God had just taken birth on my canvas when my waters broke and I was rushed to the labor room. Then onwards, I would cater to massaging the baby's toes while Kaka all lone kept adding the final touches to Bappa's eyelashes. The painting completed we met after that just once. The painting, my baby and our last meeting is now seven years old. I had forgotten Pathare Kaka as if we had not met in this birth. 

A disobedient tear sneaked out of its place. A sulcus of my cerebrum straightened. Finally, I could miss Pathare Kaka. My heart said a silent prayer for the departed soul. May in the heavens Kaka help many pregnant Apsaras to paint their dreams. May those Apsaras remember him much after he has reincarnated. 

Such a failure I was at remembering the benevolence in my life. There was a time when the five yr old me prayed for even the flea on the stray's fur. A ten yr old me prayed for the ailing maid's father and her grandfather. A twenty yr old me for the bench partner and a practical partner. I prayed for relief from terrorism and terrible politicians, from global warming and global fall of economy. I remembered everyone in my prayers and practiced 'Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu'.

And the thirty five year me? A selfish woman praying only for her immediate family. Remembering only the ones in her wandering periphery. Out of sight is out of mind, following the dictum to the T. A 5yr old me had people calling me Appu. A 10yr old me had people calling me Aparna. A 20 yr old me had friends who called Apps babes. But a 35 yr old me is surrounded by the sound of Madam, Doctor and just plain Excuse Me. My social circle is a shrinking black hole consuming the people who matter to me most. There is a sharp decline in people who matter to me most. This in turn is replaced by those who matter least. 

I pray for one person less everyday as I grow older. Amnesia dominates my reasoning capacity and I don't strive to make an effort. Isn't it the best part of aging, to lose dead cells and dead memories? But to forget some good deeds is like metastasis of a deadly cancer. If you aren't affected with one then please do remember me in your prayers. 

There could be many more like Pathare Kaka whom I must have forgotten at leisure. Maybe, a call from Dad will retrieve those buried lives, those lying in the coffins of my closed memories. The mud of ignorance is caressing their forgotten communications with me. The way they touched my life,  some even poked me is all a thing of past, coming to only when they are no more. Sigh! Life is all about overcoming these trips to guilty islands. You wallow in your misery with a smiling face.

Could you recall any Pathare Kaka of your life? If yes, then Mission Missing Accomplished!