The day I dreaded and looked forward to....

Anna on 27th Nov 2017

4^th Dec 2017 11:05 am. Anna is declared dead.

Though, I knew the day was coming, and Anna & I had prepared ourselves for end-of-life, I wasn't really ready for it.

When I became my father's sole caregiver, I researched, in greater depth, end-of-life events for someone with Parkinson's. I learned that no one dies of Parkinson's disease, they die with Parkinson's disease. Major causes of death are aspiration pneumonia & other pulmonary infections, inability to swallow, and falls.

I discussed these end-of-life events with Anna. He knew them all, for he had researched them way before I had! He was clear about what he wanted and did not want. He wanted to die earlier than later. He did not want any cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. He wanted no tubes to keep him alive - no ventilator, no feeding tube. No what he called, "artificial and invasive ways to keep me alive." 

So I expected the worst. I knew Anna was dying. I was prepared / preparing for the long haul of managing a bedridden Anna. Possibly one who would need to be in a hospice for a period of time. An Anna that I would have to see struggle for every breath or starve to death.

And in the end, thankfully, his heart just gave up.

My family, friends, and readers have asked how Anna passed away. They want the details. Before I give the details, let me tell you about a "play-rewind-play" dream that robbed my sleep for over 3 weeks before Anna died.

I would dream every night. Dream that I get a call from one of the attendants to tell me that Anna is seriously ill, and I need to come over post haste. In my dream, I rush out of the house. I walk a few meters towards Anna's house. I look down and see that I am wearing my pajamas. Mentally I admonish myself. I can't walk outside my house in my pajamas! 

Wearing my trousers and keds.
I think I am probably the only person who 
calls "sneakers" keds  

The dream rewinds and restarts with the call. This time, I change into trousers. And walk a few meters ahead of the last time in the dream. I look down at my feet and see I am wearing rubber chappals. Not the right footwear to take Anna to Emergency! 

The dream rewinds and restarts with the call. This time, I change into trousers and keds. Again, as I reach a little ahead of where I was in the earlier play of the dream, I realize that if this is really an emergency then I should be taking the car.

The dream rewinds and restarts with the call. This time I wear my trousers & keds, and take the car.

This rewind and replay dream continues with one additional practical observation and event added each time - grabbing an extra shawl, checking to see if I have enough money in my wallet, carrying Anna's medical files bag & his hospital go-to bag, and so on. Sometimes I reach his house to find that he has passed away, sometimes I drive Anna to the hospital.

3 weeks of this, and I am just tired.

Then on 4th December morning, I am just about to have a shower, when I get a call from Alex (Anna's household help). He tells me that I need to come immediately. I hear voices in the background shouting "Anna!.....Anna!". I ask him what's happened. He tells me that Anna suddenly opened his eyes and his breathing is ragged and shallow. I quickly change into trousers, keds, check my wallet, grab a shawl, and drive down to his place.

When I reach there, they are still shouting "Anna!.....Anna!". He is sitting on a chair, slumped to the left. I see a sheen of white on his lips. I call out to him but get no response. I try to take his pulse at his wrist and his neck. I put my fingers under his nose to feel for his breath. My hands are shaking so much that I can't feel a thing! Subconsciously I know that his is going or gone, but my protective instincts have taken over.

I tell the attendant and Alex to put Anna into the wheelchair so that we can take him to the hospital. As they lift him into the wheelchair, he suddenly becomes limp. We wheel him to the car. Four of us try, with little success, to get Anna into the rear seat of the car, until finally, the attendant lifts him into both his arms so that Anna is sitting on his lap like a child.

Photo courtesy: www.bbc.com/news/health-19989167

As I drive to the hospital, I ask the attendant if Anna is breathing. He says, "No". It takes me over 15 mins to get to the hospital with what I think is my dead father in the rear seat of my car. I hold the steering wheel hard and blindly follow my mental chant, "Breathe deeply and drive". Over and over again.

At the hospital, Anna is loaded onto a stretcher and rushed into Emergency.  Four nurses and a doctor do a vital stats check and start emergency medical care. I hear a nurse tell the doctor that the oxygen (administered thru his nostrils) is coming out of his mouth.

That's when the tears start to fall. That is when my brain understands, really understands, that Anna is no more. My heart already knew.

In the end, his heart just gave up. It strikes me as odd, that I never realized that a disease that impairs muscular movement, could affect, would affect, the strongest muscle in the human body, the human heart. Thankfully it did. Swiftly and efficiently.

Anna's Story of Deepawali

Anna on one of the days when he is zoned out!

My dilemma over whether or not to burn crackers was easily solved. Anna was so zoned-out on 18th and 19th Oct that there were no patakas (fireworks), or for that matter, mithai (Indian sweets), or lighting diyas (lamps), or just about anything that needed the tiniest of movements or use of brain cells. Quite a dampener!

Amma's brass pooja diyas, were lit on all auspicious occasions

Many years ago, I had asked Anna why South Indians celebrated Deepawali a day earlier. He promptly told me to ask Amma, deflecting yet another question he didn't want to answer or did not know the answer to. Over the years, I have asked Anna this question in the days running up to Deepawali. One year I came up with the hypothesis that Lord Rama reached South India before North India when he flew from Lanka, and hence Deepawali was celebrated a day earlier than in the north! This story amused Anna no end!! 

Almost every year, I ask Anna the same question and when I don't get a response, I retell my hypothesis on how Rama reached South India before the north, much to his amusement.

Last year, after possibly 40 years, he tells me why.

An effigy of Narakasura. Picture by Gouthami

Anna: Deepawali is on Narakasura Chatrurdasi. The day Krishna and Satyabhama, in a joint venture, defeated the demon Narakasura and released 16,000 women Narakasura kept in captivity.  

Really? Krishna and Satyabhama in a joint venture?? I didn't know.

Anna: Vishnu is more revered in South India than Rama. 

I am confused. I thought that Lord Rama was an avatar of Lord Vishnu. But I keep quiet, 'coz I want to hear the rest of the story.

Anna: Rama is seen as human, with many human faults and needs.

Pause.

Anna: You will like this story. It is about female strength.

Pause.

Oddly, most images I find online show Krishna
killing Narakasura,
when according to most stories I read,
 it was Satyabhama who killed Narakasura. Gender bias? 

Anna: Actually, it was Satyabhama who killed Narakasura. Krishna fainted after being hit by Narakasura's weapon 'Shakti'. Satyabhama was so shocked seeing Krishna fall, that she flung her weapon with immense strength, killing Narakasura.

Pause.

Anna: Narakasura while asking to be forgiven for his wayward ways, asked that his death be celebrated by lighting diyas.

I remember this story, as I sadly watch Anna sleep past his favorite festival. 

Today he is a little awake, so we celebrate by lighting diyas and eating mithai. 

Me: Anna, do you remember that yesterday was Deepawali? Pause. We did not burn any crackers yesterday, as you were asleep.

Anna: We can do it now.

Me ( pointing to the TV that is reporting unprecedented pollution levels across the country): Anna, it is way too polluted! Lets wait till the pollution levels are better. Which basically means, never!

Anna: That will be better. Any day you think is right, we will celebrate Deepawali.

He twitches out a smile and closes his eyes.

I Don't Want A Green Deepawali

I tell Anna that we can take him home
from Neptune Hospital on 1st Oct 2017.
He is pleased.

I don't want a green Deepawali. Yet I want a reduction in air pollution. I am conflicted and am finding it hard to choose a side.

I truly, truly believe, and have advocated for, more stringent controls to improve the quality of air. 

I have to weigh the destruction of the environment, with wanting to give my father, my dying father, something that will surface pleasant memories. Pleasant memories, that I hope, have the strength to sweep Dementia fog away. It's all the more important now that he has just returned from hospital.

Anna was discharged from hospital on 2nd Oct. He had a severe bronchial infection, that  galloped from a slight fever to a compromised lung & wheezing in just 24 hours. It was so bad that I could hear him struggling to breathe from the front door. Thankfully, he spent only 8 days in hospital, all but 1 day, zoned out and unresponsive. He's back home now, 5 kgs less, stiff as a board, not eating much, and speaking about 10 cogent words in a day.

Anna in happier times

Each illness sets Anna back so much that I wonder whether he will ever recover and be his old self. Whatever that old self is, for it is not the vibrant, laughing man he was, before Parkinson's and Dementia kidnapped him in front of our eyes.

Now, when Anna responds to me, I feel good. Tho' 10 softly spoken words are not much, it's better than nothing. I think he is looking sad, but he hasn't said anything. What worries me is that he wants to say something but can't. It's terrible. Just imagining it frightens me. It can only be worse, much worse, for Anna.

I decide to pep Anna up by telling him that Deepawali is around the corner. Deepawali has a special place in Anna's heart. 

First because of the lights. For days before Deepawali, we wheel Anna around the colony so that he can look at all the houses, bedecked with strings of lights - straight lights, dancing lights, bling lights, reflecting globes, strobe lights. Each house uniquely lit up and wanting to show-off a part of their owners' soul.

The second reason Anna loves Deepawali is because of the simple, childlike excitement of lighting crackers. Last year, like a little boy, Anna asked me twice a day, every day, for a month, when Deepawali was! He told me about how he and his brother made firecrackers in their childhood. This year there are going to be no stories. There are going to be little or no crackers given the Supreme Court's ban on the sale of crackers in Delhi.

Anna's favorite Vishnu Chakhra

I know we want to reduce the amount of pollution that will blanket the city. The pollution that will make our eyes water and throats dry. A living pollution that is killing us, inside out. 

But, Anna has a few pleasures in life and a few years to live. Maybe just a year. Is it really so bad for me to want to light 6 sparklers, 4 chakras and 4 flower pots to cheer him up? I have crackers left over from last year, and lighting them will just add a soupçon of pollution. 

I really want to burn crackers for Anna. 

But can I, in good conscience, given our air pollution problem? 

Should I? 

Will I? 

The Changing Language of My Mother Tongue

My father, Anna, can speak English, Kannada,
Tamil, Malayalam, & Hindi
with varying degrees of proficiency
Photo Courtesy: theodysseyonline.com

When people ask me, "What is your mother tongue?", I say Kannada. But that is not true. If mother tongue refers to the language I grew up speaking, then my mother tongue is English (I duck to avoid the imaginary spears of anti-nationalism being flung at me as I write this!)

My father was born and brought up in Tamil Nadu and hence reads, writes, and speaks Tamil fluently. He learned English in school, Malayalam when he was posted in Kerala, and Hindi, when he was required to pass a mandatory Hindi test to get a Central Government job in the '50s / '60s.

My mother was born and brought up in Delhi and hence was fluent in Hindi.

As we are Kannadiga Madhwas, we all speak Kannada (me haltingly, often searching for words in desperation!) Most of the time, I speak with Anna in English, our primary language of communication.

My parents, sometime in the early 70s

I learned Hindi only when I was 9 or 10 years old. Till then, Hindi was limited to the Bollywood songs my mother listened to on the radio. At that time, we thought our father spoke great Hindi (it sounded so much like the songs we heard!) We still laugh when we think of how impressed we were when Anna said, "कलम में स्याही है" ("There is ink in the pen") - his earliest recollection of learning Hindi was not the alphabet but this sentence. It was only much, much later that we realized that Anna's Hindi was South-Indian accented with a very limited vocabulary.

Anna has a great sense of humor, and is a master of the art of quick repartee. This is not just the pride of a daughter, you are reading, but something you will hear from almost anyone who meets him. Before Parkinson's Disease and Dementia stole his ability to be quick and nimble with his words, Anna was the center of attraction wherever he went. Whether the gathering spoke English, or Kannada, or Tamil, if you heard laughter, you were sure to find my father holding court!

Parkinson's Disease and Dementia, now lets us experience only a small percentage of his wit and repartee (as you may have gathered from my blog-stories at Parables of a Parkinson's Patient). But it is still there, and it is still communication, whether in English or Kannada or Tamil.

10 July 2017: One of Anna's "not all there" days

Where once our language of communication was words strung together in any which way we pleased, we now often speak gestures and facial expressions. A language that involves more than a soupçon of detective work based on a long relationship of shared experiences and oft-repeated stories.

I now hear Anna tell me of his pain in a frown, or his confusion in the wrinkled lines of his forehead. I see his happiness in his toothless smile and his childlike excited chatter in the twinkling of his eyes. I hear him struggling to find the right words in his tired frown and the slight upward movement of his pupils.

We don't know them all
but
We owe them all

22 July 2017 at Saket Select Citywalk

I know he is asking for his head to be scratched when he repeatedly tries to raise his fingers to his scalp. A half-raised arm means he wants to wipe his nose or the drool from the side of his mouth. I can now distinguish a Parkinson's-induced twitch of a hand from the gesture that points to an object to ask what it is. I know he is stiff when I can see his weakened muscles strain under his paper-thin skin. The slight shifting of weight from one buttock to the other tells me that he wants his back rubbed or scratched.

A lot of our language of communication are these long-duration macro / micro-expressions. A language I have learned without any formal training, and one that I am teaching his attendants.

This new language is not my mother tongue but is starting to feel just as familiar.

There is no appropriate name for this language - perhaps we can create one!

Do you have any suggestions?

--First published in The Quint on 27 Jul 2017

Shaken, Not Stirred

Sir Roger Moore in 1973
when his first movie
Live and Let Die was released

Yesterday, when I heard of Sir Roger Moore's passing, all I could think of were the James Bond movies we watched with Anna in our childhood. Anna was a big James Bond fan. He took us at an early age to watch James Bond movies, so that we could "build a real appreciation" for them. I must have seen my first Bond movie in the early 70s - with Roger Moore as the suave and sexy 007. I am sure we saw other movies, like Jaws and Close Encounters, but it is the Bond movies that I remember the most.

Here is how one of our movie outings would play out in the Murthi household.  

We'd be eating dinner at 8pm on a week night. Anna would suddenly ask us what movies were currently showing. One of us would interrupt whatever morsel of food was finding its way into our mouth, and go fetch the newspaper (I believe that the first thing I learned to read in a newspaper was the schedule of movies!). We would specifically read out the name of the movie running at Chanakya - the defacto favorite theater for English language movies.

Chanakya Theater
Photo Courtesy: Indiancine.ma Wiki

Anna (and Amma) would ask us if we wanted to see it. Of course, we did! What tweenager or teenager would say no to a trip to the movies in the 70s and 80s?

The six of us would finish eating, clearing the table, cleaning the kitchen, changing clothes, closing windows and doors, packing snacks for the movie hall, and locking the flat in record time. Anna would bring the car and keep it idling in the porch of our block of flats. We would run down the stairs too excited to stand still in a lift with Amma, and tumble into the car with no argument on who got the window seat. 

Anna would get us to the theater by 8:50 pm so that we could buy tickets and be seated in time for the 9 pm show. We never missed an ad or a trailer. Even now, I hate missing theater ads and trailers.

Parle Poppins
I loved the red ones

At Interval, snacks would be taken out of various handbags and consumed with gusto. Those were the days when we could carry oranges, peanuts, chocolates, roti rolls, poppins, & water into theaters and have a picnic. 

Quite often, Anna would take our friends out for James Bond movies too. Since all of us could not fit into a Fiat, the elder kids (with one girl to ensure we could get tickets quickly by standing in the Ladies Queue!) would catch a bus. The younger kids would be driven by Anna and Amma. So well-known is Anna's love for James Bond movies that one of our friends gifted him with a CD set of all James Bond movies for his 80th birthday.

Now, often when we push Anna's wheelchair over rough potholed roads, I joke with Anna and ask him if he is feeling "shaken, not stirred". Anna doesn't normally get it the first time. Then I ask him how James Bond likes his martinis. I can almost hear the wheels of his memory grinding.

"You are shaken, Anna, not stirred. Like James Bond's martinis". He smiles every time. Not in the first telling as he used to, but in the second telling. In the second telling, he smiles.

PS: I haven't told Anna of Sir Roger Moore's passing

Coffee Chronicles - Part 1

Drip-Filter-Coffee Maker
Photo Courtesy: Eatomaniac

Anna, my father, knows how to cook. Not gourmet cook, not survival cook, but somewhere-in-the-middle cook.

Given Anna's love for coffee, obviously, Anna makes fabulous coffee. South Indian coffee, of course! The coffee he calls "Real Coffee" or "The Best Coffee".

From as early as I can recall, I remember hearing Anna in the kitchen early in the morning, making coffee. Anna, would wake up sometime between 4:30 am and 5:00 am in the morning. After saying his prayers, sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed, he would go to the kitchen to make coffee.

My mother, knowing what he would need, would have left a clean and dry drip-filter-coffee maker on the counter top. Anna would just have to load the top chamber with ground coffee, pat the powder down into a "gently packed" cake, place it on the bottom chamber, and pour hot water into the top chamber. While he waited for the coffee decoction to collect in the bottom chamber, he would go to the fridge and pull out a small vessel of milk and boil it. Simple, right? Well not so simple, if it is Anna.

Filter Coffee Decoction
Photo Courtesy: Lime 'n Mint

Three out of seven mornings a week, we would be woken to Anna's hushed-shoutout to my mother from the kitchen,"Saralaaaa, where is the ....". Sometimes it was the coffee powder that he could not find, sometimes the saucepan to heat the water and sometimes the milk.

We would all let out a collective groan.

My mother would respond in a sleepy-voiced hushed-shoutout, "Yane-ree, it's on the shelf / in the fridge / ..."

We got so used to this, that we would wake up at an un-Godly hour to hear Anna and Amma hush-shoutout on various coffee making paraphernalia, and then promptly fall back to sleep.

We were not allowed to drink coffee as children and hence were taught how to make coffee only in our late teenage-hood. We were instructed by Anna on the precise method to get the best coffee decoction - the right quantity of coffee powder to use, how to pat the coffee in the top chamber, the temperature of the water, how to pour water into the top chamber such that the water was clear and not clouded with coffee, etc.

Foaming Filter Coffee at
 Mavalli Tiffin Room, Bangalore

We were only allowed practice runs of making filter coffee. Anna was the one who would always make the coffee at home. Two times a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. Even when Anna was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and Dementia, he continued to make filter coffee everyday. He stopped making filter coffee only after Amma died. I don't know why. It wasn't that he lost interest in drinking coffee. He still loves his coffee. Hot coffee. No matter what the ambient temperature is.

Could it be that one of us, his children, took over his early morning coffee making ritual without asking him if he wanted to give it up?

Could it be that our fear of him hurting himself or burning the house down, made us take it over earlier than necessary?

Could it be that he was not able to manage the physical precision that is needed to make coffee?

I don't know. And I probably will never get to know. Anna doesn't talk that much nowadays, for me to ask him. That time has passed.

The Dangers of Airport Shopping

20 Apr 2017:
Anna doing a great impression of Gautama Buddha

Saturday night was a bad night for Anna. He was agitated all night. Trying to get up off the bed by himself. Insisting on walking (shuffling) around the house. Speaking in English. Looking for something or someone. He finally went to sleep at around 4am. I was a little surprised to hear this, for Anna has been sitting with his eyes closed, whole body relaxed, doing a fabulous impersonation of Gautama Buddha.

On Sunday, Anna builds up enthusiasm to go to the mall for coffee and cake. I keep asking him about his dream, to determine why he was agitated. He just tells me that he does not remember.

23 Apr 2017: Anna & Manish

After our mandatory stop at Starbucks, he is wheeled around the mall while I shop. His attendant, Manish, takes a rest stop in front of a camel covered in flowers. Both Anna and Manish find it interesting.

Then on the way home, we have this conversation:

Anna: Were those real flowers on the camel?

Me: Yes Anna. I think so.

Anna: It must have been very expensive.

Me: Probably.

Anna: Last night I had a bad dream.

Me (suddenly realizing that he, now, remembers his dream): Really? What happened in your dream?

Anna: I bought a shirt. It was really expensive.

Me (not understanding how buying a shirt can be a bad dream): Where did you buy the shirt, Anna?

Anna: At the airport.

Me: What were you doing at the airport?

23 Apr 2017: The marigold covered camel

Anna: Going to a wedding.

Ah! Now I understand. There is a definite connection between a marigold decked camel and a wedding.

This conversation goes on the entire journey home - about 40 mins. All in question answer mode.

Anna recounts his dream (hallucination) with a little encouragement from me, like asking "And then what happened?", or "Really?", or simply saying, "Go on".

Here is the hallucination, using most of his original words.

23 Apr 2017:
Anna in front of the marigold camel

Anna is at an airport. He decides to buy a shirt for a wedding. He chooses the older "model" as the latest "model" is very expensive. He unpacks and wears the shirt and then goes to pay for it. It is then that he realizes that he has no "paper money" and no "plastic money" to pay for it. The cashier tells Anna that they will have to detain him overnight while he arranges for money to pay for it.

Anna searches his belongings and finds that he does not have any papers. He also does not remember our names, addresses, or numbers. He is panicking and the cashier keeps taunting Anna saying that all thieves pretend to have lost money and papers, and then claim not to remember their identity.

With superhuman effort, Anna taxes his brain. He remembers his "valet's" name, Manish. The cashier looks up Manish's contact details on the "address-0-gram" and calls Manish to bring money to the airport. Manish says he will take 1hr 56mins precisely and he does.

At the end of this tale, I ask Anna if he is feeling calm now. He says "Of, course! It was just a dream".

I decide not to tell him that he hallucinated the whole airport shopping event last night and was agitated. He says that the worst part of his "dream" was the embarrassment of being called a thief and being threatened with detention. The dream is over. He is calm now, and that is all that matters to us.

The Importance of Our National Anthem

April 2016: Anna could pick up
a ceramic cup full of coffee and
open the lid of a water bottle.
Now, most days, he can't. 

A few weeks ago, I walked into Anna's house to find a sleepy Anna sitting at the dining table, a hot cup of coffee in front of him, his hands trapped under the table (nowadays, Anna can't seem to work out how to move his hands sideways and up from under the table).

Me: Anna, do you want to drink your coffee?

Anna gives a slight nod of his head.

Me (helping him move his hands sideways and up): Anna, can you hold the cup to drink your coffee?

There is another slight nod but no move to hold the coffee cup.

I bend the index finger of his right hand and curl it around the handle of the cup. That physical cue is enough for the rest of his hand to curl. He lifts the cup. The cup rises a couple of centimeters off the table and is dangerously tilted. He has little strength in his wrist and hand. 

Me (moving his left hand to hold the side opposite the handle): Anna, lift the cup with both your hands.

Anna tries but can't. The alternative is for me to lift the cup to his lips to let him sip his coffee. I've got to be really careful, as the coffee is hot and if I tilt the cup too much, he could burn his lips.

I ask the attendant, Sudama, if Anna had a comfortable night. Sudama tells me that Anna was fine till about 2 am in the  morning. Then he suddenly turned on this back, straightened his legs and spine (almost lying in attention) and sang the Indian National Anthem. Really! The whole national anthem!

Sudama tells me that Anna sang the anthem well. The words were all correct and the tune perfect. I find that hard to believe. Anna is tone-deaf. His Hindi is passable (i.e. it's just about good enough for him to have passed the Government mandated Hindi exam for Central Government jobs in the '50s / '60s).

Over the next week I try to find out what Anna was dreaming of when he sang the National Anthem in the middle of the night. Anna does not recall anything. There is not even a glimmer of a memory. So I try to ferret it out over multiple conversations.

Me: Anna, did you remember the National Anthem from when you sang it?

Anna does not respond.

Me: Anna, did you sing the National Anthem in school?

Anna: Yes.

Really? It can't possibly be. Anna was born in 1928. At Independence in 1947, he would have been 19 years old. From what I remember the anthem was adopted in 1950 when Anna was in college.

Me: Anna, did you sing the anthem in college and not when you were in school?

Anna: Yes.

Me: Anna, we had assembly only in school and not when were in college.

There is no reaction from Anna.

Me: Maybe we should have had assembly in college, Anna.

Still no reaction.

Me: (deciding to go back to familiar territory that had him talking): Anna, didn't you say prayers at assembly? We all said prayers at school assembly. We didn't sing the National Anthem.

Anna: As soon as the National Anthem was declared, we sang the anthem instead of prayers.

Me (surprised): Really Anna? We didn't sing the anthem instead of prayers when we were in school.

Anna: You should have.

Me: Why Anna?

Anna: Because the National Anthem is more important than prayers.

The Staccato Saree Conversation

Staccato Marks
Photo Courtesy: www. songsofthecosmos.com

My conversations with my father have changed. Changed in content and context. Changed in tone and tenor. Mostly, ebbing away with no warning. Our conversations have been impacted by the degradation of Anna's physical and mental abilities. His speech mimics his shuffle-walk of fits and starts, leading to conversations in short bursts. A meaningful conversation can take hours or days. I call these "staccato conversations".

Here is a conversation I had on Monday.

Kodubale

I get to Anna's place after spending a day Ubering from one end of Gurgaon to the other in 37°C temperature. I find Anna sitting on a single-seat sofa sipping tea from a cup held to his mouth by his attendant (nowadays Anna is finding it hard to pick up a mug). On a plate in front of him is a half eaten  kodubale (lovingly made by my first cousin and sent specially for him).

I ask him how he is and get a one word response, "Fine". I try starting conversations by asking if he had a good nap, or dreamed anything interesting, or what he had for breakfast. Nothing really works. At best, I get a one-word answer and at worst, none. This is not a conversation!

In an attempt to start-up a conversation, I decide to tell him about my saree. But first let me give you a little context. For many years, I haven't bought new clothes unless I have given away / retired something similar. I am proud that I have often not replaced old clothes, shrinking my wardrobe. Earlier this year when I went to Jaipur, I had just given away 4 sarees and so did not feel guilty buying a couple more. Printed cotton sarees. One of which I was wearing on Monday.

In an attempt to get Anna to talk with me a little, I get up and stand in his direct-line-of-sight and model my saree.

The saree I modeled for Anna

Me: Anna, do you like my saree?

No answer, so I wait for a bit and repeat the question.

I continue to wait and twirl around.

Me: Anna, do you like my saree?

Anna: Yes

Me: Anna, do you know how much I paid for this saree?

No answer, so I wait for a bit.

Me (feeling proud): Anna, I paid less than Rs. 500/- for this saree.

No reaction.

Me (holding the pallu out so that he can see the design and colors): Anna, isn't this saree pretty? Red and ocher on beige?

Anna (smiling a little): It's nice 

Me: Anna, I bought this saree when I went to Jaipur earlier this year.

He does not recollect my trip to Jaipur and hence there is no response.

Me: Anna, you remember I went to Jaipur in January this year?

There is no memory, no reaction.

Me: Anna, do you know - this is the first saree I have bought in 3 years.

No response.

Me (exaggerating my frugality to see if I can get a response): Anna, I haven't bought anything new in 7 years!

Photo Courtesy: BIGLAWNewsLine!

Long Pause.

Anna (face changing from bored to incredulous): You really think I would believe that?

Bam! A bullet shoots out of Anna's brain! Straight and sure.

Me: Of course, Anna! It's true!! 

Anna (looking at me as if I just told him that unicorns are real!): I haven't seen you repeat a saree in the 2 years I have been here.

Not true. I don't have that many sarees and do repeat them often. And he has been in Delhi with me for nearly 3 years, but I am not going to correct him. I want to have a conversation.

Me: Anna, the second saree is like this one. 

No reaction.

Me: It is prettier, and green and ocher in color.

Still no reaction.

I see his eyes glaze over and know his brain is fogging up. His eyes close slowly and he falls asleep sitting up on his sofa chair.