Goodbye, Srimathi ji!

For a few minutes, I stood transfixed like the Kannagi statue on the sands of Marina.

A few kilometers away, I took a bath in the Bay of Bengal after attending the 10th Day death ceremony of a senior schoolmate and mother-in-law of my niece.

She was a sweet senior, and every single chat over the phone or in person whenever I was in her Andheri/Mumbai flat, we spoke nothing but our teachers: the bespectacled, high-pitched Santhakumari music teacher along with her assistant pencil-thin Saraswati madam. Or about the eagle-nosed Annapoora madam (who knew my maternal parent’s side for decades) and the Catholic Christopher madam in Children Garden School, next to late President of India Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s Edwards Elliot Road residence, where he breathed his last.

Mid-seventies Srimathi, alias Santha, had an incredible exit from Mother Earth. With the entire clan, she was on a south Indian pilgrimage schedule. At her age, she climbed the Swami Malai temple unassisted. Darshaned the deity: Karthikeya alias Subramanyam. Sat in the car next to her hubby, halted at a fuel station to use the washroom, reentered the cab, and her lights went off instantly.

Her mortal remains were brought to Chennai flat, gifted to her by her daddy long ago. She was so attached to her daddy. Girls have a special bonding with their fahther.

In late January, I occupied her unoccupied, fully furnished Chennai flat for a few days before the maiden Cycle Yatra (Chennai to Hosur).

Memories came rushing back as I entered the same flat on a Saturday morning to attend her10th-day death ceremony. Eyes welled up, and the dam burst. Uncontrollable for some time.

Srimathi ji, Hang on. I am equally a tenant on plant earth like you. The time for our next rendezvous remains unfixed. Exit is sure, remember! I will meet wherever you are in whatever swaroop you are in now. Again we can harp on the Santhakumaris. Saraswatis. Annapoornas. Christophers. Sakku Akka.

A few crows gently walk closer to me as I sit at the footstep of the Kannagi statue near the Presidency College, waiting for clothes to dry before I board an auto to the next destination.

Did the crows try to convey something to me? Don’t know. But there was some message. I am trying to decipher. The Chennai dry heat sucks up the tears rolling down my cheeks.

One boat has sailed back to its Maker. Others are waiting their turn.

Goodbye, Srimathi ji!