The Great Son

tanu_mama_tina

 

“A Son more of a Sun in Life…”

 

"She is my mama", said Tanveer...

 
No doubt he was more of a sun in life. Not like any other son. He would often say that he would never leave his parents like the other sons do; in fact he would always be with mommy and daddy. It was the time when Tanu was suffering from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma which was highly aggressive that made him weak with every passing moment. Somewhere around the beginning of December, 2003, my mother asked each one of us to make an outline of our hands on a piece of paper and write a Christmas and a happy New Year greeting for my maternal grand parents which she would translate later. As my brother was suffering from paralysis on the right side, he could not write; my mother drew his hand which had become really weak and asked my little brother what to write. He could hardly speak due to the paralysis but somehow managed. He asked her to write the New Year greetings and that he was missing them a lot. With his deepest feelings he asked our mother to write for an apology for not visiting them for a long period of time, to which he added that time had forced us to do so and a promise of coming and visit them.
 

“A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all.”

 
His voice sounded sad and depressed, with a heavy heart it seemed that he wanted to say something but only tears ruled his eyes which seemed full of pain and anguish. He broke off crying. He couldn’t close his right eye neither could he make his right part of face work, but I remember the pain and misery his cry was depicting. The sound of his cry is still so deep embedded in her heart that she cried when she told me the fact that he somewhere knew that he wont live long enough to see his grandparents. His demise was close, same year, December 8 he left this world and set himself on a heavenly path, just few days after his letter. My mother realized that the letter had to be sent as it was meant for them. With a sad and heart full of grievances she sent the letter with a message that there beloved grandson is no more, she knew it would injure there hearts badly, but she had no choice. We soon realized that this December would never end, being a December for life time. My mother used to take charge of his protocol prescribed by the doctor. Sometimes he never used to take medicine: results were lots of scolding from ‘Mommy’. She used to cry when ever she scolded him, pleaded him to take medicines. He used to take medicines, either by force or by himself; he knew of his up coming tour which had only a one way ticket, a ticket he knew which was for none but him. When our mother recalls those moments of Tanveer’s life, a lot a pain reflects in her eyes and her heartbeat sounds heavy, even if she tries to show that she isn’t crying her eyes tell us all truth.
 

The belief of emotions 

 
It was when we were there back from the place where Tanveer’s funeral pier was light; it was a ritual that according to the wishes of the elders of the family had to be followed.  It was believed that soul which had departed form its body must show its sign of reincarnation’s form on a settled area of sand the morning after the funeral. With a heavy heart and life feeling absolutely lifeless, the understanding power of the brain was nil. The blind faiths and the mythological values played no role in alerting our minds for its false presumptions; rather we carried on with the ritual. A heap of sand was made on the place where Tanveer’s body was kept before the funeral. The next morning the settled sand appeared wet and showed the signs of flower. Since forth our mother never dared pluck a flower in our little collection of flowers, instead she grew more of them. This might not make sense, but it was not about the funeral or the flowers. It is about the love she still has for Tanveer. The feeling and wish to see her child again and feel him. As it is that the senses and the language a heart speaks is totally opposite to that of the practicalities we are surrounded with in each of our lives.
  
He used to try to get up from the bed to hug us. In the days which were close, he often used to start crying but remaining mum about the things he always wanted to say. Sometimes he use to cry that people make fun of him that he had no hair on his scalp, and often use to ask her, “It’s not my fault right that I have become like that due to this painful chemotherapy, what have I done wrong to any body that today I have to face this?” With abundance of sorrow and depression in his heart his question was the same to my mother even till the last day of his life. None of us had any answer to the little boy’s grieving heart and innocent questions. I can only say that he covered for all our sins that we couldn’t pay for, because we often lose those who remain the closest to our hearts. The pain seems to be like a dark cloud that does not even let the sunshine reach out to us. They say that one of the purest relations is of a mother and her child. A mother keeps the child in her womb for nine months, every pain of giving birth to making it a good human to a successful gentleman or lady. A mother’s heart is what endures through all her pains but her heart that can not see her own child’s sorrow, pain or even a little hurt, our mother walked on those thorns that covered the path of being a mother and through all those pains that were given to her by the act of time, a time that no mother on the face of this earth would want to see.
 
"I want to be like my Dad..."
 
Mother and child relation is obviously eternal and emotional so is the father and child relation. A father works day and night to feed his family and to watch them being comfortable and cozy in a place that he has endeavored to make into a home where his beloved children can feel protected to a peaceful smile on their faces as they sleep. As I observed, there seems to be nothing more important in a father’s life than his children’s happiness and there movement on a right path. Bringing up a child is not only due to mother’s love but also the father’s support and teachings. Children stand no where without there parents. But the love children give to there parents is the key ingredient that makes parents live to the hilt. If ever that bond of love is broken, there smiles vanish with no time. What would happen to a father who would loose his child’s love and presence? A father who knows that even though his son or daughter is far away, he knows that his child loves him and that the child is living a good and happy life, but what about the father who would never see his child again, and that he would never hear his or her sweet voice that called out to him…‘Dada’? Even though the little cute troubles the child had caused him, he misses those moments of warm hugs and kisses and sweet little talk sessions that he used to have with his child.
 
 
Our father went through the same phase in life. He still remembers the day of his son’s death with a heavy heart. While I was interviewing our father regarding Tanveer’s treatment for my profile, I asked him each and every detail of Tanveer’s painful life. It was hard for me to continue and for him to tell about those painful moments, his heart grew heavier with every question I asked. None of his answers were without a sigh of pain and shattered heart. It was tough for a father to recall those memories which had bruised his heart for a lifetime which brings out its freshness even now. 
 
What can I say, I am not in their position but I very well know there hearts. My parents suffer even now so do the other relatives. Their loss is immeasurable which none can calculate. He always wanted to spend a lot of time with father, but life gave him this chance on the very verge of his illness, but he was happy spending time with our father. What else would a growing son want; father’s advices, the son and the father talk? There are so many innumerable things that a son would want from a father. Our father who was fond of buying some of the most interesting toys a little boy could have; Tanveer’s first Christmas gift was a talking watch, then came the ‘Lego,’ the little blocks with which Tanveer would make different types of cars, and all the other aviating stuff. Then our father would buy us a set in which we could make a car, monster truck and much more. He love that set even when he was 12 years old. Tanveer loved to play with his ‘Dada’ a game called ‘Tag’. This game of Tanveer’s had a specific pattern, unlike the other tag games this game had its circular path which never changed. Tanveer always preferred to catch our father. Guess what, at the end of the game it was our father running after him in the same circular path. It lies so evergreen in his heart. These small and cute moment always sustain there color no matter how many decades have overtaken such warm experiences. The time when Tanveer was about 4 to 5 years old, the mot prominent thing he used to ask our father was the name of the cars. The first name of a car he learnt was an Indian branded car which was by the name of Ambassador. What do you think a little boy like Tanveer would give it a name? ‘Amte car’, There are so many different words that our father recalls. Some of them were, ‘Heli-cottet’ which was a helicopter, then came a new word with a drastic difference, almost having no resemblance, ‘Koki’, which is common by the name lizard, now…the most popular word in our family history, ‘Epiji.’ Now what do you think this could be? This is an airplane. No logic behind the name keeping a child does for various things, most probably it could be the way it sounds or appears to be, but the enjoyment of a parent is unmatchable. The gift of happiness that exists in the providence of the child’s innocence is the creator of a parent. Even though he does not let his feelings of emptiness without his son get expressed, it is well known that he misses himself being the profiteer of that happiness from the child’s simple but most wanted affection. Even if today some one asks him about Tanveer, his voice exhibits its silent tear that only few see.
 

He said, " I Love my parents... I love my family..."