A Memoir for Ajā

1.

I sit down to write this because I know how fragile human memory is. I know that once a moment passes, it really does pass away. See, they don’t leave a forwarding address, slipping into the past like the sunlight of the sun at sunset, quietly and quite irretrievably. 

Although Papa has been asking me to write an obituary, I will not. Because, I am not a person who’d write an obituary for a near and dear one. I’d write something of that sort for somebody that I didn’t know. I feel a need to put this down in a way that I want to put it down, which is not an obituary.

I don’t want to reduce the life of a person with whom I have lived and breathed to a few words on a social media post where people are quick to comment “RIP” or “Om Shanti” (of course they mean well, no doubts about that) and then, they scroll down, go on to the next post where they chuckle at some meme or a dog chasing its mortal-enemy cat.

While I write this, I also acknowledge that these social media posts, nowadays, are important too. Silence is very easily taken for indifference. We have become hypersocial with the advent of social media. And then there obviously are those people who think it “rude” to not post a few warm words on social media about a near and dear one that passed away. It is as if that post is a proof of love, or its absence. In a way social media posts have now become quantifiable measures of how much you love another person. I would very much like to stay away from that. Albeit, I have to agree that I used to be a victim of the same, not very long ago.

This is a memoir of my maternal grandfather, “Ajā”. And perhaps, I am the least qualified person to write it.

There are others who knew him better. Knew him longer, deeper, in ways that I, truthfully, never did. My sister, for instance, lived with him for four or five years of her formative years, an everyday life. She has the words, and she has the memories. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that she is his favourite grandchild, just as he is her favourite grandparent.

And then, of course, there are his children. My mother and her siblings, who have seen him every day of their growing years. If anyone deserves to write about Ajā, it’s them.

But here I am, writing, albeit with impudence, about him.

Perhaps because I know just enough, not because I know him more. Because even when I wasn’t, he was somehow always around, and not because I was always with him. With him in family gatherings, during visits to our home or his, in conversations and in the green corners of the rooftop-garden he had once tended to. We never lived under the same roof for long, but we shared the same spaces now and then. We shared the same breeze under the mango tree in front of our house, the same plate of sweets during family gatherings where the server would serve him more sweets than he wanted, the same slow evenings at his place in Cuttack. And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.

I’ve come to believe that people are different with different people. That they offer different versions of themselves to different hearts. People wear different smiles, speak in different tones, share different silences with different people. I don’t think Ajā or I are exceptions to this.

So, my Ajā was mine in a way only I knew. A smaller version, perhaps. Gentle, always. Full of curiosity and amusement, passionate about plants and trees, and full of stories without a “Moral of the Story” at the end. And that’s the version of him I carry with me now. Not the loudest, not the most vivid, but real, and entirely my own.

With all this being said, I start with the memoir of Mr. Birendra Kishore Kanungo, a retired IFS officer, known to me as Ajā. He breathed his last in the early hours of 11th April.

I am writing this on the 12th of April, 2025.

It’s 11th April, 7:00AM. I wake up to Papa pounding on my door. I have never really liked it, but I know it is crucial now to wake me up. So now, I am used to it. I wake up and go out to hear about Ajā passing away. I am sleepy, unable to process information inside my head. The words drifted past me like some cold, silent and unreal fog. I stood there. Unsure. Because, well, I don’t know how to react either. Should I go wash my face? Should I be shocked? Should I cry? A flurry of thoughts wash over me. Papa is making tea. Sonali didi is saying something to me, but it has all muffled inside my head.

I look around for Mumma. My heart is with her and I am worried for her. It’s her father who has passed away. I don’t even understand what that would feel like, except for the fact that it must be vast and must hurt her so much. It must’ve felt empty in a manner that it fills everything. 

I take my regular seat on the sofa. Papa brings over the tea.

Slowly, and gently, he tells about his Ajā passed away that morning at around 3AM. Mumma and him visited his place. Mumma stayed back. Well, when I am hearing all this, it is starting to feel like the dew is settling on me and I am starting to register the fact that Ajā is no more. I won’t be able to hear that familiar warm and gentle chuckle anymore. And I am not romanticising or forcefully writing for this to be some poetic remembrance or something of that sort. I genuinely heard his low-mids filled voice, air escaping out through the front where a few teeth had long made their exit, and him laughing every now and then in between a sentence. It is ringing in my ears as I am writing this. I am truly hearing it now: his voice, a little breathy, a little amused, laughing softly between words.

While I was reminiscing about all this, Papa had laid out a plan of action about how we were to go about that day till the funeral. About how we were to pick up Mumma and Nanu mausi (her sister) from some place and go to Swargadwara at Puri for the cremation.

I listen to all of it. And then I immediately go and fetch my laptop. This was not an attempt to escape, it was an attempt to hold on. I remember how Ajā’s face had lit up when I had told him about the book that I was writing; how he told me “This is a good thing you’re doing,” he said. “Let me know if you need any more help”.

I remember coming back home and proudly telling Mumma about how Ajā really loved my work and wished me well.

Ajā loved his books. He was a bookworm. He loved his books. You’d see him reading up on anything and everything. His books had a signature style. Neatly wrapped in brown paper and the title of the book neatly written in capital letters on the book spine and front; the original book cover would have been pasted inside the book. All this showed how meticulous he was with the things that he loved. Not just this. He was a person who lived in the meticulousness of things.

He was a religious person too. An aware one. He followed a lot of rituals and superstitions but was well aware of them merely being rituals and superstitions. He often told me not to worry much about what rituals and so-called “traditions” say and rather do whatever I deemed fit. Do it diligently, with all the conviction in the world.

He loved reading the Srimadbhagavadgita. There are so many versions of it that he has read and kept. I borrowed one of the versions from him where it was translated and explained in English.

Well, for some context, he never understood the line of work that I was in. Well, I am a musician, and he was a government officer who was heavily into academics. Well, damn, he was a forest geneticist. A scientist. And when he heard of me trying to become a musician, well, he gave a confused reaction to it. He was not entirely convinced, and I don’t blame him at all. Even at the time, I didn’t mind it because he was supportive and straightforward. He told me once, in his own way, chuckling through speech, “see I don’t understand all this, but good that you’re doing it. You move ahead and don’t listen to other people. It’s not worth it!”

I brought the draft of the book. Tried to write. But all the while, I was thinking of him. Everything reminded me of him. Of how he’d have loved to see this come to fruition. Of maybe how I am taking so much time to complete the book and all.

My train of thought was broken again when Papa interrupted me and asked me to call Mumma to ask her about where we shall be picking her up. Before I could, Mumma called me. I picked up the call.

Well, that broke my heart. She was shaken. Her voice was breaking and trembling. I have never heard Mumma this way. “Me and Nanu māusi are leaving from Jagannath temple” she said. “Ask Papa about where we are meeting.” I relayed the details. “Okay. We’ll leave in a cab and meet you there” She cut the call.

I kept the phone down. But something stayed with me: the way her voice cracked.

Images of Mumma as a child, playing around with Ajā flooded my mind. I am crying when I am writing about it. Damn.

She has told us stories about how they used to live in remote forest areas because Ajā was constantly posted in those places; about how Ajā used to bring her and her siblings presents from any outstation trips that he would take; how Ajā would bribe her, cajole her and even gently force to call him “Bāpā” rather than “Dādā” that all of her siblings called him. He’d try to keep mudhi away from mumma and give it to her only when she called him “Bāpā”.

He was a kind man. Genteel. He wasn’t the one to raise his voice until and unless it was to call out somebody’s name at dusk when it was time for dinner.

There was a big lump in my throat. I took a huge gulp to help suppress my tears.

2.

I went to the washroom to freshen up quickly before we left home. I looked around. Everything was where they should have been. It really bothered me that something of this gravity has happened in my life and then there’s something that is showing me that nothing has changed? How is that even possible?

Papa had called me twice. We’d be late if we don’t leave soon. I brushed my teeth quickly and came out. Changed into full pants and left.

The roads that morning were not calm, as usual. Everything and everybody moved at their own pace, unscathed by the tragedy that hit us. And as for me, I sat in the front passenger seat, looking out at a world that had not changed at all. The milk vendors were out on their bicycles, a boy in school uniform reading a book, half asleep. Everybody went about their business as usual, as if nothing had happened.

Papa drove and tried keeping a conversation going. I replied, trying to sound as normal as was possible for me. I stay silent a lot. It is my way of holding space for myself and for others around me. I think I inherit it from my mother. We don’t speak when the air feels too heavy to speak. We let things be. We drove in silence, apart from the occasional conversations about trivial topics. Except for the one time where Mumma called us to inform us that she and Nanu māusi had reached the agreed-upon place.

As we turned right into the road where Mumma and Nanu māusi were supposed to be standing, waiting for us, I started getting a little anxious. From afar, I recognised mumma. Her face was tired. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but she didn’t cry. She came into the car and sat down at the back, with Nanu mausi. As both the sisters came into the car and sat down, the air changed. They had lost their father. 

The road to Puri is a familiar road. We’ve travelled it so many times as a family for short beach trips, temple visits, performances, and so on. There was that one time when we stopped for coconut water on the way. And generally, these trips are riots of laughter for around 40-50% of the times. I always carry a book with me for when I’d get some time to read the book in between the laughs.

It's strange. How grief binds us.

We saw Ajā’s body in an ambulance. Draped in white cloth. The term “ambulance” is not appropriate here I think. It was a vehicle with an open back and transparent windows on all sides (for people to view the body), and the vehicle’s only purpose was to take bodies to the crematorium. The vehicle had “ଅନ୍ତିମ ଯାତ୍ରା” (meaning “The Last Journey”) or something else written on it as if it were proudly announcing to the world that somebody had died and they were being transported in that car. You see, in our tradition, the dead are looked up with respect. It is an honour to do any service for them. 

We stayed behind that car, not strictly though, losing sight of it every now and then.

As we reached Puri, the sea came into view. Puri’s sea, generally, isn't as rough as it was that day. We spotted the Swargadwara, slowed down, and started looking for a space to park our car. A policeman directed us a little ahead, but we couldn’t find the spot he meant. Growing impatient, we parked in front of a hotel, decided that we’d come back to check on it (for it was illegal to park there and we feared that it would be towed) and stepped out.

On the other gate of Swargadwara, Ajā’s body was waiting in the vehicle.

Swargadwara - the gateway to heaven, they call. I remember the last time we were here. It was for Bou’s cremation. Ajā had let out a small chuckle at the name, amused by the name, though I suspect it was just his way of masking sorrow. As we reached the other side of Swargadwara, I got my first glimpse of the body that used to be Ajā; now the form was devoid of its soul and life; the body, stripped of its chuckle and wisdom. 

I saw his feet. His thumb was still crooked, just as it had been for as long as I could remember. It used to be better before, but due to some complications, the thumb had gotten bent and since then, walking had become quite a struggle. Not that he ever complained. He walked every day nevertheless. He never boasted about it until and unless asked about it. And once you ask him about it, well then, you’d get the whole story.

He used to walk a lot in his younger years when he was an officer in the Forest Department at the Forest Research Institute in Dehradun. He likes to portray himself as a strict person, though never without the chuckling. I, for most of the times that I have heard the story, have denied and laughed it off straight up, saying that I don’t think he’d ever be able to be strict. “You?” I’d say, laughing, “And strict?” But Mumma and her siblings are the ones to disagree.

It’s funny how I keep writing about him in the present tense only to realise it later and edit the entire thing, oft with a heavy heart, and at times, with a smile.

Even he would disagree, albeit chuckling. He’d then tell stories about how he would make the students run uphill. There would also be pop quizzes en route about the trees and plants that they saw on their way; and if/when they stopped, he’d shout at them to keep going. I don’t know to what degree it is a true story. And even now, as I write this, I can see myself turning to him, calling it all nonsense; and him, amused, letting me believe whatever I wanted.

As is customary, I bent down to touch his feet, but I was hesitant.

I was scared to feel stillness and lifelessness. Scared that those feet, once so warm and full of life, would now physically feel cold. What bothered me most was that now, no amount of love or comfort could reach him through my touch. I, on occasions, massaged his feet on hot afternoons while the fan on the fan whirred above us. He’d give me directions on how much pressure to apply and where to massage. I could hear his voice so clearly, it felt as if I were dreaming.

I was scared that when I touched his foot, he wouldn’t lift his palms and bless me, saying “ବୁଢ଼ାଟିଏ ହେଇଥା”---may you live long, and now, it goes without mentioning, chuckling his way through it.

I was too scared to confirm what my eyes and ears already knew; afraid that one more sense, touch, would make it all too final. If I didn’t touch him, perhaps, some small corner of my heart could still pretend he was alive.

I didn’t touch his feet.

If you’ve been to Puri, you’d know of the crowd over there. Swargadwara was no exception. The street outside had sweet shops and handloom shops which maintained a steady flow of people. It felt hollow, without any meaning. What I felt, in no way did the world reciprocate.

The stillness in me started mixing around with surroundings morphing into a buzz in the background, broken every now and then by murmurs and shouts about Ajā’s missing documents. He was a disciplined man and an academic. If he were alive, you’d never have to worry about documents. His Aadhaar card and death certificate were not in place, and without them, they wouldn’t take him to the crematorium.

Bureaucracy has no room for grief.

I stepped aside quietly. I was trying very hard not to cry, I know my mother and aunt too, must have been going through the same. And, no, I am not talking about the crying where one sobs. What was brewing in me was quieter, more dangerous. One would just see a tremble in the lip and some mist in the eye, yet that exactly is the one that threatens to turn into a flood with the gentlest push.

It appalled me how others moved around him with such ease. As if he were asleep. How do people do that? How do they stay strong in front of the hands that once held their tiny hands? It was at that moment, I realised, we don’t all grieve the same way. Some of us break silently. Some don’t break at all, at least not where anyone can see.

On the verification of his documents, we finally got the permission to take him out of the vehicle and move him inside the crematorium. I climbed into the vehicle that had brought him. It was a strange thing, to sit beside someone for the last time, knowing fully well they won’t respond. We were there to help bring the bier out. 

I saw his face. Stuffed with cotton in the mouth and nose. The sight hit harder than I expected. Another huge lump on my throat had to be dealt with. His head still had the little dent from the hematoma surgery he had a few years back. That was probably the only time he has been hospitalised. 

A patch of red sindura was clumsily smudged across his forehead. Too bright, too festive. It reminded me of Holi. Ah, the festival of colours. He was born on Holi, before independence. I’ve never seen pictures of him as a little boy, however I imagine them all the same, running around in a huge house. And the entire picture in my mind comes with that old brownish hue. All of it looks like an old photograph. Even the joy. I don’t remember spending Holi with him in person. Just the usual long-distance rituals: sending a cake, and making a call. This Holi was no different. I was in Delhi. I called him late in the evening. He had a habit of starting conversations with a sharp, cheerful “Kiyo!” That day, he didn’t answer.

But he called back.

I asked if he was doing well. “Would I have answered your call if I wasn’t fine?” he said, laughing. That was him, always deflecting concern with humour. We spoke for a few minutes. I told him I was in Delhi but wouldn’t be able to visit Dehradun this time. “Next time,” I said, “I’ll come and take you on a flight.” He chuckled, and then gently pulled the conversation back to reality. “Arey,” he said, “do I have the age to travel now?” I protested, of course, though playfully. Told him he had plenty of time left. That he still had places to go. It was a custom. I think he knew the routine too. “You’re the kid now,” he said. “It’s your turn to travel. I’ve been to enough places in my time. Now you go. You enjoy.” After a few more pleasantries, we hung up.

That was the last Holi. His last birthday. The last time we made a plan that would never happen.

And yet, somehow, as I sat there beside his still form trying to push out the bamboo bier, the memory of that call didn't bring me sorrow. Not entirely. It reminded me of the sound of his voice, the way he laughed, and the lightness with which he existed, never bothering anybody.

Holding him on our shoulders, calling out “Rām nām satya he! Hari nām satya he!”. I didn’t shout. The most that my voice was capable of was to murmur under my breath. It was only meant for me to hear, nobody else.

He was heavy.

And there I was, helping him down the vehicle, carrying him through the gate. I couldn’t believe that I was part of this; that I had a place in this strange, final journey. I know Ajā must have been chuckling from wherever he was. I heard his chuckle, loud and clear.

You see, he used to walk. A lot. Not the kind of morning walks people do these days, these half-hearted stroll in sports shoes for the sake of a fitness tracker strapped to them. No, he walked properly. Purposefully. Every single day before dawn, he’d set out, covering ten, sometimes fifteen kilometres without fuss. It was a habit he’d maintained from his days at the Forest Training Institute, right up to his very last day on this planet.

And yet, in daily life, he always had a bit of a problem walking, something to do with his footwear not being appropriate, though he never explained much. But he’d smile and say, almost defiantly, that he could still run if he wanted to. Run the same road, in fact.

Now, I never saw him run. Not once. But somehow, I believed him. Maybe not the act of running itself, but the spirit of it. The certainty in his voice made you believe, even when your eyes, logic, and everything else told you otherwise.

It became a sort of game between us. I’d poke fun at him, as was our custom. He’d claim he could run, and I’d make a grand announcement saying Ajā didn’t need any help.

Not with walking, not with stairs, not with anything.

I’d boast, “Ārey, he can run five or ten kilometres! What’s a flight of stairs compared to that?” He’d then reply with a spirited, “Haan” and go on to climb the staircase.

Even when others stepped forward to offer a hand to hold his arm or steady his walk, I’d stop them. I would say loudly and confidently, “He doesn’t need help.” I’d shoo them away and take up the role myself; not to hold him, not to support him in any real, physical sense. I’d simply stand behind him, close enough to catch him if needed, but never close enough to make it obvious. Making sure there was no chance of him slipping. Making sure, in the only way I knew, that he was safe.

I never really cared what others thought of it. That wasn’t the point. It was just my way of helping him feel a little younger. Whether it worked or not, I’ll never know. Whether he felt that small flicker of youth while climbing the stairs on his own, step by step, I can't say.

But I do hope so.

I do hope, in some small way, it helped.

3.

How people say your life flashes before your eyes before you die. I don’t know about that. But I am sure of one thing now. Their life flashes before yours when you look at them for the last time. Yes, I was living all my moments with Ajā again.

After carrying him inside, we had to wait in the “waiting area”. It is a word so merciless, so bureaucratic that I think it could only belong to the living.

We waited for further processing of documents, and a token number. A token number. Even in death, the system demanded paperwork and patience. Somewhere, a register was opened. Somewhere, a priest was being matched to a corpse. Somewhere, a set of logs were being allotted. Life, reduced to logistics.

His absence hadn’t begun yet, not completely. That always takes time. Absence always takes time.

I stood at the waiting area of Swargadwara, near Ajā, with the smell of ghee fueled fire, sandalwood, sweat, flowers, and smoke. My eyes welled up from time to time. Those little wet bastards, betraying me. I was no person to lose. I kept blinking fast, drying them out before they could gather too much meaning. Well, composure is an odd thing. We perform it more for others than for ourselves. I think I was fairly successful at it too. People looked at me and came ahead with pleasantries. The good grandson standing by his grandfather. The steady one.

I was looking for ways to distract myself while standing there. “Eliminate the root cause,” they say, to eliminate the problem. But what does that mean when the root is someone you love, lying motionless just a few feet away? For me, the best way to not break down was not to think of Ajā. Even while being so close to him, one hand resting on the bier. Difficult, I know. Like standing next to fire and pretending it doesn’t warm you.

So I did what most people do when emotions become unbearable; I looked elsewhere. I started noticing things around the crematorium. Mundane things. The cracks in the wall, the fly circling the same corner of the soot-lined ceiling, the way the wind carried bits of ash and dust like confetti from a cruel celebration. People around me, too, had found ways to look away.

Some family members had retreated to the waiting area meant for the living. I didn’t blame them. They were old, arthritic, diabetic, tired in a way that wasn’t just physically possible for them. You could see it in the way they sat: resting, debating politics (maybe), waiting to be needed again. Or not needed. Whichever came first.

I searched for Māmu. He had gone with Papa to see to the documents and the token. Papa is always the one to manage these things, always steady in emergencies, fluent in paperwork and formalities, in the language of systems. I saw them standing in a short queue behind two others. Men with the same hollow expression of someone carrying the recently dead.

Death is a great equaliser, they say. But bureaucracy? An even greater one.

Everyone waits.

Everyone is given a token.

Everyone needs to sign a paper, answer a question, wait for a stamp.

I find there’s something very absurd about it; that grief, that final departure, must pause to allow for administrative clearance. I watched the pace of it all. One family in front was taking their time and I guessed, maybe twenty, thirty minutes more before Ajā’s turn would come.

And then, on cue, my eyes welled up again.

I saw more arrivals. More relatives and acquaintances, the extended tree that only comes together during weddings and family functions. They approached with nods and unsure expressions. I blinked fast. Dried my eyes. Greeted them, without many words. Without reciprocating their enthusiasm. How can one summon enthusiasm in a place like this?

Then came Ajā’s brother-in-law, old and frail, walking on his own. Halfway to him, his foot slipped. He recovered in a second, waved off the concern with a shaky “Heh, nothing happened.”

I saw it happen, yet I couldn’t move a muscle. It felt trivial at that moment. The kind of thing that might have mattered much more on any other day. I did take a few steps in his direction (instinct, maybe) but someone was already there. He helped him up, placed a hand on his back.

I read a quote written on the walls of the waiting area where I was standing.  It translates to “we play our parts in the stage of life, and once our part ends, we exit the stage”. Even in death of a near and dear one, the performance goes on, and we play our parts, blinking back tears that threaten to leak through the cracks in our practiced faces.

I still couldn’t bring myself to touch him.

It wasn’t fear. Maybe it was everything I hadn’t said. Or the things I’d taken for granted, like his voice calling my name, or the way he sat in the balcony with his tea, like even that deserved reverence. Touching him would make it real. And I wasn’t ready for that yet. They say the soul takes time to leave. I believe that. He was still lingering. Watching me, maybe. Waiting to see if I’d touch his hand. I couldn’t. Not yet.

Not because I didn’t love him, it was because I did.

As I kept standing near Ajā, my grief kept up its tempo. Tearing up, blinking fast, going to the side to drink some water, then willing myself into composure. My body had developed its own system by then: feel, blink, breathe, hydrate, pretend.

As that was going on in the background, something caught my eye. A man pushing a wheelbarrow, in a practiced and indifferent manner, hauling logs into the cremation area. The wheelbarrow roared and the wood clattered softly as he rolled past.

And then it struck me. In the middle of this heat, this smoke, — how poetical.

Ajā, who had spent his entire life in the forests.

Ajā, who had served as an officer, as a steward of the green.

A man who had committed his working years to the service of trees. And now, in the strangest curve of coincidence, it was the same organisation, Odisha Forest Development Corporation, supplying the wood that would carry him into fire.

He had always been loyal in work and also in other small, ordinary ways. He insisted on getting his honey, his turmeric, and his oils from the OFDC shop. It was a principle for him, not convenience. A small act of integrity. 

He had trained Mumma the same way, I think, by example not instruction. Subconsciously, she followed the same ritual: buying her honey from the OFDC shop.

Every time she’d return from the shop, she’d tell us proudly that she visited the OFDC store. I don’t think it was out of pride that she announced it, it is more like the way people repeat things that comfort them. She’d mention how, back in his days, Ajā had drafted a needy man into service. That same man now sits in the OFDC shop.

He still remembers Mumma, though she must have been a child when Ajā gave him that chance. Still remembers Ajā, of course. The job had got him employment, with that, came dignity.

I’ve never met this man. I’ve only heard of him in these stories. The thought of him sitting there, handing over jars of honey and oil, felt like some part of Ajā was alive in the world. In these footnotes of other people’s lives. That’s what legacy really is: what is remembered.

And now this. Ajā would be laid to rest covered with the very woods he once protected, perhaps even ones he had walked past in his younger days, when he was posted here in Odisha. Trees whose leaves he once used to pick up and quiz his students about are now returning to him as an offering.

A poetic death.

No fanfare. No music. The forests he once belonged to, about to offer him back to the fire.

4.

And, standing like this, by his bier, time went by. A lot of time.

I had long run out of ways to distract myself, so I started drumming softly with my fingers on the bamboo bier. A simple seven-beat cycle, almost subconscious. Something to keep my hands busy while my mind spiralled in and out of memory. I was humming, barely audibly, “Ahe Nila Saila”, one of Ajā’s favourite bhajans. He was no singer, but he’d once sung it with me and told me that it's a beautiful bhajan. Now, it went back to him through my thoughts and cracked humming.

By this time, many more relatives had arrived. The conversations had started to swirl around me. One could constantly hear low murmurs, small talk, pitiful sighs, ritual questions. Most of them said the same thing: “He passed peacefully, didn’t he?” or “No struggle, right?” As if peace could somehow be measured by the absence of flailing, as if death needed to be confirmed as gentle in order to be acceptable.

That reminds me, I haven’t even mentioned how Ajā passed away.

It’s strange. I wasn’t there when it happened, and yet I feel like I was. I’ve heard the story so many times, told to so many people, in so many repetitions, that I’ve memorised it without meaning to. I watched Mumma explain it to four or five people. Then Papa told it to others. And again, and again. There was something comforting, even sacred, about its repetition. And everyone who called, no matter how far or close, always wanted to know the same thing: How did he die?

Even those who found out through my sister’s Facebook post would also ask it. No matter how heartfelt their condolences, the question always arrived: What exactly happened? As if the details would help them process it. As if the agitation or calmness of his passing would somehow ease the finality of it.

And the story goes like this:

Ajā woke up at 2:30 AM, which was his usual time. Early morning was sacred to him, in both, the religious sense, and also in the way he honoured discipline. He brushed, shaved, dressed, all as per routine. Always well-kept, even in the early hours.

As he was about to step outside, he told Māmu that he wasn’t feeling great. Māmu asked if he wanted some glucose water. He said yes, drank it, but vomited shortly after. Still, he insisted he was feeling better, that he was fine to go for his morning walk. A man of habits, even when his body had begun to falter. Māmu offered to take him to the doctor. He refused.

Still, Mamu, cautious, maybe sensing something beneath the surface, asked his son to book an ambulance. None were available. So Lilan, my cousin, said he’d drive him himself.

Before leaving, Māmu asked if he needed help going down the stairs. Again, Ajā refused. That stubbornness, the dignity of age. Mamu helped him anyway.

When they reached the ground floor, Ajā sat down. Said there was still a little pain in his chest. 

And then, just like that, he passed away.

No hospital. No machines. No drawn-out struggle. Just a final exhale in the calm and dark of early morning that he loved so much, after completing the rituals he had followed for decades.

A man who lived with discipline, left in the same way. Clean. Composed. Dignified. There’s something that's so perfect about it. Not cinematic. Not dramatic. Just… complete.

A shout directed at me jolted me into reality.

All the filing, the documentation, the signatures and tokens was finally over. It all happened without any warnings. A small wave of urgency came rushing toward me.

“We have to carry him into the crematorium.”

“We’ve got the token number.”

“The Brahmin is waiting for us at number sixteen.”

There was no time to absorb them, no time for a pause, a breath, a final word with the stillness. Everything that had been floating, the thoughts, tears, routines, now snapped into action. And just like that, without any final emotional preparation, four of us lifted the bamboo bier; others followed behind.

It was surprisingly light. The body that had once carried my mother on his shoulders; whose presence had filled homes, cars, forests, was now on our shoulders. We took off toward the cremation ground. It was a gentle slope and I, the tallest one. Had to take it off of my shoulder so it doesn't get disbalanced. I felt my hands grip the poles tightly. I was afraid to let go of the bier and of the moment.

The air filled with slogans.

“Rām nām satya hai!” 

“Hari nām satya hai!”

Over and over.

The chant echoed around us with a steady, call-and-response. Papa was the one leading them, his voice strong, naturally so. I don’t know how he did it. Maybe he had prepared himself for such a moment when his parents, my favourite grandparents, passed away. Maybe the words gave him something to hold on to. Or maybe, like the rest of us, he was simply following the rhythm because to stop would be to fall apart.

By this time, between the rush and the ritual, I had come to terms with it.

Ajā is no more.

The thought didn’t hit me like a blow. It dawned on me gently. I had been orbiting the fact all morning, circling around it with memories, distractions, songs, and eye-blinks. And now, with the chants rising around me and the bamboo pressing into my shoulder, I entered it fully.

He is gone.

And now we carry him forward to the cremation ground, and to whatever lives in us after this.

5.

It is April 18th. It has been a week since Ajā left us.

This morning, once again, Pāpā asked me to write a eulogy. He didn’t ask if I wanted to. Just assumed I would. That I could find the right words. Or that I’d somehow string them together in a neat, acceptable way like a garland of marigolds that you find in every florists’. His request came with that sense of social duty he wears so naturally. I can’t fault him for it. He is a man of the world, his instincts are outward-facing. I am not.

To me, this public ritual of writing/speech, of closure, feels hollow. I acknowledge that to others, it’s what you do. Grief has a form, and it must be filled.

I haven’t told him something. I haven’t told him that I’m already writing a memoir for Ajā. Not just a speech. Not a post or a line or two to tide over the expectations. A slow gathering of memory, not meant for immediate consumption. I don’t want to be asked how long it will take, or when I’ll show it. I’m not ready for it to be seen, not until it’s done, not until it has grown into itself.

And if Pāpā ever reads this someday, I hope he knows that there is no blame here. Only an honest difference in how we carry grief and how we share it. I’ve come to understand that part of our bond lies in this strange choreography: his impatience has made me learn my quiet resistance, and his persistence has taught me my patience.

Now, we've understood that it’s not a conflict. It’s rhythm.

Somewhere along the way, I’ve learned how to meet his urgency without flinching, and he, whether he says it or not, knows I’ll always come around in my own time.

So yes, I know he means well. He always does. But what is being asked of me is his way. Mine is to write this. To offer it not when asked, but when ready.

I remember, when my grandmother passed away, I shared a video of me playing a bhajan on my sitar. A small honest gesture. I remember hearing it when her cremation was going on. And I came home, recorded it, wrote whatever came to my mind and uploaded it to Facebook and Instagram. That was my first public eulogy/obituary. It didn’t feel good. It felt as if I were showing off my skill or selling my art at the event of my grandmother’s passing. Her passing away was never meant to be an “opportunity”.And then, again when Jayanta ji, the one who built my sitar, passed, I wrote for him too. I hardly knew him, but the instrument he shaped for me had his soul. He’d crafted it with care, and I’d felt that care. I love that instrument as if it were an extension of me. That was enough for me to write an obituary.

And, again, I must admit, this memoir isn’t born solely out of the goodness of my heart.

There are selfish reasons too. Not the ugly kind. Just the practical ones. 

The very first one is regret avoidance. I know how time works on memory. I remember Ajā clearly now: the way he hummed Gita Govinda under his breath while me singing it infront of him, the way his hands moved when he read the newspaper, how he chuckled with his eyes before his mouth caught up. These are things I remember now. But what about ten years later? Will it become, “maybe he used to do this?” or “was that someone else?” If I don’t write it down now, I am afraid it will dissolve slowly. I don’t want to be left with just the aftertaste.

And I don’t like saying I could’ve or I should’ve. I’m not built that way. I either do it, or I let it go completely. No in-betweens, no what-ifs. That’s not principle. That’s survival.If something matters that much, you just begin.

Then, secondly, there’s another truth: I needed this. A break from the other book I’ve been wrestling with for two years now. That one’s a different kind of work: explaining another poet’s thoughts, their choices, their metaphors, their silences, and all that there is. It’s satisfying, yes. It exhausting at the same time. This writing is more like sitting in the sun with my back against an old tree. I’m not explaining anything to anyone here. I’m just writing things as I remember them. I don’t need footnotes, citations, or references. Only presence.

So if this memoir feels personal, it’s because it is. Not just in the way readers like to romanticise. It’s personal because it’s mine to remember, and mine to write before either of it slips too far away.

And I have started. This memoir is my real eulogy.

6.

It has been a few days since Ajā passed away.

Some in the family are still visibly in mourning, not yet fully returned to the rhythm of daily life. Today, we visited Ajā’s house for the first time since. There was a lot to be done—rituals to be arranged, feasts to be planned, guests to be informed, and all the formalities that gather around a person’s passing. 

Death, as it turns out, is administrative too.

We sat in the very room Ajā used to sit in. Discussions swirled, mostly among the elders, my parents, uncles, aunts. Some light-hearted, some intense. I say “we,” but I wasn’t really involved in anything. I was just laying there, on the sidelines. Occasionally laughing at a joke or two, when the mood broke and someone’s wit peeked through. The maternal side of my family tends to be like that: warm, and light-hearted, even in grief. They argue, they misunderstand each other, despite that, the heavy air between them doesn’t linger for long.

There was one name that kept coming up again and again. Lilu Ajā, my grandfather’s younger brother. He, too, is old now. Stubborn like some elders manage to be… a kind of refusal to yield to time or logic. If Ajā had a soft, teasing sort of stubbornness, the kind that made you smile, then Lilu Ajā was the immovable kind.

After Ajā passed, Lilu Ajā became fixated on a few specific details. He kept calling my mother and her siblings repeatedly, insisting that the date of death be recorded as the 10th of April, not the 11th. Because, he argued, it happened before sunrise. Not once, not twice. He called each sibling, separately, and made the same point, again and again. Naturally, everyone was irritated, however nobody dared say so out loud.

That evening, he called again. This time, Pāpā picked up. Now he was talking about Ajā’s birth date. He had copious, meticulous astrological charts full of celestial placements and retrogrades and things I and most of the people there didn’t really understand. Pāpā kept jotting down details so that he could answer if Lilu Ajā came up with a pop quiz to assess whether Pāpā was listening.

And all I gathered was that he was certain Ajā was born on the full moon of March 1939. I looked it up. The full moon that year was on the 5th of March. But Lilu Ajā kept insisting it was the 16th. When I checked, the date 16th, matched the full moon of 1938. Everyone quietly agreed not to correct him. It wasn’t worth it. He would argue, and the conversation would stretch on and go nowhere. So, we let it be. I mentally checked out of the discussion after that.

After this discussion about Ajā’s birth year and date, I tried imagining Ajā as a baby.

It was impossible. The mind resisted. I tried picturing his face, those familiar features lined with age, with wisdom, with the wear of decades on the small, round head of an infant. It didn’t work. My imagination simply wouldn’t let him be anything other than who he has always been to me. A grandfather. He has existed in that form, in that role, for so long in my life that any other version of him feels fictional. He was never created or “born” in my eyes. He just was. Like a mountain. He was always there the way he was.

This conversation with Lilu Ajā brought back a memory. I have met him twice in the same crematorium. Once when Bou, Ajā’s wife, passed away. And again, now when Ajā, his elder brother, was gone.

That first time, he had pulled me aside, and told me softly how Bou was the one who had held the family together.

“She was the glue,” he said. His voice trembled slightly, and then, like everyone else, he folded back into the rituals, disappearing into the background.

This second time, I saw him again, standing there as we prepared Ajā for his final journey. I was removing the flowers and the ropes from the bier. Mumma was doing it too. That was, perhaps, the first time I had touched Ajā’s body. It felt stiff. Foreign. A version of him I had never known.

Later, when the Brahmin gave the signal, a few of us, the males from the family, lifted his body off the bamboo frame and began taking the customary rounds around the pyre. My vision was already blurry, and my thoughts refused to arrange themselves into anything coherent. I don't remember how many rounds we took. All I remember is the weight of his body, how heavy he felt, how final. It was like he wasn’t even trying. I held his arm during those rounds. I know myself. I should have thought of the times he had rested that same hand on my shoulder when he needed support. Or the times he placed it gently on my head, as a blessing.

I didn’t.

The truth is that it simply didn’t feel like his hand. It was his body, yes. Not him.

And then, there was an urgency to preserve. I wanted to remember his hand the way it used to be. Not this version, cold and unrecognisable. I didn’t want this to be the memory that stayed. So I told myself it was still him. I pretended.

Nostalgia is a painful thing. You can return to your past all you want, but nobody would be there.

Soon after, the reality began to settle in, inevitability. The fear I had carried since the moment I saw his body came true. I had known this would happen. That the moment I touched him, truly touched him, it would confirm everything. That he was no longer here.

And so it did.

My brain registered it.

And my emotions, held tightly until then, began to rise slowly and silently.

Once the body was placed on the pyre, the Brahmin began his loud, practiced and mechanical chants. Flowers were offered one by one. Ghee, thick and golden, was poured by each family member in turn.

In all this, my mother stood a little apart, phone in hand. She video-called her eldest sister, my aunt, who couldn’t come. She tried, but the tickets were unavailable. On the phone, she wept. I watched her face. It was not just sadness. It was helplessness. Distance and death are never kind to each other.

I cannot imagine what that call must have felt like. To receive the news of your father’s death and know you won’t reach in time to say goodbye. To not even be able to sit among the mourners, touch his hands, or see his face one last time.

In the end, I think this is all we truly earn in life: a few people who care enough to stand near our body when we are no longer there. Because, one can be sure that the people who come, have nothing to gain from you. They come because they love us. Because they still do. To me, it is one of the most selfless acts.

Ajā had that. He had people. And he had his trees, sitting there in the pyre, ready to escort him to his next journey.

I cried, finally. I let the tears come.

The Brahmin, in between chants, tore open the ghee packet with brute force. He passed it around again. One by one, the family stepped forward. I didn’t. I watched. I didn’t want to. That small rebellion felt right.

When the packet was empty, someone flung it aside. I winced. Ajā would’ve hated that. He was always careful with such things. Even waste had to be handled with grace.

Till date, whenever I throw away an empty packet, I fold it first. I don’t know why. Does it help the ragpickers? Does it help someone at the sorting centre going through the piles of plastic?

I have no idea.

I do it because Ajā did. Or maybe he didn’t.

It was my sister who once told me he did, when I was a child. And I believed her. It seemed like such a dignified thing to do. I’ve done it ever since.

Fold. Then throw.

7.

Ajā loved gardening. Not like a hobby as most people do, it was more like an extension of himself. On the roof of his house at Mahanadivihar, there are rows and rows of potted plants. Big, small, flowering, medicinal. He tended to each of them knowing that care is no single act; it is a daily, seasonal, yearly thing. I have never really seen him work in the garden, but I have seen him at times snipping dry leaves, loosening the soil, pouring water with a mug, never hurried. The garden was far from perfect, even so always full of life. It was his quietest and purest devotion.

And then, there was the other garden he carried in his head: a map of trees, plants, soil types, root systems, flowering seasons, leaf margins, and everything that one can imagine about a tree.

My uncle, Ajā’s student before he became his son-in-law, told us a story about the same. They were on a trip, driving through a dusty road somewhere in interior Odisha. Just a brief stop, barely a few minutes. But in that small moment, Ajā picked up a leaf from the roadside and turned to my uncle.

“Tell me,” he said, leaf in hand, “which tree is this from?”

My uncle smiled and gave a confident guess, although, as he later confessed, he had no clue. The leaf was coated in a film of red-brown dust from the road. It was barely visible. But he tried to bluff his way through. Ajā, of course, wasn’t going to let it go.

He asked follow-up questions to expose the bluff: what is the scientific name, what kind of fruit does it bear, how much sunlight does it need, and on and on.

My uncle kept answering, confidently wrong, but still answering.

Finally, Ajā smiled, amused, and told the driver to climb the tree and bring down a clean leaf. The driver did, and Ajā studied it for a moment, then laid out all the information—name, genus, soil preference, use. I don’t even know that many terms. All I could gather from it was that he basically told everything about that tree. I am sure, it must have been as if he were reading aloud from a page written in his mind.

“I wasn’t sure if I was talking to my professor or my father-in-law!” my uncle said, laughing.

This tree-recognition wasn’t talent. Not magic. It was years of walking through forests, of touching bark and smelling leaves, of writing field notes, researching, and reading botanical journals. It was love. A lived-in, worn-in, everyday love.

Till today, I proudly declare that he could identify any plant. You just had to describe what it looked like, or what season it bloomed in, or how tall it grew, and he would give you its common name, English name, scientific name, at what altitude it grows, and maybe a story about where he saw it. How many inches long its leaf should be. What shade of green. How much water it needs, and what kind of soil will keep it happy.

Even after his hematoma surgery, when his memory had begun to slip in small, uneven ways, if I asked him about a plant, he would answer without pause. Because he didn’t remember plants like we remember phone numbers or passwords. Maybe, he remembered them the way one remembers a friend. He knew them, he didn’t just memorise.

Mumma is the same. She’s inherited that green-thumbed affection from him. On our own rooftop, there are more than 150 plants. She tends to them even after the longest office days. “The sun was so harsh today,” she’ll say, “they must be thirsty.” Then she’ll run up the the roof and water the plants.

She is delighted when a bud appears, when a new leaf unfurls. I think it is Ajā’s love, growing in her, branching through.

I remember once when Ajā was visiting us. I took him upstairs to see Mumma’s garden. I was proud, eager to show him the work she had done. As I always do, I picked up a fallen leaf and held it out to him.

“Tell me what plant this is,” I said, challenging him.He looked at me, smiled with that chuckle of his, the one we all remember. He examined the leaf closely. Broke it gently in half. Sniffed it. He told me the species that it belonged to.

And then, his concentration broke, he said, “Heh… what sort of leaf is this?”

I grinned. “You’re getting old, Ajā,” I teased. “You can’t remember anymore.”

Still chuckling, he said, “These leaves aren’t even recognisable anymore. You’ve planted them in pots, with limited soil.”

He tried agreeing to me, chuckling, but I think the “I am not so old” pride stopped him.

He held out his hands, gesturing, “A leaf that’s supposed to be this big… look at how small it has become!”

Mumma and I burst into laughter.

He added, still smiling, “No matter how much manure or water you give, the leaves won’t grow as they would in the ground. They aren’t getting what they need from their roots.”

And then, slowly, with small, careful steps, he walked around the rooftop, inspecting each plant. The Indian Forest Services officer who had once walked through jungles, now bending to touch our potted snake plant and lemongrass. One could see that his eyes were focused; that he wasn't judging. He was just curious, as he might have been in his younger days.

It was such a small moment. But in it, I saw all of him—his discipline, his affection, his humour, his knowledge, his humility. And I thought: this is what it means to know something so deeply that it becomes part of who you are. Not because you were told to know it. 

Because you loved it enough to never forget.

8.

Ajā was a big follower of yoga. Not in the performative way people often are these days. Till the very end, he was fit. He wasn’t just “manages-to-climb-stairs” fit, he was fit where you could mistake his age from the way he sat, stood, or walked. And it wasn’t luck. He had worked for it.

Every day of his life.

I remember one particular visit when he stayed with us for about five or six days. He was attending a yoga workshop of Ramdev Baba in town and during that time, I got to know him a little more intimately. The myths of his routine, which I had only heard from my parents, slowly became real. I saw them unfold with my own eyes.

Whenever he came to stay with us, he would sleep in the room that I now call mine. Back then, I’d sleep beside him. I have one particularly funny memory from those days. I used to move a lot in my sleep. Arms flailing, legs kicking, a restless kind of dreamer. One morning after I woke up, Ajā declared to me, “I’ve been kicked, punched, and slapped in my sleep!”

I, of course, knew he was exaggerating. From then on, my parents decided I was not allowed to share a bed with him.

He’d wake up at 2:30AM. Every day. Without bothering anyone, he would brush his teeth, take a full bath, and then sit down to do his yoga. It wasn’t a short session. It was a full, flowing routine that he never compromised on. After that, he would change into fresh clothes, always pressed. And before heading out for his morning walk, he’d drink a glass of mishri-water. Generally, my grandmother would have soaked the mishri in a cloth overnight, letting the water turn sweet and cool. I never quite knew why he drank it, yet it seemed sacred, part of his ritual.

“By the time you all wake up,” he used to joke, “I’ve already finished all my work!”

And then when he went out for a walk, it was no ordinary morning walk. As I have mentioned earlier, it wasn’t the kind of 2-3 km leisurely stroll people take while talking on the phone or listening to songs. No. It was a strict 12-15 kilometre route. I never walked with him, (it is a clever way to say that I never woke up in time). Nevertheless, I’ve heard stories about it. His route was fixed. He knew the people and shopkeepers on his route, and so did they.

In Cuttack, it was always more than just a walk. He’d come back with carefully selected vegetables. And in summer, it was mangoes. Not just any mangoes; he’d choose a good variety of mangoes chosen with a lot of care. He knew which ones to get, from where, and for whom. I liked the ones which are not too sweet, with a hit of sour. He knew which one to give to me.

It was just so satisfying. About the way he gave importance to simple things like walking, eating, and even choosing fruits. He carried his discipline with pride and consistency. He didn’t need an audience. He just needed his routine, his little rituals, and his early mornings.

Even now, when I wake up late and look at the clock blinking past 8:30 or 9, I sometimes hear his chuckle in my head, teasing: “Tu uthiba purbaru mo dina sarigalani!” ("You’re just waking up, and my day is already over!")

I smile.

9.

It has been thirteen days since Ajā passed away.

Thirteen mornings without his phone call to Mumma asking whether she’s ready for her office or not. Thirteen days without the knowledge that he is, somewhere, watering his plants or reading his newspaper. Just thirteen days have passed and yet, an entire lifetime seems to have passed in the space of it.

In a few more days, this too will begin to settle. The visits to Cuttack every day for rituals will stop. The rhythm of life will return. Familiar, though not quite the same. My cousins have already left. The house has grown quieter, as houses do when grief has been acknowledged and slowly set down. Everyone will return to their cities, their jobs, their routines.

The play ends. The curtains are drawn.

Ajā is no more.

This sentence still feels foreign in my mouth, like something borrowed. As if I’m quoting a line from someone else’s life. Because how can someone so full, so exact in his being, simply be no more?

But it is true. He will not return now. No more summer mangoes chosen with care. No more lectures on the life of trees, or climbing stairs with him.

And yet, he will not be erased.

Not from the leaves that still sprout in the garden he tended to with patience. Not from the rooftop trees that Mumma now waters. Not from the forests that he looked after. Not from the way I still fold an empty packet before throwing it away. Not from my Gita Govinda, which he loved hearing me sing, eyes closed, fingers tapping to the rhythm.

He lives in the ordinary. The daily.

The people we love never really leave. They only change form. And if love has been true, then even death can’t dim its outline. It stays. Like some old perfume clinging to the corner of a shawl. Like sunlight on the veranda he once sat in.

He won’t come back. But his love has found its way into our days.

And that will never fade.

I think I am done writing. Maybe this was my way of processing grief.

A few pictures of Ajā that I had on my gallery before I conclude:

Me playing my Jeja's (paternal grandfather) mrudanga while Ajā stands by and enjoys.

Ajā and Bou

[L-R]: Bou (paternal grandmother) enjoying the scene, Ajā playing the Jhānja, me playing the mrudanga, Chaniā nanā also enjoying the scene while sipping tea. In the background: Baḍa bābā.

Apā and Ajā sleeping at Ajā's place in Mahanadivihar

Ajā strolling (he might just have been checking out the flowers and leaves on the ground, you never know)

10:

Every time we visited Cuttack, there was a pattern to our leaving.

Ajā would say goodbye once at the door, nodding gently. Then, as we walked out of the gate, and sat in our car, he’d appear again at the balcony, peeping through the window. A small smile, a soft wave of the hand, like a benediction. Bou would be beside him then waving too, the two of them framed together like a painting I had seen so many times that I stopped noticing its details.

After Bou was gone, it was just him.

Still the same window, still the same wave, just half-empty. That empty half of the frame was always noticeable, even if no one mentioned it. He kept the ritual alive. Until the very end.

This time, over these past few weeks, I’ve left his house many times as we came for the rituals. And each time, as I stepped out and walked toward the gate, my muscle memory made me look up.

There was no one waving. The window stayed open.

The balcony window