The first thing he told me when I entered their room in the hospice, was the name of their college. "We met there forty years ago and fell in love instantly," he said. She was eighteen and he was twenty one.They had felt a sense of belonging. "It felt as though she was a part of my body." They were terrified of being separated by their parents and had a registered marriage within two months of their meeting.They were very young , he said and didn't know better. On being told, the parents had not really objected and they were wedded in the traditional manner a year later. By the time he was twenty five, he was the father of two sons.
He worked as a physicist in one of India's premier research institutes while she stayed at home and looked after the children. "She sings beautifully," he told me, proudly. She taught Carnatic music for some time in a music school but then became busy with the children's studies. It had been difficult, he said, bringing up the boys and giving them a quality education as they were middle class people. Yet they had persevered and the boys had done well. Especially the younger boy. He was brilliant academically. He spoke at length about his younger son's achievements. He had met with a serious accident after his graduation and had been bed ridden for months. A very tough time for them. Yet, he had begun his studies again and now works as a scientist in a prestigious position in the US. The sons are in their thirties now. The older one has married but the younger one has not. Life had been rough at times but they had been all right, he said. But now, she was physically sick. And he had become mentally sick because of that.
Though he spoke with much pride of his sons, there was an undercurrent of sadness, heaviness and disappointment in his demeanor. I could sense that the sons were not involved in their parents lives. The doctor at the hospice told me later that during the past one month of their stay, the sons have never visited.
They were on their own, he said. They lived in a rented house near the institute where he worked.The older son and his wife have moved away. They are very busy with their work and lives, he said. And have no time at all for anything else. I made the appropriate sounds in response to that.
She fell ill about two years ago. The ovarian cancer could not be detected by the Allopathic doctors. They treated her for gastritis. An Ayurvedic doctor diagnosed it correctly and then she went through the rounds of chemotherapy and surgeries. The cancer had spread relentlessly and they had come here, to the hospice for managing the pain.
I broached the subject of spirituality. He told me that he did not think much about it but she did. He was a physicist and so he belonged to the world of science. I talked of the Quantum theory, the single source and said that Physics seemed to be the subject closest to spiritual truths. He then spoke of energy, of its indestructibility, of how it changes forms. I asked him how he related that to death. He replied that death did not faze them. Death was solace. It was her suffering, which was difficult to bear.
He could do things for her, take care of her, help her to eat and do her daily activities. But when she was in pain, he had to depend on others, the medical people. And that rankled. He would have to call their GP in the middle of the night and he would not pick up the phone. The next day , he would scold them for disturbing him.The medical profession had no nobility these days. So, he felt helpless, frustrated. At times, he said, he would even be angry with her.
I asked her if she understood, where his anger came from. And she nodded, looking at him, tears streaming down her face.
They had many questions, they said. Many questions about life and death. I said to them that I do not promise answers but I will sit with them, talk about these questions and seek answers with them. And I told them that there was one thing I knew for sure. That love like theirs will never end. We all come into this world to learn how to love. To overcome the barriers we have within ourselves to love. And they had passed all the tests of love. He had been with her, by her side, through her sickness and borne her pain as his. And so, when they meet again, they would recognize each other whatever their outer forms may be. And take up their love from there. Death will be vanquished.
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