😞 REQUEIM FOR MY SISTER

By Biswajit Basu for Monisha Choudhury

Moon you have  relinquished your worldly status and left your friends, relatives, students and colleagues forlorn.  We, you left behind, will miss you sorely and we already realise how much.

Yours was a life of honest, steadfast and straight thinking, of keeping your focus on your objectives, of the grit of steadfast determination.  On the other side, you held the world in compassion in a profession where people tend to lose theirs.  I remember the time when you cried and cried when your patient who had been bitten by a rabid dog and who you had been desperately trying to save died.  I also remember how much you cried when you got your quota of vasectomies and tubectomies that you had to deliver to the government in those horrid Sanjay Gandhi days.  I always marvelled how you could be so prim and proper and headmistressly on one side and still retain a soft heart of pure gold on the other.

Yesterday marked the end of of our 68 year sojourn that we walked this Earth together.  I remember the day you were born and Daddy, Dadu, me and Mama had gone to visit Ma in the maternity ward.  Ma offered me a banana which was on her bedside table which I accepted and demolished it with a gusto which I  exclusively reserve for  eatables.  On the return in the car, Dadu castigated me for accepting that banana which he said was actually meant for you.  So even before you were born, I was stealing things that were yours!

And so we led our happy army childhood in big houses with big compounds and gardens which, incongruously Daddy described as 'genteel poverty'.  I remember you as a 3 year old in London with a big parakeet, as big as you, on your shoulder.  I remember we played catch me if you can in the garden and the catcher was supposed to be dirty (a guinea pig) and when caught he/she was 'guinea-ed'.  Remember our lovely vacations every summer to the hills? Then came the years of separation as we chose the trajectories to our respective careers. 

Then we saw Daddy go first after a five year ordeal with strokes.  Then came Ma's turn and she left after a short illness.  We were now suddenly orphans!

We passed our lives busy with the work in our respective professions. We got married, you to Panna and ne to Tulu.  Panna was a friend and today, a God, and I still ask him for guidance in troubled times.

Even when we were apart we always stayed in contact and sometimes met in distant cities (I remember that lunch in London when we got sozzled on wine and champagne and I prayed that you would reach your hostel back  safely)!

Today you are gone leaving us for a better world.  So be it. But I wish you would have stayed longer.  

So farewell, Moon, you will not be forgotten in this world.  You led a good and productive life.

 But all things, even our Universe, must come to an end  and  goes through different dimensions.  So have you departed our dimension forever to a better one. 

 *Au revoir*.

 That was the essence of our lives  We fought, played and cried together. 

Those were the days, dear Moon,

They have come to an end, but too soon

We'd laugh and play forever and a day

We led the lives we chose

We fought, but never to bruise

Those were the days

Yes, those were the days.

Farewell Moon.  We had a great life!

Jan 2021