Five Years Later

Exactly five years ago, on this day, I set out on the most dreadful journey of my life. I took the evening Indigo flight to Delhi, where my wife and I spent the night at her sister’s place before taking the Air India flight next morning to Benares, where my mother lay on a bed of ice.

I had not wanted the journey to end, but both the flights had departed — and arrived — on time. My mother’s departure, however, had been untimely, even though not entirely unexpected. She was only 59. Had she lived for three more days, she would have earned the distinction of being born and dying on the same day. And had she lived for eight more days, she would have probably held a copy of Chai, Chai — her son’s first book.

This narrow-miss tormented me for a long time: how could God be so cruel? If there is God, and if God has a purpose behind everything he does to you, then what could be the purpose behind letting my mother die barely a week before the publication of the book? Why didn’t she die six months before — or six months after?

But eventually you make peace with God because you want to prevent more such sorrows coming your way. So God prevailed, the pain too weakened. The untimely death of a loved one is a wound that never heals; you slowly learn to live with it, and there comes a time when it ceases to bother you.

Today, five years later, I am no longer torn by that regret. I have moved on, worrying about things that I need to do before I die. We are all selfish.

I was being selfish even on the day my mother was cremated, at the world-famous Manikarnika Ghat. While a part of me played the dutiful son, carrying out the rituals and lighting the pyre, another part absorbed the scene as a travel writer would, hoping to put it all in in a future book. As a son, this was the worst experience I could have; but as a writer, this was the best.