Bhagirathi Aunty And Her Harmonium

Bhagirathi Aunty

Last week a friend of mine who lived with me in Triplicane during my childhood informed me that Bhagirathi aunty who lived in the ten-tenement apartment with us is in a suburb of Chennai now. When my friend met her in some function, she was making earnest enquiries about me. He gave me her address communicating her desire to meet me and I visited her last Sunday with my wife. Before I could introduce my wife to her, she asked me ‘Is that your wife?’ I was about to give her a naughty reply, when my wife knowing me well pinched me from behind and I quickly sobered down to say ‘Yes, yes, of course’. Bhagirathi, who is now in her early nineties, is over 15 years my senior. When she moved into our tenement, I was around ten. She was proficient in harmonium which Jawaharlal Nehru hated from the bottom of his heart and even banned its entry in All India Radio. Her husband, who was a strong nationalist and a worshipper of Gandhi and Nehru, wanted her to stop playing harmonium and switch over to some other instrument, but she flatly refused and that caused quite a rupture in the family. Despite this rupture and periodic flare up, she became a mother of five children.


When I met her last week, she was a shrivelled lady and I just couldn’t believe that the passage of time could affect the physical appearance of a person so drastically. As I was wondering how to put it to her in a nice un-hurting way, she remarked how old I had become! ‘You look almost my age!’ she added. I swallowed the growing lump in my throat and told her that she herself bore a look that would leave no one in doubt about her age. My wife started grinding her teeth and I ignored it. After the exchange of the initial niceties, she started recalling the young days. When I asked about each friend of mine, she would say that he had kicked the bucket. As she rattled on the names of all my friends who kicked the bucket, I could not help feeling that there should have been a terrible shortage of buckets to kick. She remembered how and when each one passed away. At one stage, I was scared to enquire about any more friends of mine and switched over to her family. ‘You know my younger brother in Coonoor whom you have met when you were Bank Agent there in the seventies?’ she asked me and when I said of course I remembered him so well, she told me that he passed away last month!


You know what a buoyant person I am and she made me feel like a professional pallbearer within the first half an hour of our meeting. I asked if she still kept her harmonium, she said she threw it away after her husband’s death as a mark of respect to his memory. I could not help thinking how many quarrels they would have had about that harmonium when he was alive. He would even plea with her with folded hands to throw away the instrument in the name of Nehruji but she would not budge. This made me wonder why we respect a person’s wishes more after he is dead than when he was alive. I know a man who kept his parents in a small room in the rear side of his palatial house when they were alive and hardly talked to them even once a week. After their demise, he performs the annual obsequies with such fanfare that people would say that the parents were lucky to have a son like him! When I discussed this with some friends, they were of the uniform opinion that it was due to their fear that the parents who were badly treated when alive could hit them back after they were dead.


That reminds me of a serial in a Tamil channel in which the son, after killing his father for money, stands everyday in front of the dead man’s photo and cries buckets. The dead father hardly bothers to come as a ghost to torture his son since it is the prerogative of women treated badly and killed. Talking of ghosts, my wife has been complaining of insomnia and wants me to take her to a sleep therapist. I tell her that there is no need for it and all that she has to do is to stop watching the ghost movies at night!

 

@shyamala1234

My dear Syamala
There was a Swamiji much revered by the handful of his disciples. The Swamiji rarely spoke but whenever he did, his disciples would go into raptures. I was present on one such occasion when I asked one of the disciples what was the Guru saying. He said that he had no idea but coming from him, it must be something great. I asked another devotee and he gave me a same answer. I understood one thing cleanly. When you reach a certain stage in life, you can say anything that it is in your mind. It may not make much sense to others but the disciples would make them meaningful. I seem to have reached that stage here going by your feedback!

After reading your FB, I went through what I have written and could not find anything worthwhile that could provoke a soulful reply! I owe my position entirely to friends like you. Talking of guilt trip, I'll tell you one case. There is a well known old age center here and they have a special cell to cater to clients who pay for the services given to them. When I went there last time, I saw an old lady in a paid accommodation. When I talked to her, she seemed proud that her only son in US was so considerate of her well fare. Later on, I was talking to the Manager and she told me that the lady's son has deposit Rs.1 lakh with instruction that if she passes away, that money should be used for her obsequies as they would not be able to travel to Chennai for performing the last rites. Would you call that 'guilt trip'?
Sri

 

@Agatha83

Dear Agatha
What you say is very true. She had been playing harmonium all her life despite the spirited protest of her husband. She gave it up on the day the hubby died. But if she had continued playing it even after husband's death, she could have at best joined some 'bajanai goshti'! Harmonium is the preferred musical instrument of such devotional groups only. It was possibly one of the reasons why Nehru banned it. He only wanted such things that would take India forward. See Vickky Vinayakram. With his pots, he has already won the Grammy Award! He has accompanied such greats as MSS. Did you mean Mumbhai Varanashi Express? It is a great movie running for some 30 minutes and stands as an example for 'Brevity is the soul of wit'
Sri

 

@shyamala1234

I only wanted to point out that such sons do exist. I know quite a few cases like that. It is not at all right but the sons enjoy great reputation in their respective places!
Sri

 

@satchitananda

My dear Satchi
When I did not see your response to this rambling, I had almost decided to scrap it off but it came just in time!
The trouble with meeting someone in the nineties and you are meeting her after sixty years, the topic tends to go around people who are no more. The deaths she mentioned happened over a time span of 15 years but she had to squeeze it all within a time span of two hours giving us a feeling that they all dropped down dead one after another like a South American suicide group! Bhagirathi played her harmonium more as an accompaniment for my lusty singing. We were mutual admirers and I always took her side in her harmonium-based fights with her husband!
About that son, it would have been nice if he had told the authorities that in case he was unable to come for the funeral, he authorized the OAH to do it. But he straightaway told the authorities that he wouldn't be able to make it. It shocked me.
Sri