Thatha... what a misnomer!

ok this post has been long overdue.. and after yet another sleepless night i have come and plonked myself in front of the computer to write this out.. its 1 30 in the night here and am feeling a bit hazy and i have pink floyd running on youtube in the back ground.. so pls forgive a few grammatical or spelling mistakes that may occur..
i write this post as the person this post is about, sleeps happily next to me, totally not disturbed by the light from the computer.. my grandfather, who is 80 years old and has lost all teeth, has been living in tanzania with mom and dad ever since my grandma passed away two years ago.. his life has been a mixture of ups and downs after that.. he was rushed to africa in a confused and shocked state of mind and had to get over his wife's demise in a whole new environment.. he did this with unparallelable grace..
he made sure his life was not cornered to this house in tanzania.. he made sure he read all the news papers available to him (he has even cajoled a few friends of his to bring kumudam and anandha vigadan whenever they go to india) he has given each person in the apartment a nick name including my dad! which he told me secretly at first :)he links the US politics so well with the events in the apartment that he'd do well to advise senators on their election campaigns.. apart from linking US politics, he also supports Obama and has prayed that he or his grandson, will break a coconut at a pillayar koil if Obama wins the election..he became so sad when benazir bhutto was assassinated that he went and took bath as a sign of mourning..in dar es salaam (the city where my parents live) there werent street lights on the roads that ran along the beaches, and since our apartment is along one such road, our road doesnt have street lights.. When george bush visited this place recently, street lights were put up instantly.. to this day, my thatha refuses to refer to those lights as street lights and insists on us calling them "bush lights" too..

every friday morning, he waits for dad to wake up and then asks him "inda weekend enga porom" and it sounds very much like a kid whos asking his parents what they will gift him for his bday..he used to take classes on bagavatham and has a lotta friends (i instantly started calling all the women in that list his girl friends to which he offers his toothless grin which is a favourite among the ppl in the apartment. )
he comes out with us wherever we go but insists on sitting alone at some place where he can watch ppl and kids playing.. while we take a walk or do whatever we went there for.. last week there was this place where they were chanting Sahasranamam and we asked thatha if he wanted to go. he said he got bored at such places and that he wanted to go to Slip Way, a beach resort where he could eat popcorn... and thats wat we did..

naturally all this made me feel he was very happy.. last week one early morning, at around 5 30, i woke up for a glass of water and on my way back to the bedroom i saw thatha sitting on the sofa staring at a photo of my grandmom.. it was a very profound moment and just as i thought i should leave him alone, a solitary tear crept from a soul that was probably even more solitary..i was blessed with a peek into the other side of thatha's world.. a world where he was alone because a huge part of it was ripped off.. a world where he held long cherished memories of his beloved wife.. a world where everything seemed perfect till a few doctors and his son told him that his wife had cancer...a world that crashed on him one sad day leaving him to fend for himself.. a world where his son and daughter in law and grandchildren tried their best to enter with all the love they could provide only to find the gate closed... a world where he felt he was being a burden to the ppl around... i'd recently read this book called "Tuesdays with Morrie" which moved me a lot and i could completely understand the amount of loneliness he must have felt.. i decided at that very instant that i was never going to let him feel lonely as long as i am here.. i made sounds of waking up and went and sat next to him. he looked at me and said "u shudnt be up so soon.. its not a good habit.." i took this as a cue and asked him to move to the edge of the sofa and lay down on his lap and we started talking. we talked for an hour and a half straight. we talked abt profound things like paatis life, mundane things like the plans for the weekend and even my specialization in the MS! the conversation was only interrupted by my parents waking up. they had no idea of wat'd happened. the next day i kept an alarm and woke up at 5 30 to find him already awake. he was again surprised and pleased to see me and moved to the end of the sofa when i asked him to and i lay down on his lap again.. the next day when i woke up, thatha was all set and waiting for me, this time on the corner of the sofa.. after his toothless grin he said "enga ezhundu vara matiyo nu bayandundu irunden.." that made my resolve to get up early for him even stronger.. and i am proud to say i havent given it up til date.. mom and dad soon figured out wat was happening and have learnt to respect it. they make throat clearing noises when they are about to come into the hall :)

i have been waking up early to keep him company.. to let him know that he doesnt have to face life alone.. to remind him that there are ppl who love him a LOT for what he is.. and will continue to do so till i get back to india.. after that i may not be able to keep him company but i know for a fact that the memories of the time we shared will keep him company for a long time to come.

i dont know if i should curse myself for giving him one more person to miss or to praise myself for giving him one more memory to cherish.. i dont know if he will feel worse when i leave.. but i do know that i made a change in his life. i gave him happiness fr a fortnight and it has made a change in his life...and the knowledge that i was able to make a difference in the life of an 80 year old man means the world to me.. we become so entangled in our life that we rarely pause to think what people around us feel.. or even what we think when we are alone for that matter.. this post is aimed at reviving those emotions because without them life is not lived to its fullest.. atlast i can now go sleep.. i have only 3 and half hours of sleep if i hope to be awake for thatha in the morning... goodnight and sweetdreams :)