Aso mama - We miss you

I am planning to write at least one topic per week going forward. Hope I could stick on to that routine.

I really wanted to write about my mama (my mom’s 3^rd older brother) who passed away last week on Feb 6^th 2016. I am feeling very confused and disoriented from the time I heard the news. Not sure whether Vijay or the kids understand what I am going through. There are multiple factors to this. Usually in our family longevity of life is more – in the sense I had seen people dying only by aging and not through any other factor. So the last death that I remember in my family was around 16 years ago and my grandpa was 91. It was sad but not very disturbing as we all felt he lived his life to the fullest.

But Asokan mama (Aso mama as we fondly call him) is an exception. He is around 64 years of age and had suffered with cancer for the last 12 to 18 months. I came to know about his health issues around 10 months ago before I was going to India in 2015. I could not believe it and cried the whole day. And I made sure to visit him in May 2015 and he was all looking strong and healthy. He talked to us and was very happy that we visited him (me along with Vijay & the kids).

My mom’s side of family have lot of contradictions but they all loved each other very much. They never expressed their love to each other, they were all more of “murattu” affection. My mom has 3 older brothers and 1 younger sister. Aso mama was my mom’s 3^rd older brother and they both had around only 1.5 years of age gap. They almost grew together. My mom went through knee replacement surgery last year in Coimbatore and when she was back at Chennai, my mama visited her in spite of his health issue. My mom still talks about it. But their way of showing affection is asking “nalla irukkiyaa?”.

I still remember the time when we visited my mama’s family in Dec 2013 (my last to last India visit). They live in Pozhichalur , a place much further from Pallavaram. Me along with Vijay & kids went to their home in call taxi. We somehow went half way asking people about landmarks that mama/athai provided. Still, we were stuck. But mama came half the way in his car and was waiting & looking for us. He saw us asking for address somewhere and came towards us. He asked the driver to follow his car and finally we reached his home. When we were there eating dinner and talking, I got a call from my mom that my dad had some severe leg cramps and could not even sit or stand. She did not know what to do and called us. Aso mama along with athai immediately took us back to hospital in their car. My dad got better and got discharged the next day. But Aso mama was very timely and brought us to hospital immediately. I would never forget that day.

Also in my home for some reason or the other we do not have childhood photos (my immediate family). When I was around 9 or 10 years old, I participated in a school culturals and my cousins Ragini & Rogini participated too. Aso mama took pictures of us and he was treasuring them. Every time we go to India & visit him, he would show us those photos with much pride and joy, but I know he would not want to give it to us J. Vijay took the photo of that photo. I know how much mama treasured those photos and I do not think I would have wanted them with me. I really liked the way he kept those with pride and happiness. That made me so happy that someone is treasuring my memories. I hope my cousins will continue that.

Another interesting connection that I have with mama is, he & I both stammer. Interestingly none of his kids stammer. And no one in our family stammer except us. So, I think I carry some of his genes which was dormant with my mom (Mendel theory). We had this commonality, but the way we handled that was very different. He was a very quiet person and conversed very less, but to the contrary I am very outspoken and made sure that I am not getting intimidated by the stammer. Now I stammer only when I am tensed which is very rare J.

This might sound really weird, but I spoke very less with my mama and had very less interaction. But still somewhere I had so much love and affection for him. I always made a point that I visited my mama and his family whenever I go to India. I made sure to show my kids that they have a large extended family.

Mama was a simple person with not much expectations. He led a very simple life and had a just enough life which is really very difficult and important. He never interfered in anyone’s life or troubled them in any way. I knew he was in lot of pain the last few months/weeks. May be this could be the right time for him to reach heaven. My brain understands but my heart does not L.

His 39^th wedding anniversary was on Feb 7^th, and he passed away on Feb 6^th. His older daughter’s 15^th wedding anniversary was also on the same day. That was really unfortunate. Coincidentally he gave some money to his daughters and daughter in law that week – not sure whether he was preparing himself (the way Saibaba did it before his Samadhi). Looks like he was also talking until 5 minutes before he passed away. May be he knew or may be not.

My mom’s oldest brother do not have much connections with any of us and my mom is always used to address 2^nd and 3^rd older brothers for everything. She says “Damu mama, Aso mama vandhanga, Damu mama and Aso mama ku phone pannanum etc.”. Now it is time for her to include her oldest brother and take Aso mama out of the dialogues. But I do not think she is there yet. Now it’s her time to do some customs and she still mentions “Damu mama and Aso mama-ku vaanganum”. I am not correcting her, it is her 63 years of relationship and will take time. Every time she went and saw her sick brother, she came home and got sick thinking about him. Hope she and all her siblings get the courage to overcome this difficult time.

No one knows how long you will live in this world. Please forget all the differences/ego that you have with your family and friends and live your life with near & dear ones.

I really pray to GOD wholeheartedly that my athai and cousins come out of this difficult time soon. Please remember that Mama is in heaven blessing all of us and at peace. May his soul rest in peace. 

Mama – We miss you L.