It is about this time that my father breathed his last

Jalsa , Mumbai                 Jan 18,  2012                         Wed 11 : 45 PM

It is about this time that my father breathed his last. He was not comfortable being in hospital and had loathed the fact, so I brought him home and built and equipped an ICU in his room, with all possible emergency equipment there to face any extraneous circumstance. He had always remained a good patient, cooperating with whatever the doctors wanted him to do, but during the last few days, as though almost as a premonition he had become very silent and quiet. Never spoke a word, never responded to any one.

When he would lie in bed during the times when he was immobile, he would often refer to the number of hours he was sleeping. They were large in number and his theory to that was that his ‘sleep had been in arrears’ throughout his life. Now he was making up to it. Every morning when we would wheel him out of his room to the hall to a particular position he would read the Ramayan and the Gita and then read and re read his auto biography several times. I think most writers like to re visit their work often. My Father was no different, but somehow I felt he read for a different reason. When we know that time has passed by and that life could end suddenly almost unannounced, we often hear comments form people that their entire life whizzed past them in fornt of their eyes. Could it be that my Father saw the end and was wanting to live with his entire past, almost as a reminder of what had transpired in the 96 years of his life ?

Human kind has this habit of visiting what had gone by to relive those moments and perhaps to understand its glory or its value or its joy and happiness or eventually its sadness. Time gets related with what has been. A situation, an issue, a location, people and friends and so much more … Documentation is such a valuable tool to possess. We as a nation are beginning to realize it but as individuals there is keen desire to keep those events as close to the self as possible. Posterity or any reference to it has always evoked a certain sentiment, mostly of happy nostalgia, but in some the horrid displeasure of a past that they would need to forget soon.

I would happily live my life again without change, but I do know of some that would never concede to this. Their present has a marked difference to their past. In some it is quite the opposite. Some have grown and worked themselves away from a past that has been haunting for them, others have lamented those ‘good ol’ days’ when life was prettier and fruitful and carefree and happy. In this world the human has had to contend with both, and I am happy with that. I do not have any argument that would necessarily go, either for it or against. One needs to be in temperate zone to be able to achieve this state of mind. The trouble is in finding that temperate clime. Not all are built to be patient and tolerant, for, acquiring both these qualities are really a gift from above. I doubt very much if it could be taught or learnt. It has always been a viewpoint that needs must come from within. Intolerance can only be tolerated by those that may face or have faced it ad nauseum and are now immune. There shall always be that fine line beyond which we shall not be able to traverse, and I wonder at times whether those that indulge in it are ever aware what and where they do. Perhaps they are so hapless in their pursuit of rectifying tolerance that they keep becoming even more intolerant. Which is really quite an amusing situation.

My tolerance levels at this point of time have reached its lowest. Not with respect to the blog but with the pressures of time that have been stipulated by the medical teams …

So I shall bid adieu and give you my gratitude for all the kindness shown after the results of my tests .. thank you and may you be forever blessed ..

Love

Amitabh Bachchan