Memories fade with time. Especially of people who depart early in your life. Year 1980, the month of August, the month of celebrations. Our family had 2 birthdays coming up. One was my father's, a fiery man, given to quick temper, and my sister Jaishri, who inherited some of his characteristics. We didn't really celebrate our father's birthday. My mother probably would have made payasam (sweet) but my parents never celebrated their birthdays. August 15th came before my sister's birthday and I clearly remember her dressing up to go out, telling me casually that the speech she wrote for a student came really from her heart. (She wrote for students who were asked to give speeches for India's Independence Day.)
August 18th was her birthday and so on the morning of 17th , a Sunday, she was busy stitching a fall for her sari that she was going to wear to work the next day. The music strains of Kamakshi suprabhatam & other songs of MS Subbalakshmi still ring fresh in my ears. We had the LP record at home which she had bought from her salary. These were unusual things those days. We lived frugally, my parents saving every rupee for our future, that is, our marriages. Spending them on entertainment was not normally done. Spending on entertainment was a waste of money. But Jaishri insisted. Marriage can wait, she would say, let's live our life in the meantime.
How very characteristic of her! Strong-willed, with revolutionary ideas, her thinking and reasoning was far ahead of her time, something that my parents couldn't quite handle. What would invariably ensue was a war of words, of which I was a silent spectator. I admired her. She was strong and fearless, determined and brave. In fact my friends would say that she totally dominated me, that I hardly had a voice of my own.
I digress, it was the 17th of August; sari fall stitching done, lunch eaten, her classmate from German class came over to study with her for the upcoming test they had. Jaishri was a lecturer in a Junior College and attended German classes once or twice a week. We lived in a two-room kitchen those days. Everything happened in those 2 rooms: Jaishri studying with her friend, and my mother cooking furiously a whole lot of curry pastes and chutneys to last us the next week as she would be busy at work. In addition we had an aunt dropping by with her friend. Sundays were always abuzz with activity.
I was dressed in a nylon "half sari" and Jaishri teased me that the colour was so bright that I could easily be mistaken for the religious procession of "Mahankali" celebrated with gusto in those days.
Cauliflower figured in every meal we ate that day. My mother planned to finish cooking the night's dinner too and by 6 pm we went to the terrace to relax. Before that, Jaishri changed into a nylon sari that she rarely wore, just to walk her friend to the bus stop, after their studies were done for the day. Unable to bear her teasing, I changed into cotton trousers and shirt in the evening.
Standing on veranda of our house, I remember watching her return home after seeing her friend off at the bus stop. Some memories just don't go away. I wanted to talk to her. I always loved talking to her. I felt inspired, something to ponder about always. We went up to the terrace first and she spotted a neighbour on her terrace and went over to chit chat with her, while I waited for her patiently. But it so happened that the neighbour had to leave soon, much to my delight and we sat together and talked.
"Wait a minute," she said, peering at my face. "The sun looks beautiful reflected on your glasses." The sun was setting, unknown to us, in so many ways that day.
My parents had come up to the terrace by then. And suddenly my mother called out to me to go down and check if she had switched the stove off after cooking. I went down and checked. Yes, there was a small lamp burning at the altar in the kitchen. The gas stove switched off. Nothing amiss, I returned to the terrace. Jaishri sniffed again and said .. I smell gas, and we went down, she ahead of me. She opened the kitchen door and we were surprised to find the rubber tube of the stove had slipped and fallen on the ground and there was smell of gas everywhere.
She ran in, bent down and closed the cylinder, one hand covering her nose with pallu of her sari. "Quick", she said, "Open the window." It was one command that I wish I hadn't obeyed. I usually listened to everything she asked me to do. I wish I didn't on that day. But no, I did, I opened the window. The strong gush of air, deflected the gas to the corner where the lamp was burning at the altar and Boom! a loud noise and fire.
We didn't know what hit us at that moment. She did the correct things didn't she? Closed the cylinder, asked me to open the windows, but we didn't think there would be that much gas collected in the room. I turned around and found the room on fire, in clouds formed by the gas. I was scared as now I would have to cross the fire to get to the other side, to the door. Jaishri was at the door waiting for me, unmindful of the fact that her sari had caught fire and it was a nylon sari. I wish she had removed the sari, instead she rolled on the ground, with the sari sticking to her as she rolled.
People say accidents are caused they don't happen. I am still baffled at the way things unfolded on that fateful day. I wish I could turn the clock back as I have wished so many times in the years that followed. I wish I hadn't opened the window, I wish I had put out the flame before I did. It was as if a strong wind of death blew into our house to take her away.
She was rushed to the hospital where she battled bravely for two days and gave up. When she was conscious she asked for me and was surprised that I wasn't injured much. I did have a few burns on my arm and feet but nothing serious.
And so she left us exactly 25 years after her birth in this world. I knew her for 17 years and the last six years of her life was the time I was really close to her. I avoid talking of this accident as not everyone understands what we went through on that day. How unexpected things were, how at every turn we were taken by surprise. As with most unnatural deaths, people would speculate so many theories. All those were and are still painful to listen to, especially as I was there with her and know what happened.
She was special. I wished she had lived longer to realize her dreams, for she had dreams. Dreams of going to the US doing research in cellular biology. Earning a name for herself in scientific discipline.
She would tell me a life lived well, matters. For this I need to have clarity in my goals, and an ambition, a striving towards perfection. To be intensely interested in every little piece of work that I undertake and do my best and excel in it. She shaped my thoughts & aspirations in many ways.
Very often, I mentally inform her of my small achievements, and hope I have made her proud.
"In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!"
This was one of her favourite lines from "The Psalm of Life" by H.W Longfellow
That was how she lived and urged me to do as well.
