Heart to Heart

The moment we sat in the car having left Aja and Aai at Salt Lake City airport, I knew it would be a tough time for Anu. I have a feeling she loves my mother more than I do. I also think she loves my mother more than my mother loves me.

Anu sat behind and wept copiously to the point that she started to bawl. She kept saying heartbreaking things about her grandmother while crying; some things that I could decipher within those sobs and some that I could not. Therefore I decided to go back and sit by her while she cried her heart out. More than anything else I could hear her repeat, “I cant live without Aai”, several times. I looked at Anu's face streaked with tears and thought, “Can an 8 year old really feel like this?”

The last time I felt life had come to a complete halt and I had nothing to live for was when my oldest sister’s new husband, my very dear brother in law had left our lives to come back to the US. I had stood there at the railway station, a 13 year old, with dozens of others and cried my heart out. My sisters' was the first wedding in the family and my brother in law was the first young man in the house and he had literally swept all of us off our feet when he married into our family. I clearly remember the day after he left. I was an 8th grader. Much of a teenager. As I opened my eyes that morning, a ton of weight descended on my heart and unstoppable tears rolled down my cheeks much like Anu’s. I thought I couldn’t live a moment longer. It was the same love and despair that I saw in little Anu’s eyes; as if a security blanket had been removed from her being. She was left all alone in this horrible world of Mama, Baba and Nana. No more having Aai at her beck and call. No more teaching Aai lessons in English and Math, no more sitting with food in her mouth for hours and Aai patiently prodding her, no more flying on the swing at the park on her way home with Aai, no more Aai cheering her on Kumon, no more wearing saris every evening at 9, no more loud reading of Oriya story books and no more secret sodas.

That night Anu brought two saris of Aai to me. She asked me to make her wear one. I told her she wouldn’t be able to sleep if she wore that. Anu said, “Mama, this is Aai’s sari, I will always be comfortable in it. Please remember never to wash it. It has Aai’s taste in it”. Then she asked me to wear the other sari and sleep next to her on bed. Anu and Aai had shared a bed for over 6 months now. The kids had followed Aja Aai on their summer sojourn from Connecticut through Tennessee to Salt Lake City since July. I could not sleep wearing a sari so I quietly took it off. Anu slept very comfortably in hers though, clutching on to one of Aai’s shawls.

The next morning brought another slew of tears. The first face that she saw every morning was Aai’s, Anu reminded me. Aai woke me up in a special way, she bathed me in a special way, she rubbed oil on me first before pouring water. “Mama, you do everything wrong”, she wept. The two saris and the shawl, tied with a dupatta followed us to the breakfast table. I was instructed to at least drape the shawl over my shirt to the bus stop. “Mama, this is where Aai and I stood everyday. This is where she picked flowers. This is what we sang on the way to the bus stop (followed by Tubhyam namami narayanayam…). This is what we talked about..”, Anu went on. She even went on to tell me, “Mama, you can’t speak Oriya like Aai”. I watched and listened to her in amazement.

A few hours before they left for the airport, Anu had a large flat plate with some lemon juice set before Aai. Aai did not know if she was supposed to drink it or what. Anu asked Aai to dip both her palms into the juice and spot it on a piece of paper. I knew I would have to lightly heat it over the stove to get those charred imprints of Aai’s hands.

Anu came back from school that day and lamented that I had thrown away the lemon juice. “That’s the last thing Aai touched in this house, Mama, how could you throw it away”. I hung my face in shame while Anu hung the piece of precious paper with Aai’s handprints on her study table. Attached to it was a small piece of crumpled sticky. I asked, “What is this baby?” Anu said, “This is Aai’s labanga (clove). From today, I wont chew gum. I will have a labanga instead. Just like Aai”.

That night Anu came to me and for the umpteenth time with smarting eyes said, “Mama, I miss Aai”. I wanted to distract her. I asked, “So tell me Anu, what do you love about Aai”. Anu was quiet for sometime looking for adjectives. She had a million of them, but this was by far her best: Aai is the most loving person. I couldn’t agree more with her. That was followed by: “No one can appreciate like Aai”. Not wanting her to continue with more tears, as it was really telling on her, I pulled her into my arms and said, “Ok Anu, its time to hit the bed. We have school tomorrow. No more talking about Aai”. After a few silent moments in her star lit bedroom, Anu spoke very quietly, “Mama, I wish I had ‘ichcha mrityu”. My ears perked up as the kids had been watching the Mahabharat with Aja and Aai through the entire vacation. They had grown to love each character in the epic and with Aja’s rendition had begun to understand the nuances of the classic. Bhisma lying on the bed of arrows produced as much tears as when Abhimanyu failed to escape from the “Chakra Vyuha”. I listened to Anu’s quiet sobs. She said again into the darkness, “Mama, wish I had ichcha mrityu. I could die the same day as….” Anu could not complete the sentence. We both were crying.