I ask, you write—15 (1)

My first attempt to Ammani's I ask, you write series. This is in response to I ask, you write 15.

“She was born in 1940. The second of five children born to Vedaranyam Sesadri and Rajalakshmi ammal. She passed away after a brief illness in November 2006. How will Jagada be remembered?”

Meena and Shankar woke to the constant ringing of the phone. Shankar picked up the ringing phone from the dresser and left the bedroom. With the return of silence, Meena pulls up the quilt and looks at the clock to see its just 5.50 am. “Who would be calling at such an odd hour?” So thinking, still groggy from sleep she tries to go back to sleep. Strangely, deep down in her heart, it was something she had expected. Shankar comes back in a few minutes and lies down.

“Meenu, are you awake?” Still hazy, she goes “hmm…?” Somehow, Meena seems to know that Shankar has something not so nice to tell her. “Your mom, passed away a few hours back in India.” “What?” says Meena springing up in the bed, “We spoke to her last night and she did sound fine?” As if to get a confirmation from Shankar, she goes “didn’t she?” Shankar, getting up, equally upset with the news, “it was your brother from Singapore. She has had a cardiac arrest. Your dad had reached him. He called from the airport checking for flights to Madras. I will go make some tea for us. We can think what to do and check out available flights in sometime.” So saying he goes to make the tea.

Meena, still in a state of shock, goes back in time to what lead to her mom’s demise. It was the accident in May on her way back from the temple that made her bedridden in hospital for almost 6 months and eventually took her away from this world in the name of cardiac arrest.

Jagada was never a mom for Meena. Jagada was more of an elder sister, always an equal making Meena, excel in what she was doing. All along, Meena and Jagada have always fought with each other. Like how two sisters would fight with each other. Meena had a tough time as a kid with Jagada as her mother. There was never a dull moment in the family with Meena’s dad and granny always to her rescue. Jagada was another kid in the family with Meena and her brother.

Oh, how much Meena has started understanding her mother after marriage in the last 3 years. She hasn’t been able communicate it all in the few stolen moments of phone calls across continents. The last she had seen her mom was at the airport waving her hand happily seeing Meena going in, to join Shankar in Seattle after her marriage.

Thinking all this, unaware, Meena started crying. She got up thinking that she should call her brother and tell him to go ahead with the ceremony and not wait for her. She would join eventually by the 4th or 5th day. She did not want to see mom. It was more comforting remembering the mom who was waving her hand at Meena.