Pishi

Saying good bye is never easy. Saying good bye at a distance is even more difficult. Pishi left us in the first few days of November. I was sincerely hoping to see her in person this December, but the last opportunity to see her smile, talk and hug had slipped away. I found myself thinking back to the last time I saw her, the last time she blessed me, the last time I heard her voice on the phone. My thoughts were equally preoccupied by how my Pishay Mashai was doing, and how my cousins were coping with the situation. Grieving does not happen in a hurry, and the daily anxieties of life quickly took over, as the rest of the month got consumed in business travel and meeting deadlines.

 

And now, here I am on my way to Austin to see Sirsha, flying in the quiet of the clouds gathering my thoughts and memories of our beloved Pishi. Memories defy the straightjacket of sequence and time. Some slip back carelessly, scattered snapshots in time, while others come back as episodes, each come with an accent of emotion. The former punctuates the later, and together they weave a precious narrative.

 

My earliest memory of Pishi was tied up in stories I heard of people visiting her. Chandannagar where she grew up, and Bombay where she lived, were places far away, that I did not visit often. I have faint memories of visiting her Bandra residence when I was about 5 years old. Indeed, there is a wonderful picture of us kids from that trip, but I have very vague personal memories. As the years went by, “Bombay Pishi” would come up whenever somebody visited Bombay. Everybody stayed with her, and came back with wonderful stories of love and hospitality. So, when it was my turn to go and work in Bombay for a few months, it was assumed, of course, that I would live at Pishi’s.

 

Being 21 and newly independent, I obviously sneered at the idea of living with relatives. I was intent on having my own place, and found myself a hostel with shared accommodations. Thankfully it was just a few minutes from the Chatterjee residence in Nerul. In retrospect, the rent I paid at the hostel was simply a statement of independence, rather than any meaningful assertion of it. Of course, Pishi was quite aware of this. She smiled at the idea, but figured it was best to humor me. Soon after, as the realities of cooking my own food in a shared kitchen, or alternatively eating out of a “dabba” settled in, I quickly hightailed for Pishi’s home cooking. Needless to say, each evening, after work, she’d call me and ask if I was coming home for dinner. What started as an embarrassed, and politely hesitant “may be – well I could do that”, soon became a “I’ll be there after work at 6”. The hostel rent that I paid from my meager income became the standing joke.

 

Which of course brings me to the story of Pishi and my finances. Managing money (independent of how little, or much I make) has never been one of my strengths. My longest committed relationship, so far, has been with my credit card. But back when I was 21 and had no access to credit, my personal banker and loan manager was my Pishi. Each month, I would bring my paycheck (they paid us cash back then), and handed it directly to Pishi to pay off my loan from the previous month. And promptly after that I would borrow money from her to see me through the month till the next paycheck. She kept her accounts, and shook her head and indulged me each month – with of course, a quick side comment about the rent at the hostel that I was throwing down the drain (“jol-e jache”). When out of cash, ask Pishi, was a reliable policy for me to live by. I smile to this day when I pay off my credit card each month.

 

And now to my favorite Pishi story. One of the highlights of my time in Bombay was cementing a friendship with my cousin Sirsha – a relationship I cherish to this day. She is two years younger than me – that is a lot of seniority, when I was 21 and newly employed, while she was still in college. Clearly, I was the responsible one – of course, this couldn’t be farther from the truth: we were both imps. Together we are a bad combination - one time, many years later, well into our adulthood, we travelled together and almost missed all our flights. Back then, we pushed our boundaries whenever we could and respect rules to the extent that we broke them carefully, covering our tracks behind us as well as we could. Pishi was not entirely unaware of this. She gave us knowing looks when we confidently fibbed – not major immoral lies, just minor adjustment of the truth. And she waited for just the right moment to catch us out.

 

The moment presented itself, when we decided to drive off to the other end of town, entirely flouting Sirsha’s driving curfew (limited to certain suburbs). I don’t really remember what we were doing, but we did watch a movie, besides being up to various other kids of trouble. Of course, the stated reason for our trip was to watch a movie in a neighborhood cinema within the curfew area. Sloppy background work on our part: we did not check what movie was playing at our intended theater. So, when we came back home and raved about the movie that we claimed to have watched, Pishi swooped in with some detective work, informing us very quietly “but, that movie is playing in Bandra, not in Chembur” … that moment, when the star cricketer gets caught out. We could hear the clapping in the stands and simply had no place to go, but back to the pavilion. We were caught red handed. We begged Pishi not to report on us to Pishay Mashai – because, boy oh boy, that would mean real trouble. So she quietly struck a deal with us, and in exchange for silence demanded nothing but the best behavior from us. This became a secret for the next few months. My favorite visual of this episode, is a comfortable Sunday morning at the Nerul residence, Sirsha snoozing on the couch, Pishay Mashai and me having one of our “conversations” (possibly about drinking “cow’s blood” – that's another story), and Pishi reading the newspaper – propped high up in front of her. And Pishay Mashai would say something like “… of course, you are all such good kids …” and Pishi would quickly shake the newspaper and look up from behind it, right over her reading glasses with a look that said … “I know your secret” … and both Sirsha and I would freeze for a few seconds each time that happened. Needless to say, when I left Bombay, I had been touched by Pishi’s love and her gentle indulgence.

 

I could keep writing – there are so many memories. The wonderful dinner I had with Pishi, Pishay Mashai and my parents, right before getting onto a plane to fly back to America – where Pishi, and I both enjoyed our vodka cocktails. The time I saw them in Chicago and Pishi loved the goat cheese I’d brought (led to some fun twists on language with Pishay Mashai). I have a wonderful memory of going up John Hancock Tower to the Signature Lounge in Chicago to enjoy the view, and have desert with Pishi and Pishay Mashai. I saw her for the last time in person in Austin at Arhan’s Annaprashan – and I remember saying goodbye to her then. I spoke to her on Skype this August while we were all in Chicago – she said she was losing her hearing, but there was no doubt that her spirit was still intact. She reprimanded me for not visiting her in Bombay, and I promised her I would this December.

 

Two weeks ago, I was in Paris on business, and my sister, Bonny came down to visit me from London. We aimlessly wandered around le Marais, window shopping. One of the designer stores we visited, the prices on the clothes made us reflexively leave the store – in ways similar to jerking back when touching something very hot. And suddenly I was reminded of something Pishi would say about expensive stores – “dam dekhe chitke beriye jete hoy” … Bonny and I shared the memory and laughed together, fondly remembering Pishi.

 

Pishi lives on in so many of my memories – many of which I may not recollect now, but they will surface someday just like the one in Paris, unexpectedly but surely – and then, I’ll smile, and she will live on through our lives.

-Amlan