Dear Ashita,

This is turning out to be quite a sad year for me because Yam dev (the lord of death) seems to have taken a liking to my family. I have lost yet another person, an old aunt. I was not very close to her and yet when she passed away, there was an undeniable sense of loss. A feeling that slowly an era is coming to an end and with that familiar faces disappearing.

Let me introduce you to this aunt of mine, she married my widowed uncle who had 2 children from his first marriage and came to be part of the Kunnathully family. A lady who spoke English with flair, commanded a certain respect by the way she carried herself and made doors open by her sheer confidence. A humble history professor in a parallel college and yet a woman with a strong network in society.

It’s always baffled me why she chose to marry a widower and someone who didn’t have half the sophistication that she seemed to carry. As a child I would just watch her speak coz she used to be able to carry on a conversation by herself with not so much of a peep from the other person. And she would do it quite entertainingly. She was the sort who would breeze her way through the queue and hold any grumblers at bay with her confidence, command over the English language and her audacity.

She passed away in a hospital with no family near her and a lone home nurse for care. She has a biological son, two step children and many grandchildren. Yet the days close to her death she lay as an orphan would, albeit a financially comfortable orphan.

I feel pained, my moral sense feels violated but more than all that I feel confused. Did she deserve to die alone? Was there a face to her which she had with her family that turned them against her? Was it the materialistic circumstances of this world?

I don’t know…….but I keep thinking back to those times when I dropped in at her home and she would be busily preparing a choice dish for one of her grandchildren or she would be writing a letter to her son ……many little things that are so invaluable and yet failed to ensure that she have dignity in death of being surrounded by loved ones.

I wonder what life is all about, Ashi……….I wish I had a hand to guide me through my confusion, to make me understand the cruelties I see……..a hand that I had …….a hand that was taken away……