Soliloquy

So what will you say of Mrs Das down the street
Who contracted a cancerous tumour on her throat
And passed away last month
You tell me to eat my greens, mum
I surmise that Mrs Das might not have had a lot of them
But is it fair for someone to lose their life just for
Not having had enough fibre in their diet?
A lifetime of joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure
Regret and applause, achievements and failures
Victories and defeats, people loved and lost
Gone within the blink of an eye

Everything seeming so small and insignificant
Will she now be judged for not having had nutritious food?
Will her son curse himself as to why he didn’t go
Grocery shopping with her enough, or her daughter-in-law
Ask herself why she never made that favourite curry of hers?
What is Mr Das thinking of these days?
Does he remember the beautiful three and a half decades
Or only the days of pure torture she faced towards the end?
Does he wake up in the middle of the night
Drenched in sweat and questioning himself as to why
He didn’t buy her sarees more often or take her to Benares?

Does death provide answers that one spends all life seeking?
Does it dispense the finality of inquisitiveness?
What did Mrs Das’s old neighbour Mr Sharma understand?
Does this remind him of his finite existence on earth
Or does it make him feel as if he is living on borrowed time?
What does Mrs Das’s Golden Retriever puppy dream of?
Does it see its mistress’s halos all around the house
Or does it still smell that distinctive odour near the kitchen?

What does her granddaughter ponder about in silence?
Too young to understand the irreversibility of death
Does she still wait for grandma to tell her stories before bed?

Note: This is my way of paying tribute to a strong, independent woman, our neighbour Mrs Das who passed away last month, aged 60, after failing to respond to chemotherapy to cancer in her throat.