They don't come any fairer!

I had not finished saying farewell to my lovely friend Srutimala Duara when disaster struck again, and this time took away from us our beloved Deepika Phukan baideo. If the too early departure of a bright, beautiful and vivacious human being that Sruti was has stunned and numbed me, Deepika Baideo's going was perhaps less unexpected but has left me feeling like an orphan, all over again.  And now, as I sit at my desk trying to make sense of these goings, I understand more clearly than ever before our transience in this world we temporarily inhabit. Nobody is a survivor, Sruti had rightly said, for in the end nobody will survive the condition of being alive. 

 But then why is it so hard to say goodbye?

 It was sometime in January this year. I was trying hard to pretend I had not heard the news about Sruti's relapse... she was fighting ovarian cancer since early 2021, but she was a tough fighter, she had recovered once before, she would do it again, I told myself. But this time it had reached the brain -- that was not good news. She loved the white pitha with gur and coconut filling. I sent her some with our mutual friend Kumkum. She scolded me for not delivering them in person. That was the 27th January. I went to see her on the 28th January. She looked a little different from the carefully dressed and flamboyant Sruti we had got so used to expecting. But she behaved as she always did -- called up her mother and pulled her up for forgetting to take her medicines, gave me a few ideas to solve the problems I was having with organising the Trust award event. And then she told me about what all she had been doing and planned to do. She was writing a book of rhymes in Assamese about the environment for children. Her rhymes were ready but the illustrations weren't. She was busy making them happen – a few of them she liked, but not all. But her double vision was making it hard for her to check the colours. 

Sometimes I would wonder at her energy. At other times I would scold her for trying to do too much – you are burning yourself from both ends, I would tell her. But there was no stopping her. She lived life at her pace, on her terms. Did she perhaps know that she had to push faster since her time would run out sooner than the rest of us?

 I don’t remember exactly when I met Sruti for the first time. She was one year senior to me in school. We did not meet in college since she went to Handique and I was in Cotton. Even later in Gauhati University, we did not become friends since she was doing English, and I was doing Mathematics. Then she became a newsreader in Doordarshan. I remember being quite overwhelmed and in awe of Sruti’s style and elegance; I admired her from afar. It must have been after the start of the NEWF that we really became friends – we were all wannabe writers then, middlers, dreaming of achieving bigger things. She continued to blind us all with her glamour; I would tease her about the hours she must spend getting to look that good; she, in turn, would pull me up often for not taking enough care of how I look. Our friendship continued as we met for our Forum reading sessions, attended the annual forum meets, and many other literary events together…

There was this amazing connect because even though she had created and carefully nurtured this image of a diva for herself, she remained astoundingly accessible, friendly, grounded, and also very humorous. She was always good for a laugh and she did not spare anyone -- not even herself -- from becoming the butt of her jokes. Of course she continued to be an active part of the Forum long after I stopped being a regular. And she cared a lot for it, all through these years, and did a lot to keep it going, both a secretary as well as otherwise. Even in the middle of all her illness, perhaps it was sometime last year, I remember her calling me up and asking if my mother’s home in Panchabati was still available to house the Forum office, since these premises would need to be surrendered soon.

Her last chemo was on the 31st Jan. She needed about a week to feel better again; so she asked me to call around the 10th Feb. to firm up plans to go to the Bougainvillea resort with Mitra Baideo. But her body was not able to tolerate her last chemo... things went rapidly downhill after that... she kept fighting... in and out of hospital... she was put on the ventilator after suffering a big cardiac arrest minutes before the start of our Award meeting on Saturday, the 25th Feb. She waited for her children to arrive, and then left on Monday the 27th Feb. morning, forever... 

Sruti is gone. Towards the end she was in a lot of pain, so much so that she wanted to go, she begged for release, for an end to her agony, she waited to go and meet her beloved father in the next world; But still… How does one handle such news? What does it mean? How can she just go? Where was she going? All those many times that she had mentioned death and going, and she would make us all laugh about going by saying  ‘I goes’, nobody had taken her seriously. And now she was really gone. They dressed her up nicely like she always liked to... put fresh nail polish and eye shadow and mascara on her...'Make me look good on my last journey' she had told her closest friends Paparee, Fiona and Angira -- that is what they did.

I needed to see her one last time if only to find closure... There was a beautiful and big wreath of white flowers from the NEWForum – it should be placed on her body, I was told. But wouldn’t it be too heavy on her, I asked myself. And what chance did that wreath have when every single thing she had on her was removed before declaring her fit for the pyre? Her husband was there – calm and composed as usual. Her two children – Geet and Neha -- were there but they kept mostly to themselves. When the time came, they did as they were told. They both looked lost and beaten -- their mother had meant everything to them. And how was Sruti’s mother coping? How did one cope when one lost one’s only child? How could one even begin to imagine all that…I came back from the cremation numbed... a dull ache oozing out from every pore. There were many who went to the cremation, there were not many left there with dry eyes that evening.

And so many had gone to Nabagraha that evening, and later to her home in the Sarania hills, and also to that lovely memorial event held last Sunday. That is because Sruti had many friends, she was a good friend to many, not just friends from school, or friends who were her colleagues, but also with people who were much younger or much older, she simply could made friends with whoever she came in contact with. Of all her many virtues, one shone out -- Sruti was a loyal friend and she stood steadfast with them through thick and thin.

I was supposed to leave for Amritsar a few days later. I told myself that Sruti was gone and that I should not change plans. There was nothing that I could do to change anything. Perhaps the journey away could even help me heal.

But then Boloram called... our dear Deepika Phukan Baideo, who had been ailing for the last couple of years, had been taken to hospital a few days ago and was on the ventilator.  I panicked. What if she did not survive this spell? Why were so many awful things happening so rapidly around me? On the last evening before we were supposed to leave I went to see her in the ICU. She responded to my calls and moved her head. But her eyelids had been forced shut (to prevent the eyeball surface from drying out, I was told) and she could not open them. She was eating through (a tube inserted through) her nose and breathing through (the oxygen that was being pumped into) her mouth. That seemed all very wrong... I spoke to the young lady doctor on duty there. She told me that given Baideo's many complications, the prognosis was not good. I stroked Baideo's cheeks, pressed her frail arms, and said my good bye to her. That was Wednesday evening. Boloram said that she was better and more responsive on Thursday and Friday. But in the early hours of Saturday (4th March) morning came the dreaded news: Baideo was no more. 

Sruti and Baideo were both beautiful people but in different ways. Sruti was a blazing sun, Baideo was a soothing rainbow... Sruti was bold and beautiful, she was an extrovert, a charmer, a crowd puller; Baideo's beauty and radiance was more subtle, more old-time -- she was quiet, gentle and kind. Sruti took your breath away, Deepika baideo helped you find your breath. One was a dear friend, the other was like a mother, or at least, a favourite aunt.

Both of them wrote, while Sruti was a creative writer writing with equal felicity both in Assamese and English, Baideo did a lot of amazing translations. Sruti also did beautiful recitations in Assamese, she wrote books for children. Baideo loved gardening, she loved flowers and plants, kept a beautiful home and did lovely embroidery. She would create amazing frocks and dresses for little kids all done with smocking and embroidery. Both of them believed in using their time to do something they loved doing.

Deepika Baideo  was a couple of years younger to my mother who had often told us stories of how they, the senior girls, had protected their pretty junior from being teased by the Cotton College boys. I knew Baideo's elder siblings before I met her. Her elder sister Amala Bezbaruah was my teacher in Gauhati University. And her brother Dhiren Bezbaruah is that famous editor of the Sentinel who taught so many of us how to become 'middlers' (writer of middles) for his newspaper. I met Deepika Baideo only after Amala Baideo's death when she called me over and presented me with one of Amala baideo's pretty brooch pins. 'She would have liked you to have it -- you were one of her favourite students,' she told me. But that one-off encounter blossomed into a beautiful relationship, and I began to look up to Baideo and Bhindew as my very own. Our bond became stronger when Baideo took to doing translations. Baideo translated many books, among them Arupa Baideo's Felanee. But then it was something unpleasant that happened with regard to another translation project she had almost completed that made Baideo sad, and perhaps also sick.  That was her last translation project.

My last photo with them in April 2022

Although she tried hard to keep up appearances, the truth was that Baideo had battled several health crises in the last years -- cancer, brain stroke (multiple times), diabetes, among others. Somehow she had always bounced back to the lovely caring warm and beautiful human being she was. But when she slowly began to forget things a couple of years back, things began to look different. Bhindeo was also getting frail and although his brain was alert, he needed a wheelchair to move about. Baideo was physically relatively all right but she was slowly beginning to forget. As they sat gracefully in their respective sides of their bed, looked after nicely by the amazing Boloram-Dalimi duo, one could only hope and pray that when their time came, they would find release without too much pain and suffering. Bhindeo (Satyen Phukan, born 1929) is past ninety and physically frail. Baideo (born 1936) was in her late eighties. She had moments of clarity but they did not last. It was very hard to reach her...I wanted to tell her how much she meant for me, thank her for all the love and affection they had showered on me, tell her that I loved, respected and admired her, tell her that she and Bhindeo made a beautiful couple -- one of the loveliest I knew. In the end I let it be... for it did not matter at all to her....

For the truth is, no matter whether I said my farewell or not, they are both gone, and this time it is final....They are both gone... the numbness is to dull the pain, I guess. After a while even that will subside... and I will be left with only memories -- memories of the nice times we spent together, memories of the many things that happened, memories of what each one of them meant for me; memories of all the beautiful lessons I have learnt from them, memories are all that will remain... 

Till someday it will be our turn to turn into a memory...