16 Weeks… of “U” Turns

My Beloved,

The front door lock could have stopped working any day, but it chose to break today. The last time it happened was on March 30th, just six weeks back and the technician came within a few hours. Today, I complained early and the technician got assigned, but never came. He is expected tomorrow, and yet another “U” turn happened. The plan of spending the day at OshoDham has to be changed because we can’t lock the door !!!

Till Covid hit, we rarely changed our plans.. You and I would submit our holiday plans on Dec 31st to our respective bosses and the plans would all fall in place. The first time everything went awry was in 2020 when the pandemic hit. We changed the date of your shastiabdapoorthi (sixtieth birthday ceremony) from June to Oct 2021 and ever since that we have constantly changed our plans and decisions.

I so wish the Jan 23rd decision could be turned around !!! but I guess the decision to leave was taken by you as per our pact before we came into this world. I respect your decision, but I don’t like it one bit and am still some distance away from accepting it. 🙁

The string of “U” turns started right that day. I first wanted your last rites to be done in Gurgaon, at home …. everyone advised me against that and rightfully so, because it would have been a nightmare with the “paperwork”.

The next “U” turn was actually a couple of hairpin bends… I thought of holding the “celebration” meet on Feb 4th, the 13th day (Subha Sweekaram). Realised late that it would not be possible. Again a good decision, because we had some 60 people come home that day to celebrate your transition and there was no way that we could have stepped out for anything. I posted over WhatsApp saying the event would be held on Feb 7th before confirming the venue. DLF City Club 5 was available on the 6th or the 8th and City Club 4 was still being renovated.

We chose Feb 8th and I didnt mention it over the Whatsapp messages… Kapil, Arun, Siva and many other friends landed up on the 7th. Hairpin bend instead of a “U” turn, indeed.

The biggest “u” turn happened with the upcoming June trip … I was very sure that I will drive down, but was overwhelmed with the number of things that had to be taken care of. While Abhijeet and Subbu, both offered to drive down with Amma and I, it didn’t feel right. So I booked the flight tickets, in such a way that we could attend the June 7th launch of Project 100@100 in Chennai and then the June 14th event in Sivakasi. On Wednesday this week, Bhanu Ma’am told me that the June 14th event is postponed to June 28th due to certain logistical constraints.

When Usha was here last week, we made plans of driving down to Madurai and then attending the Sivakasi event. I called her immediately to cancel the hotel bookings and told her that this “U” turn business is a very strange experience for me. Am constantly changing decisions and that’s very unlike me. But without you here physically, am anyway unlike me, so I guess this is how I will be.

For a couple of weeks I got many friends working on this trip to Kedarnath… wanted to be there for your birthday. The whole thing unravelled as the helicopter trip was too expensive and was not available for just Kedarnath. I had to take either Badrinath and Kedarnath or the Chardham. So finally I dropped the idea and shifted it to the meditation retreat at OshoDham. And that too is not happening.

So am going around in circles and find myself in a maze…. some turnings appear to be helpful and some others just take me back to Jan 23rd. Nothing is the same and nothing will be the same because am rudderless without you.

I don’t want to find the rudder, nor do I want to float… I just want to get off the boat. Meditation helps, our Master is holding both our hands so am sure he will get us across this river however turbulent it is. So be it.

Found this old pic from our cycling days –

Maybe I will take the cycle out for a ride tomorrow …. or maybe it will be yet another “U” turn.