with Sri Ganesh

Some of us went to bid her farewell the morning of her departure; I didn’t.

They reached Ahmedabad eventually and had her admitted at once in a well-equipped Hospital, where she underwent almost immediately new, massive surgery. Madhu had arranged also for Vipul, his younger brother, to arrive there from the US. It was Vipul who phoned several times a day for the next few days to give me and all of us any news there were to give. Vijay had also gone with them. After the surgery, Vijay talked to me on the phone; he said there was only the Grace, now, to help her. But her birthday was coming the day after, the 10 th of May; this was a Monday. Somehow, the doctors were very surprised that her condition had stabilized. She was conscious. Her sons could by turn talk with her. Vipul was torn between hope and distress. I told him that, now, with her birthday arriving, we must be very strong and quiet and offer it all; I asked him to pass on my message to her. The day went well. The next day too. On the Wednesday, she began to fail, one organ after another. On Thursday evening, it was clear she was not going to recover. Vipul began to feel that it wasn’t right to keep her in a hospital, tied to all these machines, away from everything that was dear to her. I fully supported him in the decision to have her taken off from the systems and shifted to Madhu’s home; all of us did. We all had been upset and distressed by the decision of Kusum’s family to take her away from the atmosphere she loved and needed, and had felt helpless: what could we do! And it seemed now that her sons, or at least Vipul, the younger one, regretted it; Kusum had only been exposed to further agony, in an environment that meant nothing to her, left alone, hooked to machines. It was quite a struggle for Vipul to hew his way through the administrative hurdles so as to obtain permission to shift her to her elder son’s home. The day after, they were able to move her. When they entered Madhu’s house – a fairly new house, which she had visited earlier, she was conscious enough to open her eyes and recognize the place. And then, almost right away, she breathed her last.

Some days later – perhaps two weeks had elapsed – both the sons came to Pondicherry with her ashes. They wanted me to accompany

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