The Gujaraati Mama

This is about my 63 years old neighbor who lived all by himself in a flat in this building in Colaba. He is supposedly a bachelor, for not anyone has known about his marital life. He does not keep a very good health and needs medical, emotional and financial help.

For the emotional bondage, he had a sister in the far end of Mumbai whom he visited sparingly but kept in touch. He had been a large-hearted man who had helped people all his life. He must have attended hundreds of funerals, consoled many families, helped in doing errands for the relatives and acquaintances who had been hospitalized. Whenever anyone needed any help in the extended family, he would stretch to reach out. He had helped a sister marrying the daughter off and helped another’s three sons with money that he could afford and they needed for studies.

Now he had nothing much to call substantial. A cash balance of about Rs. 20000/- and the flat in Colaba was his net worth. Apart from that, no shares, no fixed deposit, no saving certificate and no mediclaim either. His other assets if you call them were the three Billionaire nephews who had made big abroad.

This neighbor would place his chair at the front door of this one room flat to chat with anyone passing by. The ‘Baais’ were the ones who could spare more than a minute to talk. Others were busy people who rushed by greeting him.

The nephews had NRI accounts with the Banks in Mumbai that ran into eight figures. But the ‘Mama’ was too proud a gentleman to ask for a penny. It was at one of the visits to Mumabi, India; that one nephew remembered ‘Mama’. He could guess how difficult it would have been for Mama to pay for the medicine, amenities like electricity and water, and the ‘Gujaraati Khichdi’ that he had twice a day. He wanted to extend comfort to Mama but this was a strong self respect loving person. Six new sets of Gujaraati half sleeved Kurtas and Pyjamas that the nephew carried touched Mama enough to wet his eyes. He was happy that the nephews were comfortable enough to do this for him.

My suggestion of drawing money as little as Rs.15 lacs from the NRI account and putting as Fixed deposit with the Nationalized Bank where Mama had his little saving was readily accepted by the nephew. The either or survivor account was arranged in a manner that the interest got credited to Mama’s account. Mama did not get to know much about it and the nephew was satisfied that he would be able to afford the Doctor at flat and the regular dosage of prescribed medicines.

Mama however could not enjoy his financial comfort for long and withdrew from the Savings account only twice. Soon after the arrangement he died. He passed away in sleep to die peacefully. The nephew’s attention did give him the emotional satisfaction before death.

Mama’s funeral was well attended. Baais of the building attended it. The other flat wallas made sure that they also attended the funeral, howsoever rushed affair this may also have been.

- Bhaiya, Jagdeep Bhargava