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9.4
Graceful Exit
The Final Rhythm: Choosing Home over the ICU
December 2005 brought a sharp, biting winter chill to Sevagram. I had been back from Berkeley for seven months, slowly recalibrating my life to the rhythm of the hospital and the college. Life felt full and predictable—the wards were busy, the students were eager, and my memories of California were transitioning into evening anecdotes. But on December 5, the familiar cadence of my day was shattered by a phone call from Jaishree Bhavan. It was Kanta Bhabhi. Her voice, usually steady, was tight with an unmistakable worry. “Bai is struggling to breathe,” she said.
Without a second thought, I grabbed my keys and jumped into my Maruti 800. The drive from Sevagram to Wardha is barely eight kilometers, a road I had traveled thousands of times, but that day, it felt like an endless stretch of gray tarmac. When I arrived, the vibrant matriarch of our world looked smaller, frailer than I had ever seen her. She was weak, her eyes searching the room for an anchor, unable to articulate the distress within her. When she vomited twice in front of me, the son in me felt a surge of panic, while the doctor in me recognized the signs of a system beginning its final shutdown. “We need to go to the hospital,” I said firmly.
The Conflict of the White Coat
We admitted her to the Old Medicine ICU at Sevagram. My colleagues and mentors, Dr. O.P. Gupta and Dr. Ulhas Jajoo, attended to her immediately. The ICU is a place of high-stakes intervention; it is a landscape of beeping monitors, sterile smells, and harsh, unflinching lights. It is a place designed to fight death, often with a violence that leaves little room for the soul.
As the ECG machine hummed, spitting out a strip that told the story of a tired heart—old infarcts and a dangerously slow rate—we started the standard protocols. We administered fluids and medication, hoping for stabilization. But as the hours ticked by, a different realization settled over me. Looking at Bai, lying vulnerable amidst the tangled wires and plastic tubes, I knew this was not the environment she deserved for her final act. Modern medicine often forgets that “doing everything” can sometimes be a form of cruelty. At 9:00 PM, I made a decision that went against the grain of my training but aligned perfectly with my instincts as her son. “Let’s take her home,” I said.
The Decision for Peace
My home was a ground-floor flat in Vivekanand Colony, just a two-minute drive from the hospital gates. It was quiet, familiar, and filled with the energy of the family she loved. We brought her there, away from the alarms and the antiseptic. She refused dinner—her body instinctively knowing it no longer required nourishment—and drifted into a heavy sleep.
The night was a vast, heavy silence. Kanta Bhabhi and I sat vigil by her side, watching the rise and fall of her chest. There is a specific kind of intimacy in these final hours; it is a space where the noise of the world falls away, leaving only the breath of a parent and the quiet presence of those they raised. At 4:00 AM, the rhythm of the room changed. Bai woke up. She looked sick, but there was a startling clarity in her distress. Kanta Bhabhi, with the intuition born of years of caregiving, sensed that the moment had arrived. She leaned close and whispered, “Recite a Bhajan, Bai.”
The Final “Sitaram”
Bai, summoning a final, extraordinary strength, moved her lips. “Sitaram… Sitaram…” It was the chant that had been her steady companion through decades of widowhood, struggle, and survival. We gently lifted her off the bed. I sat on the floor and took her into my lap, cradling her head just as she had held me countless times when I was a child.
In those final moments, there was no panic. There was no frantic rush back to the ICU, no intubation, no ribs breaking under chest compressions. There was only the warmth of a son’s embrace and the soft sound of a name she had loved. She took a breath. Then another. And then, a profound, holy silence. On December 6, 2005, in the quiet pre-dawn hours, Bai passed away in my arms. It was a “good death” in every sense—she left the world as quickly and as peacefully as my father had, but with the added grace of being held by her own.
The Gathering of the Tribe
The news of her passing traveled with the speed of grief. Badibai was in Indore, and as soon as the word reached her, Aalok began the long drive to ensure she reached Wardha by early afternoon. Jiji rushed from Nagpur. By 1:00 PM, the house was filled with the people Bai had nurtured, fed, and guided. We performed her final rites at 4:00 PM that same day. As we returned her to the elements under the pale winter sun, I felt a strange mixture of sorrow and relief. We had protected her dignity until the very last second.
The Evolution of the Matriarch
Bai was a woman of her time, yet she constantly transcended it. She belonged to a generation of women who worked tirelessly for their families, often invisible in their labor, never seeking the spotlight. She was the bridge between our humble, cramped beginnings in Arvi and our later successes in the academic halls of Sevagram. But she was never a one-dimensional saint. She was complex, spirited, and fiercely real.
I remember her in all her shades: her sharp sarcasm, her occasional arrogance, her deep bouts of depression after my father’s death, and her jubilant joy in her later years. She was a woman who could watch Sholay three times and still find something new to love about it. In the early years of her widowhood, she endured financial stress and emotional pain that would have broken a lesser person. She raised us with a protective instinct that was almost primal. As we grew and succeeded, she softened, finding a sense of fulfillment in our achievements that replaced the anxieties of her youth.
The Phantom Presence
Holding her in those final moments, I realized a fundamental truth: while the physical umbilical cord is cut at birth, the emotional connection is only truly severed at death. And even then, it leaves a phantom sensation—a lingering presence that occupies the empty rooms of Jaishree Bhavan.
I still hear her quiet advice in the back of my mind when I face a difficult decision at the hospital. I still hear the echo of her “Sitaram” in the silence of the early morning. Bai taught me that medicine is not just about the length of a life, but about the quality of the ending. She showed me that a “good death” is the final gift a son can give a mother. She lived with grace, she labored with love, and she left with dignity. The circle of her life was complete, leaving behind a family that now walks the paths she helped pave with her quiet, relentless resilience.