Jiji

I always called her Jiji, never by her first name. Pushpa, my second elder sister, was born on May 17, 1946, fifteen months before India became independent. She was the third of six siblings, and like all of us, delivered at home in the rented house in Marwadi Mohalla, Wardha.

Between Asha and me, Jiji occupied a special place—eleven years older, close enough to be a companion, distant enough to be a guide. While Badibai became the elder mother, Jiji became the sister who never left, the constant presence through every phase of my life.

The Education She Almost Had

Jiji studied entirely in Marathi medium—from Sarkari Madhyamik Shala to Kesrimal Kanya Shala to Craddock High School, named after the British Chief Commissioner. When she reached the tenth standard, she shared the same class as Ashok, though he was two years older. “I seemed to have done very badly in my Physics paper,” she told me. “I kept crying after I wrote it. When results were announced, I got through but Ashok, who sounded so confident, failed!”

She wanted to take science courses in college. She wanted to become a doctor. But Professor Ram Krishna Vora, our family’s friend and philosopher, warned Bhaiji: “If she becomes a doctor, you won’t be able to marry her off for six to seven years. You won’t find a suitable match in the Marwadi community.”

Bhaiji’s response was swift: “I’m not prepared to wait so long. I want to marry off my daughter in two to three years.”

Badibai had married at eighteen. The precedent was set. In those days, daughters didn’t insist—they toed their parents’ wishes. Jiji, given Bhaiji’s strong nature, was afraid of even voicing her wish, let alone deliberating on it. Thus, science was abandoned. Arts was chosen. Another woman’s medical career was sacrificed at the altar of social convention.

She married Tarachand Chandak on May 11, 1965, and stayed back for a year to complete her BA from Yashwant College. But frequent trips to her sasural at Sirri and Seloo left little time for studies. She failed her final BA exam. A week after taking her last paper, on May 7, 1965, Mamta was born at our Bachhraj Press home.

The Girl Who Loved Sports

During school, Jiji was an active sportswoman. She excelled in Kho Kho, Langdi, Laghori, 4×400 meter relay, and Fugdi. Even marriage couldn’t fade her interest. Once, her father-in-law casually dropped by our home. Bai hurriedly sent a servant to fetch Jiji, who was playing Gulli Danda with her brothers. “What impression would she create if they discovered their bahu playing outdoor games?” Bai thought. A perfect actor, Jiji sneaked in through the backdoor and pretended she was busy with household chores.

At twelve, she tried learning to cycle. One day she fell, bruising her elbow and knee. The injury made her afraid. Nobody encouraged her to keep trying. She gave up. She never rode a vehicle in her life—neither a two-wheeler nor a four-wheeler.

The Wedding and After

The marriage proposal came through Mr. Lohiya, a cotton broker. Eleven people from Seloo, Amravati, and Sirri came to see her. They approved. True to Hindi film style, Jijaji waited behind a tree on Ramnagar Road to catch his first glimpse of the girl he would marry. He had another proposal then—a very wealthy girl from Akot whose parents offered gold, cash, and a petrol pump. But his Dadiji genuinely liked Jiji. “I would offer Rs 5 pedhas if Tarachand marries Pushpa,” she said in her prayer.

The wedding was fixed for May 11, 1965, at the auspicious midnight hour. But Bhaiji refused. “I want the entire world to see the wedding take place,” he declared, convincing the groom’s father to perform the ceremony at 8 a.m.—unheard of in Wardha, more so in the Marwadi community. The wedding started punctually and lasted no longer than forty minutes.

Post-marriage, Jiji’s life became a series of relocations. Madras, Nagpur, Kagaznagar, Baroda, Gwalior, Indore—like a cat moving her kittens, she moved seven times before settling. Each move meant new schools for her children, new friends to make, new markets to navigate. Between 1965 and 2020, she did a fifty-five-year journey with Jijaji—filled with love, struggles, lows and highs, hopes and dreams.

Nagpur Days and Me

Between 1972 and 1976, when I was studying at Government Medical College, Nagpur, I would go to Jiji most weekends. Their Shankarnagar home was constantly filled with relatives and guests. Jiji was always in motion—cooking, cleaning, feeding others, making beds. She was the perfect host.

I spent most waking hours playing cards. Once, Jiji, Jijaji, Ashok babu, and I played cards almost non-stop for eighteen hours, suspending only for meals! Mamta and Manoj were young children who wouldn’t let me leave on Monday mornings, hiding my cycle keys or sandals.

Jiji and Jijaji would come to my Hanuman Nagar flat before every exam to wish me luck. When Jiji wasn’t in Nagpur, Jijaji and I would cook together. I learned to roll perfectly round parathas and chapatis and the art of making Aam Ka Ras.

The Letters We Exchanged

In the late seventies and early eighties, Jiji used to write me postcards almost every week. How I wish we had preserved those precious letters. I would reply promptly, describing my hostel days, my feelings, my achievements. Once I forgot to reply. The next week, the postmaster delivered an emotional postcard to my hostel: “If you think you don’t want to reply because your sister is poor, then so be it. I might be poor, but I deserve to be replied to. If you have some love left for me, write immediately.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I read those words. I quickly penned an equally emotional response.

Wherever Jiji went, I followed like a shadow. When I obtained my MD from Nagpur, I stayed with her in Baroda for fifteen days, cycling the entire city, watching movies. I went to Gwalior to be with her. She was my anchor, my home away from home.

The Struggles She Endured

Most of her life, they were short of funds. Between 1987 and 1990, Jiji started a salwar suit business from her LIG Indore flat. She would go to Delhi every three months, stay with Manju bhabhi, and buy wholesale from Gandhinagar market. Bai gave her Rs 10,000 once. Asha would generously contribute. She would market from home—asking friends, colony members, relatives to buy from her. She supplemented Jijaji’s salary with this business until Mamta’s marriage.

Jijaji’s misplaced pride would often make him resign from jobs. He was perceived as wronged but upright, refusing to bow to his bosses’ dictates. Thus, he left one job after another before finally retiring.

Jiji fought hard to add extra income. She didn’t mind days when there was little or no money. She endured hardships with grace. She was the perfect counterfoil to Jijaji—he was short-tempered and impulsive; she was cool and balanced. While he toured extensively as a marketing man, she looked after home and children, playing perfect host to endless visitors.

Letting Go

On December 25, 2019, Jiji and Jijaji went to Pune for Sarang’s engagement. Jijaji fell, hurt himself, and bled from his nose. He became breathless and began hallucinating. Admitted to Jupiter Hospital Pune on January 2, 2020, he was found to have severe hyponatremia. His lungs failed, and he was put on a mechanical ventilator.

I went to see him on January 6. The next day, Jiji overheard the doctor telling Aalok and Manoj about shifting to a smaller nursing home because bills were mounting. She got an inkling that Jijaji was serious. She knew he was dying and she acknowledged it.

On Thursday evening, the family sat together and decided they would take Jijaji off the ventilator Friday morning. His health was beyond salvage. Jiji was a picture of courage and calmness. She agreed there was no point torturing the body. There was no visible anger, fear, blaming, or crying. She had struggled for decades, and these hardships had taught her to take unexpected events with equanimity.

Jijaji passed away before the ventilator could be withdrawn—on January 9, 2020.

The Cancer

On December 3, 2018, after returning from Bhopal where she’d attended Anand’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Jiji felt tired from her daily 4 km walk. Three days later, she began getting abdominal pain, distension, and vomiting. I was giving MD exams at PGI Chandigarh and couldn’t receive her call. When I called back, alarm bells rang. I asked her to get an urgent ultrasound.

The scan showed epithelial carcinoma of ovary. Her CA 125 levels were very high. She was shattered. It was only September 2018 that her ultrasound had been normal. Many tears were shed the day cancer was discovered.

She went through surgery on February 15, 2019, following three cycles of chemotherapy. The surgeon removed her uterus, tubes, ovaries, lymph nodes, and the outer lining of her abdomen. She stood the surgery well and received three more chemotherapy cycles. She handled the cancer with poise, not hiding her hair loss with wigs.

Until February 2022, she was free from cancer. Then, coming to Wardha with Badibai to settle family disputes, she began vomiting again at Bhopal station. Despite their age and ill health, both sisters were gracious enough to come. On February 16, the four brothers and two sisters got a decree from the session judge. The sisters and Aalok played a big role in achieving the impossible.

Three days later, her ultrasound at Sevagram showed the cancer had returned. Between February 25 and July 21, 2022, she endured six more chemotherapy cycles—a picture of courage and calmness, with remarkable tranquility.

Aalok was her pillar of strength—friend, philosopher, guide. He talked with doctors, arranged tests, stood by her during chemotherapy, visited her at home. More than anyone else, Jiji trusted him. “I am so lucky to be surrounded by my children, daughter-in-law, Archana, Anand, Aalok, Amit, and their spouses,” she told me during one of our long conversations at Sevagram. “I have no words for Badibai and Jijaji. Their never-ending love keeps me going.”

The Woman She Became

Jiji loves long walks and yoga. Her mornings start with forty-five-minute yoga sessions. I saw her taking kilometer-long walks in Sevagram every morning, bringing energy to body and mind. When I suggested we needed no ultrasounds or scans to know how her cancer was progressing, she readily agreed.

“I struggled all my life,” she told me on November 21, 2022, at Sevagram. “Most of my life, we were short of funds. Every few years, we would shift to a new city or flat. And yet, I never gave up. I worked very hard to ensure my children were well settled. Nowadays, I take things as they come. I do not judge people—I simply go, love them, and live with them. I have acquired the art of forgiving and forgetting.”

Like a river that flows at its own rhythm, Jiji is simply letting her life flow. Smoothly and effortlessly. Surrounded by love, she enjoys every moment that comes her way. Her capacity to love and ability to forgive needs to be felt.

Reflections

When the pandemic arrived in March 2020, just two months after Jijaji’s death, I found myself thinking of Jiji often. She who had just lost her husband of fifty-five years, she who was battling cancer, she who had spent her entire life moving from city to city, adapting, adjusting, never complaining.

In the hospital corridors of Sevagram, when patients asked about resilience, I would sometimes think of Jiji—how she gave up her dream of becoming a doctor because Bhaiji wanted to marry her off quickly, how she raised three daughters through countless relocations, how she supplemented family income by selling salwar suits from home, how she let go of Jijaji with such grace, how she faced cancer twice with remarkable tranquility.

She taught me that strength isn’t about never falling—it’s about getting up each time. It’s about playing Gulli Danda with your brothers even as a married woman, then pretending to do household chores when your in-laws arrive. It’s about writing emotional postcards to your younger brother when he forgets to reply. It’s about starting a business from your flat when money is tight. It’s about agreeing to take your husband off the ventilator because you know there’s no point in torturing his body.

Jiji also taught me about the art of forgiving and forgetting. About not judging people but simply loving them. About taking things as they come. About flowing like a river at your own rhythm.

During her four-week stay in Sevagram in November 2022, I had long conversations with her. We went down memory lane, recollected the past, shared anecdotes, laughed merrily. As she spoke, I scribbled our conversations on paper before typing them on my desktop. I am so glad I did it.

When I think of grace under pressure, I think of Jiji at Jupiter Hospital, overhearing that conversation about shifting her dying husband to a cheaper nursing home, then calmly agreeing to withdraw life support. I think of her discovering cancer for the second time at Sevagram, just days after helping settle our family disputes in court. I think of her enduring twelve cycles of chemotherapy across two battles with cancer, never losing her morning yoga routine, never giving up her daily walks.

This is Jiji—the sister who flows like a river, the woman who taught me that resilience isn’t about never breaking but about continuing to flow despite every obstacle. The sister who never left, whose postcards I should have preserved, whose presence has been the constant through every phase of my life.

As I write this, Jiji continues her yoga, her walks, her flowing. Taking things as they come. Loving without judging. Forgiving and forgetting. Simply being. And in that simple being, she teaches me more about the practice of medicine—about grace, about letting go, about the art of living—than any textbook ever could.

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