A Tribute To My Father - Chapter 2

LAST TEN DAYS - 2nd Blog

I guess dad had lost control on Sunday night (Jan 21) while taking a drink. While they were in their room , dad had raised his glass and then could not hold it - mom and guddu were there in the room as he collapsed on the bed. He could not breathe and therefore mom tried to give him the inhaler by pushing open his mouth. They rushed him to the nearest hospital....


As soon as I arrived at the hospital on Wednesday night (Jan 24) mom asked me to go see dad in the ICU - everybody insisted that I talk to him. I took my shoes off and put on the chappals, specially designated for visitors, and went in to visit dad. He was on a ventilator as he had not breathed on his own since Sunday night; surrounded by plenty of gadgets, dad seemed peaceful and not struggling a bit in the state. I told dad that I was here.

The visit was brief - I went out and made arrangements for sleeping on the floor, with Mannu, in the waiting area - a common practise among the many that were there. We did not sleep for a very long time as we chatted with Mickey Virji, Sonu, Sonu Khanna and others - I needed to catch up with the whole situation.

Dad had not shown any signs of illness before although he had had some close encounters with death. Pappa (taya ji - Mickey Virji's father) was not told of the situation yet as we were not sure how he would react, given the fact that he was quite fragile - we did tell him the next day though, although he was surprised to see me there. The cat scans a day before had shown brain hemorrhage with blood seeping into the respiratory control part of the brain - thus the respiratory arrest. Earlier, the doctors had thought it was a heart condition that had caused this.

Dad was in the process of rebuilding the business - he had taken over the shop from Mannu and was quite busy in creating relationships again. I had talked to him on several occasions about this and felt that he was in fact enjoying this. 1984 was the other occasion that he had had to do something similar - starting from the scratch. Mom told me that dad was basking in the glory of praise from his returned customers as they appreciated his coming back to the shop. Mannu, on the other hand, was training with Infosys and enjoying the change as well....

Anyways, I am attaching the first cat scans - the dark parts in the middle is the blood that seeped into the brain.