Silver Haze Preface and Chapter 1

Hello Doctor, How are you?I am fine. How are you?You are the Doctor. You tell me how I am.The doctor smiled at me.Can I ask you a few questions?Sure, fire away. You are a pleasant doctor to talk to.Can you tell me your name?I am Kamala Puri. Your hospital slip says you are Neeru Sharma.Yes, that’s my name after marriage.When were you born?2nd June 1928.Are you sure?Yes. This is the date recorded in my school-leaving certificate.How old are you?Must be 60-70-80 years. I don’t know. I don’t feel that old. What year is this?Must be 1991. Or is it 2001? 2002? I don’t know!It is 2005. What month is it right now?I know that it is May. I checked the date in the newspaper in the morning. No wait. Now I remember. It is December.Is it summer or winter?I don’t know. You have a fan on in this room. It must be summer.The doctor smiled. I started againSee I made you laugh, doctor.How much is 27 minus 6?21And how much is 27 multiplied by 6?162What is your father’s name?Nek Chand Puri. Doctor, what is your father’s name?The doctor steered the conversation away from his own family history.Let us talk about you. What is your husband’s name?I remember. It is Principal Sharma. You must know him.What time is it?6:43 - there is a clock on the wall behind you.Can you spell ‘world’?            Yes. W-O-R-L-D.Now can you spell it backwards?            I can try. D-R-….. . I give upWhich city is this?            This is Ludhiana. Correct?Are you sure?            I think so.What is the name of this Hospital?            It is Brown’s Hospital.Which floor are we now?            We came up a lift. I don’t know.We went on like this for maybe a full half-hour before the doctor asked my son to join us. He started talking to my son as if I didn’t exist! But they were talking about me. I felt like I was a pet dog listening to a vet expounding my medical problems to my owner.I was devastated. The doctor told my son that I had dementia and possibly Alzheimer’s disease. He put a question mark on my hospital record against Alzheimer’s and circled dementia to emphasize it. It was irreversible, the doctor said. He suggested some medicines and some lifestyle changes that could delay the progress, but I had to face the reality that I would soon be a helpless invalid in the care of caregivers. I was shattered. I had studied psychology as a major for my graduation in college and had an idea what the doctor was talking about. Dementia is just a symptom while Alzheimer’s disease is the cause. Dementia is like fever, which only tells that the person is sick, without telling what is causing the sickness. There can be other possible causes of dementia, including vitamin deficiencies and thyroid conditions that are reversible. Dementia can also be caused by a stroke or other illnesses. Alzheimer’s disease is named after a German psychiatrist who first described this malady over a century ago even before Freud gave us his theories. What I remembered from the psychology I had studied in college was that the only way to diagnose Alzheimer’s is to rule out all other possible causes. The disease is incurable and worsens as it progresses. The symptoms are not just memory loss. I know it will lead to confusion, aggression and mood swings.
I realized that I would have to live the rest of my life in some kind of a haze. I would gradually find it difficult to look back at my own past. I would lose my short-term memory first and then my long-term memory. Life would be like a swirling mist and I would have moments of recall. I would be able to recall clearly some past events but this would again be lost in oblivion as the fog moved in again. I wouldn’t be able to peer into the future without the benefit of being able to recall my past. I realized that as my life became engulfed in deepening fog I would become like a vegetable and not know what was happening to me. It was with difficulty I got up and put on a wan smile as we left the doctor behind. I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything the whole day long as my husband, my son, my daughter-in-law, my daughter, my son-in-law kept talking about my affliction. They were trying to work out how they would have to cope with me. My children kept hugging me and telling me that they loved me but I guess they didn’t have any clue regarding how I could cope with it even though by the evening they had a fair idea how ‘they’ would all cope with my trouble.I wept in my pillow that night. I don’t think I slept at all. I mentally went over all I knew about my disease. Before it was daybreak, I had already resolved that if I had to live in other people’s care, I should always be nice to the caregivers and go out of the way to be gentle and polite. I have to accept it and live life as it comes. I know it is difficult for my caregivers. I must do something to make it easy for them.That morning I dug out an old discarded notebook and started writing. I knew writing my story would delay the progress of the disease. But more than that, I wanted to write down everything I knew while I still remembered it so that I could read it back when dementia made me forget it all. I was elated now. Dementia couldn’t rob me of my memories now because I would write them down. It was a major victory for me. *****






It is a hot summer evening. I am sitting in a large first floor room of a decent size bungalow overlooking a road. There is a domestic help looking after me. I have to keep her in good humour so that she will continue to look after me. This must be my son’s house but I don’t see any member of the family around – must be busy in other parts of the house. The room is sparsely furnished but beautifully done up. The curtains are of the expensive lacy variety and are well stitched. There is a well-finished double bed with a colourful bedspread. There is no pillow in sight. I think the pillow will materialize from somewhere when it is time for me to sleep. There are two comfortable chairs in the room. I am sitting on one and the girl is sitting on the other. There is a TV set on the wall and the girl is watching some dance programme.“Can I get a cup of tea?” I ask the girl. She has a melodious name that I can’t remember just now. She stares at the TV even more intently pretending that she hasn’t heard me. I must have asked for tea too many times. People get bugged when I forget and repeat myself too often.I look at her again and try again. “That is a pretty dress you are wearing – the pink colour is very becoming on you.” She smiles. Flattery always gets me some attention. I press on, “Why don’t you make two cups of some nice tea. Then we can both sit here and sip tea while we watch your favourite programme on TV.” She looks at me in the eye and says, “You just had tea about 10 minutes ago.” She gets up, goes outside my room and brings me an old magazine. I must have read the magazine before but I don’t remember and can read it again. She then pulls the curtains apart and opens the windows before resuming her seat in front of the TV.The view from the window is breath-taking. There is very little traffic on the road. I love the twilight hours when the sky is a gorgeous riot of orange. There is a park across the road on one side. A group of schoolchildren is playing cricket in the centre of the park. A bunch of smaller kids is playing in a corner with a flying disk. Right in front of my window is a small shopping arcade. There is a little hustle and bustle but this is not a busy market place. My attention is drawn towards a corner shop occupied by a firm of caterers who cook food for weddings. Looking at the level of activity visible from my vantage point, they must have got a large order today. I can make out at least three large gas stoves with huge pans and Indian woks (karahi) on them and uniformed workers scurrying here and there, some just stirring the stuff in the pans and others bringing big buckets and basins full of materials that are being added into the pans. I notice a deep freezer near the entrance of the shop. One person is counting out frozen chicken. They sure are going to serve non-vegetarian food in this marriage, I thought. In India, or at least in these parts, a sizeable part of the population eats meat but there is a taboo on eating meat on holy occasions such as religious festivals, marriages, births and deaths. I try to recollect when I had chicken served in a wedding. Suddenly I remember – it was my own wedding many years ago!The doctor had told me that my dementia does not mean that I don’t remember things. He had explained that the brain acts like a hi-fidelity recorder that records every event, every feeling. My ailment only affects the recall and I am usually unable to recall what is recorded in my memory. I don’t know how correct that is but sometimes, once in a while, something triggers my memory and some event from the past suddenly comes alive for me. This is one such moment. I am sitting here, transfixed. My eyes are counting the chickens along with that person in the shop. But my mind is elsewhere.
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I looked at myself in the mirror. All I saw were dark circles around my eyes hidden behind my studious looking spectacles. Then I looked down at my well filled up figure. I was not fat, I thought, maybe I was just a little bit plump. Did I look the bride? I preen around for a while trying to pose like a bride. I tried smiling but I still did not look like a radiant picture-book bride. I shrugged my shoulders and looked around.I was in a first floor room at the back of my parent’s house in Amritsar. All the relatives had come from far and near and had been staying in the house with us for many days. In fact, my grandmother and some uncles had been there for more than a month. But that is life as usual. In 1950s it was common to have large households and have several relatives living in as guests for months at a time. We lived in a large duplex house with many interconnected rooms on both the floors. I guess privacy was not an issue those days. My eldest brother (half-brother actually) and his wife had come from Agra for the wedding and were occupying the largest room in the house, the front room on the first floor. Bhraaji, for that’s what I always called him, was his usual rotund self with a round face propped up on top of a plump torso. Bharjai ji, his wife, was fair, tall, thin and sprite. One and zero is what their shape always reminded me of. Together they made a perfect figure of ten (10).Bhraaji was the first person to greet me that morning. He was wearing a white T shirt, white shorts held up with suspenders and white tennis shoes with white socks. It was obvious that he was on his way out for his morning walk.“May this day bring you happiness! May you swell with joy! May you be blessed with a thousand sons!” He had gone on like that for a good five minutes in the quaint dialect spoken in my parent’s house, until I started blushing. His wife, Bharjai ji, soon joined him. She was wearing a white saree and rubber slippers. She also muttered a few blessings in her usual thin raspy voice before they both strutted out for their morning walk. “I am getting married and all they care for is their morning walk!” I thought. Before I could collect my thoughts, my Daddy walked in.“How is my little queen today?” he enquired as he sauntered into my room. My Daddy was a tall 5’11” with an athletic build who could dominate any gathering with his cheery smile and a twinkle in his eyes. He looked me in my eyes and asked, “Are you happy?” I returned his gaze and smiled shyly. What was I supposed to say? This was an arranged marriage and I was getting married to someone I didn’t know at all – I had met him only once in the downstairs drawing room under the watchful eyes of the two families and had not exchanged a single word with him. Here I was being hitched to him for a whole lifetime. My stomach was full of butterflies and my heart was thumping so loudly that perhaps someone in the next room could have heard the heartbeat. And here was my Daddy asking me if I was happy! “I am okay,” I said, trying to put on a smile. My Daddy did something he had never done before. He pulled me to himself and gave me a tight bear hug. We are not a family that does much by way of display of affection. I don’t remember many occasions my parents had actually hugged me. I was taken aback when my Daddy hugged me now. I had a small tear in my eye.“My little queen,” my Daddy started, carefully choosing words as he continued, “you are getting married tonight. This is the last day you can call this house your own. Tomorrow, your husband’s house will be your home.” He paused before he continued, “I want you to remember this always – we all love you and you are always welcome to come and live with us whenever you want to. You can stay with us for whatever period you want to.” He had a deadpan face now as he continued, “But remember this – if you fight with your husband or have an argument with him or his family or walk out of your new home, the doors of this house are not open for you.”I stared at his face as the enormity of his statement slowly started hitting me. I was burning my boats. I would never be able to look back again. My father had made it clear – I had to make the marriage work, no matter what. My own house – my parents’ house - was not available to me as a refuge if things did not work out. I didn’t have the faintest idea what to look forward to. What I knew about the family I was getting married into was precious little. This refugee family had emigrated from what is now Pakistan, a few years ago. My would-be husband had just got a job as a college teacher in a Government College in a city called Ludhiana. My only recollection of this place was a remark by the Irish Mother Superior of the Convent School I attended, “Girls! I will not come to your class tomorrow as I am going to Loodiaana (that was how she pronounced it).” I had no inkling where Ludhiana was but could surmise that it must not be very far away if Mother Superior had to take only one day off to go and come back. My husband-to-be had completed his Masters in Arts majoring in Economics from Government College, Lahore just before the Partition (In Punjab, we usually refer to the events of August 1947 as ‘Partition’ and not as ‘Independence’). His father had been a leading lawyer in the city of Lyallpur (now Faisalabad in Pakistan). They had huge properties in Lyallpur but had to leave everything behind when they came to this side of the partitioned India. My fiancé was now the sole breadwinner and had to support his parents and a spinster sister and, starting tomorrow, me with his salary. They were living in a rented house but my Daddy was sure that eventually, they would get a sizeable compensation for the property they had left behind in Pakistan. There was nothing much to look forward to. I was still clinging to my Daddy as he gently lowered me onto a chair by the large window overlooking the courtyard below and in the process stumbled against a small table set in front of the chair. My elder sister Poonam had crocheted the tablecloth just before she got married last year, with the idea that she would take it with her dowry. At the time of her wedding, the tablecloth was not considered good enough to send with her dowry and was left behind to adorn this table here. At that time, I had crocheted an identical tablecloth that was now a part of my dowry. The tablecloth wasn’t good enough for my sister but was good enough for my dowry. I didn’t dwell on that thought, as my Daddy was hobbling around with his stubbed toe. I made him sit down on the other chair, took his foot in my lap and gently massaged the injured toe until circulation returned.My Daddy got up, patted me on my cheek and mumbled something about the bride’s father being always the busiest person in any wedding before leaving. I looked around the room again. This wasn’t my room in this house. My room was a slightly larger room on the ground floor that I had shared with my sister Poonam before she was married and moved away. The better part of last year, I had spent with Bhraaji and Bharjai ji in the city of Agra, but after coming back from there, I had shared my room with a niece who was staying with us at that time. After a round of ceremonies last night, this room, designated as a guest room, was set up for me. I had become a guest in my own house. There are countless ceremonies in any Indian wedding. My parents were followers of Arya Samaj, a Vedic revival movement started by Swami Dayanand Saraswati over a century ago. The Arya Samaj precepts forbid idol worship and virtually all religious ceremonies consist of a ‘Havan,’ a sacred fire lit in a small metal pot called ‘Havan kund.’ Small pieces of wood from mango trees, clarified butter and an aromatic mixture called ‘samigri’ are fed into the fire to keep the fire burning. This is accompanied with chanting of Sanskrit ‘mantras’. Last evening the ceremonies consisted of the groom’s family handing over some clothes for me to wear followed by a Havan. Today’s morning ceremony involved all the ladies of the house applying sandalwood paste on my face, arms and legs as some kind of a ritual beauty aid. This was again followed by Havan. The Pundit ji who conducted the Havan had a lot of patience. All the youngsters in the house were making merry and he had to raise his voice several times and repeat several mantras just to make his voice audible.It was late for breakfast and the caterers had prepared some brunch. The caterers were occupying the courtyard and had ready a table loaded with a traditional meal. A basket full of freshly fried ‘puris’ (deep fried unleavened bread) was already on the table and a couple of cooks were frying some more in a corner. A large bowl of chickpeas, another bowl of a potato dish and a bowl of a pumpkin dish were on the table, all steaming hot. A small bowl of pickles and a salad platter were also on the table. A large bowl of sooji (semolina) halwa, a traditional sweet, completed the meal. All the several dozen relatives present there soon got busy attacking the food. I somehow didn’t feel hungry and kept sitting on a folding chair in the courtyard. After some time someone in the crowd handed me a plate with a small quantity of food piled in. I ate something but couldn’t finish the quantity on my plate. I got up and discarded the plate with the leftover food in a pile of dirty utensils in a corner. We all had some weak tea after the meal.I moved back into my guest room on the first floor. Some of the ladies in the family had volunteered to dress me up and make me ready for the wedding. I sat by the window and looked down at the caterers winding up the last meal and starting preparations for the wedding meal in the evening. My heart was pounding. To me it seemed that I was using all my will power to keep it from bursting out. I wanted to get up and run away! Run away where? Agra? Suresh? Only there was no Suresh waiting for me in Agra! There was no place to run away to. I had to stay on here and live out my life. This was my karma, my fate. My choice was only whether to accept it cheerfully or to brood about it. Slowly the ladies drifted in talking animatedly to each other. To me they seemed oblivious of all that was going on in my mind. Or perhaps they knew but did not acknowledge it to me. At least they didn’t know Suresh, which was my secret. Quickly they were all over the place, had laid out the clothes and the jewellery I had to wear in the evening. The scene shifted to the bathroom. I was given a long leisurely bath with fuller’s earth, then again with an imported scented soap. My skin was scrubbed with an earthen scrubber until it was sore. I guess the swollen pink skin was done on purpose in the belief that it will make the bride look beautiful. I put up with the long ordeal, not knowing what else to do. Everyone was chattering and giggling and laughing and making merry while I was being rubbed down – literally. It was perhaps after an eternity that I moved back to my guest room. I put on the laid out petticoat and blouse – the silk saree would be tied later.At this time, the caterer’s boy brought in a kettle full of tea, empty cups and a large platter of pakoras (fritters). Everyone got busy eating and I got some respite from their attentions. Someone poured me some tea and I took my cup and sat down in the chair closest to the window. Someone handed me a handful of pakoras. All the ladies were as boisterous as before and were joking about each other, their husbands, their mothers-in-law, their own weddings, their dresses, what each one of them would wear at the wedding tonight and so on. As a married woman, from tomorrow I will have to learn to carry on such banter myself. But today, I could get by without saying much – I needed to smile at the appropriate cues only.I looked down at the courtyard. There was feverish activity going on as a whole bevy of cooks cut vegetables, ground masalas and prepared dishes. I spied our local butcher, Ram Kaka in one corner. During morning walks with my Daddy, we had often stopped at his shop to buy mutton or chicken for Biji to cook that day. We all loved my mother’s curries and had meat dishes a couple of times every month. So, what was Ram Kaka doing here? Traditionally, the meals served in our families during religious and solemn occasions were always vegetarian. But here Ram Kaka produced a basket full of live chicken and prepared to start killing them. One of the old ladies saw my ashen face and tried to calm me. “Kamala, you are lucky,” she said. “Your new family demanded a non-vegetarian wedding feast and your Daddy agreed.” What kind of a family I was getting into? I was told that I was getting married into an Arya Samaj family just like ours. Then why this sudden love for a non-vegetarian wedding? I was getting perplexed. It was much later I found out that this demand had actually arisen from my husband’s brother-in-law. That is typical in our families – boy’s parents make demands and girl’s parents give in. Sometimes the girl’s parents give in to a demand actually made by the boy’s brother-in-law. That is how I ended up with a non-vegetarian feast on my wedding. Thank goodness! We are progressive, educated families where these demands are about such small issues, but the fact remains that even the upper echelons of our society treat daughters as a liability. I thought I was getting married without any dowry being paid, but now a realization struck me – my dowry was that basket of chicken! I was feeling a deep sense of revulsion. I looked down – Ram Kaka the butcher was at work. In a mechanical motion, his left hand would dive into the basket and come out holding the neck of a chicken. He would place the neck on a wooden block. In his right hand, he had a butcher’s machete that he would swing down on the wooden block cleanly severing the head from the rest of the body. The head would fall into a heap on one side, eyes open and the beak still trying to make some sounds. From my vantage point I could still see the fear in each eye. The headless chicken would run around for a minute or so, spewing blood all over the place, until one of Ram Kaka’s assistants would catch it and start skinning it. This was the last straw and I couldn’t take it anymore. I fainted.***I was all decked up. I was the new bride. The wedding celebrations had continued all night and in the morning, I had travelled in the chartered bus with the marriage party to Ludhiana. It was a short four hour trip and everyone was busy trying to catch a few winks to make up for the sleep deprivation from previous night. Once we reached our destination I got a chance to freshen up before I was escorted into a large room full of people. All these people were now my relatives but I didn’t know them yet. I was sitting on a two-seater sofa trying to look demure. The instructions given to me by my relatives were very explicit. Don’t look up. Don’t look anyone in the eye. Keep looking at a spot on the ground ten feet ahead. Don’t laugh. Keep smiling gently but not too much. Don’t frown. Keep your back straight. Talk only when talked to. Don’t talk very animatedly. Don’t object to anything people say, no matter how objectionable. Don’t say no – if anyone asks for anything, give willingly. I kept revising these rules in my mind.On the same sofa with me was my husband. He had that fresh-out-of-college look and didn’t look to be the college professor he was. He had that eager-to-please look which made his face very charming. The sofa was at a prominent spot in the room, the pride of the place, you would say. But the room was palpably dominated by an old man whom I quickly recognized as my father-in-law. Everyone called him Baoji. Everyone coming into the room first greeted him, touched his feet and then only talked to anyone else. You could see that he was a complete patriarch and commanded respect. He was sitting on a small wooden bench on the other side of the room. The entire seating plan in the room was grouped around him and not around us newlyweds. I quickly realized that my husband also has a large family with many siblings. My husband’s younger brother, Joginder was in College and was exactly the same age as my own brother, Sarvesh. This was the day I was meeting my new sisters-in-law. The eldest one was Sita. Her husband was the Principal of the College where my husband was teaching. I made a mental note to treat her as the boss’s wife in addition to being a sister-in-law. The next sister was my namesake Kamala who was married to an engineer in the irrigation department of the State Government. He was a follower of the Radhasoami sect of Beas and their religious head, Maharaj ji, had personally called on Baoji to fix their wedding. I learnt that the unmarried sister, Parvati, was the youngest and was working as a professor in the local women’s college.Next to me were all the women of the house. I guessed that the oldest looking was my mother-in-law whom everyone called Bhaboji. She was dressed in a white embroidered sari and was not wearing any make-up. There was a strange peaceful expression on her face – an inner bliss that was palpably visible on her face. I took an instant liking to her. Everyone was talking as is typical in Punjabi weddings. Soon the discussion shifted to how everyone in the family would distinguish between sister Kamala and me, the new bride Kamala. Soon Baoji was brought into the discussion. He listened to what sister Kamala had to say. “I won’t feel welcome in my parent’s house if I have to share my name with someone.”Baoji was quick to give his verdict, “We must give the bride a new name. Can you girls suggest a good name?”Some names were bandied about. Someone suggested Neeru. Everyone seemed to agree. No one asked my preference. No one consulted me or took my approval. There and then, I was named Neeru Sharma.***It was a busy day. All day long friends, relatives, acquaintances, and their friends kept coming in ostensibly to see the new bride but ending up making it a long social occasion. Bhaboji called me into the kitchen in the evening. “You are the new bride. As per the tradition, you have to make something sweet today,” she said. I was bewildered. I had never cooked anything in my life, let alone a meal for so many people in the house. In my parents’ house, we daughters were never expected to enter the kitchen. My mother had a full time male domestic help Fakira for almost a quarter of a century and had never needed any help in the kitchen from any of us daughters. I was wholly ignorant of what cooking was all about. I couldn’t even tell a pot from a pan. I could have wept at that time. Why did I not spend some time in the kitchen with Biji and Fakira as a part of my training for the wedding?Bhaboji knew what was going on in my mind. She was smiling as she clasped me in her arms. “Don’t worry,” she said, “you don’t have to do anything. I have made this ‘sooji’ (semolina) ka ‘halwa’ for you. Just stir this once, pour it into this bowl here and carry it in the tray to the living room where everyone is sitting. Tell everyone who asks that you made the halwa yourself with just a little help from me. Her face was smiling. Even her eyes were smiling. I hugged her like I had never hugged my own mother!
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