Time and Tide Wait for No Man : श्रद्धांजली to my beloved Father who passed away on 31st December, 2018

 

The phrase “Time and tide wait for no man” whose origin is uncertain, yet almost certain that it predates modern English, played out its certainty and took away our beloved father on the last day of 2018. True to the spirit of the phrase, the year 2018 is now history and so will its highs and lows, the hits and misses and the triumphs and tribulations including the worst tragedy in our personal life of loosing our beloved - doting yet daunting- father (Retired teacher Shri Murugendrappa Sharabanna Khened), who left for his heavenly abode at the age of 94 years, on the 31st December 2018, at our native place in Raichur.

Though coming from a very rich land lord family, my father was completely and solely a self made man and studied at the Veerashiva maths, which offer free education, and completed his intermediate and went on to become a teacher and served for 37 long years until his retirement. He was one among hundreds of thousand young Indian teenagers who were jailed during the quit India movement in 1942. He however did not avail any of the benefits of freedom fighters with the belief that it was the least service that one could do to their motherland. In his long years of existence the little wealth that he made was a small house in Raichur and the best of education that he gave his children and the values of impeccable honesty and integrity and selfless service to nation, which he has passed on to us. He was an avid teacher who went beyond classroom teaching to educate innumerable informal students particularly the English language, which he was giftedly proficient.

My father leaves behind a very large grief stricken family of seven children - two daughters and two sons including yours truly (the youngest of the four children to his first wife, late Smt. Channamma Khened) who was just eleven months old when my mother passed away on the very day (14th April, 1962) when the legendary Sir M Visvesvaraya, bid good bye to this world. My father often used to remind me of this date. He also leaves behind his second wife Smt. Sharada Khened and her two sons and one daughter and four daughter in laws, two son in laws, eleven grand children and twelve great grandchildren. Both my wife and I were lucky that we had come to our native place on a two weeks vacation (22nd December to 4th Jan, 2019) and were by his side along side a vast majority of his very large family, during his last days.

My father, though not highly formally educated, was a prolific reader on social, religious and philosophical matters and was an ardent follower of Swamy Vivekanand and donated a small amount to the Ramakrishna Mission, for establishing a Vivekananda Memorial and Cultural Centre a copy of the receipt of which I accidentally discovered today. He was perhaps one among very few - in the little towns that he served as teacher - who had command over the Queens language - English. He was also an avid Yoga practitioner performing some of the most difficult of asanas until his advanced age. He was well known for his navali asana one of very difficult asanas. I vividly remember that in a place called Mudgal - a small town in the district of Karnataka, where I was born, - where he served as a teacher for more than a decade, his command over the English language was extensively used by the Christian Missionaries - two of whose names I remember even today, Father Evangelist and Father Kensington, as their official interpreter and also for learning the local Kannada language.

We finished all the rituals of the funeral rites of our beloved father in the Veerashiva traditions on the 1st of January, and the mortal remains of our beloved father was laid to rest in the traditional Veerashiva / Lingayat traditions at the Veerashiva rudrabhumi in Raichur in front of a large gathering of family, friends and his well wishers including the famous somwarmath seer - the mathadhipathi of Somwarpeth math. Today, while recollecting nostalgic memories of my father - who was to me both a mother and father- I was looking through some of the papers, which he had kept very close to him and found a write up on death that he wrote. He used to always script some thing or the other on scrap papers and one such brief write up was the note on death that I am sharing. The other images that I found with him include a photo of my son sitting on his lap when we celebrated our Sons second birthday in New Delhi. He also had with him one of my photos with the then PM Shri P V Narasimha Rao.

My father is one of those old timers who is stickler for his daily routines particularly his Yogasanas and meditation, and will listen to none to alter them. Even in the hospital, where he was recuperating and was almost out of danger and was to be discharged soon, he would insist on his meditation. With great difficulty we had just about managed to keep him away from some of his inflexible daily routines while he was at the hospital. On the 29th December evening, he insisted that during the visiting hours on the next day, he wishes to see as many of us as possible together particularly he wished to see all his four daughter in laws together. Fortunately I was with him for most of the day on his penultimate day (30th December) and most of his very large family including all the four daughter in laws and three sons and a grand daughter and grand son in law came to meet him on the 30th evening. He was exceptionally happy to see all his four daughter in-laws together. All his actions, should have prompted us to some bad omen, which unfortunately none of us realised. As per his inflexible routines he begged us to leave him alone for 30 minutes of meditation on the 30th December evening. He is normally used to doing 1 hour meditation in the morning and one hour in the evening. We left him for his meditation and came out of the room. And after about 45 minutes of his meditation he called us back and chatted with us until the visiting hours, after which most of us left him with one of his sons - the youngest among the four of four of us - Natraj, staying back. We all left the hospital in anticipation that he will be fine and be discharged on the eve of the new year on the first of January, 2019.

On the morning of the last day of the year 2018, 31st December, 2018, which will now remain etched in all our memories, my elder brother, who has recently retired as the Professor and Principal of the famous LVD college in Raichur, received a call from our brother from hospital who stated that the Doctor has asked the two of us to come urgently and that it was an emergency. My eldest brother and I rushed to the hospital and what followed is something which we are still grappling to come to terms with. As per the routine, after his cleaning and washing my father asked my brother who was staying with him that he will do his meditation. It was around 7 AM in the morning of 31st December when he informed our brother, who was staying with him, that he will go for meditation. Our brother as is the norm left him alone for his meditation. After about 40 minutes, our brother went back to the room to speak to him. My father appeared to be still in his meditation. At around 8 AM my brother called the nursing staff who tried to wake him but he did not respond so the sister immediately called for the Doctor on duty. The duty Doctor did some tests including an ECG and a torch test for dilation of pupils and asked my brother to summon us immediately. My eldest brother and I rushed to the hospital and were in for the rudest shock of our lives. We were informed that my father passed away while meditating. What baffled us is how could this happen, since all of us had spoken to him at length just the previous evening and were eagerly waiting for him to be discharged from hospital.

By then the Doctor who had spoken to us previous day informed us some thing which I can’t ever forget. He, although being an allopathic doctor, suggested that my father may have opted for what he called “Ichha samadhi”. My own personal thoughts and the area in which I work as a science communicator does not make me believe in such unscientific thinking. Another close friend of mine - who is also a medical Doctor and an eminent Laproscopic Surgeon who practices in Gulbarga and is also very close to my father - spoke to me and alluded to the reasoning of the Doctor that my father may have chosen an Ichha Samadhi/ Maran. The exact reason of his death - though officially attributed to aged related health issue- will never be known and will remain a mystery. We have no way but to accede to the phrase “ Time and Tide will wait for no man” and pray for our fathers soul to rest in eternal peace and pledge ourselves to living up to his ideals with utmost honesty and service to the nation.

Om Shanti.