MERA PATE, MERI MARZI : memoir-in-progress

 

MERA PATE, MERI MARZI 

by Nighat Na-koja

 

I got mad at R for calling me so early in the morning.

My first anxious thought: has something happened to Abba?

R was calling to tell me Abba’s fasting blood sugar was 394.

What? How did it shoot up so high?

R said Abba had his dinner at 4 am, so R gave him his night meds, including Lantus, his long-acting insulin, at 4 am.

Why didn’t you give him the Lantus at night? It’s supposed to be given at night.

But he didn’t have dinner. I’m supposed to give him Lantus at dinner time.

No! It has to be given at dinner time whether or not he has dinner. If he didn’t have any dinner, does it mean you won’t give him the Lantus at all? I yelled into the phone. He could go into a coma with sugar as high as 394.

He asked me to call you, R said nonchalantly. He wants his breakfast now.

But it’s only 6 am.

Yes, I told Sahib-ji, you just had dinner at 4 am. You should wait for two more hours before having breakfast. And there’s no gas now. How will we cook your porridge, paratha, and eggs?

So what did he say?

He said mera pate, meri marzi. mai jab chahun tab nashta karunga. If there’s no gas, make my breakfast in the microwave.

Ah, that’s why R was calling me. He didn’t know how to cook anything in the microwave.

But, No! Wait! With his sugar that high, how can he have breakfast now? It’s not good for him to eat again so soon after his last meal, I said.

A couple of minutes later, R called again to correct himself: Sorry, Apa. It wasn’t 394, it was 294, he confessed sheepishly.

God! What’s going on? It’s all the same to you, isn’t it? 294 or 394. Tell Abba I’ll come down and make his breakfast.

Haan na, Aapa, wo to yahi kehte jaa rahe hain…mera pate, meri marzi, R said.

I could hear the relief in R’s voice now that he wouldn’t have to figure out making porridge or eggs in the microwave.

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Abba was served his breakfast even though his sugar levels were quite high. R gave him a shot of the fast-acting insulin. Lifted his kurta, and jabbed the needle into his abdomen. Abba sat at the dining table, quietly adamant about having breakfast two hours after having had his dinner. I made his porridge and eggs in the microwave. There was a paratha left over from the previous night. I heated it up in the microwave.

Nothing drastic happened. Abba had his breakfast and spent so much time in the bathroom that he ended up napping the rest of the day and skipped lunch. As a result, his sugar level stabilized by evening. I wondered why I got so worried in the first place. The slightest bit of upheaval in his situation literally fills my gut with swirls of anxiety. I don’t know why I started imagining the worst.

It must be really hard for someone like him, so used to having his way with almost everything in life, to now be so dependent on hired help to keep track of everything about him: his sugar levels, his medication, his bath, his clothes. The loss of autonomy and dignity must be nerve-wracking. Every moment of Abba’s every day was spent in dependence on his attendants. Maybe that’s why Abba was insistent about having breakfast when he wanted, as an assertion of his will over God's will, his marzi. Such loss of independence and privacy would kill me. 

Or that’s what I think.

The point is, I'm making grand pronouncements while currently capable of making my own breakfast. Who knows what mental or physical state any of us would be in with the onset of aging and illness.  I think I’d be so dejected at the loss of my physical and mental independence, I would prefer to die. Right now, I envision myself declaring, 'Give me death before decrepitude!' But the Future Me? Perhaps despite creeping decrepitude the world will continue to hold for me some peculiar charm? Or perhaps I would be too grateful when death arrives to wish to prolong my stay?  

 It's a curious exercise, isn't it, to imagine the mental and physical landscape of one's future self. I find myself confidently declaring that I'd rather exit than endure the indignities of dependence. Of course, that's the current, more or less fully functional me speaking as a person who still believes they would have some say in the matter. Perhaps I'll discover an unexpected talent for embracing the slow, steady erosion of autonomy. Or perhaps, I'll simply get baffled trying to remember what day it is to have any strong opinions at all about life or death.