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Losing my Uncle

My maternal uncle died of Covid yesterday. Hearing the news felt like having my face smashed against a wall. He was the anchor of the family - tenacious, energetic, accommodating, and willing to say Yes as much as possible. B was also a very private man, there was a lot we did not know about him. My first memories of him are sitting on a tiny seat attached to the rod of his bicycle as he rode me to kindergarten.  My parents were moving to a different city and he had some time off that summer and had come by to help with the move. 

The few weeks he lived with us are among the brightest of my early childhood. Back in those days, B was fashion-forward and looked like a movie-star in his bell-bottom pants, boots, goatee and dark shades. I recall the swell of pride showing my uncle off to my friends. In years to come he would introduce me to disco and pop-music, action movies, comic books and more. B was not like the rest of my family - he marched to the beat of a different drummer.

 He had dated the woman who is now his widow for about a decade before they married. It was quite the scandal and everyone pretended it was not happening and this woman did not exist. Unlike the other adults, he was not shy to tell me and my cousin that S was his girlfriend and one day they might be married. We knew not to ask questions but only listen. We got to see the gifts he bought for her but it would be many years until we actually met her. S was a mythical creature to us kids - the woman B was going to marry some day, the woman that my grandmother did not approve of, the one we had never seen but only imagined of, the one who sang on Akashvani some specific day of the week. Even grandma admitted she was an amazing singer. 

The marriage happened at last - S was the most dazzling bride I had seen at that point in my life. My grandmother and S did not get along at all. The joint-family spilt in a few years with B parting ways together with his wife and baby daughter. S turned out to be not as perfect as she seemed in her beautiful bridal wear. She turned out to be a diva that demanded more in time, energy and resources my uncle had. 

He started to work harder and harder to bridge the gap, He was close to 70 and did not stop working until he was taken to the hospital with severe symptoms. Like their mother his two grown-up kids looked to B as someone who has an infinite capacity to give, tolerate, provide, accept and not complain. I don't believe anyone in the family tried to exploit his good nature. It was just that the more they asked for, they more capacity they discovered he had to give. They took what he gave so freely and they came back to see if there was any more he could offer and there always was. B was good-natured, mild-mannered and had a ready smile.

When we spoke sometimes, it was usually on his way back from his 10 km morning walk. He had a place along the way he stopped for chai and also called me. We talked abut things other than what was going on with his wife or kids. Sometimes, I reminisced about childhood memories with him - the first time I ate ice-cream from a cone, the time he took me to the doll museum, the time he took me and my cousin to a Bruce Lee movie, the times my cousin and I ran across our grandmother's bed and crashed on him - it was our game, the time that he gave me his Dolly Parton cassettes, the time when he had to give us endless piggy back rides until our mothers hollered at us to stop. 

Mostly we talked about the world outside his perimeter, what he had not seen, things that he was curious about. He asked me my opinion about events in America and I asked him about the goings on in India. He doted upon J and I could hear the warm smile in his voice when I talked about her. He was proud of the grandbaby and made no bones about it. I had to watch J bawling like a baby when I told her of his passing. 

The way he died was very much a culmination of his life story. Everyone wanted everything from him, he did more than he was able to the very end, got sick from being exposed to the virus because he could not say no being part of a large family gathering a few weeks ago. Once he got sick, no one was in charge of him, they neglected his condition until it got to the point of no return. No one was accustomed to doing anything for B, he was the one who delivered for everyone else. His wife made decisions about his health without consulting anyone and most of the extended family remained in the dark until it was too late. Those that knew what was going including his grown up kids acted like bystanders and failed to take action, intervene, ask questions - demonstrate any kind of leadership in crisis. I was among the last to know and I learned about the situation from an unrelated third-party by accident.

I loved my uncle deeply - he was something in-between a father and a big brother to me. I have not comprehended my loss and have no idea how big of a void he has left in my life. He was a man I could absolutely count on. He never made a commitment he could not keep and as I recall, he did not promise that he would be around when I came next to Kolkata. 

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