1408 / 1424
1408
Kusum had two sons: the elder one, Madho, had been a businessman in
Ahmedabad, Gujarat; the younger one, Vipul, had immigrated to the US and settled
there, I think as a kind of free-lance stocks market advisor. The two were seldom of
a mind, but kept in touch. One or the other would occasionally come over to see
her. Sometimes she had also visited each of them. But she was not fulfilled in them
and could not communicate well in any of the terms which had become parts of her
experience at the Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s feet.
Only very recently had she begun to entertain some hope that the elder son,
Madho, might open to the Mother’s presence and to some understanding of Hers
and Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga; and she made every effort to encourage him, quietly,
and she associated me to this, asking me to let him talk with me, ask me
questions, confide in me.
She had made it a point to talk to them about me and the role I had in her life,
perhaps counting on their devotion to her to extend to her choices as to the
persons who mattered in her life here. And as over the years we knew each other I
came to do for her many of the things that a son would have done – such as
remodelling her house, or taking care of her whenever she was ill, or building
around the temple to Sri Ganesh for her, or simply being there for her – they both
had to not only accept but appreciate the fact of my existence, insofar as she was
concerned.
As Indians will often do, they each expressed profuse affection and respect for me,
but I cannot say that I felt there was as yet a genuine, truly-born bound between
us, although, even for her sake alone, I was willing to find it.
Kusum had a robust build, a strong voice, a deep and frank laughter and caring
hands and a luminous skin; but she had troubles too: for years she had been
bothered with recurring pains in her abdomen, and lately she’d had endless bothers
with acidity in her throat, which made her cough and cough. Several doctors had
diagnosed tuberculosis of the intestines; a couple of them had recommended
surgery. She had thought and thought and meditated and offered it to the Mother
and asked for guidance, and she had decided every time not to go for any
intervention. She tried various treatments: some did nothing for her, some helped
for a while. She went on. This had been a nearly constant worry ever since we had
come to know her.
For a good ten years she had lived on with this formation of tuberculosis in her
body, and overcome every crisis of it and gone on with her work. She would be 79
soon.
But this year, she had lost some of her will to serve here.
She would tease me that I’d better taste her dishes now. She would remind me that
I was to continue taking care of the temple. She would force me, with her
insistence, to sign “Fixed Deposits” along with her, so there would be some
reserves for Sri Ganesh… I would not like her tone and would say so, and we would
laugh, and I would tease her back – after all I was the one who had nearly gone,
two years before, not her!
Late March or beginning of April, Vipul, who would phone regularly from the US,
told her he was thinking of taking his own son to France for the summer vacations,
and would she meet them there? She thought about it: this could coincide with my
being there visiting C, whom she had met several times here and loved very much;
I phoned C about it, and saw with her how to let Vipul and his son live in the house
in Brittany for some weeks, until Kusum and I would come. Vipul was happy with
the idea. But soon Kusum became silent about it. As if she had seen that, for some
reason, it could not work. I also kept quiet.