RIP Sushama Nani

 She was my father's younger sister. Sushama Nani, as we addressed her was a cherubic, affectionate lady not just towards her own, her love and compassion extended to all. It broke my heart when I came to know that she passed at the young age of 69 yesterday evening in India. She could have lived at least a decade more but for the terminal cancer which has been consuming her for last the few months.

I had many golden childhood memories associate her. Being the oldest kid in our family, I was the apple of everyone's eyes including Sushama Nani. Whenever she used to be at our home, every morning she would shower me, apply a liberal dosage of "Rashi Tela" (cold pressed black sesame oil) on my head as that oil was supposed to keep the hair healthy and head cool. Then she would put Kaajal (Kohl) under my eyes to keep my pair of eyes in good health and increase its sharpness, followed by putting a layer of Ponds talcolm powder on my face. Just before leaving for my elementary school she would put a little black dot slightly above my forehead to save me from the Evil Eyes (As we say in Odia Kahara Drusti Na Lagu, or in Hindi - Kisi Ki Nazar Na Lag Jae". Her unbridled love for me and my sisters was unfathomable.

I would come back home sad from the Elementary (primary) school, embarrassed and bit humiliated by my schoolmates poking fun at me for getting groomed like a girl. Sushama Nani would dismiss them - "They are just jealous of you. What they know of a Piusi's (father's sister) love ?" She was a glib talker who spoke extremely fluent Odia who could captivated the audience on any topic with her communication skills. She also had an artistic hand who once created a Taj Mahal using multicolored strings of wool, not to mention she knitted several woolen garments with her bare hands when winter months used to be around the corner.

I had a restless mind and would rarely take a nap during hot afternoons during my childhood days. She would narrate me several stories trying to make me sleep and would never get angry at her ever disobedient nephew. I used to remember a lot of hit songs from the contemporary Odia movies "Mana Akasha" and "Mamata" and entertainment her and her friends (she had many) with the popular Odia songs of the days - "Dekhi Se Bana Malli", "Re Bana Jharana" etc. I still remember a neighborhood girl of her age with whom she could never get along. Shushama Nani instructed me to sing this song from movie "Mana Akasha" in front of this neighborhood girl with the intention of irritating her -

"MANE MANE BHABU TU BHARI SUNDARA,
AEENA DEKHU TU HAZARE THARA.
TO RUPA KU KIE, PACHARE KI HAI...".

Roughly Transliterated,

"You think you are very pretty,
Thousands time you look at the mirror,
Who cares about your looks which is shitty".

After bombarded by the song several times the victim once asked me - "Who told you to sing this song" ? The innocent 7 year old me replied to her - "Sushama Nani told me to sing this song for you". Not to mention, our neighborhood girl of my Piusi's age was hardly amused, but couldn't tell anything about a child singing this song. Sushama Nani effectively passed on the message to her. The year was 1976. The next year she got married.

During our childhood days we used to spend long summer and Durga Puja vacations in our ancestral village near Puri. Almost every afternoon Sushama Nani cooked "Chuda Bhaja" (Parched rice fry), made Mudhi (puffed rice) blend laced with mustard oil with grated coconut which grew aplenty in our village thrown into the mixture. Occasionally she would instruct me to procured cheap mixture from the village stores or nearby Gabakund Haat (flea market) which would be procured to enhance the flavor of these home made afternoon snacks. Those were the days.

Couple of days ago when I got this sad message about her being almost near, I immefiately made a video call to my cousin's number in India where she lied on her death bed. The Piusi Nani whom I remembered as a young, energetic, bubbly lady was looking a pale shadow of herself. Something inside me snapped when I saw her as a living skeleton, giving a blank stare into the sky, looking towards heaven to where she rightly belonged to, ready to fly into the greener pastures of a promised land of another world, another life. My eyes mostined as I couldn't look any further. The eyeglasses started getting foggy as gravity pulled couple of drops of tears down on my cheek. But there was no talcolm powder on my cheeks to dry it off. A la the Rashi oil, it stayed stuck as a sweet, past memory. Rest in Peace, Sushama Nani amongst angels.