dedicated to a brother i lost in this journey called life

A tragedy stuck my family last month. My cousin, who was 24 years old (he was three months younger to me) expired. He had an unusual death.

He was the only one who wished me a happy new year by calling me up. And fifteen days later, he didn’t even exist! Doctors say that he had Hepatitis E, a very rare chance of being fatal (it’s fatal in only 1% cases). Best doctors of India, no best prayers in world could actually save him. And if one would have looked at him a week before he was admitted in hospital, they would have been stunned by his good health. And it took virus only a week to do its job and take him away from us.

I was on a trip when I got a call from my masi (mother’s sister) that my brother was critically ill and doctors had informed them that he might not make it. I couldn’t control myself. The only feeling I had at that time was I couldn’t have been so unlucky! I still had to get married and looking at Indian marriage traditions, a brother has one of the most important roles to play. He still had to do his part in my marriage. God couldn’t take him away so soon. How selfish could I be!

I came back to Delhi and went straight to meet him. He was covered all in pipes- a monitoring machine, dialysis machine, everything surrounded him. I broke down on seeing him like that. At that moment, doctors came for their routine checkups and I was asked to move out. Thank God he didn’t see me crying. After check up, doctors told me that he had 90% chances of survival (I actually wonder now how unlucky could I have been a 90% chance became 0% in less than a week).

The very next day, he was admitted in ICU. Believe me, ICU is one place I won’t even want worst of my enemies to go to. He was in comma for four days. One could see his every single breath coming and going. The level of helplessness you feel is simply unbearable. The horrendous sentiments and uncontrollable emotions, all of them were playing their parts together.

On one of the days, late at night at around 3:30 am, doctors suddenly called us in. They informed us that my brother was sinking and they urgently needed us to arrange for blood. His father, my masarji, was there with me. He went inside to look at his son. The level of helplessness he felt can’t even be put in words. I couldn’t judge  whether to run for arranging the blood or take care of him. That image still haunts me at nights. A father standing in ICU, seeing his young 24 year old son sinking away breath by breath!

The day before my brother expired, he opened his eyes. Doctors said they had seen improvement in him for the first time. And before I knew, very next day, he was gone!

He was bestest of the best brothers one could have ever had. Even though he was my cousin, the amount of things he did for me, even a real brother couldn’t have done just as much. He would always tell me not to use my brains and leave any difficult task on him. His exact words would be “tu apna dimaag mat laga, waise bhi kam hai. Jab tera bhai hai to tu kyu itna sochti hai. Ja mast reh” (why do you use your brains just as much, when already there is a dearth of it? When you have your brother by your side, you don’t need to worry about anything else. Go and be happy)

There’s so much more to be written about him. So much more to mention. I am again getting nostalgic thinking about him today. Every night he comes in my dream and tells me that he loves me. I wonder how much things change between people when they die. I would never take him seriously and would fight a lot with him. Even now, i look at his pictures and say things to irritate him. Only difference is he doesn’t reply back to me. I wrote this on my blog only for two reasons. One is to pay homage to a brother who had been more than a wonderful person and human being all his life. And second is to let all you readers know that life is too short. Many a times we don’t care about things that are truly important to us. Those taken for granted things are gone forever, before we even know. I made it a point to say sorry to all the people whom I had hurt intentionally and unintentionally. But, one thing is care for people when they are alive, rather than cry for them when they are no more.