Just A Wayside Stop (Vasāṁsi Jīrṇāni….)

 Short story  

(Translated from the Malayalam original published in the Janmabhoomi Onam Special)

Just A Wayside Stop (Vasāṁsi Jīrṇāni….)

Dr. Sukumar Canada

There was no time left. Everything had reached its conclusion, and now only the days to be counted remained.

Normally, a round of japa with the mālā would take about an hour, recited with care and detail. Even now, no shortcuts were taken. After all, manojapa—mental repetition—was far superior to any other form of japa. But the hands no longer had the strength to hold the beads. For years the fingers had moved unknowingly inside the cotton cloth bag, the japasañchi, rolling bead after bead. Now, that too was gone. The Vedāntins spoke of ajapa-japa, the unspoken, breathlike repetition that continued even without effort. Was that not enough?

Jennifer came in and asked gently if anything was needed. All the papers had been handed over to her already. When words failed, she became the companion—eyes fastening one letter at a time on the screen, slowly forming them into words, then sentences. She was the tongue and the voice when mouth and speech had ceased. She would set the sentences into the audio setup and then ask, over and over again, “Is this what you wanted?” without the slightest hint of boredom.

What connection did she have with him?

Perhaps, like a thread of thin fiber, some karmic link had brought her into this hospice room. She was here as part of her volunteer hours before medical school. The duty nurse that day was Suminder Kaur, a Punjabi woman who bustled about talking loudly on her cell phone.

“Today we have Jennifer,” Suminder had announced, bringing along a young, graceful girl—the new volunteer student.

“In three or four months she will be off to medical school. I know her family well,” Suminder assured. “Not like the usual gore log (white people) here. She is very sensible and sensitive.”

She placed the girl near the bed and then turned back to her phone.

Suminder always came with the same questions: “Prabhuji, kya haal hai? Did you sleep well yesterday?” The nursing assistant with her was Selina, a Filipino woman. She was the one who pushed the blended vitamin and protein liquid into the feeding tube in his stomach. Months had passed since food had gone down by the mouth. Hunger itself was gone. Even this liquid nourishment had to be tapered off now. Why prolong the body’s mere existence and suffering with such effort? Even saliva would not go down the throat. The tongue itself felt absent. Every day, Selina wiped the mouth and lips with cloth dipped in warm water.

The government bore the cost of care, so there was no debt to anyone. Two years had passed without speech. When Kumar Varma had visited, he had joked: “So, saṁsāra-duḥkha-śamana (the ending of worldly suffering) has finally happened!”

Earlier, he had carried a magic slate everywhere, writing and erasing to “speak” with others. Even that was gone now.

Selina would chat about her family while tending to him. Her cheerful attitude toward life never wavered. Sometimes, while working, she sang softly. She seemed to think of him as some Christian priest from back home in India, for she treated him with deep respect. Her daughter studied in a high school near Manila, and besides her shift here, Selina worked at two more houses. All the money she earned was sent home. She never bought anything for herself. Lately, her daughter had been asking for an iPad whenever she called. Her husband had no job. He only showed up at the Western Union office each month to collect the money and talk to her. There was affection between them, yes—but he demanded full accounts of every peso she earned.

“Sir, I can read the Bible for you,” Jennifer had offered once. Did she understand that he could communicate only through his eyes? She looked at the monitor and asked, “Can you hear me, Prabhuji?”

“Yes,” he answered with his eyes.

She opened the Bible and began to read. After two short paragraphs, she stopped, sensing from his face and the screen that this was not what was needed now.

“Prabhuji, have you read the Bible before?” she asked. She had noticed the long sandal mark on his forehead, the japasañchi always at his side, the tuft of hair at the back of his head.

“Yes, I have looked into the Bible,” he typed out on the computer. “I like the Psalms. But now, look at the lower shelf. There is a book there. Please bring it.”

It was a Microsoft Surface computer provided by the ALS Society, with its optical scanner and audio converter—without these, nothing could be said at all. Since ALS struck, the eyes and ears had gained an uncanny sharpness. The faint cry of a distant bird, the rumble of a freight train three or four miles away—both could be heard distinctly. Even the shadows of visitors passing into the next room to see Harris were clear.

“Is this the Bhagavad Gītā – As It Is?”

“Yes. Read from Chapter 2, the second verse onward.”

Jennifer began haltingly: “Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya navāni gṛhṇāti naro ‘parāṇi…” She stumbled over the Sanskrit, struggling through it for the first time in her life.

“As a person discards worn-out garments and puts on new ones, so the soul abandons old bodies and takes on new ones.”

She looked at him in amazement. He signaled again, with his eyes: explain.

“I too am like that,” he told her with his gaze and the letters on the screen. “I am here, ready to discard this old garment, waiting to put on another. Whether it is today or tomorrow, there is no sorrow in it. But you—do you still wish to stand here as my volunteer? When you study medicine, remember—what you are treating is not merely a body, but this process of changing garments. To bring peace to it—that is what truly matters. If you learn with this awareness, it will help you, and those who receive your service. Think carefully.”

Jennifer’s eyes filled. She closed the book, put it back on the shelf, and left quietly without saying goodbye.

When Suminder came later, she teased: “Prabhuji, did you scare her off too? You had her reading Gītā-kitab—made her tongue stumble! It would be the same if you made her read Guru Granth Sahib— ‘Kartā Purukh, Nirvair, Nirahaṅkār, Akāl Mūrti…’”

Her great-grandfather had come to Canada a hundred years ago. Just last year, they had celebrated the centenary of Sikh presence in Abbotsford in British Columbia. The family was all farmers—fields of corn, cranberries, and potatoes stretched across the land, mostly Sikh-owned. Only Suminder had gone into studies; her brothers both drove trucks. On Sundays, the whole family gathered, and bhajan-sevā was compulsory at home. She treated him as Prabhuji, often stopping by to chat or touch his feet. She had a child—a mute daughter. Her white husband was no longer with her. It had been a university romance, but her father had spared no expense for the marriage. The groom, Steven Kennedy—renamed Sandeep—had ridden in on a horse, with a proper baraat. The photograph had even made it into the newspaper. She kept a copy of that clipping.

This was already the fourth volunteer student in recent months. Most of the hospice patients were satisfied with Bible readings, whether they understood or not. But here, it had to be the Bhagavad Gītā, even in English. When the youngsters realized this, they slowly backed away.

“He’s a weird guy,” they would think—forehead marked, tuft of hair, cloth bag by his side. Even the tilak on the forehead, Suminder had learned to draw from Gauranga Babu, who had visited earlier, when the fingers still had some movement. When the hands gave up, it became clear—help from others was inevitable.

Irene Samson, an old acquaintance from the social services days, had arranged the hospice admission quickly; normally the wait could be a year or more.

Unexpectedly, Jennifer returned the next day. And after that, whenever she could, she came again. She read the Gītā aloud, asked questions, and often found the answers herself in the next verses. When she couldn’t, he picked out letters on the computer with his eye movement, guiding her.

He explained to her about medical systems, about Ayurveda—how it treated the patient, not just the disease. She had never heard this before and listened intently.

Once, she asked why Suminder touched his feet.

“It’s nothing. She just likes me a lot, that’s all,” he answered lightly.

His name was not Prabhuji. It was Dr. Sumesh Menon. Life in Canada had stretched into decades, though it had begun quite by accident. A six-month University fellowship had lengthened into thirty years. Leaving the university in India had only been meant as a short chance to study and teach.

In that very first week, he had met Dr. Kumar Varma, who eagerly accompanied him to the Indian store, and then to the temple on Sunday for mahāprasāda.

The ISKCON temple in Vancouver was one of the earliest Krishna temples, established directly by Śrīla Prabhupāda himself. It was there that Sumesh had met Niranjana, and where Prabhupāda had given her initiation.

That Saturday with Jennifer, Prabhuji was in a good mood. Inwardly, he felt there were perhaps only three or four months left. Yet there was no panic. As someone once said, death is not a subject at all worth discussion. Birth and death and all such events are merely vishaya, ever changuing physical phenomena and the home, family, this life itself—these are but rest-stops along a long journey.

For one who always wished to live alone, it was only after coming to this vast land, Canada, that he found a companion. Niranjana Devi Dasi. Before joining the Hare Krishna movement, she had been Shannon Newhook. He never asked about her past; no one else told him either. Together they created, beside the temple, a vast Krishna-Tulasi grove. “Tulasi is not just a plant; she is Sri Krishna’s own Tulasi Devi Dasi,” she would often say. Every day they tended the plants with water and with the ceaseless chanting sound of the Hare Krishna mantra from a cassette tape on a loop, until they grew into a forest. In the minus ten and twenty degrees of Canadian winters, they had even built a greenhouse for Tulasi—featured once in an international magazine.

Time had flown. It was in that same temple that he first heard about Kumar’s marriage being arranged. Kumar confided in him first, not in his parents. “I must ask her directly. Just because our parents met doesn’t mean anything,” Prabhuji reminded him. The next weekend, Kumar came with an unusual smile. To celebrate, Niranjana had made semiya payasam, while Sumesh brought out an old video cassette clip. It was that hilarious scene from an old black and white movie-Veluthambi Dalava—Sukumari and Adoor Bhasi acting out a hilarious song: “Even without fingers, even without valour, a husband is enough—just buy me a piece of cloth!” Niranjana laughed so hard that Kumar had to explain the meaning to her. Recently, when Kumar visited him at the hospice, they found the same song on YouTube again. Jennifer thought it was some black-and-white movie they happened to locate online. Prabhuji, unable to smile outwardly, still sparkled with inner laughter. His eyes shone; perhaps Jennifer noticed, but Kumar surely did.

He must have dozed off, for Jennifer called gently: “What else needs to be written?”
What was there to write? No wealth, no deposits, no properties. A government pension cannot be willed away. All he owned was a laptop and a small iPad. The rest—books—had already been given away. Once, when Kumar saw the iPad Mini, he laughed: “This must surely have an Indian connection—it’s called iPadmini!”

“That should go to Salina’s daughter,” Prabhuji dictated to Jennifer. She nodded.

He thought of earlier years. How different things might have been if he had an iPad then! His first screenplay was written in two fullscape manuscripts, one by hand and one carbon copy—about four hundred pages. He had carried them around from producer to producer. Before leaving for Canada, he had entrusted them to Latheef, who had been researching with him. Letters had passed between them for a while. “Madhu and Sharada in the lead roles, agreed? Shankaradi and Sukumari must be there too. I’ve even given Vayalar an advance for the songs,” Latheef wrote. They had dreamed that the famous music composer Swami would help with the music. Latheef hoped an NRI (expatriate Indian) might finance it, perhaps even Sumeśh. Nothing happened. Later, Prabhuji lost interest in the project. Latheef must have felt hurt.

Jennifer was there again that day. Her classes had not started yet.
“And the cremation arrangements?” she asked.
“Ready. I already gave the money as advance. At first, they hesitated to take it—said it was inauspicious while the person was alive. Their place is beside Ocean View Cemetery. One phone call and their van will come. And since I won’t be returning, there’s no problem,” he joked.

“Don’t forget to collect the ashes,” he reminded her. “They’ll give a small urn. That should go to Sumeender’s uncle, Kulvinder. He’ll scatter them on his organic farm at Abbotsford. He’s already agreed.”

He had not told Salina yet about the iPad gift, but Jennifer and Sumeender knew.

Mentioning the farm stirred another memory—of the first visit with Niranjana to the Hare Krishna farm near Prince George, British Columbia. They were not “young” then, both past forty. They had only exchanged Tulasi garlands at the temple, never lived together. That farm visit had changed everything. Night had fallen; there was no electricity. Their companion, Jagannathan— “Jani”—was from Spain, with poor English. He brought them some fruit and halwa from the temple and retired early, saying “Hare Krishna”. He had Brahmin initiation, and by 2 a.m. had to clean and prepare the altar.

All they had was a single candle. The resident family had gone to Vancouver for the Ratha Yatra festival. They sat close, sharing warmth, sharing food. Suddenly, the hunger of the body rose fiercer than the hunger of the stomach. Passion surged and subsided, leaving only laughter—until they both realized they needed a bathroom. But the house had none. This was Canada in the 1980s, yet in that house there was no toilet! They had to step into the freezing night. The candle blew out in the wind.

The memory brought a smile to his lips—but ALS had long since stiffened his face. Muscles no longer obeyed emotion. Jennifer could not see the smile. Yet sensing something, she asked: “What is that sparkle in your eyes?”
“Nothing, dear,” he indicated through his computer screen.

Jennifer had to leave early that day. She had been volunteering for four months; in another month, she would begin medical school.

Niranjana had already departed this world. She too had faced the “discarding of old garments” without fear. After she came into his life, her days were filled with light, even though her frail body carried endless surgeries and pain. Sometimes, when Kumar visited, she would begin with a mischievous “Hello, Namaskaram…” in Malayalam, then break into the Malayalam song in broken pronounciation, “Kanikaanu neram…”. She would secretly eat the chocolate bars Kumar brought, joking, “If the Lord of sweetness himself is all sweetness (‘adharam madhuram… akhilam madhuram’), then surely a small chocolate is allowed!”

Her body bore the scars of countless surgeries—knees, hips, wrists, stomach. Once she teased Kumar:
“Look, I can now perform any surgery myself. I’ve watched them all on the Knowledge Network. And more than that—they’ve all been done on me already! So, I know both theory and practice. Isn’t that, right?”

At last, after one more operation, Niranjana never returned home. She had discarded her old garment and gone.

Jennifer was cheerfully seen off that evening. Prabhuji thought of the unfinished tasks. His mother back in India need not be told anything yet. He had informed his younger brother by email. His last trip India had been to take his mother to Kashi—ten years ago, perhaps. Her memory had dimmed since, but she always recalled the sight of the Ganga Aarti from that evening boat ride. His father had suffered long from dementia, cared for tirelessly by his mother until his death. Only then did she consent to travel. “Children cannot care for him properly. As long as I live, I will never leave him,” she had said.

It was after hearing about that Kashi visit that Dr. Kumar too grew eager to see the holy city. Only two weeks ago, before leaving, Kumar told him: “By the time I return, your pilgrimage will have already begun.”

Yes—the long journey’s end was near.

When Kumar came to visit, he brought along an unexpected guest. No warning had been given. The man entered, clasped Prabhuji’s frail hands, and greeted: “Namaste!” Recognition came at once—it was Karthi, whom he had met fifteen years earlier at a Bhagavata conference in Washington, D.C. Even then, Karthi’s wide forehead and sparkling eyes marked him apart. He had spoken about science in the Bhagavata; now he was a renowned monk with ashram branches in Kashi. “It is all Lord Vishwanatha’s grace,” Swami said. “And today’s meeting—Kumar’s grace.”

In Kashi (Varanasi), Kumar’s very first act was to perform bali tarpanam—ritual oblations for ancestors. At Kshemeshwar Ghat, in the house of a Telugu priest, the rites began. The priest instructed with compassion: “Maaji, whatever you have in hand, offer it—not to me, but to Ganga Mata. That is what pleases her.” He explained to Kumar: “In Kerala you also place extra offerings for women. Here the pindas are made of wheat, not rice. You must offer thirty-two pindas—for departed relatives, friends, teachers, for animals who served us, for the seven generations before us and the seven yet to come, for the trees and plants too.” Kumar’s heart brimmed. Immersing once more in the Ganga, he rose feeling body and mind both refreshed, as if blessed.

When Jennifer arrived at the hospice at 4:30 that afternoon, Suminder and Salina were absent. The counter was empty. Instead of his usual white robe, she saw on the bed a tall form clad in fresh saffron. She walked slowly closer. On the shelf, the Bhagavad Gita was missing—replaced by other books. On the bed, the one in new garments smiled gently at her.

Jennifer remembered the verse she had read aloud to him three months ago. Now the words blazed with clarity. She knew it almost by heart. And she whispered the words as if they belonged to her too: Vasamsi Jirnani….

 

Notes:

ALS – Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis:
It is a disease that weakens the nervous system, causing the muscles to gradually lose their strength. It can affect the arms, legs, and other muscle groups. Most people with this disease remain mentally alert and aware of their surroundings — they can understand, hear, and see everything clearly. However, responding or expressing themselves becomes extremely difficult. ALS societies often provide computers and other assistive devices to help patients communicate. The world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking also suffered from a similar neurological disorder.

"Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya,
navāni gṛhṇāti naro ’parāṇi,
tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāni,
anyāni saṁyāti navāni dehī."

[As a person discards worn-out clothes and takes on new garments, so the soul discards old bodies and enters new ones.]

It seemed more than a verse. It was Prabhuji’s truth—his quiet acceptance of discarding the body, the way one leaves behind a robe that has outlived its use.

The world might have called it ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Muscles stiffened, voice stolen, the body gradually refusing to obey the will. A cruel affliction—yet he never named it as tragedy. “Stephen Hawking endured it for decades, giving his gift to the world,” he once typed into the speech device. “In my small way, I am simply discarding the old garment.”

Technology had become his bridge—computer screens, eye-tracking, the gentle voice of Jennifer reading his words. Yet beyond it all was his deeper conviction: “The soul does not perish. This is only transition.”