Baabai, I miss you

It’s strange that despite the countless people we encounter daily, there are always a few who hold a special place in our hearts. For me, my “Baabai” (uncle, in Telugu) was one such person. He was more than just an uncle; he was a father figure who co-parented me through to my adolescence. I vividly remember the countless times he carried me on his shoulders, walking me around as I ate because I hated eating. Throughout all my revolutions and eccentricities, it’s hard to forget how he defended me through every blunder of my teenage years. Finally, as I matured enough to appreciate having someone who supported every single one of my decisions, life cruelly snatched him from right under our noses.

Baabai was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in 2008. That Diwali, when we received the news, was the first time I saw my dad cry and the last time I saw him celebrate the festival. Quotes like “Cancer is just a chapter, not your life” are all bullshit. I witnessed firsthand that once a tumour is diagnosed, it does becomes your life, period. Doctors don’t make things easy either. I appreciate their efforts and optimism, but all they can offer is borrowed time and an untimely demise. Each consultation and second opinion brings in unfounded hope, only to push one back to square one.

Baabai navigated his 8-year journey from medication to radiotherapy to chemotherapy, only for the tumour to relapse more aggressively in January 2023. With no options left, we resorted to craniotomy surgery. Even with unfavourable odds, we went through with the surgery, and it was a success, albeit temporary. I remember traveling to Hyderabad from Pune in May 2023 to visit Baabai, grateful that he seemed alright. Little did I know that sharing dal and rice with him, laughing at my childhood antics, would be my last happy memory with him. After all of us visited him separately, he probably felt he had met everyone for the last time, for he was hospitalised in the first week of June.

Despite the tubes going through him, despite my mom’s countless prayers, despite our endless tears and pleas for him to come back, Baabai left us on June 18, 2023, two days before my birthday. It’ll be a year this week, and I am yet to come to terms with the fact that he is gone.

It’s not fair that when I have so much to tell him, I have no way to do so. I have all the good news about my MBA admits and scholarships that he would have been proud of. I have apologies that I never got the chance to convey, which I’m sure he would have just dismissed. We have so much family drama to catch up on and laugh about. I miss his taunts, his frequent calls, his three-years-in-advance plans, his extremely picky diet, his passion for intellect, his ever-compliant “yes” to everything Dad said, and his hatred for cameras. Baabai, I miss you. I just hope that wherever and however you are, you’re in much less pain.