Perspective

We first saw him in the near-empty dining hall by the table with the prasadam offerings on it. A nondescript, middle aged man standing by himself and consuming sesame seed rice and sundal with a plastic spoon. We had just finished praying at the temple and had entered the dining hall in the rear together with the last few devotees looking for prasadam. A visit to the Indian temple is incomplete without food of some sort in the equation. He was dressed in a dark blue polo and jeans, was bespectacled, wore vhibuti on the forehead and was holding a blue tote. There was enough about him to suggest that he was a parent, visiting his offspring in the US. After all, this is April and the beginning of the visiting-parents season that typically runs through late fall. A nod and a smile I offered him as I joined the food line. 

It was a week night and the crowd was, not surprisingly, thin. And the place was rather quiet until my son, as usual, decided to add some decibels. The payasam was particularly tasty and was naturally down to the last glass by the time we got around to serving ourselves. He turned around to my wife and announced loudly that the payasam (that he had tasted earlier) was really good and he wanted some more. Redfaced, we ushered him to a side and started filling his mouth with sesame seed rice and a side of sundal.  Desi parenting 101: food by the spoonsful quells embarrassing questions.

Too little, too late. His announcement had caught the attention of the faithful few gathered there and particularly the gentleman in blue. He walked over and asked my son whether he liked the payasam. Of course he did. Name, age, school – he hit the usual small talk topics by which time we joined the two of them out of courtesy and also ready to steer the conversation away from further embarrassment if needed.

Casual conversation then shifted to us. Between spoonsful of sesame seed rice, we learned that he was visiting the US, was from Hyderabad (although he spoke decent Tamil) and was visiting his daughter.

 

“Last time I was here, my daughter was here. This time around, she is not.”

Not quite sure what he meant, my wife sought clarification, which is when it hit us like a thunderbolt. He explained that his daughter - his only child, working for a tech giant near Sacramento, had died suddenly and that was the 13^th day since her passing when tradition asks for the grieving family to visit a temple. “It happened suddenly” is about what he offered as cause and of course, we didn’t push him. As a parent, this news grabbed me by the neck and shook me up hard. I had lost two of my friends while I was in college and I remember the effect it had on their parents. Terrible. 

Presently he was joined by two ladies with bloodshot eyes. They were, we learned, his wife and her relative living nearby with whom they were staying. My wife, in tears, hugged the mother and offered her condolences. I shared my phone number with the father and offered any help they may need including a ride if they needed to go someplace. I am not sure if I could have done anything else at that moment. 

Grieving can be therapeutic and it was evident that they couldn't have grieved adequately given the suddenness of the situation, finding themselves in a familiar yet foreign land, staying at a distant relative's place, being surrounded by not so familiar faces and faced with the unpleasant task of having to tie up the loose ends. A long road lies ahead for the lonely, ageing parents. He pointed towards the shrine and observed that he wasn't sure of God's plans in a resigned tone. 

We don’t go to the temple armed with a wish list – like I used to not too long back – but that night it was as if we were shaken awake from a nap. Although the lesson fades away with time, it is humbling to realize that there is so much happening around me even as I type this. Behind every closed door is unfolding a scene with the actors forced to don a role they may or may not like or be good at. There is happiness, there is sorrow. There is joy and there is grief. All thrown into the mix in no seeming order. Counting the everyday blessings - big and small - and being thankful can't be a bad thing at all. 

Sometimes in life, you only need perspective and nothing much else. And that night, in that empty dining hall, life gave us a king-sized portion of it with a side of sesame seed rice and sundal to go with it.