5 years on I sleep in peace

I remember, alone, in a distant land from the land of my birth, my mother, who went to rest, five years ago.

Ammachi with grandchildren, Joanna and Mika

Ammachi was an unique personality.

She knew right from wrong. She also knew who was right and who was wrong.

She was constrained in one respect.

Her absolute loyalty to her husband, my father, meant that she could not, in one instance, and one instance alone, when she had the strength to do so, stand for what was right instead of what was wrong.

It was not until my final meeting with my father, in July 1993, just a few weeks before his death, that she was released from that enormous burden. That was when he apologised to me for his wrong-doings in front of her.

But then, after his death, she was alone and marginalised by her other children and her grandchild, her 5th child, who had hi-jacked her for their own financial ends.

She was deliberately isolated from me. She was kept from talking to me.

Whenever, without the knowledge of the others, she got to talk to me on the phone, she warned me, again and again, about the criminality of her other "children".

In March 2000, just 7 months before her passing, fate took me to her side.

There was much consternation among the other children about my visit. On the day I went to Bangalore, on her advice, and discovered the devious plan afoot to dispose of the family property, which the other "children" had no right to do, I came back to Madras in the evening, and I asked her how they had managed to do what they had.

Ammachi, old and tired, did not stop speaking till very very late that night. She could not shut her eyes till she told me what the real situation was.

I tried, again and again, to reassure her that I was not bothered about what her other "children" did, as I was a happy man.

By 4 am the next morning, the stress of her confession drove her into a coma.

I sat silently at her side, stroking her cold forehead, as only I knew what had caused this coma.

Despite pressing commitments in Finland, I could not leave India till I knew that she would come out of her coma.

I sat by her side for long long hours as I watched the other "children", hypocrites, every one of them, show great "emotion".

It was only the dedicated effort by other family members, especially her brothers, Kochappachen and Mathukuttychayan, and her nephew, Bapukuttychayan, that pulled my mother out of her coma.

Her "children" were ready to "let her die". They were planning "euthanasia" for their own benefit.

I prayed fervently at her side, just as she has prayed for me on many many occasions, that she would come out of her coma. Otherwise, I knew would never be at peace, as only I knew that it was me that had caused this situation.

Hours before I was to leave for Finland, she came out of her coma.

She looked at me, so lovingly. She knew that I had not left her side during many of those last few hours.

That night, when I told her what had happened, she told me, as only a mother can tell her son, that God would be with me always.

I told her that ever since that fateful day in 1955, when God gave me a second life, God had always been with me and would always be with me.

She sent me back to Finland with a clear heart and mind.

From that day, there was every effort by the other immediate family members to prevent her from talking to me, right up till her passing away.

Greed is a horrible habit.

And it is a habit.

Sadly, those who claim to be my "brothers and sister", are consumed by it.

Five years on, they continue to be consumed by it.

So be it, as the only one who sleeps in peace, enveloped by the love of my father and my mother, is ME!