PJ

Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.

“For the soul there is neither birth nor death.It is not slain when the body is slain.”— Bhagavad Gita 2.20

Petaling Jaya or PJ has always been a quiet, bustling place without noise. Mostly residential. A mixed fabric of people living side by side. Elites, the famed, politicians, influencers many of them reside there.

It is where I went to school, where I worked, I rent out and where I visited my late father in his final home.After my prayers, I would give prasadam to my family and to the residents living there. Yet it always felt strange to me. In that residence, no one prayed for their own well-being, even though there were dementia patients abandoned by their grown children.

I prayed for all of them, every time.Most days, when I left that place, I cried while driving. Seeing my father in so much pain broke something inside me.

I could not understand how he endured it forgetting everything, always wanting to go home, not knowing where home was anymore. He still comes to me in vivid premonition dreams. I feel his crying pain when he stands before me, the same pain he carried when he was alive.I knew I could not handle caring for a father with dementia. I did not know how to ease his suffering.

The only thing I could do was write. I wrote his pain into stories, what he thought of his relatives, how everything changed in 1953, when his parents died and left him an orphan.

After that, he moved from relative to relative, never truly belonging anywhere.The pain of being a temporary orphan turns you into a double-edged sword. I know this, because there are times I am treated the same way. I, too, became sharp on both sides.

He was born during the beginning of the Japanese occupation and survived those hardships. Writing his pain became my therapy, my way of connecting with what he once was.

Then the signs began.First, an old photo of my father started fading—his image slowly disappearing.

Second, an old winding clock stopped, and I had to replace it.

Third, while my mother was cleaning, she shifted the lazy Suzy top as there were too many lizard underneath it. The mirror broke into two. I saw it happen. I told her not to use it and bought her a new mirror.

The last sign was within me. Every day, I watched Sadhguru exclusives on YouTube—learning about life and death, about how the living become the dead, about leaving the body. I was preparing without knowing it. Learning what it might feel like to leave, to linger, to finally go into the light with a strong gust of wind behind, a tap at the back of the neck, and release as the priest was in the mid of the first day prayers. On the third day, my sister’s friend came to visit. She got stuck in the house with us as we sang prayers for half an hour. Suddenly, a heavy downpour began. We continued singing Thevaram until the rain stopped forty minutes later. Then, silence.

How ironic.No one from my father’s side came to see him. And that became the best part of the story.No need for your visit.I am done with pretenders.Get lost. Adios.He is dead. I am out of your lives.

The final moments came quietly. My sister rented an oxygen tank to ease his breathing. He lasted more than an hour—waiting for his son. His two roommates, though also a dementia patients, sensed what was coming and ran out to the hall.

I sat beside my father and read all the stories I had written for him—up to story number nine. My mother asked me to play Siva Peruman songs nonstop. His nephew had visited five hours earlier and left.

My mother, my sister, and I took turns feeding him his last meal—milk.When my mother and sister stepped outside, I stayed with him.

I whispered:“It’s time for you to go.You will be born into an Isha family.You will be disciplined.You will not suffer like this again.One day you will meet us as a child and say hi.I will know it is you.End your suffering. Time to go.”

They came back into the room. We watched his final moments. I watched his throat struggle as he tried to breathe on his own. My sister was on the phone with my brother at 1:54 a.m. Three or four minutes later, I said, “He has stopped breathing.”My mother checked his chest. He was gone.They cried. I did not.He was an empty shell by then.He left through his mouth, gasping loudly. His mouth remained open. His feet stiffened and bent into an S-shape. It was pitiful—to see a father leave in that state. My mom got the caregiver to tight his face up, as his mouth couldnt close.

From that moment, I learned my lesson.Never take anything for granted.Be diligent with myself.Never slouch like him did.Pay my dues on time.Take responsibility.I write my goals on A5 paper as the list goes on and finish them one by one. Slowly. Honestly.

Thank God I can still go back to PJ.Not for the past, but for peace.The Isha Center there remains.Just being with them is enough.That is the town close to home I will still visit again.