Going Home…

Papa sits in a wheelchair in his sterile room, in the sterile hospital. I can only see a portion of his face, hanging in the bottom half of my phone screen. The headrest of his chair peeks out from behind his head. An oxygen tube runs from his nose to out beyond the screen.

He won’t look at me.

“Uncle ji,” calls out Ranjeet, the driver — but more than a driver, so much more. His caretaker, his adopted son, his family for the last 20 years.

“Uncle ji, upni beti ko dekho.” Take a look at your daughter.

Papa has fixed his gaze away, and will not shift it to look at me.

“Papa? Namaste…. Papa?”

Papa waves away the phone.

“Uncle ji — itni door se call kar rahi hai.” She is calling you from so far. “At least take a look.”

Papa shakes his head, and then when he finally speaks, he sounds annoyed.

“Ranjeet, tu baar baar…” “Ranjeet, over and over …”

Over and over, Ranjeet has been bringing faces and voices to Papa — faces of all his children, wife, family, friends. Over and over, they ask him to get better, stay hopeful, listen to the doctors. Take his medicine.

But Papa is done with it all. He wants only one thing: to go back home. No more tubes, no more tests, no more PPE’d…