I carry my grief with me, I carry it in my heart

Trigger warning: I use strong and blunt language to describe death. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

It’s currently 5:14 AM, on maybe the tenth night that I have been up beyond four AM. I usually blame my smartphone, the addictions of a capitalist world trying to suck in every last bit of my attention and money. But when I finally put the phone away and close my eyes, can I fall asleep? Unfortunately, not tonight.

I think about death. Death is all around us, in Nuh and Manipur, in my home and my heart.

When I embarked on higher studies in 2016, leaving my house for the first time for longer than 10 days, I got a photo with my grandparents. I wanted to celebrate the moment but also somewhere, deep inside, I thought, “If this is the last time I see them, at least I will have a photograph of it to remember them by.” By the time I graduated, in 2021, I had lost my father, both my maternal and paternal grandparents. And then there were three. My mother, my sister and I. Both of them were my biggest supporters and motivators, and together we healed and looked forward to the remainder of our lives with only the memories of our loved ones.

I booked a flight to Mumbai, planning to go to Goa from there to attend my first conference. My sister, who was going to leave for Estonia in two weeks, decided to accompany me on the flight, meet and say goodbye to her Mumbai friends. Two days later, she went on a trek. She hiked up the Western Ghats in the wettest and most enchanting weather of August, sporting her new GoPro, recording the place’s beauty interspersed with commentary about the place’s history, the trade routes of the Marathas and their might against the British. I look at her grin ear to ear and wonder, did she know it was going to be her last day on earth? A short while later she fell from a cliff and bashed her skull. She breathed her last a few moments later.

I was lying on my friend’s mattress in his minimalist bachelor apartment, trying to arrange CT scans of TB patients in a certain manner for work. I took a little break and closed my eyes, not realizing when I fell asleep. I was woken up by a phone call — my sister’s friend was calling me for some reason. I was so sleepy I had to ask him to repeat his statement thrice. On the final repetition it hit me — accident, hospital, come fast. I freaked out. Ten minutes later my mom called, asking if she was even alive. Until then the possibility had not even occurred to me.

My sister was some 90 km away from Mumbai. I hired an Uber intercity and we left, on the rainy slippery roads, winding around the hills with barely any street lights. It took me five hours to cover the journey, longer than it took my mother to fly to Pune and taxi to the hospital. I couldn’t bear to call Mom or that friend. I just kept texting my friends, who were keeping track of me every moment. Antra, Trisha and Pratyush. They asked if I had enough battery, if I had had something to eat, if my mom was reaching safely. Trisha even picked her up from the airport and accompanied her to the destination.

We saw her body, lying on a slab of concrete in a big room with white walls, away from the other hospital rooms. The police officer told Mom to not go in, and I almost burst with rage. “SHE’S HER DAUGHTER!” I wanted to scream. Even in moments like these, the patriarchy doesn’t leave us alone, as if she is not strong enough. She is stronger than the whole lot of you, I wanted to say. But all I mustered was a “No, she will also come.” We saw her, mouth slightly open but otherwise serene, as if she was just sleeping. Her head was resting on multiple pieces of cloth. The doctor asked Mom to leave. This time I did not interfere. He pointed to me the broken ribs, the broken leg, the broken skull. The cloth pieces were soaked with blood. It seemed very minor to me, not half as gory as some scenes from violent movies, but I realised, it was enough. Enough for her to be gone forever.

The days after that were filled with agony. With pain. Reliving that car ride again and again. Beating myself up for not going on the trek with her. Remembering her getting in a different cab than me at the airport, my final good bye to her. I would often wake up at night, drenched with sweat, finding myself sitting in that car again, listening to the driver’s wisecracks which I couldn’t bear to hear. I would call Antra and cry. She would visit me often to console me.

When we were in class sixth, Antra and I discovered that a very distant relative of hers had married a very distant relative of mine, and we giggled to think that we were related now. We announced our siblinghood to the world, and she tied me a rakhi to make the bond official. Since then until the end of school, I would look forward to the school rakhi as much as I looked forward to the one at home. I would get her a chocolate every time. After school, she noted that the practice seemed a bit juvenile to her now, that we were best friends and there was no need to call each other siblings in order to feel closer. I agreed with her and the rakhi tying stopped. I agreed with everything she used to suggest, she was simply never wrong.

In 2021, after my sister passed away, one day my doorbell rang. A parcel for me — a rakhi, complete with teeka, a few grains of rice, two small chocolates and a note. Antra sent a reminder that though she couldn’t replace Ruchika, she was there for me. That is how she was—at Antra’s funeral, everybody remembered how she had made them feel heard and seen, how she cared for everybody.

Yes, you read that right. My story of being surrounded by death did not stop at Ruchika. On 15 July 2023, hours after meeting me, Antra also crossed the great divide. Her mother called me around 11 PM and said, “Jitesh, teri ye behen bhi tujhe chhod kar chali gayi” (Jitesh, even this sister of yours has left you).

---

When old people depart, there’s sadness, but there’s also a sense of the life they lived, the legacy that they left behind. When my father passed away, the grief was concerning his life post-retirement, which he had looked forward to with much gusto. But with my sister, the immense pain was at the loss of potential. She had achieved the pinnacle of success, winning a seven-year-long battle and finally crowned a victor, a Doctor of Philosophy in the field of astrophysics and astronomy. She loved her work but set her sights on something much bigger— she wanted to travel the world, write, make videos of her experiences, give guidance to women and say, “Look! I did it! That means so can you!” She had wanted to give an answer to every single person who at any point in her life had said, You can’t do it or You shouldn’t do it. Her life speaks for her. Her research institute, IUCAA, dedicated four pages of their magazine to tributes to her. Her website, ruchikaseth.wordpress.com, lies unfinished for all eternity. But the 11 posts she did publish, will continue to be found useful to anybody who stumbles upon them.

With Antra’s loss, I find myself thinking about the same things—the missed potential, the missed experiences. Her twenty-fifth birthday party in July, a Goa trip planned with her in August, Mumbai in December, international holiday next year. Sometimes it feels that she is still there, just busy with work, and would be sending me reels shortly. But reality sets in soon.

No longer will I pursue a new love interest and be able to make them pass the best friend test, the absence of a best friend makes it impossible. I don’t even feel like getting attached to anyone anymore. There is no looking forward to working-from-home parties with her, cooking and learning from her. No one to confide my deepest thoughts without fear of judgment. Antra, you really were my comfort provider, and I hope I could provide you with a semblance of comfort in return.

A stranger online once told me about matching tattoos with her best friend— “I carry your heart with me” on her arm, and “I carry it in my heart” on her friend’s, famous lines from a poem by E.E. Cummings. I had excitedly taken the idea to Antra. I used to think there was nothing permanent enough to deserve a tattoo, but a pair tattoo with Antra was an idea I was immediately comfortable with. Sadly, it was not meant to be.

Now I carry her grief with me, I carry it in my heart.