The Transfiguration

The Transfiguration

His face was expressionless -not an eyelid blinked, not a muscle moved. He just looked straight, as if he were a statue. It had happened at last. He kept down the receiver. There was a call from the hospital telling him that he had to go at once as his father had expired. It had been a prolonged fight, a hopeless and a helpless fight against cancer. He had seen his father slowly but surely succumb, the agonising spasms of pain, the never- ending visits of meaningless doctors, and the invariable disappointment, desperation and delusion. All this etched a deep rejection in Ronen’s psyche. He had put up a brave fight for four long years - he had seen his finances dwindling, he had noticed his mother’s fragile condition deteriorating day by day from want of proper nutrition---he himself had endured the pangs of hunger, only in the hope to see his father well again. But this was a cruel crushing blow. He tightened his jaws, and clenched his fists in a steel -like determination to face hard reality.
He had been the solid support for his mother when they were at the crematorium, but as the entered the precincts of their home, his mother melted in his arms like a burnt out wax candle, having exhausted all energy in a lifeless heap. Gently he tended to her till she revived and guided her to the unslept bed. What had happened? Nothing was registering in his confused, muddled up head, he was like a robot, working mechanically, without feelings or emotions. He saw his mother sobbing spasmodically, but he could not break down-no- it was not masculine to cry! He discovered that now he had become incapable of action, perhaps he ought to have intimated his relatives about the recent bereavement but he found that his mind had become a blank, a blur, he did not know whom to call. He found his body trembling, he could not stand, he sank into his bed. His brain was still fighting hard reality Not being able to accept the fact that his father was no more, threatening anxieties began continuously to hammer into his brain that time was running out, he had to buy the expensive medicines prescribed for his father, for his father needed them urgently for his survival. Somehow or the other he had to get the money. He clenched a handful of his wavy jet black hair which fell like tumultuous waves on a stormy sea, portraying his mental condition. He started to pull at them, unconscious and unawares of his action. Then everything became a blank and he dropped off to sleep in sheer exhaustion.
The sun rose and the sun sank but for Ronen’s time had come to a standstill. He had stopped eating, taking a bath, or talking to people around him. He had become almost like a zombie. His curly hair writhed like snakes around his head, threatening him with insanity, his unshaven beard covered his chest like Chinese silk but without offering any comfort, his eyes had lost their lustre, and people around him considered him to be a mental case, but was he really so! There was deep regret, unbearable sorrow, and feeling of guilt of having failed his father.
But strangely initially the realisation that his father was no more was not there. When a child shouted out to his father ‘Papa’, with a shock it registered on his mind that for him there would never be anyone whom he could call by that name.
In the meantime the human vultures had started their game. They were under the impression that there was a lot of money in the name of the Brown’s. So by a wily trick they wanted to get it medically certified that both mother and son were insane so that they could become trustees and appropriate the entire wealth and property. It happened that way. They were admitted into a Nursing Home where they drugged them with tranquilisers so much so that it was feared that the mother would never wake up again. Armed with the certificates of Mental illness, she was removed quickly from the Nursing Home before the friend was accused of murder. When back in the flat David played his role of duplicity and deviousness well. He spread the damaging rumour that the son was starving his mother to death, and the sick lady was being subject to utter inhuman torture as she had to lie on her own faeces for hours because the son was driving away the attendants from the door. Eventually her condition became so bad that she could not be kept in the house, she had to be taken to another Nursing Home. Gradually her kidneys stopped functioning with the overdose of medicines, and her emaciated body started swelling up and looked very much like bloated sausages. Her eyes became dim and lost their focus. Her bony fumbling fingers became limp.
During the throes of death pangs, she only wanted her son Ronen, to hold his hand as life was slowly ebbing away, to wrap him up in her arms for the last time, but he was not there, no, he had not come to see her off.
On the other hand Ronen’s whole being was contorted into spasms of mental agony for he wanted to be with his mother very much, who had taken assurance from him that he would never leave her and would be there for her always. But it was very unfortunate that no one took him to the Nursing Home. He felt himself to be a helpless dummy, a fake replica of a human being. He could only yearn and crave but could not act. The poignancy of his desperate situation made him feel like a fish which had been flung out of water.
Ronen stood like a statue all night. He was in a stupor from which perhaps he would never recover. His face was a mask----no one could make out what was going on in the depths of his mind. His vacant unseeing eyes, the slight frown on his forehead, his hunched shoulders, the drooping lips, bespoke of the abyss of melancholy, despondency and desperation he had entered. When everything seemed dismally bleak and hopeless, when the enveloping darkness was thick and foreboding that from nowhere a gush of all pervading light suffused Rajeev, for when he opened the door to the caller who had come to pay condolences for his mother, his future was to change.
In front of him stood a distant relative, who stretched out her hands in a warm sympathetic embrace. He went back two steps and demurely asked her to be seated. Hesitantly he answered the volley of questions which she asked him in one or two syllables. Mita Bose could some- how or the other gather that he had not eaten anything in the last two days. Her heart went out to the man in pain, to another human being who did not want to live any more, to someone on whom the door of life had shut cruelly and prematurely. She noticed his tousled, dishevelled hair, his unkempt beard, his bedraggled clothes and the shrunken face. It was then that she knew she had to act. That moment Ronen a man of forty-five, pleaded like a child of five, to take him out speedily, out of that forlorn, woebegone mansion which haunted him with only tormenting memories and gnawing regrets.
Mita took him under her wings as a mother hen would her chick, out of the tentacles of greedy friends, out of the clutches of starvation and neglect, into a world of love, caring and happiness. Then just like a gardener would take care of his plants, the lady tended to Rajeev’s every need and left no stone unturned to bring him back to a normal life of health and happiness.
In the meantime David was making arrangements to put Ronen into a Psychiatric Rehabilitation Centre but Mita was apprehensive. Once he was admitted it would become well -nigh impossible to get any information of what was going on inside, whether he was being heavily sedated or even kept tied up as some patients were subjected to. The lady felt she had to act fast. With special permission she got him admitted into an Old Age Home, as he was only forty-five. Here he was cloistered safely out of the reach of covetous, wealth-thirsty, so-called friends.
For the inmates of the Old Age Home, it was an event which did not happen every day in their humdrum life. They took turns to visit the middle-aged recluse who neither spoke, nor looked their way. It was impossible for them to break the silence of the reticent, unresponsive monk. For after a prolonged period of four years when Ronen had given up on all social contacts, in his dedication to bring his parents back to health, he had almost become autistic.
After days or even years of near starvation, when he was saving up for his father’s treatment, now the four meals a day was a luxury. He appreciated every morsel he was taking and after a fortnight he realised he was not feeling as weak as in the past and was able to get about by himself. He could now think rationally and logically and was not muddle-headed as before. The only problem which still persisted was the intense depression which weighed him down.
The curiosity of the Seniors at the Old Age Home did not wane but grew stronger as the days went by. One by one they approached Rajeev and tried to probe into the mystery that was the young man. Time is indeed a great healer and Rajeev started responding to their overtures. Then one day the barber was called and he lost the appearance of a sadhu (mendicant) when his hair was cut short and his beard was shaved off. Mita took him to a shopping centre. All his old shabby tattered clothes were disposed of. He had not been inside a Mall for the past four years and now everything seemed so impressive. When Mita told him that the new outfit was a gift from her, Rajeev was touched to the core of his heart as he had not been the recipient of a gift for many years------perhaps as far as memory could go. He felt he would choke with gratitude. He managed to brush off quickly a stray tear which had ventured to escape even after the years of strict discipline.
In the Old Age Home, everybody was amazed at the transformation He seemed to be a changed man---almost handsome. He happened to hear remarks that if he had got a wife, he would be cured of his depression. The young nurses felt that it was time for them to try their luck. Slowly he started becoming social and the inmates thronged round him because they felt him to be an enigma.
At this stage Mita felt that professional Psychiatric help was required. He was taken to a doctor who prescribed mood elation pills. The result was that he lost his sleep and started suffering from insomnia. Besides it was an appetite stimulant and he became ravenous and wanted to eat more and still more. The inmates of the Home watched with amazement.
In the meantime, help came from the other side of the globe. He spent his lonely sleepless nights by speaking to a kind soul over the phone in America, whose words of assurance acted like a tonic for a person whose self- confidence had been entirely sapped and shattered.
Most important was the help that came from another ‘Do-Gooder’. He set his finances in such a solid shape, that put an end to Ronen’s fear that money had got depleted to such an extent, that there was nothing to fall back on. Now no more did he have to go without a bath for as long as a month for fear of the electricity bill shooting up if he turned on the water heater!
Ronen had in the meantime given up his psychiatric medicines as the pills had bad side effects. In his own estimation, he was becoming normal with the good people around him. He laughed and joked and even tried his hand at writing novels
It was at this time that God sent another gift, as if He was the One to plan it all and was determined to see him spinning again. Another good soul from another part of the globe invited him to Melbourne to give him the much-desired break.

What helped Ronen immensely now was his desire to give others, something of himself. He would help others because he had got so much in his turn. This altruistic gesture worked. Instead of looking at himself with a magnifying glass, his heart went out to another, who he felt needed help. He volunteered to do the cooking in the house of the generous host who had magnanimously considered his suffering when he needed it the most, and had invited him over. He knew the lady had acute bone problems. This altruistic gesture proved to be the best tonic for the person who was thought to be a case for psychiatric therapy.
Besides now he had no time to be miserable, for his work kept his mind off from himself. Occupation, they say is the best therapy for psychiatric problems. As the dishes he presented on the table, were licked up fingers, plate and all, his satisfaction knew no limits.
So with self- confidence, love and a desire to help others, the Recluse Ronen became a Vibrant Ronen and the Transfiguration was dramatic! It is now for us to turn over the page and see what unfolds in the new chapter.
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