RIP Rukmani Patti

Rukmani Patti's 90th birthday

This morning, my aunt called me to say that Rukmani Patti* (my *maternal grandmother) had passed on to the other side, peacefully in her sleep.

This news wasn’t exactly shocking since I had visited Patti just a few weeks ago when doctors had recommended palliative care.

The 91 year old feisty lady had lived a full life, experiencing the joys, trials and tribulations of an eventful life before settling down with her daughter, granddaughter and great-grand daughter.

 

Rukmani Patti with her Daughter, grand and great-grand daughter

My earliest childhood memories were of spending summer vacations visiting Patti and cousins down south, while our lives took us around the country wherever my dad happened to be posted. In the nineteen-seventies, Patti even boarded a flight to far-away Bagdogra to be with us while my mom gave birth to Manoj, my younger brother. Mind you, this was a generation before commercial aviation took off in India and Air-travel was really a novelty.

Born to a Brahmin agriculturalist family in the small southern town, she was married off to a reputable government contractor. The couple was blessed with three kids, including my mother who was the eldest. Life took an unexpected turn for Rukmani when her husband passed away, leaving the young widow to fend for her three little  kids.

Destitute, with few social benefits, Rukmani wasn’t going to be bowled out by this curve ball life had thrown her way. Demonstrating grit and determination, she focused on ensuring her daughters and son got a strong educational foundation. Even far back in the sixties, the astute widow realized that a solid education would be their salvation.

My dad, then a newly commissioned officer in the Air Force, who was related to Rukmani set his eyes on her eldest daughter. It was love at first sight and they tied the knot when my mom turned nineteen.

With the eldest daughter married off, Rukmani focused on the other two kids – the daughter joined the Indian bank after graduating with honors, and the son went on to serve in the Indian Income tax department.

Patti also came and lived with us for a couple of years after my mother’s untimely death providing much needed moral and logistical support to my newly widowed dad. After spending a couple of years, nurturing my brother and me through the loss of our mom, Rukmani Patti went on to live with my aunt, taking care of my young cousins too.

My life and career took me globe-trotting and meanwhile I would periodically catch up with Patti during visits back to India.

Vijay and I catching up with Patti during a recent visit

She continued to be mobile through her eighties, spending time with her great-grand-daughter. A couple of months ago, a fall during her morning stroll knocked her down and she didn’t get back to her old self even after surgery and therapy.

I visited Patti a few weeks ago, when they were getting ready to move her to Madurai to spend her sunset days with her son. In the back of my mind, I knew it may be the last time I’d see her, and sought her blessings.

Until next time Patti. I’m sure you are smiling back from ‘up there.’  

RIP Rukmani Patti

Yet another suicide: unsung victim of COVID shutdown and downturn

 We have all been reading about the impact of COVID-19, shutdown and financial loss suffered by millions. The story hit closer home recently when a neighbor committed suicide. 

The victim was our neighbor Babu, a 40-something techie working for a multinational at a Tech Park in Bengaluru who also had a thriving side-gig: investing in real estate with his brother-in-law who is a local contractor. 

The Babu family is well-to-do - by Indian middle class standards - with a couple of houses and plots that his dad and uncles had invested-in a generation ago. During the past couple of decades, their properties had grown in value exponentially, and Babu had mortgaged the properties to invest in additional real-estate projects.  

On the surface, Babu led a fairly normal middle-class life with his wife and young daughter. His parents in their eighties, lived with them in their old duplex house that Babu had built a couple of decades ago. He had also built a couple of shops on his property facing the street that was let out, generating additional income. Babu’s only sister, married to the contractor also lives a few blocks away and the families would frequently meet up.

Our subdivision is adjacent to a private mega-university that has been expanding considerably over the years. Many independent houses and plots in the neighborhood have been converted to commercial enterprises including multi-story Paying Guest (PG) complexes that accommodate the influx of out of town students.

A couple of years ago, Babu and his brother-in-law decided to jump the bandwagon and tore down a couple of old houses that the family owned in the area. Babu financed the construction of the multi-story PG complexes spanning 200+ rooms, and the construction was supervised by his contractor-BIL. 

The project took nearly two years to complete and they had a grand inauguration in February. And then came COVID-19 and the lockdowns. 

The buildings remained vacant for the next six months while Babu began to struggle to pay off his loan and mounting interest. During the past few months, he unsuccessfully tried to liquidate a few other properties that the family owned, and Babu continued to fret over the complex web of finances that were starting to unravel.

Last weekend, Babu’s wife went to visit her parents with their daughter and on returning found him dead, hanging from the ceiling fan. 

The family quickly corralled together to finish the inquest and funeral, but this incident didn’t even make the local news. 

#RIP Mr. Babu

RIP Gopi: Local cable guy electrocuted

A week ago, I heard that Gopi, the neighborhood cable guy had been electrocuted while surveying cables tangled on the roof of a house nearby. He suffered sever burns, and after a couple of days in the hospital, he passed away.

I was saddened to hear about the tragic death of the affable 26-year-old who worked hard to keep the neighborhood cable operations running.

After a sever thunderstorm, customers had complained of cable outage and Gopi had gone to the roof of a house in the neighborhood to check the wires. The severed cable wire had apparently tangled over a live electrical wire on the railing. When the unsuspecting Gopi tried to remove the untangled cable, he was instantly electrocuted.

RIP Gopi: DOD: 4 June 2020 (Sanjay Nagar area, Bengaluru, India). After Gopi's funeral, neighbors came together to hold an impromptu memorial. Some laminated a printout of his obituary and posted it on poles near the cable operator's office.


In urban India, it is all too common to see broadband and television cable wires hanging over electric poles and running over rooftops of houses and buildings nearby.  It is common for such tangling of wires to lead to frequent accidents and electrocutions. According to a TOI article,

Every year thousands of Indians are getting electrocuted in freak accidents on streets dotted with damaged power cables. In 2015 alone, 9,986 electrocution deaths were recorded across the country with Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan each witnessing over 1,000 casualties, according to latest data available with the National Crime Records Bureau.

• DH - Cable operator electrocuted to death in RR Nagar 
• TOI - Electrocution kills Nearly 30 Indians a day
• HT - Unsafe electric poles in Delhi pose a safety threat in monsoon season
• Karnataka cable operators to hold strike on January 24, screens to go blank - The Karnataka State Cable Television Operators Association have announced that they will be on strike  
• Finally, govt frames rules to address those dangerously dangling cables - Now the Urban Development Department has issued a draft policy to regulate optic fibres and all other cables in public places. The draft policy – the Karnataka Municipal Corporations (Regulation of cable laying) Rules, 2015 was published on January 14th, 2016.