MEMOIR
SETTING the soul free
Shri Uppuluri Krishna Murty( IRTS) Chief Vigilance Officer
I lost my father on December 26, 2017, soon after he was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer during the first week of September, 2017. There was an extensive metastasis of the skeletal structure and several other critical organs, including the adrenal glands. The prognosis was poor and hence, the cancer was detected very late. At the very outset, it was evident that there was very limited scope for a curative approach to succeed. All we could do was help him with the management of his pain.
Losing his mother at age three and his father at eight, my father grew up the hard way. Despite the perils, he raised and educated me with the best conveniences. After a valiant fight with cancer that lasted over 14 long weeks; he took his last breath at home surrounded by family members.
We performed all the rituals as per our tradition. Some may question the validity of rituals, which seem to have become obsolete, and merely exist to ensure employment to priests in these modern‘ electronically well connected’ times. But sociologists say that these rituals are the most economical way of reducing the fragility of social life. Rituals that are relayed from one generation to the other, are a collective memory of many from time immemorial. These rituals still seem to play a vital and reassuring role of effectively cementing the family members together. They, in a way, prevent families from breaking apart in the face of crisis. Rituals offer us thin strands of hope to cling on to during difficult times. They help us from breaking down, when a dear one leaves us on a journey to the unknown realms.
After observing the mandatory 10th day rituals, early in the day on January 04, 2018, at the Aparakriya Centre, Chembur, I returned home at about 08:30 AM. After the prescribed ablutions, I reached the balcony to hang the clothes for sun-drying. As I was hanging the clothes, I noticed that a group of 30 to 40 eagles were frantically flying in close circles around the top of an aged tropical Palm Tree( Toddy Tree or Tati Chettu in Telugu). While looking at those eagles, I spotted one entangled in the leaves of the Palm Tree. As the eagle made attemps to free itself, it got further coiled in knots and got precariously closer to death due to constriction.
This particular Palm Tree is a fully grown tall tree; about 16 metres tall. The bird was stuck almost at the very top. It would appear tantalizingly for a few seconds and immediately disappear in to the foliage after a few gyrations. Without losing a minute, I rushed to grab my powerful 8X42 Monarch Nikon Binocular for a clearer picture. My aim was to devise a workable strategy to set the eagle free at the earliest.
Looking at the situation, I suspected that the eagle must have been caught in the thread of an abandoned kite( patang). My binoculars helped me
8 ISSUE 1 2018