How the day dawns is a great puzzle. Just want to share an unforgettable day in my life. My father who is suffering from Parkinson's with a little loss of memory now and then, went for his morning walk .He did not turn up for an hour. Thinking that he would have been talking to the watchman or seeing the children going to school , my brother continued his busy routine. When two hours had passed and he did not turn up, he got worried , went down his apartment in search of him and gave me a call to find out if my father had come to my house.

We knew something had gone wrong, and it started raining too. A search to all the places he usually goes went in vain. My husband , my brother and myself ran as fast as we could in all the lanes and by lanes of West Mambalam, Ashok Nagar , K K Nagar and Vadapalani and also the bus stands and central station,  not leaving the any shop, hospitals, hotels. Frantically we called all our relatives and friends and asked  if he had come there. A" No" from them scared us all the more. By this time it was evening of that Sunday. Not knowing where and how to start in this big city, with chain of thoughts running in our mind, we were paralysed.

Anxiety emptied our strength. Seeing this my husband took over the whole situation and acted like a captain of the ship and saved us from drowning. He visited all the public hospitals, mortuaries and worst of all was to identify a body in the railway track. He also went to the police station to file an FIR, so that it comes in all the papers and tv channels the next day. Two days and nights of non-stop searching had gone with no news. All the friends and relatives were consoling us and were giving us a helping hand . 

I can't express the agony, the pain during the sleepless nights,the panicking, the non-stop crying and the fear of not being able to find him and live the rest of my life made my heart bleed. I would have been able to overcome a natural end but I would not have been able to live a normal life, with him missing forever.   

Trembling, feeling guilty and thinking of the last promise to my mother that we will look after him well, we gained all our strength and continued our search .An old friend of ours, meanwhile ,searched for the old age homes for the homeless and identified that a man of my father's resemblance had been put there by the helpline people.

Rushing there, praying to all the Gods on the Earth, hoping for it to be him , we drove as fast as we could.

 We found him

He was in one of the homes run by the Corporation of Chennai.

There he was, trying to tell my name and my brother's. I could see the pain in his face.He couldn't tell us how he got lost.

There were no words to thank them .

It was such a relief.

Love, hate, respect, disgust, horror, sadness, grief , sympathy and compassion were all  the emotions underwent by me. A roller coaster ride to say the least.   

A melodrama that ended well, otherwise I would not have written this......

Photograph by Suraj

Follow me next week for a humour drama;)