In Memoriam: Ranjit Jose, 1980-2023

 

1.

I never expected to write this. An old man commemorating the death of a youngish relative, that’s not supposed to happen. It’s supposed to be the other way around. Instead of a little doggy following a brass band, it’s the brass band following an old limping animal with its tongue hanging out.

My nephew, Ranjit Jose, passed away unexpectedly on July 4, 2023. A Spanish proverb states that when one is born, one cries while everyone else smiles; when one dies, the opposite ideally occurs: the dying person smiles while everyone else cries. But I doubt there was a smile on Ranji’s face as he died in a taxi on the way to the hospital in far-away Solomon Islands. Even if fate had allowed him to become old and weary, death came like a whirlwind, picking him up from the ground and removing him from sight forever. Worse, no one held his hand, no one sang to him; he died alone. His guardian angel—if there is one—must have been underground baking bagels when Ranji fell.

We talked with him on the phone the day before he died. He had fallen; a doctor managed his scrapes and bruises and gave him antibiotics. No mention of a head injury. He informed us that the antibiotics had made him ill. He also complained of indigestion. We thought that he would quickly recover from what we thought were minor injuries. No mention of a headache. When he complained of difficulty breathing, he was brought to the doctor's. He died en route to the hospital; it is thought he had suffered a massive heart attack.  It will take some weeks before we get the autopsy report.

When  my wife. Nirmala, gave me the news, I shouted out, “No, No, No!” Then I thought to myself, “Der liebe Gott ist Zufall geworden—Und der Zufall hat kein Mitleid.” Ja, Ja, Ja….Ja; Doch.

 

2.

Enough about Death! Birth and Death are like bookends, definitive borders of the narrative between them.  In Ranji’s case, the black (the color of death) bookend was added far too soon, yet the book of his life is rich and important. Some narratives rival the length of War and Peace, others have far fewer pages, yet, like Kafka’s Metamorphosis, are short, sweet and no less immortal.

I must write at the outset that what I have to say are only a few of my memories. We had a good relationship, but an old man’s view of a much younger man’s life, especially one who lived so very far away for so many years, is by necessity partial and fragmentary. Ranji had many friends; he was gregarious and well loved by many. My son Philip put together photos he gathered from social media. Who are all these smiling people, delighted to be in Ranji’s company?  I will never know.

Yet I feel I knew Ranji very well. After all, we knew each other for the entire, brief period he spent on Earth. I was lucky to know him so well. Blessed are those who mourn? If this is true, and somehow I suspect it is, I am very blessed indeed.

My son Philip and Ranjit were born  a few days apart in September, 1980. The first time I met him was about a year later, when his dear mother Milla, my wife’s sister, came to the United States for a prolonged period of time.

Ranji was a cute kid. I can still see his jet-black hair that curled up at the end like an irrepressible lapel which even a hot iron couldn't keep down for  long. They stayed with us for some time. Ranji was not yet able to walk; Philip, an early walker, taught him how to crawl upstairs, and, with some effort, downstairs as well. My wife and I still live in the same house. So many persons walked up and down those stairs who are no longer with us, namely Nirmala’s mother, my mother, my stepfather and now, my nephew. Those steps will never feel the same.

Milla, after a prolonged stay, returned to India. We visited India every couple of years until we became too old to do so.

I have a vivid memory of Jose, Ranjit’s dad, feeding Ranji beef by hand. He apparently wanted to toughen him up.

Ranji was a sensitive, emotional child who became a sensitive, emotional adult. As a child, he was a bit tearful. Philip loved it when I carried him into the sea; Ranji cried when it was his turn. One day we took a catamaran ride in the sea. Ranji was terrified and howled the whole time. But he did it.

Fast forward many years. Ranji is now graduating college, an event celebrated in Madison Square Garden. Nirmala and I, in loco parentis, beamed with pride. I kept on taking pictures of him as he sat next to a Black friend. “Ranjit, who is that white dude who keeps on taking your picture?” he asked. “He’s my uncle,” Ranji replied. His friend looked as astonished as many African Americans would be a few years later, when Barack Obama became our first Black president.

At this time in his life, Ranji lived in Queens, with an artsy group of roommates. One was an Israeli named Nimrod, who was nicknamed Nimmy. (Later, Ranji told me, he sang naked in an off-off Broadway review,) Another roommate was a soprano. Ranji, my wife and I attended a performance in Baltimore of Lucia di Lamermoor; Ranji’s roommate sang the title role. She was the hit of the performance, but was no Joan Sutherland. The last  time Ranji mentioned her she was working in a bank.

I remember giving him a driving lesson, during one of his stays with us. I told him, “If you stop at the green and go at the red, pretty soon we’d both be dead!” Well, he laughed. He was a good student.

He was a good nephew; he was a good man.  He was very close to his mother. He cried and cried when he found out that she had terminal cancer. She was an English professor; they read Eliot together as Milla lay dying.

I could relate many other anecdotes regarding Ranji, and others could relate many different anecdotes as well. Suffice it to say, that we loved him and will miss him very much.

Another relative, my brother-in-law, Sudhir, who was very close to Ranji, wrote to me, after Ranji’s death, that ‘grief is a stone in the heart.’ Yes, but we, while remembering Ranji, must keep together lest the stone shatter and we die of emboli. Auden wrote, ‘We must love one another or die.” How true!

Rest in Peace; Ranji, Ranji, as long as we live, we will miss you, good-bye.