How vertigo changed life for this once vibrant man

By Siddharth Pandey

Naman Nath (name changed) spent the last decade of his life sitting on a couch in his room. His children would beg him, implore him to come out of his room. But Naman would only smile and go back to watching TV.

It was not that Naman was always like this. He was an outgoing man who loved to socialize, and whose house was full of friends and relatives.

He started going into a shell after he developed balance problems. The doctors diagnosed it as a kind of vertigo, where the fluids in the innner ear dry up and a person finds it difficult to walk without support.

As his balance problem worsened with age, he started spending more and more time on the couch kept in his room. His activities also shrank. The television set kept on a wooden cabinet close to his chair became his main source of entertainment.

His wife and children would try to raise his spirits, but his involvement was not as intense as it used to be. He started preferring to be left alone.

His daughter, who had moved to another city following her marriage, found the visits home most distressing. Her memories of her Dad were of a vibrant person full of life and vigour.

She recalls life before she was married. “Our house was full of people, and my Dad was the centre of all activity. The festivals especially were fun. We would celebrate for days.”

She remembered the card games. “My Dad loved playing cards and during Diwali we wouldn’t sleep. Endless cups of coffee, chips and sweets would be consumed, and the hall would ring with laughter through the night.

“To my Dad, his family was his life.” And it was a big family – three brothers and five sisters. He loved them in the same way he loved his children.

Naman had a difficult start to his married life. His Dad had passed away within months of his marriage leaving the burden of taking care of the entire family upon him. None of the daughters had been married and the brothers had to be educated.

“It was not easy on his meagre government salary,” says his daughter. “But my father never complained. He made sure that everyone was educated, married and settled down.”

It was not just his family but even the neighborhood respected him. It was therefore so tragic when vertigo reduced him to a pale shadow of himself. The man who would tear down the streets of Lucknow on his Bajaj scooter could not walk in the last years of his life.

The final blow was the death of his wife. Naman doted on her. It was her support that had kept him going.  Her death hit him hard. He became even quieter, clearly missing her presence.

“The two were deeply attached to each other,” says his daughter. “He would insist that my mother wear bright sarees. A colour he particularly loved was pink. He was also fond of jewellery and would go out of his way to gift them to my mother. He was heartbroken when my Mom lost her speech a few months before her death”

His daughter breaks down as she describes the last communication between the two. “My mother never left the house without informing my Dad. Even when she was very sick and was being taken to the hospital she scribbled ‘Ab main ja rahin hoon’ (I am going now). She never came back.”

Naman did not survive the death of his wife for long. He passed away within eight months of her death. The family understandably was grief struck.

His daughter’s greatest lament even today is, “Why did a man who gave so much love and happiness to everyone had to suffer like this in the last years of his life?”

(The report is based on an interview with Naman’s daughter.)

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