Uncle Jerry’s Death day

I don’t remember the day my Uncle Jerry died in August ten years ago. In fact, the only reason I’m confident it’s August is because I know it was three months before pops. He’d be just a couple of years shy of 100 were he alive today. Of course he’d be stone deaf and... Come to think of it, had he been alive he wouldn’t allow them assholes to cut down his mighty oak tree. The 30 year-old behemoth that was one many symbols of my childhood. Were he alive, Aunty Vivian wouldn’t be lonely today and she’d have someone to care for her as she battled cancer and eventually won.

That man taught me to love nature, it is he who pointed out to my eight year-old self the scientific name of the curious orange stone I had picked off the ground. A member of the Bombay Natural History Society and an associate of the late great Salim Ali, Uncle Jerry once scared the bejesus out of this girl while he was strolling through Sanjay Gandhi National Park. He had a kind face as old men go, but to have fluffy white hair sticking out of a dark walnut-shaped head coupled with thick glasses poking at you in the middle of a forest is enough to give anyone the shivers. I hope to emulate that feat some day. I’ve got the mangy Wolverine look; all that’s needed is to actually set foot into SGNP.

It is also from him that I inherited a fascination for snakes. Every monsoon he’d spot at least a dozen sliding through the garden at night having escaped from the neighbouring marshes. One night, as I was passing by the garden, I saw him leaning on the fence staring into the darkness. When I came closer he asked me to say nothing and just watch. I looked in the direction he was – a cat was hissing and spitting at a large cobra. And here he was, Uncle Jerry watching calmly and contentedly. He was convinced the sewers in our lane were swarming with Russel’s Vipers. Every other kid dismissed him as a crack. My brother and I revered him.

He died of malaria. His last words, to Aunty Vivian on his deathbed at the hospital were, “Vivian, the doctor has cut my throat.” I never did truly discover what the doctor held against the man. All I remember is his prone body, clothed in his favourite brown coat, lying peacefully in its coffin, bearing the legend, “Here lies Jeremiah. May his soul rest in peace.” We spent one hour picking out flowers for his funeral.