The article which appears below was originally published in Krishna Tiloks's book, Notes Of A Dream. ©The rights to this material are reserved to the owner. If you have any concerns or comments, please send an email to info@rahmaniac.com.
To this day, whenever AR or anyone else in his family talk about the condition that so tragically claimed Shekhar’s life, they simply refer to it as ‘his illness’. AR believes that the illness was a result of black magic, malevolent spells and voodoo cast upon Shekhar by his enemies. Who were these enemies exactly? Envious colleagues? Composers and musicians who Shekhar had crossed in some way?
‘They were just some people who wished him ill,’ Fathima says. ‘Let’s leave it at that. Why talk about it now?’
AR says he truly does not understand the full nature of his father’s illness, and while he did not believe in a supernatural explanation at first, he now feels there is no other explanation. He says it’s still a mystery to him.
Raihanah, however, is of a different opinion. ‘It was stomach cancer,’ she says. ‘I work closely with some organizations for cancer patients and I’m familiar with the disease. It was cancer of the stomach that spread to his colon and bladder. His stomach used to be swollen some three, four times its regular size, like a pregnant woman’s. And he was always in so much pain. He would ask for painkillers often.’
During the last few years of his life, Shekhar would be frequently hospitalized. Initially, the doctors simply could not figure out what the problem was. And by the time they did, it was too late. When he wasn’t in a hospital, Shekhar would be with a holy man—at his wife’s insistence—trying to find a spiritual means to cure the ailment. Or he would be working.
Fathima recalls scenes of her and her brother accompanying their ailing father to recording sessions towards the end. Shekhar continued to work right until the end of his life—literally. The man had an unusually strong will and sense of commitment. Fathima remembers, ‘He used to lie down and play his harmonium or conduct because he couldn’t take the pain. He had to be carried to recording sessions sometimes. My brother and I, we used to run around him or jump over him, playing. It was probably his last year. We didn’t know how bad it really was. Then of course he became too sick to even get up from his bed and he passed away not long after that.’
One can only imagine what seeing things like that, at that age, could do to a child. Little AR would accompany his withering father as he was shifted between various hospitals and came to the conclusion, before long, that this was what the rest of his life was going to look like. For a child who was not yet a decade old, it must have been a tough realization—and one that could have warped his view of the world in general. Even outside of the hospitals, there was no escaping his father’s condition.
‘It was tough,’ says AR. ‘This was a man so full of life. Always travelling, working. To see him wither away like that was very hard. He was always so giving; whenever he came from Singapore or anywhere he would bring stuff for almost everyone he knew.’
‘We all lost interest in our studies at the time,’ recalls Raihanah. ‘It was hard to focus on studies with Dad in that condition. But Mom did everything she could to make sure we were not affected by it. If Dad was in pain, she would ask us to go out and play or something. And we would do that. She did everything she could to shield us.’
That AR turned out to be such a loving and gentle human being and not an angry, bitter cynic is quite remarkable, given what he faced. It is something that should, by all that is right, find mention on any list of his achievements.
‘The only memory I have of him is seeing him lying on a hospital bed,’ AR recounts. ‘From early 1974 to September 1976, he was in and out of many hospitals. No one knew why he was in such poor health. He had to undergo three stomach operations.’
Shekhar would certainly have received a better diagnosis and treatment today than he did in the mid-1970s. Back then all his family and doctors could do was try and ease his pain and cure him in any way they could think of—which wasn’t saying much. He certainly couldn’t afford to go abroad and get treated. That was a privilege reserved for the ultra-wealthy.
‘We didn’t even have scans then,’ recalls Raihanah. ‘Only X-rays. And a condition such as Dad’s would be hard to diagnose even now. They found it in its last stages back then, I’m guessing.’
There appears to be no clear answer to what caused Shekhar’s illness. Some say it was probably because of his bad and erratic eating habits, a result of his hectic schedule. He would routinely miss meals and snack on unhealthy studio food that provided next to no nourishment. Perhaps it was just sheer stress. Or maybe it was—as AR believes—the negative and harmful energies channelled his way by people who did not wish him well.
In her book, Kamini Mathai states that as Shekhar’s illness progressed and the doctors began to make it ever clearer that there was very little they could do to help, his wife began to turn increasingly towards spirituality for a solution. She believed that a higher power could do what the doctors weren’t able to and visited every spiritual healer she could—Hindu saints and Christian and, eventually, Muslim Sufi healers—in a bid to do what science could not.
Shekhar went along with whatever his wife wanted him to, but did not truly believe in spiritual healing, according to AR. Indeed, he is of the opinion that that’s one possible reason it didn’t help his father.
Up until the time of Shekhar’s death, holy men of all kinds entered his home, whenever he was out of the hospital, and said prayers over his sickbed. Some administered alternative medications. Some did pujas.
‘We moved houses too,’ remembers Raihanah. ‘From T. Nagar we moved to a house in Kodambakkam. Not the one Rahman and his family live in now, but close to it. The house where Panchathan is located today was too small back then. There was no space for us all. My mom believed the old house might be bad luck for us, so we should leave it.’
