{"id":262,"date":"2018-11-08T17:49:47","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T17:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/?p=262"},"modified":"2018-12-02T13:51:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T13:51:36","slug":"signs-of-dementia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/2018\/11\/08\/signs-of-dementia\/","title":{"rendered":"Signs of Dementia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Loss of Memory<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

One February morning<\/span><\/p>\n

Grandpa forgets<\/span><\/p>\n

what I am called.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember<\/span><\/p>\n

his hysterical face,<\/span><\/p>\n

patterned by the sunlight<\/span><\/p>\n

which managed to smuggle<\/span><\/p>\n

itself through the Bohemian-looking<\/span><\/p>\n

room divider, RIS\u04e6R from Ikea<\/span><\/p>\n

But I digress.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ah yes, his face<\/span><\/p>\n

was a maelstrom of <\/span><\/p>\n

overwrought emotions<\/span><\/p>\n

as he fails to recognise<\/span><\/p>\n

his grandchild.<\/span><\/p>\n

Disorientation<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

One March afternoon<\/span><\/p>\n

Grandpa cries in the middle<\/span><\/p>\n

of the cereal aisle<\/span><\/p>\n

in our local supermarket,<\/span><\/p>\n

dazed by the byzantine passages<\/span><\/p>\n

of vegetables, laxatives <\/span><\/p>\n

and epilators;<\/span><\/p>\n

(Wait, they sell epilators here?)<\/span><\/p>\n

Relinquishing all control<\/span><\/p>\n

to me, as I guide<\/span><\/p>\n

him out of the labyrinth<\/span><\/p>\n

that is the place<\/span><\/p>\n

he has been to<\/span><\/p>\n

a thousand times before.<\/span><\/p>\n

Changing Moods<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Grandpa has always been<\/span><\/p>\n

prone to everchanging caprices,<\/span><\/p>\n

but that May evening<\/span><\/p>\n

is different.<\/span><\/p>\n

He is a veritable volcano of<\/span><\/p>\n

mixed emotions;<\/span><\/p>\n

as his paisley cotton shirt,<\/span><\/p>\n

a souvenir from his<\/span><\/p>\n

vacation to Kashmir<\/span><\/p>\n

back in \u201978 (when everything was simpler)<\/span><\/p>\n

glistens with sweat<\/span><\/p>\n

His fury unbridled,<\/span><\/p>\n

Sorrow unfettered<\/span><\/p>\n

Animal unleashed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jumbled Speech<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

By the end of July,<\/span><\/p>\n

Grandpa is unable to<\/span><\/p>\n

form coherent sentences.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo Grandpa, I cannot <\/span><\/p>\n

drive you to the internet\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He is an incessant magpie,<\/span><\/p>\n

yet an origami <\/span><\/p>\n

of unspoken words<\/span><\/p>\n

of restrained thoughts<\/span><\/p>\n

Hallucinations<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

As August rolls in<\/span><\/p>\n

Grandpa is convinced<\/span><\/p>\n

of the Technicolor Devil that<\/span><\/p>\n

follows him to the bathroom<\/span><\/p>\n

as he pats on his aftershave.<\/span><\/p>\n

A harlequined mannequin<\/span><\/p>\n

stares at him as<\/span><\/p>\n

they talk about <\/span><\/p>\n

the hideous weather<\/span><\/p>\n

the stock markets <\/span><\/p>\n

He listens to Wonderwall<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

and we pretend that <\/span><\/p>\n

Grandpa\u2019s sanity isn\u2019t slipping<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Grandpa has signs of dementia<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

– Drishika Nadella\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Loss of Memory One February morning Grandpa forgets what I am called. I remember his hysterical face, patterned by the sunlight which managed to smuggle itself through the Bohemian-looking room divider, RIS\u04e6R from Ikea But I digress. Ah yes, his face was a maelstrom of overwrought emotions as he fails to recognise his grandchild. Disorientation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,4,24],"tags":[54,55,56,57],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative","category-poetry","category-saahitya","tag-dementia","tag-emotional","tag-grandfather","tag-memory-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271,"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions\/271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}