FUNNY RECOLLECTIONS

After so many months, almost two years, I am writing to you again. My friend told me today that she had found this blog and read through the entries and cried. It has been a couple of months since she lost her dad and I can somehow sense what she might have felt going through what I have written to you here. 

I went through some of the things I have written to you and I just realized that maybe you are feeling sad too reading them. I don't try to be sad or depressing but your memory has over time been so inseparably linked to thought of loss that it just makes me feel sad and I cannot think of anything light-hearted to share with you.

But today as she told me about it, I felt that maybe this is not the way how I want to associate your memory. I miss you and it will never be easy to not think of you and feel the pinch of your absence. But there is so much more to you and of you that I know exist in me somewhere, waiting for me to beckon them.

Some random things I can recollect now. Most people knew you as someone who was always so prim and proper; never speaking out of turns and always maintaining a decorum. There were those rare sights when it was just us; mostly you, me and sister since brother stayed in the hostel in Imphal. Once we were all relaxing in my bed after our dinner. I was lying down ready to go to sleep. You were sitting with your feet up, combing your hair and oiling sister's scalp as well. Then we heard a sound. We were surprised. After few seconds you said: "It's natural. It's gas. It has to come out", and then burst out laughing. Sister and I joined in, laughing that is! Your laughter was mostly quieter and silent. This was different and that made us laugh more.

There this another time when you were all in Delhi and I was in Shillong taking care of the house and Max. If I remember correctly it was my birthday and you were all gathered around making a call to wish me. I picked up and you wished me. Followed by sister and brother. Then finally dad came over the phone and wished me, 'Happy New Year!' I could hear roars of laughter through the receiver. Sister then told me that before calling up, you were telling others that you would call me and wish me 'Happy New Year' and dad had burst out laughing at your silly mistake. So, now that he made the mistake on the real phone call, it was your time to laugh.

You just saw me laugh out loud, sitting alone with Nungshibi, recollecting these moments. Hope you laughed with me too.

Till next time,

Love

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HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, MAMMA!

I remember the last time I wished you. How you just went to your room and crawled up on the bed and turned away from me when I sat down beside you.

You said: "It's all a waste of time and money. I am not a child anymore and you are not a kid either."

It hurt me, so I just left feeling bitter and a little mad. I had wished then sitting in my room. "I should have shown more often how much I loved and cared."

Love without an expression is the most selfish of love. Things changed after that day. I hugged you more. I kissed you more. I sat down with you and had our little conversations, especially during lunch or dinner. I still remember how you would always wait for me to come back home from college so that we could eat together. I gorged on all that you prepared while you watched me more and ate very little.

Between the Heaven and the Earth, I feel so close to you. And so I thought I'll let you know how much I love and miss you. Even though I can still feel you are crawling up somewhere in the corner of the paradise up above. But I know this time you are smiling and looking down on me... and saying...

"I love you and miss you too, my dear."


Love

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REMEMBERING YOU, MOM...

I remember your laughter, how you’d smile mischievously and then the smile would broaden and then burst into peels of laughter. I remember your quietness, how you’d go so far away in your thoughts with a lost look in your eyes. I never knew what you thought of or what you saw in your visions, I was just glad to see a silent reassurance in your smile when I called out for you.

I remember your anger, how you’d all of a sudden go so silent on me. No word spoken or any frustrations shown just complete silence even when serving out the dinner to me. I remember your disappointments, how you’d try to still be a part of my changing life which had somehow outgrown your need in everything. You would still be there, telling me about your day and hoping I share about mine but be left disappointed every other time.

I remember your strength, how you would without a trace of worry in your face go about things bravely even in the most vulnerable times. I never knew it until the day I was a witness to it. You must be glad to know perhaps how much of that strength sister has imbibed from you. There is so much of you in her. She's making you and all of us proud.

I remember your fear, how you held onto me once and told me how afraid you were of what would happen to you. I was ill-prepared to react. That was the first time I realized you were not as strong as you’d show to us. I was scared to know that here was someone whose mere presence drove all my nightmares away and even she had fears. It was one of those rare moments when I came to realize that you were after all human with all the emotions and feelings a human could feel. It was one of those days when I realized that you too needed to be held, to be heard, to be seen, to be hugged, to be pampered, to be spoiled and to be sometimes chided and teased as well.

I hope and pray, god is pampering and spoiling you up there. Don’t be sad or worry if you see us missing you once in a while. We need those moments to feel your presence in our lives. Even though we know you’d always be there with your arms around our shoulders, guiding us and letting us know we will be fine.


Love

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To Mom And All The Women In My Life...

I learned love, I learned patience, I learned silence, I learned strength... I learned all that is good in me from the women in my life. There were few good men too, who showed the harsh realities and opened my eyes to the world outside of me. Men live looking outside in. Women live looking inside out. Different perspectives and different lessons learned.

As I sit down and think about all the women in my life - from my mom and sister to all the friends and the rest - I can clearly say I have met many different personalities. But deep down somehow they are all the same, when they love you, they really truly love you. If their whole heart is in something, they give it their all. I have been lucky to have been loved and cared for in such a way. But being a man, I have many a times screwed up the relationship. I have pushed many away when I wasn't comfortable sharing my space or when I felt I was clueless as to where things were leading to. One always want to stay in control and command the way things need to flow. When I knew I couldn't do it, I just put an end to it and closed the door forever on them.

Despite me being the way I am, easily irritable, easily insecure, easily depressive and most likely an escapist and a dreamer, with too strict views of the idealistic world and relationships contrasting with the pushover that I am, I have been loved. And it's a miracle!

One of my most favourite actors Audrey Hepburn said, 'When you love someone with all his faults, it is not chance, it is choice'. These women cared enough for me to love me with all my faults, my irregularities and my shortcomings. It was their choice and I am humbled by their love. I don't know how to show them my gratitude and my love back. I am not wired that way. Because of which, I have several times inevitably ended up hurting them. So, whenever I have been really touched by a gesture or moved by their words, I have remained silent. For I don't know how to react. I have shown my love with the little things I can do. Even though little things make up the world. Sometimes little things are just not enough. So, today I take time out to thank you all for your love. Especially to the one above. I love you.


Love

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तेरे बगैर.. माँ (Without You, Mother)

कई सिरहाने बदले है मैंने
पर वो सुकून कही मिला नहीं
जो तेरे गोद में सर रख कर
सोने से मिलता था, माँ...

देखते है, सुनते है
अंगिनत किस्से-कहानियाँ
उनपर मगर अब यक़ीन कम होता है
वो बचपन की तेरी एक राजा और
एक रानी की कहानी
अब भी सच्ची लगती है, माँ...

डर जाता हूँ, मैं सहम जाता हूँ
जब भी बुरा सपना कोई
आँखों को ढूंढ़ लेता है
तू दौड़ के आएगी सहलाने मुझे
पल भर को ये उम्मीद रहता है, माँ...

कई बार की है कोशिश लेकिन
चुटकियों से मात खा जाता हूँ
मीठे का मिठास, नमकीन का नमक
अंदाजों में घुल जाते है
जुबां पर अब भी ठहरा है मेरे
वो स्वाद तेरे हाथों का, माँ...

दिल को बहलाने के बहाने कई है
मगर ऐसा कोई मिला नहीं
जो तेरी तरह तेरी कमी को मिटा सके
जैसे टूटे खिलौनों के रोने पर
तेरे एक छूने से
मेरी हँसी जुड़ जाती थी, माँ...

ऐसा कभी सोचा ही नहीं था
तेरे बिना भी कोई ज़िन्दगी होगी
ये और बात है की
तेरे बगैर मैं अब
जी रहा हूँ, माँ...


Love

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OF MY MOTHER'S FOOD & KNITTING

Last night, as I curled up in my bed, with blocked nose and headache, more than your soft and tender touch, I was missing something else about you. I was missing eating the food you used to make. It struck so deep and so sudden - the realisation that I will never be able to taste anything made by you. I can still eat the things you loved to cook and the things you loved to eat. But it's never the same. Even the most simple dish I treasure like a mad, hungry man who never had anything to eat at all. I guess I never thought I could be or would ever be emotional about food. I know I am.

I can now completely understand why sister follows the same methods as you did while cooking. She makes sure she uses the same ingredients... chopping, grinding, cutting them just like the way you always did. I can understand her efforts to cling onto and to stick to every little ounce of your memory she has in her. To never let you go in the way she lives.

Maybe that's also the reason why I think fondly of knitting, having learned to do so while quietly watching you after dinner with the different colours of wool lying on the floor next to you. I still have with me the muffler we knitted together which is almost unwearable due to its length. Perhaps we knew that it would become one of the last few moments we would be able to spend together and didn't want it to end.

Love

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NUNGSHIBI - OUR ADORABLE PUPPY

I have to tell you about Nungshibi. I completely forgot. She was a month old puppy when brother brought her in on his way back from office. She was injured, bitten by another dog and the only one among her siblings to survive. The same day sister and I had come back from Shillong and we were so surprised to see her. She was really hurting and in a really bad condition. Sister, who always wanted us to have a pet at home, was ecstatic. But brother spoiled her excitement somehow when he said he is just getting her cured and then letting her go. Weeks passed and I was taking care of her, washing her wounds and bathing her, cleaning her mess and feeding her. Sister would keep on pleading with brother and us to keep her. I didn't mind keeping her. And when I took her to the vet, suggested by Sunny, I made up my mind to keep her. What really made me sure was that the name of the clinic read Max Vets. I knew it to be a sign, considering how much I loved our Max and how he had to spent his days at home away from us in his last years. I had always felt bad about it. I still do sometimes when his thoughts come to me. The last time I saw him on my visit home, he seemed weak and wanting of love.

It hasn't been easy though, bringing up a pet in a city, especially in a neighbourhood like ours with hardly any access to a clean green park at a walking distance. Since I have been in charge of caring for her from the time she came in, potty training her to do her business was quite a task and a test of my patience. Every time I was about to lose my patience and scream or shout at her I keep reminding myself of how you took care of all the pet dogs we had, whether it was Ruby or Jumbo or even Max. You were always so calm and patient and they loved you the most. There are rare occasions when I do lose my patience. I guess some things are not easy to learn.

Once it was confirmed that she would stay, naming her was a challenging process. Sister insisted on Julie and even succeeded to some extent. I on the other searched the net for some fancy foreign language names. Came up with few even. I started to call her Juliski combination of Julie and Iliski, Turkish for relationship. When I told Sunny, he was like, "Why do people get so excited about foreign names and all? Why can't they simply use the language they speak? At least name it in your native language if you have to else choose something in Hindi or English." He was right and I promptly thought of some names. Finally I selected Nungshibi. She must have had an identity crisis during those initial stage when she would be called by so many different names. I would call her something and sister would insist on something else. Then brother would try his own versions and so would Bishnu.


She's around six to seven months old now and really strong for her age. And quite a rebellious little doggy she is. Sister keeps on complaining, so do the rest of the people who drop by at home, that she is so aggressive and over-excitable. Her colour is same like Ruby and Jumbo. We had thought of calling her Ruby but I didn't want to.

She is sleeping beside me now. It's funny the way she goes to sleep. She would walk slowly and then all of a sudden fall down on the floor and go to sleep. The first few times I thought she hurt herself or something. It's way more funnier to see the way she actually sleeps, funny little poses, lying flat on her back and her legs stretched out:


Then there's one where she tilts her head ninety degree to her body, I was worried sick she might have twisted her neck or something when I saw it the first time.

She helps me keep sane. Like Max did when I was staying alone at home while all of you were away. Some nights I would get up from bed, not being able to sleep and walk out on the verandah, sit and stare at the stars. Max would come sit next to me and I would talk to him about you and about how I felt. I do that sometimes with Nungshibi when she's sleeping because when she's awake she hyper. There's no time to be sentimental or nostalgic. It just vanishes away. That's how much she can keep one busy.

You would have loved her a lot and she would have definitely love you the most.

Love

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YOUR BIRTHDAY AND MOTHER'S DAY

Dear Mom,

Life has been spinning its wheel and I have been circling along with it. Many a times I have thought of you and even wanted to write to you. But like most things, I just end up thinking about it and not actually doing it. It's not to say I didn't think of you. You already know that.

A lot many things have happened and a lot is still the same. It's already the middle of the year. Pretty soon we will be bidding farewell to yet another year. Time just flies by and things remain almost always the same somehow.

I thought of writing to you on my birthday or at least on your birthday or even on Mother's Day. But I didn't. I chose to keep my emotions in me rather than type it here. My birthday went well. This year I cut three cakes. Making up for all the years I didn't have cakes on my birthday perhaps. My good friends Sushi and Sunny dropped by half past midnight. It was a complete surprise. We had great fun. Stayed up till early morning. They along with Bishnu made aloo tikki and tomato chutney. At first I thought it would just be me when the clock strikes twelve since I thought Bishnu would come by around two in the morning. So, I decorated the walls with ribbons and paper flowers and baked a suji cake for myself. I thought why be sad or anything when I can celebrate the birthday like we would have when we were all together. Brother and sister would be decorating the drawing room while I was sent away on some errand and I would act surprised to see the party waiting for me. Of course the gifts would always be the real surprise.

Then your birthday went by. I have a feeling I saw you in my dreams that day. But I don't remember the dream now. I did puja on that day. Felt the need to. So much needed to be said and so much still is left. Some I am writing down here now. While most just stay unwritten and always felt.

On Mother's Day I tried hard not to get emotional since brother was at home too. He doesn't like to get all emotional, especially in front of us. So, I avoided watching all the movie line-ups and concentrated on reality shows or game shows and stuff like that. It's hard to endure a day filled with reminders of 'mother' when I am wishing in my heart we all could have our lives the way it was with you in it.

Love

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LIVE FREELY, LAUGH FREELY

There is a sense of nothingness in me, mom. I don't know if it has anything to do with the end of another year in my life or if it's just me. But the nothingness is not a void. I am not feeling anything at the moment but there are so many things running around in my head. There's hope somewhere in that whirlwind of thoughts. And it makes all the difference.

I have hope mom, to be free with myself, to accept the changes in me and embrace the person that I have become through all the experiences I have lived. Just like the way you pointed out about my laughter a long time ago. I cannot laugh freely. I hold back. Not intentionally. Because I have tried to do so many times but am just not able to do so. But I laugh differently now. It hasn't stopped da and che from teasing me. It's still a funny laugh!! haha!!

Similarly, I find myself holding back in everything I do and that's one thing I want to change. I want to be me and be free with it. Never hold back. Live freely and laugh freely. Brother has the best laugh, really infectious! I always envied that about him. He hold back so many things but his laughter is free. So, I hope with the beginning of the another year, I get to live freely and laugh freely as well.

We never really were keen on celebration or anything but we had so much enthusiasm back then when we were all together in our home during the holidays. Buying cards and gifts before the end of school or college sessions and giving them or sending them away to friends and relatives. Cleaning the house and cooking something special or we would just end up making the normal every day food taste special with our excitement.

The best part was that we were always together. More than anything else that is what I really miss about celebrations these days. Perhaps that's why I hardly celebrate anything at all. No Holi or Diwali. No Christmas or New Year. But when the three of us are together we make sure to be celebrating our togetherness. And I know, you are the happiest when we are happy together. Taking a moment now to think of you, hoping da and che are thinking the same and we get to share this moment together.


Love you mom!

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I FEAR I'M LOSING YOU BUT I'M NEVER LETTING GO

Days go by like they always did. But with each day I fear I may be losing you. Slowly and in uncertain ways. The memories of our times together and the moments which made my day are fading away it seems. I try to recall some instances sometimes and I am unable to remember the details which were once at the back of my head. All the details are falling short and missing a piece or two. Perhaps that's also one of the reasons why I gather any photograph I find of you and keep it with me, because I fear someday I might just forget how you looked like as well. I know that would really be the end of me.

I went back home again and this time I stayed there for almost three months. Everything has changed. The house we lived in has been rebuilt and a building stands in its stead. Even though I stayed in the house made on the same grounds we build our home, it felt much colder and more of a stranger's than ours. The whole family has changed. So, what did I really expect? Looking back is not a good thing. Yet it gives me respite from dealing with the present situation and the awkwardness in the name of a family that ties me to the house.

I spent days just looking through old trunks and boxes where I had stored all my stuff this time as well. I went through your diaries again with entries of more than a decade of your life. I cried like a baby when I went through the old ones, since we (brother, sister and I) were all so young then and didn't have an inkling of what was going on in your world or the adult world. I read about all the operations you had and how and what you felt as you went through each one of them. I cried for being such a child and not knowing the difference in the way your eyes spoke to us. The days I was playing around while you were feeling sad and lonely somewhere else. I know that I was a child and I could not do anything at all. But this unreasonable guilt gets hold of me sometimes and I can't escape it.

You have been the best mother one could ever ask for. You never let us know what all you were going through while we were growing up. You let us have a happy childhood. You let us have a happy memory of our times when we were young. It's impossible sometimes to imagine a person could do so much and sacrifice so much even with everything in her life almost compelling her to let go. But then you were a mother of three young children with unknown and uncertain future ahead of them and you needed to be there for them. I wish I could be a parent like that some day. To love someone else more than anything else in my life, including myself.

And I thank you for your love and for never letting go. Even though I am still at lost about you not being there anymore, I am thankful at least I had those great years with you. You held on till we were all grown-up and able to stand on our own feet. Then you slowly let go. I saw it coming but I was always in denial. And my denial stole away the last few days I could have spent with you, lying next to you and telling you stories like you told me when I was young, till you fall asleep and enter the dream world.

Love

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After So Long

It's been a while mom since the last time I talked with you, at least on the web. It has been some few weeks of deliberation and confusion. A lot has happened in the meantime. Life hardly ever waits for us to catch up with it, no matter if we feel utterly helpless to move ahead and are too tired to continue walking and need few moments of rest. It just goes way ahead and after our moments of rest we really need to run after it to catch up with it.

For most part the pace of life has been slow for me since I landed back home. It feels somehow strange to use the term home anymore for the place that I live in. Cannot make myself feel at home, ever. I miss being comfortable and being at ease or simply free in mind and in body when I am here. There's always this feeling of being someone else or trying to fit into the frame of someone I need to be when I am here. Yet I am trying to do my own thing and keep my peace with it.

This trip has helped me in bits and pieces. Now all I am hoping for is for these random looking pieces to come together and form a meaning.

I have been worried about sister and her well-being for quite sometime now. And she's not really doing well, so I am just hoping she gets better soon. But then again I think it is not just exhaustion of the work rather of being all alone, and in an alien country. She misses being the way we were - you, me, brother, sister and dad - when we were young and even when we were growing up. Life wasn't easy even then but at least there was a sense of peace within, a sense of being.

Now we are just scattered islands looking for the perfect shore from where we seem to have drifted afar and all that we can truly hope for is to at least not lose touch with each other, no matter how different our world really becomes.

We are three different people. That has been very much evident from our childhood days. Our set of priorities to some extend has also been different. One thing which we continue to have is our love for each other, even if that love hurts us sometimes in ways unimaginable. So, today as I write this, I pray to God and need your help to keep this love between us alive and let it guide us in our lives to wherever that we are meant to go.

Missing you mom a lot. Though so many things has changed around here. You are so much a part of everything out here that I hardly have to think hard to feel your presence.

Love

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SISTER'S FLOWER GARDEN

I re-discovered the essence of always trying and not giving up no matter how impossible or how unbearable or how different things turn out in the process. I figured that if you still have even a small fraction of your vision with which you set out to do what you are in the process of doing, it will turn out just like you thought and sometimes even better once you keep moving ahead with it. Perhaps I had to learn this in the simplest of tasks I did recently.

Remember mom when I told you about the painting that sister wanted to me to draw for her - a garden full of flowers. Well, I attempted it, formed the base, painted some flowery shapes. It looked very promising in the beginning and I was already happy with myself for at least setting out to do it rather than giving up before even trying, which I had been doing for some days already. Once I began to put in the details of the garden, I found myself hating the very sight of it. It did not look real or even close to a fake garden! I detested the very sight of it. I did not wish to go on. But I did. I don't know why but I kept on adding and trying out things. I did take few moments to just look at it and wish I had not done some things, not added certain colour or tried certain shapes. Yet I continued, experimenting and trying out things to make the shapes look like flowers. Once the flowers seemed real enough, the base started looking unrealistic. The flowers seemed to be plainly pasted. Still I continued; added some colours and tried different brush strokes.

As I was beginning to see the end of how it would finally look, I was as happy as I could be. I saw that my vision was coming true. And in fact no flowers looked as good as these in a garden that once was my hateful obsession. It was then that I realised, that when we set out to achieve our dreams we are very hopeful in the beginning but with time we begin to see no point in it and start detesting our own dreams when we look at the unfinished picture. We have dreams but we fail to see that our dreams from the time they are born undergo a metamorphosis going through stages of development which may not appeal to us, even frighten us at some point in time. It should not stop us from continuing on our walk towards achieving them. The believe in our vision should always be there. And we must keep on going. Only then are we able to see the butterfly of our dreams coming to life and taking flight.

I love you mom for showing me this through sister's what seemed like a childish and an improbable wish for a flower garden!

Love

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FEELING GOOD TODAY!

I guess I was really low when I wrote my previous post. But I am feeling quite good today. Must be the fact that I was working yesterday and it helped me get some fresh perspective.

Disappointments and frustrations do tend to come along in life but the point is to keep on moving ahead, no matter what. It's like walking back home or to a destination in some way. There are days when the weather is pleasant, the traffic is less, people you see seem happy and cheerful. Then are days when you are soaking wet in the rain or soaking wet in sweat, muddy roads and irritated people, every step is a feat in itself. And on both occasions, I have always moved along at the same pace, whether or not my foot hurt or I was enraged or irritated myself. I have always kept more or less the same pace.

That is what I am doing now with my life as well. To let it move on pleasantly or not-so-pleasantly. The important thing is to reach. It's a huge sigh of relief once you do. The whole body gives up then, all the pain and suffering come to the fore, you can feel it all through your body. Your mind is no longer shielding the pain for you. You now rest and give your full attention to the wounds, if any and hope it heals soon before the next walk begins.

I hope I did not give you much trouble with my previous thoughts. If I did I am sorry about it. I love you a lot and will always carry you with me, knowing you will be keeping me close to your heart as well and keeping me safe.

Love

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THINGS ARE NOT CLEAR, MOM

Things are not clear, mom. I have been in this phase for sometime now. For most part I think it's the fear. Now that the problem has been identified another problem is nagging me: what to do next? How do we go about trying to solve the problem? I feel this sense of complete numbness, as if I am paralysed and cannot even move an inch. I have ideas and thoughts that hover around my mind and they seem pretty good, if only they were acted upon and executed. An invisible chain seems to be tied all around me restricting any movements at all. So, all that I am left with is BIG and GRAND ideas, mocking at me all the time.

I don't know, mom. I feel I can do it. But next moment I am doubting again. I don't see myself pushing for it real hard. I don't see myself investing every ounce of my self into it. And I fear I will just end up doing what I always tend to do with most of my writings - leave them incomplete after a vigorous start. I am wanting passion in my life. I am needing believe in my life. I have seen how for things you believed in you worked passionately with all your heart. You would never give up. I am so much like you in so many ways. But how I wish I could be more like you when it comes to this.

I have fear, fear of the uncertain, fear of the failure. I have no passion, no passion for life or for living. I lack in believe, my believe system has hit rock bottom, it's almost dead. I hardly find any reason that I can come up with to live convincing or reasonable enough. I am worse than you mom. You are dead but I am feeling already dead alive.

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THE WAY YOU LOVED, MOM

I never really got to talk to you about love and relationships. The only thing remotely concerning love or more appropriately a crush, was when you caught me writing a love letter to my classmate in sixth standard! I also knew you had an inkling about my going around with a certain Miss A during my last year in school. But we didn't really discuss about it. I guess we never really connected in those terms at least for the most part of our relationship, during my school and early part of college life. When we did talk about anything and everything, well almost, I was single (as I was for most of my life).

My perception of what love is and how it makes one feel had a drastic change after you passed away (it's still so hard to write about you as someone who's not there). I always thought love lasted long enough, like in books or films, lovers continuing to love their lost ones so much so that there is no place for anything or anyone new. But that wasn't to be. Things changed rather drastically and how. I even doubt if at all there is something or anything like love. But I know there is because I have seen it in your eyes and read it in your words.

I have loved mom, despite my doubts and cynicism, I have loved. Tragedy is it has never worked out the way I thought it would or even lasted as long as I had hoped it would. When I look back and try to make sense out of it, thinking maybe it didn't work out because I wasn't completely into it being a skeptic that I can be most of the times, but that's not the reason. I have completely immersed myself into it whenever I was in love. Maybe my way of loving is the reason. But I only know one way of loving and I am pretty much sure that is what loving is all about - truly caring for the person you love by trying to bring more smiles on their faces than lines of worries and sadness. There is no high like the high of seeing the one you love happy. Maybe I need to be more selfish and less sacrificing. Problem is I have never viewed whatever I did to be a sacrifice at all, if it was it sure was worth it.

I wish you could tell me how you loved all those years, how you survived the lows and stayed afloat and how you coped with the imperfections and created perfect memories. I wish you were here to listen to me and share the wisdom with me. I wish you were here to teach me how to love, like the way you loved. I wish you were here.

Love

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HOME IS NOT HOME WITHOUT YOU

I just spoke to sister and it got me thinking about home. Never put much thought into it while you were around but have been missing it for sometime now. The idea of home for me was you and all of us in it together. That was home. Now we are all living in different parts of the globe, in different houses, even different time zones and experiencing different seasons.

The worst thing is when I went back home after a long time, I still failed to feel at home. I have been struggling with this thought, a search for home, for feeling at home again. The reason I had not gone back home for so many years was for the simple fact that I did not want things to change in my mind for I knew it was changing back there. New people, new walls, new ceilings and new floors. I now find it hard to remember sometimes how it all really was when I go back home. Things change and they change rather much faster than you had time to adjust to it.

The idea of having a home now is comforting and consoling. But I am not sure if it would be so in reality. I have seen too many ideas turning into harsh realities that I have become much more of a cynic than I was before. Now I am skeptical about even the most certain things!

I guess, a home no matter how big or small or comfy or dull, it would never be complete for wherever you were it was home for us. Without you nothing seems to give us the feeling of being at home, anywhere, not even at home.

I missed my home terribly tonight. I missed you terribly tonight.

Love

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PAINTINGS AND EXPECTATIONS

Few weeks back I tried to paint you out of my memory. I knew that I could never make myself to try and draw your face. I am scared I will not be able to do so. So, that has been off limits. I had an idea of what I wanted to convey and how I wanted it to look like. One day, I took out the canvas, the fine paint brushes sister got me and the colours. I called the painting 'Heaven'. It's a painting of your feet, with three chrysanthemum flowers placed around it representing the three of us. I read somewhere about how Heaven or Paradise really is the land beneath the mother's feet and that's what I wanted to show. The idea was put onto canvas but I have to admit my skills as a painter pretty much made sure that it wasn't executed the way I had envisioned it. When sister saw it she was like 'those are such ugly feet, mom had such beautiful feet' and I completely agree with her. So you see, attempting just to draw your feet was such a disaster I can't imagine even trying to draw your face. You know, I had tried to sketch you once but the picture looked more and more like a stranger than you so I stopped and didn't even complete it.

But I haven't been able to paint after that. I know I should at least try and do some other stuff like the 'flower garden' sister wants me to draw. But I am so bad with the brush to draw such fine stuff like flowers in a garden. It needs attention to details, the right brush stroke to create the petals, the leaves and the stalk. Maybe I am just finding excuses!

It is so hard to deal with the expectations of others, let alone your own. And I have too many expectations of my own and from my own self (hardly have any from others!) that I fear to even think of trying. If I manage to think about it, I hesitate to work towards it. If I start working towards it I think of several other things to do so that I stop doing it. If I still persist, when the moment comes to seize the opportunity I just decline, flat. Just like that. Earlier I used to find it tough to say 'No', but now the problem is saying 'Yes'.

I guess more than anything or anyone else, we ourselves are our own worst fears and nightmares and if given a chance the best friend and guide. I wish you could tell me what to do. But I do know what you would have said. I guess I am just pretending not to hear, like the time when you once warned me the glass would fall if I didn't place it properly and after a moment it fell down and broke into pieces. Then I realised you were right and I should have listened. I still haven't changed, have I mom?

Miss you. Goodnight.

Love

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THURSDAY, 27th MAY

I am listening to my favourite songs, sitting in my room and writing down notes and poems and I thought of you, so decided to let you know. I have always been some kind of a loner. I guess you already know. I loved having my own room contended in my own small world. Ever since we moved to our own house and I got a separate room, no matter how small it was, I was really happy about it, especially after having shared a room with sister all the while and with a whole lot of cousins and aunts back in the village.

I can clearly see the room: wooden bed with traditionally embroidered mosquito net, wooden clothe-hanger, a cupboard-cum-table, a Phillips auto-reversal tape recorder, a black table lamp, a book-shelf and my stationery. And of course the window which opened up to the main gate outside. I have spent so many hours sitting by the window, looking out while listening to songs on the radio, trying to tie down thoughts and ideas on paper, and waiting for you to come home from your shopping bringing some jalebis or samosas depending on the popular demand of the evening. The moment you come, we'd all go rushing out taking the bags of vegetables and all with us inside. After giving you a glass of water, we would go through the articles, keeping them in their proper places. In the meantime, either sister or I would prepare the evening tea to be had with our samosas or coconut biscuits.

Evenings really were the best time of the day. A time when everyone was at home. We were back from school or college. Father was back from his office. And you were back from a visit to the neighbour down the road or aunties near the market with the shopping articles. Sister would narrate her day in detail right from the time she reached school to the classes and classmates, what all she did and what all others said to her. While brother and I narrated the summary of our day, and sometimes just the headlines. I miss those chaotic evenings more harmonious than the silence of the evenings which sometimes come visiting these days. I haven't had jalebis or samosas in a long time. I think I will have some this evening, even if all alone. You would be there, wouldn't you?

Love

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