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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