Ma

Watching mum walk into the OT, all alone, dazed and apprehensive, was one of the most painful moments of my life. I stood in front of the glass door, as they prepared her, so that if she were to lift her eyes, she'd see her eldest daughter, I knew my ma was scared, what she didn't know was that so was I. I watched her, my ma with her sweet, innocent face,her beautiful face with so much sadness, she drives me insane at times, but on any given day, I'd walk into a wall fire for her; if I could, I would take her pain, but I can't, all I can do is helplessly watch and pray and hope, rather foolishly, that it wont hurt at all, that she won't feel a thing.
I know I cant follow my parents everywhere, I know I cant erase their pain, I wish I could hold their hand and accompany them everywhere, but I can't. I must stop at the glass door, but for as long as the dear God gives me the capacity, I will go as far with them as I possibly can and stand there for as long as is needed.
Why must we be so sad so often?why can't we be happy all the time? Helplessness is an awful feeling,worrying for someone you love, must be the cruelest punishment in Hell and I must be the greatest sinner among 'em all.


How elusive is happiness and how fragile and I am so tired of living now.

Partings

My little sister left moments ago for her first posting :(. It makes me so sad, I know that our "together" time is now up. All siblings leave each other sooner or later, the time for us to part has also come. Right now she must be speeding away, away from home, away from this city and away from me. It feels so unnatural, on any other day she would have been soundly sleeping in her room, today, however her room is empty, my sister has gone.

I was 2 years old when she was born, we've spent an awful lot of time together, through the thick and the thin, have always been there for each other. A younger sibling is not a child but can come so awfully close to being like one, I have watched her try to walk on her wobbly little legs, struggle with 1+1, taught her how to spell, ride a cycle, a scooter, how to braid her hair, how to perfectly apply eyeliner,how to cuss, the list goes on........

My little sister, I wish I could find words to do justice to how I feel............how inextricably intertwined our lives are, we share a whole lot of DNA,everywhere she goes she carries a little bit of me with her, likewise everywhere I go, a bit of her will always be with me.

I have always wondered how brothers and sisters drift away from each other, how any distance can be so great as to overcome the enormous amount of affection that exists between them. I don't know what future has in store of us, I hope that we will always be tight, I hope she and I will love each other this way till the very day we breathe our last, but if that does not happen, I hope we will always remember the way we feel today, on this beautiful morning, when my sister first left home. I read somewhere that people come and go like seasons, but the Love between them lives on forever, I hope my love for her will, like a prayer, always follow her and keep her safe, smiling and happy.

Will we ever know?

Yesterday my best friend told me about this girl his mother used to know. Apparently this girl belonged to a very affluent business class family, her parents were looking for a match for her, and there was a proposal from another very rich family, for some reason, this girl rejected the guy and the proposal was turned down. A few years down the line, this girl's family suffered huge losses, they were forced to leave their home and all. Eventually, the girl got married,............... to the servant of the guy she had originally rejected!!!!! When I heard this story I was obviously horrified,the poor girl. Kinda makes you wonder,we plan our days, we plan our weeks, years, our lives, but do things ever go the way we want them to? In my case the answer is a big NO, no matter how meticulously I plan, Life always surprises me. Will we ever know how our lives will turn? perhaps not.

On the other hand, there is another story, my mom used to tell us, when she was a kid, there was this Government officer her dad used to know, this man (the officer), had 4 daughters, 3 of them got married, but he just could not find a suitable match for the last one, there was some problem with her kundli I think, after years and years of looking, he got tired and married his precious daughter to a rickshaw puller who used to live in a servant quarter close by, this poor guy, a brahmin, used to pull rickshaw during the day and studied at night, this way he had completed B.A and was appearing in various exams. The year this girl and the rickshaw puller guy got married, he cleared India's most prestigious examination and became an IAS officer:)

If there is one thing I have learned in my life it is this, that no one, absolutely no one, can predict what their life will look like, 5 years or even 5 days down the line. We think we call the shots and that we are in control, but we are not, therefore, don't beat yourself too much over what did not happen, and likewise don't gloat too much over what did. Life and human happiness is way too fragile to be taken seriously.

What if...

Yesterday I was reminded of a small incident from my distant past.I must have been 6-7 years old at that time,was in class 1 or 2 perhaps, I am not sure which, but the incident is crystal clear, as if it happened yesterday.On this particular day that I am recalling, I remember I attended the school assembly, and once it was over I turned to go to my class when an Ayaji or school maid, came to me and said " Hey, you know what there is a little girl outside the school who looks just like you, she is the same height, same face, same age, she is outside the school, let me take you to her. Then she will come here everyday and you can play with her, come with me, let's go and meet her".

Dumb, as I have always been, I followed her, because I was really curious to see this little girl who looked just like me, because I had been taught to obey elders at all times but mostly because I was dumb (and still am), my school grounds were huge and by the time I had crossed half of it, I started worrying that I'd be late to class and would be punished, whatever the reason, I told her I was getting late, and I wanted to go back to class, at this point of time, the school gate was at a distance of not more than 2-3 minutes, and she was like " But she is on the other side of the gate and I swear she looks just like you." However,I turned and went back to my class.

Then, it was such an insignificant incident, that I didn't even mention it to anyone, it is only now that I am so much older and comparatively wiser that I understand the horror I walked away from, on that day. God knows what she would have done to me, may be they would have chopped off my limbs and would have made me beg, may be I would have been sold to a domestic slavery ring, or even worse, a prostitution ring. I might not even have been alive today. Even if I were to live, I would have soon forgotten my parents, my siblings, my friends, the comforts of my home, everything, my whole world would have changed. On that day, the distance between me and my worse nightmare was only 2 minutes. This is the incident that I remember, there must have been so many more that I don't, how many roads I didn't take, that would have led to disaster, how many tragedies have been averted by small decisions that we aren't even aware of. It's amazing how fragile life is. We, particularly us women, are we really secure anywhere? Going by the trend these days, the answer perhaps is "NO', but how can you live your life by being paranoid all the time, you'll go crazy if you cannot trust anyone.

And so it goes, the "What ifs" of my life boggle my mind, but today, at least the truth is that none of it happened. I walked away, I walked away from certain downfall to return to the safety of my classroom. I finished the school day and went back to my parents, my brother, my sister.

This reminds me of a proverb I read somewhere, "If you are not getting what you want, think of all the things you are not getting that you don't want", and am I thankful for not getting what I definitely did not want.

God bless the children of India, they need it the most