LET DOWN BY 21 GRAMS

My grandfather was reading out my favourite Phantom story to me and then he suddenly stopped. He abruptly stood up and walked away even as I bawled. He turned, gave me a sorrowful look and then he was gone. I sat up, the sweat streaking down my forehead in long rivulets. The dream never went away; just came back every time with an intensity that was traumatic.

There were too many problems burdening him. His son had just turned 12; an age when sons need their fathers the most. It was also becoming difficult to educate the girls with the expenses mounting and the debts……..His heart was another story. He had to somehow pull on; it could not fail him now. She did not know about it and he would not tell her; she already had enough to worry about.

I was just two and a half when he left us. Our house could not accommodate all the people who came to pay their last respects. I was entrusted to my grandmother and although I did not know that my grandfather was dead, I saw them covering him with a white cloth. He was lying on the plank unmoving and I guessed that something was wrong. Then I saw my grandmother’s tears.

She would never forgive herself for this mistake. How could she have done this? She had seen his pale face but thought that it was because of fatigue due to the long hours of travel. The journey had been a nightmare; no hospital in sight and his heart not willing to give him any more time……….

There were loud shouts and all the men helped put the body into the truck. Cotton had been stuffed into his nostrils and people were throwing flowers on the body as the truck started moving. “Ram Naam Sathya Hai” rent the air leaving a void in all our hearts – some who knew the truth, some who were not aware and one little mite who was too small even to understand that the one she was so attached to was gone. My mother was inconsolable.

Never….the word had a horrible ring to it. She needed him and did not want any one else. But she had a little girl now whom she had to look after. Daddy’s little girl…..that’s what he used to call her. Now she could see him in her daughter. How could she explain to the angel that Thatha was never going to come back with sweets for her or to lift her up in his arms and throw her into the air?

Every time we used to pass under the railway bridge, I would begin my litany – “Mr. Train please bring my grandfather and grandmother from Madras. Tell them to come soon because I am waiting for them here.” I was too young to understand why my mother’s eyes became moist every time. My mind could not accept the fact that I would not see my grandfather any more. He had just gone on a long vacation and had forgotten me.

She hated boarding school but had to stay there at least for 5 years. Everyone was deserting her. Grandfather had left her and hadn’t even called since then; mother wanted her to stay in boarding for 5 years or even 12. She was only 5 now. At night the stars were the only ones who knew her secret desire – to see her grandfather at least once. But she learnt the truth. He had gone; left her…..

When I was small I used to question my mother as to why God did not take away those whom we hate. God’s logic of taking away those whom we love the most always escaped me. But I have come to realise that only when we lose those we deeply love, do we realise what they meant to us. I am always grateful that I got to experience two and a half years of his love…….because I know now that it is enough to last me a lifetime………...

The so(u)le of music

"Daayam Padaa Hua" one of the many fantastic renditions by Ghazal maestro Hariharan which proved that no one can beat him either in expression, variations, ease, mastery or rendering.....It is heartening to know that some one can expose your soul to the vagaries of life, love, loss, happiness, joy so breathtakingly....lay it bare, strip it of anything but emotion and passion......when you can only gasp at that depth that you have somehow reached unwittingly.....when he sings, you hear each word for what it means and what he has made it mean.....you are not just concentrating on the tune or the beats or his voice.....he makes the entire song one whole which you get totally absorbed in.....when he sings "Sharaab la Sharaab de" you feel as though he is asking you for it....and the slight tease in the song makes you smile and snatch your hand away before giving it to him.....To the contrary, a song like "Ab ke baras bhi" brings out the loneliness, the craving where you get this image of sitting solitary on a rock with the ocean lapping at your feet and the horizon stretching forever.....At that moment you feel that Hariharan is more than a singer.....He is the life that makes a song breathe, molds it, gives it shape like a sculptor......He makes you reach that height if only for an instant......and at that moment I feel the way Jonathan Livingston Seagull felt when he got in through the crack and discovered eternity......

Regret

One fantastic word which makes you realise that you have once again not done what you wanted to do in life...one more step towards making others happy with you on the other side feeling like you are in the dumps

The weirdness of having "mixed feelings"

The word that found most popularity during the convocation of the ACJ class of 2007...I must have used it almost every other second that i breathed on that day....why did I???? I was not particularly over-joyed during my stay in Chennai and my stint at ACJ....everyday was filled with emotional and professional instabilities...but in the midst of it all, my all-too-human nature filled the gaps....i fell in love....with my life, my work, my friends, their lives.....yet, after a point i was tired....tired of it all maybe at times because i was so confused about what i wanted to do...whether i wanted to help them or run away.....what was space???? my cupboard, my bed, my chair, 5 mins of my peace and composure???? no idea...but it was never mine...atleast not for the last 10 months....but in some perverse way, it appealed...they became home and family....a family which tore my brains to bits and loved me whole-heartedly.....The package included giving missed calls to my mother almost five times in a day sometimes and the first sentence as soon as i picked up "Please calm down...don't get so angry"....the remedies, of course, is another story....An outsider's easy domain of solutions "Do yoga, drink lots of water, meditation also helps, listen to happy music and read some book"....Life proves more wily....gives u time only to get angry..not more not less....then there are those strands of life - memories which stick long after the phase is over....it becomes easier to say "Move on man" but what about days when you wish for that cloak of familiarity, that surge of establishing yourself more because someone so strongly believes and shares what you believe in, the old man of habit where you never want to sit anywhere else but that which is temporarily yours, that bolt which hits you when you see a long-ago photo and wish you could just smell the air as it did, walk that path just once more, feel the way you did at that precise moment....That's when "mixed feelings" assumes its importance.....It is neither happiness at having spent time at a great place nor sorrow at leaving it, neither pain for your friend at having lost a job nor ecstasy of your having bagged another.....it gives a name to those seconds, those phases that would otherwise pass into oblivion, that come suddenly in a flash and rush past, those images that play out in front of your eyes as if you could touch them when you are listening to your favourite song and leave an unease and void......
It gives a name to that feeling of wanting more of something that is past and yet looking out for the future......I felt the same on the Convocation Day......there was happiness and the excitement of starting a new life, reality took a break.....In the train, with the last real shreds of my Chennai life slowly slipping away and a new terrain on the horizon, the tears came.....for myself, for the life i had, for the wonderful moments, for the progess from sai to Sai, only for the photos that i had, the memories.....they still refuse to go away................