Tell me

Tell me

What was her eyes like? Did you see them sparkle when she blinks her tiny eyes? Tell me about her skin. Have you touched her? Did you feel her soft, delicate, wrinkled skin? What about her little feet, her tiny toes, all of them small. Her little hands, tiny fists folded. Would she sometimes open her hands, spread her fingers and reach for her face, or her mom? What was her smile like? Did you ever catch her smile in her sleep? Did you watch her fall asleep?

I miss you, little one. I wish someone would tell me how you were like. Who you looked like, mom, dad or even me. Your first cousin 24 years older who requested you be named after her, for you and I share the same birthday and who for the first time in her life was given a reason to look forward to her next birthday if only to celebrate it with you. I haven't even seen a picture of yours. Did I take you for granted? Should I have caught a flight, train, bus or just anything and paid you a visit right after they first told me about you. You arrived on earth 4 months early, and left a hundred years earlier. We couldn't wait to bring you home and you left for the heavens and kept us waiting. You took a piece of my soul with you, though I never had the chance to meet you, know you, hold your frail little body, kiss your baby feet, I know a part of me left with you. You left your mother's womb early, now you have left the world even earlier. Why did you not stay my beautiful child? Why didn't you give us the chance to watch you grow, change, age, discover, love, explore? I envy those who got to see you once. You barely had any contact with outside world, you never made it out of the hospital's intensive care unit, you weren't free to breathe or feed on your own, you needed ventilation and tubes to feed you milk. But you lived past our expectations, the doctors' predictions, and several prayers and right when we were beginning to believe you will be home in no time and we could see you, touch you any time we want to without taking permissions or waiting, you leave. You survived almost non-functional lungs, lots of pain and medications, and we thought you were going to make it, your premature body failed. 

I wanted to see you just once. If what they promise us is right, that we'll meet whomever we lose to death again in the hereafter, you are the one I want to see first. 

Another February. Another baby. Same hospital. Respiratory failure. 

May God give strength to your grieving parents. I mourn you, angel. Can't wait to meet you again. Hope the stains in my soul wouldn't prevent me from hugging your pure self. 

temporary bucket list-1

1. Sweep the floor.

2. Mop the floor.

3. Dust the windows. (switch places with 1.)

4. Laundry.

5. More laundry.

6. Cook.

7. Google recipes

8. No.6 (non-veg)

9. Learn a new dance move. (YouTube dance lessons)

10. Learn the lyrics of the song that I'm hooked on.

11. Sing->Record->Send it to a poor soul in need of salvation.

12. Watch Tim Burton animations. Corpse Bride with couple of chocolates and chips and a box of tissue first.

13. Make daily journal entries.

14. Doodle!

15. Scribble.

16. Cuddle.

17. Write mails to real people. And imaginary letters to E.T.

18. Love.

Not liking the Missus life at all. #missforlife #lostmymindwheniwentimaginaryjoggingataparknearalakewithoutanymonsterlivinginit #hashtagsarenotmything

The smell of sambhar

So I decided in the bus, I'll take the earphones off and speak to my co-passenger. And I did. It didn't take me hours of courage and mentally rehearsing conversations, took me few moments. And I am glad I did. For the lady though at first asked me a question in my language was apparently not from my state, I wouldn't have learned that had I ignored her after smiling and telling her that her stop is two stops after mine. I bade her bye and got off the bus with a smile, which is unusual because I always hate getting off there, because I hate college.

On my way home, I took the regular shortcut which was now a piece of land overgrown with plants, a mini forest in the making. My nostrils were being haunted by the strong smell of sambhar coming from a house's kitchen nearby. It was an aroma first, slowly it grew into an odour I had to escape. I smelled sambhar everywhere, though it was raining lightly it had not the smell of rain but sambhar. And something told me that at home we were having sambhar for lunch. I couldn't tell if I was angry to find Sambhar in the pressure cooker or happy my prediction was right.

My grandmother gladly announced they had made sambhar and I could eat a hearty lunch. But I disappointed her saying I wanted idli with it. All the smell and sight of sambhar has made me crave idli. Now I can't have sambhar without idli.

I can't remember what I was going to write in this blog, it surely was something interesting and I had to write about it. I forgot. I'm getting old.

If only

If only you could hold me close to you, if only you could smother me with your embrace, if only you could love me like only you could, if only.

Why am I writing this I do not know, should I be writing this I do not know. I'm going to write it anyway.

For a loved one to die is one thing, to be reason of their death is a whole different league.

There are nights where all I want to do is curl up in a ball and cry, nights that I crave for comfort and cuddles. Tonight is one of those nights.

It amazes me that I still feel the need to be consoled, comforted and cured of nightmares and demons. I've come to learn the only person who can help us feel better is ourselves. And I just read somewhere that it has to be done with utmost compassion. Be kind to yourself.

I think I'm going to babble nonstop. I came across a blog written in tribute for a total stranger, a son, brother, husband, father and an amazing friend and human who touched lives of many, left behind memories for each of them to cherish. Is forty even an age to die? But God knows better. Why else would accidents happen all over the world, robbing wombs, leaving behind widows and orphans?

Death, fascinates me. I wish I could have a heart to heart with Azrael (the angel of death, he's my favorite angel btw. But since last night I have developed a fear for him. A silly fear. I'm scared that he'd be near a soul I love and I wouldn't even sense his presence, not till he's snatched the soul away) ask him about death, how it feels like to be at the giving end and if he knows what it feels like to be at the receiving end to be the one dying.

Reminds me of the lesson we learned in English the title of which went something like "I'm not afraid to die, if we can all die together". No it isn't death most people are afraid of, it is the pain to be endured to be lived with for the rest of their lives after the loss of a loved one.

Cycle.

I looked at the picture that hung on the wall, covered by cobwebs. It is of a middle-aged woman, pleasant faced and plump. Not fat, plump. The kind you would hug over and over again. I've hugged her repeatedly, thought of her as my teddy bear, then hated having hugged her and sometimes regretted not having hugged her enough.

She is my mother. I look nothing like her, except for the nose and the dimple on the right cheek we share nothing. She was beautiful. You would hear yourself say MashaAllah to yourself each time you see her smile or hear her talk or sing in that heart-melting voice of hers. Praising the Creator for adding more beauty in our house in the form of our mother. And because of all this and more we believed our father too was madly in love with her. And she in love with him. For he too was a specimen of beauty and perfection, with his well built physique and deep blue eyes. We all knew that our aunts envied mother, look at their balding husbands with a paunch and look at our father, still young at sturdy even at 45.

To the outside world we were the perfect family. Happy parents, happy children. It was that way for us, till one day mother disappeared. All that remained of her at our home was that picture on the wall of our room, and few old clothes, and books she read a long long time ago. Also a handwritten note addressed to us, her daughters which an older aunt of ours had taken and gotten rid of.

We heard people talk ill of her, the same tongues who praised and thanked her, now didn't want to miss a single chance to slander. "You could identify such women right away. They're unbelievably beautiful, full of life and lust, they don't give up on their hunger and thirst too easily, marrying them off won't help. Having children don't save them either. Poor him, what did he do to deserve a slut like her. We should get him married soon." I bit my lips, my hands till it bled to stop me from crying, whereas my older sisters cried to their hearts' content. The aunts consoled them but they said they were more worried for me, seems I've become a stone, the tragedy has affected me so badly that I can't even cry. My eyes shone with anger each time they offered their sympathies, it was them I had a problem with.

And I knew the relatives will convince father to remarry. "He needs a wife. A good, loyal, virtuous wife to cope with this stress and sadness" they said. I ran around our room, like a caged wild animal, yelling. My sisters seem to agree with father's remarriage. "Cope with shame. Not sadness. The girls need a mother too. Hell, we don't. Screw them." I screamed. I stopped when I heard somebody violently knocking at the door.

"Clean-up" was what my father's sister called it. What she meant was free the house and us of whatever remained of mother in here and inside us. I threw a tantrum when she collected our albums in a pile, poured kerosene and set fire, our parents' wedding album was the last to burn. I felt my insides burn, the taste of charcoal in my mouth, smoke filling my airways, I choked. I wanted to pull my aunt's hair and kick her legs. But what I did was wondrous. With each photo that turned ashes she sang how my mother was a woman full of filth inside out, abandoning her children to be in the arms of another man. She cursed her, swore and I took a step or two closer. True that I wanted to pull her hair but my hands were closed. I punched her in the face. Twice. I had bloody knuckles that I refused to wash till my father threatened me to.

Since then, nobody tried to remove anything from anywhere. And each time they saw me fist my right hand they shielded their noses with both palms and kept a safe distance. They still stuck to blaming mother for the incident, the tragedy made me a violent person. A motherless monster. Many aunts volunteered to tame me, teach me how to behave. Father had other plans.

Tips.

You need to smile more often, bigger.

Eat more cookies, cupcakes, cream pastries. Less coffee.

Stop listening to sad songs.

Sing happy, and dance to it.

Go to the zoo. Throw popcorn at the monkeys.

Watch Twilight, and other lovestories that does the heart and mind good. You'll find hope.

Have faith in the Avengers. Especially, the Hulk.

Avoid watching Titanic when it comes on TV.

Stop eating cookie dough.

Deactivate your facebook. Keep whatsapp though. Never be disloyal to Mark Zuckerburg.

Keep silent about your firstworld problems. Like Ryan Higa says, shut the full cup.

Goodnight.