Memories

Sitting beside a river once

I turned back to gaze the path

I remember us crossing it together

A crack of dirt beneath my feet

I saw footprints on sands of time

Those promised intended roads to take

The tenderness prevailed

With purity in emotions

When my love and trust was blind

Then the time of innocence was lost

I was listening then

When you said your final goodbyes

Couldn’t even ask you to stay

There is no moral to any of this

I wanted to convince myself

Life isn’t so bad

It answers nothing

Not alone I was there that day

I saw a reflection in pool of water

A lost ghostly impression of myself

But perhaps I guess I should be glad

That when I looked that’s all I had

There’s a taste of salt in the air

I guess it’s my own tears

I get up and start walking

On the path I now call home

Image Courtesy : http://anushreebasu.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/about-time/

lonliness

Even though you are here

Of which I am well aware

Yet the silence spoke wrongly

Despite in each other’s company

I struggle with my loneliness

Standing on the same road

I suddenly felt an inner implode

Our paths, they seem so different

Even near me you appear so distant

I try to overcome this solitude

Seeing you tonight

I felt a chilling agitating frostbite

I feel like i no longer belong

Faking smiles to show nothing is wrong

The emptiness sneaks in, it’s a silent song

Before I die

Image Courtesy : http://jpindustrial.deviantart.com/art/I-Want-to-Live-Before-I-Die-129489459

My brother had put up a status message exactly four months before he expired about five things people wanted to do before they died. He had mentioned it might help him choose what he wanted to do with his life. A month after his demise, we are left clueless about his five wishes that he wanted to achieve when he had time on earth.

Until now, I used to take it all as a joke. But, his loss made me go thinking. What was it that i wanted to do with my life? What were those things that topped my list?

And then I got these answers. Some of them (or maybe all of them) might sound stupid to you. But, probably this is what I am and what I really want from the bottom of my heart.

1.       I would want to see my parents happy until the last of my breath. I would also like to find someone, who would probably take care of them once I am not there. It feels weird to think somebody else taking care of them when you aren't there. But, I guess that's why they say something is better than nothing.

2.       I want to see the more of world: passing away and going to another earth(or hell or heaven whatever it really is!) might not give me that chance. I feel that this earth is a truly amazing thing that nature has made. I would love to see the most of it, and capture its true essence.

3.       Best friend: Ya! That’s true. Even I don’t know why it is there, but it does come on the third number of my wish list. I have truly amazing parents and family members (touch wood!). But when it comes to people outside this range, it somehow becomes strange. Having been ditched by a lot of close friends, I am still in search of my best friend. Hopefully, I will find one before I die! I have had a pretty interesting life till now. I wish to tell it to this person, sparing no details (This one surely deserves a big LOL!)

4.       I want to tell some people what they really mean to me. I might as well just write about them and put it up on a secret blog that they can open when I die; to really let them know what place they have had in my life.

5.       I would want people to forgive me before I die and not wait for the moment when I am no longer a part of this world. I might have done some mistakes intentionally or unintentionally to hurt people and have faced devastating results for them too. I just wish I would not be dead for them when I am still alive.

dedicated to a brother i lost in this journey called life

A tragedy stuck my family last month. My cousin, who was 24 years old (he was three months younger to me) expired. He had an unusual death.

He was the only one who wished me a happy new year by calling me up. And fifteen days later, he didn’t even exist! Doctors say that he had Hepatitis E, a very rare chance of being fatal (it’s fatal in only 1% cases). Best doctors of India, no best prayers in world could actually save him. And if one would have looked at him a week before he was admitted in hospital, they would have been stunned by his good health. And it took virus only a week to do its job and take him away from us.

I was on a trip when I got a call from my masi (mother’s sister) that my brother was critically ill and doctors had informed them that he might not make it. I couldn’t control myself. The only feeling I had at that time was I couldn’t have been so unlucky! I still had to get married and looking at Indian marriage traditions, a brother has one of the most important roles to play. He still had to do his part in my marriage. God couldn’t take him away so soon. How selfish could I be!

I came back to Delhi and went straight to meet him. He was covered all in pipes- a monitoring machine, dialysis machine, everything surrounded him. I broke down on seeing him like that. At that moment, doctors came for their routine checkups and I was asked to move out. Thank God he didn’t see me crying. After check up, doctors told me that he had 90% chances of survival (I actually wonder now how unlucky could I have been a 90% chance became 0% in less than a week).

The very next day, he was admitted in ICU. Believe me, ICU is one place I won’t even want worst of my enemies to go to. He was in comma for four days. One could see his every single breath coming and going. The level of helplessness you feel is simply unbearable. The horrendous sentiments and uncontrollable emotions, all of them were playing their parts together.

On one of the days, late at night at around 3:30 am, doctors suddenly called us in. They informed us that my brother was sinking and they urgently needed us to arrange for blood. His father, my masarji, was there with me. He went inside to look at his son. The level of helplessness he felt can’t even be put in words. I couldn’t judge  whether to run for arranging the blood or take care of him. That image still haunts me at nights. A father standing in ICU, seeing his young 24 year old son sinking away breath by breath!

The day before my brother expired, he opened his eyes. Doctors said they had seen improvement in him for the first time. And before I knew, very next day, he was gone!

He was bestest of the best brothers one could have ever had. Even though he was my cousin, the amount of things he did for me, even a real brother couldn’t have done just as much. He would always tell me not to use my brains and leave any difficult task on him. His exact words would be “tu apna dimaag mat laga, waise bhi kam hai. Jab tera bhai hai to tu kyu itna sochti hai. Ja mast reh” (why do you use your brains just as much, when already there is a dearth of it? When you have your brother by your side, you don’t need to worry about anything else. Go and be happy)

There’s so much more to be written about him. So much more to mention. I am again getting nostalgic thinking about him today. Every night he comes in my dream and tells me that he loves me. I wonder how much things change between people when they die. I would never take him seriously and would fight a lot with him. Even now, i look at his pictures and say things to irritate him. Only difference is he doesn’t reply back to me. I wrote this on my blog only for two reasons. One is to pay homage to a brother who had been more than a wonderful person and human being all his life. And second is to let all you readers know that life is too short. Many a times we don’t care about things that are truly important to us. Those taken for granted things are gone forever, before we even know. I made it a point to say sorry to all the people whom I had hurt intentionally and unintentionally. But, one thing is care for people when they are alive, rather than cry for them when they are no more.