Poetry

The C-word.

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He was born in May. I was 28. A pleasant pregnancy. Normal birth. No fuss, just like him. The Army hospital sent us a bill for Rupees 16 afterwards.

I want to organise a party. I want to sing a song for him even though I know he’ll be embarrassed if I did that. I want to see that look on his face. I want to put together a playlist for the party. Plan a menu and draw up a list of guests. Find a venue and a theme.

Most of all, I want to see him. Wish him a happy birthday and a great year ahead. I want to kiss his forehead. I want to present him the book, “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles. I think he will love it.

I want him to know I feel blessed to be remembering him, for all this love. I want to celebrate him and the day he was born.

Oh! The C-word. Can I?? Am I eligible?? Do I meet the inclusion criteria?

Yes. Celebrate.

I can. I want to. I will.

Notwithstanding the yearning, I celebrate the essence of him.

Despite the apparent separation, I celebrate the felt connection between us.

Though the approaching day intensifies the pain, it also pushes the roots of love deeper into the ground.

Despite everything, I cherish the little piece of eternity we shared.

“You were a wave in the ocean

For a sliver of time, an age ago

and the sand on that beach

Still awaits your return.

It remembers being soaked in you

for a few glorious moments.

It remembers who you were.

The quiet beach and the setting sun

Smile at the memory of your face,“

Dad, boys and crow.

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“Once upon a time there were two boys who purposefully misremembered things about their father. It made them feel better if they ever forgot things about their mother.

There were a lot of equations and transactions in their small family. One boy dreamed he had murdered his mother. He checked it wasn’t true, then a put a valuable silver serving spoon that his father had inherited in the bin. It was missed. He felt better.

One boy lost the treasured lunchbox note from his mother saying ‘good luck’. He cried alone in his room, then threw a toy car at his father’s framed Coltrane poster. It smashed. He felt better. The father dutifully swept up all the glass and understood.

There were a lot of punishments and anticipations in their small family.“

Eight years ago it was hard work and I could remember it only vaguely.

I read it for the second time this morning. It felt brand new, easy, fun and hearbreaking. Part memoir, part sound-poem. A bit more than 100 pages long. No more than 18 thousand words. The ‘missing’ in the life of a young family after the mother dies suddenly is palpable. In the background rings the sound of a crow flapping its wings. One big black feather has dropped on the ground. It lies near my right foot.  

PS: Losing a parent or a close relative or friend at a young age puts the young at a high risk of suicide.

My road. And mine alone.

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This is a village being a village. It has done me no wrong.

People are being people of all kinds and shapes and forms.

The mid-afternoon sun is being the sun, not an upstart.

Each one, a character in a story, playing its part.

Seeing them as villains and heros

is the naive mind assigning roles

To what is simply an Is-ness.

They are being them. They can’t be the other lot because they are not.

They have no will, no thought.

The stories that my mind makes up do. Yet, I hold them to be so so true.

I am learning they are not.

Gotta just walk.

I am the cause. I am the cause. I am the cause.

To know that the gaze of the Universe is me.

To be held within the fold of Here and Now of Divinity.

That’s all.

I wonder if that’s the journey.

To find me exactly where I started.

Completely new.

Like this only.

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I guess only in India we are talking like this sometimes. But you are understanding. So, it’s okay. If the weather is not kind right now, it will change. We will pass through time. We’ve got to have patience, like the trees. No kind of weather is lasting for ever. The autumn ten years ago, I thought would stretch past eternity. I was wrong. How little I knew. It changed many times, inside and out. I wonder how many other things I was wrong about.