I still hear the key turning in the door from the outside and you stepping in. Can you believe it? I still see your face, darkened by the sun. Dressed in your cricket whites, you drag your massive cricket-bag-on-wheels behind you by your left arm.
“Did you take the sun-screen with you?” I ask.
“Yes, it’s in the bag.”
“Did you actually put it on?’
“Mamma, I’m hungry.”
I still wait for you to join us for dinner. I cook the foods you like, especially on your birthday: spinach-paneer for mains, chocolate mousse for dessert. I wonder what you’d be doing in this realm if you were here. Job? Girl-friend? How silly! Isn’t it? I can’t help it. It’s involuntary. It’s got something to do with the heart. With longing. With missing. With love. It’s not supposed to make sense. You would have had a good old chuckle at my expense if you were here. But you are not and I am. How random is that?
I still remember the first time I felt you elbow-ing or knee-ing me from inside my tummy, as if we had an inside joke between us. I remember holding all three kilos of you in my arms for the first time. I couldn’t believe you were for real. You were all mine. Now my arms ache with emptiness. Is this real?
Do you miss me sometimes?
Happy birthday my darling.
Heaven
It will be the past
And we’ll live there together.
Not as it was to live
But as it is remembered.
It will be the past.
We’ll all go back together.
Everyone we ever loved,
And lost, and must remember.
It will be the past.
And it will last forever.
– A poem by Patrick Phillips, on the New York subway.
(“Ghar aa” is a Hindi phrase that means “Come home”)
Nineteen months passed before I could travel again. The uncertainty in the air for all this time meant no one knew when they would see their close family that lived in far-off countries. The news relayed the horrendousness of the situation in India and the 6700 kilometers between them and me made me feel utterly powerless. I would have flown to India at least thrice in this time but I waited for it to become possible.
Then, it did. Si booked my tickets and I felt like I was flying already but coming up to the date of travel, the extra layer of bureaucracy turned me into a tight knot of nerves. This test, that certificate, the other QR code, the timing of this, the reference number of that, one on-line form to be filled on the way out and another on the way back and so on and so forth. I had 2 close friends on speed dial, one in India and the other, a frequent flyer in the UK.
Yet, in the run up to the date of departure, my antacid consumption seriously shot up. In my awful dreams, the faceless uniforms looked at my paper work and shook their heads from side to side. They sent me back home from the airport. They told me I would have to quarantine at the other end in a seedy hotel for 10 days. That would eat up more than half my holiday. I woke up in a bath of sweat.
My two suitcases were mostly packed with chocolates, cheeses, cheese-crackers, sheep’s wool, woolly jumpers, bamboo socks and other such goodies for my folks. I got on the plane at Heathrow and landed at New Delhi safely, utterly grateful to be united with all my loved ones back home. How much I take for granted!
I immersed myself in the everyday life back home- boiling milk, making chapattis, creating rangolis at Diwali, indiscriminately consuming sweets dripping in desi ghee, singing, praying, chatting and overeating at every meal. I set aside my concerns about pending jobs, deadlines for writing assignments, hacked e-mail accounts, consciously locked them away in a clanking steel Godrej cup-board.
Yes, there was pollution and poverty. There was religious and political bigotry. There was the Right and the Left and the Middle, the Farmer’s protest, the choked Press and the Covid dictats. There was my mind, noticing that Saagar was not physically present in the room. His cousins were messing about, grandma was cooking his favourite chicken curry, Olivia Rodrigo was singing ‘Jealousy Jealousy’ on the Bose speaker, his uncles and aunts were drinking beer and chomping on roasted, salted cashew nuts, talking about the joys of driving on the new highways network and the high price of petrol. We were celebrating our togetherness but he was not here.
In that thought, he became present to me. His essence appeared in the room, as me, my presence, my noticing, my love and my longing. It was subtle, only perceptible at a certain frequency that in now accessible to me. This nameless, formless realm that makes itself known when I pay attention. My real home. Its doors always open.
Before I knew it was time to come home. My two suitcases filled with silk and cotton fabrics, saris ‘borrowed’ from my mother, home-made carrot halwa, cashews and almonds and proper Darjeeling tea.
I am back home from back home now. Rested and reconnected. Refreshed and reassured.
Frantically searching for an important document, I rummaged through all my papers up and down the Study. My mind can’t be trusted with anything anymore! My memory is shot. I exhausted myself and all my options. Over a cup of tea, I thought about all the places I had not looked through. A box full of Saagar’s books and diaries. I never read through any of his personal stuff. But that day, before I knew it, I had read all his musings from his travels to Uganda with a friend. They were there for 2 weeks to help at a local school supported by their College.
It seems when he was struggling, he wrote. Like me. He wrote exactly as he spoke, leaving some words half said and stretching out the first letter of unspeakable words. His diary was reading itself to me in his voice. I felt like he was in the room. I was an intruder. It wasn’t my place to read it. It was personal to him. But it was also my conduit to him even if it was written 27 months prior to Day 0.
It was clear that the boys
were totally unprepared for the massive change. This is the note from his last
day there.
30/7/2012. 2300 hrs.
“Never before have I been able to say the words “I want my mommy!” with as much certainty as now. This sucks ass. I feel like such a pathetic little shit. I hope missing Mother is no more than a manifestation of homesickness.”
A deep feeling. Then a judgement. Then an admonishment and then a substitution. A minimization. A classic example of a young man being brutally unkind to himself even though he is suffering. Being a ‘man’. Not allowing for any fragility even in the face of a harsh reality.
Fact: He missed me. Thinking of me brought him comfort. I have evidence.
How could I ever doubt that? By judging myself too critically. Why do we do this to ourselves?
That was a beautiful gift from you to me on your birthday my son. 25th birthday! Bless you my love.
Work is good.
Ikebana is beautiful.
Friends are lovely.
The weather is not bad.
The volunteering is going well.
Meditations are peaceful.
Writing is fun.
Si is a blessing.
Family is great.
Smiles and laughter are coming back.
Music is returning.
Good things are happening.
Saagar’s friends are sweet.
Energetically, things feel positive.
All is well.
But I miss him.
I miss him to death. It kills me.
I miss his smile, his hugs, his smell, his voice, his jokes, his brilliance, his light.
I miss the way he made me feel.
I miss what we had and what we could have had.
I miss the cup of tea he would sometimes make for me.
I miss everything about him. I wonder if he knows how much. Our texts, our conversations, out silent communications, our shopping sprees, our travels… I miss them all. Even though he is always present, I miss him like hell. Nothing seems to lessen the missing. It is always there, like an unbearable part of me. The wretched missing and me are incurably, painfully one.
Maybe he has a nice little flat to himself up there, with a high ceiling, big windows and an airy verandah, properly kitted out with a fancy drum kit, a ping-pong table and a cricket pitch nearby. Maybe he hangs out with his new friends and they talk about ‘stuff’ and go to the gym together. They possibly do all kinds of accents and have a good laugh. Maybe they have fancy dress parties too. Maybe he cooks meatball curry for them and they tell each other stories about their time on Earth.
Maybe he sometimes looks down at his house that is now like a shrine filled with flowers and candles, his Mum’s eyes now lustreless, some of his socks and t-shirts that she pretends to borrow from him, his fine black Sharpie pen in her bag along with a random Arabic worksheet of his from University, Milkshake fast asleep against his favourite rectangular blue floral cushion from Ikea. Maybe he can also hear the deep haunting silence.
Maybe he remembers what happened that day. Maybe he regrets it. Maybe he visits and revisits. Maybe he is right here, right now.
kidsaregifts 