My Sis: Through My Eyes (19)

Chapter – 19 ( Never Ever Lose Faith)

I’ve been thinking about My Sis a lot since last night. You know I am a weak-hearted man. God-fearing, to a great extent to say the least. I don’t know how much my weak heart has to do with it, but I felt that I didn’t do justice to my bro-in-law while writing the previous segment of the novel. That’s what implanted the Fear of God in me. You can fool yourself, a lot of people, and yes, even all others at times. But You Can Never Fool the One Up there. So, when you are happy having made a fool of others, thinking that you got away lucky, the One Up there smiles at your foolhardy, knowing that your time, your turn is to come soon.

So, let me try to rectify the mistake I made in my narration of that fatal, heart-wrenching night at my Barda’s residence at Baguihati. I realized only this morning that my narrative was turning out to be one-sided, being solely looked at from the perspectives of my Sis and myself as it were. If you’d recollect what I had to say about that lifeless night, reader, you would find me describing my bro-in-law as elegantly dressed as ever that time. On second thought, I realized that most probably, he was not all that elegantly dressed that particular night. Probably, I hadn’t even bothered to look at him like I ought to have. I was the one sitting closest to him on a stool on the other side of the door of Ma’s room. He looked rather out of sorts, surprisingly for a man who loves looking fit and trim generally. There were dark bags around the corners of his eyes which looked sunken, and the jovial smile on his face was more enforced merely in order to spare Barda some aches. The point I am trying to convey is, there is no doubt in my mind today that he was equally upset, hurting, at that time, but his reserved nature thought it best to keep things to himself. All shut up and spooky.

Now to continue with the story. My Sis joined us in our return journey to Bhutan at the fag end of that particular summer break. Though I was a bit intrigued by the whole thing as both my Sis and bro-in-law were known to be inseparables since the early days of their marriage, always travelling together to different places, I tried putting it down to the excessive workload of my bro at office of late. It was here in the serenity and sublimity of Tsimalakha that I came to know, through a chance conversation between my wife and Sis, who are anything but the best of friends, that the marriage was on the doldrums, plummeting downward. The very fact of my Sis sharing with my spouse about someone, a subject so intimate and close to her heart, was a clear proof of their marriage falling apart. She had started feeling the pressure and losing control over herself.

When things do not go the way they are supposed to, you get a sixth sense about it. On her return to Kolkata, she tried all the tricks in her bag – cajoling, coaxing and finally, neglecting herself. But my bro-in-law proved to be a real hard nut to crack. He’d come back late from office, pay a deaf ear to her requests for the meal and leave the food untouched and cold. And if my Sis made so much of a mistake as to ask for an explanation for his late coming, my bro-in-law would raise hell. He ceased giving her the impression that he cared two penny any more whether she existed or exited from his life.

I think that was the time when Sis started thinking about looking for a job. Now, mind you, dear reader, all this was happening when my Sis was in her fifties. 52 to be precise. An age long past the employability criterion for a middle-class housewife. Besides, owing to her early marriage, she had had just a B A. degree in Political Science in her arsenal. Not even the most optimistic of people would give her a chance at securing a job at such a time. But like I said earlier, if you are honest. if you are fair. There is always, Someone for you up there.

I’m sorry to have to deviate to bring in “The Kite Runner” again here in the narration. Amir went back to Kabul to look for his only surviving nephew, Shorab. He was directed to the mercenary killer, who had earlier in the day stoned an infidel to death in an open stadium. The killer turned out to be none other than his childhood nemesis, Assaf. Assaf set a condition to Amir for letting him take the nephew after a hand to hand combat in his well-secluded room. The security personnel were asked to go out of the room. Being a child and raised like a pimp, Shorab was let to stay back. Assaf was a merciless, monstrous serial killer. Amir had never so much as thrown a punch at anyone in his life ( I enjoyed this line tremendously. In today’s bloodthirsty world, it is quite comforting to know that there are people like Amir who preach and practise Ahimsa!). Assad, with those awful brass knuckles, was making a mincemeat of Amir, hurling him all over the room – his body all gory and bloodied, nearly reduced to a pulp. Finally, with Assaf grabbing Amir’s throat with his left hand and raising the other hand with the knuckles directed at Amir’s already broken nose, ready for the kill – I closed my eyes and started panicking in my mind at the sheer injustice of it all.

“Stop,” a voice halted the predator from snapping life out of its prey. It was only God’s will that saved Amir, in the form of Shorab. from sure death The child, great with his slingshot, left a permanent scar on Assad and rescued Amir from his clutches.

The whole point of narrating this story is this – that there is someone called God. So try to have faith in His ways. His sense of Justice, Fair play and Mercy, before it is too late. Before you see your loved ones suffering and wilting helplessly like you won’t believe it, in front of your eyes, for your faults.

A few months after her return to Kolkata, my Sis got through the selection interview for the post of a Matron at a very reputed school called North Point. The same day my eldest sister breathed her last some meters away from my ancestral home. When listening to my Sis sharing the experience of the interview with my nephew (the youngest son of the diseased sister), from a roadside tea stall, expressing her sorrow for not being able to pay a visit to Maryland Nursing Home earlier, where the dead body was still lying for other relatives to come in and pay their last respects to, I had this feeling all along that no matter what, no matter how many qualified and experienced competitors Sis had to contend with, by the blessings of our late sister, and above all, by His Justice, Sis would get the job. And get the job she did from amongst over a hundred candidates, some of them younger and much more street smart than her.

Chapter – 24 (Her Greatest Hallmark is her Loving Nature)

“If someone does me the slightest favour, I won’t mind dying for her,” my sister.

I have already written about my Sister’s unbelievable courage and indomitable spirit. When the rest of the world had given up on the chances of a woman, aged 52. Separated from her husband after a blissful, marital life of 36 years, completely ignored by her only child, who meant no less than the world to her, shunned by most of our relatives on one pretext or another, Sis never lost her self-belief and the sense of justice.

When she resigned from Aditya Birla Academy, I, for one, thought that that was the end of her working life. At 59+, you don’t expect to be working any more. I even wondered at God’s sense of Mercy and Justice after all. Most of the women her age, seemed to be happily settled in life, enjoying with their grandkids and all, and there is my Sis, fighting her battle on her own! It was really expecting too much to believe that she would find another job so soon, that too, in our “I Love My India”! But she proved us all wrong. She had started telling me that she was receiving a lot of job offers from some other states in India. It saddens me to say that despite having known her for a little over six decades, I didn’t take her all that seriously. I thought she was just trying to save her face. I, being her only younger brother, should have known her better at least. So, when Sis told me last Saturday, on her return home from the interview somewhere in Hazra, that she had had another job offer from an organization called Brittee Prashikshan Kendra, I wondered if this adorable Sis of mine was losing her head or not. Even after all these years, I, being the brother closest to her, couldn’t believe her – her tenacity, perseverance, her strength of character. How do I expect anyone else to understand her fully then?

Came Monday and I got ready to accompany her. She has started distancing herself from me a lot over the years. She didn’t let me accompany her to the watch store, situated at a stone’s throw from our ancestral last time, when the battery of the watch of a brother of mine, which had been earlier replaced by the repair mechanic, stopped working the very next day. Having known her all my life, I can safely vouch that she doesn’t expect anything from anyone. But she has this tremendous sense of gratitude, something I found in my Barda as well. If anyone does anything for them, they will keep that act of help, kindness in mind. That’s why it is difficult for me to understand, how my Sis stays away from the man, who, at least to me, with my moderate kind of intelligence and understanding, seemed to have done so much for her?

Anyway, she looked gorgeous last Monday as she came to the door of her room, ready for the interview with BPK. She made a tour of the house taking her leave of the elders, reminding me of those glorious days in 41 long time back, when Life was so very beautiful and heavenly. When I asked her in the cab, while accompanying her to the Centre, she told me that she was bidding farewell thinking what if she failed to meet any one of them again. God! Bless this very loving sister of mine, who loves people truly with her heart. And she is more mature now than when she was under the safe umbrella of Arunda.

I heard her sharing her views, asking questions to the people conducting the orientation of the new employees at the centre, from outside. And didn’t I feel absolutely proud of and thrilled by her maturity, her intelligence at that time? As I had an interview to attend to, I called out to her during the meeting as I didn’t want to go to the interview without touching her feet. As I bent down to touch her feet I had this queer feeling that things are going to improve for me from now on. My faith in God is being strengthened watching my Sis from close quarters of late. A woman of unimaginable character, a great fighter and a very loving human being.

I thought of not sharing this, but I cannot simply keep quiet about the strength of her steely character Sis displayed a few days back. Now, you know, dear reader, that some wrongs are not meant to be righted, especially when a whole generation of people, has accepted the wrong badly. So, when I saw her teaching a lesson to someone, paying her back in the same coin, using Subhas Bose’s tactic of ’an eye for an eye’ rather than Gandhi’s belief that an eye for an eye, will make the whole world blind, I felt so proud of her. I felt proud for I could never raise my voice against any wrongs. I am more of the mild-mannered lot. People who rarely have time to think for others; people, who, are very engrossed in themselves, need to be taught at times that we, humans, are social beings and our happiness lies in the happiness of others.

My only regret right now is that if some more academically qualified and so called intelligent people, had followed my Sister’s example of ‘tit for tat’ even some years back, the members of the extended families of my late father, would have remained far more united, lived a much more happier life.