My Sis: Through My Eyes (24)
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.
