My Sis: Through My Eyes (18)
Chapter – 18 (Love, For Some Happens Only Once)
Yesterday was the day of the Viswakarma Puja in India. Vishwakarma, is the Lord of Architecture and the builder of all divine palaces. Having gone through the emotional post of my Sis on FaceBook last night, I was reminded of how we celebrated the day at 41 in our childhood. And I was reminded of who else but my Sis? Life was a pure bliss then. Despite the differences among the siblings of my father, we, especially the generation next of the Bhttacharyyas displayed a great sense of rapport, camaraderie and unity on occasions like the Viswakarma Puja day.
The whole household would gather on the roof top from early morning. Flying kites and defeating others at kite-flying was a passion and dream that has stayed with us, the younger lot, all these years! My Sis from her in-law’s, would come like a comet at midday and try to snatch the string from the hand of one of my late brothers. She was not very good at it but what she lacked in, she more than made up for with an abundance of enthusiasm, energy and vitality.
Talking about that brother, let me not forget to put in a word about him here. He was a Champion Kite-Flier. Though polite and extremely popular in the early days (he addressed everyone by adding “da” after the first name. Like if you are Anirudh, my late bro would address you as Anirudhda, regardless of whether you are younger than him or older, of the same or opposite gender), his aggressiveness showed through on such occasions and through games as well. Like I still remember how he would step out to hammer the most fearsome pacebowlers of our time in our locality over the ropes! ONE..TWO and THREE steps out..and there goes the ball PLONK, out of the ground from his bat! He’d fly his kite quite high in the sky in the same aggressive manner. Possibly he looked for an outlet to let out the rebel poet in him,(the poet that showed a lot of promise but couldn’t live long enough to do justice to his potential) and the vast, wide sky provided him the plarform to showcase his talent. And if another kite came anywhere near the vicinity of his overruling, overbearing kite, he would give the intruder a run for the money. He’d chase the kite like a cat chases a wet mouse, or the Indian batters of yesteryears were chased by Michael Holding and Co. With the string in his hand, using both hands in a backward motion, he’d keep stepping back from the front of the well spread out roof to the rear, bringing his kite under the string of the contesting kite, pulling it back towards himself with unbelievable speed and force. And then at the sight of the other kite stalling and stumbling, bowing low, being detached from the string and finally disappering behind the tall trees near the horizon, we, the entire household would let out a combined cacophony of “BHO-KAT-TA”. The smile on the face of each family member at that time is a memory to be cherished forever.
Talking about Sis, I have been thinking a lot about her lately. May be because of the Nicholas Sparks novel I’ve been going through nowadays. It’s a novel called “Nights in Rodanthe”. Goes like Adrienne has finally begun to see things, the inspeakable closeness between Jack, her husband, and Linda, the lady ten years her junior, in a different light. It is not long before Jack comes and confesses his love for the other woman. He leaves Adrienne shattered and shell-shocked, just like that! She takes time to pull herself together from the initial shock and decides to spend the rest of her life devoting herself to the upbringing of their three children.Years roll on and then when her friend asks her to manage the inn at Rodanthe in her absence for a week or so, Adrienne agrees. It is a job she needs, to be all by herself and have some breathing space, other than the financial reason. Sitting on the porch in front of the dark,deep ocean in the fading evening light, her mind replays the days with Jack and, tortured beyond imagination, she fails to understand why life has been so cruel to her. There is a nonstop flow of tears streaming down her cheeks. Fortunately, she thinks, she is all alone out there on the porch with no one to notice and wipe away her tears. Paul, the famous doctor of plastic surgery, trying to come to terms with his own recent heartbreak from the divorce, sneaks out on the porch at that precise moment through the kitchen from reception. And as they look at one another, time stand still. And at that very instsnt Cupid decides to throw the arrow, felling two with one. After that Life cannot be the same anymore for both of them. Both find the meaning of true love and life, as a result of their staying together from then on till his reluctant departure a few days later. Perhaps it happens in the western world. Perhaps in the world of fiction like in a novel or a story. But doesn’t a novel mirror the best of life?
I start worrying about my sister again. She has already stepped into the threashold of the 60s. Life is passing her by. The best days of her life are slowly ebbing away. When the rest of the world is happy in the comforts of companionship and togetherness, my Sis stays all alone without any one bothering about her. Can’t a Paul appear out of the blue and take her in his strong, masculine arms, away from this tedious, tiresome world? Whispering in her ear that he’d be there with her till the end of time? I know I am being selfish here. But she is after all, my sister. Having lost a sister recently, I’ve reason to be unhappy. Why isn’t anyone bothered? Why doesn’t someone emerge out of nowhere to offer my Sis the love and companionship that she truly deserves?
The words of my Sis keep coming back hauntingly in my mind: “I only fell in love once. The memory of that sheer blissfulness will last me a lifetime. True love doesn’t happen twice, Bappa.”
True Love in the 21st century? After all she has been made to go through? All the sacrifices she had to make and is still making? All the unshed tears welling up in her eyes that she has to stop from flowing down? This is just way too much beyond my comprehension. All I can visualize at the moment is the image of my Sis, her face aglow in the fading light of the setting sun, crying hoarse at the sight of my late brother’s latest kite conquer, leading the pack screaming their lungs out with the shrill shriek of ‘BHO-KAT-TA’ at 41 on innumerable Vishwakarma Puja days. The kite, once detached from the string, flies miles away into the distant land, showing little or no resistance or promise of return. I realise, much to my dismay, that for some people like my Sis, Love happens only once in a lifetime, and having built a nest in their lives for a brief while, it, in all its pristine glow and glory is gone, too swiftly to be rebuilt (rekindled?).
