Wanderer!

And I close my eyes….walking back to the boulevard of broken mirrors. “And yet again” some one says. “Few lines on life?” and I say “no, this time I’m writing not about life but things which are beyond one’s life”
On Sundays my dad prefers not to drive, and since we don’t have a driver it’s usually me who drives him to his destination, to the trust of which he is a member. I finish of my work till he gets over with his. Someday we drive back home over a coffee at local cafés, on other’s if nothing, some jalebi’s are for sure in my kitty. Usually I wait if he happens to take long with his, but this time I preferred a drive towards the old township where I spent my first few years, towards the reminiscence of my childhood.

My father is a government employee, and we spent our early days at the township where he was allotted one of many quarters. A simple two bedroom built up and a shabby porch ‘where our old jalopy used to stay’ was all that we managed with. Neither desired nor required any bit of extra space beyond what we had. Since television wasn’t that big when I was four and with all the more internet being in its nascent stage, most of the colony kids used to spent their post school hours hanging on to the cricket grounds and to each others backyards collecting peaches and mango’s. Sunday Maggie parties, picnics on two wheelers ‘with a bunch of wooden sticks somehow being managed to be tied around the stepney’, cake making and hogging sessions, cycle races around the fence were few of our monthly rituals. One’s birthday party was worth a year awaited! We didn’t have much and we neither craved for, because we all had equal shares. Maybe that’s what we did. We lived equal lives. Nobody bothered to purchase anything that they did not see at their neighbor’s place. More so, nobody had anything worth a showpiece! And there was my first lesson ...”To be happy, money is the least you’ll ever need”

As I drive onto the other side, I see a shattered window, grills already being stolen, a yellowed piece of land that once stood to be a small garden and a half tethered porch, all at a place that used to be my home. “19/A” was all that I could see being repainted in black; rest all seemed to be brutally shaken. I drove a bit farther to my friends place and I see the huge mango tree where we, along with our brothers and sisters used to collect half groomed mango’s... now, it gives nothing but a spooky feeling. Though I won’t say collecting mangos was the thing that taught us to be friends but it taught us something beyond friendship a feeling called togetherness. We used to burn our backs in the scorching heat of April summer, bending on to the grounds in search of the unripe ones and a day’s collection went to the owner’s dining table. Cleaned, washed and eaten later on. No one stole, no one fought. As all knew there’s nothing in them that will differentiate there share. They were equals beyond sex, height, shape and size; they all were children and a true companion to one another, and nothing beyond that. I learnt my second lesson “We don’t need friends, we need true companionship…we bond not to friendship, but we bond to togetherness and to the sense of security”

Today when I see my sister lamenting for her childhood friend, who unknowingly went missing into this big bad world and who also happened to be my childhood big brother, I don’t see friendship and emotions; I just see the innocent longing for togetherness, where one does not think twice to speak her heart out. A desire for that another world where rule one ‘still’ stands to be no pretension, where we belonged together as a team and where we all knew that our team has a broader definition, far from religious bondages it stood for those who desired to be together through thick and thin.
I drove alongside to our play ground, one more of my pal’s place whose main door was stolen and through which I could see the remains of her then living room, to my kinder garten bus stop and simply to the old roads...as I drive in to these half asleep yesteryears, I see each shattered room glowing bright into a different life that I was a part of. “All wanderers aren’t lost”, I fondly remember Tolkein as I take to be one myself. All these bricks stood past 14 years when I was there. No matter how bad they look, these broken windows teach me my last lesson “blood isn’t a necessary requirement for bonding, a past, barren grounds, broken wall’s and a little bit of faith is enough to let one feel the living bond all over again”

On holi day’s iv seen my uncles watering others from roof tops and hogging on to sweets, “durga pujo’s” were something which is inexplicable through words…from howling on to football and cricket world cups at 2 in the night to crying over lost children till the morning light. I’ve seen it all and now after all that I’ve grown to be, I can feel them more. When I drive back leaving my born connections, I take leave from things which I’ll remember all through the coming years… things which will mean beyond my whole life.

I never wished to be there where I was when I was a day old, my old life was a gift from God. Today as I wish a million things ‘almost all being fulfilled’… now that I have more than 2 of everything…. Now, that I no more need to collect mangos. I realize that I had the best gift when I was born and at the end of all’s, I’ll cherish this gift as the gift of my life!

Care is non quantifiable. And if you can, then it’s the least you have ever received.
Its what I learned from everybody, I say everybody as I wasn’t bought up just by my parents, I’m a part of many living souls…some, who no longer come to me with vanilla candies and some who still quiz me fondly with tricky math questions. It wasn’t a lesson, for me, it was an elixir to living….sometimes as deep and intense as an abyss… most of the times an unknown comfort. Even for the dead, I feel remembrance is care. And for the living…It’s what you feel right now!

P.s. some of it is factual. Most of it real….with love and respect for all of them who were a part of it!