The first little living thing that was mine, after my birds was my baby brother. Baby , because we had an age difference of 8 years but then it never quite turned out that, the age difference inspired him to call me "didi" or pay me respect. Rather it turned out to be the other way round. :)
So when my brother was born, I was just eight. And most of the sentiments echoed here are those of an eight year old girl which I am trying to jot down as I remember. I have never really written this down before, its always been those memories too dear to be penned down and yet can never be forgotten bcoz they are so much a part of you.
I had always wanted a younger sister when I was young. So when my mother told me that I was going to have a sibling, I had made up my mind that "it" would be a baby sister. I was so looking forward to the day when I would have my new play-mate. I could not keep my smiles hidden.
My brother was born at 1:00 a.m in the night, in Woodlands hospital, Calcutta on September 12th, 1989. I have a vague recollection of my parents leaving at night. And the next day morning my father telling me that I had a little brother. I was very happy to have a new playmate but I won't deny that my enthusiasm was a little dampened when I heard I had a little brother.
The first time I saw him, he was wrapped tight in a white cloth and placed among a score of other similiar babies. I don't even know if I had correctly pinpointed him when Baba showed him to me. He immediately also added "he has jaundice".
My brother was born with jaundice which is not an uncommon affliction in newly borns. But he was also born with a conflicting blood group to my mother's 0+. I don't know what the complications were but they started blood transfusions on him, they were drawing out his blood and pouring in my father's B+ blood group. Ok, if ithis doesn't sound correct, this is what I could make myself understand then.
I didn't know what all this meant, to me the gravity of the situation never struck. Every evening when my father drove me and other aunties and uncles to the hospital, all I would see was everybody's face going graver and graver. Those one hour visiting times with my mother on a white hospital bed, seemed so short a time to talk to her. And with everybody crowding around her, I would never even get a moment with her alone to tell her that I was miserable alone at home. Nothing went correctly without her, my food was not given at the correct time, everyone was telling me what to do. When would she be back. How my brother was, was one of the last thoughts on my mind. I think it was somewhere around the hospital room that I found a little notepad, the kind they give in hotels, and that is probably when my writing career as I know it ;) , started. Everyday that I visited her I would leave little notes of how much I missed her, asking her the same question of when she would be back, poems about things I don't even remember now.
Sometimes I would hear the grownups conversing among themselves, saying leave it to God. And also an unending babble of advice to my mom, my dad. What was most surprising to me was, there would be people and friends breaking down and my mother comforting them.
There were people who had been to Tirupathi and came back with flowers and prayers for my brother. Nuns from my school went to bless him and pray for him. When we waited in the lobby, my father would sometimes introduce me to other uncles and say he has been giving blood for your little brother since morning.
Every day in class my class teacher would ask me how my brother was doing and whether I knew anything. I would say with authority that I had overheard my father say "billirubin is 3".
I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. The only thing I did see was my teachers shaking their heads in anxiety.
The next thing that happened was my mother was released from hospital. I was overjoyed, even though the hospital with its white beds and air-conditioning and nurses and doctors in spotless white uniforms had left an indelible impression on me. My brother still was critical.
I remember this one particular evening when we went to visit him. He was being fed by a nurse who then cradled him on her shoulder immediately and everything that he had eaten so far he started vomitting. Woodlands had these strict rules of not allowing us in to touch the baby and we could only see him through the glass. That scene I will never forget, of my little brother upturned on a nurse's shoulder who was not even noticing while he vomitted everything. His little black eyes were wide with fear and ofcourse they still had him tightly wrapped in that white cloth, which made it seem as if the baby was not even able to breathe. That was when I guess my mom decided to have him moved to another hospital.
The next hospital was nowhere so sophisticated as Woodlands. When I first saw my brother I was in tears. His entire bottom half of the body had developed rashes becoz of being tightly wrapped in those cloths at Woodlands and which we had never even been made aware of. He had developed green diarrhoea. Now as he lay there on an open cot under a ceiling fan, he looked like a stick on "knathas" as we call them.
That was however not the end. From there he was shifted to another hospital so that we could have him treated by a better doctor.
The next thing I remember was one day coming home from school, and finding my father trying to mend this cradle. My brother was finally going to come home.
The next few growing years of his were awesome for me. When I first held those tight closed fists or tried to open them and have them close over my finger, my joy knew no bounds. I remember how when my friends first came and asked my mom whether they could take him on their laps I was so jealous. Jealousy was not something I understood them. All I knew was, he is mine and why should others love him or get to cradle him. I loved having him on my back and patting him to make him burp, I loved the tiny hands of his and the mischeivous smile. The first words he started saying was "ba-ba " bcoz thats how we would always commend him when he ate up his meal. He would sit on the table, a little bib tucked beneath his chin, cerelac or whatever gooey lunch he was having dripping from his face. He had a chuckle of a laugh and learnt quickly to play "tuki" or hide-and-seek with me. He is one of my most precious gifts and I don't think I will ever be able to thank God enough for him.
Ofcourse he never called me didi, he always assumed himself to be the more maturer and I always let him think so, he had a better judgement, a stabler mind and even in the thin frame of his could pack a punch or pull my hair so tightly that I would have tears in my eyes. I would always retaliate in full strength and send him spinning across the room, then we would both be bawling. Sometimes I wish he had been the older. Bcoz rather than be an example to him and make him grow up sooner, I became a kid with him. I even competed with him at Cerelac, I loved the brand that he loved. And so there were always two tins which were bought from the groceries.
Things haven't changed at all, if he starts a fight today I will still fight him back. I agree I respect his decisions much more, from my camera to ipod , everything was chosen by him. Ofcourse his demands are still preposterous, "why don't I work at Microsoft, then he could have the xbox for free". "How dare I call my dog my dog bcoz I was never there to look after him and he has to take him out every evening".
Today morning he said "How come you never write about me". In the afternoon, I dreamt of holding him as a kid on my back and remembered how we played pillow fights and turned somersaults which he was always so bad at. Everybody with a younger older sibling would probably have similiar experiences and fond memories to return to. Its just that I never thought about them at length so much before or rather dwelt on them. Today I am suddenly very nostalgic for that sweet little baby brother and me being 8 years old. This might be true for everyone, but to this day, to me, my baby brother as I saw him in the cradle and while chuckling and while crawling on the ground, is the sweetest little baby to me.
And this I dedicate to a 17 year old gawky teenage-brother , nearly a good five inches taller than me who has been gloating/harping on that ever since he became just a centimeter taller .......
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Frozen
At first it was I won't blog, its just a means of drawing attention to yourself. Why would you want to share your life with other people. Next it was, oh what the heck, maybe I should maintain an online diary that will reduce my one to one emails of writing the same stuff over and over to different friends. I would restrict the diary (read blog) to only my friends , after all a url like 21writersblock is not an easy one to guess. Then it was, wow there are people actually reading my blog, people who don't know me or have just started knowing me. And now it is, my blog , a forum for thoughts and ideas and just mumbo jumbo about what I think ........ which to me are in no way mature or profound, but just that when I read them later after a month or two or when I am down, they sort of bring back a moment in time and a smile on my face - and I think "wow! did I ever think that way". Sort of like writing about your first crush in your diary and coming back to it years later and thinking ...... could I have really had a crush on this guy!
Its the same way with photos, when you see that picture with people frozen in action, some smirking, some having fun , some trying to make horns on your head, its so much a part of time that is frozen. That mood, that crowd, that feeling .... they immediately bring back a few more memories, of what we did before and after that photo was taken. Of the jokes that were cracked , of the moments that were shared and lived together. From then till now, there must have been so many incidents that might have changed you. Experiences as they call it, made you more mature, more ready to face life. But tell me if you would never wish to go back to that moment in the photo, which is frozen, given a chance. There are so many times I have looked at a photo, at an unknown face in the photo or someone I don't recall or someone I had met just once, and I can't help thinking : how did life treat them , what are they doing now ?
There are so many times I have seen a photo of a friend, seen the carefree smile on her face, and then turned to look back at a smile which is more knowing now, and not as much carefree.
Wishful thinking, but when you don't feel like working and you have an assignment due in two hours, this is where I guess your mind escapes to.
Its the same way with photos, when you see that picture with people frozen in action, some smirking, some having fun , some trying to make horns on your head, its so much a part of time that is frozen. That mood, that crowd, that feeling .... they immediately bring back a few more memories, of what we did before and after that photo was taken. Of the jokes that were cracked , of the moments that were shared and lived together. From then till now, there must have been so many incidents that might have changed you. Experiences as they call it, made you more mature, more ready to face life. But tell me if you would never wish to go back to that moment in the photo, which is frozen, given a chance. There are so many times I have looked at a photo, at an unknown face in the photo or someone I don't recall or someone I had met just once, and I can't help thinking : how did life treat them , what are they doing now ?
There are so many times I have seen a photo of a friend, seen the carefree smile on her face, and then turned to look back at a smile which is more knowing now, and not as much carefree.
Wishful thinking, but when you don't feel like working and you have an assignment due in two hours, this is where I guess your mind escapes to.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Knick Knacks
An ok day, except that I went through it as if I had just got out of bed on the wrong side. I remember reading the same expression in a Noddy book. Somehow that day would go all wrong for him, for starters the bell on his hat stopped ringing. Good old days, - childhood :) I remember I used to go to school in a chartered bus called Raja Service. We somehow had never thought of asking who is Raja. Anyway, today was not a bad day just that my mood was bad.
What scares me is this, and I am sure I caught this from Monika, I have started talking to myself. (Yes, yes just one more sign of madness) I will be walking along thinking about my stupidity in some random incident and exclaim out aloud. I am sure I get quite a few stares but I choose to hurry on as fast as I can, looking down and avoiding all eyes.
A rainbow over the Catalina mountains on the north side of Tucson reminded me of a song as I was walking back. I don't know why , rainbows can never fail to awe you. So it happened that after a long time, I was humming Sunshine on my shoulders. Its a beautiful song by John Denver. When I was small/young (both mean the same thing now - ages ago :) ) there was a beautiful ad which came on doordarshan and this song was played in the background. The best lines would have to be:
" If I had a wish I could wish for you, I'd make a wish for sunshine all the while."
What is most beautiful about those lines is wanting to make a wish for someone else but I guess I needn't have said that.
What scares me is this, and I am sure I caught this from Monika, I have started talking to myself. (Yes, yes just one more sign of madness) I will be walking along thinking about my stupidity in some random incident and exclaim out aloud. I am sure I get quite a few stares but I choose to hurry on as fast as I can, looking down and avoiding all eyes.
A rainbow over the Catalina mountains on the north side of Tucson reminded me of a song as I was walking back. I don't know why , rainbows can never fail to awe you. So it happened that after a long time, I was humming Sunshine on my shoulders. Its a beautiful song by John Denver. When I was small/young (both mean the same thing now - ages ago :) ) there was a beautiful ad which came on doordarshan and this song was played in the background. The best lines would have to be:
" If I had a wish I could wish for you, I'd make a wish for sunshine all the while."
What is most beautiful about those lines is wanting to make a wish for someone else but I guess I needn't have said that.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Back to my bookstore
I was back at Arizona bookstore today after days. I was hoping to find some book that would interest me. I usually need a book which grabs my attention fast, is usually about people, relationships and I am happy. When I entered the store I had no idea what I was going to pick up, so I made my way to the only section which interests me. Fiction. Maybe if you have guessed so far you will be able to guess the book I picked up too......but thats a far cry.
I started alphabetically and stopped at C. Yup, Mistress of Spices, by Chitra Divakaruni. The book caught my attention and I am 20 pages down. So I will not venture a review yet. I had read Rana Dasgupta's book for which he won a prize and the name of which is completely eluding me now. (Its some Plane to Tokyo or something) Though it started great, all the literary analogies had me in a whirlwind for a day or two. I think that book had the longest hangover on me becoz I could not digest everything in his stories or his writing.
I saw Yun hota to kaisa hota yesterday, thanks to Niyanta for having downloaded it. Its a good movie, different, and I think more striking if you have been through part of the process. The whole hype about coming to USA, the visa process, the plane journey..... I am homesick, waiting to get back home I guess. For someone who was known to run home at the slightest opportunity from Trichy, I think I have outstayed long enough from home.
I started alphabetically and stopped at C. Yup, Mistress of Spices, by Chitra Divakaruni. The book caught my attention and I am 20 pages down. So I will not venture a review yet. I had read Rana Dasgupta's book for which he won a prize and the name of which is completely eluding me now. (Its some Plane to Tokyo or something) Though it started great, all the literary analogies had me in a whirlwind for a day or two. I think that book had the longest hangover on me becoz I could not digest everything in his stories or his writing.
I saw Yun hota to kaisa hota yesterday, thanks to Niyanta for having downloaded it. Its a good movie, different, and I think more striking if you have been through part of the process. The whole hype about coming to USA, the visa process, the plane journey..... I am homesick, waiting to get back home I guess. For someone who was known to run home at the slightest opportunity from Trichy, I think I have outstayed long enough from home.
Losing interest
I never had to try to write. Whenever I would sit down, there were a zillion things I wanted to talk about. I guess something has changed. Now even when I sit down to write, all I end up doing is analyzing my thought process. :) Which even to me is very boring , leave alone all those who persevere to wade through it.
When I had written that Seattle took away something on one hand, I don't think I put it in strong enough words. It took away the very foundation of my belief in relationships. I tried so hard to grasp on to something that I guess I had to let go of it all. Coming to terms with that, rather learning to accept has been the hardest thing in my life. The good thing ofcourse is, you know nothing can hit you harder. So I think my everyday pangs of worrying, fretting, anxiety have visibly reduced. Everyday is a great new day now because nothing that could happen could hit me as hard as the truck that already did.
And somewhere some part of me is dead, because what I believe in no longer exists.
We were having this discussion the other day about how, to everyone their worries seem the hardest and most important in the world. I am no exception, I have so often tried to rationalise with myself that there might be worse things in life, I just can't end up convincing myself.
Oh ...I think I am plunging too much into me myself again :) (seems kind of contradictory seeing that the entire blog is about that.)
I think I read this saying somewhere "Hope is the quintessential essence of man." So hoping, maybe I will start believing again in what I thought was once true.
When I had written that Seattle took away something on one hand, I don't think I put it in strong enough words. It took away the very foundation of my belief in relationships. I tried so hard to grasp on to something that I guess I had to let go of it all. Coming to terms with that, rather learning to accept has been the hardest thing in my life. The good thing ofcourse is, you know nothing can hit you harder. So I think my everyday pangs of worrying, fretting, anxiety have visibly reduced. Everyday is a great new day now because nothing that could happen could hit me as hard as the truck that already did.
And somewhere some part of me is dead, because what I believe in no longer exists.
We were having this discussion the other day about how, to everyone their worries seem the hardest and most important in the world. I am no exception, I have so often tried to rationalise with myself that there might be worse things in life, I just can't end up convincing myself.
Oh ...I think I am plunging too much into me myself again :) (seems kind of contradictory seeing that the entire blog is about that.)
I think I read this saying somewhere "Hope is the quintessential essence of man." So hoping, maybe I will start believing again in what I thought was once true.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Defining me
I have had this fascination about ice-skating. If you have ever seen ice-skating in the olympics you would know what I mean. You can't just sit there and not get absorbed in a beautiful ephemeral word (and I do so hope that is the correct word.) Guess what!! I got a chance to try it out myself. And even though I would have been quite the hippopotamus on skates, I had a great time trying something out which ....even in my wildest dreams I never thought I would get a chance to do. All thanks to Ramya. :)
In the last weekend that has been, (Labor day weekend) I have rediscovered myself and Tucson in many ways I had not thought possible. And yes, since the place is always defined by the people, you can say there are more than one responsible. There were 5 of us who hung out this weekend, with chats extending nearly till 2 in the night. If anything, it was reliving college. Life takes your breath away when you least expect it to.
Seattle gave me on one hand and took away with the other. (I have composed and recomposed this line so many times, its now almost a part of me. ) I agree I am always the complaining, whining depressive mode person, but Seattle saw me in my worst element. So why did I fall in love with Seattle ... it made me realize I can come out of a crisis alone, without whining to someone. It gave me independence, spending power, ........ and believe me, that changes the color of the glasses you are looking thru, at the world.
Why I didn't blog for so long ? I suddenly got very conscious. Ever since I heard, googling my name brings this up. I lost complete touch with blogs that I was reading , commenting on and following. I just shut that only writing part of my life. Took to a diary, and felt thats all I need. Still not sure why I came back. :) Something just made me appreciate life a little more. Something just made me feel a little young again. Something just brought me back to my blackboard. Probably the flow is missing, and I am leaving out a lot unsaid. I am happy ..... even though Tucson should be the one I should be in love with , Seattle is still quite my hangover. And till I have randomn thoughts like these , I guess I'll still continue to write.
In the last weekend that has been, (Labor day weekend) I have rediscovered myself and Tucson in many ways I had not thought possible. And yes, since the place is always defined by the people, you can say there are more than one responsible. There were 5 of us who hung out this weekend, with chats extending nearly till 2 in the night. If anything, it was reliving college. Life takes your breath away when you least expect it to.
Seattle gave me on one hand and took away with the other. (I have composed and recomposed this line so many times, its now almost a part of me. ) I agree I am always the complaining, whining depressive mode person, but Seattle saw me in my worst element. So why did I fall in love with Seattle ... it made me realize I can come out of a crisis alone, without whining to someone. It gave me independence, spending power, ........ and believe me, that changes the color of the glasses you are looking thru, at the world.
Why I didn't blog for so long ? I suddenly got very conscious. Ever since I heard, googling my name brings this up. I lost complete touch with blogs that I was reading , commenting on and following. I just shut that only writing part of my life. Took to a diary, and felt thats all I need. Still not sure why I came back. :) Something just made me appreciate life a little more. Something just made me feel a little young again. Something just brought me back to my blackboard. Probably the flow is missing, and I am leaving out a lot unsaid. I am happy ..... even though Tucson should be the one I should be in love with , Seattle is still quite my hangover. And till I have randomn thoughts like these , I guess I'll still continue to write.
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