To my brother.......(I have tried to avoid being sentimental)

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 .......