Praptoboyoshkoder jonno

A blank page has often managed to send my thoughts into a whirlpool. I have never been a person who has a very clear idea about what exactly is it that I want to write before I start writing. The titles of my blogposts bear ample testimony to that. I write when I feel that writing will make me feel good about myself and the people who make up my world. It is my own way of taking stock of where I am headed in life and acknowledging the simple yet precious gifts that I have had for company along this journey.

Unfortunate incidents in the family in the past week have made me reflect on the unpredictability of human nature and how things which one shrugs off by saying, “ These will never happen among our kith and kin”, do take place because somebody somewhere really really messed it up, and not just for oneself, but others too. How can somebody go so far down the road of deceit and self-ruin, I find the question staring me in the face. Somebody one is meant to have regard and affection for, somebody you remember having spent joyful moments with, however fleeting they may be. I guess as one grows up, our sense of right and wrong, possible and impossible, believable and unbelievable undergo a natural transition. But there are some things in life you just wish never fell into that possibility map. They are so damn disgusting! Strangely, when it did happen, beyond the initial feeling of shock and dismay, what dawned on me was the acknowledgement of how lucky I have been to have had the loving care of Ma, Baba & Didi all my life. People who ensured that I had a normal childhood where Sundays meant washing our new car and playing cricket with Baba. One might say, ”What’s so great about it?”. Well, I used to think the same way too until I saw how terribly fractured one’s childhood can become for no fault of one’s own. This is not a place to say thanks to Ma & Baba, why even saying “thanks” would be belittling their unadulterated love and affection and all the sacrifices they have made in bringing me and Didi up as normal kids who had normal joys & sorrows.

I have never had a large, extended family, the kind where mashis & meshos & pishis & mamas & their kids gather at Pujo at the ancestral house at say, Uttarpara, for four days of unbridled fun and festivities. My world has mostly revolved around my parents and my sister and Thamma & Dadu as they used to stay with us . Dadubhai is no more. Thamma, even at this age, has lost none of her silken touch at making payesh and khichuri, things she can keep on feeding you till you say ,”Na, aar paarchi na!”. In a sense, I have missed having relatives one can spend quality time with, cousins one can play chor-police and shaap-shiri with. But as time passes by and I see how fragile these relationships are becoming day by day, how relatives more often than not instead of lending you a helping hand, a comforting hug in times of trouble are only looking for ways and means to deceive you ,take unfair advantage of you and compete with you, I wonder whether I have been unlucky at all, not having these people around. I know I am generalizing way too much here. There are many families where the brothers and sisters have absolutely wonderful ties that bind them. But I guess as one matures in life with age, the inconvenient truth that one wakes upto is this. No matter how many close friends and relatives one may be surrounded by, the only ones you can trust blindfolded are your parents and siblings( some would say there’s a question even on that). But Didi , I love you like crazy and I just can’t imagine in my wildest dreams, relations souring between us ever. So I’ll stick to that. I call it the core group, people who love you for what you are and will never harm you. And even if they are upset with you , know that it’s for your own good.

I can write pages and pages on what having Ma, Baba & Didi in my life means to me. To be honest, they are my life. And I don’t know why but with each passing day, I only seem to see them in a new light where a new facet to their awesomeness gets revealed to me. Maybe I am growing up, finally!