A few days back I chanced upon a random quote which kind of
stuck on to me…..a part of it went as follows “When I cry, it rains words”….and
oh is that true or not…..the past couple of months have been a rather
tormenting whirlwind of emotions and alongwith the steady outpouring of tears, this
has also resulted in an upheaval of words inside me and it has become a little
difficult to let them be holed up within any longer and so here I am, using my favourite mode of
expression, writing…..writing my heart out.
To put the recent past in a nutshell I could say that, one,
I learnt some lessons about trusting people, having faith, giving it your all, the really hard way and it has quite literally left a lifelong scar on me…and
two, I lost three very dear and near ones and all in a matter of two weeks.
Quite simply put if you look at it, but in reality, it has a lot more to it……loads
of memories, hurt, pain, loss, grief…the list could probably just go on.
Talking about the first, well I have learnt a lot through
the better part of the years that I have survived so far, but I never quite
lost faith in the concept of humanity or trust. But this experience kind of
shoved the fact down my throat that what you see is not always the truth. There
are masks people hide behind all the time, they can fake a lot of things, lie
while you keep thinking that all of what you see is genuine because honestly
you can’t even fake a greeting to somebody if you don’t honestly feel like it.
But turns out, the world is not quite like that. If anything, I have learnt
that you can hardly trust anyone apart from the very close circle of people who
are truly your own, who stand by you through thick or thin, who keep the promises
they make, and who walk with you unconditionally, without using situations as excuses
to run away no matter how difficult times may seem to be. The ones who are
truly your own fight for you like you are worth all of it. They don’t treat you
like dispensable objects that you can do away with the moment your need for
that object is over. I learnt that people are constantly looking for
opportunities to win, to have fun, to enjoy and for a multitude of other
reasons and it doesn’t bother them at all if they had to play with emotions to
get what they want. I learnt that you don’t let people get close enough to hurt
you and hurt you bad. No one apart from what you call your family deserves to
get that close to you, to make a mark that could hurt for life. I am thankful
for having a family that I can count on….specially my parents and a life
partner, who have always been more than what they are and for being the friend that I
have needed during all those rough times.
Well if that wasn’t enough, a few more huge emotional blows
were just getting ready to hit hard, harder than I would have ever imagined
them to hit. The loss of dear ones can never be easy on anyone for sure, but
what probably made it harder this time was the very short time frame during
which it all happened as well as the very close seat they held in my life in
their own measure.
The first to go was Chotokaku….that’s what he was to me, to
the world he was my father’s younger brother. It’s difficult to sum up all that
I can say about him, I owe a lot of things I learned, a lot of my first times,
a lot of things I developed an interest in and an ocean of memories to him and
as a matter of fact I even owe what people know me as, to him, my name –
Jasmita. This was probably the first gift he gave me apart from all the others
throughout the years, material or abstract. Chotokaku, as I and all in our
family who have known him closely, remember him as a person who can be termed
as an enthusiast. While in his hey days and also till the dreaded disease hadn’t
confined him to bed he was the one who brought in the fun element, be it to family
gatherings, a simple lunch or the pandal hopping during the Durga Puja. His was
always the best gift I received on all my birthdays. He, without fail, even
during his ill health remembered by parent’s wedding anniversary and the
customary gift, even if they themselves forgot the day at times. Atleast a yearly
day off for the ladies (which included my mum and my aunt) from the daily chore
of cooking was Chotokaku’s rule which called for that lunch to the best hotel
in Shillong during the Durga Puja. More than my father, it was Chotokaku who
made sure we were taken to every trade fair, book fair or any other odd form of
entertainment that occasionally visited the small town of Shillong that it was
way back then. I owe all the hundreds I scored for handwriting in school to him
for it was he who taught me the art of cursive writing. I owe my interest in
the ghazals of Ghulam Ali, Jagjit Singh….the first English songs from Lobo,
Abba, UB40 that I had heard in my life to him. I owe a lot of my hold on the
English language to him, to the interest in solving those weekly crosswords and
jumbled up words in the Sunday Telegraph, to all those elocutions, debates and
recitals that I participated in at school that were polished and corrected by
him. I owe my interest and whatever little I learned of the Guitar and the Keyboard
to him. Chotokaku was skilled in playing not only these two instruments but
also the Saxophone and the Harmonium. All of this to even the way I dress the salad
I put on the dinner table today, I owe it to him.
A state level chess champion who had won numerous titles at
his organization and the state level, Chotokaku had also participated in
multiple national level chess championships. Probably this was the only quality
I couldn’t imbibe from him and I regret it, always. Today, I carry one of his
books on chess and his personal magnetic chessboard that I remember him sitting
with for hours together playing games as both himself and the opponent, in the
hope that may be one day in this lifetime, although in his absence, I will be
able to play a game of chess with myself.
Chotokaku was always the fun – loving person and he brought
that into the very mundane things of day to day life. I remember the pictures
and my mother telling me stories about how Chotokaku would dress up in her
saree just to cheer up my mother and my aunts. Being the only child I was quite
the selfish little kid when I was my tiny self. I remember tying up all my toys
in one of my mum’s sarees and carrying it around the house lest someone should get
their hands on any of them. To teach me a lesson, when I wasn’t around,
Chotokaku would tuck in the heavy iron that was used in those days to iron
clothes into that bundle. Once I got back, I would try with all my might to
pick it up and fail miserably and Chotokaku would be sitting there smiling
mischievously J.
He had this unique way of petting me and my cousins and even the pets….it was
by poking our nose with his thumb, just like pressing a button, while he uttered
some impromptu gibberish which was supposed to indicate cute. When bottles in
the kitchen needed cleaning, he would put up notes on them when my aunt wasn’t
around which said “Amader ke snan korano dorkaar” which means “we need a bath” ,
or when fruits or vegetables in the basket were left for long he would put up a
note saying “Amra poche jachhi, amader kheyaal rakhun” meaning “we are rotting,
please take care of us”J.
This was Chotokaku…..he left us with these and an
ocean of memories that I could go on writing about and never stop. He left us
too soon…..and with him he left a gaping hole that no one can ever fill.
The next to go was Didibhai……Didibhai for me and
Grandma for the world. Didibhai was someone I still remember as the frail - looking
but strong lady who tirelessly worked throughout the day. She did not have a
single grey strand of hair until the day she died. I have to admit, I was
pretty scared of her when I was young, she was a tough task master and although
I met her only during my winter holidays on alternate years while I was growing
up, she made sure I got my dose of her lessons. That I can read and write in
Bengali today, is due to her. She taught me and made me promise that I would
send her letters in Bengali. Initially, I remember writing to her by spelling
the Bengali words in English and she would save those letters and when I
visited her next she would tell me, I want the next one written in Bengali, and
I did, of course with a little help from mom.
While one half of the world knows me as Jasmita,
the other half (which includes primarily my family, my neighbourhood and people
who know me since I was a kid) know me by my nickname, Rupshi which is the
Bengali word for beautiful – “Rupashi” as it would be pronounced…..this name, I
owe it to Didibhai. The strong lady that she was, married off at an early age, which
was more or less the norm in those times…I guess she was 14 then, she went on
to raise six kids, one of them, being my mother. So, in a way, not only do I owe
her my name but also my existence through my mother.
The death of my grandfather hadn’t broken down
Didibhai as much as seeing two of her three sons pass away before her did. It
was heart breaking to see the tough lady that she had been all her life turn
into the weak and frail frame of bones in her final years. Whenever she met me,
she would say, I have lived my life, seen more than I was supposed to, now it’s
time to go……and she left…..once again leaving us with a swarm of memories.
The last to go was my dear old Tuna…..my boy…the
fighter who fought till the end. I understand that many people will not be able
to relate to this as an emotional trauma of considerable measure. He was after
all an animal, to be specific, a cat….just a pet. But to us, Tuna was family,
who was with us for more than a decade. He was never meant to live, he wouldn’t
have if my aunt hadn’t picked him up from our neighbour’s house. When he first came,
he was a kitten, but way smaller in size than an average kitten of his age. He
continued to be of a size smaller than the average for a couple of years to
begin with and then suddenly he grew up to be the handsome boy that he was. An
adamant, angry young boy who didn’t fancy being carried around or being stroked
at the wish of his humans…..he allowed such acts only when he pleased J. Tuna was one cat that
could be termed sassy in the true sense of the word, always spick and span and
with his own unique attitude. Even a dreaded infection which led to his ears
being clipped at an early age couldn’t dampen his fighting spirit and he lived
and ruled our hearts till his last breath….till he crossed the rainbow bridge.
The past couple of months have been difficult and
it still isn’t an easy sail through the storm……it took away a lot from me and
taught me a few lessons as well, the hard way of course.
Three lives gone in a matter of weeks…..leaving
behind trails of endless memories and irreplaceable gaps in my life as an individual
and our lives as a family.
RIP
Didibhai, Chotokaku and Tuna……sorely and forever missed.
