Timelessness

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What if it's all untrue! What if it's a very bad joke which adamantly refuses to get over, a lie which cannot be comprehended and brought out in the open, a facade of emptiness, of hollow lives, dreams and laughter which can never be broken. What if his absence has not been lingering in our lives for a year now. A year!

I want to be insane for a while and forget that it has been a year since his battle came to an end and ours began. 

_______

Don't make me sad, don't make me cry
Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough
I don't know why..
     -Del Rey

The Chapter of My Life - Twenty Thirteen.

As the curtains are being drawn and the year is nearing its end, I curl up in my blanket, play my favorite music and flip back the pages of this chapter of my life.

The story of getting published for the first time and watching my name on paper back gleaming silently among big reputed names. That pride which pervaded on my mother's face when I stood on the stage with many other talented poets. Ah! It was priceless.

The story of pestering my parents to allow me to live my passion to travel and experiencing some of the most breathtaking moments of my life. My first vacation with a bunch of friends!

The story of wearing a scarred face that wrested my confidence and crushed it to death and then gradually walking on the road of recovery and coming out as an even more beautiful person. I can look into the mirror and feel good about myself, again. And by all means, I have deserved it.

The story of watching a loved one turn into a wisp of memory lingering in our lives and learning that this reality is just as transient as you, me, our smiles and tears are. I learned that you don't have to be old to be strong and wise, you can be as young as nine and be stronger and wiser than all around you. The time when I watched my brother breathe his last breaths with unflinching calmness, I felt my heart pump nothing but sheer dread in my veins. I watched him lie there, fighting with fucking cancer while I curled up in agony within my fragmented sighs because I could do nothing. I was but a helpless soul flapping restlessly to find some solace, just a little scoop of solace to comprehend what was happening around.

I wish that day was a haze to me. I so wish!

This life, it is a big, scary labyrinth. We are but puppets crawling around in spirals which ultimately ends up in the same destination. I was literally surprised to see that people who call themselves my close friends, lurked behind the facade of a busy life or some other make believe crap when I badly needed a shoulder to cry on, when I wanted to kill my daunting fears and give an outlet to my feelings, layer by layer. I never confronted them. Never felt the need to do so!

-Charles Bukowski

It's really funny how the aftermath of one big accident can strip off so many beguiling lies which you've been living for long. But then again, isn't it better that those beguiling lies finally stand naked and one can leave them all behind and start afresh? Well, yes, it sure is.

With nth number of ups and downs, this chapter of my life comes to an end. Hope for a less bumpy new year for myself and for you dear reader. I never say this but you are way better than many of these people around because you listen to my woes and musings with utmost patience and stay by my side always.

Thank you for being real to me.

A very happy new year.

Love
Mirage
_____

From a Friend's Heart

I can never imagine to pen down strong emotions with so much ease and write something as emotive, stirring and compassionate as the following message. Not even a bit close! 
It's an exceptionally beautiful message written by one of the closest friends of my brother who passed away twenty days back after a long and valiant battle with Pancreatic Cancer.
I wish I had enough good expressions to express how I felt after reading it. I wish my brother was alive to appreciate his friend's thoughts. I wish his daughters could know how great their father was. I wish life was less cruel. I wish things were a lot easier. I wish!

Just a small attempt to keep him alive with me here, on this blog.
____________

It’s hard to write an obituary when the subject is arguably your closest friend. Obituaries were farthest from our minds when we met in Goa in March last year. Non-stop laughter was interrupted only when we went down memory lane. Water skiing in the Arabian sea, drawing on hookahs, munching on authentic Italian pastas at the beautiful Arpora Saturday market made it a holiday of a lifetime. And like always there was one guy who was the life of the party. Maddy was full of life and savouring every second of it. All of us will always owe a debt of gratitude to Anupam whose initiative and insistence led to this reunion being held when it was. A month later and it would never have happened and we wouldn’t have had the last opportunity to witness Maddy as we knew him.

Maddy came up with the suggestion that the next reunion be held later in the year. The conservative sorts amongst us were talking in terms of at least a two year gap between reunions to retain the novelty factor. Maddy would have none of it and in the ‘naa meri naa teri’ sprit we agreed to meet in 2013. In hindsight he could perhaps sense that he didn’t have a lot of time left. His body and his mind must have been giving him warning signals because a month later he was diagnosed with third stage pancreatic cancer. 

What followed was a year of intense suffering and pain, but Maddy never lost his dignity. His main partner-in-suffering was his beloved wife Sucharita whose courage in times of adversity can only be admired. Whenever I went to see Maddy, she would greet me with a smile, offer me a cup of tea and never mope or complain. Neither would Maddy. Such dignity in suffering humbles me. Maddy leaves behind Sucharita, two beautiful daughters Anubhuti and Ananya, his parents and his brother Sushant and so many of us who were blessed to be his friends. However Maddy wouldn’t have wanted me to dwell only on the sadness. In fact he was a guy who didn't have too many negative bones in his body. So let me just talk about what he meant to me.

I first met him in Indore in 1994 when we were a bunch of excited twenty somethings hoping to make something of our lives. I was in awe of him. He came from Delhi and I came from a small town in Bengal. He had a funny hairstyle, had attended interviews at all the 4 IIMs (thankfully not cleared them, otherwise we never would have met), spoke with a Punjabi twang and cracked jokes at the drop of a hat. Somehow fate conspired to make us roommates at the fancy sounding Ratlam Kothi. Within a month we pretty much knew everything there was to know about each other. I continued to be in awe of him. Not only was he brighter than me, he was computer literate, read management and self help books and could draw beautifully. I was rubbish at all of this. He would beat the commerce graduates and engineers in the finance and accounts related subjects. And to think of it, he had graduated in zoology! I borrowed all his jokes and retold them as mine. He ruined my language by adding cuss words to my vocabulary which refuse to go even after 20 years. We may have had the odd argument but I can’t remember either of us sulking for too long. He was a little spoilt like all boys are when they have stayed too long at home, but he quickly learned how to (pretend to)wash a pair of jeans. He never quite learned how to make cucumber sandwiches when all of us had run out of money to pay for the mess food towards the end of our stay in Indore. And he could never wake up on time for breakfast. I have to take credit along with our flatmate KK for having kept him and the equally lazy Debu, well fed for the better part of our second year in Indore. Yes breakfast was served on the bed for these gentlemen! It wasn’t all about fun and games though. Maddy could give you the soundest advice when you asked for it. The counselling that Maddy and Debu gave me in a fly infested dhaba over sugary tea changed my life for the better. After Indore Maddy went to Baroda to work in Sun Pharma. I don’t think his heart was in it. He missed his family and his hometown and a combination of circumstances made him return to Delhi where his heart always was. He worked in a few companies and ended up in an IT company which was always his real passion. It was there that he met Sucharita and they teamed up in life as well as in work because Maddy was on his way to becoming an entrepreneur. He always wanted to be his own master and being an entrepreneur suited him just fine. All through these years, we would meet once or twice a year and he would excitedly tell me about his morning sessions of football, about his new found interest in the stock markets and of course about his family. Always gung-ho and generally pleased with life. Even when the business environment was tough during the financial crisis, he would never wallow in self pity. Solid, dependable Maddy.

We became even closer during his fight with cancer as I tried hard to keep his spirits up and to try and soak up some of his pain, his fears and his suffering. For me it was the desperation to hold on to him because I could not imagine a world without his infectious enthusiasm, his laughter and his zest for life. Life will go on and the pain will eventually subside. But there will always be that little void in my life and in the lives of all those he touched, which can never be filled.

Maddy, farewell my friend. You will be badly missed.

*****

P.S: Maddy was his nickname for Madhur.

One of his favorite songs.

Actually, mine too!

You are More Than an Inspiration, Brother.

I visited him yesterday. He is very weak, fragile and unconscious. His eyes are yellow because of Jaundice and are open since many days. He can't close them as the brain has almost stopped functioning. The doctors have discharged him from the hospital because they say that they have no idea how long he would be in this coma-like state and that there is nothing more they can do. No treatment, nothing!

The one thing which is good, is that he is no more in excruciating pain.

Earlier, I was told that I shouldn't see him in this condition as it would be too much to handle and this glum picture of his would be stuck in my memory forever. But they were wrong! It gave me so much satisfaction just to watch him there, lying in calmness and peace. Yes, he looked extremely delicate and frail but I did not fear even a bit. Why would I? He is my brother after all. So what, if at 40, his body is as weak as that of an old man's. It narrates a tale of his brave and valiant battle with the world's most dangerous form of cancer. It narrates a tale of his determination with which he tried his best to quell the bitch. Nobody could ever portray the kind of mettle spirit he did, during the past one year. 

He is a lot more than an inspiration! To me, to the family and to his friends.

All through the months, even in immense pain, he always cradled a positive outlook. Having learnt the art of meditation, he detached himself from trivial, flimsy and all other kind of worries of the world.

Day before yesterday, my mother told me that out of many, the last thing which he taught her was not to love his body but his soul, his teachings and his way of life. For he will always be there in the heart.

Death has nothing to do with going away.

The sun sets

The moon sets

But they are not gone.

~ Rumi

For both his daughters, he has left something so beautiful which I cannot put into fine words. He has written a diary filled with so many precious teachings for life. It is hard for me to express how moved I was when yesterday, I sat down in a room all alone, and read those pages. They gave me goosebumps! All I wanted to do was just read them over and over again and cry to them forever. I can only imagine how relieving those tears would be. Even now, while I'm making an attempt to tell you how soothing it was, I can't fight back this urge to read it once more. For that is the one thing which would be the most priceless asset: An exquisite father-daughter thing!

Here is a picture which I clicked sneakily.

We don't know how much time is left now. We don't know when we would get the impending news. Hope has faded into sheer nothingness. And yes! We all are preparing ourselves for the worst. Even his wife, the strongest of all, who always greets us with a big smile, has become the pillar of the family. She is a brave woman and doesn't stand a tinge of pity from anyone. Last evening, she told us how dearly my brother wished to have a little get-together with family and friends but his deteriorating condition disallowed him.

Sigh!

Anyway, as the day ended, I made a promise to myself to learn the art of meditation. I have already added it to my wish list and shall soon work towards fulfilling the same. As he, in the diary, wrote to his daughters that whenever life gets tough, just meditate and face it and it will be good again.

Love you beyond everything, brother!

On a lighter note, last evening, I received a lot of appreciation for my recently published poems. Of course, I, without a fail, kept flying higher and higher.

Wait, haven't I told you that I got published again? Yes!!! And this time it is an online magazine Tamarind Rice. Go search me and read my poems.

Live it Sweetheart. Don't Just Survive!

I have heard people say that one should live each day to the fullest. I have heard dialogues in inspirational movies guiding us to make every day count, for life is too short. And as a child, teenager and an adult too, I have always had this strong will not to have any regrets in life. That regrets wouldn't fall on our way if we do what our heart seeks and if we give every little opportunity a shot to comfort us and to immaculately craft new memories for us.

And as I write this post, all I have is sheer amazement in my heart. I am amazed how immensely my belief is now resting in the most unfathomable part of me.

There is a huge difference when you hear such heart-warming teachings of life from just another person and from someone who is facing death right in the face. The impact is deep! So much so that it makes you feel pretty small and all you can do is admire the person's strength and caliber while innocently trying to grab a look at life from his mettle eyes.

And he says that even if he has a year left, he can make every day count and live longer than those who die at 80 or 90. Because 'it's not the years in life, but life in those years that counts'. He says that one should not fall in love with one's body but with one's soul, the beauty that prevails forever. For his soul shall always be with his loved ones.

He is not afraid of life or death. He is not afraid of anything! For he has stepped onto a higher level where he is able to comprehend the absurdity in chasing the shadows of dented desires. The dented desires which we all keep on bringing out from our baggage, thinking that this is what we are supposed to do, uncovering the disturbed thoughts and cursing the life. I too get indulged in issues of everyday that I forget my own pledge. And this is what I have planned to change. Not that I am going to give up my studies and go on a world trip right away. But I will definitely work on things like me getting too much affected by stupid little matters.

I will smile more, laugh more and love more. All in all, I'll live more. And this is the final plan.

Because I too want to step onto that higher platform where my brother believes that trivial qualms cannot penetrate the walls of peace, where he has gathered contentment with the undying and unflinching support of his wife and where he smiles when he watches his little daughters sketch some amazingly gorgeous pictures, telling him how much they love their father who is but a hero.

So the next time if somebody asks me have you ever met a real life hero....

*smiles*

_______________

When Cancer Frowns, We Smile. Smile Big!

“Switch off the lights when you walk out of the room. We have to save money for Papa’s treatment.” His nine year old daughter told the three year old one.

___________

April 2012

It was a juggle among thousands of crawling seconds. Heavy! Every minute fraction was adding to the anxiety and apprehension. Prayers kept swaying. We knew nothing bad could happen. We were not hoping, we were confident. Things could go a little off the way. But not much. This is what each one of us kept telling to ourselves. With fingers crossed, all portions of love and faith concatenated to God.

However, the worst nightmare came true. It was Pancreatic Cancer.

You know there are times when you try to step into the shoes of someone else so as to experience what he might have experienced. And you just cannot. But when it happens, you’re so overwhelmed with grief and angst that all of the jumbled pieces of doubts sprinkled and scattered in your mind, align in a portrayal of a clear and distinct picture. Needless to say, that was one moment.

The world indeed crushed down to crumbles of sorrow and misery and encompassed us within the thorny walls of unpleasing reality. If it was tough for us, it was much beyond for the man, much beyond the sweep of our thoughts which are filled with trivial and insignificant qualms. It was but inconceivable. It took only a few seconds for life to come to a halt, to a sudden halt and jolt us all with a rough hand to confront the unfathomable truth.

In the initial days of the long journey, believing that the worst nightmare came true was the hardest thing. Let alone gathering strength to begin the battle. I remember watching him on the day the news broke. He had lost quite a lot of weight and looked fragile. My eyes were wet. I smiled and he smiled back. There wasn’t much to say. There wasn’t anything to say.

More than four months have passed since that fateful day. Cancer is now a settled part. We have acquiesced to its presence. But the fight hasn't stopped becuase the man knows that he has to kick cancer’s ass. To say that he is positive or has a strong will, would definitely be an understatement. He has a zest for life. He always had, even before this whole thing came to light. He is one of the few persons in my life who ‘actually’ believes in relishing the present and not getting caught in the web of inane expectations. He is passionate. I see him battling the disease with commendable positive attitude filled with wondrous moments of laughter and glee and tied on a sturdy hook of an amalgamation, of unflinching faith and love.

And somewhere down the line we all are quite affirmative that things are going to be back on track. That this is just a bump on our way to a higher journey. That it wants us to hunt down the real meaning of life which usually lurks somewhere behind the loose notes of a facade. That when it is all over, he will rise up with much stronger wings, teaching us with his grandiosity, to add meaning to our lives.

Because no matter how hard this journey seems now, in the end it will be worth the fight.

(Proudly stolen from his Facebook wall.)

******

P.S: 1. I am glad to have gathered strength to vent out the brimming respect which I have for this man, my cousin, my brother.

2. No pity please.

3. I missed Mirage's second birthday. Uhh..what a doofus I am. Ahem! C'mon people, wish it now.

4. And smile for heavens sake. :-)