FreeSpirit

“This is how marriages in your house will be going forward. There will be only inter caste marriages”, said the great astrologer that my family believes in.

Now, I can start off this story as “once upon a time”, or give the characters a fictional name and…

Happiness comes in many shapes and sizes. For some it’s a new job, a new dress, a big house… http://wp.me/s3yElZ-86

The wife said, “This side looks bigger than the other.” Off went a little hair from the right. The wife said again, “Now the other one looks smaller.” Off went a little from the left side as well. He trimmed and trimmed to look like Hitler in the end.…

  As she stares out of the window, she watches people passing by

Someone on a cycle, some kid with a tyre in hand, and some lady holding her child to her bosom feeding him milk and rice

As she watches each one, a little piece of her troubled thought is…

Even as a kid I was always responsible, caring and god-fearing. Obviously, the last factor got knocked out as I grew up and experienced the hard realities of life. But the other two factors have been a part of me until now.

As every other working youth, I…

With every baby step that you, you learn there are hundreds more steps to take

With every morsel of food that you eat, you learn that there are hundreds of different tastes yet to be savored

For every rejection you take, you learn that's one mistake made less ahead

With every moment of love you experience, you yearn for those perfect moments again

For every failure you face, you learn that you are one step closer to success

For every disappointment you face, you learn to take in in your stride in the road ahead

For every goodbye you say, you learn to keep faith of seeing each other again

For every person you lose, you learn to cherish their love in your heart forever

Well....it's not long long ago that I had a troublesome wisdom tooth (filled with wisdom I hoped). So the day had finally arrived when I had to say bye bye to the recurring pain it had caused over the years (4, I say)...the day I decided that it should be pulled out. The dentist who I visited was a very sweet lady who made tooth extraction seem like child's play and all that oozing sweetness and love with which she spoke, made me think and I decided that it was time I let go.

She had started me on the antibiotics the previous day and promised me that the oral surgeon would make it as painless as possible. I was confident it wouldn't even sting. The next day I was mentally preparing myself that all will be well. I waited impatiently as the clock struck 5. I was supposed to be in 'that' chair by 5.30 but the surgeon hadn't turned up yet. I flipped through magazines, my heart pounding in my ears till the clock struck 6. Before I could ask the whereabouts of my doctor, I saw the shadow of a thin man standing outside taking off his shoes. I thought to myself...so this is him, should I just walk out or get this over with?

After waiting for another 10 mins he called me in. I was made to sit on that reclining chair (singhasan!!!) and out came his gloves, mask and instruments. One examine of both sides of my mouth and he said all four had to go. All 4? What is that supposed to mean? I came to take out one. So then he explained, he would be taking out the lower wisdom tooth and upper molar in this session, and once I was fine and got talking again, the other two on the right side had to go because they were troublesome too and didn't serve any purpose. If they didn't serve any purpose what the hell were they doing there in the first place?

The dentist decided to work his wonders on the upper tooth first, so out came one instrument and one pull and push later he finally exclaimed victoriously "It's out". That moment was no less than a depiction of a victory in war- The soldier standing with one leg on the victim's chest gloriously standing and shouting his win with his sword high in the air, and the victim bloody mouthed screaming in pain.

Coming back to my tooth extraction, I could feel blood gushing in my mouth but I didn't feel the pain thanks to all the anesthesia the good doc gave me. He then decided to work on the lower tooth- the actual criminal!

Instruments came out of his cover and out they went but my 'strong tooth' as he called it, didn't seem to bother moving an inch or coming out. After a lot of irrigation (I thought that applied to plants!) and cutting, he finally decided to drill. Out came a long drilling machine and once inside my mouth, all I could hear(or imagine) was a car race....zooming across turns and speeding ahead. So after an hour of drilling and cutting and spitting, the tooth finally decided to come out in pieces. By the way, did I tell you how amused he was when he noticed that my tooth had four roots whereas normally people have just two! (So that makes me abnormal or a genius?)

As children we never think about the future or even remotely think that nothing stays for ever. As children we believe in the happily ever after...in the fact that there is no end to time...

Its only when we grow up that we are conditioned to build a future, save for a future that none of us have seen or know about. It's only when a loved one ceases to exist that the harsh reality hits us. The reality that nothing stays forever, people don't live forever, time doesn't stop for anyone.

Even then we take a lot of things for granted...a lot of people in our lives for granted.

I remember my mother rushing to cook breakfast for us, get us ready for school every morning, not a minute stopping to even catch her breath. I have always seen and known her as the "Iron Lady" of the house, incapable of falling ill or feeling tired. Never do I remember see her break down and cry nor have I seen her falling ill. Maybe she has and maybe I never noticed.

Today when I look at her, she has strands of grey hair speaking loud of her experience, her eyes wrinkled and tired, worry lines over her forehead and face....but she still retains the same energy and her routine  hasn't changed much either. She still gets up early, rushes through mornings to get everyone ready. Only this time, its my daughter that she is rushing after.... getting her ready for school and sometimes getting everything ready for me as well.

For me, my mother hasn't aged, she is still the same person I remember from my childhood, but deep down I know that someday she might not be there, she might not be rushing through mornings to prepare breakfast or running to get everybody ready for school or work, she might not be there for me in crisis, times when I need to cry on her lap...

There are bigger things to face in life”, they said. ” He’s gone to a happier place…he must be at peace now…he will be much happier now’ - this is what most of them said. But how do they know?

Tuffy- the most beautiful and wonderful dog I had ever seen, my first dog…died on Friday night. He had not been keeping well since two months now and had stopped eating. But a death so soon was just not what I had expected or maybe something I was not ready for.

It was the day to take him for his doc visit, so when I came back home on Friday evening, I noticed that he was struggling to get up. I ran and picked him up and placed him near his food. He was so weak that he fell. I sadly picked him up again and tried to give him his food that the doctor has prescribed. But he refused to open his mouth. I then asked him if he wanted to eat the bread crumbs I had left for him in the morning. He immediately ate 2-3 small pieces of bread. I was glad that he at least ate something and got up to take him to the doc. But then suddenly he rushed to the loo to puke out the little that he eaten. He struggled to get the food out and so I tapped him on his back to help him get the food out. He managed to spit out all the food he ate, but I noticed that something foam like white liquid had come out too. I wiped his mouth and allowed him to sit on the bathroom floor for few seconds. He was very uncomfortable, I could see that he was in pain. He let out a small howl and I immediately picked him up and wiped his face again, tapped his back for few seconds. He seemed ok and so I placed him in the hall and went back to the bathroom to clean the floor. When I came back to the hall is pupils were dilated and he was lying on the floor with his tongue out. I screamed and called out his name. He breathed heavily once and then he was gone. I jumped around like a mad person trying to revive him, calling out his name, trying to give him some water….but in vain…he was no more. 

My dog of 14 years had left me….I cried and wailed like a baby, I couldn’t believe he was no more. I thought and hoped he would wake up again…but he didn’t. 

I cried my heart out to my parents, in muffled words I told them Tuffy had died. 

I was a mess and my frenzied state my husband said that we had to bury him. But what if he woke up? But after much consoling and persuasion we decided to let him go, to give him a decent burial. I covered him in one of my duppatas and held him on my lap all the way teary and sad. We took him to a place my husband had found out. It is such an irony…when he was a puppy, I had held him on my lap and got him home and when he died, I held him on my lap once again and took him to the burial ground. After a painful goodbye to my beloved dog, I came back home. Everyone on phone tried to convince me that he was happy now, that he had gone to a better place, that he had lived a king’s life and would continue to do so.