Happy Birthday Bandhu...

Dear Bandhu,

I should have written this letter to you many years back but better late than never. Well as fate would have it – it was in our stars to cross each other’s path and I definitely didn’t know back then, how our lives would change.

In 6 months from now, our journey together would turn 12 years old and that’s simply remarkable. We have seen many crests and troughs that life threw at us but we faced each of these together and emerged stronger. 

By now you already know about the curve ball that life threw at us when the fate planned our friendship. Of all the coincidences that I could think of, this one never ever crossed my mind and thus I was bowled over unexpectedly. Well to be precise, not in the happiest of ways. ​

Post us becoming friends, when I got to know that your birthday coincided with the day my father had passed away, it felt as if someone had pulled the growth beneath my feet. Honestly, I was stunned. This was way back in 2006 and my loss was way too fresh and raw in my mind.

I ended up treating you unfairly for several years after this revelation. While you waited for your best buddy to greet you on your birthday, the so called buddy (that’s me – guilty as charged) kept running away from this. She didn’t have the balls to do so back then. I would just say sorry and go quiet. 

But you my friend, never felt bad and always comforted me that it was alright. What touched me the most was when you said – “Sam it doesn’t matter whether you wish me happy birthday or not. As long as you are my friend, every day is a celebration.”

Bandhu! I must have done something right in my previous Karma that I got you as my friend. Over the years, as I learnt to accept my loss, I also learnt to accept that it was unfair to be absent on your most special day. And then I changed that streak few years back. While I cannot really make up for the lost birthdays but now, I try and ensure that I make your birthday as special as I can.

So here’s a special birthday wish for you – 

My dearest Bandhu!! You are a gem of a person and it would not have been possible for me to sail through, had you not been there in my life. Just like yester years, I hope and pray that we would continue to stand by each other, come what may. I will keep troubling you with all my madness and moodiness and you have no other option but to deal with it (wink wink). I will continuously harass you, should you become negligent about your health and work life balance. PS – you know what pain in the a** I can be on this front.

And last but not the least – may this birthday open the gates to a healthier, happier and a prosperous world for you. May you shine like the brightest star from the midnight sky and if ever you need any help – sabse peechey hum khadey.

I don’t know for how long would we be together in this journey of life, but with each passing day, this journey is becoming memorable, fulfilling and a tad more nostalgic than it was yesterday.

Happy birthday Bandhu!!

In You...Is Me...

Every year as the month of January moves towards the 27th, my mind tends to race back to what transpired 15 years back. Actually, no day passes by when the thought doesn’t cross my mind but the D-Day is the craziest of all.

In the wee hours of the day, I sat quietly on the sofa in front of the television - sound muted, just staring at it and my mind was elsewhere. I kept thinking around where in the land of souls would he be now? Heaven? Hell? Is there any other world? But I couldn’t find the right answer. How was he? I didn’t had an answer to that either.

I silently sent my thoughts to him – “I understand that you are no more but then you came to meet me right before my exams so as to pacify me but why have you never come to meet me after that? Couldn’t you do it just once? I have waited to 15 years for something like this to happen again. What else would it take to have you come back to meet me?”

The television screen kept reflecting on my face but my eyes were closed and God knows where my mind was. I kept thinking again and again about the words I sent out to him but I wasn’t getting any answer.

I might have probable dozed off in front of the television only, just like most nights, and then suddenly my eyes flew open. Don’t get too excited folks because he didn’t actually come back but it was as if he sent back his word.

My mind was suddenly filled with an answer that maybe he wanted me to have. And here is what he probable said – 

“My darling daughter!! I am not far away from you. In fact, I am always around you. It is just that you are too busy to notice me.”

How so? I asked.

He continued – 

“You see, I am in you because you came from me. The stubbornness that you exude with pride is something you got from me. Your perseverance to never back down till the end, once again comes from the time I braced all odds to achieve a winner. You are mostly serious but you know how to have fun once in a while – how could you forget this since you used to tell me the exact same thing. While it doesn’t happen so often but my dear, you do have a temper like me. 

You have the perfection bug and would you like to guess, where do you get it from? You think many times before taking a risk, not because you fear failure but because you want to calculate it before you plunge into it? Does that sound familiar? I heard your mother saying the other day – oh her writing is just like her fathers’. I can tell you that I was beaming from ear to ear. While you still have a long way to go professionally but you have covered a lot of ground and had I been around, I would have probably be known by your name and not vice versa.

Our food preferences match, our penchant for timelines match. Oh and we both exhibit similar seriousness towards having a secure future for ourselves and our families as well. There is so much more to say and I could go on and on but what I am trying to tell you dear daughter is that – I am here only. I reside in you, as you. In you is me but you have been so busy searching for me around that you never did notice.

So pause for a minute, take a deep breath and think – through which trait of yours would you feel me around you today or on any given day. And once you have your answer, there is no way that you will feel alone. ”

When this thought concluded, it felt as if a grey cloud had cleared from my mind and I had found the answer to my dilemma.

Though 15 years have passed but I still count each year as if it was yesterday and probably I would never stop. But at least, I am at peace since I now know that you are just around.

Stay blessed dada!! You are always on my mind! May you rest in peace…