The echoes of the wedding are still running through my head, the laughter, the long line, the smiles, posing for the camera. Wow she is really getting married! The ride back home through the quiet streets..All I can think of is what lies so close within grasp and yet tantalizingly out of reach. Oh the longing. It’s all I can take.

The car stops and we enter the now familiar gates. Everyone troops out exhausted, each lost in their own thoughts. And then I see the blades of the wet grass. They think I am a fool. But I don’t care. I take off the tick-tocks and walk on the wet grass. Hmmm. And absurdly marvelously for those 60 seconds I am happy. I am free.

It’s hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much,”



I see her on the hospital bed and the most vivid memory is the frock. It’s pink and white checks. It makes her look tiny. Vulnerable. She is. I relive the frantic ride there. The cops stopping us for jumping the red light. The explanations. The doctors face paling. Pulling the skin of the stomach up. I shudder. And then I see her grip the IV tube and her eyes open, her lips move.. she is asking for something. Water. “Jawl dao”. She keeps looking at the IV tube longingly and repeats those words.

My heart swells up with love. From this moment on there is no looking back. Joy asserts herself in the strangest of ways methinks. Let her



Wine
Rum
Whiskey
Vodka
The bottles get passed around. The world keeps turning. I’m spinning how quick the sun can drop away. Late morning laze. Conversation flows with each round the bottle takes. Nothing can drown the pain.

“Sometimes everybody hurts. Sometimes everybody cries. Nothing lasts forever.”

Late afternoon haze. And then your face is cupped between two hands and your world is complete. The shoulder is your world. The moment stretches. You want it to be forever. But nothing lasts forever. But some memories last long enough. Like you can never forget the message and the setting sun casting a glow on the empty bottle of water. It glints like a diamond. You smiled. You captured that love, that smile forever.



Moshai is dead. Silence. Shock. No. What??!!
Outside TC on a Wednesday night the phone lies still in my hands. The mind clears a little. I turn to look at everyone else. I don’t really see anything. I need to go home. Home to moshai’s, the trip is covered in silence. It is louder than screams. I meet Titu and hug her cause I don’t know the words that will heal or soothe. Like at many important moments words fail me. Maybe because the are so trivial..

My first visit to the crematorium. The body is carried in..pundits abound trying to claim the body for theirs. I am disgusted. Why should I be? Death is just another business of life isn’t it? The body is cleansed with holy water from the Ganges and then starts the process of piling wood just so..you see it will burn faster. Everyone scatters “khoi”. It should be everywhere the pundit says. You see it will burn evenly. And then we wait. We watch the person turn to smoke. The ashes float up in the late afternoon breeze. Some cling to my clothes so I brush them off.

"Ring around the Rosie,
Pocketful of posies.
Ashes to ashes.
We all fall down."

And then I see my cousins huddled together with the younger ones boyfriend who has brought her here from Bombay. They talk of some old memory and smile a sad smile. I think back to when I was alone in the room with Moshai’s body. The sitar that he loved playing so much laid out on the bed. I am reminded of childhood trips to their house when I would fool around with the sitar and he would scold me. I get the strange feeling that if I were to do that again he will get up and scold me once more. I smile a sad smile….

"..Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?"



Saturday morning. The alarm goes off at 7:30. Sevenfreakingthrity!!! This is sacrilege. My eyes refuse to obey the command from the brain. Sevenfreakingfortyfive now! There is a refresher TTT to be conducted. Part of me just wants to call up and cancel it. V can’t believe that I could even think like that. Oh god the burden of expectations. Sulk sulk sulk. “Cancel cancel cancel” says Mephistopheles! “No you have to go” says the little voice of my good angel.

Somehow I get myself to a rickshaw and I am traveling across a strangely peaceful suburban landscape. Early Delhi winter, the cold wind stings my face, whips my hair off my face. I breathe it in. The cold brings me to life. Everything is heart-stoppingly beautiful for the ride. I float. I fly.Don’t want the ride to end. Delicious! Suddenly it’s good to be alive. My I pod plays ‘The scientist’.

"Come up to meet you, tell you I’m sorry,
You don’t know how lovely you are
I had to find you tell you I need you
Tell you that I set you apart
Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions
Oh let’s go back to the start…"



And ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2007.Yet another Wednesday night presents itself. TC. All the usual suspects are in. 3 tables, from one to the next. Revolving rotating. The jingle jangle of the music. Conversation consternation. Someone at another table falls off the chair. And then I am told something that makes me ridiculously happy. I want to believe.
Outside TC. The heavens have opened. The short walk to the cars seems un-traversable. The fallen one lies listlessly leaning against the door.

Then the piper played the pipe and we danced to his tune. We all join the Dragon. We just stand chatting in the rain.And heal. And so it flows. This life...

"...and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life..."