August 15th 2008. We went to India festival in the Boston Downtown. Was with few family members and friends.After the ceremony, the entire crowd started walking towards the exit. In that crowd,
I still cannot forget seeing a couple. A pregnant woman in white salwar and tangled her fingers with her husband, while she walks limping. I didn’t even see their face. I don’t know who they are, They don’t even know that I saw them. I just saw them from behind. in the dusk of evening two years back. its still so clear on my mind. When I think of marriage, husband wife, Its this picture of these couple that comes to my mind. Its so strange as to how people, certain incidents and certain gestures leave their ever lasting impression on us compelling us to remember them in that particular fashion.
It was so funny as to how I left some of my funny impressions on others. I went back to India after 5 years and I had hardly talked to some of my cousins.
They remembered very funny things about me, which I myself had forgotten.
One of them said, ‘ Hey remember? while you came on your two wheeler, an old man saw you coming from far away and he went inside the house and once you passed his house, he came out, Do you still drive like that?
Another one said, reminding me of my repulsion towards sweet dishes, ‘ Do you still eat only one grain of sweet dish’? Only then I remembered, yeah I used to make fuss on eating sweet dishes and when ever my mom forced me to have it saying its an offer ( making an emotional and existential blackmail) I ate only one grain.
And another one reminded me, How I wore ” nau wari saree, when Swamiji came in to hour house for pooja,
I was surprised, as to how they remembered me .
While I explained, these incidents some of my colleagues and friends, here is what they came up with.
MY colleague wanted to be a movie director when he was young, so he left a job and went in search of a direction job, where he struggled. while he met a lady, who he found to be dynamic, smart and a go getter. A decade later he found her on a TV talk show to realize his thinking to be absolutely true as he found out that she became completely paralyzed and yet she managed to become a noticeable personality to set an example as to how to fight with odds in life.
When ever there is something unusual, good, bad, evil, funny, weird, dull, brave, strange and soo on, it has never gone unnoticed.
At this moment, I surely would wan to say something that I noticed, about a friend from college whom I got in touch with after almost a decade,
who has been unbelievably supportive and gentle to me. I am glad to have a friend who trusted me unconditionally and never looked down on me in my most difficult times.
