One month and 19 days. I had gone missing that long. Purposely kept away from looking at the blogspot. Mine or any one else’s lest I will start feeling miserable. Cannot call it a phase – can I ? Then this phase had been quite a prolonging one. Not to my liking either.
This time Diwali was a full day affair with family. Each time it is a new home that I go to. One thing that does not change, and I do not wish to seen changed is the face of my anxious and excited mother, in the verandah, anticipating my visit. This is the thought I nourish from the time I board the plane. The night before I go to sleep with that thought... I never want to miss this -My first glimpse of her and my father. Each time I see more wrinkles on her face, which I hate to see. The very next thought takes me back to my childhood, when one day I visited a grand old uncle, whose ageing hand held mine with affection. His sagging skin, I remember, was the softest thing I had ever felt. That was my first touch with ageing… the fragile state of being old. Immediately I turned to my mother, and looked at her skin – and in my innocent mind visualized amma’s skin as soft and wrinkled some day… As much as it hurt me, I hated the thought…
I still hate that thought.
Each time I see her now in the verandah, holding the pillar, waiting for me… I shift between that child and the woman I have become. My world changed. Our worlds changed. We travelled the same journey with different views and perspectives. Sometimes no words were spoken. I just need to lie next to her for a few minutes, thinking that her ageing body once housed me for nine months and liberated me; gave me the wonderful opportunity to breathe on my own… and now, live on my own too…
Transition. Of faces. Memories. Reality. Yes, changing realities brush past me each time I transit. It takes a while to shift back into what seems to be Current. Present. Now.
