Saturday, November 3

Everything Together..!!


I was searching him. Just two minutes back only he was here.


It was very vivid that he cant bear the weight of grief that had grown up disproportionately since yesterday morning. I saw his mother crying out loudly taking his brothers name and calling him back. I saw his sisters sobbing in a corner. I saw his paternal aunties breaking down once the body was brought back from the hospital. I saw almost everyone shedding out tears for his brother. But he didn’t sprinkle even one drop of tear.
Yeah, his eyes had become watery. His eyes were so red as if it was a hot charcoal. What an irony! A red hot charcoal covered with a pool of tears. His whole face was swelled but he didn’t drop a tear. I could sense his feelings when I sat besides him near his brother’s corpse. I could see him staring at his brothers body lying there covered with garlands kept as a gesture of condolences, but he never cried. I could feel the presence of a dam of emotions and grief ready to explode due to the excess load its carrying.

There were his aunties, sisters, uncles, friends, brothers, neighbours lamenting and mourning. The whole atmosphere was filled with sounds of suffocating whispers and smell of tears that everyone had shed. Nothing affected him. Neither he looked at anyone nor did he utter anything. He completed all the last rights for his brother. He did everything so religiously so that his brother’s soul gets peace and a nice departure from this world.



All these came back to my thoughts. The whole day came back and flashbacked in my brain. I was still searching for him. I don’t know whether I was worried. I knew where he could be at this point of time. I send my cousin to find him over there. Two minutes passed. Five more minutes passed. He didn’t turn up. I panicked. Without informing anyone I went myself in search for them to that place. That place, where my both brothers used to have a puff of cigarette together, after the dinner. That place, where they used to talk about their friends, girls, used to argue about silly things, laugh on one-liner jokes and funny incidents. I strode towards that room with thousands of thoughts and worries over ruling my inner conscience.


The moment I neared that room I found my cousin sitting, giving a support to his chin with his hands. For a second my breath stopped. Then, gasping, I asked him what happened. He looked into my eyes. I could see nothing but sadness in his eyes. Through gestures he asked me not to utter a single word and showed me the way to the room. The same room where I expected my brother would be present.


I peeped into the room slowly. There he was lying down his eyes closed, but in a position staring at something. I advanced more and found the most emotional scene I had ever seen ever in my life. He was holding a photo frame in which they both were sitting and smiling. And another one of their school times was kept close to his heart and covered with his hand. I lost all the strength. Oh God, what an examination? I could feel my body melting. I know how much I try I cant replace the loss that’s happened to him.




He lost his twin brother with whom he shared a womb for nine months, quarrelled and cried for the breast milk his mother would share, with whom he came to this world for the first time, with whom he had done all those home works while studying , with whom he had played cricket, with whom he had mischievously stolen the sweets his mother had kept safe, with whom he had shared his first crush, with whom he had competed for marks in progress reports, with whom he had fought for the television programme he wanted to watch, with whom he tried the taste of cigarette and coughed the hell out of his heart, with whom he had the experience of having chilled beer for the first time, with whom he had shared his career agonies, with whom he had confided many and many things.


The truth was stinking. The fact was bruising me like a ferocious predator pawing on his prey. I was bleeding internally. After a moment, silently came out the room.


Later when we were on bed, I stared at him. I felt he wanted to share a lot with someone. And I was lying down there helplessly.


I just hugged him, hugged him very tightly. He was deep asleep. I closed my eyes. And my hands were tight on him.