Growing up

Growing up was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be the escape from all the miseries in life- school, studies, teachers, homework, rules. ...It was to be the end of the pain of the misery of teenage years of heartbreak.

Growing up was supposed to liberate me. It was supposed to give me wings. It was supposed to bring happiness in wake and achievements and conquests of all kinds.

While growing up I hardly knew that this was a non-stop process. That there are certain things about which you do all the growing up in a night and there are others which keep hassling you over long days and endless nights.

While growing up I had not even realised that it will bring along its own pains. Its own horror shows like none other. Irreparable damages. Bitter words with lasting impacts.Massive losses.

Yes. Massive losses. Losses that leave you shaken. Losses of a different nature. Losses that don't make sense and losses that shatter the sense this world made (if ever that is).

Losing dear ones is what I am talking about. Its not even a year since we lost Shaurya. This was the most unnatural thing to happen to me.

It is the law of the nature that elders leave first. How could a young one, make that the youngest of all, leave first? It was not his turn. Since this happened a dialogue from the film 'Bhumika' keeps running in my head. Nasseruddin Shah tells Smita Patil, "Hum keedon ki tarah hi zammen pe paida hote hain aur mar jaate hain. Un main aur hum main koi farak nahi hai" She asks him,"Phir to kisi cheez ka koi matlab hi nahi reh jata". To which he replies, "Tabhi to maayne daalne padte hain".

This conversation till the second line is where I had come to stand still after Shaurya's passing away. The third line....I was still looking for an answer when I got the news about TP uncle's demise.Was it his time or turn? Can such things ever be answered, resolved? Him... whom I had spoken to just 20 odd days back?? He...who had gone off to bed after watching a late night movie. The man with the music and photos and classics in that brown cupboard. The most generous man ever......A man to whom I feel indebted, my very core, my talent, who showed me the way when I was so lost, who held my hand during one of the most depressing phases, who told me not to give up, who became the reason along with Nalini Bua for me to stay on in Chandigarh.

TP uncle I can hear you now. See your face now. How quietly you have come up from behind and surprised me! Shaur I keep thinking of you at night. Why did this happen? How could it have not happened? I know there are no answers. Neither is there any way or means that I learnt while growing up to deal with this....Maybe this is one sphere where I am still learning to grow up. Most probably this is where I will never ever fully grow up.




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Arushi said…
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