Nostalgia

This has never happened before, I have never believed in afterlife or superstitious signs, always considered myself to be cool. I never wanted to believe in ” God” , would grab every chance to declare myself as an atheist, and tell anyone who would ask me that I believe in karma and fate, and well, Murphy’s Law because that’s just the unspoken rule in my life to let everything go haywire.But today, something bizarre happened, my dead grandfather threw me a flower.

I am unemployed at the moment, and minutes and hours of anxiety and the devil of suicidal thoughts have been my visitors. I debate with myself in the shower every day and console the same self before sleep every night. So , today I wanted to speak to somebody and throw my angst on them, somebody who wouldn’t give me unsolicited advice or bare mutterings of empathy. I have a bizarre habit of talking to the walls, as they do hear everything and judge you for nothing. I looked all around for normal human beings and looked at the portrait of my grandfather on the wall, the purest person I had the pleasure of knowing , the strongest father I knew and a man with a literal heart of gold. He never sent me to the shops without an extra 10 rupees , pampering us always.

I grew up in the village with my grandparents, they loved me so much more than I realise now. My grandfather was a respected priest throughout our village and a palmist ( they are two different professions ) .He would wake up early in the morning , make dung cakes and throw them on the veranda ,perform a number of poojas at home as well as the temple, bring back rasaina ( a sweet dish made of banana, honey, jaggery and mint leaves), and then he would take a pile of notes with weird designs and chakras that only he would understand, and sit in next door. He had a number of visitors every day and the faith that people had in him, to come from far off villages, truly amazed me. I do remember an incident when i had stretched my tiny little hand and asked him to read it. He looked at me with dire concentration in his eyes and a wry smile on his lips and said ” Well, I see that you’re gonna get a bashing from your ajji now for not finishing your food” ; i would capture that moment for eons to come. The childhood I spent in the village is registered in my brain as the time i’d spent elsewhere in my previous life, it was too precious to be present along the life i have now. Somewhere , i would like to believe that i was his favourite grandchild amongst the other four, because I had experienced thrill in those scooter rides, bliss in the rituals he performed, most importantly maternal love in the food he fed me and the glass of sweet milk i drank before sleep.

I realised I had tears streaming down my eyes while talking to the portrait, he had never come in my dreams or advised me ever, he had let me be, free. At that moment, i wondered is it even worth it, the rejection I face , the thoughts I cloud, the screams I smother, is it worth living like this ? I looked at him, and the lily flower which we keep everyday , fell . splat on my face. I still do not believe in after life or superstition or the” God” looking out for you. it could be the fierce wind from the balcony, for all my logic. But , this is something i wanted to believe, that the fate had conspired with the natural elements of the earth to push the lily on to my face, which is pretty stupid. This scene is exactly like the movies, only they’re not creeped out after the director calls out CUT!

Thereby, I conclude my monologue by declaring that I am still a wannabe atheist, who believes in karma and fate, and believes that her grandfather believed in her enough to send her off to the city , to see her study hard and to see her achieve heights, maybe this is a phase i would grow out of , and I could be conquering the world tomorrow. There is a world out there for all of us, we all have to wait for our flowers to bloom.