A Piece Of Cake

“Chocolate flavor will do?” I asked.

No response.

“Okay, Vanilla is it this time? I asked again.

He walked away giving a nod, well seemed like it. 

This was at the neighborhood grocery stores a week ago. Three days later I baked this cake for him, it took me a good two hours. I generously decorated it with tutti frutti, jellies and grated chocolate after the icing, all the time thinking of him. He loves cakes, that apart there is a certain sweetness about him. I had to remember to keep that proportion. I wanted it to be more than edible. While I placed this one in the refrigerator and let it set, I sent him a picture of it with all the excitement in this world.

No reply.

He came home at night, after dinner opened the refrigerator and had a share of it without much noise. He must have got the picture so I thought. I looked at him eat and couldn’t stop myself from curiously asking him “How is it?” He slowly turned and looked at me, like a lion disturbed during his meal after the kill. It wasn’t anger, it wasn’t annoyance. It was more like a grand statement. “If I am eating it means it is okay, do you get it? “ he said, and that was his longest line for me for the day.

“OKAY you mean? Well okay!” I said startled.

Thankfully it was decent enough for a home- made stuff, and that too just my second one. The next day when he was back home he opened the refrigerator again “Is it over?” he asked looking at the almost empty bowl. Nobody replied because the rest of folks at home were over and done with it. “Che!” he frowned and sat down. I smiled. He smiled too.

You know there are always a certain category of people in your life with whom no matter how hard either of you try there cannot be or rather there is no need of long conversations to put across a point. You ask something more, be sure to get a punch on your face. There is no demanding, no complaining, no inquiring, no pestering, no praising with intentions and no fishing for compliments. It is not in their element. Yet you feel blessed when they are around, just like how I feel with this younger brother of mine. No matter what I do, no matter what I want, no matter what I feel and no matter what I make he does not judge. And when he is forced to, he makes sure I either feel very awesome or very awful about it depending on the circumstance. Straight without doubt. More than everything else, no matter what I cook or bake, I am happy that there is one person who will surely eat.

Dealing with such a brother, it's a piece of cake!

-R.

Windows

 This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda :-)

It is six in the morning and I look at this window, the amount of light that it carefully and slowly filled the house with, ah such a fine feeling. A perfect balance it brought every day. Moments ago I had fallen off the bed with a thud, you know the sort of dreams people would not want to wake up with, it was one of those. Somewhere on some cliff I was bungee jumping and suddenly the rope snapped and I was on the ground but on a different one, the floor of my room here and thankfully alive.

What an amazing start to the day it had been! Long ago I remember Ajji telling during one of her story telling sessions about dreams that come in the wee hours of morning, how they eventually turn true. Now not that this trivia frightens me but it has chosen to stay in one corner of my mind.

It is not unusual of me at the breakfast table to be nowhere but in my own world, and one of my family members pokes my bubble with a question. So today it was my brother “What are you worried about?” he asked. I gave him one of those 'I-am-your-sister-I-know-you-care’ looks and smiled, for the person he is my reply being insufficient and inappropriate, ”Will you tell me what it is?” he screamed. It was hard, to think of the dosa on my plate as the last one for this life, how I hated them when every alternate day Amma made them. And now when I am about to leave even these minor aversions seem difficult to part. How would I go, where would I go and what would happen to the people around me after the fall ? I wondered.

”Will you tell me what it is?” he screamed again, trying to avoid his curious stare “What if today was the last day of my life?” I mumbled. “In that case Akka, do one thing, eat all these dosas before you go and save the ice cream in the fridge for me” he said.

I could not help but laugh because there it was, an another window, to my thoughts. Even if it was my last day, I knew there was nothing more to do apart from keeping away from the ice cream in the fridge, already enough challenge. Life is simple, twenty four is all that you have, first or the last.

“Some people and moments are like windows, always open and showing us the best scene of our lives...unlike the many doors that we knock and knock despite knowing that they are always closed.”


-R.

The Okay People

Always count your blessings, and when you count them do not forget to count your family. I have realized this in the twenty five years I have spent in this world in all the growing up with three simply complicated people I know of, personalities just poles apart and yet there is one common denominator that binds the four of us.  Love and understanding are some underrated terms if I use them here. Until today I have not understood what makes us bear and care for each other so much, because disasters like quakes and tsunamis are a common scene in the house. It kind of keeps us going. And right now being away from home I miss them and more pretty much. Funny but true!

This may sound philosophical,a fact nevertheless, a family grows like a tree with branches facing different directions, and yet they stay together sharing the same water and light. No matter where we are. No matter what we do. No matter what is happening in our life. No matter if we are sad or happy.  If there is one thing which keeps us rooted to life it is our family. And if we were asked to pick just one person amongst them or just one moment that we spent with them, I guess that shall not be enough justice.

I realized this when I found this photo frame in the attic while cleaning the house few days ago. It is calmly but oddly sitting on my bookshelf right now. And not very surprisingly I still am figuring out which photograph to put in, the problem is not the lack but the choice.  A family gives us enough moments. Some in photographs, some in gifts, some in talks, some in fights and some by just being there.

I shall tell you my first and the best. I was equally hesitant and curious when the brother was born. I had rocked his cradle for almost the whole day with all the lullabies the mother used to sing to me, so my folks tell. I was three years old then. Our story began on that day, and has continued. The mother always told me that he is my ‘only’ brother and with him I shall share “Is it okay?” and this she wouldn’t mind saying even now. The father like most fathers has always been the kind who would get toffees and chocolates without any tummy or toothache issues. He would hand it over in my hand and say” Is it okay?” and he wouldn't mind doing this even now. I have always been the sister who has shared her stuff with the brother, even the birthday chocolates and Christmas goodies given in school were opened only at home.  Back then I used to give half of anything that I owned to him and say “Is it okay?” and I wouldn’t mind doing this even now. We have made this ‘Half-Half’ pact for life. I told you, we are weird people.

The brother is not any far behind, with all the news about the quake and tsunami hitting the coasts today, guess what he did. For unknown reasons he is not one of those phone people, but today he called me soon after the news was on air only to ask “Is it okay?” just because I live in one of the coastal cities, and more  because he cares. It made me smile, now tell me how do I capture this moment? I cannot click a picture of it, neither can I explain it. But the feeling was priceless. I have had many such moments, I am sure you would have to :-)

The best moments of life with your family, well according to me are not in any photographs, are not in any gifts, and are not in any hours that you spend together. They are in what you have in your heart and what you feel for each other. They are when your dear ones are somewhere around and make you believe now and then that  "It is really okay”.

"If you don't have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don't have much at all."

-Professor Morrie in Mitch Albom's 'tuesdays with Morrie'-

PS: This post is for my Okay People. I love you. You make me and my life.

-R.

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

On And Off

 A no extraordinary sibling relationship I share with an only one of mine.I see him these days grinning his teeth or popping his eyeballs through those thick glasses while studying in his typical left lateral recumbent position.He is often seen flaunting his biceps in MY room in front of MY mirror and frightening ME with those silent killer looks.Ah those curly locks!Ah that dimpled cheek!

Uff teri ada;)

I know he loves me a lot,but pretends that he does not.I might not have acknowledged or given him the attention that he deserves more than often but he knows of the amusing concerns I have for him,from the shirt that he wears to the hair style that he dares there are extraordinary suggestions always in store.An extortionist he can be at times as he claims to know my secrets these days and I wonder which of the lot.There is so much to babble and complain about this lad,and there are more of his irksome but protective brotherly traits that make me mighty proud.The more I make them all public,the more Choke Slams await in store so I better be good to him and stop this here.I am off before he sees me on the keyboard .Love you N.S.I say this or not,I know you will not mind.
On..Off...And On.Keep it On!!!
The dimple does look hot;)


PS:The author is absconding.Period.


-R.

The Monster Is Back

He loved pulling her hair, scribbling on her homework, eating her chocolates, burying her dolls in the garden.A mischief maker brother prototype that he was, and she being his elder sister hated him for fighting back her authority.He looked like an angel when he was in the cradle,a lovely brother,but as he grew up he started showing his sibling colours.

One night  for the desire of revenge she told him the beautiful story of ‘The Mangled Monster’ which he ardently listened and slept,she cursed that tonight he shall see people in his dreams wearing white robes with no feet,eyes popping out of their sockets and sucking his blood,chopping his brains;not one but a hundred of them And next day he was at the breakfast table playing with the eggs and fork,looking shaken but pleased,she wondered and asked him”Did  the monster come and wake you up yesterday?”,he replied”Yeah he did! He told me my Sis is the freakiest thing he has ever seen”.

Grrrrr…

From the days of locking me up in the bathroom at age 1 to the days of giving me a Choke Slam the Undertaker style at age 10, he has done it all.This continues now in various others forms, because he knows I can never stop being his sister…for life and beyond! Of his virtue list I am not speaking here, I am being a bad sister as always!

Fear is one emotion which we fail to deny, we project it in different forms.We do not know of ghosts, so we fear them.We do not know of ourselves either, so what do we do? During childhood or maybe even now, if one thing most of us are scared of are the monsters and ghosts of the real [if they exist] kind.They are these controversial beings around us who some say are unsatisfied souls trying to find peace after life and also claim to have experienced them, some say they are the evil kinds and some believe they do not exist at all. Horror movies leave our nails bleeding and teeth chattering.Those stories of ladies in white sarees walking amidst a forest singing for their beloved and of men with turned feet at the door step can give many of us sleepless nights.If they ever saw us publicising them like this, God save us all with mercy! We do not know if they are around, but one thing is for sure we think of them in the worst human form possible;)

And for my brother,she is alive and kicking!

PS:What are ghosts and monsters scared of???