True siblings are bound together by far more essential things than blood.
Happy birthday mere true sibling!
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ODE TO MY BROTHER (On his birthday)
FOR I HAVE GIVEN MY WORD
Ali,
today I sit on the brick bench of the house,
where I am struck with an unending emptiness.
I remember how we used to play at this hour,
and the breeze caressed us and said,
“Love your brotherhood, boys, love your brotherhood.”
Now I shall go and hide
as before, from any admonishing,
and I trust you not to give me away
through the gardens,
the entrance,
the corridors
And later, you hide,
and I promise not to give you away too,
I sincerely promise.
Remember,
how we made ourselves cry my little brother,
from so much laughing!
And then, I went into hiding
one day, just like that,
but, instead of chuckling, you were sad.
And your twin heart, it grew anxious
of those dead evenings
grew annoyed at not finding me.
And now
a shadow falls on my soul.
Listen, Ali, please don’t be late
coming out to get me, all right?
For without you,
your elder brother might just be away,
lost,
from the cry of laughter.
So just come and get me, Ali.
Please.
Just come and get me,
soon,
all right…
because this unending emptiness
is making me sad
and lonely!
For I have given my word
that
only death
will
take me from you.
When I had finished writing that poem for
my younger brother Ali, who’s birthday happens to be today, I quite miraculously
found in my library an edition of A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by
Norman Maclean that I was most earnestly hunting for since a year to no luck. It
was tucked behind some large volumes of old leather-bound dictionaries that
belonged to my grandfather, and in moving them to find something else, I chanced
upon this book glancing back at me with such glee. The timeless words of Maclean
I was looking for are thus:
“Yet even in the loneliness of the canyon I
knew there were others like me who had brothers they did not understand but
wanted to help. We are probably those referred to as “our brother’s keepers,”
possessed of one of the oldest and possible one of the most futile and
certainly one of the most haunting instincts. It will not let us go.”
The October 17th Boys!
Many may be born on the same day, BUT to
be connected to them the way Anand and I are connected is something of pure
chance and pure bliss. Thank you my dear mate for making life the coolest, day
in and day out, with your words of encouragement and inspiration.
All I managed was a mere “Happy
birthday, bro!” this morning, and this is what Anand sent me. As you all must have surmised by now I am nowhere
close to him to even think, leave alone inscribe something like this, so
without much further ado I am sharing what my buddy (whom I share my birthday
with) sent me this morning.
Many
thanks for your love and all of it right back at you, multiplied a million
times over!
17/10/16, 06:52:41: Anand Sivakumaran:
Dear Fara,
Happy Birthday.
Have a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day. And year.
In fact why stop there, I pray that every day henceforth
is a never ceasing joyride of adventure and love and exhilaration and enthusiasm and
madness and mirth and music.
I pray that this year you truly find yourself and what you
want out of everything you do, I pray you have clarity on the kind of people
you want to be with and the kind of life you want to live.
And that you then act on this clarity with renewed zeal
and get go and make it happen forthwith. May all the forces of the Universe
support you on this making you truly the person you were meant to be, shining,
dazzling, living the life that was truly your birthright.
I wish for you to love yourself and those around you,
unconditionally and totally and for that love to be multiplied manifold and
come back to you from every direction. Let there be love in everything you do,
every word you speak, let there be an aura of love around you that touches even
strangers, let love radiate from your very being.
I wish for infinite joy from the tiniest of things in your
life – the smile of a stranger, the tune on a radio, a snowflake, a raindrop,
the leaves that lay themselves at your feet, the puddles that invite you to
become a 6 year old again…
In fact I wish for you to be a child again at your very
core, live with that innocence, carefree sense of adventuring, faith,
surrender, optimism, belief in goodness, trust that everything is great and
it’s just going to get greater. Which is exactly how it will be in your life,
today and forever.
I wish for the unexpected – unexpected breakthroughs that
take you to doing what you always wanted to do, being with the kind of loved
ones you have dreamt of, having the kind of life experiences, journeys and
adventures that have always featured on your bucket list. In fact I pray that
you exhaust your bucket list asap and are forced to make many more and you run
through them too faster than a roadrunner fleeing Wile E. Coyote.
I wish you have contentment and gratitude and love and
bliss in your heart always. That positivity and peace are in your every breath.
That goodness becomes a shield around you that nurtures and protects you. That
laughter is your best friend and constant shadow. And madness – that keeda/itch
to just let your hair down, be crazy, do crazy constantly crops up and you give
in to it with wild abandon.
I do not wish you the life you have dreamt of. I wish you
that multiplied a million fold and then some. Let life delight and surprise and
enchant and entice you always.
To eternal exploring, learning, living, laughing, loving,
singing, dancing.
To being alive.
To being you.
To sunshine and snowflakes, raindrops and rainbows, fairy
lights and pixiedust, magic and miracles in every moment of your life.
Love and panda hugs.
Always
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