A break in the silence

It is winter fourteen years ago and I am plodding along, wide-eyed, six, along with my parents, one on each arm as my pom-pom hat and muffler stifles me in the mild Christmas Eve. Celebrations, the Thoburn Methodist Church shines amidst the festivities, the very term ‘fete’ exotic to my inexperienced years. My first taste of Christmas, the lights, the stalls set up on the occasion, the sense of something grand, something warm in the heart of bittersweet winter. So many colours, and the structure of the church now imprinted magical in hazy memory, big, fog-hidden, iron gates with intricate carvings.

Long walk till we get a cab, still a parent on each arm. Shift the scene to long darkened friendly winter light lit hallways, corridors of my school echoing with few footsteps on holidays when only solitary choir-boy footsteps resound, sole owners of the school, indebted in song. Morning Has Broken on the grand piano in the chapel hall, like the first morning. Sports practice on the grounds, breakfast on chocolate cake on the school steps, in front of the building with the Cross and the auditorium.

This piece is at an end, as memories fade further. This time was happier then, lights that seemed to sparkle, the Christmas morning cartoons on the old television, and the carols sung in school-boy choirs, to the accompaniment of our teacher on the grand-piano. A few reminiscences hastily strung together, nothing less nothing more than a break in the silence.

 

PART I - Other's Memories

ONE

I came into this bitter world one cold January morning bringing with me a horde of mosquitoes sprung forth from the guttural depths of my dirty city, unleashed with a vengeance on the already suffering population, reeling in the coldest winter for god knows how many long years. To top it all off, the cold was accentuated by a steady drizzle, a sign of things to come, perhaps. My father had just put the lather on his shaving brush when news came from the neighbours (who had a phone unlike us) that my mother was being taken into the operation theatre. He bunked office that day.

At the nursing home, my grandmother (that is, my mother’s mother, my dida) was in a hypertensive state as usual, or so my father says. My grandfather (again, on my mother’s side, my dada, we both call each other dada, which actually means older brother in Bengali, we share a very cosmic relationship) was his usual cool sage-like self My father’s mother( god this is boring, I always did think English was a rigid language, my thamma ,I call her amma. ) reached the nursing home all wet from the rain, and shivering, and my dada ,chivalrous as ever, gave his shawl to her and continued mildly pacing the corridors of the Presidency Nursing Home, medicare was cheaper then I’m told.

I was brought out of absolute protection, me and Caesar, at about five minutes past eleven. I was apparently the ugliest baby anyone has ever seen. My father’s still mad at my mother’s grandmother’s (who is still a young lady at 91 and the healthiest person in the family. I used to call her bhai, which means younger brother in Bengali, and the name has stuck) first expression after seeing me. She was adamant that I had to have been changed after birth, her pretty daughter, she asserted, could not possibly have a son that ugly, like a bear cub. Thankfully time was kind, and bhai and I built up a wonderful relationship, and also I grew up to be a not so ugly baby.