"Aawarapan", a part of "Terabithia", a review of "Tuesdays With Moorie" that I found after the end of "Five People You Meet In Heaven" in that book, and the first 20+ pages of "Get A Life" gave me the entertainment for today. The time I spent with my grandmother, uncles, aunts and cousins and of course friends gave me the reason required to appreciate the quality of life I am living. Until a few weeks back I had felt myself smiling daily when I laid myself for sleep. I don't go to bed that way now a days. I am unsatisfied. The reason being CAT as I figure it out to be. But I suspect some other activities and "images" too. I can see some images with no necessity to even close my eyes.
Tuesday I had spent many hours with my grandmother at her residence. I even happened to clean my grandfather's room. We had left it almost untouched as if he would come back to use it. There was just a cloth put to cover all the things on his table and it had all gathered dust on it. The dust increased as we started to learn to live without him. We had to wipe it so that the healing could happen faster. It wouldn't work, I knew, even as I cleaned the table and discarded all his medicines including the ones that were ready for him to be taken the day he left us.
There were books. Many. On religion, astronomy, astrology, magnet-therapy and mythology. There were dictionaries - English, French, Urdu and Telugu. There were his diaries. Dating back to 1949. The diary for 2007 being the first one to be opened by me. He wrote everything. The people he met, what they did, where they lived, many phone numbers and everything he could. Though he wasn't writing details for the last few years, but perhaps he knew he was forgetting things and he required some help to remind him of them. I had to discard many such records he had made. I didn't know what to do with them. When he was alive he used to tell us that everything would be useless after he left. But I still have his old diaries. It will take a lot of my heart if I have to call them useless.
His clothes, old, new, his sweater neatly folded and saved in a plastic for the next winter, his woolen socks, his muffler. It was all there. There was no next winter for him. At least with us. Allah knows how a grave feels like. Now my grandfather too knows that. Under his clothes, as it looked to me at the first sight, was some cardboard piece covered in a newspaper. As I unwrapped it, I found an old photograph that had been preserved from all seasons for more than 60 years. It was a group-photograph; of course in black and white. There were names under it and I searched for a Muslim name. I found one. I narrated it to my grandmother and showed the person. He was my grandfather's father. He was a medical doctor.
I found many other photographs I had seen before. I found my mother's school photograph. Some certificates. Many receipts from banks and of paid bills, all records of the money transactions he had made in these years. I had to clear all I found useless. It pains my heart to call them useless. But we had to let it go.
I had a look at his collection of colorful stones and rings made of silver and some golden metal which I am sure is not gold. It must be bronze, copper or brass. I found an old camera. I had never seen such a thing before. It was a big black box with some nut like things attached to it. I will see later what it is and how it used to work.
He had everything of use to him. Blades, scissors, pins - of all sorts, papers, files, tapes, everything. He had a world of his own. He didn't share much of it with anybody else. He was still close to us. But he had a world inside that first room of his house that was known only to him, that had seen more than 35 years of his life. We all have our own worlds that we don't share much. Someday when we leave, it comes to light only to be cleaned and forgotten. There is no way we can show others what we had in our hearts. I don't know if Allah gives that chance to share my heart when we all finally reach heaven. Maybe heaven will make me forget all of it. I can feel it in my throat now. I doesn't go down well.
I asked my grandmother and uncle to sell this house and move to a new one. This one is very old and is not built on columns and beams but thick walls and it is no longer a good and easy place to live in. When I think about seeing this house being sold, I know how it can feel. If I had money right now, Rs. 35,00,000, I would have purchased it and kept it untouched for the rest of my life. I can't do it. Some person is going to buy it, tear it down, and erect a new structure there. I have tears as I write this. I remember every inch of that house, the smell of the old doors, the feel of the heavy walls, the deep ceilings. Everything. It will all go into mud. I don't have that money.
I remember the trees of the house that were brought down some years back. I remember the pain I had felt then. The chirping of the birds that used to perch on the trees is still fresh in my mind. I can't forget that sparrow with only one leg that used to eat vegetable waste daily before noon. I remember the holes I used to dig in the mud to play and then fill them again. There was a stone beneath which I would to save coins. The raindrops of the season fill my years now. The thought of the soil that had turned black due to the used tea powder thrown there daily for years by my grandmother makes me feel the perfumed dirt on my hands. I used to play with it at times. It was not dirty. I can't resist change. I wish I could just preserve it. My blog preserves so much irrespective of what I desire to be saved. It can be an emotional baggage. My grandfather is gone. The home will go. My words will leave unsaid. Is there a chance?
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