My Moonbeam:

My grandfather loved telling stories. My four-year-old nights are still vividly etched in my mind. He and I snuggling under a quilt, the moonbeam creating a halo around his face, his cigar tainted breath along with the warmth he exuded was perhaps my first conscious security blanket. Then, as the rest of the house was sleeping, he would tell me stories. Stories of his boyhood, with which he painted, sepia tinted pictures of a childhood idyllically spent, amidst acute joy! The moonlight lent a magical feel to these moments and I fell in love for the first time in my life, with the moon.

My grandfather ensured my first love did not go unrequited. He taught me the trick of holding the moonbeam still in one place for 15 minutes.

“Meet me tonight in the moonlight
Meet me tonight all alone”

He said, if I could say this wholeheartedly, like a virgin prayer, to the moon, then I could actually hold the moonbeam in my hand. This was perhaps the purest form of innocence but I believe I could actually hold the moon still with my grandfather’s help.

It has been thirty years; I have matured in years as well as cynicism. We have grown, while the world, our minds, have shrunk in tandem.

But I still go to sleep each night, looking at the moon, searching in it, for those moments spent long ago with my grandfather. When life was simpler and days were happier. These few moments soothed me and filled me with love and longing.
Few months back I came to know that the vacant plot next to my house was going to accommodate another vertical monstrosity.

Today is the last day when I go sleep with the moonlight reminding me of the happiest days of my life, of days, that will finally be 'no more'. For, from tomorrow, I would see a concrete dark wall, blocking away the last shreds of innocence, permanently.

I go back thirty years and try to gather the innocence and wholeheartedness of a child and say to the moon:

“Meet me tonight in the moonlight
Meet me tonight all alone”

As I held the moonbeam in my hand for the last time in my life, I realized that finally, my childhood would leave me, for good, with this night.

19A

When A and I were discussing a write on this, we both concurred that the inexplicable should not be expostulated. Ahem, many deliberations later I chose to “dis”-concur.

Nineteen is a poignant number, its almost, yet not there. It depicts the end of one series and a beginning of another. So was it with A, is was so there, yet not there at all. (Oxymorons are aplenty when the inexplicable has to be described) Intimacy has always been a very interesting word according to me, as this has multilayered manifestations, from the banal mundane to the eclectic hemispheres. When you kissed your childhood sweetheart with the abject tender innocence of 16 years you achieved it. You also achieved it, when you both sheepishly admit to have shoplifted at least once in your lives, on your wedding night. The beauty of intimacy remains intact in each. Yet few are able to sustain intimacy…it steps in like a rare moment and leaves you breathless and incredulous.

All I can say it was otherwise for those 19 hours with A.

The Last (W)rites

The feeling I want to leave you with when I write is a feeling of wistfulness.
All my life it has attracted me tremendously. Elusiveness, when “its in your face” yet not there. I read somewhere that to use exclamation marks in your writing is like being surprised at your own story.
Nostalgia brings forth sepia tinted frames which along with the smell of your Grandma’s favorite curry. I guess what I am trying to say is that nostalgia is a holistic experience, attacking all five senses, yet not letting you feel attacked. There in lies the beauty of nostalgia, its like a friendly enemy, a classic example of a femme fatale, who you know is bad for you but cannot ignore.
My earliest memory is of me planked on a windowsill with my mother trying to force me into a strawberry striped dress. It was my fourth birthday. In spite of size being on my mother’s side, I won the battle, but I guess I lost the war. She had her way with me on my wedding day.
That day is my happiest place in my mind. I remember the balloons, the askew streamers, my friends, grand parents, everyone around and celebrating just because a certain Mumu turned 4 that day. Somehow it was not just them, today when I look back I feel that they are all parts of my life who sat and rejoiced that day with me.
Funnily enough I felt the same on my wedding day. My entire family, seemingly converted overnight into jobless but efficient wedding planners, planning for important thinks like plants placement at the wedding venue, or flower arrangement for the bridegroom, or the blouse which has not been collected from the tailor, or maybe that one lipstick shade which is absolutely imperative for the bride’s trousseau.
Today, when I need to etch out a thank you note to someone for collecting a credit card cheque from my desk, I realize that there are certain moments which will always leave you feeling very wanted, complete and loved, yet they are scarce and hence to be cherished.We have all had our share of them, and somehow our happiest memories bring tears to our eyes. This is why I said nostalgia is bad for us.