Mortality

My 7 year old often asks me," Ma , tumi morbe na to?"( Promise you'll never die and leave me alone). I usually try to reassure her by telling her that I'll be there for her as long as she needs me..pointing out that everything around us is subject to death and decay. I think of my own parents- how lucky I am to still have them in my life, ageing, weaker perhaps , but still there to provide  security and unconditional love.
I think of those who are not there anymore. It is difficult to accept that some of my near ones are now alive only in memories. I see a well loved name in  my list  of contacts and realise that never again will a call get through to her. Somehow I find it difficult to delete the name and sever the last tenuous connection.
I  remember a time when all those who have gone, were around to fill my days with laughter and tears.A time when I thought my father was the strongest man ever; that he could protect us from any troubles life threw our way.  Today, I see him as a strong and gentle man who, like many others, won some battles and lost some.
Will it be the same for my daughter, I wonder? Will life teach her to see me as I really am, a human being with frailties and strengths and not the sun her life revolves around? It will surely, for our mortality brings with it the understanding that the old must go to make place for the new.

As the Bard puts it: 'All that lives must die,
                               Passing through nature to eternity.'

Hold that thought!
                        

                                    The Moon Fairies

                                  

One bright moonlit night, long ago, a little girl lay awake in bed, her mind filled with images of the magical creatures her Grandma had been telling her about all day. Sleep came silently, but she resisted its lure, not wishing the day to end.

Suddenly, before her eyes, strange gauzy shapes seemed to form and music soft and sweet, charmed her ears. Translucent shapes hovered round her bed and the air was alive with the beating of a thousand wings. She was carried gently into the garden, borne through the air.

There, by a gurgling stream, the Moon Fairies had gathered. The silver moonlight glittered on tiny silver wings as the fairies danced to magical tunes. The full moon had drawn them there. All night, the little girl sat entranced, watching the fairies. One of them paused for a moment to drop a small silver star into her hand. Soon, her eyes began to droop as sleep claimed her.

 When she woke the sun was shining brightly outside and she was in her bed. She rushed out of her room and ran to tell Mother and Grandmother about it, but of course they told her that she had had a wonderful dream. So, when she later found that little star under her pillow, she did not tell anyone. 

But……I know.

You see, that little girl was ME.  

An Old Photograph

                                                       

The other day, going through an old album, I came across a faded photograph of my grandparents: a grandfather I had never seen, and my grandmother , a formidable lady who survived the loss of her husband and home in what is now Bangladesh, to carve out a new identity for herself and her children in newly independent India. Having reached a point in life when the past has become as important as the future, the photograph seems to have become more meaningful to me.
Looking at it with a vision that was perhaps more perceptive, I wondered about the two people I saw. I had read my grandfather's diaries- a record of the turbulent times he had lived and died in . The yellowed brittle pages, covered with spidery Bengali writing expressed the pain and anxiety of a man with an uncertain future. The world he had known had been changing rapidly- his skills as a naib of a zamindar were no longer needed, and the very land he had administered for so long had become hostile.He and his family were  caught in the backlash that ruined thousands of lives in the aftermath of the partition of India. Death put an end to his troubles.
My grandmother did not maintain a diary. Perhaps she did not have the luxury of enough free time. Her pain was never expressed, her anxiety never conveyed to her grandchildren whom she lived to see. Her husband's death left her  with nine children, none of whom were financially independent yet. In spite of the difficulties she faced, she managed to educate her children and ensure that each one became well established in life. I remember her as a slight, white clad old lady with an indomitable will and tenacity of purpose. With the brashness of youth , I never appreciated her abilities or the strength of her character. She had never had any formal schooling and could not converse in English. We had nothing much in common. It was only after her death that I learnt to respect her strength. Today as I look back I wonder what my life would have been had she not taken the pains to educate my father.
There she was, in the photograph, a remarkable woman who had taken on life, and won ,but at a great cost.  I dream of writing the story of her life......someday.