Moved to Tears

(Written on the prompt of the day for Project 365)

As a child, crying did not come naturally to me. Raised by loving parents and looked upon by my two younger brothers, I was a proud child who refused to cry in public. My place in the family was that of an elder. And to always set a good example for my two brothers, I never let them see me cry. Well, at least almost never. Sometimes it was inevitable. Until I turned 17, I stayed with my parents and was never subject to the harsh realities of independently living everyday life. Consequently, I had very few sad memories to relate to when I thought about tears. In fact my biggest fear in those days was not to burst out laughing when the situation demanded a serious face from me. A bad news, a friend scoring less marks or something serious on television. It might have been the lack of maturity or maybe I was just a happy child – either way, I never cried in movies or when I saw something touching. When I eventually migrated from my nest in the pursuit of college education, my experiences with the world changed. I now saw a spade for a spade, and not an ace of diamond. My parents were not physically present around me all the time to shield me from barbed wires of the outside world and my collection of unpleasant memories grew. I also learnt to cherish the presence of my parents more. Another strange occurrence happened around this time. I learnt to cry. A lot. And that trend has only been on an upswing since then. The older I am getting, the more emotions buried deep inside me are surfacing. Fear, anger, anxiety and concern. As I make memories of my own everyday as an adult, I look back at the old memories at home with rejuvenated kindness. My eyes well up when I see a good gesture being done, and all movies now feel like the story of my life. There is always this one character who I can link to someone in real life and their misery & joys become mine. I laugh and cry with them. I also make the extra effort to go out of my way and be extra charitable towards family, friends and strangers. Because I have seen physical proof of my generosity light up someone’s day.

The last time I was moved to tears was while going through old pictures in my family album. There are two reasons why these pictures are immensely precious to me now – First, because trapped in those semi-sepia frames are the moments of my life when I was immune to pain or feelings. And second, because these pictures remind me of golden times when we existed as a wholesome family and ‘mom and dad’ were the key that solved all problems. A compilation of these old pictures, along with a separated set of yesteryear pictures of my now husband, were converted into a montage to play on the big screen at our wedding. Now, almost two years after our big day, I still sift through these pictures to reminisce about the jubilant times gone by. From my home in Jaipur to Delhi to Chicago, I have come a long way and with each increasing mile that separates me from my family, these pictures have become more precious. Out of the whole lot that runs into hundreds of candid snapshots, I have picked four to talk about today. These four pictures summarize the journey and offer a glance into the world that shaped me to be a sensitive and sensible human being. With a flush of gratitude and a look of nostalgia, I view the images of my parents in these pictures and am moved to tears.

The first picture is of my mother holding me in the hospital bed on the sixth day after my birth. She is seen wearing a plain lilac salwar-kurta with a chiffon dupatta covering her head. She is sitting up and has me raised in her arms and is rubbing her nose against mine. My cousins from the house, three brothers and a sister, who were all under ten years of age at that time, look on as they stand on the side of the hospital bed. Mom wears a big smile on her face as she does what she does and her eyes are looking straight at me, squinting with affection. This picture makes me love her more because it reminds me that there will always be this one person in the world whose face will light up when they see me. Irrespective of how I look and what I might have done, my mother has always been an unending sea of tenderness and fondness. Her covered head in the picture also reflects her willingness to live by the customs that demand her to do this gesture as a sign of respect to the elders in the house who would invariably visit her to meet the new-born. The presence of my cousins in the picture reflects that some of these elders might already have been present in the hospital, accompanying these cousins, at the time that this picture was clicked. The fact that I know that this snapshot was from the sixth day of my birth is only because my mother remembers that by heart, justifying how easy it is for mothers to recall even the tiniest details about their first born. The pictures reminds me that I am the one that gladdens her heart and so it forms an essential part of my ‘precious collection’.

The second picture in the series is one where my parents, younger brother and I are sitting on the then-study room couch during or after what looks like a birthday party. The picture was probably clicked in 1992 and my youngest brother had not arrived on the scene then. Our family of four looks happy and my father is seen holding my brother in his arms, with his face & eyes turned towards me and giving a bright smile in my direction. He looks young and unburdened by the troubles of life that later engulfed him. He also looks charming and consumed by family adoration. The table in front of us holds a plate of puffed patties, a tray with some sweet delicacy covered by a plastic sheet and something else that looks like a white cake or pastry. Me and my brother are looking at the camera and smiling. The grins reflect carelessness that I don’t relate easily to now. Seated between my parents, I look loved and taken care of (my husband makes me feel that way now, blessed I am to always have someone to love me). Mom is smiling and talking to someone while looking down at the food on the table. It leads me to assume that maybe she was coaxing one of the guests to eat some more and is eager to get done with the picture and return to serving her guests. But she looks at home and shines radiantly in an orange and rust colored silk suit and wears a brown bindi as a sign of her young and fresh motherhood. She sits cross-legged with dignity and her straight shiny hair are loosely pinned up in a contemporary-style bun. The four of us reflect contentment and family bliss enveloped around us. It also reminds me of how our birthdays were always a big deal in the house. There was never a year when a cake wasn’t cut or when the birthday boy/girl wasn’t given new clothes to wear. Mom devised these traditions and dad supported them. Together, they gave us a childhood where anything other than fun and naughtiness was unknown.

Which brings me to the third picture. This is the only picture without either of our parents in it. This picture was clicked when me and my younger brother sat on our huge windowsill and kissed our youngest brother on the cheeks from both sides. I think the year was 1996 and my youngest brother had finally arrived on the scene. He is seen wearing a traditional golden dhoti-kurta for (maybe) a playschool event and looks gorgeous with a smile that was his constant companion. His hair look wet from a fresh bath and he gives a big toothy uncontained grin as we both kiss him from either side. His eyes are turned towards the wall on the left and he doesn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular. My best guess is that he probably just didn’t know where to look and is ecstatic from the sibling love being showered on him. We both hold both his hands from either side too and smile as we lean in to kiss him. The physical touch is indicative of the easy camaraderie that we three have always shared. My hair are cut short and pulled back in a half ponytail. I wear a denim dress with a crisp white sweater underneath. Maybe the picture was clicked sometime in the winter. My younger brother dons big spectacles with a string around them slinging them on his neck. Maybe this was the time when he had started wearing glasses for the first time ever and wasn’t confident of not dropping them while walking (he wears lenses now). He wears a checkered full-sleeved shirt and brown denim pants (unlike my blue). The flash used while clicking this picture bounces off the glass that makes our window apparent. It appears to be dark outside and I am also seen wearing my going-out sandals. Maybe we had just returned from the playschool event (in which case it must’ve been oil on my little brother’s hair). Or maybe, we were just heading out. Or maybe, it was his birthday. My mother would remember better. In either case, this picture reminds me of the love that we three still share every day as we grew from young kids to mature adults.

The last picture in this series is from my 10^th birthday. My youngest brother is seen holding the knife with me and cutting the cake (a famous Ellora Bakery made all our cakes at the time). The candles say ‘10’ and are of the colors that remind me of yesteryears. We don’t find candles like those anymore. Shaded pink, yellow and green from top to bottom, they used to remind me of traffic lights. The picture is important to me primarily because of the presence of my father in it. He has one arm wrapped around my youngest brother and another one around me. He smiles a radiant smile and is seen holding up my forehead with his palm, probably shielding me from the hot flames of the candles. He also gives his fatherly learn-it-properly look as I cut the cake in a brown shirt (and frock, not visible in the picture) that I still remember as my special 10^th birthday dress. The picture was clicked in the newly-constructed family living room and our dining chairs wear a cloth cover that was later replaced with leather (because the cloth tore off easily). I am seen cutting the cake with my tiny hands, surrounded by my lovely father and brother. Around my neck is a black thread with a locket in it (bearing the picture of a Hindu deity) that my parents made me wear as a reminder of how never to forget god. It reflects my obedience towards their wishes at the time. Fathers often get lesser credit than the mothers for raising children and their important role goes unnoticed. So I included this picture in the collection to give my dad his due credit for the irreplaceable contributions that he made towards my growing up. My confidence stems from his upbringing and I stand proud in all situations thanks to the self-esteem that he drilled in my head with his constant praise and appreciation.

Several other pictures could have made it to this collection as pearls in the string of my life. First day of school, me holding my second little brother when he was just a year old, my crazy 15^th birthday cake, my 17^th birthday which was the last that I celebrated at home before leaving for college, etc. were all important moments that form an integral part of my childhood. Sitting half way around the world away from my family makes me miss them more. Their beautiful pictures make me teary eyed every time. A part of me wants to always stay with them, while another part wants to stay close to my dear husband. As conflicting priorities take over in life, old amber memories keep us grounded. They keep us civil, humble and humane. Missing people is as much a part of life as change is. People who you love but don’t live with anymore, people who have passed away but will forever exist in your memories, people who formed a part of your childhood like your school friends, people who you meet later in life and who become important with passing days like college mates, people you look up to like your mentors and teachers, people from the family who you don’t meet very often but still choose to love, people from the family that you marry into, your new extended families, bonds made out of love, even new young people like nieces and nephews who arrive much later, our kids and their own kids… the cycle of life. This cycle continues in progression and stops for no one. Pictures remind us of all of these people. They are a medium for us to stay attached to what is important. If you ever sit in a quiet room like me in an empty house when your husband is at work, open an old album and shed a tear as you sift through it… think about your crying as a means of communicating your fondness to the ones you love. Tears are the soul’s telepathic way of connecting to those who can hear our heart’s voice. Good luck!