I remember, the day my brother died, the phrase that slipped away from the labyrinths of my mind.
Thomas liked reading and quoting from the Ecclesiates in The Bible. I think it represented for him the challenges of offering a singular definition to the Biblical narrative. I can still see him, a small child of seven, velvet headed, big eyed, asking the Valya Thirumeni (the Bishop of the Marthoma Church) academic, theoretical questions about the Bible. That day, it seemed as if God spoke through the much impressed wise old man, "Come, I shall make you a priest". It was not said in laughter or in sarcasm. My mother's ambitious heart, proud of her beautiful intelligent child, chilled. She could not imagine giving up her son to priesthood.
Thomas inherited my father's alert, analytical, evaluative intelligence. To keep up with his elder sister, Thoma voraciously read whatever I read. My father did not treat us as children as far as reading was concerned. He wanted me to read Nehru's Discovery of India at the age of ten and insisted I read Naipaul's bitter scathing satire on India in his India: A Wounded Civilization at the age of fourteen. Thomas was undettered by age or size. Thomas absorbed rapidly, quickly, and soon outpaced me in knowing this world, different realities, life.
Thomas never had it easy. Perhaps because he was singularly capable, bright, and good looking he invited envy and suffered the burden of expectations.
Once, all primed to participate in an inter-school debate competition of much repute, Thomas went on stage to deliver his best. It started well. But something, as usual, went wrong. The clock missed a stroke, the cars stopped honking, traffic stopped mid-way. Thomas froze. He missed a beat. The moment was gone. The rigour of his speech faltered. Thomas knew there was not a chance in a lifetime that he would win.
This happens to all of us. I remember I was once invited to judge an inter-school debate at a prominent school in Delhi. Many a child sweated it out. Some spoke gloriously, completely at ease in the limelight. Some gulped for air, paused, gulped some more and gave up. This has happened to me. I remember I abandoned the speech half way and ran till I couldn't feel my legs.
Thomas blinked. He picked up where he had left off and finished to a resounding round of applause. He didn't win. But he won every debate or elocution contest he participated in after that. He refused to let the demons of failure taunt and worry him.
What worried us when he left for engineering college in Kerala was his acute ignorance of Malayalam and the Malayali mode and manner. We worried about how he would adapt to a milieu he was not too fond of. Thomas was very apprehensive himself. He cared not a whit for engineering. His heart was in history, politics, geography, literature, philosophy. But he climbed the train fuelled by middle-class ambitions to Kerala and went up the hill to study the mysteries of engineering science. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade out of it. I speak not as a proud sister but as an envious sibling. Thomas was very popular in college. He made many a friend in that strange world called Kerala. He used his charm, his wit, his ideas to organize his College's first ever tech fest. We, anti-socials to the core, wondered if he was our own.
I remember, the day my brother died, the phrase that slipped away from the labyrinths of my mind.
What a waste I said, as if I was speaking about a stranger. What a waste. The phrase kept slipping away from me in the midst of my screaming in busy busy Connought Place suddenly gone silent, suddenly abandoned.
A very touching tribute to your kid brother. The loss is bound to haunt you till you join him in the distant future. Time doesn’t heal the deep wound created by the death of a loved one. No philosophising will take the pain away.
ReplyDeleteI’ve often felt that no one knows one as deeply as one’s sibling. It appears to be true of you as well. That is why you will miss him more deeply than anyone else.