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“Dr. sahib aap kaun si chakki ka atta khate ho ?” remarked the watchman as I introduced the frail thin woman beside me whom he confused as my friend initially and then concluded by calling her “ Accha- accha jaan-ne wale honge! .His pupils dilated in surprise when he realized that she was my sister and blurted out the innocent comment. It was 1998 .Well I don’t blame him. My sister is unlike me. Cut me into three equal pieces and one piece is my sister. Forget chakkis but even our “Ma ka doodh” has been different though we are both born from the same set of parents.
Mother Ganga when married to Shantanu had to drown her first born child into the river for their ultimate salvation and my mother literally gave hers away to my eldest uncle to take care thanks to the circumstances then and not because she loved her any less. Must be hard for her as I have witnessed that hunger for her child , the tears and later the anger and now the distress she feels because of her poor health.
She was such a bonny baby fair, big beautiful eyes, a high set nose that juts out right from her forehead and I call it her trunk and tease her mercilessly for it and a mane of long silky hair. Actually I feel jealous because she is the perfect stamp of my dad imprinted on her face and I am not. In my childhood memories she was the most adorable . I used to plead to our parents to send us to Delhi where she stayed with my uncle only to be with her, play games underneath the big wooden ironing table in the sun bathed balcony of the tiny government quarters of R.K.Puram back in 1982. She was smart ,intelligent, sang beautifully and had the loveliest handwriting and I was so much in love with her. She was my role model sister and I craved so much for her every time we returned and I so wanted her in my life forever. That never happened for a variety of reasons and I was forced to learn to live without her. Secretly I always hoped that one day she would return to her natural family never to go back .So we grew up separately and she missed my formation years just as I did hers. Eventually the pain of her separation was buried in denial of telling myself that I do not have a sister. I told everyone that we were just two siblings myself and my brother. I counted her out.
Fast forward life to another 20 years in which my uncle passed away and her family had it going tough and she was forced to return and learn to adopt her natural family. She was to be married and she did after a lot of searching for the suitable boy. Her marriage did not last nor did the precious pregnancy which she hoped would give her something to call her own. In addition diagnosed with a single failing kidney, worsening lung condition and self-inflicted threats to her life in the most vulnerable moments she has battled it all . Reduced to a mere 35 kg frame from the bonny baby , medically prognosticated to be dead 12 yrs. ago she still survives. Every year she proudly says that this birthday is going to be her last and every year we end up cutting one more cake. I tell her that she is born on the same day as the famous Messiah on the cross.She is just the female version. In fact I am so bored and tired of her dying declaration that I have stopped believing in it altogether. She is meant to live .
She is the first one to insist on having the Diwali lights hung in the house before the neighbors do theirs and first one to remind us to buy Gulal for Holi. Sometimes I wonder why she takes so much of pain and gets excited for nothing. Endlessly toiling in the household work she has mastered the art of good cooking thanks to being trained under the toughest task master my mother who is a great cook herself.
While I manage to spill the milk every time on the gas stove till date since I am always multi-tasking my sister will stir the Kheer and Kadi alike for hours without taking her eyes off till they are of that perfect concentration.
She puts Herculean efforts in the most mundane household tasks with 100% concentration and I sometimes doubt my own ability to focus. She taught my daughter to smile and respond to every nursery rhyme and poems that she knows by heart and amazes me completely . I can remember only medical facts. She has taken the hardest task of teaching the naughtiest little member of our family called Bal Ganesh and proudly wears his accomplishments on her sleeve. She is his Panna Dhaay. Latest she is the un-appointed manager of my front desk of the little hospital that we run and my mother’s best company in her old age when even I can not be with her in person. They bicker a lot and I think they are making up for all the years they lost in separation and I always put fuel to the fire. It keeps moments ablaze with emotions which have been buried deep inside all of us. Completely in acceptance of the comparison standards drilled into her psyche by the society which bases its judgment on accomplishments and looks she never fails to compliment me. She considers me her role model and I think she is mine in ways more than one. I have to learn so many virtues from her including giving endlessly. She has minimalistic needs and as long as she has her Chotta recharge on her phone to maintain her what’s app status so that she can wish everybody first on their special occasions she is happy. And she never forgets. Her requirements are meagre compared to mine and every year on her b’day she asks me to get her just one more sweater as her birthday present “ bahar aane jaane ke liye” .I wonder where is she going to go as she is unable to step out in the winters anyway.
Though she was not present in the bygone years with me of happiness and joy but in past 20 years she has been with me and suffered every tragedy that our family witnessed including abusive behavior, addictions, her own divorce , painful untimely deaths of our loved ones and disease. Supporting me in my struggling years of training pooling in for me at the most required times she has been God sent in many ways and I if I have to thank her every time I would lose track of the count. I crack jokes at her expense all the time and play all kinds of pranks including putting shaving cream on her toothbrush while she is not watching. Irrespective of what conspires between us she is still the first one to make my bed tea in the morning and makes me my favorite dishes when I am home. She is happy curled up in the leg side of bed near mom’s feet in the tiny space while we are all spread out like huge mammoths on the bed leaving no place for anyone else.
The only days house is quiet which are frequent these days are when she has fever and fighting another bout of her asthma. Some days she is just swollen up . She just lies low in her own suffering and pain when her body fails her with a balm and a hot water bottle . Her illness tests and limits my medical expertise every time yet when I see her up and about after every episode running which we have now lost count off and I really want to ask her Alka ji …kis chakki ka atta khati ho?
For the body requires spirit to go on and not just the food that keeps it going.
