DISCLAIMER: Giving due consideration and respect to credible opinions of knowledgeable sources, I'm venturing outside my literary comfort zone in to emotionally introspective, autobiographical analytic prose.. bear with me :)
What is she to me.. practical and theoretical nomenclatures imposed on my very heart, soul and thought by those who knew or should have known since that fateful day in December, 1990, are few and simple - little sister (aniyathi), my best friend, my confidante... Is that all she is? An assortment of definitions that can be built and torn down by the sheer narcissistic 'strength' of my self serving mind or by the unrepentantly churning waters of tumultuous and vociferous experiences of an unpredictable, apathetic life?
A title or position created and defended by a campaign of powerful instinctual emotions perhaps.. protective ones, affectionate ones, possessive ones.. How did I feel when one temperamentally ordinary and historically insignificant day she suddenly existed in my consciousness as a living, breathing being in a clean, white, sterile bassinet in that thoughtlessly colorless room of that small town hospital? Did I feel anything profoundly change in me or was what changed in me was so fundamentally human that my yet forming, fickle mind hardly realized it? If so, is it possible as a self proclaimed, marginally mature adult to remember or impartially and intellectually dissect those first pristine moments? The moments when a 4 year old whose life revolved solely around himself and his impulsive attempts at joy and gratification, allowed and fostered by a protective cocoon of loving, tall shadowy figures by virtue of his innocence and helplessness, saw something more fragile and precious than his limited awareness of his own self, enter into his life for him to play with, to love, to call his own..
What fleeting thoughts raced through his jubilant mind the next morning as he looked forward to the small pleasures that felt like tiny victories over life - the taste of the soft, custom shaped uzhunnu dosas his grandmother might make, the grand stories to be told and heard during the crowded, noisy ride with his 'friends' in the compact, back engine autorickshaw on the way to the new found adventure of school... the possibilities of fun things to be done with or on behalf of the new thing in his life - the personality less bundle of flesh that was being pampered and cared for by all the tall people.. Did he feel the need to do things differently that day since now as everyone kept pointing out with a knowing and incomprehensible, albeit slightly condescending, smile that he was a 'chettan'? What exactly did that entail as to the routines and events in the day of a kindergartner? What does a child know of 'responsible' love and how to possibly 'protect' the tiny, occasionally loud being that now occupied a pivotal position in his small and gloriously 'eventful' world?
Memories are deceptive images that are colored in various telling shades and distorted by the events that follow their accidental birth.
After 22 years of 'life' and everything that goes with it, do I know her? Will I ever? I doubt it.
I have to fall back with humility on the tragically overused and often justifiably misunderstood word, as I realize that lassoing in the appropriate, descriptive words demonstrating my control over language and articulation will fail me miserably in this instance of introspectively decisive expression, the word that characterizes and signifies maybe nothing or possibly something or perhaps rather optimistically, everything about how I feel about her - love..
Whatever the steady current of tempestuous youth and eventual maturity and resolutions of adulthood brings, I know that, without the aid of naive but convincing self assurance or now restraint-fully tasteful arrogance masquerading as self confidence in my emotion or intellect, I know that...
I always have and always will... love my little Malukkutty..
 |
| Malu S. , 1991 |
What is she to me.. practical and theoretical nomenclatures imposed on my very heart, soul and thought by those who knew or should have known since that fateful day in December, 1990, are few and simple - little sister (aniyathi), my best friend, my confidante... Is that all she is? An assortment of definitions that can be built and torn down by the sheer narcissistic 'strength' of my self serving mind or by the unrepentantly churning waters of tumultuous and vociferous experiences of an unpredictable, apathetic life?
A title or position created and defended by a campaign of powerful instinctual emotions perhaps.. protective ones, affectionate ones, possessive ones.. How did I feel when one temperamentally ordinary and historically insignificant day she suddenly existed in my consciousness as a living, breathing being in a clean, white, sterile bassinet in that thoughtlessly colorless room of that small town hospital? Did I feel anything profoundly change in me or was what changed in me was so fundamentally human that my yet forming, fickle mind hardly realized it? If so, is it possible as a self proclaimed, marginally mature adult to remember or impartially and intellectually dissect those first pristine moments? The moments when a 4 year old whose life revolved solely around himself and his impulsive attempts at joy and gratification, allowed and fostered by a protective cocoon of loving, tall shadowy figures by virtue of his innocence and helplessness, saw something more fragile and precious than his limited awareness of his own self, enter into his life for him to play with, to love, to call his own..
What fleeting thoughts raced through his jubilant mind the next morning as he looked forward to the small pleasures that felt like tiny victories over life - the taste of the soft, custom shaped uzhunnu dosas his grandmother might make, the grand stories to be told and heard during the crowded, noisy ride with his 'friends' in the compact, back engine autorickshaw on the way to the new found adventure of school... the possibilities of fun things to be done with or on behalf of the new thing in his life - the personality less bundle of flesh that was being pampered and cared for by all the tall people.. Did he feel the need to do things differently that day since now as everyone kept pointing out with a knowing and incomprehensible, albeit slightly condescending, smile that he was a 'chettan'? What exactly did that entail as to the routines and events in the day of a kindergartner? What does a child know of 'responsible' love and how to possibly 'protect' the tiny, occasionally loud being that now occupied a pivotal position in his small and gloriously 'eventful' world?
Memories are deceptive images that are colored in various telling shades and distorted by the events that follow their accidental birth.
After 22 years of 'life' and everything that goes with it, do I know her? Will I ever? I doubt it.
I have to fall back with humility on the tragically overused and often justifiably misunderstood word, as I realize that lassoing in the appropriate, descriptive words demonstrating my control over language and articulation will fail me miserably in this instance of introspectively decisive expression, the word that characterizes and signifies maybe nothing or possibly something or perhaps rather optimistically, everything about how I feel about her - love..
Whatever the steady current of tempestuous youth and eventual maturity and resolutions of adulthood brings, I know that, without the aid of naive but convincing self assurance or now restraint-fully tasteful arrogance masquerading as self confidence in my emotion or intellect, I know that...
I always have and always will... love my little Malukkutty..
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