Who has been abandoned?

His signs haunt me. They are everywhere in the house. On the floor. On the switch board. On the kitchen floor. At the entrance of my room. He is everywhere. How does one wipe out four and half years of a relationship.

I committed a crime recently. A crime that is going to haunt me for years to come. A crime that I don't think i can ever redeem myself from. The crime of abandonment. I abandoned Spidy. My dog. Of course, I was not there when he was abandoned in an area unknown to him. And I wasn't there when he ran out of the car as soon as he was freed from his leash. And I am not there now.

All that I do now is wonder. Wonder where he is. What is he eating. Who is he with? If he is alive? If he has been bitten by other dogs? Wonder how he is surviving in the big bad world. And then am filled with overwhelming guilt. A guilt i don't want to feel. A guilt i don't want to sense. A guilt that I just want to bury deep down somewhere and continue living in denial.

But it all comes back. And simply intensifies. Each time I see his leash in the backseat of the car. The leash that I had bought lovingly when i got my first bonus at the current job. Or when i see the chewy sticks lying uneaten, when i see the half finished pedigree packet or his water bowl...

It a hard thing. Attachment. And detachment is punishment. I can't get over the fact that Spidy is not around anymore. The same dog who was there all through for 4.5 years is suddenly not in the house. It's worse than abandoning a child. A child can speak, cry, tell where or who he or she is. What can an abandoned dog tell? How will he even tell that he is no orphan? But an abandoned orphan. It's breaking me apart- this feeling that I will probably never see him in my life.

I want him back so bad. I don't want to even think of the reasons why we had to take the tough decision of abandoning him. But i want him back. And want to give this relationship another shot. But i know that's never going to happen. That's how relationships are. Time and destiny doesn't always give you a second chance.

He came from nowhere. Cute, chubby, fluffy under my car. He has the cutest brown eyes which didn't leave their puppiness even as he became a big scary dog. The magic is all in his eyes. And i just hope that his magic works on some other kinder family. He was pampered and he was a foodie. He loved eating people food. And never preferred his own dog food. He didn't like being treated like a dog and like i often joked he had an identity crisis. He could never see me cry. He was possessive of all of us. He was more human than all of us in the house. He would sense when things were really wrong. He would sense it when we were happy. He would sense when someone was unwell. He just knew it all. And he would show he cared in his own doggie way. I will remember spidy as the dog who loved to run around, who loved to dig, chase frogs, bark at cats, cared for a kitten, who loved being patted and petted.

He was my dog. And he has left a deep vacuum in me. A vacuum that is never going to be filled. And nothing is going to absolve me of the crime i committed. Of abandonment.

Memories of a woman, a mother and a grandmother

I remember her chubby face, her endearing smile...her beautiful eyes. I remember the way she smelt...like a baby yet like a mother.I remember the softness of her saree as i buried in my face in her bosom...and cuddled to her...I still remember them all like it was yesterday.

She flits in and out of my life.There are days...weeks and perhaps months when i don't think of her..don't remember her and days when all that i can think of is her..reliving each day..trying to forage for the slowly vapourising memories...

And then am scared.What if i forget her?What if i forget her smell?And i try hard to remember her voice..But i can't..ofcourse unless i speak to her sister..And then my mind tries to do a photographic capture of all the memories.But they are rushed.Vague and muddled.

Now, there is no timeframe. I hear the memories argue among themselves,trying to convince me which came first. But my first memory of her is coupled with smell of dicoction coffee and the sounds of crows cawing outside the window. The memory is almost like a black and white film now. With shades of colours in. Like the colour of her saree.A green colour one with patterns of some red flowers.I walk groggily outside and she picks me up,cuddles me and takes me to the bathroom. As i brush my teeth, i hear her singing a song in a low tone. Sleepily, i walk towards her and she places a glass of milk to my lips. And then the memory ends...

Then again there is the day when she gave me a bath in the courtyard, even as my enthusiastic uncle clicked pictures of us. I remember her chiding her son as i begin to cry....She washed my hair with 'kunkudi kayi rasam' and laughs as the bitter juice enters my mouth accidently..she then dries me with a white turkey towel and wraps me in the same even as i run around a little kitten...and then there is the day when she introduced me to 'goli-soda'. I watched her as she drank the chilled drink trying to cool-off the humidity.

She sees the pleading look in my eyes coupled with curiosity and desire for the hidden goli in the green bottle. As i taste the first fizzy drink of my life, i remember the curious sensations i experienced of the fizz in my mouth, the seemingly smell-less smell and the sound of traffic around me...

And then there are many more memories which rush through....or perhaps i was rushing through them as i grew up..as i made friends..as school became my priority...

I remember seeing the women and wife in her the day she saw pictures of her husband's first trip to the US. A photo of an American woman giving a peck on my grandpa's cheek had her blood rushing to her facing and her sulking for an entire day....Of a mother when her elder son-in-law (my dad) yelled at her daughter without her fault... Of a grandmother when i came down with chicken-pox...the neem-baths to calamine lotions...that was perhaps the best sickness i ever came down with! Because she was around.

And every summer as i got off the train and rushed to get into the rickshaw, i would be as eager as ever...waiting to see her, hold her and be pampered..

Waiting to wake up to the same reassuring sounds of people talking, of birds chirping, of motor running, of the fan whirring... Waiting to eat the delicious hot idlis with amazing chutney or be treated to endless summer fruits like date palm fruits, mangoes etc. I would wait, for those evening trips to the market with her, picking up clothes, getting restless, being treated to endless eatables..to coming back home exhausted....to the smell of her cooking...

She was there when i stepped into 'womanhood'.She was there trying hard to put concepts in most simple terms for me, answering incessant questions even as she tried hard to live by traditions laid down by her fore-fathers. Traditions she never firmly believed in but chose to follow. She was there chiding my father as he spoilt me and bringing me back to reality..She was always there..

And then suddenly, just like that she was gone. I still remember that phone call. The phone call that changed it all.That brought me really close to death..I remember dad recieiving the call in the dead of the night and mom instinctively asking if her mom was ok.

I remember mom crying and coming into the room and waking us up....and telling us that 'She died'. A phrase i didn't want to hear or believe. And i chose not to for a long time.

I remember that trip down to the place i was born..the trip where i saw my super-human grand-dad turn into a mere mortal before my eyes...the trip where he sobbed on my lap, the trip where my little cousins had come face-to-face with death even before they realised the meaning of life...i remember it all.

And i remember trying to collect and put all the memories together of my darling grandmother. Trying hard not to believe that she would no longer be there for me.....

And today, almost 13 years after her death, i feel her loss even more plainly. I feel her abscence even acutely as much as i miss my grandfather. I have always wanted to be the 'good girl' in their eyes and when i do something wrong, it is them and not God that i look upto for forgiveness...it is from them that i seek courage.....

Words they say are forever and i just put together perhaps a handful of my memories with grandma with the hope that it stays forever.....

Under a Tree

I sat under the tree and let the shade envelope me. As i sat on the cement wall, i looked down into the pond at my other self..at my reflection.... The gentle breeze whispered in my ears...as the leaves swayed in orchestrated unison with the breeze...
       

 I heard a splash and saw a little boy throwing stones into the pond, watching the ripples in wonder...I remembered the day the first time i threw a coin into the vast river from a moving train. And i wondered, where is all the wonder and innocence now? I saw a couple hand in hand, obviously very much in love...and i remembered....the last time i was here...under that tree..

  

 It had been long since i had sat there under that tree. And the last time i had sat there i wasn't alone.I was with my soulmate. I was with my best friend. I was with my companion and i was in the midst of love.

   

I remember that day. That day is etched deep in my heart. I might not remember the date.But i remember the hours spent under that tree, as i gazed lovingly into his eyes. As i let my mask of 'a bubbly girl' fall and let my soul talk.  I remember his loving eyes telling me he would always be there for me.No matter what. 

  

We sat there for three hours or was it longer? We sat there oblivious of the people around us. Of the disapproving eyes..of the curious looks..of the stares..We smiled at each other when we saw couples hand in hand, while at the same time wondering how many of them would last..I remember thinking 'Will you and me last?' I remember saying this to him and he held my hand...he didnt say a word but just held on to my hand..he spoke through touch..he reassured me with his eyes...that we would last forever...

    

For a few minutes we were quiet,absorbing our surroundings and then we were lost in each other again. We sat there discussing everything under the sky, from the injustice meeted out to the vulnerable sections to the environment..We laughed... We talked about us, our future, hopes and dreams...

As we moved away from the tree towards the pond,little did we realise that, that tree and that place would be something we would cherish forever...where we felt a sense of togetherness..not just with each other but with our surroundings...