Polar.

I expected to be born in the confines of a quiet, peaceful room, with my mother safe beside me, glowing with happiness and singing to me.
Instead, I was born in a golden cage. From the very moment my round eyes fluttered open, there were beaming servants all around. Relatives with fake, plastered smiles. Golden bowls with kheer and silver spoons. But I cherished the peaceful fact that I wasn't the focus of all that suffocating attention, but the reason why I was always fed the second bite from the bowl of kheer, was.
He was the one who lay right beside me, eyes firmly shut, with creases around the corners, lips in a thin line,  one chubby finger curled protectively around mine. Born just a mere minute before. 

He was fair, while I was dark. His eyes were a conserved shade of grey, while mine were a bubbly, eager brown. He was born a boy, with the expectation of carrying the family name far, heavy like a mountain on his tender shoulders. I was just that other twin. The one which would be a pride to some other family in the future. The girl.

It was always as if we were molded from two different kinds of soil, fed with contradicting souls but gently laid in the same womb. His tender shoulders, now lean and athletic, always got a proud pat from Baba every evening. It was his fair hands that got all the first kisses, the prime blessings. Some would be resentful of all the attention he got, but I preferred this seclusion. With the limelight rarely around me, I spent most of my time in my own little oblivion. Imagining spy agents and insane adventures with vigilantes, always to return back at night with new memories shining from my eyes, just like all my favorite endings. Reckless to an extent, but just safe enough.

Each time a cloud of unrest overtook my mind, I found my feet reflexively climbing up the cool mud stairway that led to the terrace, which I never entered. A barrier of superiority always held me back, as I stared from a tiny window space near the door, built in a corner of the wall, at him. Studying from all those books Baba got him from premier bookstores. Living up to our dreams. 

So I sat there. On the landing, on the other side of the door. Wondered if sometimes my concern and my love ever reached him. If someday, he'd come to accept me and love me more than those books of his, if it would extend beyond leaving the last bite of my favorite dish for me, more out of impatience than affection. If someday, I'd get my brother back in the same train of thought, in the same cradle.

The day he got into Baba's favorite college was also the day my mother found a groom for me. For the very first time, the giving away of sweets from our family was a two way street. As people shook my outstretched hand congratulating a very dazed and bewildered me, a feeling of envy towards him and his eternal, retained freedom began to rise. 

I still can't forget my haldi. He came to me and bent over gently, kissing my forehead. Then taking my painted hands in his, he handed me a small, velvety box. My wedding ring, which I would give to the groom's family, which he had personally picked.
That night, I went to the landing for presumably the last time. Leaning against the door, I no longer heard the familiar rustle of the pages turning. On peering in, I found him simply lying there. Gazing up at the sky, one leg on his knee, deep in thought.

I was greatly puzzled when he looked elated on my big day. He gave me a hug. Told me he loved me more than anything else in the world. It's as if a cold hand gripped my insides. Was he happy to be getting rid of me? Was that expression obligatory instead of affectionate?

It was in my new home, I got the call. He had left the very night of my reception, wordlessly, slipping away in the celebrating crowd. He hadn't met anyone, had he met me? Told me where he was going? 

It was under my pillow, in the room I never returned, they found the letters a little while later. Mentioning failed hints at expressing his own ideas of what he wanted to do with his life. Mentioning pressure and frustration over being ridiculed and rejected. The same sentences, looped.  Leaving just a flicker of hope behind. No one ever found him, but every one, in their heart of hearts, assumed where he had gone. My brother, didn't even speak his mind freely in his last letter.

Maybe, I wasn't the caged bird. Maybe, my freedom was always the envy.

I closed my eyes, and I prayed. I prayed to find him, wherever he was. With a jolt, I remembered the tiny little moments of his love, his protection, which I had always overlooked in my despair of his ignorance.

We were finally in the same train of thought.
Polar. Equal opposites.
Yet, one.

Geppetto

I don't know how I'd define freedom. It's as exasperating and frustrating as trying to describe and comprehend a color you've never seen. I only have a tiny sliver of an idea of what freedom must be like.  I might not have had that to hold on to, either, if it wasn't for him.

I was three when I saw them place burning logs of wood over my father. He was sleeping peacefully, in the open, in the chilly air. I recall inhaling sharply. He'll catch a cold. But the fire kept him warm. And engulfed him.

Two years later, he came along. For the first time since my father's death, I saw my mother laugh as freely as she did. The spark came back in her eyes. She started believing in happiness, in life, again. 
The house seemed to light up when he was around. The tiles shimmered, the flames flickered and even the clocks plastered a plastic grin. His shoulders became our mode of transport and his lollipops our reward. I always bullied him, pulling his hair and giving him directions. Little did I know, that's exactly what he, was giving us.

Woodcraft. That was the magic he enchanted me with. He had a small workshop in the garden of his palatial mansion. My human senses were perhaps inadequate to completely take in the aura of magnificence around its interior. The walls were carved with fairytales. I saw trolls, bridges and I saw goblins. Mischevious pixies with pointed wings, rainbows with pots of gold. I saw giants and ogres, villages and cities devoured. I saw the smug pied piper of Hamlyn, leading the plague of rats to their musical doom. 
And I saw fire. Indefinite shape. Undefined beauty.

His nimble fingers moved all over the wood, and he'd nonchalantly sit beside me on one knee, talking to me, while transforming that muddy stump into a gift for my birthday. I closed my hand over a miniature sculpture of a funny looking boy with a long nose. Pinocchio, from my favourite story. I looked up to the man, whose crinkly eyes stared back at me with good humor and fatherly love. I scrunched up my nose. "I still don't like you. You're not dad." The sawdust dancing around him froze in the air. The splinters embedded in his fingers suddenly started hurting. He simply smiled and let my comment pass.

The day he set my brother and I in the hall of his house. I ran squealing, my hair splayed out like a wildly flapping flag, senses clouded with the unbelievable liberty of losing control and ignoring rules and ettiquette. That's probably how I'll define freedom. With the sound of my quickenning thud of footsteps, flushed face, and erratic heartbeat.

Time flies. Two years became twenty. I look back to the lost man sitting all alone on that chair, gazing out the window with a dreamy smile. They call him a madman. Some thank the gods he's senile. They see him as senseless and useless. But each time I look at him, I see the man who loved me as his own when he was under no obligation to.

I gently wipe the dribble of boiled apples from his chin and laugh lightly. "I still don't love you, old man."
He reached out and playfully rested his finger on my nose.

Even when his nose didn't grow long, Geppetto could always tell when his Pinocchio was lying. 

Selling Souls.

You've looked inside you and discovered so much. Your inner demons, your fatal flaws, your dreams and the people you dream of.
Have you ever looked inside yourself and tried to find your song?
Push yourself deep inside and run your fingers along the contours of your soul. Do the contortions make you cringe? Or are they a subject of unparalleled beauty? The china doll of your admiration, despite all the tiny cracks?

In a few seconds, a beautiful wail will fill the hollow valves of your heart. There'll be a calming pleasure in your palpitations, your rapidly trickling perspiration. The nerves of your mind give in to the seductions of your psyche. Tell me when we meet, how does it feel to rendered sweetly helpless by the inhuman strength of this philtre?

The power of a song. A simple rhythm. Taps of your fingertips, lashes in the wind. Bubbling laughter to a lulling lullaby. A wave of crazy simplicity that strikes your being and infiltrates your persona, viral, a part of you, now seared in. Have you ever longed for a person to share your innermost secrets, your conundrums?  Has your shattered trust ever pulled you back? Tell me how beautiful it is when it enters, unstoppable, into everything you've protected from the stinging judgements.

What do you picture your song as? A cruel puppeteer who drives you out of your comfort and salvation, or the smiling angel who gets you by the horrifying day and its reality?

Is there some comfort, in this helplessness?
Is there some solace in surrender?
Is there some shelter, in being utterly, completely
Sold?

To Tamara.

Dear Tamara,
Do you remember that wooden bench we built together? You may not have done the carpentry, but your sunny smile and glistening eyes were what kept me going in the blazing heat. It was on this very bench you said "Dad" the very first time. Your very first word. I was the proudest man in the word and you made me cry, Tamara. In that moment, when I swept you off your feet and twirled, with you squealing in my arms, I knew. That you would be the most challenging, yet the sweetest form of responsibility thrown my way.

Do you remember when I taught you how to read? We went to the book store to pick your first book. Daddy's girl as you always were, you picked a flashy ninja comic. When we used to read, I used to deliberately skip some portions and get to the dialogues containing the word "shuriken". Maybe it was the way it sounded, but it always made you laugh with amusement, and you'd clap those tiny, chubby hands of yours. I used to watch you and stroke your curly hair in wonder, because gems like you come along only once in a generation.

That frightening day when I dropped you off to school for the first time. You stood at the gates half an hour early, with the best packet of crayons and sharpest of pencils. I'm sorry for taking so long to oil and braid your hair. My hands were trembling with the apprehension of leaving you alone for the first time. I feared you were too gentle, too delicate a flower to be torn apart by the world just yet. 

You were always a rebellious teenager. I never told you, but I'll shamefully admit, that there was once a time when I sat all alone on the couch and cried. I thought I was no longer your hero. That you no longer loved me, and now, I was not the only family you had. All I wanted was to guide you. It killed me,all those times I knew when you lied to me. Your eyes went all over the place except on mine, or you'd scratch your cheek all the time and stammer. I let you go anyway. I don't apologize for keeping a GPS check on you, or stalking your friends on Instagram to find out where you were, though.

The day you got married? You looked exactly like your mother from the other side of the aisle. I know she'd be watching from the heavens and smiling down at you. I know she wanted to be there, by my side, when I broke down as you left the nest. I closed my eyes and asked her if I had done a good job of bringing you up, without her. When I opened my eyes, I saw you, glowing, with a wide smile on your face, so sure of yourself as you said your vows, and I knew my answer was a yes. 

We've been through so much, Tamara. Now, you no longer laugh at "shuriken", as they're always hurled at you in the form of complications. I'm amazed when you face them bravely, unlike most people, who choose to dodge them. I'm sorry I'm too weak to protect you from all the shuriken now. I'm sorry for hurling one at you at times. 

Now that these are my last hours, and you're stuck in the snow,
 I'll have to do without looking at your beautiful face for the last time, simply remembering your childhood, Team You And Me.
But I can never leave without telling my partner in crime not only how much she means to me, but how she was the only reason I went on living, after I saw your mother's coffin being lowered into the grave on that cold winter morning.

I just want you to know that if you have a child who takes after you in personality or features, you need not repent or regret. You're perfect, and you can overlook the minor scratches on your surface, just like the red bench. A part of me will always be in that bench and in your heart, if you ever need me.

I love you. I pray, that wherever you go, people know that you have the one of the purest of hearts. 
Goodbye.
Dad.