Life is those moments...

                 

Siddhi and Neil were having lunch in a lavish hotel on a hot Saturday in Allahabad, India. It was May afternoon when the sun was at its merciless best across the span of the country. But it was a happy day for the Prasad siblings. Neil was in India for his marriage and the brother sister duo were out shopping in the upmarket Civil Lines neighbourhood of the city. They decided to break for lunch.

These days were a departure from the routine calm and lazy afternoons at the Prasad household. It was filled with commotion and tension in the run up to the D-day. This was a far-cry from the usual silence which the Prasad's were used to, until Neil went abroad. He had moved to Brazil for work and had come home on this short trip after three long years.

During the course of their meal they had had an argument. “It is high time you realize Siddhi that if you don’t study the future is perilous for you,” said Neil.

“Please, can we talk of something else? Don’t spoil the day,” Siddhi retorted disdainfully.

“It is exactly this attitude you need to change and Mum and Dad keep complaining to me about,” said Neil. “Failing a year by itself is not a big deal but your careless attitude towards life is. I would be gone in a week’s time, Siddhi. Mom and Dad aren’t getting any younger. In case you haven’t noticed, I will be responsible for more than three lives now.”

“Enough… I am going home. You continue yourself,” Siddhi rose along with her voice. She left the place halfway into the lunch. Neil called out to her angrily but she was already gone.

Back home the air was too momentous and busy for daily bickering hence the issue did not come up again. Siddhi’s career was a matter of great concern for Neil and his parents and also the cause of a lot of tensions spread over time and space. Neil, on Skype, and his complaining parents on one side and the typical college girl Siddhi, on the other side of the confrontations.

A week before Neil’s wedding day, the family had been on a short trip to a nearby resort accompanied by friends and family. In the sprawling environs of the facility everyone was in a happy mood. The sun had gone down sending out rosy splatter across the resort sky. 

Neil stole himself from the family games and ambled away on the lush green lawns of the facility, talking on his mobile phone. Minutes later, Siddhi came running towards him carrying a half ripe mango. “Bhaiyya (elder brother is referred to as bhaiyya), taste this. Just fallen from the tree. I bet it tastes heavenly.”

Both of them sat down to relish the fruit, so dear to them. They sat there remembering the time when their neighbour had once chased them away from his mango tree. The visions from their childhood brought laughter to the two minutes of their company. 

Just as the conversation had begun to develop Siddhi’s mobile buzzed and she drifted away answering the call. Neil kept looking at her image as she walked away from him and soon got busy with his own calls.

Moving on, in the days leading up to the marriage there was hardly any relaxed time in the fanfare. Neil’s conversations with his family were limited to marriage related humdrum and always in the thick of people and chaos, so typical of an Indian wedding. Two days after the wedding, he left for Brazil along with his life partner.

A year later, on a dull but busy Rio de Janeiro office morning, Neil got a call from his parents. He did not answer as he was too busy with his work. The phone kept ringing. Furious at the persistence, Neil walked away from his colleagues to answer. 

He blasted his father over the phone over his ‘impatience without appreciating the fact that certain other more important things could be keeping Neil, THE PORTFOLIO MANAGER, from answering.’ 

After the word massacre died down, his father mumbled out these words. “Siddhi is dead, Neil…”

To this day, Neil does not remember during what part of the rest of the conversation he dropped the phone. He could not make sense of the world around him after that! The hustle and bustle of the Rio office and the cafes around the office corner all seemed to have gone mute. He walked out of the office building hypnotically, took a cab back home, oblivious and unattached to the happenings around like a programmed robot.

Days later, he was sitting on the front porch of his Allahabad home, a gloomy space. Their neighbour with the mango tree was chasing another bunch of kids. The sight drowned Neil’s eyes in tears. He remembered all the times he had with Siddhi, which grew lesser and lesser over the years. All these days he talked to her only for few minutes, mostly advising about career, life and achievement. 

He thought of the many unfinished stories they might have had to tell each other, the last time he was in India. All lost in silly priorities like marriage errands. All trivialities now, in hindsight; worthless as compared to the quality time he could have spent with his little sister.

He cried and cried and reminisced the day Siddhi had left him midway through that lunch and gone. He would give anything in the world to bring that time back, not bring up her studies and have a good lunch with her. 

Or, only if nobody had called her that evening in the resort… He would have got just enough time amidst the festivities to ask her about her friends, a movie they had seen, a book she had read or about that mango tree neighbour, all perhaps. Only perhaps and only tears...!

In our fight towards some perfect vision of life that we create in our minds, we squander the precious little instances of reality that we can live. We fail to realize that in chasing the abstract perfection many potential perfect times are being lost, right now. We change and want to change things for the better.

 ‘THE BETTER,' remember. Not regretful!

So, let us cherish those fleeting moments of love and bonding every time we sit around the dinner table with our loved ones, every small conversation we have with them over a coffee. It could be anyone and anytime you take for granted. 

Like when your mother is massaging your scalp, the time your friend calls to hang out on a Sunday morning and you refuse, just because you are too lazy to crawl out of bed; Or when your spouse insists on watching your favourite TV soap together and you refuse because of an irrelevant news story you are following on the laptop. Think twice once you are in these situations. These might just be the dreams you are chasing!

Paradoxically, the life you aspire for and running after daily might just be these bits you keep losing and running away from. As they had beautifully put in the movie Kung Fu Panda, or (that is where I first heard it!); 

‘Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift. That is why it is called the ‘present’! 

Give your dear ones full attention, full hearing or full realization of you being there for them, in that moment, despite the mad rush to catch up with the ever changing world. Who knows it might just be your last affectionate rendezvous with them!

Let us live in the moment and make the most of it.