'Are', in the present tense.

Today you are 30. 

This year I will be 28. The same age when you "left". And did you really leave though? did you choose to? were you ready? Is anyone ready?

Today is not a good day. I will cry, choke up, light candles by your pictures, go through the letters you sent me and cry some more. Not because we'd be celebrating this day together, but because...instead of all the places you'd have seen, code you'd have written, thoughts you'd have shared, there is now a blank space. A space where I'm left guessing, imagining and for the most part conjuring images of your face and body here. I know what to say to you, more than often I say it out loud in my empty room. Thank God for the simulation of 28 years of Gid programmed in my brain. It's muscle memory.

However, It's too much, to have this full blown conversation with you. I can't bring myself to conjure up all the mundane thoughts, unique interpretations of your escapades on the road, at work or online, you'd have shared with me. Because a quick Google search tells me  "you would have" in grammar, is sometimes called "modals of lost opportunities", and rightly so.

So instead, I grieve. 

Grief, like I've read is really the "last act of love I can offer" you. Isn't it deeply disheartening that this is all I can offer you? Then you show up in my dreams as if to say, "I'm here". 

Noone prepared me for this maddening and persistent dissonance. 

Nonetheless, in my dissonance, in this vague in-between of aging with and without you, you are 30.

Happy Birthday Gid. 

You are in my heart. You are 30.

'Are' in the present tense. 

-Apphia D'souza

Disclaimer: I am human. I feel things.

 

Dr. Gabor Mate talks about two kinds of people when it comes to understanding any kind of pain; those who’ve experienced it and those who are trained to work with it. I happen to fall under both categories. My life took an irrevocable turn forever, in October 2014 when I heard about the ‘lesion’ (which turned out to be cancer) in my brother’s brain until four years later on 29th December 2018, when he left the earthly dimension.

Ever since then, I feel like a walking disclaimer; except that no one can see its contents. I walk with the disclaimer that I will never know how to respond when someone uses the word “dead” in a way to express anything other than actual death. I walk with the disclaimer that when someone uses the word “cancer” like it’s just another disease that affects just another statistic, I throb with fear and contempt knowing the damage it is capable of causing in a home. After this loss, the inner light is dimmer and these words now hold the reality of what I’ve watched and lived through. These words that I, too once used loosely now hold all sorts of heavy, new meaning that I can’t brush past without remembering my brother’s strained half smile with his “good side” cause the other side was paralyzed during the last month. I can’t move past words that remind me of my brother patiently leaning against a lamppost (cause he couldn’t stand without support) in Germany, while waiting for me till I ran to withdraw cash. I recall the worry of coming back too late and finding him lying on the ground, but when I rushed back to find him still holding on, still there, I stopped in my tracks. I stopped to take it in. I felt love, excruciating sadness and relief. And for a single second, I wished I could turn back time, to a safer place where he ran marathons and depended on 0 assistance to wear a glove, in the hope that I would have to never witness someone I love and admire so deeply just have to… stay there for me, without a choice or bodily control.

Wishes don’t always come true though, but I wish he stayed longer. Not against that lamppost in Germany, but on earth and in my home.

 -Apphia D'souza

My Father's Bajaj Super FE : Retro Lives On.

(Left) Not the original bike, however, it looked quite similar.
Photo from IndiaToday and heybrian.com

According to my father, we always have had a fifth member in our family; his ''faithful companion" his 18 year old Bajaj Super FE, purchased on 22nd, Jan 1994!

As I read an old diary of events my mother had noted down, I notice a line from Feb'97 (I was 5 years old) :  "Apphia always wants to go with Dada when going on the scooter to go to School" and there was no denying that.
I adored the bike that took me to school every lazy morning while my eyes were half shut and my hands clutching my Dad's pockets as I sat behind. My place.My seat.Just behind my Pops.Always.

The Super FE was truly a part of my family, I realized today. We had a relationship.
It was comforting, faithful and resourceful.
Every night after dinner, I'd jump in excitement and race down 3 floors with my brother and wait for our Dad, sitting on the parked bike seat to takes us for another adventure ride to places we've never been to.
We'd stroll to crowded junctions, highways, Haji ali, Marine Lines and have races with each other on the empty lanes, play catch and cook with our dad till we lost and generally have him buy us a 'softy' ice-cream on our way back home.
It was sheer fun, animated in all its innocence and joy, running back to the big seat of the Bajaj, taking us in a reckless yet safe fashion, from place to place.

I loved standing out of the old building balcony monitoring the bike,often yelling at passerby's to not meddle with the breaks and gears and most of all choosing what color it had to painted (every 6-7 years)from a catalogue.
After school, I would eagerly wait to hear my Pops do his signature whistle and I'd run like a mad pup till I caught sight of the scooter and by habit, climb and position myself on the seat.
It transformed and changed through the years.It went from white, to swan white to light blue and finally now, a shiny light blue.It's faulty parts were changed so many times, I can't even remember and after every service, my dad would praise it's new look and how much better of a ride it's going to be.

Lessons were taught to us on that bike, not just how its gears shifted and its 'choke' worked or taking a try at the kick start.Our dad taught us life lessons on it, often stopping on a busy road, telling us to get off and help a person who was blind along their way across the street and a couple of times, dropping friends or people to places they needed to urgently go to and even once, he told us to get off, guiding us to go home walking by ourselves from the main market while taking an injured acquaintance to the hospital whom we passed by on the street.

As we grew older and bigger, the rides together lessened.It was soon limited to taking us to school and back.By then, we were 'tweens' and soon embarrassed by that 'annoying bike' unlike the other rich kids at my school with cars and 'better' bikes.
I noticed that I had always overlooked how attached my dad was to his bike.He knew it like a friend ; In an out, its faults and cheats, where it's power lied, how to swerve it and what step it's going to take.He knew it. It knew him.
Instead, I was always ready for 'change', hoping when we'd get a side-car so we wouldn't have to resemble a 'carnival family'(All four of us on one bike) or a nice Motor bike or even Activa so that it felt just a little less, lame.(I ruled out the idea of a car cause I was tired of listening to my Dad say, "We'll buy a car when we hit the lottery, baba")

It was judged, despite it's service to us.But It gave us back anyway.

Today as I look back on all the trivial matters; How I'd ask Pops to not get the bike inside school when I reached Std 11(In the same school) or how I'd save my lunch money to take a cab ride home so I wouldn't have to be seen on the bike or the times when I'd call my Dad from a PCO to say I'm coming home walking(as much as I hated carrying the heavy bag in the sweaty, unshapely uniform back home). I see the Bajaj as such a massive part of our life.We experienced childhood, adolescence and young adult life with it. Today, when I sit on it for a stroll to 'The Race Course' to see horses or take a walk, I don't hesitate to enjoy every quirk of the bike, every nuance. In a way, thanking it for everything.

I used to plan in my head, that one day, when I earn enough, I'd buy my Pop's something grand.
Although, I guess, he'd still not let go of the Bajaj. Ever.
To be honest,  nor will I.