In Her Paradise

The universe was created with a thought and the thought came from a feeling, the feeling of love, so they say. A sense of protectiveness and insecurity naturally engulfs you with this powerful word. I too felt strong until I held Jia for the first time, and her soft tiny fingers curled into my palm.

Jia was born when I was going through one of the toughest times in academics and there was a fear of losing it all. She was born to my elder sister on 15^th of December, 2012, just a day after my birthday. She yawned as beautifully as anyone could yawn and stared at everyone with her raised eyebrows, trying to figure the small world around her. She immediately started crying. Months went by and I took care of her in every possible way until the day, when she was about to leave for Hyderabad.

I knew I had to make the most of it, I knew I was not going to see much of her for a very long time. I had a whole bunch of things planned for her, after I returned from college. We only had a couple of hours left before we had to depart for Ahmedabad from where she would later leave for Hyderabad. Her favourite place to visit was always the garden close by where she could play in the swings and slide down the slope. So as I took off, she stood firmly at the front trying to pull her chin up, while I was riding my Honda. After reaching the garden, as we were walking towards the rides, she left my hand and ran towards the swing, I let her be and watched silently from a distance. She slowly moved the swing and mildly smiled, looking at me with her dark sparkling eyes. Few moments later she started jumping and chasing other little kids around, they didn’t even care that she had just joined but those things never mattered to her a dime, she was in her own pure joy of the oneness that she had the ability to achieve, with the present. And her ecstasy of the mergence was so infectious I couldn’t help, but feel a fantastic rush of the highest beauty combined with my affection for her. There was a sudden sense of realization of how corrupt we become with the desires of power and control that we miss such priceless beauty, freely floating about.

After she finished with the running I took her to the ice cream parlour, her favourite flavour, Vanilla with American Nuts. She had it all, dirtying her cute little mouth. Before I could even take my handkerchief out, she brought her spoon to me and fed a wee taste of her beloved flavour. I said, “Yummy”, while she looked at me with a pride, as if trying to say, “See, I got it right like my all other choices.” Then as we were going back we luckily encountered an elephant being walked by his master, I took a halt to help her see the elephant better. With all her curiosity, she deeply studied the gigantic body of the mammal and proceeded to the gradual conclusion, how powerfully destructive can that get, clenching my arms tighter. By this time I was already late for our bus to Ahmedabad, I rushed back with a choked throat, knowing I will probably never have these moments again.

May be, the nostalgia attached to the whole story makes it all the more beautiful. The lone rarity surrounding such deeply felt times makes us miss them in more ways than one, so much so that we let them define our list of most cherished mementos from life.

This post was written for: Housing