All We Are

When I was a small kid, I was in awe of my grandparents, for one main reason - my parents were not the boss with them. Their ability of talking back without getting sent to their rooms was almost God-like. Equally impressive was my grandfather's ability to conjure incredible tales of his adventures, like the time he came across a 10m long cobra or when he went to a village and drove away a tiger which had been terrorising the locals and stealing away the cattle. These tales brought too much pleasure to our credulous minds, and put us to bed tired, dreaming of lives that had been lived and those that were yet to be.

Eventually, I started to wake up to a bigger world, and the corner my grandparents occupied began to shrink. My trysts with love, hate, desire and ambition led me to unfamiliar paths, while everything known was gradually left behind. And all this time, my grandparents also grew and while I discovered my zest for life, they lost theirs. The once free flowing conversations had now thinned down to a trickle of words, and when I left for Europe, distances grew not just in miles.

Last year, the miles maxed out when they both passed away. I was left clutching some scattered strands of memories from my life in India, and was soothed by anything familiar - a whiff of masala on the street, a punjabi song playing in a discotheque. And now with that bout of homesickness subsiding, in a way, the cycle is complete. Now I, like the protagonist in my grandfather's stories, is out here looking for my place in this strange world, living my own tales to tell. And I hope to make them just as incredible.

They say that we are greater than the sum of our parts. Some parts define us, while others just hover around the periphery, touching our lives in little, invisible ways. These medley of parts, big and small, is all we are. We thank the bigger parts often. Here is a thanks to the little ones. Thank you Nana and Nani. I will remember you.