"Aankhon ko visa nahi lagta, sapnon ki sarhad hoti nahi, bandd aankhon sey roz main sarhad paar chala jata hoon" ~ Gulzar
Time is a frontier too.
*****
While I was attending "Raavi paar: The readings from Punjab" session in Jaipur Literature Festival, I realized the attendees ranged from the age of 3 months to 65 years and above. Emotionally charged words and audiences from both sides of the border. The whole tent felt like one raw open throbbing wound, coming alive with every breeze of wit and every hint of tears.
I was sitting there with Punjabi verses -- old and new flying around me, only half getting what was being said. Feeling bewildered and partly sidelined. I drifted away into memories. Suddenly, I found myself back in time, inside one cool, steely wintery holiday that I spend with Badi Ma and Badey Papa in Ludhiana.
*****
I could almost see Badey papa there with me. Sitting with his white pajama Kurta and black half jacket, wrinkled hands resting on his sheesham walking stick, wise experienced eyes twinkling with humor and understanding. He would have filled up the blanks. He would have told me more than what was being said. The prologues and the epilogues.
*****
Badey Papa and Badi Ma were to us JUST what we called them. Father and Mother. Honorary grandparents. Guiding hands of Father and two Aunts. All I know is, they took in , a trio of steel spined youngsters, whose freedom fighter father left the world too soon, and whose mother who was to this world what fish is without water. The trio dint want any help but they took the love with a hunger that was never appeased. They carved their future and a name for themselves and led a comfortable life.
*****
Badey Papa would force me to write him letters. I squirmed and sulked but filled the pages with tales of a co-ed secondary school and the neighborhood. How I fell down from my Nth attempt to ride a cycle, How Rohan called another "Mota Gorilla" and spent the day perched up on the bench looking like one! How cruel this world is to an 11 year old, with social studies dividing itself like amoeba into Civics, History & Geography and Science into Physics, Chemistry and Biology. SIX extra subjects Badey Papa?! Why dint anyone warn me?! Do you know what this mean?! TENSION. I am very tensed Badey Papa of losing my only childhood. And Math is still haunting like the last tale of the peepal ghost.
And so I carried on
Dear Badey Papa,
The report card came today. With the same effects of an earthquake.
***
Dear Badey Papa,
Is there a Grade better than A+++ ? Papa wants me to earn that grade :-/
***
Dear Badey Papa,
Why don't you adopt me? And Mamma too! Then I will write letters to you from your own desk.
***
Dear Badey Papa....
***
I wrote till I realized I liked writing all those seemingly mundane things in school, the injustice, the pressures, the confusions, the problems -- real & imaginary, down on a piece of paper, because then I saw them from Badey papa's eyes. And they seem small if not insignificant.
He replied to each of the, I could almost see him on his writing desk at 7:00 AM every morning. Face concentrating to find the right words for all those who write to him. But I knew he would smile at this, purse his lips at that and then laugh out aloud at this sentence. I played with him.
He played right back.
*****
Dear Badey Papa,
You would have loved this. You would have told me the meaning of all these words that are reminding me so much of you. I know what you were doing when you asked me to write to you.
***
The crowd's collective laughter brought me back to the tent from my reverie.
***
Dear Badey Papa,
I miss you.
