This is for your birthday

I’ve heard people saying that “life is an exercise in acquisition of memories.” Not with you around.

With you around, life is an exercise in anticipation of a smile. Or should I say, was. Of course, the smile came bundled with sometimes near depression-inducing stress, umpteenth sleepless nights and the possibility of a fist-fight with the ‘atheists.’

I don’t know why my usual lust for rationality couldn’t make me question my turning into a worshipper the first time I saw you. It had to be either my gullible 7 year self or the usual perils that come with turning into a worshipper. It must have been the latter, for those questions never arose, even at much advanced stages of my life. Damn, the only time I hated my lust for rationality was when I was inclined to disbelieve a stray piece proclaiming Obama got to know of you because your presence in the Green Temple caused a 5% decrease in US workers’ productivity. Nonetheless, I never dared to crosscheck it. It must have been true.

It’s so hard to write this piece because everytime I think of something, I drift off into the swarm of recollections in my mind. How the only time I prayed to the heavens from the depths of my being was for you; how the first time I abused was when I interrogated my barber and his acolytes over their raison d’etre upon their criticism of you; how I wouldn’t let my mother so much as move an inch from her position, notwithstanding her back ache, while you were still there; how I turned into a serial liar to skip school for you, and how I secretly thanked my parents for pretending to believe that I had the propensity to suffer from stomach aches only on the days your devotees had a chance to see you; how an atheist chum (yeah, that’s an oxymoron for me) wrote to me about you on Feb 24, 2010, saying, “Vo bhagwaan hai” and how I replied saying “Atheists turn believers, that’s who you call God”; how, while passing by SCG last year in broad daylight, I slipped into a dream where I watched you thump the fastest bowler in the world straight past him to the boundary; how I wondered the only fallacy you ever committed was looking up to the sky while raising the bat, instead of just getting a mirror.

As is the wont of blind lovers, I could never bring myself to the realization that there would come a day when the seemingly eternal tap of elixir would dry up. Perhaps the fear of your dreams turning to your memories held me back. Perhaps I was too selfish to let go of my greatest source of happiness. I thought I’d grow old with you, but you proved better than a mere mortal even in that department. After you departed, I tried not talking of you, tried avoiding your all pervading legacy, or even thinking about you. It just helped me keep away from reality, because reality can hurt.

But here I am, recounting precisely those moments which have indeed turned into memories, never to be buried under an avalanche of new ones. It doesn’t matter anymore if you were the greatest. It doesn’t matter if you deserved the Bharat Ratna or the way round. I was, and still am, too stooped in belief to think of the trivialities. All that matters is your memories. At first I was too scared to acquire them, now I just can’t let go of them.

Happy Birthday, You.