I Can Discuss About Durability Of A Pencil And At The Same Time About My Elaborated Gratefulness For

I can discuss about durability of a pencil and at the same time about my elaborated gratefulness for a place in the universe. There's no in between for me.

-Vanshika

There was a time in my life when I thought of myself as high and mighty, because I had no emotional attachment to my school. I was perplexed at the thought of why people spend so much time crying over a building. The two friends I had, and the two favourite teachers will always be with me, no matter the place. I did not love the walls, the classes or the playground, or the murals, or the auditorium. I felt safer and wiser loving people instead. And I was very satisfied with that because I was aware places are meant to be left behind. And that is what happened. I left school.

Now, years later, no matter what mindset I possess, whenever I pass through the familiar road and the street leading to my school comes in my view, my heart skips several beats. My mind goes, 'Hey! The same place we use to come everyday..'; 'The building didn't change much..' or 'That is the same bakery where I ate a chocolate truffle with my first pocket money'. And then I think to myself about how unconsciously we give place to so many things in our life, and they never leave. It was not in my hands to love my school.

I do not want to go back there in person. But I guess, I visit that place in my heart, more times than I'd like to admit.

-An excerpt from the autobiography I will never write.

I was almost six years old, when I felt a small bulge in my mother's womb that my mother said was a monster eating up her stomach because she refused to eat cereals. I was perplexed at that concept and the fear alone forced me to be compliant to her, whenever she asked me to eat what I hated the most.

Months down, I come back from school, having so much to tell her about my day only to find my neighbour waiting for me. Everyone, my father, mother and brother were not home. I was disappointed and hurt that they would leave me behind. Not that I didn't love playing at our neighbour's place, but after school I always desired to come back home to my mother.

The whole day passed, but no one came back. I was certain they left me behind. And I promised myself to wage a revolt for this. They must be having fun somewhere, while I was here lying in an unfamiliar bed among not so familiar people. They promised me that a gift will be brought for me, but I glared at them portraying that I am not a material girl and a gift wouldn't convince me after this behaviour.

My father came back the next day before I woke up, but my mother was not with him. Only my brother, who looked just as lost as me. Only that he had something to tell me that he couldn't because of all the crowd surrounding us. He is a timid one among the two of us.

I was told my mother is going to bring a baby brother, to which my otherwise shy brother nodded eagerly.

"Did you already see him?", I asked.

He shook his head, "In..In a towel..small..", his broken words were not beyond my understanding. I was used to having such conversations with him.

What I felt about having a baby brother, one more to our family of four was sheer distaste. I was the first child and used to having all this attention towards me. This timid brother of mine already took a half of it, because his long hair and lost looks made him look cuter, than the angry little pouty me, who was on a mission to fight the world. A third one, means the attention being divided into one third, which was anything but acceptable.

My baby brother was born on the fourth day of August, and I met him on the ninth day, on the occasion of Rakshabandhan. He was small and pink, sleepily gazing at us, sprawled in our mother's lap. I do not exactly remember what I felt in that six years old heart, but it definitely had a change of the lifetime. I say this, because the next thing I remember is making that little fist grab my forefinger and wanting to do this for the rest of my life.

I have loved no human more since that ninth day of August. He was not a normal baby, I was told. I didn't know what it meant then. Too much complications in the world of science. But for me, all that mattered was the most simple promise my child heart made then- to protect this little human from all the harshness of this world.

He was not well. His head was abnormally big, and his hands was covered with a white bandage. I had never seen that before. He was diagnosed with hydrocephalus. The days following that discovery were not easy. Not atleast for my parents. I was too small to know what was happening, only that my parents don't come home for days, and our grandmothers and aunts come to take care of us.

It was after three years, and four complicated surgeries that he was able to utter his first words. His first word was 'Papa' and I now know that was all it took for my father to know that all these struggles for his new child were worth doing.

I do remember the day he addressed me, called me clearly in words. Ofcourse he recognised us, knew us, loved us but he was unable to utter words. Guess all that fluid in his head only sharpened his intelligence. He is way more sharp than any child of his age till date. And it made us love him more than we thought we could.

His health graph was moving up the slope. There was no prominent neurosurgeon who was left unaware of his existence. Not only they were intrigued by the medical records, and how such a small body survived such life risking operations, but their jaws dropped the moment he began talking like a professional. As if he was not the supposed patient, but the cure for their depressive medical careers.

Though there was one doctor who claimed there is no permanent cure to this. Five to six years of wandering to find a suitable treatment was supposed to end by a ruthless claim that such children do not live a long life. A seven-eleven years visit is all they are meant to give to the world. If pain is a word, it started making sense then.

How do you prepare yourself for an impending end? I did not know it then. I do not know it now. At that time, when we were probably too small to know about this predicament, I happened to overhear this when my parents were talking. The heart wrenching claim by the doctor. It scares me to the core. It did so when I first heard it, and it does now, when I just think of it.

So many things have changed about me since that age. My life has been an evolutionary course of events and I have always found myself at a better place. But this particular thing, the claim still sends me into a deep panic attack.

Ofcourse, it did not stop us from witnessing better days. He was just one doctor. But every time, a sneeze escapes my baby brother's little body or he complains of a silly stomach ache, we are left shaken at the probability, that most likely has no meaning.

He's been doing better, than most kids of his age and type. We've been doing better seeing him do so. There have been few fake scares here and there, but we have made it. He has become a centre of our lives, and his personality has fetched him many admirers other than us.

He is here today, alive and kicking, annoying us to our last nerves and truly taking away all the attention from us, but that ninth day of August really gave me the best gift of my life. I was not a material girl, I am not so even today but if this is the gift you get everytime someone makes you angry, I'd probably spend my whole life in anger.

-The ninth day of August, Vanshika.

I've been grinding so hard,

it's the tenderness in me-

-that is threatening to escape,

but if I don't continue-

-life and opportunities are still going to do.

-VS

"It made me lonely and not the kind where one is deserted with no one around. It was the kind that howls from within, even when I was smiling wide, sitting between my most lovable bunch of people. It made me lonely to know there would be no one to understand my exact level of temperament because they don't live inside me. And it was lonelier to know I can't expect anyone to do so, because that is the point. Everyone is lonely because that's how we were made to be. It is that bittersweet gift of life that must be accepted as soon as I can."

(2/10)

-Vanshika

It is going to be an uncertain summer. The constant heat that seems calm and firm in its place. But I have this storm running inside. No matter how much I convince myself there is a world after this summer, I know I'll win big or I'll loose big this time. It hurts to not be in control. And it hurts even more to pretend like I am in it.

-VS