The
onion peel...
“Do you remember the time we had that fight?” she asked me gazing at
a door.
“Which
one are you asking about, coz we had a lot
of fights”, I dint know what she was asking. Even my aunt didn’t get what
her daughter mentioned. “ Which one Ady?”
aunt added on to my enthusiasm.
That
was a reunion of our family in remembrance of our grandfather’s death anniversary. The day we all get to meet everyone after a long
year. Grandma her children and grandchildren gather there to pray for the souls
of great grandfathers, up in the sky and cook food as a feat of tradition. At the
end of the day, we also maintained a tradition of having good family time and chit
chats; we all sit together and talk all nonsense. It seems like to be in the market, where all merchants shout out loud to sell their own products. Here we
all want to share our different stories.
Ady
popped that question to me after a long family talk. Since no one knew what she was mentioning,
she helped us. “Ma the one, we two were sitting at the corner of the front door,
holding each other’s hand ferociously like a tug of war?”
“Oh….
Yea, I know” my uncle entered the scene with laughter. “I will never forget that, u kids were
fighting like bulls those days”. All laughed at his comparison.
“Wait… wait
… what are you people talking about” I became restless.
Ady started to narrate the small story of our fight “we were once staying here. At that age, we used to fight for almost everything. You apparently picked up a thing and said it's yours and you liked it. I couldn’t stand that and I said it's mine and started the fight, we continued the fight till we were tangled to each other… such that either of us couldn't move forward… we were pulling each other’s hairs. Don’t you remember?”
I
said, “no I don’t, by the way, what’s that thing we were fighting over?”
All giggled and uncle replied “the
onion peel” ….. We all busted into laughter
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After Two years our family gathered
again for the same tradition. We all were dining, when I shared with Ady a piece of
sweet I liked the most. Seeing us, this time it was my uncle to ask “do u remember the time when u kids used to
fight?” and he started to narrate the story to his son who hadn’t heard that
last time.
I still don’t remember, but I am now acquainted
with our fight story. Ady and I shared a
smile at each other, wondering what made us hate each other so much back then. Maybe I found her scarier with her huge bulging eyes when being angry or the
way she fights? I don’t know. But I remember
the part she explains, how I used to steal her thunder by being the bubbly-fat
girl in the family. Maybe it is all part of that vengeance.
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Years
passed, we moved on to colleges and the only time we get to see became that
night of tradition. On such day, we both were sitting outside sharing gossips,
gazing up at to stars. we argued, justified shared about many things. After a
long chat, she asked “do u remember our
onion peel fight”
I
smiled coz I still don’t remember. But by then I could imagine that scene. Interrupting my imagination
she asked “ I don’t know why we were such enemies in the family. Maybe you became fat and bubbly and all started to
look and care for you?” I laughed and said, “no,
you scared me with your built and angry face”.
We
shared many laughs for the rest of that night.
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It's then I realized, serious events in
the past had become the funniest moments in our life. Time healed everything.
Now we both became lean and other people scare us, hence we were bound to form
up a team.
Years down the line, removing our teens
in the past, growing up to women, we could find a whole new perspective of
the peel fight. Maybe what we implied by the tangle and tug of war was :
“ I will not let you go, even if it’s
for a peel… we stay together strong and thick”
May
be.
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Days
come and go, Memories get stacked in our brains. But we like to keep bookmarks
only at certain places, where we read and read the same part all over again and
never get tired of it. Our onion peel fight was such a kind. When I ponder through
my memories I always see this bookmark and waits to open it only when we are
together. But one day I found that page was getting wrinkled out of aging. Reminding
me about the discussions of that fight, I could see a new angle to this memory.
May
be happiness is like an onion peel; just a myth to cover life. The more you
go deep, the more you get nothing but tears? maybe we both wanted the myth of happiness to
protect us. That’s maybe why we fought. But years of experience made me understand that sharing the peel can protect us way more than fighting. That’s
when we became great friends.
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Time
fly like a fly… you can see them move
but too difficult to spot where it stops. Reaching an age filled with
responsibilities. Our family- meet on the night of traditional talks seems to
happen rarely. Relationships were maintained with the grace of
telecommunication and new technologies. And a day came when we both had to take
life-changing decisions. We were forced to face the reality of life.
Ady and I met on an occasion. We
had got many things to share, but only a few words in mind. She decided to go for
a walk. “Maybe fresh air could make our brains clear to make a better decision”.
I agreed and accompanied her. Inhaling the fresh air, we shared moments of a silent walk. Few minutes of walk together...She popped that question, “do u remember our…”
“Onion peel fight?” I interrupted her. Still not remembering the incident, but opening it from a page bookmarked years ago.
Letting
go the myth of life, we held our hands and walked giggling through our memories……
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-Dedicated specially to Addy and all my other 'little like-cousins, more like sisters' and my sister who made my childhood the most memorable and happiest part in my life. Thank you for keeping more bookmarks in my memories.. hoping to share more of them !!!
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