IMAGE OWNER: SOUMYASHREE CHATTERJI
One more thread. Yes, one more thread. That’s what I had been seeing all night long, one thread a time a web being formed way up on the ceiling by a spider. A spider who shared my night long vigil. As sleep evaded me memories flooded me and made a web around me just as the spider was making one above me.
The farthest I could remember back was in Kaghaznagar. And the thoughts were all mired with her. Waking ups, playing round the house, hugging snuggling and afternoon naps. More than my mother, my memories were all flooded with her. I remember her kissing me awake. I remember her looking at me with what I now realize were wondrous eyes. I remember her dolling me up patiently. I remember her tearful eyes when I would refuse to play with her. I close my eyes and think on her and I feel warm, I remember sunshine on a winter morning, I remember the smell of good food cooking.
I remember going to school with her to give an admission interview. I had fever, and she wouldn’t let me get off her lap. She would tuck in the muffler round my neck every now and then, fussing with my sweater, checking if I wanted to nap, wanted to eat. I remember her standing and waiting while I went in to give my interview. I remember the hop skip and jump as she danced round me when she came and told me I had been selected. I danced too, not because I realized I had been selected in a good school, but because she was dancing, and it made me happy to be happy with her. I remember every exam result I went to take after that she would go to take it with me. When I went to take one without her and it was not so good, she decided she was my lucky charm and I wasn’t allowed to ever go again and collect a result without her. I never did again.
I remember the guilt in her eyes, when she hit me with a cricket bat while we were playing, when the doctor was stitching me. Hell I made her my slave that time, getting her to buy me storybooks, cook me maggi whenever I wanted. Ah the bliss of making her guilty and reaping the benefits. I remember my guilt too. That time when I kicked her and she was taken to hospital with the near burst appendix. The hours I spent crying, begging God to make her ok, trying to make a deal with Him, promising to leave being naughty, do my homework, never ever to hurt her again, never ever to pinch her or threaten her to tickle her. Ahh the joy of threatening to tickle her! Standing six feet away and just wiggling my fingers at her, and see her almost dance with laughter in anticipation, begging me, pleading me to stop.
Begging, pleading, just as I have done over the last few months for her to come back. Begging her to make this a bad dream and step out of it and hug me. Pleading with her to take my tear stained cheeks in her hands just the way she would and only she could and make the pain go away. With each string of the web that the spider wove, I begged and pleaded. Pleaded I knew futilely with her to make that call, that she made every rakhi morning since I had left home. The call which carried with it the warmth of her hug, the promise of her love. Raksha bandhan for me was more about her renewing her bond with me every year. The tie of the rakhi on my hand sealed the bond she had made with me the day she held me the first time, to love care and protect me. The tie of the rakhi sealed the bond I had made with her the first time I was in her arms to follow her, obey her and be hers over anyone else’s, a bond I was crying to fulfill my end of the bargain. A bond she renewed for 32 years unfailingly, whether by the tie of the rakhi when I was with her or with a gentle good morning kiss over the phone when I wasn’t.
So with memories swirling and the web forming above my head I begged for the sun not to rise. I knew that she wouldn’t call me this time like she had for 32 years and so I didn’t want the sun to rise. I didn’t fall asleep cause I knew that I would not wake up this time to her voice. Just as I knew that her voice wouldn’t be there I also knew that the sun would rise however much I willed it not to and freeze the time.
Tears stinging my eyes I looked up at the spider web forming above my head, waiting, watching string by string. As I felt the sun rising and hitting my eyes so also I felt the spider stop. I covered my eyes with my hand and as I sobbed to myself I felt a shiver in my spine. The soft whisper of silk on my hands across my wrist, just where there would be her rakhi. I jumped up to feel a single strand of the spider web on my wrist, even as I felt the warmth of the sun envelope me. I didn’t get her call but did I receive her bond of love yet one more time. Did my departed sister reach out across the sea of unknown that now stretched between us to comfort me through this spider renewing her bond with me? I cried and cried and cried…
