The gift of love
[dropcap]I [/dropcap]love Alcohol. She is my best friend who is always there for me come rain or shine. A happy joyous occasion and its incomplete without her. She has to be there to liven up the joyous ocassion even more. At times of grief and sadness and at times of failure she is the best consoler. She dulls the pain and enables me to be myself - to think, act or react without a second thought and also showers me with abundant guts. Restraining words like respect, shame, decency, priority, duty etc could all be left aside for another day, for a tomorrow which actually never comes. She made me feel important, in tune with the crowd and did boost up my ego as well.So far so good. But then.................... like a leach inside my bull’s nose, like the parasitic lice in my dog’s hair, like a guest who very much overstayed the hospitality, she refused to leave. That’s when doubts started to creep into my mind. Ofcourse my mum and my wife & kids too wanted her to leave, but she would not budge. After much pestering and cajoling she would leave for a time but again made it a habit of creeping back to my house. I tried every trick in the book to make her leave for good but she indeed was clever, or atleast she thought she was. Maybe I had loved her just too much for her to not want to leave me. Then, suddenly it dawned upon me. I had not taken ‘love’ in the correct sense of the word into account. I was in love with myself and as long as I was selfishly in love with myself with me as the only share-holder, it could hold no water. I realized that I had to share my love with people I do genuinely infact love. I colour wrapped my love & best friend who had overstayed my home’s hospitality and gave it as a gift to my dear mother and my father who is no more but yet very much there, more like the bald headed vulture perched on the ledge of a cliff camouflaged with the background, watching over yet another ledge below which housed her nest. And we all know that a gift once given is never taken back. That would be arrogant and very untrustworthy.
Talking of gifts just reminded me of Samson the Nazirite. Nazirites were people whose lives were specially devoted to God. They were not supposed to drink wine, go near a dead body, or cut their hair. Rule No.3 was probably the only part of the Nazirite vow that Samson kept - it required little self discipline to let hair grow. We are all aware that much against his parent’s wish, the three of them were on their way to a Philistine settlement called Timnah to meet the Philistine woman whom Samson was adamant on marrying when horrifyingly a lion came roaring towards Samson. Samson killed the lion with his bare hands and had it thrown wayside away from the road. After some time when the three of them again travelled the road, this time for the marriage Samson just for the heck of it turned wayside to where he had thrown the dead lion. On the carcass of the lion was a swarm of bees and honey which Samson scooped up and brought it for his father and mother to eat. Pure, sweet, uncontaminated and undiluted fresh honey - the only purest, sweetest natural food on earth. Hey guys - alcohol has already done enough damage not just to our mind body and soul but to the basic unit of the society which is the family. We have to start giving our mother, father, wife and children a good night sleep and make up for the deprived sleeps. Just as Samson scooped up the honey from the carcass of the lion (which in all probability would have killed and devoured them) and gave it to his father and mother to eat, let us also give our parents that goodness and sweetness that can be scooped up from the carcass of our alcoholism.
As for me, it will not even be a breezer while enjoying the cool sunset breeze during a beach holiday party with my guzzling friends of the old. Since I do not like to do things in half-measures, my wife and kids are now very afraid that I may decide to become a vegetarian. However I tell them to look at the positive side because as it is “It may be hard on some fathers not to have a son, but it is much harder on a boy not to have a father.”
[dropcap]M[/dropcap]y sister and I are the only children of our family and also the best of friends. She is still four years old and though she doesn’t talk much, she makes up for it with her hyper activeness, her sense of adventure and love of the outdoors.
One day as we were alone at home, as our parents had gone out for song practice, I decided to kill the time by taking my sister to the jungle, hunting for animals and birds.
She followed close behind me, picking out flowers she thought were pretty and asking me nonsensical stuff you would expect from the mind of an inquisitive four year old.
She kept me company and I carried her on my back in places she could not tread, as I scanned the canopy of the vast jungle for birds and animals, keeping my catapult stretched, ready to shoot at the first sign of life.
We travelled on and on, on occasions shooting down a few birds and animals, and we came to a place deep in the jungle which was supposedly haunted by a ghost.My sister turned to me with her big, scared eyes and said with a small pitiful voice:
“Brother, I don’t want to go there; they say that it is haunted.”
I dismissed such claims as nothing but a hoax and continued on, holding her hand tightly, reassuring her that there was nothing to be scared about.
As we went on, it became darker as the evening approached; when suddenly, I saw an animal stirring in the bushes. I shushed my sister and left her behind, and tip-toed across the jungle floor. But then, the animal noticed me and started to run for its dear life. I chased it with all my might across the jungle floor and it was in the sight of my catapult, but alas; my foot got stuck in the root of a tree and I fell on a rock, knocking me out cold, rendering me unconscious.
When I finally came to my senses, the jungle was dark and only a few streams of light from the evening sky illuminated the jungle floor. I picked myself up and went near my sister and held her hand and started our way home.
As we went on, I saw a figure in the distance, but could not ascertain who it really was. I consoled my sister beside me that there was nothing to be scared about, as we walked on, even though I myself was feeling a little intimidated by the figure in the jungle. As we went closer, I could make out the shape of a small girl, and then I caught her eye, and she suddenly exclaimed in her sweet worried voice, “I’ve been looking for you for so long. Where have you been, brother?”
IT WAS MY SISTER. . .
