Ashok had always wanted a son, a son just like him; calm yet ambitious. He himself had dreamt of becoming a doctor when he was just seven and fulfilled it without fail. During those times, a poor student becoming a doctor was today’s equivalent of a Bangladeshi astronaut going to the Moon; near to impossible. But Ashok had achieved that impossibility by his sheer hard work, grit and according to him, his father’s blessings. Ashok had always been an obedient son and the moment he secured a position in medicals, his father wanted him to get married and give him a grandson. On his father Ramdeo Babu’s insistence, he married a young and youthful girl Renu, even while he was studying at Patna Medical College.
Unlike today’s fast forward love stories, Papa and Ma had met only once before marriage, at their engagement. And while the young Medicine student slipped a gold ring in the finger of his bride to be, he whispered in her ears, “Have you ever been to Kashmir?” The answer was a shy No. This was the only conversation they had before they got married a month later. Needless to say, they had their honeymoon, a rarity in those days, in the snowy lap of the Himalayas at Kashmir. I sometimes like to assume that I was conceived in this Paradise itself and that is why I have a little bit of Kashmir in me, that I am a down-to-earthling and a militant at the same time.
Papa reached the Christian Quarters, a week after my birth and as he held the still so pink, still so howling me in his arms, he must have watched his version of my entire life flash in front of him in a matter of seconds. He must have seen me- top the classes, win the races, woo the ladies, lead the people and become the person he had always strived to be.
He named me Reshu – a word which represented who I was; the Joint Venture of Renu and Ashok Ltd. But the word would not have made much of a sense for the rest of the world. So, they gave me another name, Aayush – ‘someone who lives long’ (or maybe just ‘someone who LIVES’). And that is what I have always been since then, Reshu at home and Aayush for the rest of the world.
The next three years were the years for the usual ‘firsts’; something which always amazes us mortals despite its blatancy and certainty. My list of ‘firsts’ was as comprehensive as the rest of us; my first words, my first steps, my first nursery rhyme, my first day at school, my first full course meal, my first.. oh no, that followed much later. And somehow my parents always found something worthwhile in my futile ‘firsts’ and I have pictures of nearly all of my ‘achievements’.
However immodest and clichéd it might sound but I was very different from the guys of my age. I started talking when I was just one year old and was reading books by the time I reached two. By the time I was three, I already knew that my bench mate Carol was a girl and I was a boy. This does not mean that I was a prodigy or something. I was just different. I just could not memorise many nursery rhymes but somehow wrote a few of them. I never figured out why it is ‘men’ and not ‘mans’ but I loved talking to myself in fictitious languages. I did not know the capital of Brazil but I visited a new country of my own every single night. I never ever talked to the guys at school but my wooden horse chatted and played with me. Yes, I would love to believe I was different but isn’t that something every kid likes to believe in.
My life then was a never-ending Enid Blyton adventure. Me and my wooden horse would travel to far off lands, unearth treasures and win battles together. We met the fairies of Oz, defeated the three eyed Kajhu of Fenkistan and travelled on the flying carpet of Aladin. My wooden horse was my best friend and my biggest confidant. And however implausible it sounds now, he also talked back to me. We would sit together for hours and delve deeper into the labyrinth of life. When Badi Ma, my Bade Papa’s wife, once saw me discussing the secrets of the kingdom of Tecrona, she assumed that it was the same Victorian ghost back again and took to me to numerous temples and churches in Bettiah. But to no avail.
I guess, Papa must have noticed me ‘talking to myself’ or seen that I don’t have many friends. He must have had a concerned discussion with Ma in which they must have decided that my being alone is making me ‘different’. Or maybe it must have been something completely unplanned. Whatever be the case, since one fine day, I began to see my Ma get fatter and fatter. But, instead of dieting, she was taking double the food and instead of getting concerned, she seemed happy about some mysterious thing. Even my wooden horse had no answer for this one. I was on the verge of asking this at school when I got to know the truth. I still vividly remember Mrs. Sen, our neighbour, come to me one day and say, “Hey Reshu, you are getting a new brother. Are you happy about it?”
‘Brother’, did she really say brother, she said it as if Papa was getting me some new toy from a Mela. I didn’t know how to react. I knew what brothers were and I had always wanted one since I had seen Ronu’s elder brother Sonu giving him a chocolate. It was only two years later, when I saw a classic Ronu Sonu fight, that I realised that having a brother is not a Bourbon but a Krackjack. I still remember Mrs. Sen taking my hand and putting it on the big tummy my Ma seemed to love so much.
And I could feel it move and sense and think... and talk.
There he was in the safe haven of the ever-growing belly of my Ma; a younger brother (I always knew it had got to be a boy), a new friend, my new wooden horse.
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