A forgotten birthday.

 It was the November of 1990 and a very large cyclone had hit the shores of Chennai. The entire roads were inundated knee deep with water across the city. It was our first year in Chennai after moving from Bombay and I was 10 yrs old and had to take a 30 min ride in the public bus to school. That particular day I started a bit early and managed to board the bus (15G) which waded through the inundated roads before dropping me off in Taylor's road bus stop. On the other hand, my sister Deepika (a.k.a Deep) who was just 6 yrs old decided to stay at home citing the heavy rains. School was another 10 min walk and this day it took forever to reach the school. Upon reaching the school realised I was among the only 3 kids to reach my class and the school had declared a holiday owing to this cyclone. And now I had the ardent task of returning home safely!

On my 10 min walk back to the bus stop, engaged in a conversation with my friends and one of them quoted that he saw in the news that it was India Gandhi's death anniversary the day before. It then struck me and checked the date today and voila - today is 01-Nov which means it's my sister's birthday. In our family conversations, my dad had often mentioned the difficulty in getting mom to hospital and shortage of doctors for this delivery as the entire nation was under lock down following the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination on 30th Oct, 1984. So this event was stuck in my mind along with Deepika's birthday ofcourse.

I then rushed to one of the nearby provisional store and bought a "Cadbury Temptation" a premium chocalate for the time and blew my entire pocket money of Rs.15 with no regrets ofcourse. I managed to get back home and wished my dear sister a very Happy 6th birthday who had just woke up from a late morning nap totally oblivious to the fact that it was her birthday today. My mom felt bad that she forgot this as well, but atleast one of us remembered and we all devoured the best chocolate for the day.

Till date, this remains the most undecorated yet a very special birthday and will be the day we "almost" forgot it was Deep's birthday. 

The Second Last Supper

 Date: Saturday, 15 February, 1997

The clock ticked 7:00 pm and it was like any other Saturday evening for us at door number C-136. My dad had finished his coffee and caught up with his usual newspaper reading. My sister (Deepika a.k.a Deep) in her 7th standard was doing her home work assignments. With just couple of weeks for my 12th board exam, I had a long day of fervently reading through my school books and had just taken a small break and was sitting with my dad. Mom on the other hand was contemplating in all seriousness the menu for our family dinner tonight.

After few minutes of pondering, mom proudly announced she was going to cook daal and chapathis for dinner - one of my favourite off her menu. At this, dad with a bit of thoughtful consideration looked at my sister, me and said "Mummy has been cooking for us all these years, let's give her a break tonight and let us all cook for her instead". Deep and I immediately jumped at the thought of it and we all stormed into the tiny kitchen of C-136 and asked mom to step aside. We then realized, none of us really know cooking and  gave a blank look at one another.

Mom then put on her master-chef hat, sat in a corner of the kitchen and orchestrated the remaining of the cooking. Deep had to flatten the chapathi dough, dad had to roll the dough with a circular precision and I had to cook them off the tawa. The next 30 minutes was one of those rare family union moments which is etched deep in our hearts. We laughed, mocked each other, openly acknowledged mom's contribution to our well being, in a way thanked her for everything and most importantly felt complete as a family. 

Little did we know this was going to be our second last dinner as a family and that this moment will be the poster picture of our last moment together....

(p.s. - The following Monday my parents met with a fatal accident and never returned home. The together family was never together anymore.....)