Old Stories
When was the last time you sat down with your parents or grandparents for a cup of chai? To sit by the balcony, letting the time go by slowly.
It really tells you how important a routine is. The conversation that builds with patiently sipping the hot piping tea and losing the biscuit you were just dipping in it, like when you were all set out to achieve this particular dream but crumbled up as soon as you embarked upon it because of the heat from all the directions but mainly from within.
You descend into the repetitive tales of your parents and grandparents from their uncooked days, woefully imagining yourself in a similar situation to gain the wisdom that is being passed upon. My grandfather is still friends with his buddy from their early 20s. He recently went to see him after his wife passed away. And now that his friend's son is also not frequenting the place, he's not doing so good alone.
So dada was telling me how he makes a point to see his friend atleast twice a month. Even though he has to take care of dadi 24x7, he makes time for his best friend of like 50 years now. I couldn't wrap my head around this figure. To have known someone for this long who you don't get to see everyday. To support them through all these pivotal stages of life. I know a few of my friends prefer not seeing each other for weeks even when it's so easy to stay in touch these days with video calls, messages, social media.
Things have gotten so accessible that now we've people avoiding them, to keep away from the over stimulation. But at the same time, I find it concerning that to show that you don't care is becoming the norm. At the end of the day, it boils down to who you choose to check-in with, if at all you do.
One of my mother's friends celebrated her 50th birthday last week. She's been through a messy divorce, couldn't adopt due to a number of strict regulations but she had her party of 5 people who meant the most to her to cut the cake on her birthday. My mom showed me pictures of their celebration, and I call her friend 'Mausi', they've really known each other for 45 years now - same house, different floors, both their dads were in railways, they went to the same school, had same streams for higher studies and then got married & moved to the same city. I cherish these stories so much.
Staying back at home, and living these leisurely evenings or early mornings with my family is never not exciting. You happen to look forward to being with them listening over to the same embarrassing stories of your childhood. I wonder what would be my favorite memory/story to recall when I'm older. So far I've been lucky to have a treasure trove of them to even pick one. But as my hair turn grey (obviously due to wisdom and not the hair colors I go crazy after), I might not be able to recall most of it. Where would this part of me go then?
Our past happens only in memory. And it is so unique, because we can't even say if two individuals see the same color as yellow. How ordinary yet profound to exist in the mundane.
I happen to rêver at nights;
When we fall asleep, where do we go?