Tree of life, shorter and longer all treasure

Back from Orissa, the Bay of Bengal beach of Puri is good but overcrowded; spending quality time on the beach was not very pleasant one. Visiting Dhauli, Sun Temple at Konark and other places not for first time, so overall this trip was very ordinary one.

Back to my joint on 1st October. On 2nd it was Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday and a national holiday. Over the year my perception about M.G. is changed. I belongs to a family who bear the burnt of partition. Even it is not me who directly gone through the heat of partition, but memories from my Granny’s narration is still haunted. Today I can understand that, it is very unfair to blame M.G. alone for the partition. Anyhow, this is a very sensitive and political issue and I am a very apolitical person.

Apart from Deepavali all other Hindu festival is almost over for the year. On Saturday it was “Kojagari Purnima”. In Bengal, almost all houses perform “Lakshmi or Laxmi Puja” (Goddess of Wealth) on this day. Do not know how the balance sheet of those houses looks like after this day.
When I was in Mumbai, first time I came to know that ‘Kojagari Purnima’ means (Jagoran) no sleep on that night. Only once in early 80’s I was involved in such activity. At that time, I was having a Maharashtrian couple as my neighbour. They were very jovial, friendly and childless. They always used to make use of their spare time for something than other. I used to call them Bhau (big brother) and Kali Baini (sister-in-law [Dark]). I do not understand why to call somebody by her or his appearance or skin colour, but everybody used to call her by that name and she never felt bad. On that particular ‘Kojagari Purnima’ , we went to Baini’s parents house in Ghatkopar. They were a very big family all together. Song, Dance and lots of gossip all what was on the menu along with some Maharashtrian delicacies. After few years, we moved away, I left for aboard and they went to stay in BPT Colony Wadala. Almost after 18 years when Bhau’s retired, they decided to leave Mumbai permanently for their native place, they took lots of pain to locate me before leaving Mumbai, one fine afternoon they came calling to my office. While leaving they told me ‘Kadi tari ae amchi kare’ (Visit us, sometime). I just smiled and said ‘why not?’ Nevertheless, I knew all the way that it was just a white lie, which I uttered.

It is sometime very difficult to keep count of all peoples and their impact on ones life but still there were umpteen numbers of people who crossed my path or just peeped for once, I tried to remember them all; life would have been meaningless without their presence. Out of sight is out of mind is not my way of life.

Life like a huge tree, relations are short timer and long lasting, like leaves, flowers, fruits and branches, some come and go, some stay forever until the existence of tree. All these memories are treasure even it is painful.

!!!The theory about plants having life, if it is true, I wonder if it too remembers all leaves, flowers, fruits and branches, which no longer belongs to it.!!!