Time Machine!

When I was born, the refugee tag still existed on our family. After partition in 1947 my granny was migrated to Calcutta. By the time I was born our family moved out of Ballygunge refugee camp to our house in Kolkata. Granny built a house on the land given by the Government. My Father was the second after my aunt and was only male child in the family with another two female younger siblings.  After lots of struggle the family settled their own term. Elder aunt got married to Jamshedpur, as my uncle was a Tata employee and my father too followed the suits. My second aunt was a nurse by professions and younger one was working in Telephone and then transferred to Rationing Dept. It was semi joint family with too many guardians but it was a perfect childhood anyone can dream. So, I was having privilege of growing up along with two previous generations. In early days Granny used to teach us and she was gifted with lots of knowledge that was rare on those days.  

When I am very young father decided to take the family to Jamshedpur. I always considered my life in Jamshedpur was picture perfect. We had nothing compare to today’s kid yet we had everything which was incomparable.

Then out of blue I saw my not-so old folks standing in the queue. No, it was not first-in-first-out basis but sorted out randomly. Slowly, they departed and one too fast. My elder aunt was the first to go. She died somewhere at the end of 60’s. Thereafter, got the most painful blow that I yet to recover. In the end of 1971 I lost my mother. That incident changed my life completely, it was a 360 spin. Over four decades lost all of them one by, my Grandma and then second aunt. My father died 1999.

It is said unless you loss you don’t know the price.  My youngest aunt was the sole survivor from her generation. Somewhat, last man standing or last line of defence to guarding the younger lot.  She was childless and after my uncle death she used to stay alone.  She was very temperament and so we tried to avoid her, never realized that she had none except handful of us. Lately, she lived like any other unwanted old people. Only, difference was, people around her could not ignore her completely due to her money and property she earned with lots of pain and hardship. A year and half back she decided to handover her house to promoter and shifted to a rental apartment. Finally curtain fell on Monday 24^th February, 2014 when we lost her. Her only wish was to get back to the new apartment built on same land remain unfulfilled. According to her last wish her body donated to the hospital. A journey that commenced in pre-independent era and that saw rare happiness and more turmoil but it fade away within a moment.

Today, while sitting on my desk with loads of guilt, we made thousand mistakes but cannot forgive a small one committed by others. As past generation wiped off, finding myself in the queue and can visualize the finish line but I know that one is a visual mirage.

!!!Hope, a time machine is a reality, only to turn around the time and tried to erase the errors that I committed.!!!