Its my kid sister's birthday today and boy! am I PROUD of her!She is some hi fi doctor in the Ford Hospital in Michigan, USA and everyone loves her and she feels dreadfully embarrassed when I tell her all this. She urges me in an agonised,anguished sotto voce whisper to keep quiet,please and people will hear you and what will they think!
She was born when I was eight years old.My mother was a full-time working woman who took her duties as a school teacher very seriously. Which meant that she had...less...time to take care of ..umm.. other things.
There was the nightmarish time when she had gone on a refresher course, to Bangalore, for two months and my sister was just an infant.I took care of this live,beautiful,bubbly baby.Of course my father was there and so was a live-in maid of sorts, who felt that her duty ended with cooking the day's food and bathing Suja,my sister.
Suja fell ill very often, I remember. Taking care of a child in those days seemed to be more a trial-and-error effort rather than anything else. Tic Tac Toe,Round I Go,If I Miss,I Get This...more or less sums it up.So my poor sister( I used to call her 'moni') ran rapidly, and without pause through a series of stomach,throat and skin infections. During the rare times when she was not too sick she smiled or gurgled with childish laughter and her smile was like a moonbeam peeping through dark lowering clouds and my heart used to melt within me; she was such a darling child.
I got married and left home when she was thirteen; a time when she really needed some one to talk to, and a confidante to share all the puzzling stuff that teenagers wish to ask and affirm.Poor sweetheart, there was no one to talk to and it is something that I shall always regret.
I can't help wishing that the rare times that we met subsequently, we had more time to spend with each other.
We are making plans, but how far they will bear fruit, we have to wait and see.
Sisters are SO special, aren't they?
And my sister is MORE special than everybody else's, so there!
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