As an elder brother, he always respected me and treated everyone of our family with the same respect and love. When we were small children, he was the smallest among us and that made him special to everyone of us. I don’t have an incident to narrate owing to dwindling memory but my sisters, mother, would have many.
When he grew up and started attending college, I was already away in job within India. Whenever I visited home, he was there as a help and he was also available at home as their help since I was away.
He was an average student and we did not have high expectations of him academically. But he always met and exceeded our benchmarks. At the time I went to Gulf for work, he has been still continuing his studies.
We kept close contact though I was away. He was not good with PCs nor knew how to send an e-mail. With regards to e-mail I once sent him a deadline and a warning to start using it. He obeyed me and did not look back ever since. He became an ace PC user soon after that. However he was gradually moving towards a profession in mass media by taking up the required academics for it.
His English was not good. But as days passed by, his language gradually improved and outshined mine. He had been writing extremely well within few years into his career with the Express. Today one of the things I love to do most, is write well in English. I have the highest regard for those who write well as I believe in the saying “Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature’s chief masterpiece is writing well. – Duke of Buckinghamshire Sheffield”.
His language was brilliant by the time he left us and I was proud of him. I dreamed that he would find a better career and move to the Times of India or even write for the mighty New York Times one day. I used to send him my poorer writing to edit and improve.
Beyond all the cheer, I saw in him and in his work, I don’t know when spirituality crept in and whenever it did, it did with devastating power and influence.
Throughout the debacle and faced with the prospect of him leaving, during our discussions, I never asked him directly not to leave though I said hundreds of things indirectly asking him to stop. You know, my mothers heartfelt cries could not move the would-be Sannyasi’s hardened will power, what difference would I, his brother, make? Also, what’s the point in stopping your lover when she wants to marry the other man? (you might believe the other man is not worth it but she has a completely different view). If you truly love her, let her do what she wish to do. You can do your best in trying to convince her of the futility, what if she does not appreciate your view even after that?
For all of us, family, his happiness was the ultimate goal. That combined with his unshakable stand and newfound faith in spirituality, there was nothing to stop him. As I previously mentioned, if we physically stopped him as some people suggested, what would our beloved young man come to become? and we will have to witness his possible downfall too.
At least at the moment, he is happy in his own world, though he may be trying harder to cut the mental images of his so called ‘Poorvasramam’, his family.
