In every human’s life, there comes a turning point which completely changes the individual and his/her upcoming days. Well, in my case, there has been a lot, since the beginning to be accurate.
The first faint glimpse that I can remember is travelling to Tiger Tops with my parents. I was in a car and I could see a damaged aeroplane out of the window. To verify my age at this point of time, I had to ask my mother and it happened to be when I was one years old.
Moving forward in the timeline, I remember getting pomegranate from my maternal great grandfather(we called him Budo Baa). Let’s skip the parts in between as I cannot remember all of it. Then, one day, Sarda aunty came crying and informed us about his death. I don’t know what happened next, but what I can remember is, Prabin dai(brother) and I were running towards the bicycle rode by Chhabi mama(maternal uncle) and Sushila aunty was in the back seat.
“Budo baa got married!!! We’ll get to eat rice pudding!”, Prabin dai had said this in excitement. I can clearly remember this line and it still echoes in my ears. By the way, rice pudding was his favourite.
Neither I knew what marriage was nor I knew about death. But, looking at the excitement of Prabin dai, I was also overjoyed.
Upon reaching Budo baa’s home, I could see everyone crying. Prabin dai was no where to be seen. Probably, he was in hunt for his rice pudding.
Since everyone was crying and I had no idea what was going on, I also screamed with them.
Later, I saw a burning pile of wood. I didn’t know that Budo Baa had been cremated there. After realizing that he was gone forever, my heart had a question , “What is death?”. The first question that I had asked myself and this question had awakened my senses.
This incident changed something in me from the core of my soul. In search for the answer to my question, I understood life. I lived here, I was alive, but to be honest, I felt that I did not belong here which lead me to another question, “Who am I?”.
Since then, the world around me was as if I had been watching a TV and the people around me were the characters of my story.
I analyzed everything, observed and realized people, their behaviour and that any actions I make has an impact including the words I speak. I was different, don’t know how, don’t know why and this shift within me happened when I was only 3 years old.
