Eid Mubarak: Ek Eid aisi bhi!

Kitchen Rants: My Main Man

A whiff of aromatic something hit my nostrils that noon when my mind was already preoccupied with a colossal thought, shifting the focus this time from my kitchen to Ammi’s kitchen. As I rushed down to check, Ammi was busy cooking this pot of nostalgia named ‘Biriyani’; which further shifted my thoughts to that day when he had called me. Talking to him is easily my favorite part of the day. I make sure we do talk once in a day at least; at times it varies though.

He was ‘hero’ to many, but being his favorite girl forever had put my otherwise troubled insecurities to rest.

Marriage does change your priorities, but my relationship with him just got deep-rooted with the passing time.

That day he said he missed having my ‘mutton biryani.’ And I had told him that in a week he would be here and I was planning the same for him. Little did I know at that time that a sudden twiddle in the situation will leave me agape and that circumstances would take me to him this time rather than him visiting me.

My relationship with him holds the utmost importance in my life. Whatever I am today as a human, I owe it to him. A human heart is not designed to beat outside the body, but I’ve seen him baring it many times outside when it came to his children. I could talk anything to him, and seldom did he fail to surprise me with his immaculate knowledge on any subject thrown at him. He was most handsome unquestionably, and if it’s inner beauty which rightly makes you so, then he embodied it. My relationship with him was more than that of a friend, but he’ll remain my best friend forever. He was as important to my brother as he was to me.

That day as I was busy getting my little apartment tidy and getting all his favorite things awaiting his arrival, I got a call from my brother that he had taken him for a general check-up and the doctor suggested an Angiogram. Which meant, his visit to my place got canceled, and I had to rush to him.

We called him ‘Abbaba.’ Yes, a ‘ba’ extra. I was his firstborn, and I was expected to address him ‘Abba,’ but the little me probably knew that this hero of mine is extra. Thus the extra ‘ba’ was a rightful addition.

He was extra in everything. Extra good-looking, extra jovial, extra caring, extra intelligent, but most importantly, extra-human. I can easily give him the coveted title of ‘superhero,’ but he was my ‘superhuman.’

One of the crucial lessons we imbibed from him was ‘In a world where you can be anything, try and be a human.’ He is so full of compassion that being his children, a little of it has probably rubbed on to my brother and me. He lived by the principle ‘kill them with kindness.’ And that phone call from my brother the other day left me in a deep predicament. He had already undergone a neurosurgery couple of years back, and my mind couldn’t fathom the thought that ‘the heart’ which I’ve often seen being held out of the body, could have any kind of ailment.

Hospital scenes ain’t fancy at all. They are nowhere close to the pretty decorative hospitals you find in Bollywood movies. They have the capacity to scare away even your demons. The only feeling which takes over you as you await the Doctor’s verdict outside an OT is that of numbness. His Angiogram report was positive, and he had to undergo bypass surgery. The wait outside was not alien, we had gone through a similar one during his neurosurgery too. But, when the question ‘why him always?’ cropped up, the answer I got was ‘he is the strongest and so full of life that even life enjoyed playing games with him.’

It’s surprising how a single person’s absence even for a while can make your world void. We got him home hail and hearty.

Then we had this uphill task. It was a mounting task in all true sense. A medical intervention leaves a person drained of all his strength and will power. We had to become his strength, hope, and much more. When my baby champ helped him with his bath and other stuff, it all made sense what Simba meant by ‘Circle of life.’

It was Ababa’s turn to take the baby steps now, and my turn to hold his hand tight and make sure he doesn’t stumble and fall. He always had this habit of holding my hand tight whenever we went out. Now, as I was holding his hand, Champ turned the TV on and the song ‘Baba mai teri mallika, tukda mai tere dil ka’ played in the background. With my dismayed mind, the only thing that I could comprehend and yearn was that there are many more thresholds in life yet to come, and I need you to hold my hand to cross each one of them. And my heart whispered, “You’ll be my main man forever, and me your little girl!”