Tales from a twisted mind

Moving on...    Seven years ago, I lost my dad on this day. 31st May shall never be the same again.    I am struggling to put my thoughts into words, staring at the blank page trying to assimilate them into a coherent flow, while Florence sings ‘Hunger’ in the background. Although I titled this post as ‘Moving on..’, I find myself at a loss in doing that either.    Maybe using an analogy might work? Maybe not? Who knows.     Why is it that I am unable to move on from my dad’s death? It is a question which baffles me till now.    His death happened all of a sudden - just an hour ago before his passing, he got up to use the washroom. I remember saying a prayer for him, before leaving for work. Next thing, I get a call from my sister to come home soon.     A frantic chase ensued, where I was playing catch-up with them and reach the hospital just in time. He was declared dead on arrival. ...

When Viola Davis won the Academy award for best supporting actress in the year 2016, she gave one of the most memorable speeches ever. She spoke about dead people in cemeteries.She said, “People ask me all the time: ‘What kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola? And I say, exhume those bodies, exhume those stories. The stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition, people who fell in love and lost.” Although, I felt odd when I heard the speech live two years ago, the meaning of it became clear to me roughly three weeks back, when after Sunday mass I paid a visit to my father’s niche in the church graveyard. Often at times, I simply walk past the niches and the graves – the graves make me feel sombre thinking about the dead bodies lying underneath the slab covers, decomposing over time, while the niche fascinate me because generations of family members have entombed their remains together. Some of these niches even have a photo of the deceased, alon...

GOODBYE Ten years ago was the last day I saw her eyes open. My mother passed away on 20th July 2007. She breathed her last, or more like gasped for air, sometime in the morning around 07:30 am. I was awakened by the sounds of my aunt and my dad crying out in panic. I was 15 years old at that time and to this day, I still remember each and every moment of it. It has been branded in my mind forever and no passage of time can erase them off – it is a futile exercise in itself; the idea of forgetting a day or a memory and yet, despite your best efforts, nothing changes. It stays fresh as a wound and every year, on this day, I relive those agonizing moments. I got up and went to the bed, where she laid. The disease had finally laid waste of a once strong woman. Her bones were clearly visible, the skin down to the minimum. She was making a retching-type sound from her mouth, trying to breathe or perhaps, push air in her lungs. Her eyelids were partially closed and from ...