There she goes ....

"There she goes
There she goes again
Racing through my brain
And I just can't contain,
this feeling that remains"

The road is awash with the early september rain. Morning sun is slanting its rays on brown murky puddles. I and bhagu are immaculately dressed up,resolute we solemnly hang by our father's index fingers. Our hair neatly combed and brushed back. Our faces powdered by the fashion of the day, wet gandh on our foreheads and a dot of black onthe cheeks, taai has made sure that we are dressed for the occasion.I in my favourite dark blue satin T-shirt and bhagu in his yellow.Oil on top of a puddle distracts me and I let go of the finger. It moves like a then-psychedelic color changing amoeba. A breeze makes the water ripple.I forget everything and watch this extravaganza with open mouthed awestruck ecstacy.

I suddenly feel I'm alone and run with all the might. I do not want to be left back. I want to be the first one to hold the bundle of joy. A nurse in white is standing on top of the steps leading to the clinic. We try to look at her but the morning sun shines directly in our eyes. She cracks some joke about not letting us get the baby cos it was never ours in the first place and an eagle/stork dropped it near our mom yesterday and she will anyway take it as my mom has two already. Me and bhagu are just through with daily reading session where the eagle-and-stork-dropped babies grow up and leave their families to search for their royal roots and glory. We do not want that to happen with this baby. My eyes suddenly well up with tears. I jump the nurse, use tooth and nails to scratch and bite,bhagu follows suit. We drag this so far that the look of pride in father's and spent and tired mom's face changes to minor irritation to an explosion of anger which sends us into the grasp of one of his arms and we return home with him balancing two of us on one hand and holding the baby and supporting my mom with another. This balance becomes a feature of us fivesome.We manage to balance and fit everywhere. On a bicycle, in only one machhardaanee, on two tickets in our twice-a-week visits to the nearest theatres, on the same bench on the ferris wheels.

We share things. books, school, classrooms, teachers, scholarships, speakers' dias, speech-scripts. Most of them hand-me-downs. She is the last user and the best. She outshines us two every time.I think; bhagu listens and she works hard.She is the quiet one, the last ugly duckling. But always most liked and appreciated by every body. Parents, relatives and teachers.She is the bottom of the protection-chain. She is the perpetual vamp in our three charactor plays. I'm the self proclaimed king of the kingdom of three. She is my most devoted subject. The look of admiration and devotion remains even when I fall flat on my face and becomes a laughing stock. My word is the final one, I'm the supreme authority on everything. I make mistakes, sometimes behave snotty, selfish, insensitive, brutal. She forgives without asking, understands, controls by suffering. The ownership slowly changes hands.Shw listens to us but we say what she wants. The servant becomes the master through serving.

We spend years together, sharing everything, fighting tooth and nail,understanding and misunderstanding, loving and hating. She is always there on the fringes of thoughts. Calming, influencing, supporting, understanding.

She never suggests but makes changes all the same. She is the spoilsport, the regular sqeaker. Many a adventures reach untimely end because of her in the childhood, many a love stories nipped in the bud in the youth.But she never allows anything to be too wrong or too dangerous. She is normally analytical and timid, but when she dedicates to something she can be as intense as anybody. She learns karate and lathi.We change roles and I become the punching bag. All the throws are practised on me. I, without any formal training know now how to fall, how to escape lathimar even how to grab a female without getting your kneecaps kicked in, eyes punctured, nose bleeding, teeth knocked in.

when you own and are owned so much it is so difficult to part. It is more difficult than tearing away parts of your body. I spend the whole day in the brand new dhoti and turban bought specially for the occasion.Whole day I have been flirting with the camera. But now I cower from the glares of the halogen bulb.I decide not to cry. I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. She is going around touching feet of all her elders. I do not want her to see me cry. It becomes unbearable and uncontrollable. She reaches me,I donot allow her to touch my feet. Mumble something meaningless and nod her on her way on.

She does not go, just wants to steal some more time together. Something breaks within. She tries to console me,her inlaws join her, but my grief knows no bounds. We push their car out for some distance, everybody is alone and so lonely for sometime, maybe lonely for a long time.

There she goes with the pieces from my heart
There she goes and now my teardrops start
And `ere I go once again
Through these lonely heartaches and pain
That`s all remain
all remain
There she goes again
Chasing down my lane
And no-one else can heal my pain
and I just can't contain,
this feeling that remains
There she goes
There she goes
There she goes"