2021 Fades Away To 2022 - Mohua Chinappa

365 days are ending. It is the start of a new calendar. This is momentous. If you are reading this article, you have survived Covid. So that itself is a feat. Let’s be grateful. Many died gasping for a ventilator. 

 

For few it’s just another day. They are blasé about 1st January. It’s another date as they tell me in all seriousness. 

 

For me personally it is a reflective moment of the year I am leaving behind. The changes I embraced and the things I have let go. The things I am looking forward to. Frightened but excited about the new year. 

 

Last year I lost friends. Friends I miss dearly when I overcome any hurdle or when I feel the walls are closing in on me. These friends who won’t leave my heart inspite of no physical presence. I yearn to hear their voice. But I know that it is impossible. They remain on my social media feed reminding me of their birthdays, anniversaries and moments shared together. I understand life is transient.

 

Parents have become intensely unwell. They are becoming my children. Children I didn’t birth. But children by the cosmic karmic energy.

 

So just like little children they want my attention all the time. Petulant and depressive many a times. But I hold on to the memory of the parent I knew them for. It’s so tough to know that they are a poor reflection of what they were. 

 

I am becoming sensitive to the inherent selfish nature in human beings. I am in also in awe of the resilience and in disgust for the greed of wanting a little more time, little more money and a little more for the self. 

 

In all this exhausting circus of loss. I saw love. I witnessed the most beautiful wedding in my life. I can truly say it was the most beautiful ever. It was conducted only among friends and few members of the family who truly wish the couple well. So much courage to not call the aunts, uncles or cousins who may not be the well wishers. 

 

As the wedding took place. I choked and fumbled. It took me back to the hostility of my own wedding. The salty, mean relatives. The family structure we so revere is sometimes nothing but a sham.

 

This beautiful wedding took place against the setting sun of Rajasthan. It was godhuli. The magic hour. The sky was blushing with its own beauty. In the wedding women cried recalling their past moments. 

 

I also drove alone through the Aravalli range of forests. In the midst of nowhere she again appeared. This time in the form of a woman. Wrinkled face, grey eyes and a hand begging me for alms. I instantly connected. 

 

She was my guardian angel. I wanted to hug her and cry. Instead I touched her arm. It was surreal and it was tumultuous. She still stays. 

 

My father recollects his childhood every night at 3.00 am and sends me random texts. Which is so unlike him. I respond sometimes and sometimes I ignore.

 

I have finished my book and feel immensely satisfied. 

 

With the winter sun on my face. I unfold the creases of my wool sweater. As I unfold I recall the worn out red sweater I wore in Shillong. The sleeves of which got shorter every year, as I grew. I pulled the shirt inside to not feel the biting cold. Now things are different. But I still remember the short sweater inspite of the pashminas in my cupboard. 

 

Things and places have changed. 

 

What remains intact is hope. What remains also stoic is the tears. What remains courageous is my ability to feel and connect to a world that is invisible yet always around me, inside me. 

 

Life is bathing me in its super consciousnesses. It awakens the need to be enlightened everyday.  

 

I met women in the obscurity of a small desert town of Rajasthan. The women came in a group of dark pink, yellow, red clothing and so much affection. The imbalance of less money and so much affection seared into my heart. The hugs remain long after the goodbyes.

 

I end the year knowing there are good people, great unknown artists, believers and there is always hope.