Today I recall an incident that’s still fresh as a daisy in my memory… That summer evening while still basking in the glory of the tag ‘newly wedded’, we walked out of a buzzing mall of Mumbai to head home in a rick. While I enjoyed my ice-cream, a little girl on the signal, maudlin and worn-out, kept gazing at me. I handed over my half- eaten ice-cream to her thinking she would dig into it, but my heart sank at what I saw after that. Thrilled, she quickly ran towards her baby brother who sat on the pavement like a little Humpty-Dumpty, too young to beg, and handed it over to him while herself watching him with twinkling-little-starry-eyes, a proud smile that did not accentuate her not-so-chubby-cheeks, and her heart melting away in anxiety like the ice-cream. I could not have experienced such deep and profound love for a sibling ever in my world.
The “si-bling” factor in my life is my younger sister, the rebellion and go-getter, who has always given me advise on my naivety rather than seek from me. I fondly remember an incident of our childhood when we had three chocolates with us. While we brainstormed on how we could distribute them equally between us, she smartly expressed to gobble up one herself which would eventually leave us with two which could now be accurately divided between us. In my innocence I agreed when my mother over-heard us and made me understand the trick. I was shocked and at the same time embarrassed.
Be it the choice of neon colors in her wardrobe, choice of exotic food on her plate or her genuine belly laughter, the rainbow of her personality has always reflected colorful and the diamond of her character has always blinged brilliantly…
Cuppa tea and me 