Time is the most
undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not
come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and,
like the flash of lightning, at once exists and expires.
Charles Caleb Colton
I begin this year, deliberately, with no resolutions but
with a determination to enjoy and cherish life, as I bid a bitter-sweet farewell to the year that was! Bye 2015, What a year you have been!
It began with the sweetest event , the birthday of my grand
daughter, little Samyuktha, who turned
one on January 5th, 2015. The two
families came together and celebrated the occasion. And unknown to us,
fate was dealing her secret hand. We were getting ready to forge, another new
relationship!
That was the first of the three visits last year, of the
littlest one! I was witness to every milestone in the first year of her life and
like a pupa that struggles to bloom into a butterfly, my little one was driven
to walk and run, speak and play! We got to spend time with our older daughter and grew to love
and cherish her more, for the person she has become! We also got to appreciate
and value our son in law, who has now become the pillar of our family.
Our younger daughter was married in a traditional vedic ceremony on November 15th
2015. It was an occasion we were looking forward to! Yet the joy was mixed with
sadness, for she would go far away from home to make a home for herself, with
her loving husband.
What followed the
wedding in Chennai was something most unexpected. Much has been written and discussed
about the deluge. Rains battered the
city for more than a month and Chennai was submerged under water. People
suffered in ways they had never imagined. I was among the fortunate
ones. Our compound was filled with water and there was no electricity for three
days. I worried that the rains would never stop! My husband returned home on the
last flight before the authorities shut down the airport.
There were no roads
and streets, only water everywhere. Losses were immense; destruction, unbelievable. Chennai and her people have bravely limped back. The new
year has brought sunshine and cheer, I
hope to the lives of everyone everywhere and specially in Chennai.
But time soon passes. Even the deepest pain
eventually loses its edge in the more vivid reality of the present; then, what
once was unbearable becomes strangely familiar. And after much familiarity, it
assumes the insignificance of just another milestone, ever marking the journey
to higher ground. N. Maria Kwami,
Secrets of the Bending Grove.
