Riz smiles with Reason

Thank you for reading and sharing my last post. Hope it can make a tiny difference somewhere!  Here's a HAPPY Post with photos of my Techno friendly brother! :) Busy exploring the Tabla Ap on Mummy's Tablet. In fact he's great on it Uno! And look who won!  Favorite  toy!

Let me admit, I have written and deleted similar posts many times in the past. It's about the truth we mask with love to protect our brother.  Last night when my elder brother Arshad was reversing his car to drop me to my place, he pointed out a group of young boys sitting under his apartment window. He said that when he was placing the new curtains, he saw these boys along with a couple of girls, (who live in the same building) point up at him. They were discussing if he was the "mad guy" or not. They were talking about June. It didn't bother them, that Chiggu bhai (Arshad) was looking at them or could hear them.  Neither my brother nor I were shocked by this incident.  Every time, people behave like this, regarding June Bhai, it just leaves us stoic. The coldness with which people say such things, transcends to us as coldly as it were meant. Mostly. But sometimes we break.  Why are people so scared of what they don’t understand? My brother’s

"He's going to start talking at 40," that is what my Naana used to say about June. I had never met Naana, but Mummy has told me this story many times.  Since last year Juney has been unwell. It’s been one illness after the other. Including an increase in tremors, which scared all of us and brought back memories we never wanted to visit again. He's better now, though his balance is seriously affected. Post illness, June has emerged more intelligent and emotionally very sensitive. He tries to shape words in his mouth but his tongue fails him. Sometimes he tries really hard and some long sentences of jumbled words flow. It’s gibberish. But then we’ve never desired words with June. His eyes have always done the talking.  Bhai is extremely dependent on Mummy now. She is the constant in his life. Recently, I was helping her re-arrange her cupboard, her saris were strewn all over the bed. I noticed that Juney was looking concerned; he would look a

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I finally got Juney on the phone. I spoke for 5 mins and he heard me babble for that much time. It's quite a big task to get him on the phone. Actually, that's the easy part; he likes mobile phones, but only for listening to music. To get him to actually listen to you talk, is the bigger challenge! I applied a different strategy today, speaking to him like a grown up. I told him I'll be coming to Lucknow next month to take him back. And that I miss him because no one makes tea for me anymore. QED! Phone to his Ear , not without style though!

Pappa...I love you! I took a train to office, collected a P2 Card and left for 3 different locations for shoot. Between lighting and waiting, my mind was preoccupied with thoughts of Pappa. My mind was playing re runs of "this day - three years back"...I couldn't help myself from being sad, so I started typing on my phone. Today is the saddest day of my life. Three years back I lost a parent and learnt the meaning of a new emotion. An emotion I mistakenly associated only with my trivial break-ups (with my then boyfriend and now husband),  and fights with siblings. Something that fooled me for 29 years to teach me its true meaning ruthlessly - Grief. Three years...of not seeing Pappa and not hearing his voice. How unimaginable this seemed on 10th of September three years back, when the news was first broken to me. Over these days and months and years, I have come to realize that, self healing is a wonderful thing. I can't say I've completely reconciled t

Junna and Sumit  Not Quite! I love these men! Junna And Chiggu Bhai