You know what he did to his sister's summer assignments? He wrote 'very good' on every page with a tick mark. She had taken almost a month to fill up the workbook carefully and had to redo the whole thing in 5 days. He was in primary school then and meant well. i remember him as the fair, chubby, naughty, and very cute boy. There was a girl who used to carry him in her arms. i think she was his cousin's friend. He cried that he loved her and wanted to marry her. Whenever the relatives gather and he gets mentioned, we laugh over his childhood antics. One of my mom's favorite too, he used to say that mom rides an ill-fitting luna and didn't even notice him walking to school, smart and handsome. He collected the nose wax (mucous?) it seems. When his mom cleaned it off, he cried saying that he wanted to make a ball out of it. The courtyard used to be full of bows and arrows during the mahabharatha season on T.V as he and his cousins would be at war. He once asked his big daddy (uncle) to run without clothes in the rain with him as it would be fun. He was too cute that his big daddy laughed and said, "i would really love to do it, but your aunty will scold me". If the pestle and mortar were missing, his mom would find something being grounded for some experiment, sometimes pieces of glass.
i saw him last when mom left for Imphal. He was working for one of the airlines in Bangalore. i still felt funny remembering all that i had heard about him and to see him suddenly grown up. Smart in the uniform, it was a delight to see him. He loved famously too, and got engaged in January to be married early next year.
i called up his sister and came to know that he passed away on the 21st of Feb, suddenly. On Facebook, he still smiles beside John Abraham inside some flight. We had teased that he looks much more handsome. Sometimes, you don't know why things happen.
