Page 130 - You Only Live Once [BooksLD]

‘I hope that someday you will realize how difficult it is to live with
someone who you know is not here to stay.’ I lose patience and say, ‘My
mother took her life. We will never find her.’

There is something so strange with this relationship. A step ahead and I
might not be able to take the responsibility, a step back and I fear I will lose
Aarav! ‘I just want this to stay, the way it is right now,’ I tell him.

‘I am here!’
‘I fear that as time progresses, I might lose you as I lost my mother.’

He fetches me a water bottle. I sit beside him. We don’t talk to each other
for almost an hour. I sit sobbing silently and he pats my back. Time passes
by. Time stands still. Later, I narrate to him all that happened at the
orphanage.

‘Uncle Ricky would hate this news!’ Aarav says.
‘I think he is wise to have come to terms with reality long back. Unlike

me.’
‘He wanted the truth to be otherwise.’
‘Would you perform with him for New Year’s?’

‘Would he ever play the drums?’

‘I will convince him. Don’t worry. Wherever Elisha is, she would love to
see this collaboration!’
‘I wish she is watching!’

Next morning, I go back to the orphanage and apologize to Parvathi and
Lakshmi. They take me to my mother’s gravestone. I offer her flowers and
spend the day at the park finishing the songs for the album. I finally turn my
phone on for a while and text dad, ‘We may not approve of each other, dad,
but we can definitely accept each other. I am staying in India until the end

of February. I have found a home. Home is a state of mind. Home is
togetherness. Or maybe, home is the people who love you. Or it’s that
feeling which doesn’t let you leave a place. What I know for sure is that
home isn’t made of bricks and mortar. Nor is it the expensive sofa in your
living room. It’s not the lavish balcony onlooking the city, but the
conversations with your people in that balcony which become memories
forever. It is not an incomplete family picture that hangs in the living room.

I can vouch for this as I have felt it so strongly within my heart, time and
again, since the moment I landed in India.’