Page 130 - You Only Live Once [BooksLD]
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‘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.’
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