What did I ever do?

There are moments in your life that make you introspect - they make you look back at your life and wonder what you have done to have a life so good!

I had such a moment yesterday. I would probably describe it sometime later. But it made me look back at such moments that had happened in my life and every single minute after that long flash-back, I have been asking myself only one question - What did I ever do to deserve all this goodness?

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Every time I start from my hostel to my home, I try really hard to start the 7-hour journey by noon because whenever I start the journey by night, the next morning I would find my mom's happy face welcoming me at home but her eyes would be a bright reddish shade - the result of staying awake the whole night worrying that I should have a safe journey.

Every sacrifice made, every fight/ argument lost intentionally, every minute of caring, every single rupee earned by her spent just to make me happy – Why? Is it just because I carry the same genes?

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It was a very hot day. I had gone to my home for a three-day holiday. My mom had gone to work and only my grandmother and I were at home. We had had our lunch and I, generally having this uncontrollable tendency to eat sweets after a meal, couldn't find any that day. And I complained about it to my grandmother and went to my room and started watching a film. About 2 hours later, as the film got over, I removed my headphones and I could hear the clattering noise of vessels from our kitchen. As I went there to see what the cause was, I found my grandmother, fully covered with sweat, preparing baasanthi - a sweet which requires at the least one and half hours of care dedicated to it during its preparation. The poor old woman of 73 years had been preparing it just because I had complained that there were no sweets.

I had shouted at her innumerable times for completely silly reasons. I had made fun of her innocence whenever an opportunity presented itself. I had mocked her restless nature to extreme limits. But the old woman never really cared about them and spent most of her energy trying to make me happy.

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Wrapped in a blue cover, he handed me the gift. Though I put on an act of refusing it and said that there must not be any formalities between friends, I was very happy within and accepted it from him. He told me to open it after he left. As we sat chatting about our school-mates and their current relationships, as we usually did whenever we met, I asked him slowly as to give a clue as to what the gift was. He refused outright. I kept asking him what it was but he never even uttered a word about what the gift was. And after he left, I hurriedly tore apart the wrapper and looked at the gift. It was the first time I had shed a few tears after seeing a birthday gift that had been given to me. The gift was not something extremely costly. But only the both of us knew what it meant – a miniature wooden bat with the digital signature of Sachin Tendulkar.

I had not given him really memorable gifts for most of his birthdays. I had not visited many places or watched many movies with him like most close friends do. I had not even talked to him much after joining college.  But he, who never liked Sachin for certain reasons of his own, gifted a miniature bat with Sachin’s autograph just to make me happy.

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My sister was seated, typing something on her mobile. I took the menu card in my hands and started going through all the dishes served in the restaurant. “What film did you see recently?” asked my brother trying to start up a conversation. I never knew that that conversation was going to change my life. Both of us had fallen in love with films and had decided to go in the direction of film-making but that conversation as it continued was the one that surprised both of us as it was the first time we realized that we shared the same passion.  

I started to write because of him. I got into photography because of him. I had had love for both these fields but I never thought of getting into them until I saw my brother creating magic with both. Apart from making me take an interest in these fields, allowing me to add two beautiful things in the ‘extra-curricular activities’ section in my resume, he also showed me that a resume was just a piece of paper and there was more to life than a job and a few thousand rupees in the bank account.

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As I think about all these, along with the inexplicable warmth, a lot of questions flood my heart.

What did I ever do to deserve such a patient and caring mother? What did I ever do to deserve such a doting grandmother? What did I ever do to deserve such a great friend? What did I ever do to deserve such an influential brother?

There seems to be no answer but the questions just keep piling up.

What did I ever do to deserve having the greatest guys as friends at college? What did I ever do to deserve falling in love with the most fabulous girl I have ever met? What did I ever do to deserve being cared and helped by most of the people I come across?  What did I ever do to get all these good things that have happened in my life?

No answer.

And I am pretty sure that I might never get one.

But there is one question that you could probably answer. I wouldn’t want to know the answer as certain things are best left unsaid. But I would be happy if you could answer it to yourself. So, coming to the question,

What did I ever do to deserve a reader like you?