31 August 2009
It was a winter morning during January, 1975.
The taxi was waiting outside. My youngest brother took my luggage and kept it in the taxi. My mother came out. The morning breeze was playing through her hair.
She held my hands. Her eyes were full. “Take care of your health. You are going to a foreign land.” A few drops fell down from her eyes and made a watery channel on her aging cheeks. I burst out in tears and hugged her.
When I flew out of India to Dubai, my heart was heavy.
Last night, my heart was heavier when my son hugged my wife, his mother, and kissed her on the forehead. It was a strange coincidence. She said the same words to him. “Take care of your health. You are going to a foreign land.”
There was a sudden pain in my stomach which ended with a choke at the throat. Sons and daughters have their lives to carry on, I thought. In the evening of our lives, the thoughts of them living at far away places give us ample hope to continue living.
At the Nedumbassery (Cochin, Kerala,India) airport he hugged me, his fluffy cheeks rubbing my rough ones.
I gazed at him till he disappeared through the main entrance for his flight to Bahrain.
And life continues, though with a difference.
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