9th February, 2002

It's that day of the year again when my age gets incremented by one. It's like the addition of an annual ring to the stem of a growing tree. Well, the day is no doubt special because love and affection pour in from my near and dear ones with special offers like 20% extra, 30% extra, etc. Jokes apart, it's one day you want to relive everyday (but I guess there's something called impossible). I start my day with the much awaited birthday special kisses by my Ma & Bapi. I just long for them. But there's a third kiss which I miss the most. For the last five years I am being denied and will continue to be denied the most coveted presence by Someone's will, which I was so seasoned to. It was the presence of my grandmother. Her presence was all that I needed for a perfect birthday recipe. Now it feels so incomplete. It's a burden of the nullity of her presence that I am carrying over the years and will have to carry in the future too. Her presence meant a world to me.
In my previous birthdays, she used to stay the night of every 8th February over at our place. In those days, the first wish I got on the morning of the 9th was from my grandmother. What bright mornings they were, brightened up by her very presence, leave aside the sun. If it was a weekday, I used to leave for school savouring a bowl-full of the heavenly 'payesh' she used to make, only to return to enjoy the fruits of the labour she used to put in throughout the day to reproduce the delicacies I craved for year and year again. The conclusion to the day wasn't liked by me, as she used to leave me to comeback the next year again to repeat the entire process in an exact manner.
But shielded by her affection - as so used to one, I could never think that while she left me on the night of 9th February 2002, she would not comeback the next year, she would not comeback ever.