My Brother Anand

Today is my younger brother’s birthday. He would have turned 48. Born after much fasting and litany, on behalf of my mother, whose womb was jinxed to produce one girl child after another, he was rightly named `Anand’, meaning `joy’. For, much joy did he bring to the five sisters who needed a brother, and to the parents, who wanted a son. 

I remember how during her long months of pregnancy, my mother would urge me to pray to dear God to send us a little `babua’, a boy doll, to play with. Just round the corner of the road where we lived, was a beautiful temple. I would often totter down there, and looking deep into the bright faces of myriad gods, stationed under its canopy, plead with them to send us a brother. My solemn request was followed by the gesture of touching my forehead to the marble steps which lead to the inner sanctum.  It was a ritual I had invented, and followed it rigorously with an uncanny fanatical zeal. So, when my brother was born, I had no doubt that the god almighty was indeed kind and had listened to my ardent prayers. My ecstatic mother too was more than happy to pass on all the credit to me for his arrival, making my four-year-heart swell with sisterly pride.

So, in Nov. 2015, when he passed away because of an acute kidney and heart complication, somewhere I felt as though it was I who had failed him. But, on the other hand, inwardly he was too strong to rely on anyone, let alone me, to help him sail through life. As a Master Navigator, he did not believe in sails, nor a compass. The wide, wild sea was his to tame and befriend. And befriend, he did, with a mischievous smile on his face, and twinkle in his eyes. He loved this Ocean with all its billowing fury, and its beguiling calm. Just as much as he loved to dance, sing, do gardening, heal, indulge his muscular body into every kind of martial art, from Indian wrestling, boxing, to lathi, Judo  and Kalaripayattu. I remember the last time we met; I was visiting him from New York. He was already very sick. His body was swollen with water retention.  I avoided looking at him, for the memory of his once healthy, alive, and glorious self was too difficult to erase.

One morning when I was up eary, he asked me if i wanted to go to the terrace to watch the sunrise with him. I didn’t know how he was going to make it all the way up to the fourth floor, yet, sensing his aversion to be reminded of his illness, I consented. Silently, we climbed, step after step...right to the terrace, to find a brand new day slowly lifting itself up from the Bay of Bengal.

As we stood watching, woven into the magic of that moment,  Anand suddenly began to stretch himself in a slow focused manner, encompassing the sky, the earth, the waves crashing in a distance,  the jungle crow poised on the TV antenna.  And as he stretched, he moved, covering the large terrace in the blink of an eye.  Unhindered by his physical condition, he had become boundless, weightless... and unfettered. Each posture effortlessly flowed into the next without pause, ensuring continual motion. His feet hardly touched the ground, as he leaped, and flitted...golden rays of the rising sun lit up his face, his whole body, until he became engulfed in light, and turned into a ball of pure energy, into chi.

Much later did I learn that my brother Anand, amongst many other things, was also a Tai chi master.