Author – Virender Singh Rawat

It feels good right?
It feels good when you turn 18; when you are an adult.
Finally, the moment for which you have been waiting so long comes to pass.

Most of us are literally on cloud nine at this time. Your social media is full of well wishes. You post a picture with a caption related to you being an adult now.

You are allowed to vote. So you post a picture, showing the mark on your finger, captioned voted for the first time.

You are allowed to drive. So you post a picture of you in a car captioned got my license today. You are allowed to drink. Few daredevils will post a picture of them boozing too.
A new world opens up for you.

But this world is full of responsibilities. Few realise it sooner and few realise it later, what being an adult actually means. I realised it sooner.

It was the 21st of August when I turned 18. I did what I was expected to do. I partied for a week, treating every friend, big and small. I got a lecture from my parents, a watch from my sister, a card from my brother, and many gifts (including a kiss from my girlfriend) and many well wishes. I was happy and everything was perfect.

But just a few months after my birthday, my grandfather passed away. Everybody was crying – my mother, aunt, uncle, younger brother, elder sister, a few relatives and myself. I never understood the concept of relatives; consequently I despise some but love a few. They stand with us in our good and bad times, at least a few of them do, I think.

Everybody was crying except two people, my grandmother and my father. Grandma was mourning. She wouldn’t say anything and stayed like that for a few days. I saw other women removing her bangles, her sindoor and her mangalsutra. As for my father, I could see his eyes were red like he’d burst into tears at any moment but he didn’t. He has always been like this, never sharing grief, never crying, being strong, being patient, being my idol. He always stood perfectly calm, like an old wise tree that is trying not to lose leaves, knowing he’s empty inside but let others rest in his shade anyway. Now he was the head of the family. He was carrying the burden of keeping everyone together under his shade by not losing his leaves. It’s not easy to provide a shade. You have to burn in the sun by yourself to provide a shade and that’s not easy at all.

The janaza started to move towards the ghat and as it was lifted I could hear louder cries. They echoed in my ears for a long time. My father was in front carrying a pot. I was moving alongside my father lost in thoughts of my grandfather. I have many beautiful memories with him and so I wondered what father must be feeling. My uncle called my name and told me to give shoulder to the janaza.

I did.
It felt heavy.
It felt like I had been handed a great responsibility. I was carrying my grandfather to the place where he could rest for eternity. It felt like he was passing down all his responsibilities to the ones shouldering him to the ghat.I could feel the weight of the responsibilities. As if he was whispering, “take care of them all”.

My younger brother was also walking with us. I saw him sobbing. He was sobbing all along. Nobody handed him the janaza for shouldering. He and I are the same. We were both grandchildren of the same person.

Why not him?

I soon realized I was an adult now. And it doesn’t mean you are 18. It means you are now responsible. You have a responsibility which you have to carry all your life. They say you are a grown man when your feet fit in your father’s shoe.

I guess that’s right. They fit mine perfectly now.

Author – Shalini Kotnala

Mummy, daddy, chocolates, balloons, gifts, beloved fairy dress and yummy delicacies, dressed in their best garnishing, waiting to be gulped down, sitting quietly on the table- remember your childhood?

After leaving the state of infancy a child starts acquiring knowledge in its uncorrupted form. Most of us relate our childhood to images of vivid colours and adulthood to a sense of unrestricted freedom and the burden of responsibility. I, on the other hand, relate it to the images of an unforgiving cruelly shining sun, hurricanes of sand and the favourite shoes of my Abbu- half burnt and half smeared with blood. It was his only belonging that I could take away from the memory of my happy childhood-my memento, my souvenir.

When I was a child, I didn’t get the chance to read about the fight sequence between Captain America and Iron man, I rather saw it happening live. I saw people taking revenge and the revenge of the revenge by massacring hundreds on a daily basis. Barrel bombs, rockets filled with nerve agent Sarin – my story is one in which death offers life and darkness offers light.

My earliest memory is of my Ammi jaan, terrified upon seeing a shooting star. While I closed my eyes to make a wish, she threw me away from her leaving me parched for her tales of Zinns and queen Zenobia. The shooting star and I fell simultaneously with the sound of dhammmmm! One of the fallen ones produced smoke cloud, the other – dust. Bruised, breathless and blinded by tears I geared up my strength, shivering and sobbing, just to be able to look once and for all, backwards. Behind me I saw something which looked like a hand taken over by corrosion – half black, half red. I wished to find Ammi and Abbu but I couldn’t find one full human being. With horror on my face, I realized that I was the only living soul left. My tears started running down. My throat choked and my body was paralyzed. I couldn’t move, speak or even hug the ground.

I don’t know for how long I kept standing there thinking that red is not just the colour of sharbat but blood too, that Islam was not just about Eid and Ramadan but jihad too and that sometimes shooting stars grant death without even making a wish for it. Once again I tried to search for my parents to say goodbye. Every other scorched body looked the same and then I recognised Abbu from his shoes. Those were his new favourites. As soon as this thought hit me I glared at the sky, carried my hands in front of my face to pray for the charcoaled and never to be cremated bodies. I rubbed my face to clean off the shed tears and then went towards life.

I lived in starvation and alienation, deprived of money and education. Encountering all of them in the simple day to day life; I kept my wobbling feet walking…walking towards mercy, kindness and hope. For me to stop believing in love was hard because I didn’t have any other option but to believe in humanity for my survival. To face all the odds is part of a growing up process.

At the end of the day, after body tormenting labour, unrelenting remarks on your lineage and your theft of the living of indigenous people, you choose what you want to see in people – love or hatred, howsoever remote or evident it may seem. When you realise that sacrifice and sufferings are the only two do’s for an adult, you become an adult yourself regardless of the age you are.