It's Concealer, Not Magic

I have written in a few days but I think about you all the time. Sometimes I can't organize my thoughts enough to write, but I remember little things about you all day.

On Saturday; Maya, Gargi and I went to visit Debolina-di. It was lovely and strange at the same time. Debolinadi made some delicious appetizers and it was good to spend some time talking to her.  It was strange because you were not there. I got your squishy pillow but haven't taken it out of the bag yet. I tried to wear your white earrings, but I just couldn't do it.

Gargi was supposed to make banana bread yesterday. Do you remember the time, I was drunk and making banana bread and forgot to put the baking powder in it? Consequently it didn't rise? The banana bread reminded me of you.

I was putting on some concealer and I remembered the time Debolinadi got you concealer and you tried to apply it to almost all of your face. Finally Debolinadi told you that it was concealer, not magic. You had acne then, I was amazed at how you worked on getting perfect skin for your wedding.

I woke up on Saturday and  remembered how you wore men's cologne when you were younger, but more recently all your perfumes were ultra-girly. What a strange thought to wake up to.

I know that people grieve differently. I am bitter and angry about losing you. I wish I could see this in a more positive way, other people can. They can appreciate that you had the best care, a good husband, a loving family and that you got a last good month. I want to be those people. They love you too but they don't seem so mad with the world.

 I worry that my friends will run out of patience with me. I worry one day, I won't remember you all the time.

Will I have really lost you then? 

Of Fairies and Angels

Today, I was remembering when you danced at Saturday Club to Pari Who Mein. You were so graceful and watching you dance was watching a transformation. Seeing a regular person transformed into a work of art. The grace in your moves was stunning. You made it seem so easy, like all great dancers do.

When I came to see you in October, I remember how graceful your hands still were. I remember feeling clumsy. I felt overcome with clumsiness, like a cow stumbling along, saying the wrong things and doing the wrong things. Being wrong. I think it had something to do with knowing you were going and not knowing what to do with it.

It all felt so wrong and clumsy and ugly.

I remember you telling your mother, that the cancer will take your legs. I couldn't believe it. The legs of such a graceful person. How could life be so unfair?

I feel like a bumbling food now. Somehow I feel like I have lost all my grace too. I am cognitively clumsy. I was never physically as graceful as you. I have always had cognitive grace though. I can't concentrate. My memory is shot and my attention span is nil.

Today I was chopping onions while remembering you dance, and I started bawling. And I know why. I am seeing your sister tomorrow. Tomorrow will confirm that it happened. You are no longer here and no matter how many letters I write to you. It's over.

You have no idea how painful that is.

I love you. 

For Men May Come and Men May Go....

Couple days ago we were watching Law and Order: SVU and it was a show about stalkers,which made me think back to high school when I had a stalker. He would follow me all over the place and pledge his undying love to me. Rajiv Roy, maybe? I may have the name wrong, but he was creepy as hell. Used to send me these ugly dried flowers and hundreds of cards. Anyway he used to call you his sister and ask you to convey messages of creepy-love to me. It was all so weird, and to top it all he was an alcoholic at 17. Awful.

What made it all stranger, is when you went to Pune the same boy started stalking you. You went from sister, to love of his life. He started sending you the cards and the bad poetry and ugly flowers. When you told me this story, I didn't know whether to laugh first or feel extreme sympathy. I laughed and then sympathized.

I remember how we referred to a lot of the boys as murgi's. Mostly you said "priyanka, find us a murgi to drive us"  Why didn't we ever drive in calcutta? Maybe because there was an abundance of murgi's. I can't even remember who these murgi's were, just that mostly when we got to the clubs, we danced with each other and our friends and routinely ignored whichever murgi had brought us there. Poor Murgi's.

We had agreed that whatever summer you finally came down here, I would get married to Lisa. Maybe, we would all make a day trip to Boston. The details were less important, I don't really care much, I just wanted you there. I don't know that I can make that trip without you. I've been postponing it for so long, in the hopes that you would be there. I don't know if I have the heart to do it without you. I was there for yours, you should be here for mine. Love you. 

Siblings

Yesterday, I was reading the eulogy your didi wrote for you, when I remembered this conversation we once had. I think we were talking about sibling and they way we affected each others lives.

I remember asking you if it was difficult to grow up in your didi's shadow. Since whenever we started being friends, I heard about debolinadi and how she was a great student and an awesome dancer and popular and responsible and blah blah.. And you cocked your head to the side and said, the world may think didi's better than me, but didi thinks I am much cooler than her, smarter, more talented and prettier. It was very touching. You were so proud of how much your didi thought of you.

You would have liked the eulogy. She sounded so proud of her little sister and what her sister had accomplished in her life.

Miss you

Pumpkin Cupcakes and Dimer Devil

Yesterday I had friends over for dinner. The only thing these days that makes me feel human is cooking for close friends or family. Isn't that strange? I was so impressed when you learnt to make an omelette in Pune. I couldn't even boil water then.

I made a kumro-chingri and I was thinking about the time you were in New York and I was making pumpkin cupcakes. You were very wary of them, and said, "isn't pumpkin kumro?" Anyway, you ended up liking them, once you were over your deep suspicion of kumro in cakes.

In the last couple of years, I have learnt to make really good dimer devil. I wish, I could have made some for you. I think when we were in Bombay, you mentioned that your mother made them for her jamai. Or her mother made them for your dad. Can't remember, but someone in your family made them for a jamai. We were in Sanu's apartment and he had made scotch eggs, which started this conversation. I wish you could have gone to Goa with me, that year.

I was talking to Arpita the other day, and I mentioned that I had no regrets in our friendship. We were good to each other, and I think I was at good to you as I can be. But that's not entirely true. We were supposed to go to Goa together, and I regret not going to India that December and dragging you to Goa. We thought your cancer was gone, and that we would have more time.

When I talk to people, I sometime worry that I don't praise you enough. I worry that they think I dismiss your struggle with cancer. I don't want to remember you as a tragic hero or a brave cancer fighter. I want to remember you as my best friend. Heroes are a dime a dozen, best friends are much much rarer. When my hero, Ted Kennedy die, I felt sad for all of an hour. With you gone, I am just sad all the time.

I want to remember what made our friendship work. Who you were. The good and the imperfect that somehow made you the perfect best friend for me.

I want to remember how lucky you were. How eventually it usually worked out well for you. So if it's all the same to you, I want to miss my best friend, not a hero.

Before fear

I remember this day as if it were yesterday, we were hanging out with some of your friends in Pune and then decided to go get sizzlers for dinner. It was gorgeous outside, and the countryside was beautiful. I rode behind Jomo and I think you took your own scooter. It was raining lightly and the wind was blowing through my hair and I felt so free and happy. We were happy and fearless, the way only young people can be. We still believed in our own immortality.

I know I'll never be that carefree again. 

There will never be another day, when I am a on a bike in the rain, going at high speed and being just perfectly happy. In fact since you got sick, I haven't been on a bike. It makes my stomach churn. There are too many memories of you and me on bikes and now I am aware of my mortality. 

I reminded you of this day in October and you said, "of course we were happy, we were high" but I think you were wrong. I think we were happy because there was no reason not to be. We were happy in a way that people who are young, beautiful and free should be. 

I miss you. I think a different, more stable happiness would be a wonderful experience to share with you too. I really think it's unfair, that we didn't have more of that. I am angry that people want me to get over this, as though, it's a minor inconvenience to my life. You were very important to me. I want to be able to mourn you, without being rushed. I wish we wore a different color when we were in mourning, so other people knew not to push us so hard to be ok again.

Hi Mashi

I was thinking of Mashi today, and how scared we were of her when we were younger and how irritated she would get with us.

I remember when Debolinadi gave you those jeans with a 23 inch waistline, how you wore them for a month without washing it. And every time I came over, Mashi would give ask me to tell you to take them off and wash them. She would keep saying, "I cannot believe how you can possibly wear such a dirty pair of jeans".  Anyway, once it was washed you couldn't fit in it. So really, you had a good point about not washing them.

I was so shocked when I saw her in October;  this fierce, scary woman now looked so fragile  with her white hair. I hugged her and we cried. I wish I could go back to the days, when we were scared of her. How we would hide a smoke from her or anything at all to do with boys. I remembered the first time I met her, she told me it was inappropriate for girls under 18 to wear lipstick. I wanted that scary woman back. You commented about this, "look what i have reduced ma to". It was heartbreaking.

Not that all my memories of your mother are scary. Some are very tender. She would make those macher chops for me, which we would eat before going clubbing. During your wedding, I was getting my henna done and mashi came by to feed me. It was so sweet and touching. I really am glad I could make it to your wedding. 

Of Piercing and Tattoos

When I close my eyes I get flooded with memories of us. I have been really trying to read till I am exhausted, so that I can fall asleep without feeling so overwhelmed with loss. So far, pretty unsuccessful.

Yesterday, I was remembering how we went to Bombay from Pune together on a bus. We stayed with Tapur, Tupur, got wrong directions when we wanted to go to town. The cops questioned us, and we had to pay a fine. We really wanted a map to see Bombay, and Betoo's friend drew us a triangle and said that was the only map we needed. Idiot. But we were successful, we found a map, and we travelled around Bombay.

Do you remember getting our noses pierced in Bandra, around the shopping area? We both got it on the wrong side for Hindu's. We were quite proud of it. I was very sad later when mine got infected.

Then we stayed in that terrible ram-shackled apartment in Colaba with some friends of yours? It was so bloody hot and I think there was only one fan and it was dirty as hell. We would NEVER do that now. Oh youth!

I want to get your tattoo, to mark your passage. I am envious of those who believe in god and souls and such. I want to but I really don't. We searched for so long for that scorpion tattoo of yours. We made so many jokes about the intellectual scorpion. Then I held your hand as you got the tattoo at Adorned. We got a drink before to steel ourselves to the pain. You were pretty brave about it.

Even if I couldn't hold on to you, I want that tattoo to live, as a permanent memory of what is a permanent friendship.

I love you and miss you dearly.

I miss you

I really miss you today. Yesterday, it sunk in that I will never chat with you again. I am not sure how to deal with that.

So many teachers had so many struggles, just to get us to stop talking during class. And now, I will never chat with you again.

It's all too much.

Gossip: "u r a slut and you know that. die!"

Last night, I really wanted to call you after I got the email from Rono. I wanted talk to you about how much he hasn't changed. This is exactly how he would react when we were younger, and he said something assholish to you, and I called him out on it. He would end up calling me a slut or a whore or something like that.

Then you know, go talk to his friends about the writings of Naomi Wolf or Foucault. Asshole. Sexist Asshole.

Idiot doesn't yet get, that I think slut is a good word. Never has.

When I sent him that email I was  afraid he would take it graciously. Had he taken it graciously, maybe I would have felt bad. I would felt that he has grown, and I am punishing him for the person he was in his youth. Not so much. 

Debooh, I so want to call you about this. I could only really have this conversation with you.

Anyhow, I missed  you so much, I took a xanax to bed and woke up at 11.00 AM.  I wish I could have just stayed in bed.

I love you so much. I miss you so much. Sometimes I am sure, my heart will break.

I had all but forgotten Rono till you got cancer. Then you started blaming yourself for the cancer. Thinking you must be a bad person. I blamed Rono for this way you blamed yourself and the way you felt you were a bad person. He spend many years convincing you that you were not good enough and were a bad person. When I heard you blame yourself, I felt such intense hatred, I could have wrung his neck with my bare hands. People shouldn't forgive him. Not the people who loved you at any rate.

Chicken Pox

When you had chicken pox, how old were we 15? or 14? You still lived in the old house, the one I could never find my way to. I remember vividly when you told me, you feel bad about your chicken pox, because i convinced you that you were beautiful. Apparently the marks on your face would have been easier to deal with if I hadn't convinced you that you were beautiful

Well I am glad I convinced you of this. You are beautiful.

I thought of this call near your wedding day, when you held a tikli on your head, I saw you look in the mirror, and you saw a beautiful girl.

When your cancer took your breast, I remembered this call. When the chemo caused your body other changes, I remembered this call.

I remembered it the day when you cringed when I held a earring against your ear.  It was in October, you were in pain, the earrings were white. You didn't see yourself as beautiful anymore. It broke my heart. But you were, to me, you really were.  I wish I had told you that.

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day, Debooh. Lisa and I are skipping celebrating this Valentine's day, because it kills me to know that you had so few with Rakesh. And so few in general.

Also I can't remember us celebrating Valentine's day together. Did we have any weird tradition of exchanging chocolates or gifts in school? Can't remember.

Debs, I have been meaning to send Rono a message about how much I hate that he gave you pain. You had such few years on earth, and he made some of them painful for you. I will never forgive him. Despite Arpita and Arun warning me not to send him this message, I did today. Somehow that today is Valentine's Day made this appropriate.

I think you would have been ok with it. You always liked how firmly I hated Rono. I think it made you feel like you were important to me and that you had my complete loyalty, which you do. There should be vows for friendship. Formal vows that recognize how important we are to each other.

Anyhow, this is what I said "you can never be sorry enough. she had very few years on this earth and you made a lot of them painful. if there was a god, this would have happened to you and not to debooh."


Also Rono, wrote back to me to say "u r a slut and you know that. die!" making it really worth my telling him. 

Skinny Girl

For how skinny you are, i have hundreds of food memories about you, that flash through my brain. To watch you toward the end not eating, broke my heart.

You ate all the chocolate cakes i baked when i was 13 -14. Even the ones that didn't rise. For a skinny girl you sure loved chocolate cake.

I remember the French restaurant in Pune, across from your aunt's. Or how mashi used to make macher kochuri for me, cos you refused to eat them. They were delicious.

I remember us going out dancing, coming home and eating the luchi/alubhaja that dida's cook made for us. We were hot back then and somehow we could share clothes. As Arun put it, one of us had no tits, the other no inhibitions.

I remember the time you were leaving for Pune, and I was really sick but we celebrated with a small cake from Cookie Jar and a bottle of Port. There is a picture on my wall of that day, with you, Maya, Minti and me.

Fights

Did you ever wonder why we didn't fight? I mean, we may have disagreed but didn't ever fight. I sometimes wonder why we didn't fight.

I meant to express my anger about being cut out of your life, but there was never a right time.

Almost 20 years and no fights.

Kit-Kat

I worried that with you gone, thousands of my memories are also gone. Things that only you knew about me, memories you carried for me. All gone. Yours however, punch me in the gut. But i am afraid of them slowing fading, with nothing new to renew them with. Like what if i forgot how much you loved kit-kat when we were in our teens? it's not like i have some new food group to replace them with.

Also despite what i said in my eulogy, i now realize i have memories before rum-drinking at ICSE. I think my first real memory of you is when you started crying because our 7th grade teacher called Robita a bully. I thought that was the sweetest thing ever. You weren't my best friend then but it's the first memory.

I remember the day, you made me your best friend. It was in a True Confessions book, in 8th Grade on the last row, near the window. You upgraded me from good friend to best friend. I remember very clearly, because I had been hoping that you do. I wasn't about to do it first, because I was scared of rejection and your feelings are more mysterious than mine.

Debjani Mukherjee Nov 19th 1978-Feb 2nd 2011 : Something Like a Eulogy

I write this not because people need to know how awesome Debooh was, but because i need to start grieving. When i was younger, i always said that long term sickness gave loved ones time to prepare and while it was terrible for the patient, it was better for the family. I realize now, that some things you can not prepare for. your best friend dying at 32, is one of them.

i have been in so much pain about her, for so long that i am not sure that i fully understand that i will never see her again. as i was writing this sentence i wrote "may never see her again". but one day i will wake up, and i'll have this thing that i need to tell debooh about, and that day, i'll finally get it.

we were good to each other. we were always there for each other. we can't be faulted for not being the best we could to each other, because we were, and we deserved more time together. we were supposed to enjoy this part together, the part in which we are both stable and have stable, boring lives. its not fair, that we don't get to enjoy this part together.

one of the earliest memories i have about debooh, is when we called each other frantically during our study break for the ICSE exam, and we both said "you will not believe what i did today"...turns out we were both drinking rum and coke instead of studying for our ICSE.

Our friends (mostly our male friends) would get annoyed because Debooh and I could talk without speaking and we had perfected the look we gave each other, when we thought someone was being an idiot or lying or generally being annoying. we used to say, for men may come and men may go, but we go on forever. i was cheated of that forever.

We also didn't keep secrets. Our running joke was that "oh xyz told me this and no one is supposed to know"...we couldn't believe people would tell us things and expect us not to tell the other one. In our opinion that was pretty dumb, and frankly, if you were that dumb, you got what you deserved.

when she was diagnosed with cancer, i would walk into parties, and look at other people and wonder why debooh, why not these other people? some of these people were friends of mine, but i would rather it be them. love is selfish and i am not apologizing. sometimes i would mull over, if given a choice, how many people would i give cancer to, if it were just taken away from debooh. hundreds, thousands, millions. easily. no regrets.

when she stopped communicating with me, i started writing her emails, that i would't send but saved as drafts.

• i love you and miss you so much.i hate that you're struggling and in pain. i hope i dont smother you
• miss you...i want you to have your health back. i want to just hang out with you. i want to grab the first flight to bombay to be around you, but i dont want you to think i am panicking. So i wont. I'll stay here till you get better and we can just be again. there is not a moment that i dont have you on my mind. i hate going on with my life as per usual as you deal with all this pain and shit, but i dont even know what else to do. its such helplessness watching your loved ones suffer.
• i regret not being there with you. any part of last year. i know you said, you cant handle it, but i am going to spend new years eve with you.

there are a lot more of these and of emails i sent her long after she stopped replying to emails.

Her parting words to me were "i know a lot has been left unsaid"...i never got to tell her that I would never replace her, that her place in my life would always be just hers. That now there will always be things I can't tell anyone, because the one person i would have said it to isn't around. That I will always have to use words to communicate, because with everyone else, I need words. These are the things that got left unsaid. I also didn't tell her I was mad at her, for cutting me out of the last year. I understand it, but i was still mad. And now she's gone and i feel petty being mad.

i loved her. I am not sure, how to face a prospect of a full life without her. I hope she knew this, i hope she knew that i was scared of losing her. Really, really scared. Really angry, that it was her and not someone else. Really bitter, that it was my best friend. I hope she knew all this about me.

I gave her a card once, it said "your good friends deny rumors about you, your best friend knows the rumors are true, but loves you anyway". she wouldn't have cared that i wished cancer on others, she would have known it's true, she would have loved me anyway.