Pritam's Blog
Life Is A Gift
A certain person I have been following for a long time on Instagram, barely 25-26 years old, posted a photo of her chest, with the caption - life is a gift. There was a long, horizontal surgical scar on her chest. I wondered what had happened to her and texted. Apparently, she had had a heart transplant.
25 years old girl! One of the most lively and colorful person I have ever seen. I found it difficult to accept. I mean I know these things happen. But usually it happens to people you don’t know.
Whether or not you have been through any hardship, life is a gift. Certain incidents just make you realize it.
Anyway, I started wondering if there was any particular aspect of my life that would make it special. For a long time, I couldn’t think of anything. But then I remembered something.
My maternal grandfather, during the chaos of the partition, lost his wife. Like literally. I think she and their son were at her father’s place and he was at his own house, in another village, when all these started, and they had to run, cross the border, and come to India. After his arrival, my grandfather, all alone in this part of the world, spent years looking for his lost wife. He didn’t find her.
He married again. Years later, my grandfather found his first wife and his son. They had settled in Dibrugarh. But she got so pissed off with my grandfather, because he had remarried, that she didn’t want to see his face ever again. And she didn’t… As far as I know, the lady, in those days, raised their child all alone.
Anyway, my mother and two of her sisters were born through my grandfather’s second marriage. My mother was the youngest of all and soon after her birth, my grandmother passed away.
Had there been no partition and had he not lost his wife, my grandfather wouldn’t have married again and my mom wouldn’t be born.
Or if my grandfather had waited for a few more years, looked for his first wife, he wouldn’t have remarried, my mom wouldn’t be born.
Or if my grandmother had passed away a little earlier, my mother wouldn’t be born.
If any of these scenarios had actually come true, I wouldn’t be born.
Fuck! Life is, indeed, a gift!
I do feel bad for my grandfather’s first wife. But maybe I shouldn’t… Maybe she lived a happy and peaceful life, without my grandfather.
After all, we are difficult people to live with. I am. My grandfather was…