(Nov 12, 4pm)

Tommorow is Chhath,
Sun God's festival!

XXX

Mention the name, and a canopy of happy, vibrant memories come to swamp my mood almost immediately..

XXX

Mom would wake us up very early that day.....and which is certainly not to say, at 7 AM....as we decipher the word "early" nowdays...

Sometime, somewhere, the norms were different....I'm taking you to 1990 or sth, when 'early' unambiguosly suggested 'before day-break.'

XXX

The river bed, dotted with old, thatched houses on all sides, and ornated by dense, old trees, which positioned themselves like monuments at every ten steps, was a nature poet's abode!

XXX

And to make it twice as exciting, the sideways swooping into the river would be full of interesting people and pleasing sounds...

Like the urchins, who would, in whining tones, beg for alms...

The fortune tellers, most of them dark, under-nourished girls, who would begulie my thoughts with their caged parrots and pack of cards....both parrot and the girls stained with dust.... and, reading palms in sing song voices to lure us children..

And the bangle sellers, who spread there bright and colourful bangles on the bank...which was cool and moist, and needled with thousands of foot-prints that the "Chhatis" impressed upon them!

XXX

I waited for this imaginative 'daybreak' every year.

XXX

Mom would wake us up at 3AM, and hurriedly give us steam bath..It was festival, hence washing was a must....the rules couldn't be relaxed for even a four-year old...despite the winter having already set in....and despite a biting feel that early November suggested those days!

Mom herself would deck up.....mostly in that dark-magneta South Silk Sari, which, because of the gaudy border she wouldn't otherwise wear!

She looked pretty.

And Chhath was one of those rare occasions, she'd not refuse to apply lipstick or put on some heavy necklace and stuff....

XXX

Other times she'd not relent.....even if I, who insisted on her to always dress up, had been too demanding..

XXX

I remember how, that morning, I'd be horrified by the idea of mom trying a shawl..Well, nowdays even young girls just wrap themselves and come, but ladies, those days- specially mothers with young kids- liked to be superwomen....no shawl, no skiwis until it was December and unbearably cold..

XXX

Mumma was already 41 when I arrived........and the arithmetic would become only more glaring if she used the shawl. I thought.

XXX

Mom would oblige. Always. In order not to spoil my mood.
Even if it meant falling sick rest of the week.

XXX

I would not be the good son. I wouldn't tell her "Com'on take it, you'd catch a cold otherwise."

Infact, there was this Chhath in 2000, when mom, no longer being her younger self, noddingly suggested if she could put on something...and I immediately shot back, "I'd better not accompany you, then."

XXX

Only if I were little less the bantering baby I am.

XXX

When mom was younger, we would have reached the bank by 4.

Later, she'd take her time getting ready, and I, fretting the sun would have appeared already, would shout. And if that didn't work, would sulk.

Discomforting her, either ways.

XXX

How I wish she'd have known I love her....and only Her........and above everything else.....

XXX