six years

Recently, somewhere on the Internet, I found that the number six denotes imperfection in the Hebrew world. Since it is falling one short of their perfect number seven. Maybe that's why a superlative of six to third degree denotes the number of the antichrist. But as I number the years of your departure on my six fingers, I don't need a reaffirmation from the Gematria system. Every passing year, the number gets perfectly imperfect, no matter which numerology system calls it perfect.

In an ever-expanding universe, every object is continuously on course to move away little by little, and we are busy trying to make a dent on this universe. Like a tattoo mark on your skin, with time and cell degradation, the ink that once was will soon be random marks drawn by toddlers on the wall. Like continents drifting away from each other every year, one inch a year. We too are being separated by the reality we haven't understood yet, time!

So I look back, every year, now what seems like a ritual where I was cracked away from Pangea, my motherland. The details of the night are still fresh in my mind. God could have swapped my remarkable memory with a head full of hair. But what is the fun in that? Androgenic alopecia has a nice ring to it. At least he could have saved my friends from the misery of me remembering every detail of conversations gone by. Remember that day when this happened? And to hear the disgust in their voice. The curse of remembering everything is that people actually question in silence your integrity. Did it actually happen, or is he making all this up?

Oh, but in your case, it did. There is a cupboard full of sarees that's not touched, there is a carton full of diaries you have written, and there is a son still grieving in silence who couldn't give what he promised his mother.

As time takes you with its course of expansion, certain memories too get stretched. But if you keep them as steel vessels or clay pots, once the tensile strength reaches its saturation point, the sound could be even louder than the big bang. So I learnt to keep these memories as fabrics, like the ones on your saree. Let it glide across the divide, sway with the wind. And when it reaches its end, may it join with the threads of my life. Until there is no more.

But there are days, brief instances where you look back at life and try to find a point in life and maybe be a time traveller. And move that chair a bit. Binge-watching the Loki series taught me one thing: that even in the multiverse, you can't reverse an absolute point. Like losing a parent, choosing a career path, letting go or falling in love. Even Loki couldn't save Sylvie in the sacred timeline.

If Orpheus dared to look back, how much more are we vulnerable to doing that? The story of Orpheus and Eurydice has always intrigued me.

Orpheus and Eurydice were a couple, and like every couple in love, they decided to get married. And on the much-awaited wedding day, when the gods and nymphs eagerly waited, Eurydice walked down the aisle, fixing her gaze solely on her beloved. Orpheus must have written a sonnet right then looking at her, but the sonnet soon became a lament. Eurydice fell lifeless on the grass, and the snake that bit her had already slithered away.

As flies to the wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport. The whole of the Greek language fell short to find a word strong enough for Orpheus's agony. So in tears of unrhythmic notes, Orpheus sang away. And yet he wasn't ready for Sheol to have his beloved's soul. So he walked the second mile, the ever-growing separation between life and death. And as he reached the great divide, he found himself on the shores of the River Styx. Orpheus realised that the end of the world is not a cliff, but it's a river without a bridge.

To his delight, he found a ferryman. But he said only the dead could be taken ashore. The moment Orpheus started singing, the ferryman understood a weight never felt before. So for his peace of mind, he let Orpheus ashore. The gates of Sheol smelt a mortal who hasn't been slain yet. The King and Queen of Hades looked slyly at this young man with a lyre in his hand. And in one song, Orpheus let the soulless break into tears uncontrollably. The gods gave Orpheus his desire: You shall have your beloved back if you walk all the way back to the land of the living without looking back. In joy beyond, Orpheus began the walk. Step by step across this world to the one he calls home. As steps grew, Hades and time partnered to play one cruel trick. The seed of doubt! What if Eurydice isn't following me? What if all this was done in vain? Questions grew as Orpheus swayed away from the clutches of the underworld. But as he was about to make the final step, he succumbed to his doubts. And in an instant, the ever-following Eurydice was taken back forever to the land she was newly admitted to.

Damn you, Orpheus! If I had your chance, I wouldn't have looked back.

What a pompous statement to make! If I were you, I wouldn't have done that. Yet we reread old messages, looking behind to see if a friend is still there. Looking back is second nature, a habit of care.

You see a similar account in the Bible also. Lot and his family were given a strict warning from God to not look back. Yet on their way to the hills of refuge, at the valley, Lot's wife looked back, turning herself into a pillar of salt. She was probably looking back at her beautiful garden or those terracotta vases she laboured in love.

Is looking back such a crime? Maybe it is. For the gods have granted both Orpheus and Lot their wishes. Yet they looked back. Maybe trust the person who made you the promise.

And as I excruciatingly put one foot in front of the other in this valley of life, I can feel the fire burning all the bridges behind, the smell of sulphur choking my lungs. Everything I poured my heart into is reduced to nothing but a smoke in the sky. Every ounce of love given, futile! futile! So I let the skies pour down fire on my favourite bridges where I waited for sunsets without fail. As much as I want to look back, I'm forcing myself not to. I have nothing behind but ruins. Regrets dressed up as missed chances.

As C.S. Lewis said, “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” Or like Saint Paul wrote while in chains in the Roman prison, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Yet I am as fallible as Orpheus was.

The words of encouragement by the Grand Maester of Castle Black to Jon Snow ring in one of my ears, “Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Kill the boy, let the man be born.” And on the other, the blind Targaryen says, “What is honour compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms, or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory and our great tragedy.”

So I stand still on the ever-growing divide every year, this day with my eyes closed, and seek grace and strength. No amount of self-help psychology or theological knowledge or sci-fi movies or best-selling fictions can make you thrive in this valley. Maybe this universe isn't expanding enough; I don't think this one inch a year drift is good enough. Drift, drift away. May it gain the speed of light. May the continents smash into each other; may the new heavens and new earth descend down on my misery.

In these years, I have sat in my room and sighed a relief many times knowing that you are free from this misery. In the peak of covid, multiple times during the last two years. Life made me see your absence as blessing in disguise. That sometimes endings hold so much peace than life itself. 

Yet I will spend every March writing something, every march is a reminder of regret and pain, and six years, a painful remembrance that this lifetime is a long time to relive all this.