19th, July

19th of July. The date rings a million memories to me. The parties, the cakes, the food, and the jingles. Indeed, it is the day when 28 years ago, my sister was born into the planet. And this year, for the first time ever, she will be beyond my reach, in some other country, a separate continent, a different time-zone altogether.

The whole week has seen a huge abyss in my life. In previous years, the entire week preceding 19th, all of us would be exposed to Didi’s constant singing ‘Happy Birthday to Me’, which may not always be so pleasant. However, nothing of that this time around.

Sayantani Dasgupta has always been a very passionate character who pursues her dreams till the end. While many other women consider meekness a virtue, she has always been more than a handful for any person around. Brilliantly intellectual, she misses nothing around.

Didi has generally mellowed down over the years. Each step in her life has lead to a change. In school, she was fiery, someone who would break her pencil if things went wrong, or tear apart all the posters in her bedroom. She changed a bit in college, perhaps St. Stephen’s provided her a perfect platform to show herself, and those may well have been her happiest years. Then, as she went to JNU, a different life emerged to her. A more Pan-India culture proved to be a bit of a shock, and she got first hand information on grass roots politics in India. But the biggest change engulfed her as she went to work in Mohali. My sister who was previously obsessed with reading on Hitler, or Saddam Hussein, was now suddenly interested in dressing up in Salwars, and hearing Sufi Music. The girl got transformed to a woman. It was during her Mohali stay that she gifted me David Beckham’s autobiography for my 17th birthday.

The lady in question is also very loyal to her family. Always gets something for every one in the immediate clan, whenever she goes somewhere. And what’s more as she now heads to middle age, a new life is what she is experiencing. In America for the last one year (nearly), she has made deep inroads into American academic life. And I am just waiting for the day when she strides into her Ivy League classroom, to deliver her lecture on the Mahabharata, her life’s ambition.