MY LI'L SIS

Whether we shared this 'special connection' through genetics or the heart, only my sister and nobody else can understand the complex, deep and dynamic relationship that we both shared with each other as we journeyed together through the various stages of our lives.

The first time when I remember visiting the hospital to see my newly born sister, I pestered my dad to buy me some clips, ribbons and 'kajal' for her. I remember being quite dissapointed on seeing her so small and the thought of waiting for her to grow up to be able to play with me. My younger sister would usually look upto me when we were very young and growing up, following my every step and every act. She was my little doll, my playmate and my baby, who I used to make sit on my lap while I rode my tri-cycle all around the house. Sometimes I used to drop her down from my lap while overspeeding and then get very scared when she cried turning crimson and blue. As she was three years younger to me, she was just around a year old when I started going to school and I remember my parents buying her a same school-bag, crayons, pencil-box, tiffin-box and a water-bottle, as mine. When I used to do my homework, she would sit by me scribbling some weird nothings onto the blank pages of her notebook, pretending to be doing her homework as well and she picked up all my nursery-rhymes and multiple-tables by heart, long before she even went to school. While I used to tolerate her tagging along after my footsteps, I remember getting very annoyed when she used to wear the same clothes as me when we got ready to go out. (I don't know why, but my parents always got us both similar dresses with a little change in the colours sometimes). Now when I think of it, I imagine we might have looked very cute actually in the same kind of clothes, but that time it was utmostly annoying to see that tiny exact replica of mine in the same get-up and all. I was the shy, dumb one and she was smarter and naughtier. Whenever we used to get chocolates from our parents or guests or relatives, I used to save mine in the refrigerator to take it to school the next day, while she used to devour hers immediately and finish mine as well without my knowledge, leaving the cover intact in the fridge. Sometimes she would beat me up when we fought and fearing of the punishment that she would have to face, before I could react, she would start crying and the scenerio got portrayed reversely infront of the parents.

But I used to be overtly protective about her and kept a strict eye over her at school and anywhere else around the neighbourhood. I would usually help her face the schoolyard bully, do her homework and meet up with her teachers for any mischief or prank she would play at school. I would help her show the neighbourhood boys that girls can wrestle or ride the bicycle as well as any boy can. She helped me learn how to ride the bicycle holding it from behind and running along with me as I learnt to paddle and balance and I helped her recover the cycle when she hit an old lady on the street and ran back home scared, leaving the cycle there. When we were very little, ma used to walk us to school and fetch us back, but as we grew up, we both used to go and come back from school together. We would make greeting cards secretly during our study-time and sell them to our friends at school for pocket money to buy those dirty road-side chaat or ice-candies near our school, which we were not allowed. Of-course these intimate little secrets of ours were never revealed to anyone, not even to our parents... This, and our walks to the neighbourhood veterinary-centre every weekend to buy eggs, bonded us together and we got our first lessons in dealing with money, shop-keepers, purchase, profits and losses.

There were times when we both had our childhood crushes on the same 'heroes' and as we grew up, I provided 'wise counsel' during her first real crush and a subsequent comfort after a so called 'break-up'. We used to share everything.... from our first love-letters to the day-to-day happenings of our school days, year after year and the time I first joinned college, she had a fair idea of what college life was all about with all its intricate details. I tried to provide the best tips when she applied her first make-up and played an expert consultant for her first sports-bra. Now maybe I'll be playing the main designer for her wedding trousseaus. She on the other hand, is the expert counsellor I would turn to whenever I needed an opinion more sane, matured and wiser than my own. And we would both give-and-take, go hand-in-hand and see each other through in most of our growing up period.

Of-course the picture was not always rosy and there were fights... those dreadfully bitter cat-and-dog fights we had in the middle of the night over the switching 'on' or 'off' of the light, or over whose turn it was to make the bed, or over who had worn whose clothes how many times.. These fights sometimes got so bad that our parents had to wake up and intervene in the middle of the night or they would get so worse that we would not talk to each other for days. We would fight for so many silly things that I can't even imagine now why we did. But when you share the same room, the same bed, the same study-table, the same bathroom and so many other things, how long can you not speak to each other? Then we used to patch up and start talking as long-lost friends, only to pick up yet another fight for some other silly reason. But no matter how much we fought or said hateable things to each other, we would stand by each other and do everything in our possibilities to protect each other from any external person or a difficult situation. We would see each other through our good-days, not-so-good-days and those bad-hair-days.

With time, we separated and started living in different places far away from each other due to our educational and career requirements. But we still keep abreast of the latest everyday happenings in each of our lives through calls, texts and visits. While we may not live under the same roof any more, act in the same manner or even get along without an occasional spat when I go home for a vacation, but I also can't think of nothing else which creates a more wild, wacky, poignant, special and lasting bond than our sisterhood.

Yes, she is my little sister who is all grown up now... my friend, my confidante and the life-saviour who helped me buoy through some of the toughest times of my life....