Rashi (26:49)
One day, all of his cousins, we've gathered at this Mumbai house and we are planning to do this amazing, amazing, huge party that we have never had before in our household. We just had our major results in school. Some of us are growing up and going to college. So we plan to get some booze. Of course, then we have to buy some paper hats and some decoration. So me being the eldest child in the family, I decide that I should be contributing more money. But I had no money. So my mum's in the kitchen and I go to her and I very sweetly start to wash the utensils. So she knows that I've come there to ask her for something. She stops me and she's like, just tell me what you want already. Don't try to act sweet. I look into her eyes and I'm like, mum, please can you give me some more money? Because we were planning a party and then there was silence for about 20 seconds. She just smiled and she said, okay, fine, but have you had your breakfast? And in my head, I'm like, she's changing the topic. I know I'm not getting money for that party. I used to have chocolate cereal for breakfast. So I walk to the cabinet in the other dining area, take out the box, and while I'm pouring the cereal out, there's a whole lot of cash that just falls out on the table. 5 rupees, 10 rupees, 50 rupees. In my head, I'm like, hmm. I have no idea where this money's come from. But now I don't need to ask my mother, which is so great. My mother comes to me in the evening. She said, the 200 rupees that you took, what are you gonna buy from it? I go like, oh, so it was you who put that money in that box in the first place? She said, no, it's magic. It can appear from anywhere in the house. If you ever find money again in the house, you have to tell me. You cannot just steal it without telling me. I suddenly realized that, oh, my mother hides money around the house. And when I think about it, my dad is a spendthrift. So it actually made sense that my mum hid money around the house. The party was a blast. And I remember the next morning, none of us were sober enough to go home. One night, I was waiting for my parents to come back from this doctor's appointment. My parents had regularly started going to the doctors because my mother started feeling sick. She constantly had pain and aches. I was standing in the balcony and I saw the car approach, and I just ran downstairs to greet my mom. And I see her come out of the car, and she has this, you know, expression about her that she's going to cry. She runs up the stairs, goes to the bed, lies down, and she just puts her head between her hands and she bursts out crying. Never in my life my mother had cried like that. Not even when she lost her best friend. So I kept asking her, what happened? What happened? Why are you crying? And she just looked at me and she said, I'm gonna lose all my hair. My mum had this luscious long hair which went right down to her knees. And she loved her hair so much. I asked her if there's something wrong or why would it happen? And in between her sobs and crying, she just somehow told me I have cancer. I couldn't speak for the next, I think, 30, 40 minutes. My head just straight away went to, what would happen if we lose our mom? So after my Mother's diagnosis. For the next two years we had to regularly visit the hospital and each treatment was quite expensive. So it was getting difficult for us money wise. She started teaching us different things as a family. She would give us instructions on how to take care of the garden, what who likes to eat, how do you go about a set routine? How do you not spend too much? Initially I thought my mother was teaching us those things because she couldn't do them herself. But eventually I realized that maybe she was trying to teach us the ways of life because she knew she's not going to live with us for very long. On 31 August, we were at home. My mum felt just fine. She was doing good. But towards the evening, later on, she started to feel sick. She suddenly started to have a lot of pain in her back. She started to feel breathless. And I think a couple of hours later in the morning at 4 o', clock, she just went silent. We just knew that my mother had gone. She was no more with us. The next few months were very difficult for every small thing. We used to miss our mother a lot. None of us knew how to cook properly. We couldn't find our clothes in place. There was no routine in the house. Everything was chaotic and financially we did not have enough. I was very depressed. So my grandmom, she gives me this metal bangle which is like a bracelet, and she puts it on my left hand and I'm thinking, okay, maybe you know, it's for good luck, or maybe it's to calm me down Somewhere there's this belief that if you wear something metal, it keeps you calm and protected. So I just put it on and I never took it off. Obviously we couldn't tend to ourselves, so forget about tending to the garden or the plants. This particular plant, it started to die eventually. It was one of our very favorite plants. It was a money plant that climbed all the way up to my window grill in my bedroom and almost covered. Half of had nice beautiful round leaves. But it suddenly started to wilt. After a week it was completely dead. We try everything we know and we can to save it. Make another cutting from it, prune it, grow another plant from it. Nothing works. It almost felt like the plants knew that my mom was not around to take care of them anymore, that she was gone. After almost a year after my mom passed away, I was sitting in my living room and my dad comes to me and says, why do you keep waking up at 3am? And I immediately looked at him confused and I said, I have not I was not up at 3am what happened? And he said, I woke up to get some water and I passed by your room and I saw that you were sitting in your bed. I was like, oh, maybe I would have just woken up randomly. After two, three days, my grandmom told me the same thing. She said, you do wake up at 3am why do you keep sitting in your bed? Is something wrong? The first thing that went into my head was maybe I'm still not used to the fact that my mother is not around anymore. Maybe I'm depressed and maybe my brain is making me do things. Sometimes people also go into sleepwalking problems because of stress and all of that. So we went to the doctor. The doctor said that it could be just stress. And I don't think there's something serious that you need to worry about. But if you think you're waking up at the same time and if your family is saying it's the same time, put an alarm clock just to see how you respond to it. You will know if you've been sleepwalking. So we come back and my father puts an alarm clock for, I think 3:15am and I just dozed off to sleep. Next thing I remember is the alarm clock started ringing. So I wake up and I realize that I'm sitting up and I'm staring at that plant, the plant that was already dead in my window. I'm thinking, oh, I have been actually sitting up and doing this. But also, what are these little green things coming out of the plant? There are three new branches that are sprouting out. It had small leaves. It was almost as if it was a fresh new plant. I was just plain confused because the same plant had been dead for almost an year. It was impossible to revive. So in my head I'm thinking, you know, maybe I'm just imagining it. And I went back to sleep. The next night I go to sleep and then once again, I wake up at 3am I'm sitting up and I'm staring at that plant. The plant had grown a little more. One of its branches had actually coiled around the grill. It's almost like it's coming alive right in front of me at that moment. And this goes on for about 20 days. In the span of 20 days, it came back to life. And there's no bloody explanation for it. I remember thinking that maybe this is something supernatural. Maybe there is some sort of energies passing or something that has remained of my mother, which she's come to tell us through the plant. A couple of Times the thought did cross my head, but I never took it seriously. One night, I go to sleep on my usual time, in the middle of the night. I remember feeling a soft touch on my head, like somebody caressing my hair, somebody massaging my eyes. And the touch is very, very peculiar because it's just like my mum's. She would usually massage our eyes, massage our heads before waking us up. And that touch is so strong that I open my eyes and I look to the right side of my bed and I see my mom standing there. She's wearing a saree and she's wearing her hair in a braid, a long braid. She just looks like she's there in person, alive. She's smiling and. And I'm confused. I want to ask her out aloud. Mom, if it's you and if you've come back. But I can't get myself to speak. She is not saying anything. She's just pointing at me and she's pointing towards the other room where my father's asleep. I get down from the bed and I follow her to that room. I enter the room and I see my father sleeping, very peaceful. And my mother's standing there and she just constantly is pointing at the bed. I'm looking at the bed and the very next thing I remember is I wake up.
