Tonight my brother, in heavy boots, is walking through the bare rooms over my head, opening and closing doors. What could he be looking for in an empty house? What could he possibly need there in heaven? Does he remember his earth, his birthplace set to torches? His love for me feels like spilled water running back to its vessel.

At this hour, what is dead is restless and what is living is burning.

Someone tell him he should sleep now.

My father keeps a light on by our bed and readies for our journey. He mends ten holes in the knees of five pairs of boy's pants. His love for me is like his sewing: various colors and too much thread, the stitching uneven. But the needle pierces clean through with each stroke of his hand.

At this hour, what is dead is worried and what is living is fugitive.

Someone tell him he should sleep now.

Last night I talked to my brother who is more than a brother, Kiran. He was in a crazed state of mind, the woman he loved was engaged to some random stranger yesterday because she didn't have the courage to do otherwise and I suspect perhaps didn't have enough faith in herself to do so. It's as if our lives on two different continents were running on similar threads, as if the same play is playing out: getting involved with women who don't belong to themselves and who will never will because either they are too cowardly or too selfish and then mourning about it, feeling sad about it.

But then as I was talking to him, I got increasingly angry as I realised that at a level we have been taken along for a ride, even if inadravently, we who are madmen, the passionate people and perhaps even too brave in a world such qualities are rare.

And both of us ended the conversation with a big "fuck them". And there was so much relief in saying those words, because if someone else thinks we are not good enough then thats their fucked up problem and not ours. And if someone thinks love is about getting stuff off a list, a list which they themselves lack in a large measure, then we say "fuck them". And if someone lacks the courage to say "yes" and to stand by that, fuck them.

And with that conversation, all things have ended: mourning, sadness, illusions of love, the big idea of waiting for something to happen because seeing his voice, broken and sad, I knew that it's time for me to get fucking selfish when others don't have even the basic decency to be a little altrustic. As Granpa said who need enemies when one has "friends" like these!! Enough of this business of giving and giving some more and getting nothing in return but voices of dissatisfaction of who I am. Love is a function of sacrifice and not a function of return. This is a lesson both of us learnt from the world and from the relationship we share.

So now it's time to put useless stuff to sleep and get on with my life.

to Life!! S