For the boy I love the most

Today, I'm going to share this story..

No, it's not mine, but story of a boy, I love the most- my brother.

He was still in the womb when the news struck our family. The news of my father's death. My mom struggled a lot by going to hospitals alone and finding the right job.

It was my father's job which killed him, a fire in his ship. Company then promised a job to my mom.

During this whole chaos, my brother was born on 12th of February. A healthy, fair, curly haired boy. He was so cute, I can do anything to see that face again in person!

Mother did tell me an incident, when dadi and one of my chacha (we have two of them) didn't believe that it was a boy. Dadi was confirmed when she took him in her hands after the operation. However, chacha went inside just to check his genitals under the towel, in front of mom. And dadi saying from the back, "it is a boy, I've told you na". Surely they didn't want one. We were two sisters and it was some bullshit about property after dad's death.

My brother sometimes didn't even get breast milk and mother's love at all. As mom was most of the times out for some work regarding that job.

I remember my elder sister skipping schools to take care of him, feeding him cow's milk. Hence, he was usually very sick. He was born through cesarean, so he also had breathing problems. I remember sometimes going to hospital with mom. I saw a nurse putting a breathing mask on his mouth. With that hot medicinal steam coming out of it and flooding through his nostrils forcibly, he could do nothing but scream, madly. I used to cover up my eyes and head so that I don't see his red face, crying. After that, I never went to see him in hospital.

He was a curious little boy from the start. Even though he couldn't sit up, he used to roam all around the bed, rolling. And hence fell a lot, from literally anywhere. He used to cry so hard after that. 

Even though we lived in a joint family at that time, there was no one to take care of him, when we three were out. No one bothered, everyone including my grandmother and chachi, had other reasons like watching TV or going to a friend's house. Yes you read that right!

One day he fell from the bed, when we (mom, me and didi) were all in the house. But we weren't paying much attention. It was our fault for sure. That day we all cried together in our room. Holding our little brother, my mother held us all, and we cried. You can say it was that Karan-Arjun moment you always see in the movies!

It's not that we were completely abandoned, it was a general formality for dadi to take care of him when mom was still recovering at first. But obviously it wasn't enough, she soon left taking care of him. Our Nani came to the rescue. 

During this time we all had some problems. Not some, a lot of them. But this story is about Ansh.

There's a funny story behind this name as well. It was final exams for both us sisters, and I was looking through my sister's hindi exam paper. It had a question, "इस काव्यांश का अर्थ समझाये" . Then it struck to me, why not name him Kavyansh, meaning a poetic person. And for a pet name, we can call him Ansh. Our father's living अंश, as we all are. But he is different than both of us. He totally resembles our father's face, and is currently showing interests common to him! 

We had to move to Surat, where dad's company is. Away from all that family drama we had everyday.

My mother always was a housewife, and she had a hard time coping up with this change. We did have a lot of help from some of father's friends and my other chacha with his family.

Emotionally, we all four were troubled, and still are.

But at the end, I want to ask, what about that little boy? He still usually have a lot of health problems. And in school as well, when he was admitted for some unknown ailment, I cried in front of my friends. They told me it was no big deal. But he was only getting worse. The saddest thing was that, we didn't even know what happened to him in the first place. Daily he got injections and needles inside of him, he cried a lot. And I wasn't there to see it, but I just cried when mum told me on phone. She was there with him the whole time when he was admitted. Just imagining him going through that made me aching in pain, it still does. He did cure with time from some typhoid medicines but doctors couldn't answer us what his disease was.

Today, he literally yearns for love. Which, he never got in the appropriate amount. Obviously we all love him so much, but as I told you, he's different. 

I know today we all are like, okay you don't want me, I'll leave. But he's the one who'll see a hundred times if you're coming back or not. He'll nudge you a thousand times to love him back. He's in eighth grade now, but he still wants that "carrying-him-around" moment with everyone in the house. We scold him from irritating us for these silly little things even now. But what else can we do? He needs to grow up now. Grown ups in our family, doesn't behave this way. Or maybe he is a grown up but still wants to be loved the way he never felt earlier. 

When mom is still not in home for almost 9 to 10 hours, and we are busy in our own things like studying etc. He feels lonely and I know it. I can see him demanding love every fucking second. Maybe he is like that because we all love him so much and rarely ignore him, or maybe he never felt loved from the very start like other kids do.