Brother

Arvind. Little brother from university days, dragged down by the whirlpool in the blue ocean I so loved. Who died because the warden and VC refused to give a car to rush him to the hospital. Why do you come back to haunt me after all these years, you whom we grieved with all the bitterness of youth against unfairness? Where are you now, what have you become? Do you still watch the waves tempting other young students on that beautiful coast? Do you still wander those hostel corridors resonating with youthful laughter? Or have you closed yourself in anguish unable to see the face of your mother who never recovered from losing her only child?

O little brother, did you, like Phlebas, pass the stages of your brief life as you entered the whirlpool*? Is death by water a death without resurrection, without rebirth, without hope of another chance?

Give me your grief, let me carry it for you, may your boyish shoulders bear only the weight of the arms of friendly angels....


*"Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.

A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. "

Part IV: Death by Water
From 'The Wasteland' – T.S Eliot

Jan 28, 2004