“Annayya, why don’t you write about me?”, she asks.
“What should I write, you literally wrote everything I wanted to write in my birthday wishes”.
“Well, aren’t there any new things? ”, she pleads.
“Highly unlikely. But, our stories don’t get tiresome anyways”, I respond.
“Yeah, we seem to enjoy them”, she smiles and responds back.
She has a beautiful voice and the voice of a ten year old. To be clear, she is no longer ten years old. She is thirty plus. She used to tease me thirty plus and now she is there, in the gangs of uncles and aunties. But, her voice is still so child-like filled with optimism, innocence and happiness. I cannot think of anyone else who has such a unique trait. And to be clear, she has had her fair share of troubles and yet, she has that trait of being child-like. I might want to ask others and see if they feel the same or is it just me being a protective brother, who is warped in his thinking that my little sister is still the same ten year old, who used to worship her big brother.
Well, she did worship me. There is no denying to that. Her love for me was more than anyone else. Who else would fight for sitting next to her brother and get upset when her brother isn’t showing her attention. Not even my current ten-year old gives me that kind of attention. I’ve other sisters, but none of them is like her. She is the sister from the 1950’s. The one who is always sentimental about her big brother and unfortunately, I’m not the brother from that era.
I did make sure I benefitted from that worshipping. At times, I made her run to the store to get me sprite and another time, I made her walk a good three miles, promising her a harry potter movie. I’ve pestered her to let me have the window seat in the train, I’ve teased her about her chatter with our uncle and I’ve even made sure that she got a good thrashing from her mom when she accidentally let out a secret of mine to another cousin. Damn! may be I’m the brother from the 1950’s, the treacherous brother potrayed by the actors of that era like nagabhushanam and the rajanala, who usurp all the property from their innocent sister. I need to get her sign a plain paper, next time I see her. It will atleast a story worth recounting and also brings a new story to our collection to talk about.
But, this worshiping didn’t start from the beginning. In fact, she annoyed me on her first birthday. She refused to come near me or cried whenever I went near her and I got so upset that I remarked to my aunt that I would want a baby brother instead. And well, a single blog won’t be enough to tell the stories of my baby brother. I’m still chuckling at the image of calling him, my baby brother. He is some brother, like bhallaladeva to my bahubali character. Don’t frown, ok, my baby brother. Lol!
So, it was good to see her and to hang out with her when she was here. Well, she was almost here, last year, but COVID prevented us to meet. Otherwise, all plans were drawn out. She was going to come to our place, we would watch harry potter and friends and we would talk and talk. But, COVID prevented all of that. So, when she told me she was coming this year, I was excited. I wanted to draw elaborate plans and I pinged her with all excitement and there were just crickets from the other side. Who doesn’t check their whatsapp for days altogether! How annoying is that? And she still hasn’t responded to my last ping on how she is settling down after travelling back. Well, respond soon my sister, or else I’m going to make you sign on empty papers for real!
We had a good time when she was here. We went down to vegas and well, just hung around. I mean, we did do a few things here and there, but overall it was a fun trip. She probably has told everyone about how I tipped the dealer without realizing that I only made five dollars of profit and how I jumped in excitement when I saw a spare dollar at my slot machine. Damn! Am I writing these? Well, probably, those were the highlights anyways of the trip. May be our visit to the titanic, which she seemed to enjoy was the highlight of the trip? But, I didn’t know she liked history and museums! I know, she loved collecting coins from multiple countries, but I never knew she loved museums! And coca-cola! wow! Almost forgot that one. She is a huge coca cola fan and she shopped for an hour buying tea-shirts and other accessories from that coke showroom and I never even knew that there was such a place, despite being on my fifteenth visit to Vegas. And the scare she gave to everyone in the lord shiva pose with a python around her neck.
I’m glad there are a few new additions to our standard story collection. Or else its the same stories we tell each other every time and we probably bore everyone else with our recollections. But, we never feel tired though of repeating our stories. May be that explains why I still see her as a ten year old. We have the same, unchanged love for each other.
“Is this a good blog? Are you happy” I ask.
And then I wait for an answer. Knowing her whatsapp etiquette, it may be a while before I get to know her response.
Love you for being a wonderful sister.
