Mr Vaghani sat at an ongoing religious event in his society. He had stopped interacting after the initial few formal interactions. He preferred the silence, listening to the different sounds of the event, absorbing the energy it emitted in the air along with the distinct smell any event of such nature carried. All these reminded him of both his paternal and maternal and grandmothers.
Mr Vaghani wasn’t a religious person, as he had mentioned to some people before. But people often associated his yearning to reach out to the remembrance of his grandmothers to reaching for something more and thus they believed Mr Vaghani had greatly misunderstood his own self or was outrightly lying about not being religious.
Mr Vaghani did hear about these speculations from his wife, but he gave no effort to clarify things. Being religious is a part he distinctly remembered about his grandmothers, they did make a slight effort towards invoking a feeling of such nature in him but they never forced him. They were quite happy with how he turned out nonetheless, even though Mr Vaghani believed they had seen him at his worst and somehow still managed to predict the good to come.
I like sitting beside Mr Vaghani at such events to have a moment of quiet for myself due to reasons different in many aspects and similar in some to Mr Vaghani. I always wonder though what makes that warm smile appear over his face sometimes when he is lost in his thoughts, I would love to do that someday.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 