Meri Raini

Chapter 1

I always hated the plane. Since I was a boy, mother and I would take the middle seats because she was scared of heights. I knew she was but she would never let me know. I would follow her into the bathroom and hear her hyperventilate. I hated seeing her scared, so I hated the plane. I would always stick my tongue at the flight attendants, yell whenever I heard the pilot, and kick the seat in front of me. I was a little asshole and it's still funny to us to this day. No matter how much she hated planes, she loved India. With all her heart, she would tell me every time how much she missed home as soon as we landed in Vancouver. As soon as we sat down in the plane she would tell the same old joke "I can smell India already", and would giggle for too long. People would look at us with the same crazy eyes and think we were going bonkers, but I didn't care. She was my world and couldn't care at who thought what of us.

I remember the first time I went to India, or at least it's the last time I remember going. Going home and uncle rented the band getting ready for us. An explosion of joy and celebration with all the colors I can think of. People screaming and yelling the lyrics to a new Punjabi song every time the chorus came around. Hundreds of people, most of whom I have never met before. Over the crowd, there was my mom. I could swear there was a light shone upon her like the light of God. Carried on the shoulders of my uncles, raised to the skies like a hero during their homecoming. I swear I never felt anything like the first time, it was like you could feel the colors shine upon the sky. As if the moon and the stars wanted a part of the party. In a tiny village hit hard with farmers suicide, there was the unadulterated feeling of commemoration. A party allowed by the greatest of circumstances, we had won the lottery that had not existed. The one that held more value than any prize that the ticket could hand. I was too young to understand the beauty within the madness of the pagan party. My eyes built upon the principle of whimsy and curiosity. A great gift that most children hold, sadly a useless one for a party of that magnitude. My eye was built for mischief, not for the beauty that would be the lights my mother would only see every five years. I wish with all the might of my fragile heart to go back to the day, to relive it one more time. To see the lights that hurt my young eyes, to smell the various smells I had yet not gotten accustomed to, to hear the loud giddha that my mother belted at the top of her lungs, to be lifted among the stars I had gotten accustomed to staring at on top my uncle's everlasting shoulders. Although, out of all the moments I replay amongst my mind while reminiscing the unending memories of my childhood. I replayed hers the most, but out of confusion. I wonder if I would have been happier with or without her?

You, Satvia. You run amongst my mind like our countless adventures as we snuck among the dogs we were told not to associate with. I remember the day I met my best friend and my worst enemy. It was you at the party was it not? The one who pulled my pants, making a fool out of me? I ran after you until I couldn't feel my own feet amongst the bare dirt. Our first words were ones that would be told in stories and legends for years after. I chased you until I caught you by your hair and you howled like a wild animal. "What's wrong with you?" you said tentatively, you thought I was slow because I paused. In reality, even as a six-year-old, I was amazed by every part of you. "You speak English?" I replied a little too quietly. "Noooo, I'm speaking mandarin, couldn't you tell? You idiot," she replied sarcastically. Then we laughed, emptying our stomachs of the butterflies we didn't know we had.

As the sun rose, so did my mother and my uncles. I loved them all to death and would give up the world to sit with them just once again, yet I felt as if they were the warden to my cell. You, on the other hand, were my key, my last hurrah into freedom. Hiding behind your mother as she came to wipe the floors of the room. Hanging off the balcony to the first floor to run amongst the wildlife. We were partners and the entire village knew. They all knew. They all saw us. But they didn't see us equally, we would never be the same in the eyes of the uncles under the tree playing cars. Or in the eyes of the aunties gossiping by the rivers while doing their laundry. Or amongst the older kids on their scooter that gave us dirty looks as they passed by. Once again, my cursed eyes were blinded by the innocent whimsy of childhood. Blinded by the light of my new friend.