I shut the door behind me and walked through the hallway to the elevator. Two kids were playing football, brothers I guess. One around 10 years old and the other would have been around 3 or 4 years. The elder ran behind the ball with Lionel Messi’s expression as he was close to score and the other ran aimlessly laughing, he did not care much about scoring a goal, all he wanted was to run around with his brother. This took me many years back ( FLASHBACK :P).
It isnt black and white, it is the year 1997 as per the date written in the left hand bottom corner of the video. I am a year and 4 months old, wearing a white shirt and blue shorts. My brother almost nine years old. We are in a park playing football. It was the similar thing, my brother got to play with the ball all the time, and I never got to touch it …well I couldn’t touch it because I could barely walk :P. I kept on falling and my brother with another friend of his kept on playing the game. The video shows me complaining to my dad( who was taking the video) that they were not giving me the ball and when they did all I had to do was fall and nothing else.I love the video not just because it had the younger me in it but because it had my younger dad, mom and most of all my brother who shared the screen equally with me. I love comparing that brother who I don’t remember much with the present brother who I see now.
I don’t remember doing many things with my brother because the age difference we had between our self was a huge barrier. He got matured for my plays way soon 😦 . And the fact that he had to leave me for higher education (I am really beginning to hate that word…why do people have to leave their loved ones just to get good HIGHER EDUCATION…). My early memories with him was the daily drop to school bus stop. I did not like the idea of going to school much and whenever I think of going to school, I used to get  butterflies in my stomach which eventually made me cry( it was way back then, I don’t cry now…really !) I wouldn’t let go of my mother in the mornings and it was my brother who would pull me to the bus stop. He had afternoon shift in the school, the poor guy always had to give up his sleep because he had to take me to the stop. I remember clutching his finger tightly weeping. He would have a grumpy face and would be continuously rubbing his eyes.
He was the one who taught me the basics of my sport love cricket. I am a left handed batsman and a right arm bowler and this surprised my friends because it is a strange combination. When they ask I proudly say ” Well that’s how my brother taught me :D.” and would always dream (just a dream) of telling an interviewer sometime in the future this story like the great Indian captain Saurav Ganguly happily recollects why he chose to bat left handed just to use his brother’s cricket kit.He would come to my class during lunch breaks and take away something from my lunch box, I still remember his classic smile. That smile used to infuriate me then but now it can melt my anger at any point.
As time went by I learnt better lessons from him like how to be a perfect man. He was my complete idea of a tough guy. He taught me how to see things in its way and how to face problems by being cool. He thought me to dream big, to write and read big.
He is right there grooming for an interview he is going to attend. I helped him to choose the shirt he was going to wear for the interview( sounds bit girly but I don’t care !)and whenever he listens to me and accepts my opinion I rise in the air.Years have passed and I guess we both are in the same level of maturity. We have passed that phase of differences and pity fights. We have grown up that we both can accept each other’s suggestions and opinions without having to argue. I love how it feels right now and I really hope that we continue to be like this rest of our lives.
As I was in deep thoughts and memories it suddenly struck me that I have been standing in front of the elevators for the past ten minutes and not one of them showed up. What the hell ?? Or did I miss it ? Oh man….