There was a minor earthquake that happened the day I was born.
Ma says I'm an earth child (whatever that means).
Approximately 55 earthquakes occur around the globe every day
So my birthday was nothing special, I tell her.
Whenever Ma leaves this urban jungle, she picks up a pebble or a handful of soil from whichever paradise she was in and brings it home for me.
Always.
When I was seven months old, I was made to sit for a ritual where a plate containing a wide assortment of random odd things - a pen, a book, a golden pendant - was placed in front of me.
You reached out for the mould of earth, Ma says
(Well, after the pen, of course).
I don't know what that signifies but for the longest time, I used to look for quartz in the soil
Like some treasure hunter
Like some alchemist
Like some seven year old believing that the random stone was next to diamonds
And if I gather enough, I'll be able to buy myself a library.
And a garden. And a house atop a hill, overlooking a mountain range, with a lake on the front yard...
The first time I saw the Brahmaputra -- it was winter,
Half the river had surrendered to dry sand --
I wept. I couldn't explain why.
Maybe I knew how old he was
Or how far he had travelled,
Or maybe I could see the dump of plastic he carried on his shoulders.
The first time I learned about latitudes and longitudes, on the way back from school,
I glared at the ground, trying to find the black lines imprisoning my planet -
I will break the shackles with my bare hands, I promised a random tree that was privy to my childish theatrics.
My planet, I said, at a science exhibition when I was ten.
মোৰ পৃথিৱী...
One of earth's many names in my mother tongue is মাটি -
maati, just one more syllable added to the precious, precious word "ma".
Ma says I'm an earth child (whatever that means) because I'm always grounded.
I say I'm not, because I'm in a hateful relationship with gravity.
She laughs.
But no, really, I insist,
I was seven when I wanted to go to space,
I was eleven when I wanted to live in a different galaxy,
And till date, I want to fly without meeting Icarus's fate.
Ma doesn't believe me.
I suspect she knows how
When no one is looking, I still place my hands, palms first, on the earth
And whisper a prayer, a wish, a praise.
I carry pebbles in my pockets,
Flowers on my ear,
Breeze in my lungs,
Water in my organs,
Forests in my heart,
And earth's name on my tongue -
Oh okay, I guess I get what she means when she says
I'm an earth child (whatever that means).
That would also probably explain why I feel so blue these days?
(I can see Ma lovingly shake her head from the other end of the room).