The Brother

Musings with Old Friends : II

I was thinking about someone special I used to know from some time ago. The Indic perspective on these matters would have reported our relationship as having broken up due to a fight over a girl. It was his sister and I guess that he thought me less than worthy for her esteemed beauty and charm.

Yeah well … turned out he might have been right after all. But I came to hear some years back that he also thrashed an American she had taken a fancy to. Apparently nobody was good enough for his sister.

Well … don't you know it … the brother got whacked some time back. He was coming out of his Mercedes outside his house and a teen on a motorbike shot five of the best out of a colt revolver into his jerking body. The newspapers said it was business competition.

You can't say that it was tough on him. He had a good life, was married, ran a string of companies, had a collection of vintage cars and when he died, his personal fortune was estimated at about a billion Malaysian ringgit. His sister had remained unmarried throughout her life.

I had sent a note to the American to inform him the news. We weren't in that way great friends but we had someone mutual we both admired with heart and soul. He had replied that he was into the gay lifestyle these days and something about, if you love someone well enough you can be them.

Curious. It had seemed at that time that in failing to convince her of my love, my life had taken a tangent to its orbit that has been circling the universe all these years. Surprisingly for a man who thought he can't live without the company of his friends I seem to have made it allright. It surprises me that I have and to have done that with my love of friendships intact and stored in a vase. In the years hence I have begun calling it ' Vasudeva,' translated as the ' God of the Vase.'

Incidentally, Vasudeva is the name that the Indic assigned to God in the Mahabarata. The name has a Scythian origin and that culture continues to survive in some way today in places like Nepal, Bhutan or parts of Mongolia.

My thoughts go to that girl with the brother, who never got married. How she herself spent a entire lifetime alone and without a male companion. But I'm sure today of one thing. She has not been without love. Its who she was. Its why all three of us loved her.