Also

I have always secretly hated the word 'also'. The word so innocuously pejorative, innocently offensive, that it almost always escapes one's notice. I am also special! I am also important! Who thinks in these terms, other than those deprived of the faculty of self-esteem and those subjected to a series of incidents that render them to the level of an afterthought? Yes! 'Also' is an afterthought. In my childhood I heard the word often and I heard it as a more insidious suffix '-o' at the end of pronouns as is the custom in Bengali. But the meaning does not change in translation. Somebody else has/does/owns it, and I might also someday be able to have/do/own it - added as an afterthought so that I do not feel bad. The true significance of such apparently benevolent gesture revealed itself in the kind of reaction that it generated within me. Even now one of my greatest fear still is to be relegated to the 'also'-one among the people around me, friends or relationships. 

More often than not, I learned later, that 'also' is uttered in our family as an address of reproach, a signifier of lesser achievement and as amusement filled consolation for a failure. I can safely assume that all families have their 'also' members. All unhappy families might have their unique troubles, but the expression of unhappiness is startlingly similar in every way. There are always the ugly quarrels, there are always the back-stabbings, the schemes, and there are always the unforeseen allies. Being the 'also' child in a family where the true nephew/grandchild is your cousin, teaches you the value of achievement. Be it in bodily height, strength or academic endeavor, you are always in the shadow of the other cousin. However, in my case by a freak coincidence and a public primary school's headmistress's whim put me in the position of the also child who must leave a shadow for other cousin. However, in my case by a freak coincidence and a public primary school's headmistress's whim put me in the position of the also child who must leave a shadow for the other to conquer and it laid the foundation for later me being the youngest and thus the 'also'-classmate for a long time (all the way into college). And thus in spite of being a year and a half older than me my cousin found himself two years junior in education. 

But this is not what stopped us from bonding and becoming best of friends and confidants since early childhood. For me, my cousin was always the one with shiny books, world banks of knowledge, new toys and the news of good food. He was always fond of food more than usual, and he was fond of classy food (at least according to him). I only understood it later, but his channeling of intellectual energies towards gastronomic desires happened naturally over time and as usual, due to his parents. Both of them due to continuous fighting, tried to win their only child's heart through the most easily available entity in suburbs of Kolkata (then Calcutta), good food. I still remember when I used to wait for my cousin to come and give me the news of exotic delectable like fish-fingers, or dahivada, or the cake that can be made rather than bought from shops nearby around Christmas, only to fight over fried potatoes in the afternoon. He had and probably still has an affinity towards me as his rustic brother with uncivilized taste in food, as like most people with strong preference in food, he overlooks the choices of the others. But this is not his story that I am here to say, but he does play a minor but significant part in it.