Promises to keep

 Remember Frost's poem? Of the dark lovely woods, and the promise made to self one never ever breaks, come what may!

True in a way of the attempt to overcome most addictions, right? While i was regularly freelancing with "The Newstime" of the "Eenadu Group", i wrote a proper feature about the cigarette addiction. 

It was rather liked because I tried to cover both the ends of the spectrum, the cigar/cheroot smoking version of the Fidel Castro/Churchill types, and the "bidi jalai le muh ke andar me" variety of poor women workers! I presented, moreover, case studies of all possible types of smokers and their logic for not keeping the promise. 

Well, for each one of these case studies, there was a real person who would ask me how i knew the struggle so well. Well, the power of imagination!

Actually, when one promises to keep a promise, one is being highly imaginative as well because one is giving in the present an assurance about the future about which one knows nothing! Actually, keeping a promise is also being utmost true to one's real self, right?

I have made certain such promises to my parents. Once  in a very emotional moment, Aai made me promise that i would never distance myself from Raju-Sanju, whatever may happen. Her argument was that she lived for her children, for her family, and that togetherness must continue.

I try my level best to keep this promise. Tomorrow, on May 31, is Sanju's birthday. So i would try and celebrate it as she would have liked to.  

There is this fabulous story of Aai's bond with Sanju that one of her 'mavasi's (the maid who would be with Aai when I used to be away for my teaching) never failed to repeat. Apparently, one afternoon, post lunch, just before the siesta, Aai said, "Pinaki", and before her sentence could even begin, he was there at the doorstep! 

Aai, too, had such wonderful stories of her  U. S. stay with him and his family. With utmost affection and pride, she would talk of how he supported her most sensitively  then. She used to narrate many such memories. She has even written about all these in her journal. More about these reminiscences later, may be, in 2025! Yet again a promise which i hope to keep!

Pratima@"If you take an oath, keep it. If you make a promise, keep it," said Socrates.