How I was born 8 times
Tags: Birth, Medium, Mwc Death, Death And Dying, MWC

A True Story

“You that in far-off countries of the sky can dwell secure, look back upon me here; for I am weary of this frail world’s decay.”

― Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji

I gave birth to my death. 8 times. I wait for the day when I am not here to count anymore.

Age 1- A cord wrapped around my throat but the Doctor had proclaimed that the chord would have not killed me. I was born with the fists out. Against. I had announced my birth through a dramatic drop in the stillness of birth of a rustic hospital which had Buffalos swanking its entrances. I do not remember. Mother says- I was playing with my aunt who dropped me from the 3rd floor of a 4 storey house in the evening heat of Gaya’s tranquil days after my birth, exactly a year after, on my birthday.

I hung from a tree branch, I did not smash onto the ground, no bleeding. The branch would have broken if I was 2 or if I was 3. My little body hanging on to dear life was the first time when I knew I was born. My mother’s womb must have felt unadventurous. No scratch. No memory carved on the skin but I think I met death, briefly, for-

Age 2- I have no anamnesis of my friendship with death which met me again, this time I was kicked by a cow, high up in the air. I broke my jaw. I broke my confidence as a child when I was found, 3 hours later, lying in a ditch, strange.

Death must have known me a bit by then.

Age 3- It is hard to fathom how a boiler with boiling oil can almost fall on you but when you are 3- that is not what you had thought if it almost did. I thought of death the very first time then-

Age 4- Father was walking me home, the last of the sun lingered in the sky. An electric pole fell. 2 cms in and we were dead. Were. I was born again, on the road of a village skyline where bodies melt away in ditches if not found.

Age 5- There is a place called Chora Bihar where only dacoits lived. Death must have missed me again on that fateful day when we encountered some Dacoits who let us go without hurting. I persisted in death. An end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out like the scores of vehicles that went ahead of us but were nowhere to be seen now. Their occupants sometimes laid slain on the roads. I saw death closely. Death could not capture me more than the life in me, so I hold this experience closely. I only remember my mother removing her gold jewelry and hiding it in crevices where even we could not see. Where death could not be.

Age 6- I was revisited by death. In its old avatar. Like a task not completed, I was again down 2 storeys, into a ditch, my hand broken. Thrown off by a girl whom I called friend, up till then. Must have been Yama. Fractured hand trying to protect this brain, which had just comprehended the aftermath of not getting killed

Age 7- Dhatura intake can lead to death. I am a Shiv bhakt now because Shiv pardoned me that day when I accidentally ate Dhatura seed and pods. Thinking that I was invincible in my adventure and ignorance. This is how children under 7 die.

Age 8- Imagine getting crushed between two vehicles, none of which were meant to kill me. But they almost did. I saw my father weeping in the middle of the street. The only time he did weep. Giving up was death. Death was giving up. But I was pulled from above, by a man unknown. Must be god, I thought. I don't drive now. I call myself vehicularly handicapped but maybe it is just deja vu of a different kind of death. I don't want to die in a vehicle I had promised myself.

These days I feel like running really fast, leaving behind a cloud of dust and formations as they show in cartoons. Perishable but memorable. I have memorized a lot of references on death as if it is motivational. Sorin Cerin said that to search for the stranger inside you, forgotten even by your death would be it. I have yet to meet this stranger.

They have cut down the tree where I was born the very first time. On every birth day, I sow a tree. I call it Death. Death 1…. Death 2… Death 3…. I could move in with death, this stranger whom I have known all my life. After 8, I was never as close to death as I was when I was 1 maybe. Fear is brave for me. I tried to kill myself but I survived. Being born is not the opposite of death. It is an extension. The charm of death now seems exuberant enough to be appreciated like birth is the manifestation of death.

death is a branch breaking for me. death is a fact for me. death is my story. death is vehicles on the road. death is boiling water. death is dhatura.

I cheated death 8 times I think or did I miss death now because of —

how I know it feels to be born, again and again.

Belladonnaoflavender