Joy. and peace.

My cousin Ulhas. He died on a warm spring morning as the little tree just outside my house gave birth to its first flower bud of the season. My brother Ulhas. Who’d touch his laugh onto you.

He had the strangest of smiles. It started at the centre of the lips and desperately fought its way all the way up to both the corners. Sometimes it made it. At other times it would give up and just hang in the nowhere of his mouth. But that wouldn’t be the end of it. He’d put his hand out and touch you. And that’s how he’d touch his laugh onto me.

Then there was the watches. Time never had a consequence or reason to his life. Yet his first love was watches. He’d stand on end watching them. He’d watch and listen to the slow ticks, almost as if every tick were unique.

Every time I met him, he’d come running up, not to me but my watch. Stare at it. I’d say things, how are you, how have you been, what’s happening; it would all fall on deaf ears. The ticking of the watch was louder than any question. He’d slip it off me , with the effortless ease of a someone who knew the inner workings of an instrument, and run away with it. At first I’d be scared. Was my watch safe? Will he drop it? But I soon knew that he’d looked after it more than anything around him.

It's alwasy like that. When you love something so much you don’t just drop it by mistake. You cradle it. And open it and break it open and discover it and yet manage to wonderfully put it back together . Like it were new.

They say he had learning disabilities. Just becuase he couldnt communicate in a language to those around him. I think otherwise. He was just wise.
I’ve often heard that as you grow older, you grow wiser. As you grow wiser you will start to talk less and listen more. That was Ulhas, at 14 he was wiser than anyone around. Definitely wiser than me.

In the old world, the ancient Egyptians, revered the dead. Cnce anyone died, they’d go to the gates of heaven and God would ask them two questions. If they could answer these two questions, they’d be let inside paradise for ever.
The first question was ‘Have you found joy in your life?’.
The second question was and is much more significant to my cousin. ‘Have you brought joy to others?’.

My brother Ulhas. His name in Hindi means joy. Fitting. He was a joy. May he rest in peace.