Hands behind his neck, his gesture in a peaceful ex-pression sprawled across the wall above, unshaven with a few strands around his chin, toussled hair almost untidy, thin arms popping out from a marron t-shirt which had "aum" as its only symbol and as if speech is too painful, dwelling into the realms of silence as his only solace from the frivoulous things happening around the house......he yawns......this is how I remember him.

His smile is spontaneous, comes out suddenly showing his teeth..the full set and his eyebrows twitched high up. He dresses so casually always that sometimes I think he would rather wear khadi to show us all how materially wasteful clothing is. He reads Osho and Harry Potter in front of us but piled shabbily in his room sometimes I come across  a book whose name is so foreign, something like "Physical revelation in the philosophy of Tooth decay" it makes me wonder whether I do know him at all.

When we say goodbye to each other eventhough we have met after a whole year, it invariably brings tears to my eyes. He is so different from me at times, and sometimes we are so similar, I dont wonder if God did not cast us from the same clay. I always enjoy time spent with him, even if we just sit in the same room and read different books. I would be reading Sidney Sheldon and he would be reading Wodehouse and smirking from time to time.

Books have always bound us together, so has the love for launguage and ex-pression.....and each other. We never ever have expressed our love in conventional terms, but we both know that if there is one person in the whole wide world who would understand us without one word spoken it is each other.

I was happy when he was getting married, so was he when I tied the knot.. but both of us were hoping deep down in the recesses of our minds that let our spouses be for us what we have been to each other all our lives, right from the beginning of the beginning.

Today I want to say to him, that he is one of the best men who has touched my life. I always look upon him with awe and admiration, and would run to him for advice. Even though he is younger to me...I have essentially been the immature of the two, more demading, more attention seeking and more expressive too.

To him ,my brother, my constant companion, I dedicate this day and all those priceless moments shared of that years of growing up. As I remember you today I remember all those discussions and futlie judgements we made and all those things that shaped us today for who we are.

May God bless you and endow you with all that you need and hope for. I will always love you.

Happy Rakhshabandhan