I will see him there..

It was November 1989.. Jethu was visiting.. Our half-yearly examinations were just over.. Calcutta was exercising its voting rights that day and the city was practically enjoying a holiday.. We had gone out with Jethu, had our first Metro-rail ride, and then went to Princep Ghat where we enjoyed a boat ride.. It was a beautiful day and the memories are still so fresh! Miss those days!!

This is one of the pics with which we have made a couple of framed collages.. after Baba left us on June 20, 2015. 

We are physically not with him on this ride that he has embarked upon. But are we not with him every moment?  Is he not with us every moment? 

On the night of June 20, after his mortal body had reduced to a handful of ashes and bones, we went to this same place, to an adjacent bank of this same river, to immerse his last physical remains. On the morning of June 29, the penultimate day of the last rites, we again visited the same place to perform the rituals of offering him food, sweets, and water while he travels to his last destination. As the rituals needed, my brother and I gave rice, water, and milk to the crows who are believed to carry the food to him while he journeys to reach the spiritual world..  

Somehow, all these merges in my mind and this picture gives me goosebumps. I think Baba is there on the Ganges under the vast sky, sailing on this boat, a little ahead of all of us.. I feel I will see him whenever I visit the river-bank.. He will stand in this same manner on this same boat, eternally, looking towards the horizon.. as we sit behind him, looking up to him ..