Category / Life

by Sukh Chugh

I’m always yours

Jasdeep. “Arya is missing you” was the last text I sent you. It is still marked unread. 

You made me who I am. When my grades were failing, I looked at how successful you were. All the professors loved you. The only reason I got accepted at University of Calgary was because I mentioned that you were my brother.

I followed everything you did: University of Calgary, Psychology degree, Grad school, Europe. You broke the rules; I broke the same ones.

As we got older we became best friends. You would always pick up when I called. Even now, with every challenge, I ask myself, “What would Jas tell me to do”?

Mini is here, acting as an older sibling when I’ve needed you. Pravir is filling in as my best friend. He is exactly the man you had dreamt of him becoming. We are all still working to make sure you are proud of us. 

I will always be your Tinku and you will always be my Guddu. I hope I get to see you again. Life seems too cruel to never be able to see you or Mom again. 

***

Mom. You gave everything you had for me and Jasdeep. You didn’t deserve the pain that was given to you, but you never let it stop you from doing your duty. 

You worked three jobs to pay off the house that raised us and still made sure we were succeeding in life. 

I’ll never forget how upset you were when I quit my job to start volunteering full-time. I could see how worried you were for my future. I can never fathom how much you loved me. I always teased that Jasdeep was your favorite son, but it broke my heart when I went through your purse the day you died and only found a picture of me in there.

I think about all the amazing moments you are missing with Arya, but I see so much of you in her. She looks and acts like you. I hug her extra tight because I see you in her. I hope to be as good a parent to Arya as you were to us. 

Not a day goes by where I don’t negotiate with God to be able to see you one more time. Just one more hug — that’s all I ask for. 

***

It’s fitting that you both went together within a span of six weeks. It gives me comfort knowing that you are together, holding hands somewhere. Hopefully, you are waiting for me to join you as soon as God wills it. I’m always yours. 

by Sukh Chugh

You F*&#ing Arab

Got yelled at by a random person today. “You F*&#ing Arab” – His words chased after me as I kept running further and further away. I was on a run at the beach. The perfect day to get my legs back after taking a 4 month break.

The runner’s path sits right alongside the biker’s trail here in Redondo. I saw him, up ahead, walking my way so I veered into the bike lane to get past him. But he broke too, and entered the bike lane. I looked up and he was coming right at me. No, he was coming right for me. His eyes were dead-locked towards me and he kept veering more and more into my path. As we came within an arm’s stretch he just started yelling: “Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea”. I felt the saliva from his screams land on my arm as I brushed past him. Sweat was beading off his face. I outmaneuvered him but he kept yelling, “F*&# you Arab”.

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by Sukh Chugh

Best Kirtan Service Ever

Okay, I know you aren’t supposed to have a favorite Kirtan service at a Gurudwara – they are all supposed to be special in their own ways, but still, today’s service impacted me in a unique way.

First off, it was my first time inside a Gurudwara since the August 5th shooting at Oak Creek Gurudwara in Wisconsin. (Actually, it was my first time back in a Gurudwara in over 4 months). I’m not sure why it took me so long to attend. Part of me has longed for the solace of the sangat and the sweet melody of the kirtan all week. Yet, part of me needed to come to terms with the despair that I was still feeling.

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by Sukh Chugh

Blades of a fan

I’ve done some shit in my life. Some good, some bad.  Some people I may have helped, some people I’ve definitely hurt. Made some friends, some enemies. I’ve improved, deteriorated, loved, feared, laughed, danced, fought.  Gave everything up for a while, took it all in later.  Some people disappeared, others hung around. Some things I’m proud of, like that day when we all came together to rest under a blue canopy while rain fell all around us. I didn’t make it rain, but I did help put up the canopy, and we all came together as one.

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by Sukh Chugh

The Silent Rose

At the airport, as my eyes took in the words of a melancholy novel, I sat next to a couple that didn’t speak to each other during an entire meal. It wasn’t a hostile quiet, like two people deepening a divide between them, this was a softer quiet, like two people relishing in the idea that they had another to be quiet with. I never glanced directly at them but they must have become aware of my attention as their noiselessness quickly became palpable like a thick air hovering around them. Each movement they made: a grasp at a cup or the bite of a sandwich, seemed to occur with the utmost concentration and precision, as if quieting their actions would somehow make them more invisible when it fact it only made them more apparent. Their silence standing up against the noise of the world.