Red Rose

"And, and -- oops, watch it -- there you go!"

I held the ladder steady and Parul climbed down carefully. It was the tallest Christmas tree we had ever had, and she'd needed a ladder to put the final star at the very tip.

We gazed at it for a few minutes, and then called the rest of the family. Everyone needed to be around when we lit the diyas. We had decided to use traditional Indian oil lamps for light, instead of electric bulbs. It was a bit of a balancing act, but our cousin Shyamal was more than up to the task. Twenty little earthen diyas were strategically placed on the tree, balanced, their wicks embedded to avoid any chance of fire.

Shyamal helped us stow the ladder away as the family gathered round. When all twenty people were present, the eldest, my ninety-three year old aunt Madhuri, took a candle and lit the first diya. Everyone burst into a chorus of 'Jingle Bells', as each one took the candle in turn to light a diya.

It was while I was lighting my diya that I noticed something.

"This ..." I asked Parul, as I handed the candle to her.

"What about it?" she asked, carefully lighting her own diya.

"It wasn't there before," i replied.

"Wasn't it?" she asked, as she, in turn, handed the candle to our cousin Amrish.

"Come on, Parul, don't play innocent. You and I did this whole tree together and this red ornament wasn't there before."

Parul was smiling. So was Amrish. So was Shyamal. So was Aunt Madhuri. So was everyone else. Everyone except me.

"What?" I asked.

"Why do you think we made you light that particular diya?" my Dad asked.

"Because that red ornament was next to it?" I looked at Dad. He was in on this, too?

Everyone seemed to be nodding toward the ornament. They seemed to want me to take it off the tree and look at it. I felt nineteen pairs of eyes on me as I reached out and took it down slowly.

A red rose.

I looked up at my Dad.

"Rose," I said. "Red."

Dad nodded. Everyone else had gone very silent.

"Rose."

For me, 'red rose' didn't mean what it conventionally does for other people. You see, I'd gone to a school where the 'houses' were named after flowers. I'd been in lotus-house. There was also jasmine-house. And my mother, who had passed away eleven years before, and who had been in the same school, had been in 'rose'. She'd been a teacher, and on sports day, she'd be yelling away for her old house, rose, while I cheered for lotus. Her house-colour was red, mine yellow. (Jasmine's was green.)

So a red rose, to me, meant Mom, and our friendly little rivalry sitting in the stands each sports day.

Now, I was holding one at Christmas.

"Open it," Parul whispered.

"Open ...?" Then I saw the little knob on the side. My hand trembled slightly as I pushed it. A piece of paper, folded small to fit. Shyamal held the rose while I tugged gently at the paper.

"Who took this photo?"

It was a picture of Mom and me, on sports day, in the stands. A fading polaroid shot -- in which the only colour clearly discernible was Mom's red sweater, for 'rose-house'. Rose was obviously winning something, she looked ecstatic and I a bit disappointed. Or it could just be that my features had blurred on the paper in the thirty years since it had been taken.

Or it could be that I was in the shade, Mom in the sunlight.

Or it could be that the whole thing was getting a bit blurred because my eyes were wet with tears.