My alter ego

“Your strike ”
He would cheerfully wave the bat at me and cross the field. I have never seen anyone more cheerful. Or generous. Almost to a fault. I knew I was a born loser and this brilliant guy was just giving up his opportunity to let me bat, in his stead. Tears would sting my eyes .
Then , in a desperate attempt to cheer me up , he would ruin the moment by saying , “Bat hard , fatso !” With a wink . That would anger and energise me . He knew that too.
I was so predictable ,vulnerable . He knew all my thoughts even before I spoke out aloud.
Family lore says he could speak sentences when I would just lisp. So while I made incomprehensible sounds at the dining table , he would calmly tell mom that I wanted more sugar in my milk. He could dress by himself while I struggled with buttons and shoelaces. He was lean and dark , I was pudgy and fat and pink .
No one could ever tell we were born twins.

Needless to add, he won all the prizes. Sports to academics , he aced them all with ease. Effortlessly, as if life was but a game for him . I barely scraped past every grade ,gasping for breath. It was a giant enigma of our times . How could a pair of twins be so different ? My cousin who studied genetics , made us tick millions of options on her hundreds of questionnaires. We were her guinea pigs,her lab mice . He was the "Quick and clever one " , I was the" slow and dull one ". 

We had similar tastes in academics though. Having taken science, he predictably, soared ahead, while I plodded along. When we were in the final year of graduation , something happened. An unpredictable and unfortunate turn of events.He disappeared. My brother, my twin ,disappeared without a trace . One day, he was working in the lab, in his white gown , joking with his partners , and the next day he was gone . 

Everyone was understandably , distraught.My parents, his friends , our friends . Initially, everyone looked at me suspiciously,as if I was the cause behind. People questioned me , police buggered me , to no end . 

Then , after two agonising months , I received this mail from him . At first, I thought I should go public and wave it in the face of all doubters. But , for one last time , for old times' sake , I  obeyed him. It said,; "Dear brother, I have come to the Himalayas. After all the brouhaha, I needed peace, and I needed to find answers to questions that have plagued me .I have had my fill of worldly pleasures and successes. You, on the other hand ,should  seek out the world and carve your niche . As I always told you , "bat hard, fatso!!"
P.S. Now that you are mad at me , delete this mail and do not save this contact. I am using a tibetan monk's PC.

Trust him to tell me what I should do. I had lots to tell him. 
Of the times when parents got calls from morgues and police stations ,to identify unclaimed bodies, and when they stared down at strange dead men, nodding their heads in negation, hankies clamped on noses, eyes tearing up at formalin and with relief.
 Of times when they tied my arms behind a back and tore my shirt , to interrogate me as to where I had killed and disposed you off.
 Of the nights upon nights when I found my insomniac and delusional mother in the kitchen trying to cook up your favourite jeera aloo, in her fugue state, and when we hugged each other and cried to sleep on the kitchen floor, aloo burning in the pan and father coming to switch on the exhaust, switch off the stove and save us.
Of the dirty looks your cronies gave me . 
Of the fresh will father had to draw up.
Of the antidepressants mom has started taking.


But, I deleted your mail, kept mum, and deleted the contact too. But I didn't reply you either, and if I know you, you will write again , waiting to hear from me .So , in the end, you see, you have won, as always.