On New Year’s Day, 2013, you became a star in the heavens, dear Shahbaaz (Gobind Shahbaaz Singh), the son who blazed a trail.

“Remembering you” is a rather inappropriate phrase, for you live in a special, well-lit place in our hearts. Your brilliant existence on this earth for those 23 years was spectacular. The largesse you started distributing as pencils and rubbers in your nursery school grew into far more noble causes, like teaching slum children.

We must be the chosen ones because you came like a luminescent sun into our lives, gilding our frames with your glow. The music that you created and made till your last days; the wondrous Android apps that you put together; the web magazine that you published with a great Google ranking; the headlines that the newspapers bestowed on you, my Young Turk and Teenage Titan; the selfless friend that you were! I could brag on, but that’s what doting mothers do.

What I truly miss is the way I peeped into your room to get your “You’re looking okay, Mom” kind of nod. I miss the sound of the young voices that always surrounded you, the urgent clamour of eager youth, and the determined image of ambitious projects screening past your magnificent eyes. I miss your audacious humour, and I miss your hand on my shoulder.

See, it all became about missing you when all I wanted to say was that I am grateful that you were born to me and that you still let your aura guide and nurture me. Thank you for being a wonderful presence in our today, just as you were in your physical form.

All my love, sohne puttar

Shine on in your starry avatar

Mama

Reposting this acrostic for you dear chap

“Shahbaaz, you live on tenaciously

In the meandering vines of the universe”

An Acrostic I wrote for my son         

Gambolling in the shade of my love

Over life’s foggy hills and dales

Beatific eyes spreading warmth and joy

In the nostalgic woods of my thoughts

Nuances and shades of mortality

Drowning in your luminous smile

Sashaying in my heart’s portals

Honking at my soul’s doorways

Always present in shadows of the

Humdrum chores that I daily do

Basking in the memories that I cherish

Anchored to the moorings of my ocean

Asking questions from your framed photograph

Zooming up to the heavens stealthily

Shahbaaz,you live on tenaciously

In the meandering vines of the universe

No physical form needed no email id

Glowing and glittering in the ether

Haloed in the holy precincts

Lily Swarn, International Beat Poet Laureate for India in 2023-2024 and recipient of Caesar Vallejo Award for literary excellence by UHE, is an internationally acclaimed, multilingual poet, novelist, essayist, columnist, gold medalist, university colour holder, radio show host, and Peace and Humanity ambassador. She and has over 70 international and national awards including the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi award. Her poetry is translated into 21 languages. She can be reached at [email protected]

Lily Swarn