The age difference between us was really small. I was older than him by one year. So, our relationship was not like the usual sibling relationships where the older kid tells the younger one what they will do and how they will do. I never used to boss him around. We were more like twins, owing to our closeness in age. In fact, I think it is because of this absence of dominance between us that I am still not able to remember whose decision it was-mine or his. Even after all these years.

Sometimes I ponder over this question for long durations. I have spent countless sleepless nights by trying to remember whose idea it was. It won't make any difference to how things have turned out. But atleast I will know who was to be blamed for the things that had happened- me or him.

Our home used to be on the top of a small hill and everyday our school bus would drop us at the bottom of the hill. Every evening, my brother and I used to wait at the bus stop, at the bottom of the hill, after getting off the school bus. We never walked up the hill to our home on our own because we were too lazy to carry our heavy school bags during the steep ascent. So, instead we used to wait at the bus stop till our mother returned from work.

The locality around the bus stop was an almost deserted place for most of the day since it only had a small temple and an old grocery shop. The shop was open only during the morning session. The shopkeeper was too old to perform his trade throughout the day but since he had grown accustomed to being in his shop, he still opened his shop every morning as if it was some kind of ritual that was keeping him alive.The temple received very few visitors owing to the fact that there were a couple of bigger temples within 2 km radius. People have a strange tendency to visit larger temples when compared to small ones. As if the God in the larger temple will be more powerful! The result of all these was that the area around our bus stop will be a lonely place by the evening except for the few buses that occasionally passed through the road. 

The area behind the shop and temple was a wasteland with lush green grass cover but it was fairly hidden from view by huge rocks on three sides and the shop and temple on the fourth side. The rocks gradually merged with the hill on going higher. We always wondered what that place was like. Many questions were asked by us, to our elders, about that mysterious place behind the shop but none of the answers we received were good enough to quench our curiosity. Childhood can be equated to curiosity. No amount of explanation or reasoning from anyone can suffice the curiosity in the minds of a kid as much as him/her experiencing it on his/her own.

One evening, we decided (one of us might have suggested the idea and the other apparently agreed)  to explore the 'mystery place' behind the shop while we waited for our mother to return from work. There was a narrow path between the shop and the temple walls that led to the wasteland. We walked through the path till we reached the vast open space covered with green grass and enclosed  by huge rocks on three sides. The grass in the area reached upto our knees. Somehow the place seemed so beautiful and we both felt happy to have finally 'discovered' this place. The initial part of the ground was very muddy yet walkable. We started running around the place. I was chasing him and he started running into the middle of the wasteland. He was a little ahead of me when I noticed that my feet were sinking into the ground. I looked at my brother to find that he had also stopped running and was looking down. He complained that his feet were also sinking into the ground. Before we could understand that we had run into a marsh that was completely covered with grass, we started to sink into it. I tried to grab on anything that was near me but all my hands could find was grass. We started shouting for help with all our might and I can still remember the sound of our cries and the echoes it made on the rocks on the three sides. That was the last sound I had heard before I started drowning in the waters of the marsh. I only have fragmented memories of the events that followed- water gushing into my insides, desperate attempts to hold on to something, someone grabbing me by the hand, my mother's loud wailing and the funeral. 

Was it God who decided that I was to survive on that day and my brother was to die on that marsh? Or was it just a coincidence that someone decided to save me first before going after my brother. Deep down I strongly believe that he deserved to be saved on that day instead of me. I am always searching for answers- in the deepest parts of my mind, in the broken memories of that day and in the nightmares about that day. Yes, I still have dreams about that fateful day. But the dreams are not about my drowning, instead I see him drowning and I can hear the echoes of his cries in those dreams. In those dreams I see him drowning in the marsh while I stand on the side watching it.

The more I think about that day, the questions in my mind become sharper and it starts pricking my mind. Maybe it was my idea to visit the marsh and my subconscious mind chose to forget it somehow since it felt that guilt will be harder to suffer than this confused state of whether to feel guilty or sad.