All right, I have thought long and hard and can hereby confidently state my refusal to get drawn into the meaningless competition with June 04. It was not by any means an easy decision and in the end it was the innocent lives that would have been lost had I concluded otherwise that clinched it.

And so, rest assured, dear readers, that I would spare you the agony of having to check here often to see whether this silly blogger has come up with another of his ridiculous entries.

Then again, since I've started a new entry after all...

[Previously -- almost a hundred entries ago...]

I was twenty-nine, my brother's age that fatal day. Five years of age difference had proven to be big enough a gap and we had never been as close as what brothers should've been. We couldn't have been more different in almost all senses: different friends, different interests, different views on life. Suma had graduated with distinction; I had taken eight years and three colleges to finally get my degree. Suma had had a good career in front of him; I had mixed with the wrong people and got into trouble more often than I cared to remember. Suma had been our parent's pride; I had overheard my mother wishing she had never given birth to me.

Eleven years earlier Suma had left for Singapore to work. Economy had been bubbling in the region then and with his degree in Computer Science soon he had gotten himself a job. The bubble had burst sooner than everyone had thought and Suma had found himself jobless for a few months. Instead of going home to live with our parents and cut his living costs, he had stubbornly decided to remain in the country and keep looking for a new job.

It was during his unemployment that our father sent me to join him, in the aftermath of more than simply one or two accidents involving gambling debts. A friend had a year earlier introduced me to illegal gambling and I had been instantly hooked. So badly was I in that I ran from one bad debt to another, long after this friend had come to his senses and called it quit. I won some, then lost a lot more. Of course, at that time I thought the losses were simply between winnings.

My college days had long since gone. As had my love relationship. As had my closest friends. I made a promise to start over and so there I was, in my brother's apartment in Singapore, ready to begin a new chapter. Despite all the gaps between us and whatever his private thoughts of me had been, Suma welcomed me as any brother would have. He showed me around the new country. He helped me settle in no time.

One thing I would always remember was what Suma had said on our first night together in the apartment. He had said, "What's done's done. Yes, you did a lot of bad things, noone who cares enough for you would say otherwise. As a story, your beginning has rather been pretty bad. But your ending has yet to be written. It's your chance now to write it."

I would've lied if I said we had become closer since. We were still been Suma and Sukra, with all our differences too great a deal to let us catch up in several months what we had missed out the previous twenty-odd years. But we tried, both of us. Suma took time to ask how I had been doing and I likewise. We did shopping together. We split the house chores between us: the cooking was mine, the washing was his; the rooms and toilets mine, the rest of the apartment his.

Oh yes, we tried.

One year on, just as things had been improving with my life, I having completed the first two semesters rather very successfully, by my own standards, an old friend came visiting from our hometown. I could not quite recall how it had started, but I ended up accompanying him on one of those cruises where people were free to gamble their money away, on international waters.

I soon found myself drawn back to gambling. We lost all but some of our money, just enough to make it back to the apartment. My old friend went back home and I explained to my brother the significant amount withdrawn from my bank account as a result of both of us having gone for one drinking session too many. If he had suspected anything, Suma had kept it to himself.

I could not overcome my urge to go back to those cruises. So I went one night, without saying a word to my brother. As always, I won some, then lost more. I stayed on the ship for two straight nights, trying to win back my losses.

I lost everything.

Senses crept back in and I pawned my new cellphone -- bought by Suma for my just-passed birthday -- for enough amount to go home. I sneaked back into my room and in the morning in front of Suma blamed my school assignments and my cellphone batteries having run out for my disappearance. At that time I had thought he had bought it. Looking back now, I could swear he had not. Nevertheless, he left for work without one of those long lectures I was sure I deserved.

The gambling demons rushed into me in full force and I spent the entire morning going crazy over my lack of fund. It was then that one of the wicked demons pointed to me Suma's shut but unlocked bedroom door. I stood in front of the closed door for what couldn't have been less than half an hour, fighting a losing battle against my own evil side.

In the end, I turned the handle and pushed the door open. The demons had won.

Current music: Phil Collins - You Can't Hurry Love
Current mood: happy