In reading about Schrodinger's cat, I found the following in a Wiki reference:-

"..in which a quantum system such as an atom or photon can exist as a combination of multiple states corresponding to different possible outcomes. The prevailing theory, called the Copenhagen interpretation, said that a quantum system remained in this superposition until it interacted with, or was observed by, the external world, at which time the superposition collapses into one or another of the possible definite states."

A situation carries within it the possibility of multiple states/solutions, until observed...or perturbed. Meaning, that a closed box of Ravelin bakery goodies could possibly contain chocolate croissants, eclairs or creme brulee, until you open the box and lo and behold....black-and-white cookies! (That's my tip-of-the-hat interpretation, Copenhagen Institute). Very intriguing. I suppose my Kolkata sojourn could be that way....it could have been stellar, magical OR it could have been mundane, run-of-the-mill OR it could have been annoying, downright suffocating. Of course, once perturbed - the experience turned out to be quite annoying...but one wonders what the alternate "stellar, magical" experience might have been?

I read an example of the Copenhagen interpretation before knowing what it actually was, in Twelve Red Herrings where the reader was offered four different choices to the culmination of a story - Rare, Burnt, Overdone, A Point. I suppose you could term my Kolkata experience as burnt to a crisp. So, lets taste "Kolkata A Point".

It would have to be a Kolkata winter, in a dusty পাড়া - the hours between 10 am and noon. Too late for early morning, but just late enough for dust to be kicked up on the streets by shuffling feet, ripe for the rickshaw-horn to blare a few times before turning the bend, ears picking up on the sizzle of fresh-water fish plunged into hot mustard oil and the soft metallic ring of bangles on hard hands scrubbing soot off with ash and steel wool. You might find yourself bundled up in a woolly sweater that defies the possibility of body contours, shuffling around the house in blue Bata sandals...or you might be found whacking the shuttle across hastily-drawn badminton nets. Oh yes, it's childhood again. Eat, play, read, repeat. At your mother's bidding, fetch victuals from the neighborhood store, then squeeze in a ride on the 24/29 tram via Rashbehari. Thumbing through dusty secondhand books in Gariahat, eating a sandesh or two at Mouchak, sunbathing by the window on the same tram back home, the combination of wool and Sun starting to prickle a bit as the stellar experience draws to a close, ears now picking up on the rhythmic tick-tock of a ping-pong ball being thrashed across a table in the neighborhood boys' club.

Pay it backward

It takes a sick world to bring a tear to one's eye, when realization dawns that the woman that just drove off ahead of you in the Starbucks queue bought you a drink for no reason at all.

Or, I'm at long last growing old.

PS You would think that by the third time, one would get used to it. But no, every time it touches my black heart. This time, I managed to compose myself from a blithering quivering mess soon enough to mumble an intent to pay it forward....or backward (as was true in this case).

Tears of wisdom

I cried to my father
His eyes gleamed out of a photo frame.

I cried to my mother
She cried with me.

I cried to my brother
He promised revenge.

I cried to my partner
He mistook my tears and relented.

I now cry to an entity whose existence is the topic of dinner debates.

Seeing Red

The transfusion room in the hematologist's office was well turned out. Plush, comfortable with overstuffed leather recliners, soft woollen throws, an assortment of drinks to keep your thirst at bay, and a state of the art home theater system with a wide variety of blues, soft jazz, classic rock - whatever rocked your boat that day. I took tentative steps, shuffling softly on socks on the smooth buffed floor. Inching towards the last unoccupied leather chair hooked up to an IV station. It was unusually cold, I thought as they hooked me up to a dark colored liquid (liquid iron, I was told) - that was normal, they said. No, I meant the room was cold - but, never mind. I did not want to create a fuss. The nurse said they would precede the transfusion with Benadryl to counter anaphylactic response. I nodded, taking it to mean that I was going to be sleepy - no party here I was going to miss!

"So, is this your first chemo?" A deep, silky voice interrupted my somnolent state.

Through my half-open eyelids, I discerned a shock of red hair. The fiery crop was beginning to thin at the front of the forehead, but you couldn't see any roots. It was either natural, or dyed regularly. A creamy complexion that goes with that hair type. Bright red lipstick, chunky rings. A Guns n Roses locket on thick black strands around her neck. An interesting array of tattoos on her right arm - the Christian cross, Islamic moon and the Hindu Om emblazoned in three quadrants of the universal peace sign. Blue eyes shining through slits took in everything meticulously.

That body belongs on a Harley somewhere, I thought. And a cigarette. A cigarette's missing.

"Is this your first chemo, darling?"

"Oh! No, I'm just here for an iron transfusion," I blushed in spite of myself.

"Don't get worked up now. You done good. I was just curious." She sighed and started talking into space. My eyes traveled down to her fingers once more, noting the telltale groove on the side of her middle finger, and slightly yellowing fingernails. Smoker, figures.

"You know, I grew up right around the corner from this building and crossed Dr Busch's office on the way to work. My mother used to own a dry cleaning business - but she never bothered to get herself a driver's license and I was her little chauffeur. Patty and I..." her voice trailed off. Lucidity returned to her eyes and she started again. "Patty, my best friend, and I would steal puffs a door down from here. The third door down from this clinic is a Latin bakery - we would buy ourselves those itty-bitty alfajores and spritz some cologne before returning to the shop. Mum never knew." She chuckled and reached out for a glass of lemon water.

"Have you been here all your adult life?" I asked.

"Nein nein, little darling." She made a clicking noise with her tongue. "Born in Texas, raised all over. After helping my mother for a couple of years with her business, I traveled to Boulder with my boyfriend to grow out pot business. That didn't work out so well. Then on to Laramie, Wyoming to work on a ranch, a few months in Santa Fe learning pottery and Sanskrit..."

"Wait, what?" left my lips before I could stop myself.

"Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language, ya know?"

Err, yes I know. I just happen to have been born in that country. But you can't be rude to a cancer patient undergoing chemo. I let it go.

"I wanted to start a yoga studio in Abilene. That town has nothing. Mum's business was the only dry cleaner's in town , and it doubled as an UPS drop-off - the only one in town. So, I shacked up with Patty's sister in Dallas for a year and registered for any yoga teacher training classes I could lay my hands on - Hatha, Vinyasa, Iyengar, Yin - even some Qigong classes. I liked the names of the poses - halasana, bajrasana, navasana - so lyrical. So, I wanted to know more about the language. I signed up for a yoga retreat in Santa Fe, where they teach you Sanskrit. Ya know, for kicks." She winked.

My jaw clenched once more as I felt the bile rise in my throat. I had not yet learnt how to control the Indian impulse to counter every tiny belittlement of every language, mannerism and stereotype associated with the Indian subcontinent. Just let it go. Breathe.

"I had a chance to learn Sanskrit in school," I said. "My brother dissuaded me - it was either Hindi or Sanskrit and he had barely managed to scrape through Sanskrit. I was sure it would drag my grades down. I opted for Hindi, but now I wish I had learnt Sanskrit instead - easier to understand Hindi once you know Sanskrit."

"It wasn't half bad. It's easier to remember the Gayatri mantra when you know what those words mean. They run off your lips effortlessly. Om bhur bhuvah svah tát savitúr várenyam bhárgo devásya dhimahi dhíyo yó nah prachodáyat"

Pretentious, hmph.

"Have yoga and meditation helped you heal? I've heard meditation is a great boon to the terminally ill." I preened.

"Heal? What do ya mean?" Her nurse was now at her side, unhooking the IV station.

I squirmed under her blue gaze, as if transfixed by their intensity. "I thought....?"

She roared with laughter. "I'm here for an iron transfusion too. Wait, you were thinking all this while that I had cancer? Psshh, cancer aint got nothin' on me."

The rumblings of a motorbike outside in the parking lot drowned my thoughts as the effects of Benadryl started wearing off slowly.

Damn it, Red.


PS Inspired by Rezhnikov on OITNB

You have to hang your boots somewhere.

Where I'm from

Every writer needs two kinds of critics: one that always sings praise of his/her writings, and the other that tells the truth. In hopes of unearthing a few from the second category, I place this on the blog - inspired by George Ella Lyon's poem "Where I'm From". I find my childhood a comforting place, an unending source of inspiration for a jaded could-have-been writer.

I am from kitchen soot,
kisses and kohl.
I am from the evening echoes of the conch.
(Deep, mournful
it rang out to the skies from my mother's lips.)

I am from the fragrant jasmine,
the rooted banyan
whose timeworn roots
must surely go as deep as mine.

I am from rice puddings and birthday blessings,
from too much and not enough.
I am from hand-me-downs
and ne'er-give-ups,
from secrets treasured and silences untold.
I'm from the 3 D's etched in my father's letters
(duty, discipline, determination - he said)
I chose duty over them all.

I'm from the muslin of Jaycee
from the broadcloth of Teekay too.
From the land of palm tree and fish aplenty
from milk and honeyed tales
that dripped from the lips of ancient dames.
In my closet lies a crowded box
a melange of letters and pictures
of faces and words that extol and chastise
Knowingly, they whisper in my dreams,

"One day, you too shall be here."

Of a hero and his unlikely disciple

There was a recurring theme in my grandmother's stories about the partition - it was unbiased. There were no Hindus waging war on the Muslims, or Muslims up in arms against the Hindu majority - there were simply warring Indians bathing streets in blood. Every wheelbarrow filled with Hindu bodies emptied into drains were matched by Muslims in equal measure. She never blamed any one religious community. And, yet every generation removed from theirs has only gotten more and more bitter about this episode. Perhaps because they had no direct experience, their imaginations were colored by stories very similar to mine, and they chose to make what they wanted to, from childhood tales. Pity.

Did India just smite the nose to spite the face? How can citizens be more worried about corruption than genocide? How can economic progress be so important that one turns a blind eye to the skeletons in Modi's closet? Do you laud Hitler for all the planning that went into decimating a race? After all, wasn't his agenda the ethnic cleansing (leading to the betterment) of Germany? Can we condone blood on a statesman's hands if we are promised economic progress? Apparently, the great statesman's hero is Swami Vivekanda - oh, the irony. Saffron is where the similarity begins...and ends in this case.

What's your poison?

The election in India reminds me of Jennifer Lawrence mouthing "Sometimes, all you have in life are fucked-up poisonous choices" in American Hustle. Choice. To have the luxury of choices is good, to be bombarded with choices not so good, but to be presented only with terrible choices is surely the worst.

On the surface, we are all 'normal' within the paradigms of livable human society. What makes us interesting lurks beneath the surface of normalcy. Our wants are stretched thin on the surface, our needs just barely visible. If you could peel that outer layer away, you would see a colorful world of contradictions, choices and their effects, eternal struggle between free will and societal expectations, but the most endearing quality of all - a yearning for acceptance in our given (and accepted) form. Some of the most interesting stories have/could be written on aberrant behavior - the boy that lies in school (why?), the girl that laughs too much and too often (what is she hiding?), the chain smoker that gives up his/her addiction after three decades on a moment's whim, the prostitute that donates her time and money to charity, the alcoholic overachieving son of the underachieving pious father, the mother that sells her virtue for her child's material wants....the sheer complexity of human behavior is blinding.

What do your choices say about you?

Humbled

My grumblings in the kitchen have been quelled by a 70-year old woman who sells her cooking services at people's houses, to send money home to her nine married daughters. Like the "left hand that knows not the dealings of the right", she accomplishes this with the help of her clients, ruffling no feathers. Stories like these reinstate belief in the indomitable human spirit, and give me pause to reflect on the lengths a mother will go to protect her brood.

Ten ducklings in the pool

Do puppies, kittens and ducklings interest you? Probably yes, if you were walking by a water body enjoying the light summer breeze, squinting in the sunlight and the loud quacking of the mother duck called out to you - you might notice the school (what is the collective plural for a bunch of ducklings?) of furry ducklings following the mother's tail and occasionally dunking their heads in water, coming up quickly for air. But, would you line up against the windowed office wall cooing over ducklings for hours (minutes really) on end? I know people that would. And maybe that's human. To get food, organic or not, for the family and to feed them. It's not for me. But, let me hasten to reassure you that I do like flowers and children (most of the time). Some music. So, don't give up on me just yet.

Little Miss Sunshine

Five minutes every day don't count if you have nothing to say. A beautiful sun-dappled day presses her nose against my window-pane, begging me to abandon the computer screen and play with her as she beckons from the small green pool whose surface breaks out softly in fluid drapes, in contact with the light breeze. That's all you need to know today.

Five for a Mother

Mothers' Day must be coming up soon - I see Groupon and Facebook ads telling people what to do to make their ordinary moms feel extraordinary. That made me think of my mater and what an unnecessarily forgiving martyr she has been to a completely undeserving family. I would not be surprised if this realization strikes women when they turn mothers themselves. Happens right around the time when your FB feed is inundated by "Moms rock" posts, or when the newborn is being swaddled by a grandmother. I figured nobody was ever going to spare a word for her (not really swashbuckling hero material), so while my pen's still leaking...let me tell you a bit about this bundle of contradictions aka My Mother.

She was too timid to show up at Parent-Teacher meetings, but not enough to take the 24/29 tram all the way to the marble floored school to deliver the tiffin-box her nincompoop child had not bothered to pack. We had a running joke around the dinner table to erect a marble statue in honor of her martyrdom, since she would willingly relegate herself to licking off bowls whose contents had been emptied onto her family's plates. I mean, please! Mother India much? Not unusual, you say? Right up there with the other mothers that save money from the meagre "shongsharer khoroch" to buy a little milk for the pregnant maid, or with those who offer up their gold earrings as a wedding gift to a sister-in-law because the husband didn't get his bonus this year? Maybe, maybe not. She had grit, and that didn't come from education, pedigree or her station in life. She just wasn't one to whine.

She was terrible at accepting anything construed as a handout - well, screw handout, even simple help. There was a section of her saree pallu that was always warm and damp from kitchen fumes. You could see portions of her feet that were swollen from standing too long in line for kerosene, or for the dignified SBI official. But her hands, like her heart, were soft - they never betrayed the hours of stirring, dragging, washing, mopping,pulling, pounding and poultice-applying her job demanded. She was not a feminist in the "Would you believe it? They advertised football as a MAN'S GAME" sort of way. But, there was something not quite conventional about her....can you raise non-conformists on a staple diet of convention, I wonder.


We are still working on that statue, Ma. Happy Mother's Day, whenever that is.

Five minutes everyday makes Jill a good girl

April 22

I began subscribing to a professional writer (Daphne Gray-Grant)'s newsletter, and took her "write for 5 minutes everyday" advice to heart. Here's some from today... Trying something new. Writing for 5 minutes everyday. Whenever, wherever. It is not unusual to find framed pictures of family members in co-workers' office spaces. Spouse, children, pets, sometimes extended family and friends. It reminds one that humans need a receptacle, a repository for their love. So, a pet suffices when fellow humans fail. OK, I failed after 3 minutes....I think. Yes, that's my attention span these days. Three minutes. How did we ever last those interminably long examinations made mandatory by the State Board of Education? At our peak, we would be writing for 2-3 hours every day separated by a lunch hour, on two completely different subjects. So, not only did you need to be focused, your mind needed to be agile enough to switch from one paradigm to another - say, Maths to History, in a span separated by parental affection and milky sweets. Hot summer afternoons and the call of the "Asian Koel" (before being interrupted by a call, I was informed by a bird-acquainted friend that the koel/kokil is not equivalent to a cuckoo, and that it's a different species). And, that concludes my 5 minutes of writing for today.
*****
April 23

Today's 5 minute investment is triggered by an author I have never read - Penelope Lively. Primarily her memoir Dancing Fish and Ammonites, where she writes that she was born in Cairo. How exciting! While I cannot comment on her writing, an interview with NPR shines light on her take on 'possessions' in old age and how it echoes my feelings. She no longer feels the urge to accumulate things/stuff in her house/life now that she is eighty. This minimalistic lifestyle has often made me feel inadequate. I have visited houses that are ornately decorated (an instant turn-off) and habitats that are tastefully but sparsely decorated - and it is the latter that has made me marvel at the woman (more often than not)'s aesthetic sense. Aside from those brief lapses (and about twice a year, I realize that I am a woman and that I am supposed to accumulate stuff and decorate my surroundings, transform the yin of the bathroom with the plush yang of rugs, towels and heady perfumes), I tend not to feel the urge to buy things. However, this is also accompanied by a vague sense of discomfort and of not being worthy of the feminine kin. Comments like Penelope's root my senses and I tell myself I'm okay, not too far off from the mean - well, maybe a few standard deviations but that's cool.

Kabhi kadhi kabhi Gham

Overheard in an Indian vegetarian restaurant - American male asks Indian colleage incredulously, while slurping on kadhi: "So, you make yoghurt at home?" "Yes I do. I mean, my mother...uhh my wife does." :) Wife trained him well.