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.