Fleeting introspection from a car window

December 10
Miami, FL

I saw you tonight clutching the wheel tightly, driving an old blue battered minivan. An ordinary-looking woman in her 50s not unlike many we pass unthinkingly on the street. Your chin barely reached over the top of the wheel, and you leaned forward intently, eyes darting, mouth agape, concentrating only on inching the vehicle past us. I wondered – what is your story, Miss? That “I love soccer” sticker on the rear window would suggest a Spanish-speaking matron in Miami-Dade County. Or, maybe you don’t care about soccer at all. Perhaps you bought that pre-owned car dirt-cheap, with the sticker, from Little Havana. You need it to shuttle from one day-job to another. There is nothing special about how your greasy hair is pulled away from your face in a tight ponytail that bares the veins at your temples. Nothing remarkable about the pink face scrubbed clean hurriedly before the next errand of the day. What’s special is the grit that shines through that ordinary face. The grit that makes you invincible in daily life. The patience the family banks on when all hell breaks loose. The cool practicality that soothes troubled children's minds just as well as the cooing and petting once soothed tired little bodies.

Is that your story, Miss? Here's a fan screaming her lungs out for you - you rule the world.

Subterfuge

If you know my worst, you know me best.

I see in you the promise of tomorrow, the potential of today. When they ask for your innocence, thumb your nose at them.

The Higher Entity and I

The aim is not to write something stellar everytime, but to gain comfort in expression.

Arguments about the existence of a Higher Entity, not unlike political leanings, create deep divisions between people. It is a deeply personal matter for some. A topic of debate, for others. My interpretation of the Higher Entity says much about me as a person, my experiences, and how my beliefs have been shaped over time. Therefore -

Self-validation, after falling from grace, quite literally feels like Manna from Heaven.

Snippets - August 2013

Jeff Guinn's talk on Charles Manson continues KERA'S "insanity focus". Intrigued to hear of Charles Manson's consistent behavior of manipulating people to do his bidding - traced back to his childhood. He twisted his life to appear more gruesome than reality. Begs the question - when are the seeds of insanity implanted in a human mind? If psychotropic drus were not an option, could a caring and nurturing environment turn the tables on insanity?


Reading "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" by Mohsin Hamid. When requested by his girlfriend's mother to give the girl (another loony spiraling downwards) a wide berth, Mohsin's protagonist agrees, but with a certain uncertainty. "Still, I remained concerned for Erica's well-being - and remained also in the grip of a certain, probably irrational, hope - so the ongoing task of abstaining from communication was a struggle not unlike that of a man attempting to rid himself of an addiction."

Baby Mama

Suddenly, it's everybody's business.

"Any news?"
"When do we get to hear the good news?"

Err, probably not until a semblance of stability has been established in swirling world economics. Oh, but you were not interested in that, were you? What you were really asking is this -

"Are you having sex?"
"Are you having regular sex?"
"Are you having sex on those days?"

But, you don't because you are polite. So, you mask these questions with "Good news?" and twinkling eyes and a smile I just don't get. I anticipate, even expect questions from doddering oldies but not from you, a friend or an acquaintance, who has been married for 10-odd years and has barely recuperated from delivery before posing - "So, ....." intermingled with gory details of childbirth. So, the next time you ask me a question like that, please be prepared to field "Have you resumed regular sex after having a baby?"

But, that would not be polite. Or worse, you would reply with gushing detail.

Sigh.


Written Nov '10, in a fit of angst.
Posted May '13, with twisted amusement.

A man's world?

If you are an Indian Hindu, you are aware of and sensitive to the treatment of Muslims in Hindustan. On a daily basis, you do your bit to relieve your conscience of what Muslims would have you believe - that they are an oppressed religious minority barely surviving amongst teeming millions of Hindus in this kaleidoscopic countryscape.

The Hindu head of the household may well employ a Muslim driver, the lady of the house may well hire a Muslim maid, the children of the house might even feast on Sevaiyan brought lovingly by Rani-Bibi, and the family might even make monthly donations to the maid's son's college fund. The Hindu soul is appeased. Perhaps, a tad like the white-black schism in the West. Where, as a famous black comedian once put it - "All the black people I know have several white friends; all the white people I know have only one black friend"! Do what appeases your conscience, soothes the soul and wear the "I did my bit" badge on your social sleeve. It is an assumption of mine that Bengalis treat their sons and daughters in much the same way. Simplistic, you say? Perhaps, but humor me today.

Calcutta in the 80s was a land where men were men, and women were Femina-beautiful. Most families followed traditional social norms; men were the sole breadwinners, women were homemakers, and a Bengali household would serve up rice pudding on the son's birthday, but not quite as often for the girl-child. Admittedly, we were granting more exposure to our daughters, opening them up to a world of possibilities by showering them with a "convent education", or "something your mother never had". Our sons were well, boys. Sigh. They would roll in the mud, scrape their elbows, jump off brick walls, and would simply not do their homework. You could often hear a mother (of a son or two) prosaically hold forth "I wish I had had a daughter instead". You could perhaps discern that it was even fashionable - to yearn for daughters in a day and age where airhostesses were the rage, female co-pilots were cheered, and Kiran Bedi was on TV. But, while we let our boys be boys and groomed our daughters to be sons, unwittingly we were laying the bricks for the evolution of the "modern family" as we know it today - where the man behaves less like a man, and the woman strives to be more than a woman. That still leaves us with way more testosterone than the world needs.

What has not changed since the 80s though, are our expectations of our children. The MO of the 70s-80s parent brigade was that the girl child needed to be educated to "secure her future", not that of her parents - mind you ["Aajkal-kar cheleder bhorsha nei" banal chatter pervaded the atmosphere]. Which differed greatly from the expectations of the boy child. You could retrace decades into the annals of Indian social history and find legions of sons with familial (I mean financial) chains. The girls were married off, with the expectation that they would raise families, run households, hold down jobs with equal panache. Not to worry about the folks back home. Which raises the question, who truly suffers from this "soft bigotry of low expectations"? When you arm your daughters with an education (not a degree), expect them to be opinionated - don't saddle them with the same traditional marriages of yore. Ask of them what you ask of your sons. Accept from them the helping hand you once lent them. Surely, "To whom much is given, much is expected" was not coined only with men in mind.

Imuse, as my spacebar calls it

I need something fancier than Notepad to write anything worthwhile. Imuse. Yes, and a functional space bar wouldhelp. I think back, unravel the memory loops to go as farback as possible. Thinking of how writing came to me **. As a soothing poultice on the forehead of an inky night's turmoil. As the unexpected gushing-forth of fevered creativity from a schoolgirl's fountain pen. As the strutting pride of a child's desperate attempt to impress her hero. I have none of those anymore - not the first rhyming poem, neither the continuance of a paragraph from Kidnapped, certainly not the essay about a stormy night.

You tempt me now, an hour away frommidnight. I wiggle my fingers and write tentatively, coaxing words out of a stultified imagination.

Tonight, I write for me. No pressure to outperform, to wittily summarize, engage or enamor. Tonight, you are mine to mold and twist, to sweep to heights, to plumb the depths, to bridge the growing chasm. I wonder, at a time when I hoped to befriend you, have you at last abandoned me?

** (how can one not draw references to Neruda, when plagued by writer's block?)

A Suggestion

I thought it would be nice if you started off with Uncle Podger and Josephine March. Or, even an Oliver Twist. You need one character to make you smile (no matter how old you are) and one character to feel like his/her story was yours in writing.

Growing up, Little Women was where my heart was and Wuthering Heights was the love-story that diverted a child's mind to the exploratory regions of adolescence. Heathcliff was the man my adolescent heart yearned for - one that appealed to a girl's fantasy. Soon, that too gave way to Gone with the Wind. For me, it had always been fashionable to look down upon Mills and Boon romance stories. But, it is Jerome K Jerome that my mind turns to when I need comfort, familiarity and humor on a cold, gray afternoon.

I hope you find some characters for keeps. I know I have. These books transport me effortlessly and swiftly to my school days when the school building looked no less exciting than the first glimpse Darryl had of Malory Towers. To a time when life's simplicity was bound in white starched skirts & pigtails and sucking on honeysuckle stems. When it was all right to move your head to rippling notes played on the piano without knowing it was Fur Elise. It was OK to be who you were. One could find comfort in a sea of white starched skirts and pigtails and occasionally, hardbound library books.

The Recital

Sulochona stared out of the passenger seat window at the rapidly evolving suburban settlement. Yet, one had the feeling that nothing really registered behind those unseeing eyes. A blank stare, a blank canvas. And, that is how it had been for 10 years now. The forehead was smooth except for a crease or two running the breadth of the temples. Dark impressions beside the nose marked spots where spectacles must have schafed against the skin. Sulochona had cocooned herself comfortably inside a sarcophagus - even the slightest movement of her limbs or a change in her facial expression seemed unnatural to an onlooker.


Her head jerked back to the driver as she felt a soft hand on her wrist. The lady in the driver's seat smiled at her encouragingly.


"Do you know where we are going today?"
"Where?" - words dribbled out of the elderly woman's loose lips.
"It's a concert - Indian classical music - by Pt Ajoy Chakraborty. You love his
music, don't you?"
"Do I?" She sighed deeply and ended with a "Maybe."


Rai left her alone. Her nostrils flared - a remnant of her yesteryear temper. She counted silently from 1 to 10 and concentrated on her breathing instead. That, along with the growing traffic as the small Cooper neared the cultural events venue, made her forget quickly the tension in the car. They reached the Convention Arena well ahead of time. Rai found seats for Mrs Gupta before heading outside for snacks.


"Kemon achho, Rai? Shorir bhalo to?"
"Oh, Chitra-di! I am so embarassed - we could not make it to your party last
weekend. You know how it is with Ma."
"I do, beta. But, I worry less for her and more for you. Sulochona has had a
happy life for the most part - and no mother could ask for a better child than
you. But you - have you thought..? I'm sorry - there I go again. Sumit is right -
I am quite the nosy parker of the subdivision!" She placed a warm hand on
Rai's back and gave her a quick hug.


Rai's eyes filled up with uncharacteristic tears. It had been a hard task to give up her aspirations for a high-profile career, a normal life perhaps as most of her friends had now. The entities that came in quick progression - husband, house, mortgage, children. Well, she could check some off that list. Her mother was like a child now - the doctor referred to the shock of Mr Gupta's sudden demise as a trigger. It was not Alzheimer's - Sulochona had taken refuge in her childhood, essentially erasing any reference in her mind to her married life, her only child, her house, her friends - any vestiges of an adult existence.


"Chitra-di...! I should be going now, Ma is by herself - see you in there?"
"Hyan re, take care."


Rai gathered the Kashmiri shawl around herself as she settled down beside her mother. She noticed her mother staring at her intently yet Rai did nothing - she wanted to enjoy this evening and did not want to be drawn into anymore disappointment stemming from Sulochona's condition. Ironic that it had been Sulochona who had introduced her daughter to the layers of classical music.


The program began with "Bhavani Dayani..."based on raag Bhairavi.


Goosebumps stood up on Sulochona's arms as she gripped her right palm with the left. She knew this rendition - every Wednesday evening, the music teacher would insist on starting the class by paying his respects to Goddess Durga. And, the sharp slap of the wooden ruler on Sulochona's right palm, if that was required to get her to "appreciate the nuances of Indian music". Sulochona was terrified all of a sudden, sitting in the cold unfamiliar confines of her hard seat. She turned to the lady on her right - the one who had driven her here. Wanting to tell her, to plead with her - Sulochona wanted to go home.


Her pleading gaze rested on Rai's shawl - the intricacies of Kashmiri embroidery, hues of pomegranate-red and peacock-blue on a buff background. Sulochona's request froze on her lips as her mind registered with a jolt - recognition. She knew this shawl.


Feeling her mother's eyes upon her, Rai turned to Sulochona and kept a reassuring hand on her mother's trembling fingers. Sulochona's doe-like eyes flitted from Rai's shawl to her fingers now - the ring on Rai's finger - a proud old Firoza stone studded with diamonds. Yes, Sulochona knew this ring - it was her mother's. For once, Sulochona's tired eyes lit up with a fire her soul had long banished unknowingly. Her hands clawed at Ria's shawl.


Ria's voice reflected her concern - " Kichu bolbe, Maa? Do you want to say something?"
Sulochona hesitated; her words stumbled over one another in excitement, "Maa, Maa - ami baari jabo."

"Mother - I want to go home!"


NOTE Written on the premise that it is easier to draw people into your world than it is to step outside, especially for someone like Sulochona.

Imagine a tunnel - a corridor - that leads you from one room to the other. Everytime you pass through a room, a door closes behind you. A conveyor belt moves you forward into the next room. You can turn around and start walking in the reverse direction but it won't get you anywhere. So, you jump off the belt and walk to the last door that closed behind you. You knock and you pummel on the door with your fists. You can hear echoes in the hallway. But, the door won't budge an inch.

That's life for you, sweetie.

I remember, Part IV: Cuckoo's Boston

Boston, for me, will always be akin to a spa experience. Except that spas don't smell of old books and their pristine surroundings are not criss-crossed with T lines. Boston never failed to rejuvenate me whenever I visited her familiar streets.

You know how unknowingly you zone into a few qualities in a new lover - ones that remind you of your old one? Boston was an upgraded version of my old love, Calcutta. I never knew how I loved the old dame of the East until I was greeted with mild whiffs of her in Boston nooks and crannies. The frequent Boston visits started with a childhood friend's (lets call her Cuckoo, for reasons best known to her) move to the great city.

The very first visit evokes feelings of sweet pain - I had just gone through my first (and last) break-up and was hoping to get away from it all with a week-long trip to Boston. Cuckoo, at that time, used to share her living space with three other graduate students. One bedroom shared by 4 girls gives rise to very amusing stories. No, not that kind.

Boston Public Gardens, Quincy Market and Cambridge were some of my favourite (yes, the British spelling of the word) spots. Cuckoo loved to walk and did not have a car - which, I am guessing, is a blessing in Boston. Any given day, we would start from nearabout Museum of Fine Arts and traipse all over the city, crossing the Fens, walking by beautiful old residences adorned with bougainvillaea look-alikes. [A picture of lovers in the background and ducks in the fore was to inspire me in later days] At the point where my legs started to feel tired, our eyes were greeted by the Charles river, lined with jogging lanes. We would cross over the bridge into Cambridge - always synonymous with cobble-stoned streets and bookshops. And, of course, how could a Bengali restaurant with "machher jhol bhaat" listed on the menu stuck to its window be any less attractive?

Nov 3, 2010

If you are a Calcuttan, you know how you would (and possibly, still) take pride in the trams, dusty roads, shooting the breeze on dulcet evenings as you filtered the city's creaks and sighs into an experience that can only be romanticised? Calcutta is not a pretty city but we adorn her with the epithet, Tilottama because as Calcuttans, that is what we do - we romanticise. Every nook and cranny of that city strums my heartstrings effortlessly even as I choke on fumes during our annual pilgrimage. And, perhaps that is why I love Boston so. Calcutta's snooty sibling, Boston, entices me with her criss-crossing T lines, museums and sightings of lovers and ducks in the park. She exists because Bostonians exist. In their minds but more importantly, in their hearts.

A sense that envelops you, cocoons you, infuses you with a faint fragrance even when you find yourself friendless on distant Dallas shores.

I remember, Part III: Cherries and the Big Apple

I despised Mike Monahan without ever having met him. He was an American colleague of my father - briefly stationed in Bangalore. He advised my father that for a year at least, I should not travel much outside Buffalo, being 'new' to the country. And, Daddy's girl that I was, I obeyed him and hence obeyed Mike Monahan and therefore, despised him.

Now that this bit has been explained, let me tell you how I loved the beginning of Spring in Buffalo. Imagine being buffeted in by snow - on any given day 2-3 feet easily - clumping through the whiteness in snow boots that, because they needed to be functional, looked like worksman's boots. [Perhaps some graduate student threw them out eventually - I left them in the lab as a gift for my erstwhile labmates] All the snow was to blame for the 30-40 pounds I packed on real fast. It feels so much better now that I can blame snow for my obesity.

The first sight of Spring in Buffalo came in the form of tiny pink cherry blossoms. A single sighting at 8 am would bring a smile to my face. And, when the whole tree burst into bloom, cherry blossoms and Spring brought with them a dear friend to Buffalo. Lets call her Winnie. The Pooh. Okay, just Winnie. I have a picture of her wearing a long flowing black/brown dress patterned with pink flowers - standing beneath a cherry blossom tree. Smiling. Although, she ceased to smile when she entered my room and took to cleaning with vengeance and a broom. On Winnie's insistence (and considerable indignation at being locked up in a closet-like room for 3 consecutive days), we made a day trip to New York City. And, THAT was my first trip outside Buffalo.

I remember, Part II: Food - and how I paid for it in 2001

That December, I moved across Main Street from South campus to Callodine. To share a townhouse with two other graduate students. One from Economics and the other from Engineering. This was a huge rambling townhouse with hardwood floors and a separate bedroom for each of us. Space had been provided in the house for most amenities graduate students need (which is very little to start with anyway) except the bathroom. You would have to exit as soon as you entered the sole bathroom and as we all know, in such cases, the bathroom is to blame for all the problems that crop up amongst roommates :)

At that time, I was of the opinion that hot milk can set most things straight. This, from a purported lactose-intolerant milk-hater. Well....now that I have it in writing, it actually does make sense. Anyhow, the Engineering grad knocks on my door in the dead of the night - her pupils are dilated, sweat beads stand out on her forehead and I don't mind admitting now that I was just a little bit scared by the look in her eyes. She was having problems sleeping in her room - noises or some such. Could she share my room tonight? Sure - out come the hot milk and biscuits and we became steadfast oh-sugar-so-nice roommate buddies UNTIL....the bathroom interfered. You see, any and all of my friends/roommates will vouch for the fact that I am not the tidiest person in the world. I am one of the fast-dying breed of women who do not track down a speck of dust with a feather duster/vacuum cleaner. I clean my room if I have visitors - otherwise, I like the theory of order amidst chaos. And, we all know how that works - or at least, the few of us know. So - diehard OCD clean-freak battled diehard OCD dirt-freak and our friendship withered in the midst. What a pity - oh well. Ho hum.

It was here in this very townhouse that I hosted my first dinner party. To introduce my ex to my friends and to thank my friends for all the care they showered during my post-knee surgery days. [At this point, I should take a step back from Callodine and tell you that my winter break prior to moving into the townhouse was spent living at a friend's apartment - with a knee cast and a miniature refrigerator (it was actually an ice box) circulating cold water around the wound to keep the swelling down. I depended wholly on Sourav to cook for me and actually even entertain me - would you believe this guy and his friend took me to a movie on 25th December? Cast and refrigerator and all; lifting my leg off the road into the car; arranging for enough leg space in the movie theatre? I tell you - this guy was a Godsend. So, everytime I cuss out males in general, I have to make a few mental omissions] I cooked and I sang and we made merry. Lots of merry. Until the semester started and I was told there was no more funding. I worked in the university cafeteria slicing pizza and compiling sandwiches ("Tuna salad? Wheat or white? Mayo or mustard? Lettuce? Banana peppers? Oh come on, you **%%$!@ 18 year-old, buck the f$%& up!") - lapping up the free food and the 6.50$ an hour. This reminds me - you should try toasting an everything bagel, brush it with butter and top it with thinly sliced tomatoes. Absolute heaven.

So, one of these days (now that I have evoked sufficient sympathy from the here-now there-now reader), I hobble back home on crutches (notice 'hobble') to a yellow sticky posted on my bedroom door. The Eco grad has had it with my unkempt ways and thorough disregard for division of chores laid down in the house. Something along the lines of 'Please wipe the kitchen floor TODAY, it is YOUR turn'. So, I get down and wipe the floor. Seeing the unfairness of it all, God smote the Eco grad...well, not quite - she broke her foot descending the stairs to hell (our basement, what else). And, yours truly cooked and shared her food and chatted up the Eco grad. Needless to say, there were no more yellow stickies on my door after that.

(Sanctimonious chuckle in the background) Much more later.

I remember, Part I: Limping back in more ways than one

I have been feeling rather nostalgic of late. As such and not having much inspiration around, the mind turns to early days of comfort - well, not as much comfort but surely days stamped with fullness and hence, happiness.

My first semester in Buffalo was spent in Schoelkopf Hall - a name I could hardly pronounce. Having arrived early, I was moreorless the lone occupant in this 3-storied brick building. I was allotted to a double occupancy room with 2 beds, two closets and two desks. Communal bathrooms were down the hall. I remember the name of our Resident Advisor (RA) Tara who (Nursing student) was rather helpful in bandaging a raw piece of exposed layer-beneath-my-brown-skin that I had successfully managed to rip with a razor (unintentionally). Her one comment stands out in my mind - "You are the most washing girl in this whole building!" - meaning that I did loads of laundry on Friday nights. Every Friday night - sometimes even on a weeknight. In a dark basement laundry room that scared me the first few times I visited. There was little more to do other than looking out at a silent snow-covered campus-scape.

I also think of Daran - or Maheedaran Mahalingam - from Sri Lanka. This guy looked eerily like Denzel Washington - tall, dark and gangly. He was a resident in the co-ed dorm and taught me how to use a public telephone to dial home (India). He was a familiar face in dorm parties. Daran will always remind me of Walgreens and Tops - or grocery stores in general. I fail to remember why. I can only guess that we used to meet inadvertently at Tops to stock up on bread, bananas and I cant Believe It's not Butter. I vaguely remember buying a phone set for 11$ from Walgreens - these were all first purchases - for a very unsentimental practical person, it is strange that I still have that set.

The tall tower right beside Schoelkopf was Kimball - housing Occupational Therapy graduate students - the only reason I know this is because Harpreet had her office in said building. I met Harpreet on the day of the TSE(Test of Spoken English) and soon after, met Sourav at the South Campus bus stop. One Niagara trip later, we were friends. Really good friends. I remember picking up frozen German chocolate cakes from Pepperidge Farms (Tops again) on my way to Harpreet's; storage trunks full of empty beer bottles at Sourav's; chatting on instant messenger in Sourav's architecture lab (while he pored over papier mache building models) with friends in India or jotting down long, oh-so-long emails to my father detailing my financial health. I also remember this pair of incredibly cute flirtatious French guys, Eric and Gail (Gale?) on the bus I would take daily to the North campus for classes.

I remember the first snowfall in Buffalo - it came in the form of a snowstorm over Thanksgiving break. The morning after the big snowfall, the campus was pretty near empty and I stepped out into a knee-deep white cushion. I waded through to another dorm - to be greeted with delicious news to a graduate student's ears - the cafeteria was being opened to all students on campus for free in order to dispense of the victuals. A couple of short calls to Sourav and Harpreet and we were all over it.

I remember playing racquetball for the first and the last time in the recreation center. Being urged to lash out at the ball (thinking it were my snitch of a labmate or supercilious advisor), I heard a snap as my upper body rotated about my knee joint. No amount of Advil or Aleve could alleviate the pain or the sudden giving-away of the knee. An ACL reconstruction surgery was to follow - days after, I moved out of Schoelkopf to an off-campus townhome. But, that's another story. For another day.

Friend, who art thou?

The most sensible thing a woman once said to me was that friends are the family one chooses for oneself. She is also currently hoarding food, water and guns in anticipation of an imminent economic collapse. But, that is another story - I'll return to the discussion on friends.

I invite you to come meet my friend templates. Remember though - these are base templates. Hybrids are expected.

The lucky one, the blessed one - They go through life effortlessly. Born into reasonable affluence and endowed with excellent looks, they sail through school, college and a career as if they were a midsummer tea party. They marry well and live happily ever after. Their best friends are often non-achievers.

The dark one, the sarcy one - They brood in a corner in parties. Most people know when to leave them alone - which is most of the time. They spout philosophy and nurse drinks like babies. You name any one thing that can go wrong in people's lives and they are a living example, except that you cannot coax them to talk about it. Their best friends are often the most cheerful spirits you will find.

The silly one, the one that just won't stop talking - If life were an Agatha Christie novel, these friends would be found dead in their "parlours". Miss Marple often relied on such people as sources of information. Their happiness is often found in others' misery. The sound that crosses their lips more often than any is "Tsk tsk". They have many friends (who prefer to be referred to as acquaintances) but no best friends.

The gay one, the happy one - They live life on their own terms. Their company is a pleasure, their smiles bring cheer to dull corners. They will attack most sports with abandon - bungee-jumping, swimming, hang-gliding, tennis - in the same manner that they approach life. Sometimes goofy, they jump right into enthusiasm. That's right - INTO enthusiasm. They have many friends but feel especially close to the dark ones.

The shifty one - And, if life were Junglebook instead, they would be Kaa. They socialise outside their group and trust nobody. Their efficient selves hold a hypnotic attraction for the silly ones.

Life makes strange bedfellows.

Passion, anyone?

Nowadays, all I do is switch between tabs on the web browser. As if switching within seconds would present a fresher, more interesting view of the same webpage I was looking at earlier.

Then, he talked about passion - a lack of passion. In whatever I do. That set me on a slow walk down tortuous memory lanes where I meet you, YOU and YOU. I meet the pen and paper, the terrace, the tree-tops - I meet a smiling face saying 'Hop on, child'; blogs and breeze and water. I also smell fear, a passion for fear. I am at once brave and cowardly; nice and rude; arrogant and humble; but that's natural - arent we all? I am passionate about being ordinary - I am passionate about walking a normally undisturbed path. Think of it, I was once passionate about bidding for a coffee grinder on eBay.

How ironic it is that the reason you fell in love with me was passion. I miss myself.

For You, Baba

I have been meaning to write to you, to confront your loss and my pain in a manner befitting the person who you were. I toyed with the medium and language of communication and wondered if this should be a letter or a meaningless scrap when it dawned that all the thinking and rationalisation and memory-sorting detracts from the spontaneity. How could that be a tribute to a free, impulsive spirit?

I have never held a kaleidoscope in my hands and have, for the most part, fancied it to be a glass-mirror encrusted, ratchety tube coloured in gaudy strips of mauve and pink. When a little girl puts it to her eye and clicks rapidly from one frame to another, her teeth biting down hard on her lower lip and then her lips parting into a guileless perfect “O” - I think of you…and me…and the frames that keep us together. Some of those frames memories are in stark black and white, some tinted sepia. Only recent ones are in bright Eastman color. The little girl is in pigtails and dungarees. She has a light fever and her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes are bright, too bright perhaps because of the fever or perhaps touched by the flavour of the lives she glimpses briefly. The kaleidoscope is like a time capsule that has taken the most enduring emotions and squeezed them into this tiny physical space - the magic is almost palpable and the effect on the little girl surreal.

Because, no-one really wants to grow up and I am still walking by your side, my hand tiny in your firm grip, feeling warm inside as you regale yourself with stories from your childhood.

A Series in Remembrance

July 06, 2006
Do you remember the chestnut colored bookcase we had in our house in Calcutta? Some of our storybooks were kept there displayed outside and some more in the cream colored bookcase inside our bedroom. One of those books that I read over and over again (I cannot recall if you bought it for us or someone gifted it to us on a birthday) was called Raggity and the Cloud. It was a Russian book and in the preface, the author speaks of how she started writing the book. This was nothing like Pushkin or Tolstoy or the other somber looking books you bought from Russian bookstalls. This was a colorful book for children with pictures on every other page. It was a story of a young servant-girl and a cloud that talks to her (I know it sounds weird now but at that age, it was completely credible). Anyhow, the author’s daughter used to suffer from chronic earache which would come down to the jaws and completely immobilize her in pain. She talks about how difficult it is to divert the attention of a sick child and how she (the author) started weaving stories to regale her daughter for hours on end. Now, I have an ill parent at home (sometimes, more than ONE ill parent) and I wonder what kind of stories would divert his attention from the pain and weakness. Do you remember the stories and essays I would write as a child and make you read them? You would joke about the familiar storyline – daughters and fathers and morbid endings. So, that certainly won’t cheer you up now. Well then, how about the story of the fox you would tell us at night “So, the fox is walking through the woods and he is walking and walking”. Most of those stories would end with gentle snoring – yours of course! So, I can’t take advantage of that tack either. The other kind of story you would tell us would be about the king, his queen and their three princesses. Now, we all know how that story ends. The king is “indisposed” in his royal bed, the queen is coughing and swallowing pills by the dozen intermittently and the princesses – well, the princesses have given up their fancy gowns for swords and men’s clothes (that’s my version, not yours). The best times the royal family shared were around the glass dinner table laden with roasts and desserts (I can almost hear the youngest princess slurping to glory) swapping funny stories from the expensive royal school or the royal court (which is where the king went to work). But, that story can’t be enjoyable either. Because as soon as I start weaving the tale, you will start asking about the advanced degree the second princess is working towards and the visa application for the third princess and how the eldest princess is faring after her latest fancy illness. [You must realize that visas and PhDs have no place in fairy-tales!] There was one more book written by Nehru titled “Letters from a father to a daughter” which (I am pretty sure) you bought for us and none of us really read it. So, there goes the very last book I could have drawn inspiration from! The only story I know is that of a little heroic boy and how that boy never really grew up. The king would tell us this story and we would always clamor for it again and again although we knew the exact details. How the boy simply adored his mother, wore his father’s shirts even when he was told not to (There is a strange resemblance between the king and the youngest princess here – do you know that the youngest princess was remonstrated on numerous occasions by the eldest one for wearing her clothes?) and how the little boy was slapped only one day by his father because he nodded off to sleep while repeating the first line of a poem. I wonder if the poem went: “One morn, I met an old man in the lane, He was close to my farm”. This boy had an elder brother he absolutely revered and adored (therein lies a very loose analogy between the second and the youngest princess although the youngest might beg to differ!) and after the brother died, the little boy taught even smaller kids, in order to earn money for his family. Some days when he would receive the tuition money, he would reward himself with a mutton cutlet or a kobiraji (here I get confused: I think cutlets are the king’s favorites while the queen likes her kobirajis) from a favorite shop in Calcutta. This was a very quiet kid who gave up his shy demeanor when he opted for a career that required him to talk all day long. Numerous accolades, promotions, recognition, mudslinging, legal brawls and illnesses later, the boy hasn’t really grown up. Some days, he is cranky and most days, he won’t eat “food that is good for him”. I have a message from the princesses for the little boy: “Remember the days when we were forced to eat bitter gourd?” Neither the king nor the queen could even begin to imagine how much of that delectable vegetable was secretly flushed down toilets and tucked beneath golden plates. Now, the little boy has neither of those options open to him since he is being strictly guarded by the queen and her trusty aide, the youngest princess. So, the boy is being gently urged to eat his food or else! By now, I have realized (and you would have too) that I have successfully confused the story of the little boy and the story of the royal family. I am so confused myself that if asked to explain the analogies and allegories, I would probably get very annoyed.
August 30, 2006
Getting away from analogies and returning to reality, I spent a wonderful 10 days with you and Maa this time. The good thing about spending smaller periods of time together is that you want to pack in as much happiness as possible – as a consequence, you end up being more forgiving and work that much harder to overcome trivial differences in opinion (and there’s plenty in the house, full as it is with fire signs). Rinki is settling in well here and you should not worry for her. I bought her books for this semester yesterday and her classes have begun from this week. I will visit her the weekend before her birthday since she might be feeling lonely this year, being away from family. Maa seems to be taking everything in good stead – I don’t mind admitting that I was worried about how well she would handle things after all of us moved away. How could I forget that this lady spent the better part of her life raising three hooligans almost singlehandedly and did a pretty good job of it? Good parenting is phasing out nowadays and we have precious few examples to learn from – we can only hope to be as good and patient and selfless as you have. Trust in us and have faith in God. And, please get well soon and return home to us.
Love

Ruma

It took me four years, one death and a cliched question to confront and yet, strangely at the same time, go easy on myself.
"If you had a year to live and no onligations, no duties whatsoever; what would you do?"
First instinct: "Blahh! I hate these soul-searching Cosmo questions."
"No, I am serious. What would you do?"
Pat came the reply.
"Nrityagram. Living in a Gurukul atmosphere and Odissi."

I could have that, you know. It only scares me when I think what I would do if I did have it. Maybe, I would not want it anymore. So, for now I am happy with this super-amalgamation of my life and its wants in one single unbroken fabric.

What Started in 2005 OR Staying at home away from work can be debilitating to an otherwise stable mind

There is a thing or two to be said about losers.
it is not that they are weak or less enabled but that losing once too often breaks the spirit.
and so, then you give up trying at all.
u unlock your shieldand lay down ur swordeven as you do so,
the naked wounds exposed to salt and airhurt one last time.
dead eyes, scabs and drooping shouldershead down the cobbled streets
away from the celebrations
where the townpeople lift the winner
on their shoulders
and the roads run amuck with ale.

There is a thing or two to be said about winners.
it is not that they are superior but thatbelief bolsters the human spirit.
and you know that this fightjust like all the rest,will go your way.
you don your garb
polish the scimitar
and you wince just oncewhen the rusty sword pierces the lapels.
you worry that your image might be tarnished.
you are up on the shouldersof the roaring crowdwho revel,
for you are the hero of the peoplewho cannot fight for themselves
and so for you,
the roads, that could have been soiled by blood,
now run amuck with ale.