Laying the rumours to rest

The cellphone ringing on a deadline day: but it's a regular enough call, so I pick it anyway.

It's a pleasant surprise, an old colleague from the newspaper I worked with, he's calling to say Hi, he said. So he said hi, and I said hi, and I made my small talk and then I, said, Ok, need to go, so bye.

That's when he stalls, and there's a lull in his voice, I know he's got something to say.

How are things with you and him he says, you guys doing okay? It's the regular comment most married women get, so I say ok. But there's more to come.

I've heard you guys split, he says, is it true? Hahaha, I laugh, 'I wish.' But the concern in his voice just won't go away.

Why're you asking me this, I said. Well I heard it from someone at work, he says, and all those days of fighting and door-slamming and the despaired sighs come flashing back, sweating my nape, wetting my eyes. It's bad, but gosh, how did the world come to know?

No way, and soon I'm rubbishing talks of strife, joking about Nino's antics in life, talking of life and budgets and wives.

How often did I want to run away? Twice, already, this week. None the week before, a dozen times before that. But today I collect my coterie of wounds around me, covering it with my arms and shoulders and elbows, away from everyone else, who must please remember, I'm still the happily married lady.

Small town girls

I'm a small town girl. Born and brought up in Gandhinagar, a dusty and shady small town, where only bureaucrats and government officers/officials live. Growing up, surrounded by friends from the same family background of hard-working parents, book-filled homes and serious political discussions over endless cups of tea, it was like an extended family, where everyone knew my folks, and they'd know if I'd been in trouble before even I knew about it. And like everybody else, I couldn't wait to escape it.

The capital of the state it may be, but Gandhinagar has always been what other city residents call it, 'an old age home'. We had no places to shop for the kind of clothes we wanted, no places to pick interesting hair accessories. For everything, even a fairly decent dressing sauce, we'd all troop into the car and drive up to Ahmedabad. When I go back today, I barely see any young people there. There are the school-going kids and then there are the parents whose nests are empty and whose children have long flown to more interesting pastures. There are things about it that I loved, and love still: like how it just smells so clean, so green. Driving down from Ahmedabad, a mere 40 km away, I roll down the windows as Gandhinagar appears and just take in deep lung-fulls of air, the smells of childhood that I've come to miss: the smell of dusk, a mix of dust and cow dung, called godhuli so beautifully in Hindi.

Of course I loved my schooling years there: and it is here that I found my first friends, faced my first bullies and had my first few crushes. Last night, a few of us classmates met again, nearly ten years after we'd parted.

After a long time, I dilly-dallied over what I'd wear, knowing the guys would surround me and rib me silly about going from Somalian to gargutan. I settled on jeans and a silk paisley top, low-slung enough to fit my more feminine state of mind now, and yet, comfortable enough to face people with mindframes I'd no idea of.

There were meant to be 11 of us, but only four of us turned up. Most of the class doesn't live in the state/country, and reunions have somehow never worked out because of those logistics.

Last night, as we three girls and one guy chatted, we relieved those small town memories, recounted to exact and embarrassing details by D, the only guy who'd come. Like how I once wore a mini-skirt to a friend's birthday party, and had probably never realised that my then-hair, were longer than the skirt. Or how the first time a guy 'proposed friendship' to me, I'd burst out in tears leaving him and the class wondering if I was a lunatic.

And like all friendships, it got cemented over some skeletons. Some of them our own, some of those who had not made it to the reunion. One of the girls has been through a physically abusive marriage and is now living in with an Australian guy who loves her to bits. Another classmate ran away from home and community and married a guy who she later discovered was already involved with another woman. Another had an abusive father who'd beat her in such a way that we'd never be able to see it, but the bruises and welts would all be there, hidden beneath her school uniform. Or like how the guy who was a write-off was running an uber-successful ad agency, the guys who were the flirts and mr-commitment-phobic's were the first ones to get married. There were the regular juicy bits of affairs and divorces, success stories and unfathomable failures. Open, frank discussions of sex and what works and what doesn't. Random kaleidoscopic insights into the one-dimensional memory I had of the faces I grew up with.

It was vaguely unsettling: more so because one of the reasons I wanted to run away from my city was because of it's 'simple' residents, their 'boring and uneventful' lives. All this while, there was an underbelly to these residents that I'd not noticed, in my immaturity, in my need to get away from it all. It was also ironic, that I'm one of the few that still lives in the vicinity, when I'd been most vocal about my need to get away and see the world, while everyone else lives in countries I'd not even heard of when I was a kid.

Without Nino, and Nino's Dad, it was also my first time, in a long time, meeting people only I knew, who were in no way involved in the social circle I inherited when I got married. It was refreshing re-living school stories, crushes, laughing at the absurdity of teenage and its short-sightedness, of mourning friends and friendships that had passed on. It was humbling knowing that while our girths had changed (some of us, some are still lucky!), our faces hadn't, our expressions hadn't. We still punched and kicked and laughed raucously, ate from each others plates, enjoying a camaraderie we probably din't even have a decade back.

It was a trip back in time, a flash-back, but not grey or ochre, instead brilliantly hued and humbling in all the wisdom and hindsight it brought.

Crippled inside

For Solilo.

--

"In India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, where most of the nation's polio cases are reported there have been rumours that the polio vaccine is part of a plot to sterilize Muslim children."

India polio survivor stars in Oscar-nominated film

Amid all the hoopla over the Oscar winning sweep by Slumdog Millionaire, there's a touching real-life Indian tale of beating the odds that was also vying for the prized golden statuette in the short documentary feature, one that was eventually one by Smile Pinki.

The Final Inch is a 38-minute US film that documents global efforts to finally eradicate polio and profiles one of those stricken by the paralysing illness, 25-year-old Mohammad Gulzar Saifi, from the north Indian city of Meerut, AFP said.

'Polio is not a disease, it's a disaster for many,' said Saifi, who wears leg braces and moves with the help of a battered metal walker too small for his slender five-foot frame.

'I was lucky, I had a good family who looked after me but what about those who don't, those who are abandoned? I appeal to everyone to get their child vaccinated against polio,' he said.

The title The Final Inch refers to the fact that health officials say polio, which can paralyse a child for life within hours, is on the brink of being eliminated, thanks to mass immunisation.

But the illness is proving tougher to wipe out than initially expected and remains endemic in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, where 1,643 cases were reported last year.

India reported the second highest caseload at 556, according to WHO's Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

A key hurdle to combating the disease in densely-populated India is the fact that tens of millions of children live in unsanitary conditions where diarrhoea is rampant, health officials say. Polio is spread through faeces.

Also in India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, where most of the nation's polio cases are reported and where Saifi's city of Meerut is located, there have been rumours that the vaccine is part of a plot to sterilize Muslim children.

A number of Muslim clerics have joined a government campaign to fight polio, saying there is no truth to the rumours.

But while the rumours have played some part in the difficulty in combating the disease, poor hygiene and logistical problems - making sure the multiple-dose oral vaccine gets to every child from the dense cities to the remotest regions - are the biggest hurdles to eliminating the disease.

Saifi hopes his central role in the documentary, made by Oregon filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky, will help in the eradication efforts.

'Polio has no religion, it is religion-less. It doesn't just affect Muslims, it affects Hindus, it affects everyone,' he said.

'Not to take the polio vaccination is wrong. Polio is an incurable disease but if we have prevention, we don't need a cure,' he said.

And like Slumdog Millionaire, Saifi's tale is also about overcoming challenges and turning adversity into success.

Saifi was raised by his mother and five brothers who supported him after his father became ill and was unable to work.

'I was the only one of my family to receive an education,' said Saifi, who graduated from high school and speaks English fluently.

But after graduation, as for many of India's 70 million disabled who are often reduced to begging at traffic lights, there was no employment for him.

Instead he created a job for himself coaching neighbourhood children, first in a tiny room at his home in a poor district of Meerut.

Then, as the numbers grew, he rented a larger room which proudly bears a signboard declaring it the 'Meharban Coaching Centre' - named after his late father - and the inscription Every child is special.

He tutors 60 children in English, maths and other subjects, charging Rs100 a month for classes, though he adds: 'I don't charge those who can't pay.'

Thanks to his film role, Saifi has become a celebrity in Meerut, a two-and-a-half hour drive from New Delhi.

But he's still not famous enough for the local administration to grant him his most cherished wish - a three-wheel, hand-operated cycle to help him get around more easily.

'The government is supposed to give them to physically challenged people like me, but all I've had is promises, promises,' he said with a wry smile.

(words and picture by AFP)

--

Two close acquaintances of mine have polio, one of them, is in his early 40s, which in the context of the article above, implies that, it lurks in my generation too.

While his one-heavy-one-light tread has become familiar to my ears, and that of Nino's, I can imagine how frustrating school and growing up must have been, even though he does play some mean table tennis.

A is unmarried and I've always been too afraid to ask why, afraid I might hear that no one wants a mis-shapen partner. Though polio has done little to dent his personality in spite of being coupled with an educated but absolutely insensitive family, it has left him vulnerable physically. He suffered polio on the left side of his body, leaving one leg shorter. He suffered a heart-attack when he was in his 30s, even though he was a teetotaller. Two years ago, he suffered a stroke to the brain, the left him handicapped once again: not physically or mentally, but verbally.

A now suffers from Broca's aphasia, a disorder easiest explained as trying to communicate while using English in Paris or Hindi in Chennai. A case of lost communication.

"'There are patients who can fluently say something that sounds like a sentence, but it's just garbage,' said speech language pathologistPaul Rao, vice president of clinical services, quality improvement and corporate compliance at the National Rehabilitation Hospital inWashington, D.C.

'It's one of the least understood disabilities in the world, because these people cannot communicate for themselves.'

The worst part is, cognition is not affected. People think as clearly as they ever did. They simply can't communicate.

Aphasia is believed to affect about one million people in the US, according to the National Aphasia Association."

I've come to believe, as have some doctors, that Polio left A vulnerable, not just outside, but internally as well. His left leg, the heart attack, the stroke on the left side of his brain.

He once had a fantastic voice: full, warm, emotive. Music used to set him free, he used to say, from his bent and de-shaped body, from that disfigurement's social and personal ramifications. When A used to sing his favourite song, Man re tu kaahe na dheer dhare, there was bound to be a lot of sniffing in the room. Today, with his two-word and four-word sentences, A manages to run a successful computer training institute in Jaipur. There's little that's changed in his life, his routine or his family's lack of support. What has changed is that he can't hum his favourite music anymore. He will never be able to sing, even though the tunes play in his head, again and again, ceaselessly.

New pinch!

I love my new header - all thanks to Sujatha and Preeti :) You guys are the best, like totally. Thank you so much and big, big, big, giant hug.

--

Edited to add:

It has just occurred to me, and yes it is one of those days when light travels slower than sound, that there just might be other mums like me who're currently obsessing with the alphabet. Nino's trying to learn his abc's right now, and I've wanted to show him the alphabet in so many shapes and different ways and you know, cloud formations, that well, I'm almost dreaming of it.
That's also the reason for the new header, see?

That's why I loved the Spell with Flickr link. Photographs of letters based on the names you enter, with a database of millions of Flickr photos to choose from. Don't like how A looks? Click on it till you found one that feels just right.

The time I spent spelling the names out was a nice reminder to adolescence when I'd doodle names on a paper for hours :)

Links to the original photos with larger sizes are available and this means you can print them out/ frame them for some educational wall art - just what I'm planning to do for Nino as a get-well-soon gift (After about three illness-free days, we now have an ear infection). Although, I must add, I don't think this is legal for commercial purposes, that is selling this idea as a product. As long as it's between the baby and you, have fun!

The sisterhood of the travelling word

They’re not mere words to me – their names and pseudonyms each carrying a face-less image of a person laced with intricacies. The ‘handles’ that we use to address each other are tightly woven with our ideas and opinions, conjuring up caricatures of our lives in tiny, rapid bursts of colour. Some are names I love. Some are denominated by cities. Some with their memories, some with colours, and some with the kind of humour that makes life seem sane. And would I seem like a sentimental fool if I said, I was, in a way that words refuse to reveal, blessed for them all?

I realised it last week, in a flash typical of clichés, when the husband asked me what I was doing as I frantically typed my previous post in the dead of the night. My loved ones were around me, and yet, I had to reach out to you, to share my pain, knowing somewhere, you’d understand. I’d found and realised the joy of female bonding after what seems like ages.

I grew up with a bunch of boys, and though all of them are dear to me, we shared a bond that had a time and a place and has refused to grow out of that teenage leg-pulling we still indulge in when we meet. I’ve several close girl-friends, and our friendships have evolved to adjust changing roles such as marriage and motherhood, separated as we are by distance. Lately, there’s always been something missing in the equation, a small, but open-gnawing gap in how we connect, and there are bits of my soul I’ve never been able to fuse fully with another in a long while. The closest friend of course, is Nino’s Dad, but there are as many pitfalls to marrying a friend as there are comfort areas.

Here, in this bit of my world, where I play strip-tease with my emotions, where I display the fears I usually cloak so well otherwise, where my ranting has a purpose, where you leave me equally moved, inspired and rolling on the floor with laughter, and where I have your listening eyes: I have found and devoured greedily the depth of your thoughts and the comfort of your words, the pleasure of your company. Thank you, for this unexpected gift, and for teaching me that the time to make a friend is never past.

And the double of all that you want...

... Is one of my favourite wishes, one that I use liberally for b'days. So it's no surprise the good wish has come back to greet me, even though it's six months late!

Thank you, MG, for this: I'm honoured, truly. I love the name - Proximity Award - Here's to friendship!

About the award: This award is given to a blog that invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers!

--

Edited to add:
And the Proximity award goes to:

1) Jo - Hers is an interesting life. A Brit married and living in Japan, raising a multi-cultural kid, Jo does the most interesting montessori activities with her adorable son. She also organises 'culture swaps' bringing together mothers from all over the world, defining proximity in her own way. I've yet to participate in a swap - not too sure of my craft abilities ;) - but I love her motivation to make the world, one big meeting place.

2) Laura - Because she so defines the award citation: she truly invests and believes in striking a chord with her readers. And because she has some of the best ideas for things to do with my boy.

3) Cassi - She's putting bits of the world together, one stitch at a time, one fantastic idea at a time, hot-gluing the joints with some of her unique inspiration and effortless creativity.

4) OJ - not in a quid pro quo sort of a way, but those who know (and here I mean all of us who read her delightful blog), do know that she totally fits the award. I'm so glad I found you on the world wide web!

5) Maid-in-Malayasia - Because humour truly makes the world go round and stay steady at the same time. Sometimes there's this thought cloud that comes up in my brain, as like with Bart Simpson, especially when I'm thinking about someone. It could be about a word, a colour, or a memory. Her's is c-section-stitches-splitting-funny, ochre yellow and her posts on her children.

The first time...

There's a whole popular philosophy dedicated to firsts: crush, kiss, love-making, gift, period, Rushdie novel (yes.), sneaky night-halt, anniversary, pregnancy, karaoke night, kid, house, surgery, and the likes. We carry them along, around and within, their memories stamped into the very heart of our souls, little junk treasures that jostle and jumble and make life so much more kaleidoscopic.

There's also the first time someone commented on your blog - someone you din't know and din't have to badger/emotionally blackmail into doing it, the first time someone added your blog and therefore your expressions to a I-turn-to-often-companionship tag called the 'blogroll'. And then there's your first blog award!

Thank you, OJ, for this. I wish I was accepting it in a low-cut slinky gown to go with an acceptance speech, but I'm writing this in a fugly cotton skirt and tee, stained with dough from making a gazillion salt-dough christmas trees for Nino's budday party invites. You're part of my list of firsts - so you know you're imprinted in my soul, forever.

And there's one green dough christmas tree fridge-magnet, painted painstakingly in parts by not-yet-three fingers, glitter-glued and glossed with love, waiting for you. Just imagine, if you were to meet Nino, the gujju kid would call you OJ Kaki! LOL :)

--

I'm required to pass this act of kindness to ten other bloggers, and I have a mighty list ready to put up, just need to get the damn colour/glue off my fingers! Coming up soon.

--
Edited to add:

The award for the coolest blog goes to:

1) Swati, for the boundless generosity that makes up her blog, dedicated to bringing the best of the world wide web, especially for children. And just when you're gorging with kid on the fun links (some of them are fasinating even for us guys), she surprises you with soulful writing that smells like home in warm winter afternoons.

2) Momstir, for making me fall in love with a new kind of music, even though I'm at that age when the comfort of the familiar is more welcome than the exotic. And because she is part of my firsts too.

3) Gauri, for her random acts of kindness. May her like grow multi-fold.

4) Preeti, because of her first post. Me too!

Congratulations all of you, you've enriched my life with your thoughts and words. Big hug.
Please say a 'yay' for all these lovely ladies: I know there are six bloggers still remaining - but I hope to add to this list soon!

For OJ

I'm not much for motivational mumbo-jumbo, and while I loved the Chicken soup series when I was a teenager, I've come to abhor much of the spiritual bestsellers that prompt you to bring out the best in you. Mostly because, I'm increasingly jaded, and mostly because, I've always argued that growth - spiritually and emotionally - had to be sustainable. Of course, that means that I myself have never personally grown - I've gone back and forth on philosophies and principles and things I swear to hold sacred.

But just sometimes, you get a forward in your mailbox teeming with junk mail and lovely brochures from Anthropolgie that you can never afford, a mail that sends small pinpricks in your eyes, and goosebumps in your nape. And suddenly you stand in awe of how much the heart is yearning for the good to believe in. Sometimes it happens like that with people also, even those who you've never met - and really don't even know. This is one such fantastic story. And it is for one particularly die-hard Obama fan, OJ.

--

The Norwegian newspaper VG has reported a truly amazing story about a newly-wed trying to get to Norway to be with her husband, and the stranger who helped pay an unexpected luggage surcharge. The blog 'Leisha's Random Thoughts' has translated the story.

It was 1988, and Mary Andersen was at the Miami airport checking in for a long flight to Norway to be with her husband when the airline representative informed her that she wouldn't be able to check her luggage without paying a surcharge.

-You'll have to pay a 103 dollar surcharge if you want to bring both those suitcases to Norway, the man behind the counter said.

Mary had no money. Her new husband had travelled ahead of her to Norway, and she had no one else to call.

-I was completely desperate and tried to think which of my things I could manage without. But I had already made such a careful selection of my most prized possessions, says Mary.

As tears streamed down her face, she heard a 'gentle and friendly voice' behind her saying,

'That's okay, I'll pay for her.'

Mary turned around to see a tall man whom she had never seen before.

-He had a gentle and kind voice that was still firm and decisive. The first thing I thought was, Who is this man?

Although this happened 20 years ago, Mary still remembers the authority that radiated from the man.

-He was nicely dressed, fashionably dressed with brown leather shoes, a cotton shirt open at the throat and khaki pants, says Mary.

She was thrilled to be able to bring both her suitcases to Norway and assured the stranger that he would get his money back. The man wrote his name and address on a piece of paper that he gave to Mary. She thanked him repeatedly. When she finally walked off towards the security checkpoint, he waved goodbye to her.

Who was the man?

Barack Obama.

Twenty years later, she is thrilled that the friendly stranger at the airport may be the next President and has voted for him already and donated 100 dollars to his campaign:
-He was my knight in shining armor, says Mary, smiling.

She paid the 103 dollars back to Obama the day after she arrived in Norway. At that time he had just finished his job as a poorly paid community worker in Chicago, and had started his law studies at prestigious Harvard university.

Mary even convinced her parents to vote for him: In the spring of 2006 Mary's parents had heard that Obama was considering a run for president, but that he had still not decided. They chose to write a letter in which they told him that he would receive their votes. At the same time, they thanked Obama for helping their daughter 18 years earlier.

And Obama replied: In a letter to Mary's parents dated May 4th, 2006 and stamped 'United States Senate, Washington DC', Barack Obama writes: 'I want to thank you for the lovely things you wrote about me and for reminding me of what happened at Miami airport. I'm happy I could help back then, and I'm delighted to hear that your daughter is happy in Norway. Please send her my best wishes. Sincerely, Barack Obama, United States Senator'.

Mary says that when her friends and associates talk about the election, especially when race relations is the heated subject, she relates the story of the k ind man who helped out a stranger-in-need over twenty years ago, years before he had even thought about running for high office. Also, remember this was 1988, when 100 dollars was quite a bit of money, compared to today's value.