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.

The Signs

My motherhood milestones - feeding, solid foods, diaper weaning, first bloody cut, first dislocation, first serious illness, first serious injury - have all had one big thing in common: Nino's guiding spirit.

Most of my stumblings through these three years have been made simpler, because when it was time, I listened to my son, his silences first, then his cries and now his words.

That was how it was when he first broke his hand. He cried himself to sleep. Nino never cries more than five minutes, perhaps the ingrained dna of having to show he's tough because he's a boy, perhaps because he wants to go back to what he was playing. That night, with a swollen arm, I rushed him to a doctor who x-rayed him and convinced me I was an over reacting mother. All night Nino slept in a peculiar position, only saying, ever so gently, mama, don't cover me, my hand hurts. The next morning, the swelling was there, and I was muttering about what to do as he sat cradling his hand, watching me trying to pour Ibugesic, and he said, can we go to the doctor again, my hand really hurts. It was a dislocated elbow with a muscle injury, we found out later that day. A pop, a cry, and a lollipop later, my son was back to his trucks.

That is how it was again, this evening. I reached home earlier than usual and was pacing the terrace hoping to catch him as he came back from play. I shouted and he looked up, one tiny figure from ten storeys down and he ran towards the lift. When he came up, he looked crestfallen, and I thought maybe the maid had a go at him because he'd been naughty. My eye hurts, he said, dust went into it. I kissed and hugged and said all my silly names to him, but he wouldn't smile back. So I splashed some water in his eye, dabbed the lid with soft cloth, splashed some more water. But this tiny speck of white over his iris just wouldn't go away. As I put in him my lap, swinging, singing, thinking the tearducts will clean the speck away, he said, ever so quietly, maybe we should go to a doctor. I'd told him not to itch, and he was holding back, but there was something in that tone that shook my gut.

Finding an ophthalmologist at 8:30 in the evening in notoriously laid-back Ahmedabad is difficult. Nino's doc finally gave us a reference, a sweet doctor who first dissuaded me saying it was way past his closing time, and then, perhaps hearing my panic, said yes. All through the rickshaw ride to the hospital, Nino kept his eyes closed, the wind hurts he said. The white particle was a speck of plaster, the kind they put on buildings, in his eye. If it had stayed overnight, it could have damaged his eye permanently. Through the anaesthesia drops and the short sharp-scalpel and some forceful holding procedure - he was obedient, quiet, co-operative. Not the son, who I've lately claimed, never listens to me. The doctor said Nino was very brave - words I've come to associate with doctors in reference to my son.

You're lucky, the doc said, you came at the right time. And I wondered about how I'd almost thought the spec would go away, that it was just, you know, dust. We've five days of drops and pain killers to get through, and one very red, but totally mischievous eye.

Right now, he plays near my feet, lining his trucks for a race, happy, singing his favourite song in a totally off-key but saccharine-sweet voice. Listening to our kids is something we all promise ourselves we'll do, putting that milestone at school, teenage and youth. I'm grateful Nino's teaching me this lesson early.

A Grasshopper's Pilgrimage

For Manju.

I don't want to call this a book review: I'm not reviewing Manjushree's book A Grasshopper Pilgrimage, as much as I'm writing about how the book has affected me. I am also heavily biased: I love this woman, and like with all love, my vision is fixed on the things that uplift my soul, that reach into a part of me that life otherwise will just pass by. Is that why love is such a necessity? It brings those parts of your soul alive that otherwise lie uncharted, unmapped, undiscovered, it makes you notice things about yourself, and in a very Jerry McGuire way, it completes you.

A Grasshopper's Pilgrimage is a love-story: the love between a woman and a mountain. There is so much in the book that is metaphorical, so much that is symbolic, that at the end it is no longer the woman and the mountain, it is you and me, it is that boy and that girl, it is her and he.

There have been several books that have become transcribed in my subconscious, Midnight's Children being one of them. This book also did the same, maybe because it came at a time when I was tiring of my direction-less search for emotional identity, for the meaning of spirituality as it applied to me, for my connect with the purpose of my existence.

Gopika, the novel's lead character, is both relate-able and a revelation. First on, the author deserves a kudos for writing a genre that has been classified as 'fiction-spiritual', a first of sorts. The search for the physical and tangible itself is so confusing, that the thought of a woman who wants that thing that sets her soul afire, is both brave and foolhardy.

There are several instances when Gopika speaks out to the reader, when she spoke out to me, the medium of typed words on paper dissolving with the frankness of her thoughts, with the weight of her questions. We're all screws in the big machine of life, she says. Just screws. Turning clock-wise and anti clock-wise, part in destiny, part in our own efforts.

Her parents, her sister, Sujatha her friend in Bombay, her grandmother and her lover - these have all been beautifully detailed, fleshed out so that you almost feel them breathing down your neck, you can hear their opinions as you prepare yourself to make the decisions that Gopika made. They even word the same doubts, the same questions that arise in your head as you read Gopika's seemingly unshakable faith in her search for something she doesn't know, but can only feel.

And yet, these characters remain inspiring, because the reader wants to read about people he/she has not experienced. Gopika's parents are communists who don't believe in religion: a perfect backdrop explanation for a young woman who is so easily able to separate religion and spirituality. Her grandparents are adorable and taxing at the same go: but her grandmum is a jewel, one who eventually returns to tell Gopika her path is not all that different from others. That she dishes out advice on how to best achieve an orgasm, and makes food that is a balm for a wanderer's soul, is among the facets of this myriad and wonderful character. Fareed is adorable - a man who loves Gopika with his soul, who holds on and keeps his distance, not out of habit or circumstance, but out of understanding, out of respect. There is none of the teenage-ish trappings of a relationship, there is none of the struggles that make the early ground of an affair. There is the mating of two evolved beings, you're allowed a sneak into a love where two souls come prepared, come aware, come confident.

Gopika's life is not elitist - she struggles with love and money and despair and direction - including all of us in her challenges - it is different because she's trying to put a finger on what drives her, who drives her. Gopika is astoundingly trusting of others ofcourse: and you wonder if she has no fear to begin with, or if that is a requisite for this indescribable fountain of knowledge and love that she is looking for. A couple of places in the book, my mum popped up in my head, muttering about how late it was in the night, about the generalisations of the hippies and the god-men that most of us have been fed upon.

Her love-making is both erotic and poignant, her conversations like the millions you have everyday, or eavesdrop upon. Her infatuations are spiritual, her disillusions are real. There is a beautiful sense of the place when she talks about her beloved mountain, it is almost as if you can feel the sand grains and tar below your feet too. It is also guarded against pop-spirituality: against fasting and penance and the trappings of religion. She is a bohemian spirit - and there are no drugs or smoking or medication that she uses to get here. Her inhibitions have not been shed under duress or a wannabe state of mind, there simply don't exist for the same reasons as they do for us.

There is much dry wit and humour through the book, delightful sketches of holy men on the roadside, of the rigours of an American visa, of frequent load shedding, both electricity induced and emotional. This sort of forms a backbone of Gopika's life: her sarcasm for herself and others, a gentle ribbing that lightens a sombre mission.

There is no grandiose word-work here: no intellectual word play, no perception-altering philosophy. There is plenty of food for thought and plenty of questions that come in once the book is over. Isn't that half the work done? That once you put the book down, it leaves you with questions that are beyond the marketing yardsticks of 'shelf-life'?

What struck me the most was how simple life can be when you know what you want - no, not simple in the sense that everything falls in its place, that it definitely doesn't, not even with Gopika - but maybe it's like this: you've got blinkered vision set on your goal. And one of Gopika's greatest teachings is this: this goal is achievable, you've neared the destination by the very virtue of realising you're headed that way.

They say the artist bleeds his soul into every creation, they say the first book is always autobiographical. Manju has been brave enough to say her book is almost completely autobiographical (70 per cent, if you must have exacts). It makes you wonder at the courage this woman has to strip her soul and her search, leave it hands of unknown readers who can construe whatever they will, who might just look at her wanderings as trampling. And then you realise, she is Gopika, and the inhibitions that hold you back, have already been faced, labelled and set aside for another day's lessons, by her.

Monday Morning Music and Oscar happiness

If my life was to be a movie, it'd be endless, only because I'd have a soundtrack that runs into days!

I've always had a song for every situation/mood, or maybe a situation/mood for every favourite song, actually make that a couple of songs. One of my most precious gifts is a cassette given to me by a friend I was dating in college, a compilation of his favourite mood-songs, with handwritten labels. There's also no better way to beat Monday Morning blues than have your favourite numbers belt out from the ipod, and opening the bathroom door to catch your three-year-old shaking his booty, Masai style.

Here's what I'm humming to today: My favourite song from the Jungle Book, that I was reminded of gently, and unexpectedly by Momstir. Also, such an apt way to begin a week that celebrates the winning of the underdog, Slumdog Millionaire and the uplifting, Smile Pinki.
'The bare necessities of life will come to you... oh They'll come to you!'

Also, the more the merrier, and more choice maketh for a happier woman, and all that jazz, that's why this one: because sometimes all you need to get through a day, is just plough through it. 'I'm still trying to get on the hill of hope.'

What's your salve song for an instant pick-me-up to prepare you for the week ahead?

What if God was one of us...

I see him often, walking purposefully in the flat compound, a smile ready to show up under the thin moustache.

I smile and say kem cho, a generic greeting that means little but just hello. He smiles back, making me smile wider and more honestly in return.

Three times a week I meet him in the lift, at 6:00am, as I head out for a workout, a broom and a plastic bag in hand. He collects garbage from the flats, picking up the those remains of our lives that we've thoughtlessly discarded.

Sometime back I was at a mall close to where we live, struggling with bags of groceries, a very cranky Nino refusing to walk unless carried. I was flustered, tired and hoping for a miracle.

Bhabhi, Bhabhi, he yelled, running towards me in a clean yellow and green tee-shirt and cap, the logo of a shop on the tee, worn like a tag of acceptance. He helped me towards the car, God-sent in his timing and enthusiasm. You work here, I asked him, and he smiled and said, here and four more places.

This Friday, I opened the door to a lobby littered with garbage - street dogs had come looking for their food and the dustbins are an easy prey. There's dog shit on the door mat. Cursing, I get a plastic bag and wear in my hand, intending to pick up the crap, unaware that he's already at work in the dark corner of the lobby.

Rehva do, bhabhi, ae to maru kaam che, he says.
Leave it, bhabhi, its my work.

He smiles and gets back to picking up the litter, the shit, scrubbing the gravy stains, pushing the vegetable peels into his bag. Thank you, I say. Tamaru naam shu che? What's your name? Bhagwan, he says. God.

Later that morning, in the parking, I see a middle-aged neighbour screaming, 'Bhangi, bhangi'. I'm a little shocked at the use of the word, shocked more to see Bhagwan running towards the man. Sweepers and garbage-pickers are always a particular caste here, a vocation that is thrust upon them by destiny.

Bhangi's have been India's worst-kept tradition since the medieval times. 'Untouchables' delegated to cleaning toilets, collecting garbage and handling dead bodies. It's a malaise that cannot be cured - it's a caste you're born into, that no amount of prayers or education can wish away or change.

Mahatma Gandhi coined a term for them, Harijan, people of Hari, or God, but the words did little to dilute the stigma, the vicious racism that they live with everyday.

I wonder what his parents thought of when they named him Bhagwan. Generations of people who had accepted or given in or were forced into their fate of being the keepers of India's dirt, tangible and that of our minds. Was it hope for a better future, faith in a God who treats them no better than society does?

It's an irony that is more cruel than beautiful, and I wonder if he hated the name growing up, in municipal schools with classmates who were perhaps only reiterating the jokes and the slurs they picked up from their parents. He's a young man, less than 30 I guess, and I wonder if he's married, has children of his own. I wonder what he tells them, segregated so deeply from society, with a sense of submission so subconscious that they probably know no other way of life, have never had the freedom, the undeniable right of a human to 'choose', to make a choice. What has he named them, they who have a future that has been pre-determined before they were born?

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.

There will be no white flag upon his door...

Holding his hot palms in mine, his tiny head cradled in an indigo lap, my tears racing time with the ice-pack drippings. Half-open eyes, flushed cheeks, the tiny sighs, and the constant, sandpaper sound of wheezing. I breathe deeper myself, willing my lungs to work for him, pushing the air into his tiny, and now tired, body. His fever seeps into my thighs, branding its presence: this fight will take more than my prayers.

The speedometer says 120km, and yet, the world goes by in slow motion, the mountains towering before choosing to fade, vast desolate stretches dotted here and there by the flaming kesuda flowers. Even there, in that panic, that fear, in that vast expanse of waiting below an unforgiving sun, the orange bursts from the black shoots seem strangely symbolic.

Short, staccato conversations that plan routes to match with hospital timings, a quick stop to get some more ice. There's more than one laboured breathing inside the car. He sighs, not very often, my lap speaking to his needs, shifting and slackening on its own, seamless in agony. And yet, he will not moan. For a while, I will him to complain, to cry, to shriek, like I want to, but can't. He doesn't protest it at all, he's meeting it head on.

What was meant to be a long weekend of family bonding, some serious fun and adventure, has turned into a trial, by bedside. What was a five-hour ride filled with wheeees at the undulating roads two days ago has turned into a deafeningly quiet ride towards an answer, and a solution.

In these last two days he helped build his first bonfire, raced up a stony hill, felt the might of the wind and heard it move, marveled at the 11 and 20 stars he could see, the loud drone of the crickets at night. He, who lives surrounded by glass and concrete mountains, woke to the gentle warmth of the sun creeping into the window. He picked flowers, rode horses, danced with tipsy adults to loud 70s Bollywood music, made peace and war with cousins.

In these last 24 hours, I've discovered a part of my son I've not fully understood. I met with his will, all three feet and three inches of it, battered, but not broken. I met his strength, not tagged in kilos or how many jumps he leaped, but in his grim countenance behind the nebulizer mask. I stood in awe of its bright orange brilliance, not dulled by physical pain. In these last 24 hours, I now know, for today and through his life, he will not go quietly into the night, ever.

The age of wisdom - part two

I'm babysitting two kids - Nino and his elder cousin and role-model, Karanbhai - and we've played and read, and watched Tom and Jerry and there's still ages to go for bedtime, so we start to talk. We're talking of different places of worship, as in a temple, a church, a mosque, etc, since Nino recently visited a Church for the first time. And just like that, conversation takes a turn...

Karanbhai: I'm Jain, what are you?
Nino: Random muttering about the church and the baby Jesus he saw there.

Karanbhai, persisting: I'm Jain, and you are?
Nino is a bit flabbergasted. Eventually he says, I'm people.

--

Today when I pick him up from school, he's chattering excitedly about some Inden Fly. I don't get it, frankly I think it's a montessori method I haven't read up on, and the worry starts to set in.
In the car, the muttering continues.
On the top there is saffron. In the bottom green. Middle is Ashok Chakra. Inden Fly.

OMG, I want to scream, I din't realise he's talking about the Indian Flag. So we open up his bag and see the painting of the flag, just single strokes of the three colours on paper. Beautiful painting Nino, I tell him. Its not a painting, he says. Its called republic.

Merry Christmas!

May there be lots of sweet memories to savour...

May wishes, said and unsaid come true... and may the good man with the jolly laugh and endless generosity bring peace and goodwill to us all.

And if you're this side of the world, on the 27th, please join us for Nino's 3rd budday!

Because unity in diversity, strength in numbers, and anything similarly hopeful will do

I'm wearing black today.

Just because I overheard a stranger's dinner-time conversation at a restaurant last night: 'Show your solidarity with Mumbai. Everyone wear black tomorrow.' It's the only way I can.

It's a bleak Monday morning in Ahmedabad - rainy, chilly, and grey - just the kind that wraps your soul and takes it one notch lower. What do we believe in anymore? Or who? Is this the kind of world we want to bring our children into - or are children who are raised into sane adults the need of the hour. Tales of terror on the tv, over the phone, over international calls, over drinks, at the basin as Nino asks me, 'Ma, what's a terrorist?' What is safe anymore?

I wait for routine to salvage this part pain-part numbness state, deadlines are most welcome today. I've already said so much in my brain, that it refuses to take the shape of sentences any more. Let someone else say it for me today:

'In sympathy with those whose pain so hurts my own heart but whose tears I cannot touch, whose wounds I cannot heal, and whose grief I cannot relieve.'
A 'Pakistani Mumbaikar' mourns the city he loved here:
http://pakistaniat.com/2008/11/28/mumbaikar-mumbai-terror-pakistani-view/

'So I’m booking flights to Mumbai. I’m going to go get a beer at the Leopold, stroll over to the Taj for samosas at the Sea Lounge, and watch a Bollywood movie at the Metro. Stimulus doesn't have to be just economic.'
Suketu Mehta talks about why India's megalopolis is plundered, again and again and again:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/opinion/29mehta.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=why%20they%20hate%20mumbai%20New%20york%20times&st=cse

And because a city can sometimes be a memory so intimate, you are embarrassed that you stumbled upon it.
' And I’d smile smugly knowing that piece of gorgeousness was born and bred mine. ' Orange Jammies talks about her home here:
http://wisdomwearsneonpyjamas.wordpress.com/2008/11/29/of-home-heart-and-horror/

Happy Anniversary

Four years later, we are still trying to make ourselves a marriage that breaks the forecast, unaware of how easily it hob-nobs with cliches and generalisations.
I will refrain from my need to clothe you and your soul with my words: we do our own catharsis everyday. For you, instead, are someone else's words, mirroring much of mine. Happy Anniversary, Da.

For Him

By Merrit Malloy

He's asleep now,
Enclosed in the only freedom he knows,
An unconscious sanctuary
That unites one day with the next,
The fragile province of a mind that has so little shelter.

And I love him so,
I did not mean to come this far.

I've learned to love,
The sound of him calling my name,
Waking to the feeling
Of his body against mine.

He is so familiar to me,
His arms are like my home.
Still...I love him enough
To leave him alone.

Tonight, we tried to say it out loud.
But the words seemed to hit upon our faces
Like small stones.
Feelings, unedited,
Ran underground in us.
Our eyes became transparent
And we were afraid.
The terror or maybe not
Being together anymore
Carried it’s own justification.

I did not mean to contaminate his life
With my own confusion,
To allow his need for me
To encourage the collective myths
Little girls are fed for breakfast
I did not unite with him
So that he must divide himself.

He only meant to love me,
He did not mean to come this far.

I believed in Cinderella,
I even looked for magic dragons in my Nana’s yard.
I grew up believing.
He grew up trying not to.
And we’ve lived long enough to know that
As much as I had been deformed by fantasy
He had been mutilated by reality.

We can translate our silence now,
We know what it means.
Feelings that we kept sealed
And beyond each other’s reach
Are threatening,
But defined and honest.

We don’t know yet
What parts we’ll play in one another’s life,
But we’ve come a long way together
Trying to find out.

Together or alone,
The decisions are beginning to reverberate,
Like noise, ripening.
Our appetites were formed
Before we knew what we needed,
And our experience together is a prism
Through which we see everything differently now.

But are we truly different?
Did we escape the pollution
Of public opinion against the
Cultivation of "forever"?
Do we have enough respect and trust
In one another?
And in ourselves?
Do we have enough life to exchange,
Enough love to pay for what we want?

We do love each other so...
But we did not mean to go this far.

Of milestones and thanksgiving

I've been wanting to do this post for two days now, but I've held on to my joy like a miser, savouring it, content in holding it out till it's but about to fade in the jungle of everyday images, and then I promised myself, I'd write it out, live it all over again.

Something changed that joy today, made me shiver at my inability to fully enjoy a moment in hand instead of storing it away, not acknowledging that this too shall pass, that I've this now and for now alone. I'll come back to this cause, but first, the joy.

Nino saw his first movie (and his first movie in a theater) over the weekend, a choice that I fought hard over - with myself ofcourse - even as the other me reiterated the decision to keep him away from mass marketing as much as I could. But the decision was easy - I'd settled for a go-between. We took Nino to see a 3D film on the awe inspiring creatures that call the oceans their home. And while I was totally split on whether he was old enough to watch 3D - the 24/7 shrink that is the world wide web said it was okay, my dad was livid and said NO as loudly as possible over the phone line, my m-i-l recounted her nauseous state while a relative (come on, opinions are free!) spoke about how her daughter, almost 4 when she saw the movie, had gotten very disturbed with the experience and had sleepwalked - what finally did it for me was a nice and quick chat with the guys who run the damn theater.

The Science City is one of the many institutions that Ahmedabad is proud to be home to, and I added my self to its fan-list after experiencing a kind of service and ambiance that we don't expect from public institutions in India. When I called the IMAX theater at the City on Sunday morning, I never really expected that the phone would get answered. It was answered by a polite, Hindi-speaking gent, who patiently listened to the various theories I'd heard about children and 3D, venturing an opinion once I'd done ranting. Well, its perfectly fine for your kid's age, he said, you might want him to sit with you though, sometimes they get scared with the sound effects.

Okay, I thought. This I can handle. So Nino, very excited, dressed in a shirt and jeans and wearing his 'big boys' shoes that he usually hates, along with his parents, drove down to see this beautiful place filled with huge geometric shapes, a windmill, a massive globe-shaped planetarium and the movie, ofcourse. 'I'm going to a movie', he kept chanting all through the ride, following it up with 'Can three-year-olds see this movie?' (we usually tell him he can't accompany us on our once-a-month multiplex trip because he's not eighteen yet).

The movie required us to wear special glasses to be able to experience the 3D images, and Nino's swallowed quite a bit of his cheeks as well. He loved the whole experience - the huge screen (and IMAX screen is nearly 10 times larger than a regular multiplex screen), the 30 minutes movie, the fishes and the sharks. And like the friendly guy on the telephone said, he was slightly uncomfortable only when the sound effects came on as a pair of nasty predator fishes came on screen. Nino was an angel - spoke softly when he wanted to ask a question, held his own ticket, waited patiently in the long queue for the exit. It was the kind of behaviour that wants you to promptly start breeding again, but for the wise dame of wisdom who sits in my head.

We walked around the fantastic campus for a bit, running down massive ramps and playing hop-scotch on squares and circles. It's a place that makes you feel free and child-like again, and curious too, which is why I think its planning has been such a success. We also caught a musical fountain show - said to the biggest in India - and while Nino eventually tired of the 20 minute show, I sobbed unabashedly during the finale as water jets soared high to AR Rahman's Maa tujhe salaam. No country like this to raise our children, and I mean that even more today.

It was such a beautiful evening - we had so much fun, and I was able to enjoy Nino experiencing a 'new', a 'first' - something I've become obsessed with because I missed many firsts of his when I started working. He talked non-stop on the way back, describing the movie and exclaiming how the fishes 'came right here' (showing the space near his face) when he wore the 3D glasses. This was the first time Nino's Dad was seeing a 3D film too, and for a few minutes, it was like having two boys, all excited and yakkity, sharing their me-too's, bonding the way only experiences allow. And I was so nervous before we left that I forgot to take the camera - but in a way, it was good, because I could not have gone hands-free with all the hand clutching the three of us did in joy. It was a major milestone - and it went picture perfect.

Then on Tuesday we crossed another big milestone. Nino chose not to wear his diapers to school, after some prompting from this teacher. And he was fine - even used the loo by himself - and totally confident when he walked out after school. It's a big deal - this diaper weaning affair - and I can go on about it, but instead will say that pride filled my chest and I smiled my way through a deadlines-filled day. He got ice-cream after lunch, and I got a round of claps at work from a team that had overhead my joy over the phone as I shared the news with an equally proud extended family.

And then today I found this heart-wrenching story of a little girl in Congo, her journey to find her missing mother, even as she carries her infant niece along. It's a common tale all around us - this opportunity cost. In our protective Indian family system it often crops up as the sibling syndrome: elder siblings bearing the brunt of novice parents, before the systems are perfected for the younger one. 'The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action'. And increasingly, children are becoming the world's opportunity cost in our attempt for political or religious freedom, racial expression or just pure capitalism.

Eleven-year-old Protegee cries while she carries her sobbing niece Reponse, 3, on her back as they searched for relatives in a sea of people in eastern Congo. Photo credit: Jerome Delay, AP

"Hundreds of children have been separated from their families since fighting flared in eastern Congo in August and more than 1,600 children in the province were seeking their parents last week alone, according to UNICEF. The children's young ages and inability to give detailed information — plus the lack of official records in the Congolese countryside — make it even more difficult to track down their families," AP said.

Those who will read that story in full will have to face the same questions the photographer, who is a father of two daughters, faces - accepting the fact that Protegee was willfully abandoned by her mother driven by despair and poverty. It's a thought that seems so alien to us - giving up our children - we who are fed on the heroic tales of mothers who lay their lives down for their children. Did Protegee's mother really have no option? Is there a state of 'no options' when it comes to children? What are we trying to make/achieve/strive for/survive for, if we have no children to share it with?

But today there are no tears, just a growing resolve to say thanks. I'm glad I live in a country, in circumstances that protect my son, albeit currently, from Protegee's fate. I'm glad his tears are only about a nick on the knee, about force-fed breakfast, about an itchy sweater, about a book not being re-read, of granparents who visit only on weekends.

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.

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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.

A short story

It’s 9:30am when she drifts out of sleep, panic rising even before the glance at the clock.
She knows she’s late as she realigns her awkwardly sprawled limbs that still hurt from last night.
The ill child is sleeping in the crook of one knee, she curses as she slips the bondage of motherhood, cursing the pain that flows in the inert limb, cursing the many hours of sleep that she has lost over these three years.

He lies asleep on the floor, on the bed made for the child, a gentle snore that today sounds like tin grating on tin.

There’s so much to do before she can get to work, and there he lies, sleeping with no worry in the world, oblivious to her night of mothering and aching joints.

Shouts, word jabs and slamming of doors later, she’s crying in the bathroom, the cigarette soothing her nerves, convincing her conscience that nicotine makes for a better person.
She works hard, brings in the money, raising the child, while he stumbles behind failures, alcohol as salve, playing Age of Mythology long after the woman and child have fallen asleep.
Why, she wails in the bathroom this morning, why does he make it so difficult for me?

It’s a long day at work as always, unrelenting deadlines, the symphony of a brain and fingers that spew five thousands words at random. Mechanical creativity. There’s no joy from doing what she loves: there’s only the means to pay the bills. The bills that refuse to stop piling up, till she’s left feeling marooned, stranded on a tiny surfboard facing the largest wave of her life. Fear is an unrelenting anchor.

That evening she comes home to a quiet house. The child is away at a relative’s home, He has not come home from work yet. There’s a few pleasure still left she thinks: a long shower, some time alone, a newspaper to be read in peace. It’s a bad time for the world, the paper says, and she recounts the killings, the maiming and the lost investments that she’s been reading about.
There’s a tiny anchor story that almost misses her attention: Factory owner commits suicide. There’s a faint alarm in her head, she scans the case quickly. Typical small scale establishment, rising raw material and labour costs, increased credit interest ratios, some payments that never come through. And then the noose tightens, thousands multiply into lakhs and then into crores, and no elephant-head God perched on the entrance deters away the line of creditors that bite into savings, into peace of mind. The factory owner has a wife and two school-going kids. They never knew things were this bad.

It’s an unsettling feeling, one that she has avoided thinking of. She has seen him avoid calls, come back home with a look that is more defeated than fatigued, speak lesser than the monosyllables he usually grunts in. These days he doesn’t even fight back, taking his dinners in the dead of the night, when neither man nor machine can claim his space. There are no arguments, there are only one woman’s opinions as he listens on, flicking channels on a tv that’s on mute.

She walks out to the terrace, feeling strangely frightened about her tenth-floor skyline. She’s seen him stand there nights in a row, staring at the mighty night sky, willing it to attack him as well, his cigarette going up in smoke without touching his lips.

She wonders how it must feel, the weight of the scion’s mantle, the weight of a family’s expectations, of dreams that are decaying. The son who they reared to turn around fortunes, who now fights every day refusing to give in to the fatality of the erring planet on his horoscope. What powers him, day in and day out, he who believes in no god, for whom faith is what he puts into his everyday actions, very unlike her definition of a spiritual lifejacket?

She wonders whether he dreads coming home to her nagging, the constant fights over alcohol, the news of hiked fees at the child’s school. She remembers the carefree boy she fell in love with, the one who could sleep for days, cocooned by his dreams.

That night he walks home later than usual, finding his way in the dark to the bed where the woman and child sleep together, protruding limbs interlinked with blankets and a teddy. He stares at them, sleeping peacefully, unaware of the storm raging in his heart and soul, protected from a fate that caught him unawares, dragged him into an alley and socked him hard, leaving him on the ground with the taste of defeat in his mouth, bitter and burnt like a mixture of blood, sweat and dirt.

He wants to awaken her and say so much, grab her hard and will her touch to scrub away the fear that clings to his lungs, making it difficult to breathe, to talk. He kisses the child, his sweet-smell bringing a faint smile, a smile of love that’s truly unconditional. But there is no space for him on that bed tonight. No space to fit in his 30 years of lessons learnt and unlearnt.

He heads out to the terrace, the night moon waiting for their everyday rendezvous. The sky is unblemished, clear of clouds, a gigantic mirror that makes his tiny errors seem larger than life. There, on the edge, he pauses, gasping for breath in the still night. He knows he can’t abandon them, but it’s so easy to just close his eyes and fly away, seek understanding in his last remaining refuge. Sleep like he’s not slept in months, healing his wounds in those hours of blank mind and sound.

She watches him from behind, a hand clutched on her neck, too afraid to scream. She calls him back, but no sound emanates from her throat, and yet she calls out to him, willing him to hear her, willing him to see their love as it once was, unscarred by time and circumstance and jaded words.

His closed eyes carry her image, a laughing care-free girl who swamped him with her love, her life dotted with daises and books. There’s another face juxtaposed on that slim girl, it’s her, but harried, chin propped up with hands, threatening her gloom with smoke spirals in the bathroom.
His eyes flutter awake, pushing his last refuge away. There’s much to do before he sleeps.