One quick question...

... as my faithful pc gets a new lease of life, as I finally get around to finishing Chox's handmade tag while wondering why dumpers must always be in plastic, and as Bejan Daruwala finally has something nice to say about my week after what seems like horror-scopes for months, I've one quick question...

CBSE, ICSE or IB and why?

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.

My gospel of love

For T.

--

Did I know that love could be so strong,
And yet, so asexual?

That I yearn to touch you,
Hungry and impatient,
But unlike any other touching?

That I yearn to heal you,
You who I’ve never seen?

Did I know that it was you I’ve always waited for?
The you of words and wisdom,
Of pain and patience?

That my search for meaning
Would have such a beautiful face?

Did I know that He would walk you through the valleys of thorns,
So that I may watch and learn from your grace?

And did I know that for me to heal,
You would bleed from every pore?

If I could, I would push you away.
If I could, I would undo knowing you.
My pilgrimage is not worthy of you:
I love you too much for you to be my lesson.

The lessons a weekend can teach you...

.... That sometimes it truly helps to have an endless sky to set your soul free


... That new friends - two legged and four legged - can sometimes be just as much fun as Mama 'Best Friend'

... That sometimes letting go must be spiritual, emotional and physical, all at one go


... That deep gulps of air and a faith in more mature powers above are a good armour against most fears


... That 28 is not too late to have your first camel-cart ride


... That sometimes all it takes to let a loved one go is three balls of rice cooked in milk, a silver thread and the feeding of seven men. That flowers and tears make for as good a goodbye as words themselves.

The Funeral Diaries - Part II

It's been a week today since Ba passed away, and the condolence e-mails from friends and family far away continues.

I remember feeling relieved when Papa called to tell me that she has succumbed early that morning. The last time I saw her, four days prior, she had not recognised me. Her breath was jagged, with the rough, scraping sound of a body that was giving up, her words indecipherable. After a while, she thought I was my sister. Her favourite grandchild, the one who looked like her and was as good a cook. She smiled repeatedly at Nino, questioning eyes looking at me, recognising him perhaps, but not able to place the context of that memory. Do you live closeby, she asked me, playing host, her way of thanking me for coming to see her. I told her where I lived, and she nodded politely, and then suddenly she asked if my mother-in-law was back: and for a second I knew that perhaps she knew, but that moment passed away and I left, her light-grey eyes imprinted in my memory. I shed tears for her pain, for her skin that was peeling away, for the ghost of the woman that she'd become.

That day, as we sat around her body, crying in turns for her, for us, for the others before her who have left us, I saw faces and names I've never met. People who trooped in from the far away ancestral village, travelling in jeeps and buses to come meet her, one last time. I heard tales of how she'd protected women from errant or violent or drunkard husbands, how she'd helped girls get married by shouldering responsibilities, by cooking for hundreds of people, by singing all night long. How she raised her children, on her own.

She died on a very auspicious day, I was told repeatedly. Radha Asthami, the birthday of Radha, the Lord's consort. There would be prayers and donations everywhere, it couldn't have been a better day for a Brahmin's soul to depart. Her last month, by when she was just having a few sips of water and perhaps half a cup of milk, was coincidentally Shravan, the holiest Hindu month, wherein fasting is considered the quickest elevator to good karma. In a way she too fasted, they told me, it couldn't be better. Her soul passed away from her mouth, I was told, the second most auspicious kind of death. As they placed gangajal, and tulsi leaves and little bit of gold wrapped in tulsi leaves in her mouth, I learnt that Hindus believe the soul 'escapes' from several 'openings' - inlcuding the eyes, nose, mouth, genitals - perhaps signifying the chakras. The 'port of escape' according to some scriptures offers a clue about the next birth and likely karma of the deceased. Her eyes were open when she died, and so was her mouth - and because her breath was the last thing that my uncle heard, they said her soul had passed out of her mouth - very lucky, they said.

It was a macabre word to use that day - luck - and yet as I sat through my irritation at the statements, I realised the simplicity of the message - the need to see the good even in something as destructive as death. These were simple folk, those who knew no fancy words that could make it into condolence-cards: this was their way of giving us support, of letting us know they wanted us to get through this. And I was humbled by the love she received, by the love we received, by the love that I received. They knew me by name, had heard of me from her, and they called me by a name my childhood has long buried - and the memories came flooding back - of her, and her warm lapsi, the walking in a blue banarsi sari to see her on New Year's Day, hands firmly clasped on my ears to shut out the Diwali crackers, stopping in the narrow lane because of cow-dung cakes - I would have to set one hand free to lift my saree to jump over, but I was too frightened of the crackers. I was less than 10: and she had laughed uproariously at first and then seeing my tears, shooed the pol boys away.

For the past few years, I'd viewed her through my father's eyes and my mother's eyes, perhaps because the roles of daughter-in-law and mother came to the fore: and I used my own yardsticks of being a happy daughter-in-law and a new mother to compare, to make judgements. And yet I saw her daughters-in-law as devastated as her sons when she died, they cried over memories that were far more forgiving that those that I remembered. I remembered a dear friend that day, one who recently taught me that people do the best jobs they know how to - in all their roles.

In this past week I've discovered a woman who was not unlike me - a woman who spoke her mind, who had strong likes and dislikes, who fought to keep her family together. I discovered a woman who made the best of what life gave her - her moments of grace far outnumbering the others. Whose expressions of affection were just different from what I expected.

Forgive me, Ba, for days when I was quick to judge, quicker to criticise. For my fights - verbal and silent - and for my tears of anger that I knew you sensed. For the love that I feel now, too late. I hope you're happy and at peace, and I hope to meet you again.

The Funeral Diaries - Part I

Om taccham yoravrini mahe

gaatum yajnaya

gaatum yajnapataye

daivi svastirastu naha

svastir maanushebhyaha

urdhvam jigatu bheshajam

sham no astu dvipade

sham chatushpade

Om shantih shantih shantihi

We worship and pray to the Supreme Lord for the welfare of all beings. May all miseries and shortcomings leave us forever so that we may always sing for the Lord during the holy fire ceremonies. May all medicinal herbs grow in potency so that all diseases may be cured. May the gods rain peace on us. May all the two-legged creatures be happy, and may all the four-legged creatures also be happy. May there be peace in the hearts of all beings in all realms.

She's watching them, and they her, although it is two different things now. Her sons: the eldest, the middle one and the youngest. The fourth is far away: separated by time, distance, words and circumstances.

She'd cradled all of them once: bathed them, massaging them, rubbing hard against the hair to give them the creamy, hair-less, soft skin that is their surname: the fair one. The middle son is bathing her today: he anoints her with sandalwood, tags her with abil, gulal, kanku. There's a slow, methodical love in his hands: how does he know this, she wonders? It does not come naturally to his gender, and yet, he knows how to prop her head up, how to drape the clothes on her, how to arrange the flowers. He's chanting too: and she knows her husband is watching too, flushed with pride. The pandit with four sons, named after the Gods themselves: three atheists and only one believer. The other two are watching too: working in a tandem that beats age-gaps, egos and beliefs.

Om sahasra shirsha purushaha

sahasrakshaha sahasrapat

sa bhumim vishvato vritva

atyatishthad dhashangulam

The Purusha (the Supreme Being) has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes and a thousand feet. He has enveloped this world from all sides and has (even) transcended it by ten angulas or inches.

What are they thinking, she wonders. Do they remember my anger? Piercing words. The rolling pin, the kitchen utensils that were an extension of my arm, and my anger. Once, a hot pincer that had found its way to the eldest one.
But he bothered me so, the eldest one. A naughtiness and boisterousness that defied his asthma-racked body, malnourished from the hand-to-mouth existence that marked my youth, my middleage.
Do they remember the love? The going hungry to feed them food? The walking barefoot to chosen deities, scorching sun and blistered feet? The fasts, the giving up of favoured things, the countless nights spent, stroking, sighing, sitting? The warm, ghee-soaked sheera that I fed them before I offered it to my Lord?

purusha evedagam sarvam

yadbhutam yaccha bhavyam

utamritatva syeshanaha

yadanne natirohati

All this is verily the Purusha. All that which existed in the past or will come into being in the future (is also the Purusha). Also, he is the Lord of immortality. That which grows profusely by food (is also the Purusha).

Me, the shipping magnate's daughter with rooms of my own, watching the waves roll in from my window to the endless. Me, the pandit's angsty wife, raising four sons and two daughters and one more in a one-room house, designated corners to cook, to pee, to bathe. Me, the woman who put her youth and her beauty in the aluminium trunk I carried my wedding clothes in, and locked it in for mothballs and silverfish to enjoy.

Me, the creator of my own destiny. Me, the forger of my own fortune. Me, the mother of four sons. One who I drove away with my words. One who lived with me, but who still seeks a semblance of happiness from a life in which I weed-ed out love. Wife to a man whose malaise was generosity, whose curse was his concern for other people, whose gifts were only for the hapless.

Me, Prasanna Gauri, named after the Devi who is both happy and gracious, benevolent and serene.

--

to be continued...

Michami Dukkadam

I've always been a great believer in confessions: maybe all those stories of Hindu mythology where repentance equalled a spiritual and karmic cleansing, coupled with my convent education, have super-glued it to my sub-conscious.

When I was a teenager and did things or thought of things that I was too embarrassed or afraid to tell my mum, I confessed to my diary, spelling it out frankly, sometimes hoping that mum would pick the diary up, and read it, and I would be absolved of all guilt. That she was fiercely adamant about giving me my own privacy, is a different matter.

Marrying into a Jain family, and living with Jain in-laws (I live in a joint family: you do know that right?!), I've come to value the ritual of Michami Dukkadam immensely. On the eighth day of Paryushan, the Jain festival of fasting, on Samvatsari, Jains wish one another, big and small, with a firmly clasped Namaste and a body posture bent at the spine, asking for forgiveness, for hurt caused through thoughts and deeds, knowingly and unknowingly committed. One day when you must ask for forgiveness even from your enemies. It's a gratifying scene to witness grandparents bowing to grandchildren, young children bowing to their friends. There is no age for the asking of forgiveness, no gender, no economical or social status.

My sincerest Michami Dukkadam yesterday went to Nino:
For those first five days when I made him feel unwanted, unwelcome and insecure. For my lack of patience; for my inability to understand that his boisterous ways are not as much a lack of discipline as it is in his nature; for exposing him to the complications of adult relations and for taking it for granted that he does not understand the undercurrents of tensions. For my inabilities, for my excesses, for my demons, for my errors and for my tears: Michami Dukkadam, dearest son.

Amma always said bending makes you stronger: and yet I failed to bow yesterday and respond to Nino's Dad's greetings of forgiveness: there were too many currents flowing within me and the froth of the churning waves refused to let me surface and reciprocate, perhaps because I knew the gesture was only ritualistic. And yet, it deserved a reply, because I too have much to be apologetic for, my whip-lash of a tongue being predominant. It is not easy to live with someone who is a fierce critic: I've seen it too close to not know how damaging words can be.