Missing memories

If I told you that I forget things, you would probably nod with me, and say me too. If I told you that I forget things so completely, that when I do chance upon things I said, wrote, did or clicked, I feel like I'm looking into another person's life, you'd probably stare back, hard.

I don't know how or when this happened: I can only remember bits and pieces of myself over these 29 years,barring the mandatory sharp clear high points, or dull large low points. It has been that way in my relationships as well: I can tell you the firsts, but I cannot for the life of me, map the evolutionary trajectory of how things have come to be.

I spent Janmashtami last week with my folks, dressing up Nino as Kanha, seeking the familiar smells and sights of Mum's much loved silver diyas and jhula for the little God.

As with everytime I stay over, my father tires to pack off some of my leftovers from the house - books, diaries, photographs, letters. He handed me a beautiful spiral notebook that contained a massively long report of the time that I spent as a television production assistant in Mumbai: and I was startled to realise that I had pursued something with such passion once. The realisation was metallic in taste: not necessarily regret, but perhaps an awe of someone who was once me.

A few loose graph papers had angsty poems about love and longing and cigarettes scrawled over them... and again I marveled at this person who spoke her mind so freely, who caved under her feelings, welcoming her weaknesses. I leave you with one such poem.

The Guilt of the Audience.

I left the auditorium,

before you said all you had to say,

munched popcorn outside,

beside sound-proof doors

that closed out your cries.

I walk back in,

to see you gone,

flash-bulb lit empty stage

costumes on the stairs

and trees in the wings.

I can imagine the pain in your face when you turned

to face an empty hall,

the grimace on the face

as you pulled your best mask off -

Had you imagined me cry

as you prepared your part,

smiled as you anticipated my claps

and fierce attention?

I betrayed you then -

felt bored,

got up

stretched a little,

and walked out of the electrocution-chamber.

Horror-scope

And so it seems, that the stars HAVE conspired to make life tougher than it is.

My father, very nonchalantly, tells me I've a 'ghatak shani dasha'. And that is as heavyweight as it sounds. 'Since you will continue to remain ill, perhaps seriously so, till the middle of 2011, you might as well develop some grace about it,' he says, without even looking away from the steering wheel. No, there's no chanting that I can do, no offerings, no certain colour clothes that will keep me safe. And do I believe him? Considering that I'm ready to try anything to understand why my body is acting as if it hates me, I'm tempted to agree.

Sigh. I've signed up for a membership with the local Planet Health chain. Might as well save some money.

RIP Tejaswee

IHM (the Indian Home Maker) - a blogger that I have read intermittently - lost her daughter this week, in the kind of unfair, unexpected wham's that make no sense of life, or destiny, or purpose.

Her heartbreaking post, and links to her remarkable daughter's blogs, here.

RIP, Tejaswee, you have a beautiful smile. I hope it continues to light up your mum's world, as always.

Wisdom and wit

What is stronger than a wall made of bricks and bound by cement and plaster?
A wall built of unheld conversations, bound by silences and regret. Impenetrable has a new definition.

--

Nino, Nino's Dad and Nino's Mum are in the rickety lift, late at night, returning from a party. Cut to sound of jingling beats, drums and voices in chorus, singing devotional songs. Nino's Mum to no one in particular, a rhetoric state of mind: Who's doing the jagran so late in the night? Nino, nonchalantly, in Gujarati: 'The flat where you will see a lot of chappals outside the door.'

Of all my endeavours and intents, raising a practical child was not on the list :)

Of pain, and purpose

When Nino falls and gets an ugly black welt on his shin bones, he cries rarely, picks himself up quickly, and wears his scar with pride. Male, I mutter, disgust and awe and admiration all mixed up a bit, at a creature who came from inside of me, but is SO incredibly different from me.

But all my life I've met more women than men, who wear their scars proudly, looking down on those, especially of their gender, who break down easily. I'm married into a family that seems to be made only of these emotional amazons, and I've long faced the brunt of my own family's admonitions, that I suffer, because I am too emotional, too soft, and have a low pain threshold.

My first encounter with the female-perpetuated philosophy of 'threshold of pain' came in middle school, with my first period. For a year, I would have five days of near-insanity, with vomiting, hallucinations and excruciating pain. My mother, who has had the easiest hormone cycle perhaps possible, could only look at me in sympathy, as my father nursed me and my sister took days off from her school to make sure I din't die... because trust me, if you could die of pain, I would have.

The 'threshold' got invoked again and again, by female friends and female relatives and female in-laws for the small things like my inability to get waxed, to the 'big' things like how I wouldn't let my cervix open so that Nino could have a normal birth.
It dint' matter that my body too revolted against pain: waxing gave me allergies that lasted for days, so I've shaved almost all of my teenage + adult life, and that perhaps I was too emotionally disturbed when Nino was in the process of being born. My 12 hours of pain, were brushed aside as 'not real labour', because frankly, I did have to be operated later. It was a character badge that I was not worthy of receiving. Adults = Pain bearers, and therefore I remain immature.

I've always felt that my physical pain mirrored a mental state, that the two were complimentary if not conjoined. Over the last two months, living through crazy-ovaries related migraines, and hot flashes, unending lower back pain and vertigo, to a series of incredibly painful abscesses (all first time incidents with me), I'm now questioning what message my body is trying to give me. If it is trying to increase my pain threshold, perhaps it may have moved up a notch or two under the constant onslaught at new kinds of pain. If that is so, I wonder if I'm being prepped for an emotional calamity of sorts - because don't the elders say that you only carry the cross you can bear?

As I spend my nights in pain, crying in the quiet of a room where no one hears me, at an age that by default denies me of sympathy or caring or nursing, I rage against both my pain and my inability to beat it. It follows me everywhere, even inside the recesses of my soul, like a shadow I cannot shake off. And if I hate it so much, how will its purpose make sense to me?

Sweat the small stuff.

When one is young, one rages against secrecy, sealing love with the promise of no-secrets, all dark nooks and corners revealed and inspected.

As one grows in time, and gathers more nooks, corners, crevices and cracks, some darkness escapes the torchlight of words and intent, and bores itself inside your soul, so deep, that somehow sharing seems like a task unto itself. And maybe perhaps, because with time, the ears that sought your secrets out, change too.

--

The symbolism enjoyed by pebbles in our collective cultures is intriguing. One of my first symbolic references to a pebble was that of pain: I remember reading in 'moral science' class at the convent I studied, about how Jesus stopped a crowd that was stoning 'a prostitute', with words that forced them to reflect before they act. I did not know Mary Magdalene then, but when I discovered her through Jose Saramago, I often wondered how harsh, the smooth pebble must have felt like, for Jesus.

Whether for anecdotes about how full or free to keep life (friends and family are the pebbles in the jar, work is but the smooth sand around it); to how to be more giving or adapting; from images of smooth pebbles skipping over tranquil waters; to being symbolic of a Zen state in life, the pebble is both humble, and primordial.

Did you know that when Nino was in my belly, and I saw him (at that time I did not know the baby's gender) the first time during sonography, I though he looked like a pebble, one smooth surface, one part rough. He was called Pebble by friends and family for the rest of the pregnancy.

And now, as I sit typing this, next to a glass jar filled with white, grey and black pebbles that Nino has picked over his years, everything, every symbol, every anecdote has come rushing to my mind, tugging me along, making my path.

--

What stories have the pebbles made for you?

Did-too list

The past tense to my to-do list for the month.

1) Watch-ed lots of movies.

Curious Case of Benjamin Button (super). 3 Idiots (all over again). Inception (crazy. intriguing. tad over rated). Salt (from the first row at that, the crink in the neck was worth the second half though). The Last Airbender (need to have a chat with m night shyamalan, and rap his knuckles). I Hate Luv Storys (the first time I saw Sonam Kapoor on screen. Pwetty girl. Pwettier Imran Khan). Kung Fu Panda (love it every time). A dozen more, maybe. Also, every single James Bond movie ever made.... seriously. (courtesy the Bond film festival on Star-Movies every night at 11:00pm. With Nino's Dad, this construes part of our couple time. He's a Bond addict, and our arguments are largely Roger Moore versus Daniel Craig versus Sean Connery.

2) Raise-ed a big family

I'm mothering three boys right now. 13, 8 and 4. Over the weekends, I play mother to an adorable five year old girl too. The first two boys are not mine, and neither is the weekend angel :) The two sisters-in-law and a bunch of cousins are tripping over Leh like perfectly post-card Gujju tourists (khakhra and snack boxes and bottomless shopping prowess!). So we're holding the home fort. Between the questions, and the pillow fights, two school car-pools and the trips to the doc for a patch-up or a stitch-up, it's been entertaining :D

3) Play-ed tennis with Nino.

Not the game. The to and fro of the ball. First he gets viral fever. Then I get migraine. Then he opts for ear infection. And I choose dysentery. Then it's his turn for a bad cough and cold. Then mine for tonsillitis. Now he's at laryngitis. And I'm waiting for my turn.

4) Start-ed working again.

Freelancing from home. Translates into crazy hours and alarmingly little money. But also means a little sanity, and 'private space' where Nino can't scream at me!

5) Post-ed on the blog again.

Did-too, din't I? :)