alone?

This is no travelogue-just a tail piece.
A simple walk with a person with a mental disability can however have many factors of a planned, unplanned or emergency travel.
This part of Chennai has nothing to claim its ‘suburbanity’. Narrow roads, overflowing traffic, of course no pavements to walk….but walk we must, even bathed in pollution, to keep good health.
My son is 30. He has phobias. A hand on my shoulder can indicate that he is nervous. A tug at my blouse is a warning, a pull can be disastrous…
And so bravely we plod along each evening at exactly the same time, to exactly the same destination, passing the same shops, the same vendors and the same beggars. My son is more phobic of the stray dogs than of the huge buses or trucks which brush past us. To live in harmony with traffic is my new mantra. Just ignore the repeated honking, the non-stop highway whirr, don’t look at the vehicles, breathe in the fumes as if they are the purest mountain air…this stretch of road, including the narrow railed pedestrian ‘promenade’ on the Adyar river bridge, has something like walking space-which also doubles up as talking space for many. Some of the ‘cant care less’ citizens who conference on the road move a bit when they see us; others get a piece of my mind. I must look out for cables lying loose, roadside cooking, stones of all sizes and slush…as I hurriedly catch an appreciative glance of the sunset over the sad looking, depleted Adyar river, a motorbike lunges right in our direction, against the traffic rules.

I carry a small notepad with my name and address and telephone number in case of an emergency. What if I suddenly fell off the bridge? The fat woman selling vadas smiles tentatively. Can she read? A skinny mongrel limps out from nowhere and settles down to scratch. and I feel a nervous tug…
“the whole world is there with you and me, don’t worry” I reassure my son.

let it trickle freely

‘Now what are you crying for?’ admonishes my daughter. I wish she hadn’t caught sight of that little tear trying to trickle down my cheek. It felt foolish.

But coming to think of it I am surprised at myself…

I cut corners, I reschedule appointments, I cut short phone calls, I stagger my washing/cleaning routine. I run in and out of rooms, I …….Monday to Thursday are my busiest blocks like in an executive’s weekly schedule.

Two TV serials (soaps) back to back are enough I realize, to direct life for a while. I do not know how I got hooked –or is it cabled-to these. It is not that I am impressionable or gullible. The engineering that goes behind each episode is all too obvious. Isn’t the business tycoon sick of donning the same shiny robe and pacing about alike in both-or more-serials? The schemer has his/her part all stenciled out for use in any serial. Three to four flashes on a face denote agony, distress or shock. You can define the underlying emotion yourself as the faces are equally stony in expression. Eight or more flashes say that the end of the episode is due any moment; the stop watch will say when. Same dawn, same music for same situation.. Cellphones have acquired significance in serials. Half the story depends on its shrill beep; it can make, postpone or precipitate an event or transform a non event into one. A character can suddenly be played by another actor, as it happened in the first of the two serials. Just when I was getting used to identify closely with the hero’s travails and his expressionless expressions thereof, bang came another one to substitute him-a no less expressionless substitute. Viewers’ agony at this turn would probably be more expressive than the new hero’s.

A recent report says that Tamil serials distort the image of the woman and influence the viewers. Women are portrayed as scheming, plotting and self promoting beings said the article. On the other hand are the near goddesses of Aquaguard purity. They can be relied on to neutralize the schemer’s eternal plots and be bland like boiled veggies.

Coincidences are the backbone of serials. Imagine the heroine’s best friend and the heroine’s sister in law both being conned by the same man-in a huge city like Mumbai. Court cases are more a one episode cry-n-laugh caricatures. Or a court case in which the right witness crops up at the decisive moment. Or when the story is at-one of its numerous-bleakest best-a coincidence saves it. And crises their raison d’etre. A recent newspaper article read ‘I am miserable, so I am’. It said that soaps influenced viewers into thinking that crises are essential to a happening life. The author, a psychiatrist gave the example of a patient who was advised to have not one but several boyfriends, in addition to her husband, to ward off boredom, and perhaps to invite crises. As most episodes end in critical situations, impressionable viewers would want their drab life to have some of those too. Think of it…our lives are so monochromatic, smooth and predictable. Meet a friend online/ in real after 4 months and after the initial happiness, there is nothing more to say…life is going on. yes, same for me too. What else? Wouldn’t it be thrilling to say ‘I had a brush with a crisis you know?’ Even before we exchange niceties, my two guests whom I am meeting after two years, say ‘please switch on the TV; it is serial time’. They feel serials reflect family life and family confusions-existant, wishful and remote. It is pleasure pure and simple to follow the story in its hundredth episode…no questions asked. Never mind that by then the story and the characters have undergone much weathering.

So, am I watching serials to make life’s smooth edges a little jagged? Was the tear that I shed for the lady in the sorry situation the expression of a repressed need for sentiments which would seem ridiculous in real life?

Watching soaps helps in other ways too. When my own future hangs like a suspenseful cloud, speculating on that of the battered hero’s provides relief. It is another thing that the story manages to get more complicated than I could ever imagine, but I can still hope that a timely phone call will mend cracked relationships or iron out a difference..In a serial the imaginary happily co exists with the real; so I can always think-until tomorrow-that the sudden crisis was perhaps only imaginary. On another plane, when the amicably started discussion with the husband takes a slightly ugly turn, thinking of yesterday’s episode and the possibilities for today acts as a deterrent. He can go on as much as he wants,I am firmly anchored elsewhere, in ‘no bruise land’. Or when I wake up suddenly in the middle of the night and am assaulted by self-doubts or worries, steering my thoughts towards the snubbed hero and the possibilities that tomorrow will bring him have proved helpful ploys to bring back peace of mind.
Human interest?
Most stories are too ‘cock-and-bull’ for sustained human interest. Perhaps doses of it here and there, if one is equipped with a microscope. But perhaps one thing I have learnt is the value of nuisance value in serials-and in real life. Were it not for the petty schemers and bigger wheeler dealers, what and who would bring out the virtuous glories of the hero/heroine? Carrying tales may be bad but isn’t the informer an important shaper of life-or so shows the serial? Also that super-refinement of character and super moral values are perhaps directly disproportionate to earthly success?
‘So much thought for such a useless subject!’ I can almost hear my daughter exclaim. I counter her squarely (of course in imagination): so what if I am a philosophical, intellectually superior soul? Can’t I take a break from Vedanta and indulge in less existential debates occasionally?
But –wait a minute! Like the serial which meanders aimlessly, I feel I am going in circles analyzing my serial viewing fad. Unlike the two guests who wholeheartedly, simply, take serial viewing seriously, my efforts are the wary ones of a snob. It is not as an executive’s schedule that I should treat serial viewing, but as a pure pleasure in itself. Perhaps I should first learn to let the tear trickle down openly…

Kaleidoscope

A child with a disability would make a writer of most parents. It isn’t really about having just one child; we have been given a kaleidoscope to see life in various combinations of colours and patterns.
Sometimes dark, sometimes bright.
Sometimes straight lines, sometimes curved confusion, sometimes beautiful patterns. Sometimes strange, sometimes like we are seeing this for the first time, sometimes like we see it every living moment.
I can’t generalize endlessly; I’d rather talk for myself.
My son, 28, has a developmental disability with autistic features. He doesn’t fit in any category of disability-or ability. If he can think, he can’t reason; if he can reason a bit, he can’t draw inferences. He can understand but he has unreasonable fears, he takes a long time to learn but whatever he has learnt is retained efficiently. He needs routine but he is inherently disciplined. Individual attention makes him cringe but he would disappear even in a group of three. He cannot express feelings yet he is hyper sensitive to vibes, bad more than good. He can be so vulnerable to criticism and he can at the same time wear a dead pan mask when threatened. He can catch a joke late in its life but his unexplained ‘laughter attacks’ are remarkable. He can remain in a state of total inactivity for hours and when just when I begin to feel all queasy inside, can burst into the most charming smile. He can be expected to finish brushing his teeth in exactly the same number of minutes and gargle the same number of times with the same noise. Or fold his clothes in the same way, far from perfect. Autism makes him find comfort in repetition and rhythm. Nursery rhymes still bring a broad charming grin from him. To get him to do something new, is like placing an order in a five star hotel. Say it to him and forget it. It will sink in when you have given up. Conditions don’t work with him. He may get bullied or tricked into doing what we want the first time, but after that he smartens up. But not enough to take proactive decisions. Stubborn like a well bred mule he can be, safe in his room, letting us bark useless orders at him. He has learnt to do without many comforts in the bargain. It can be very frustrating –after all it is the greed we have for something or the other which provides us the incentive to desire that something and other. He lives in a happy world without desires or goals, without the pull of self created problems or the worry to have to prove his worth.

.Well, this sounds pretty simple. Or compactly nutshelled. Most likely he is silently much more complex than that. To reach this far in my understanding of him, I had to contend with expectations, endless trials, errors, tears, smiles and breath taking ups and downs, not to forget sleepless nights when I would ask myself “am I doing what I should be?” –from the night he was born.

When he was three, I tried to bring friends to him. But he always came unstuck, like a badly fevicoled toy. I tried to make him independent, and today he is more dependent than ever on me. I struggled to get his handwriting even between the two lines and four lines and today it still overflows all over the page like a garbage bin. I thought we would start a vocational centre at home for him and others like him; today he is happy just taking care of the pens carefully pinned on his shirt the whole day long. I taught him to cook, self serve food and eat without spilling and his best moments are when he merely opens his mouth and food feeds itself from my plate…

But has tragedy struck just because a 28 year old can’t reason too much, or write well or because he wont touch food unless I give it to him? Or because he hasn’t yet figured out how to tell a bigger number from a smaller number. Or because he can only see Life through the window I open for him. Or because he puts all his faith in me, like eggs in one basket?

Am I a cross carrying martyr for having borne such a unique child? For merely reinventing myself all the time, reconfiguring my days, my thoughts, my hopes and expectations in the context of his? To think of him as a 10 year old, have expectations as from a 8 year old and to treat him as a 28 year old…or as instinct tells me.

That would be too grim a term for a lifestyle which is more unconventional than painful, more creatively flexible than just easy. Task analysis is now second nature to me as it the ability to see life upside down, inside out, fragmented or holistic.

Not to talk of all the Plain Gains…

Imagine. In ascending order… A diplomatic passport with a bouquet from society :“I understand…I am sorry…you are great(!!)”, a whole new view of life, a different time scale in which Time either goes back, stops, pauses or races according to my son’s need, and the humility and the awe of Total Trust from a child (God should be feeling that way)…

I would rather keep the kaleidoscope, if not be one myself.

ferris wheel

He was 1 foot something. He had a cute grey face with a winking eye and a jolly grin. He wore a bright red cape with a ribbon. He sat with his tiny legs folded. He was Vijay Mathur.
After two years Vijay is barely half foot tall, is nothing but two undefined blocks of dirt coloured clay stuck together by umpteen layers of feviquik. In fact what used to be his head is now only a squashed little lump. People have asked what this is: a shaving brush minus bristles? A shivalingam? A thereupetic device? The fact is he is Vijay-still Vijay. An important presence.
Vijay is one of the oddities that piggyback my life as the mother of a ‘different’ 26 year old son; Vijay has been his pillow mate, his puppet, his talisman, his companion in fear and anxiety. The more deformed he gets, the more he seems to get empowered. Vijay is thrown out of the bed when nightmares seize my son, Vijay is put away hastily into the shirt pocket when he falls down for fear that he will break. My son values Vijay just as much when he is beheaded and in two pieces or alternatively when my son was/is in several pieces himself.

In several pieces, yes… I have tried to say it in different ways: intellectual disability, mental handicap, developmental disability, emotionally disturbed, gone into a shell...and more recently panic gripped… While it brings me an immediate respectful “oh! I ‘m sorry” it has not brought me an inch closer to closeness to anyone. The most enduring hallucinatory image is that of my riding atop a huge ferris wheel… just as I look forward to a breath taking descent, the wheel stops…I am suspended on the top not knowing how I will come down…that’s how stuck I feel in life at times.
And for those who venture to ask a question or more… the story is just getting snakier by the day.

I was walking with my son to the sea front one july dusk last year; I sensed a different touch, an insistent tug which soon turned into violent pulls… heading into another realm of existence altogether…I could not understand or imagine what had suddenly gripped him…my only concern was to reach home- oh yes, right across the rushing traffic’s headlight I was pulled by his unknown panic and vice like grip…we did reach home in one piece against all odds but life took a definite twist after this nightmarish event.

In the ensuing months of paranoia, a free thinking, fairly independent young man suddenly became rooted to his bed; smelled ‘railway’ after 15days without a bath, grew hair like a caveman, stopped eating, shut his mind to everything except music and fear…and Vijay.

Hey! But life is not all that bleak , is it? It is only when one hits rock bottom that going lower becomes a distinct non possibility. Like learning that the proximity of a 15 day unbathed person doesn’t necessarily asphyxiate you…that hunger is a powerful motivator, fear a mighty detractor…but together they still do not defy the life force…that a caveman’s hairdo is fanciful in its own way. Why not live a low phase in life as fully as a high one? The Osho says “ the only problem with sadness, despair, anger, hopelessness, anxiety, anguish and misery is that you want to get rid of them. That’s the only barrier. They are challenges of life. Accept them.” Amidst anxious phone calls from my parents, spotting the funny and the remotely hopeful in the despairing was perhaps the only saving grace of those dark 5 months.


My son did come out of the panic prison, very slowly, guided by psychotherapy and his own positive instincts, perhaps bewildered motherhood and powerful prayers of grandparents. It was interesting to watch him begin to eat again, with a refugeelike eagerness, take baby steps again…it was a thrill when he came to the dining table after weeks…one hand firmly gripping my shoulder. I have known that solid grip of insecurity since then, when we are at home, when we go out. He always wants to be sure I am near him. It took him weeks to want to come out; the lift would made him paranoid and he would go right back. Taking him out became an exercice in strategies. The first haircut was an unparalleled event –it took two of us to escort him like a handcuffed convict along the road. Never had the hairdresser seen so much grime and dust in so much hair!

And while the psychiatrist termed it an ‘episode’ with possibilities of reoccurrence in geometrical progression of frequency and intensity, and the psychotherapist said my son was caught in depths of insecurity and in webs of an identity crisis, I would like to believe that it was but a one time aberration of the mind and terror of the heart and that… I have gotten off the ferris wheel …..this time.
.
There goes my son searching frantically for a chip from an accidentally knocked down Vijay…he pockets it with visible relief. Vijay, freshly mutilated, is thriving in the adulation and faith of a pure mind. Was he the straw of a child drowning in mental chaos? Was he the affirmation of his faith in life? It makes me wonder about the need we all have for such anchors in life. Be it the renowned Siddhi Vinayak or the wayside under-the-tree vermillion smeared god, are they any different from Vijay? Aren’t faith and value idolized relatively to our needs? With a gentle touch of gratitude I take the pieces of clay given by my son for safekeeping.

Gurudakshina

I witnessed two celebrations of Guru Poornima recently. In either cases, the venerated ones were bhajan teachers, both wonderful ,warm great people. They had taught us melodious, moving devotion-filled music and the fervor with which they were praised and revered was touching. Both gurus responded with equal warmth and humility. The guru hymns sung in their honour were great; I was however left pondering for the rest of the sessions about the true import of the word guru and its contemporary relevance. I had nursed in my soul, from the days of my son’s Amar Chitra Katha days, a romantic yearning for life in a Gurukul-where you would be nurtured wholesomely and fashioned into a complete person. Would I ever find a remote equivalent to a guru in my life, I sighed wistfully. And as faithful disciples sang about atma gyan ans spiritual insights emanating from the gurus, I got my answer- why, I had my guru, not one but two!!

My father had taught me a great many things-unlike in a gurukul, tucked away in the forest, however, he took me places. And where! My impressionable years were spent with my parents in French West Africa where daddy was a UN official. Friends warned him of the folly of expecting education for me in the god-forsaken expanses of French Sahara. Niamey was an unheard of place; I would attend the only French lycée there, the only Indian girl and with no knowledge of French. My father stood by me; by providing me extra help, by learning the language himself. Later on returning to India he found out how my hard-acquired French could be put to good use. He was with me when I joined my MA course in French and later when I became a lecturer in French .
Daddy’s role of guru did not cease with my marriage. On the contrary, as the young mother in me struggled to cope with the experience of bringing up a developmentally disabled child, daddy was there to tell me that tears were no good; problems were there to be solved, that learning never ceased and that opportunities come couched in difficulties. He shares my problems and lives my joys and vicissitudes of life with me.
My other guru, the main shaper of my attitude to life has been my son. A slow learner, whose subtle disabilities came to the fore well after he had been grievously hurt in the soul by society for being different. He looked up to me for understanding and solace. And later, when the bubbly little boy in him had all but died of hurt and a silent, lost adolescent took over, he trusted no one but me. I learned to field insensitive questions about him in front of him and t olet my life follow the path he had laid out for me.A different world altogether opened u pfor me-of unsurmountable problems, uncertainty or of purity and adventure, as I chose to see it. Many people have come into my life thanks to my son-parents like me, children like/unlike him, devoted educators, generous souls…Had my son been more attuned to the world, I would have been another prosaic mother dreaming marks and counting achievements as the sole milestones of life. My son taught me to hear silence and to wait for the desert flower that blooms from nowhere one fine day.he taught me to be a fighting, accommodating and a self-carved mother and later a strong woman in my own right.
Today at 91 daddy is not a staid, disenchanted man. He has been following my evolution from timid girl through diffident motherhood to confident middle aged woman. A little hard of hearing and frail, he is certainly not a man of the past. A true guru, he feels enriched through my experiences and strives hard to understand my son.
And my gurudakshina? I suppose both my father and my son would expect me never to get bogged down by negatives, to always look for an alternative when a brick wall dresses itself in my way.if one has given me the wings of imagination to soar, the other keeps me securely anchored to earth. My father showed how enjoyable parenting can be-my son that it can be extended beyond the family. Gurudakshina need not be given to the guru alone:it is an offering to life itself.

The Foolproofing manual

The fool-proofing manual

‘Make sure to call her once a week but don’t run after her. Let her also miss you’ ‘Slogging your ass off isn’t going to help you come up in life. Learn to take care of your interests first’.
‘which bank and which scheme give the best returns?’
‘an MBA is a must these days’.
‘a Chinese 10 lever lock is burglar-proof’
…
the number 13
and of course ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’….
Forewarned is forearmed…

The do’s and don’ts of life…handed down through generations… the ‘The Foolproofing Manual’.
Coming to think of it, don’t we spend a great part of our thinking, feeling and actions trying to make life as fool-proof as possible?

Or constantly proof-read life. But someone said ‘proof reading works best after publication’.
So it is with life.
With the limitations of my memory I try to include the results of the latest fiasco in the next venture-from sweet making to husband-tackling- for a fool-proof success formula. You guessed it…the word ‘proof’ remains proof of its prooflessness. If only I had let the syrup simmer longer and the husband simmer less…
Imagine life without ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’…but ‘but’ seems to tag ‘if’ everywhere. If I walk on the pavement, my life is safe. But speeding water tankers and buses have their own priorities and logic…
Logic.
Logic would be an important tool in fool-proofing life. If the science of reasoning guided all human actions, life would be one smooth super-expressway ride. But there are as many logics as there are humans-a person can be multi-logical too. Whence all the thought-traffic jams and the need for more fool-proofing life, like life insurance. Or simply plugging leaks. Like forest trails made to help people explore without thorny bruises, tradition, customs, ‘castes and creeds’ are the time-tested MCil for many of us. ‘if it worked for my great grand parents, it should work for me’ seems to be the trusting formula.
If what worked?
Assurance, abortions, certificates, checks, credulity, credibility, charms, guard, insurance, faith, horoscopes, mantras, pesticides, prophesies, promises, prayers, pledges, quarantine, register, savings, safeguard, seal, stick, staple, talismans, ultrascans, vaccination, vows, watchfulness, x-ray…the fool-proofing manual of life would have a varied and abundant lexicon; with appendices added often as the world becomes an increasingly threatening place to all beings and the environment.

Competition worries us; the threat of failure makes us paranoid. How peaceful life would be if our children were born easily, grew up without a whimper, studied like angels, transited to working smoothly, married decently, parented just like us and took dutifully care of us in old age…if rains fell in time, if the cash-box was never starved, if osteoporosis never knew me, if things –including teeth-didn’t wear, tear or get lost, if EQ, bad cholesterol and Alzeihmer’s were undiscovered once more, if kids became kids once more, if my front door latch never failed, if expectations didn’t dog me and duties didn’t bog me, if I could live ‘forever’ happily cushioned between safety and security…..death would be a mere faint, remote occurrence which would not touch me…
If loopholes didn’t exist… like a well-looking samosa in the making, two sides are amply pulled and tightly pressed while the third gives it all away and springs a good leak while in the frying pan…life has a way of coming off at the seams at the wrong moments. …the more we want a safe flight in life, the more elaborate the safeguards. As a recent cartoon showed, at the end of the security check, when a passenger is asked for his boarding pass it is the only thing left on him! As someone rightly said ‘security is not what you have but what you can do without’.


‘Don’t tell me that caring, planning, praying and saving haven’t stood the test of time’…I hear a voice say…maybe my own subdued playback. The comfort of knowing that the thoughtfully built ancestral mansion could be mine one day-it is such a godsent that there is an advocate right next door-, that granny will unfailingly make the 108 modaks to Lord Ganesha to ensure that I get my 99%, that this piece of paper called the FD receipt is my security in 10 years, that All Knowing Aunty is still around..her formula has worked so far( the girl is indeed missing me!!) and I feel Aunty does have an auspicious tongue…she will surely lead me to my destination.
Destination?
Marriage, promotion, job, property, winner rat in rat race.The ups of life. to be always happy, one up, always prosperous, to never falter, to never lose-money or husband or anything, to never have to search by oneself, for oneself, oneself…

Little more, little less...

Baby’s first steps
Vertigo
Home and office
Time and space
Sound and silence
Offer and demand
Little girl on the tight-rope
Colours in oil painting
Ratio and proportion
Good and evil…
In the mind
In the universe
In Superpowers
In the wallet
In ecology
In the mobile phone…

Tilt, tip, turn
A little less
A little more….

Where would we be without

Balance?

Gift wrapped

To gift or not to gift- no, it isn’t as existential a question as that. ‘Gift’ has too tantalizing a wrap to it for a clear no. A colourful birthday gift, an unconnected knife with the tea packet, the keys of a Mercedes Benz, a holiday for two for two nights, a gifted child- the very delicious flavour of the word ‘free’ which goes with gift, who can resist these? …Some musings on gifts, as I have experienced them, come a-straying to the mind and they asked to be shared…absolutely Free!

Look at a gift horse in the mouth...or is it DON'T? I’d have the irresistible urge to check out its dentistry first. Or its trot. Even its voice box. I’d expect my gift horse to have a healthy appetite (courtesy good teeth) and a neigh like the movie bandit’s horsie. He would of course take me for health giving rides…the gifter wouldn’t want to take me for a ride, would he? We are mercifully not in Akbar Birbal times when horses and elephants were routinely gifted. Or even cows . I have heard my grandma say that a cow given away as a gift or ‘daan’ in her village had to be a healthy one…dentally et al. It was given with great fanfare along with a hay supply to last some ruminating weeks and it had to go the right person, to a worthy cause and for a right occasion. I like those thoughts…a value-added responsibility for the gift and towards the gifted.

After all a gift should not become a pain in the neck…

I think of those half dozen cloned aluminium milk cookers which arrived as my wedding gifts. Was the ‘in’ gift item in those ancient times to aid a new bride boil milk without absent-minded accidents. I could probably have kept a couple of them as heirloom if only I hadn’t got sick of packing so many of them with each transfer.

The oxidized camel in the show case, a birthday gift, seems to mull, camel-like, over a lot of things. About oxidized, dead gifts in fact. Objects so carefully chiseled they leave nothing to the imagination. The plastic flower with dew drops so faithfully fevicoled…’like real’, so real you couldn’t improve on it except perhaps dust the dew off every second day. Or the suffocated looking plastic birdie inside a glass box saying ‘have a good day’ on its side. A show case for me reeks of prison and zoo. Nothing in it breathes freely or evolves. Oh! The poor dolls and soft toys shut in there, punished permanently by a teacher!
.
A gift should have the potential of suggestion. Like a coma, a colon or three dots… A bowl, a vase, a stand , a frame, a notebook, a scribble pad, paper….my daughter thinks me crazy but I believe the big mug my best friend gave me need not necessarily brim over with beer but could harbour a riot of roses(not the pre-dewed ones). The quaint metal pen stand seems so appropriate to stick a leaf or two of my crotons to add a spark of colour to the kitchen platform… the beautiful ceramic bowl on the table is my ‘hurry bank’ for fivers. A roll of brightly coloured wrapping paper becomes the family’s ‘photo gallery’ on the bedroom wall on which are stuck memories we like to have and to share; a gateway to family feels and a great way to spark off conversations with visitors.

If you have had something for nothing, the bill is surely around the bend…yet the lure of the ‘first two hundred pulses free’ telephone line kindles my avidity. I make calls, STD, ISD and local and 200 pulses seem to interpret as 200 calls …And much as I like to think I can see through optical illusions, aggressive gifting creates its own web of illusions…while something..no a whole basketful of something for nothing is what makes the world whirr, ‘little for more’ also probably qualifies as a sane propeller of human destinies. Isn’t it this anticipatory return syndrome which spurs seekers and devotees on most of the time? Gift takers-gift givers…an eternal symbiosis …what if the gift giver is a fraudster…what if the gift is a slew of presidential pardons? Fasten your seatbelts in the merry –go –round called life and see the world rotate merrily with cadeaux, ‘bakshish’ and ‘little somethings ….

The most alive-and kicking- gifts are for me of together- times, of learning, teaching, growing..a plant, a thought…how about some timeless moments instead of a watch, some incentive to break-n-build instead of a toy, a recipe taught, a whiff of unsuspected wisdom caught from another… Wont do, I hear a voice say, how much ever ethereal and expansive you get, nothing like a concrete gift to seal a deal...a token of affection, of gratitude, of appreciation. And did you notice that it’s the winners who win more. A lottery winner, a winning team, an exam topper, a Miss World. Well, grapes ARE sour consolation prizes notwithstanding.


My little son used to ask me to hide the smallest gift- a chocolate- so that he could ‘discover’ it himself. The joy of the discovery far outweighed the worth of the gift. If there were more than two little gifts, he would want it to be a treasure hunt, with written clues and all.

Indeed, nothing like a box of chocolates to offer, to get as gift, to hide in the fridge for midnight expeditions, to discover…non controversial, consumer friendly, enriching in all directions. Life, said someone, is like a box of assorted wrapped chocolates, full of suspense… bitter ones, round ones, nutty ones, pretty ones.. the more the wraps, the more the suspense, the more the thrills… so also thought my little one.


But leave aside the big ideas of a small child; I still go by which tea packet offers what free, nicely splashed and illustrated in bold yellow.

Duty

Duty

A washerman owned a donkey
He owned a dog too
One to carry clothes
The other to guard his house.
A thief crept in
The dog was sound asleep.
The donkey
Overcome with pangs of loyalty
Brayed bravely
Prayed fervently
For his master’s well being…
The master got up
A stout stick in hand
“how dare you disturb my sleep
you impertinent Ass?”
It rained blows
The donkey saw stars...
And a wee streak of Wisdom

“do your Duty
and forget the fruits of It”???

no no….
First know
What is NOT your Duty…..

Redemption

The most hardened criminal
Can be reformed
A sinner can hide a saint within
Capital punishment should go
Says the Chief of Police.
But
What about those
Who sentence themselves to Death Row
Of the Spirit
Of the Soul
Of the Conscience?

Who will redeem them?

The Search

I was a spindle
Plain and lean
I wrapped yarns
of relationships
all around me
I coloured them with
beauty, security, love
possessions



But
At the twilight of Life
I wonder…
Is life all about unwrapping the yarns?
About the spindle finding itself
finding IN itself
Beauty
Serenity?

Time

It flies, fleets, freezes,
It heals, hardens, hurts,
It reforms, restores,
redeems,
It softens, soothes,
smoothes....

TIME!

The Yugas
The Seconds in a time bomb
The fraction between
a fluffy and a fallen cake
between Harmony and Discord
The healer of broken hearts
and fractured femurs
The maturer of mangoes and minds
Of fixed deposits and wines
Relativity
Money
Weather
Weathering
The Now
The Never Never again...

Is Time Genesis?
Nemesis?
Hypothesis?

Time simply IS...

It's simple

Simplify, simplify
says a voice within…

Language
Fractions
Baggage
Recipes
Furniture
Savings…

Knock out zeroes
Forget appendages
Cut it short
Make it straight
Keep it light

Touch the Essential
Feel the core
Live simply
Think high
Or
Live simply
Think simply
to get a high in Life.

Being

I am…
Asleep when awake
Untouched by-
Indifferent to-
Simply bored
by-The Now.
Eyes wait to shut
Mind to close

Awake when asleep
Seized by worry…
Concerned about
The Yesterday
The Tomorrow
Eyes wide open
Mind in a flurry.

The 5 year old is
Awake when awake
Asleep when asleep
Her joy and pain are so real
Intense both
She has let go yesterday’s woes
She knows not tomorrow.

Life is communication

Life is communication

Bird chirps
Bus conductor’s whistle
Sms to God
Guard’s Green signal
Daddy’s trunk call
Sign language
A simple ‘aah’
Squirrel shrieks
Smileys on Yahoo messenger
Church bells
Good old yellowing inland letter in my diary
Good Vibes/bad vibes
Telepathy

Silence…

Mankind is linked
Close and closer and Closest ever
butis he in touch with himself?

Esperanto lures

Simply said…


I love Esperanto. A language of regularity. Learn it in half an hour and connect to the vast world of Esperanto speakers. They are thick as thieves. And you will get a great all- -Esperanto lunch when your Korean co-Esperantist welcomes you home !

All nouns end in o;all infinitives end in ‘as’; change to ‘is’ for the past tense, to ‘os’ for the future tense. Add an ‘n’ to the noun to make it a direct object. Words can thus be put in any order in a sentence. Add the same set of prefixes to make different questions. Mal added to any adjective makes its opposite. And so on…

This in a nutshell is Esperanto; a nutshell of a language, a nutty one, nonetheless packed with all essentials for full flegedness in expression.

Esp would be any kid’s delight as second language in school- if not the medium itself. He/she could write the best essays with no red lines for spelling mistakes, no syntax spoofs. Zamenhof was a darling to have perfected the principle of affixes right to its logical conclusion.

If only everything in life were as threadbare as Esperanto! .like a just hatched pigeon chick . But he wastes no time remaining my role model. Within days it adds complications by way of featherhood and flies away to evolution. Fossils are more reliable that way.

‘Simplify simplify’ I hear a voice goad me..looking back, ‘simplify fractions’ were my delight in school. Fat numbers skimmed, slimmed.. wow! A plus + n here waiting to take on a –of its kind. Happily clumped together xs and ys turned me on. No wonder geometry was my bane with its unyielding spread outedness

The ‘simplify sums’ didn’t remain sums; they entered my kitchen; what can be eliminated should be; that little something which defined my mother’s masala got the axe. She was sure scandalized. This wasn’t that, no, she tried to tell me . Serendipity is my password and discovering shortcuts through mistakes my preferred pathway. Of course the garbage bin has been the shortest cut to salvation many a times, or the scrawny stray puppy. And the comforting thought that there is always a next time- and more starving stray puppies on the way. And I get right back, ready with a –n ingredient, wisdom and hope dictating the presence of a +n somewhere to take it on.

Simple interest, simple sentence, simple person as opposed to their compound, complex counterparts; isn’t there a certain something in them ? now mamma, what is a compound sentence and what a complex one…asked my daughter; I never could get her to understand because I was so stuck in my love for the simple one ..conjunctions need only be in the mind. Simple living, high thinking goes an adage. I would say simple thinking high living, or better still simple thinking, simple living to get a high in life. Minimalistic furniture is in; besides elegance, it brings more space to the home..or the illusion thereof.. A simpleton is then a spacious-minded person, a mind-in-space one, certainly less of an earthly burden than the Intellectual.


Call it the Lure of the Stark. Or a Sound Sense of Economy. Or Great Packaging.

Mother Nature leads me on. My favourite is her one-actor-many roles model. One organ-many functions. One colour-many illusions…a spare part neatly tucked in.. simple you-scratch-my-back-I –scratch-yours. Plants and insects, intestines and microbes…two sides, one coin. The same landscape in summer, in autumn, in winter. A time for breaking, a time for rebuilding. An atom freed of a proton, one gaining…all within seconds, all complicatedly orchestrated. A second versus infinity…a second becoming infinity.

Variety, is the spice of life. I believe Nature merely tricks us into believing that she is all for diversification. ..one only has to see the mere line that joins all these diversions- joins the dots in fact to get one whole simple picture of Life and Wisdom or life in Wisdom or Plain Wisdom.

It is simple, basic, fundamental, elementary really…

The newspaper says…the govt has simplified tax procedures. What goes up must come down…what goes complicated must return to simplicity-unless it wants to strangulate itself with itself.

So may my musings if I do not stop right here.

Nth Innings not out

Upon his back
Shrouded in serenity he lay
Ready to Rest in Peace
Or so I thought
When I tapped him gently with a broom
To decide his fate
To seal his fate
With my weapon
And his helplessness

In a jiffy
He was up
Describing crazied circles
Frenzied ovals
Now spinning like a top
Now whirring like a toy boat
And before I could find my feet,
he had found his-
Stretched and straightened his limbs
And while my dazed mind dozed
He was already gone
At a hundred and thirty an hour
Into
what? where? when?

Kudos I said
To Nature’s marvel
Her polished pièce de résistance
Her showpiece of timeless resilience
Now taking life lying low
Now riding life’s crest
As Wisdom dictates
As Evolution states
Into his Nth innings
And still winning

The never-say –die
Cockroach

Zebra talks

At the zoo
My child held my hand and asked
Is the zebra black with white stripes
Or white with black stripes?
?
I gazed intently to find the answer
And the zebra gazed back at me.
??
Arent you a little ‘animal’ in a ‘human’ frame?
Are you a little humanity within the animal?
Are you negative with positive flashes?
Are you brightly disposed with some negative dashes?
Are you all creditcard and a little trustworthy?
Are you all credulity with a little credibility?
Are you a little integrity within a nebulous hole?
Are you a little frittered within an integral whole?
Are you You and the world They?
Are you not not You without they being not They?

Are you…….?
I am ONE zebra
How many are you?

a slice of mumbai

A SLICE OF MUMBAI



Mumbai reveals itself in as many ways as its varied facets. Walk along a holidaying Marine Drive on a Sunday evening, squeeze into a peak hour suburban train, zip on the sexy JJ flyover in a Lancer, snake your way through the teeming Bora Bazar, take in with a deep breath the cityspread from the Kamala Nehru Park, take a random BEST bus ride-first to last stop. Like its rains, now pouring, now gone, Mumbai vibrates with colours and monotony. With movement and immobility. With quick buck and grinding poverty. With opportunities and despair. With heritage and modernity.

Hey but where do I begin? From the beauty of a serene sunrise over a boat-laden Gateway of India? Or from the stories of resilience the blackened huts on Raey Road tell? No, I just have to look around from the balconies of my 13th floor flat to experience a microcosm of Mumbai… its sights, sounds and smells… from the pristine silence of 4 am to the rising cacophony of its mid morning traffic, its sudden whiffs of sea breeze, its pockets of still humidity… from my North balcony, in one sweep I see Mumbai’s main features: dilapidated blackened buildings, clothes eternally drying on their balconies, an oasis of green of the Oval with palm trees fringing it, the architectural beauty of the Rajabai Tower and there in the distance, the gothic majesty of the Western Railway headquarters, and opposite to it Churchgate, the nerve-centre of hope of Mumbai’s commuting community, I glimpse the Bombay Stock Exchange- the economic pulse of the country, then, further away, the shipmasts of the dockyards, stretches of grey sea, silhouettes of distant mountains, impersonal high rises, towers, people, more people, throngs of them,….
Below the solemnity of the national flag fluttering atop Mantralaya, is a typical Mumbai chowk- road junction. Its colourful and orderly traffic fascinates me no end. There…… while vehicles wait for the green signal like good children before the school recess, a lone cyclist pedals his way across the square- rules? For him ?you must be kidding. The bright Zebra crossing bustles with officer-goers but a young man merrily skips his way across the other road where impatient cars and buses are already rushing. An accident at this hour will result in a disruptive chain reaction and the skipper knows it-even a BEST bus would prefer to pander to his whim rather than hit him and ground everyone else. Whether on its roads or in its railways, Mumbai is forever doing a fine balancing act; for a city stretched to the very limits of its resources, it is still a working wonder… Yes… Mumbai survives by rules, it thrives by shortcuts. To my right, the clock at Rajabai Tower shows 10 am- peak hour is approaching. Time drives Mumbai-but so does money- or the lack of both. In this super-speeding city, two men trudge a handcart laden with gas cylinders across the junction; a fire-engine’s bells helplessly pierce the soundscape as it is caught in the snaking queue of vehicles. To my left, below the skyscrapers separating me from the sea, the street is a flurry of activity - wayside quick-food shops, with the characteristic blue plastic roof, getting into gear to feed affordable nourishment to office-goers, who no doubt left their suburban homes at unearthly morning hours. These stalls are a saga of initiative and resourcefulness, of the art of dodging municipal authorities, of keeping clients happy-and themselves surviving. The ubiquitous chanawalla has spread out his meagre wares on the pavement and is getting his act together; peanuts for survival? Surviving on peanuts? Yonder, to my left, the squalor of the fishermen’s colony co-exists in peace with the impregnability of the Cuffe-Parde high-rises… people walking unperturbed on the pavement strewn with drying fish are the definition of the city’s quintessence: ‘live and let live’. I wonder how this city holds in the same generous embrace and address the minister in his luxurious bungalow near the sea and the tattered woman sleeping on an old newspaper on the pavement just around the bend. Amidst the noise of non stop honking and the occasional screech of brakes, I catch the soft strain of a flute… the song of survival of a man who no doubt came to the city with hope and who did find it… I wonder who in this posh locality buys road side flutes…
A flock of pigeons takes off suddenly from the terrace of the next building- ah! Pigeons- those assertive co-residents of Mumbai’s flats and a symbol of the city’s liveliness and generosity of soul – a space-starved city preserves its ‘kabutarkhanas’ (enclosures where pigeons are fed) and selling pigeon feed feeds many an ingenious Mumbaian.

As my eyes rest on the fishing boats of Backbay from my west balcony- little pennants fluttering atop, deceptively lazing in the still backwaters, I am suddenly aware that for all its vividity and variety, neither the view from my balconies nor my verbosity can ever really grasp the wholeness of the great city that Mumbai is …, that calling my description a microcosm is pretentious, it is more a speck -the neatest speck of Mumbai; that I am as far removed from its squalor, its tempers, and vices, as from the nitty-gritty of its building blocks, its industriousness and its sense of adventure.
The thirteenth floor is well the thirteenth floor and can I help feeling closer to the clear blue September sky -which is also Mumbai’s- than to the distant earthy fight for survival at Dharavi?

The Perfect Adventure!

Shut the door
Net the windows
Plug the holes
Drive it away
Before it drives me mad…

So fumed the husband…

And the object of his fury and worry
Wove its way inside
Through an imperceptible gap on the top ...
Jumped with ease
sprinted with grace
On the bed
Along windows
Fell in a bucket of water
Came out drunken, shrunken
Dried itself on the pelmet

And while he searched for a stick, a torch and a fellow human
To torture the torturer,
There it was
Atop the branch
Shrieking merrily
Its tail restored to fluffy glory
“it was an adventure
a real squirrel adventure”

The Sudoku poem

Numbers in columns
invisible digits
Numbers in rows
or however one sees it…

See them
amble, glide
dart, slide.
what solace
when after a brief tussle
they snuggle into place…

But sometimes
when I am all but done
or think it was sheer fun
two twos side by side
push, shove, bay
and my bliss turns to dismay…
Or when a six can be here
or there or anywhere..
When most numbers are fluidly mobile
my mind is less agile
doesn’t it trip and trudge
till the Sudoku is but exhausted fudge…

But the Chronicle brings challenge and hope anew.

Isn’t Life such too?
Issues, choices
dilemmas, voices
problems solved by insight
others achieved by default
things learnt in hindsight
some unlearnt, unresolved
others too messed up
steps impossible to retrace
Perhaps just to be glossed over with grace.

Never mind…

Life has a Daily Edition too.