Blind date

‘I have had enough of it really!’ No, it was not domestic violence which was torturing Anu. It was …domestic attention. A doting husband was her problem. Doting like chewing gum. Forever behind, before, against, upon her. He seemed eternally captivated by her and she felt eternally captured by him. Suffocated. Smothered. When Anu met her long lost high school friend Tara in a shopping mall by chance, she poured out her woes to her. If her friend was amused she did not show it. She listened. Asked questions. No, no, he didn’t poke his nose in her affairs, thank God, but his long nose kept hovering forever at one meter from Anu, as if he were a sniffer dog and she a potential bomb. Anu could almost see a tail wag at her-all the time. No, he never disputed her decisions, or her menu, rarely demanded this or that. But you see, too much blind acceptance of a person can be irritating. Anu even missed the arguments they used to have early on in their marriage. At least life was spicy. Now, it was bland, predictable. Nothing to accomplish. Nowhere to reach. Anu clearly needed help to bypass the amorous wall built by her husband to breathe freely. Tara told Anu about a social networking site on the internet where Anu could come across a number of potential friends. To a doubtful Anu, Tara explained the way it worked. She took Anu to an internet café in the mall, set up her account and patiently explained how she should go about it.
And like magic, a whole new world opens out to Anu. Though she does not have much to say about herself, thanks to that uninspiring husband of hers, she still manages to get the attention of some folk online. It is truly a whiff of fresh air, a dose of freedom for which she thanks Tara heartily. As friends freely share their marital troubles with her, she feels better. At least someone’s life is more intriguing and interesting than hers! Her husband wonders what has come over her. She finishes her work fast and sits at the computer for a long time. He misses her. But seeing her happily occupied, he doesn’t probe beyond. He is blessed with single-minded devotion to his wife. He folds clothes, arranges cupboards, reads an already read newspaper while waiting for Anu to wind up and warm the bed.

In some weeks Rahul happens. A bright witty young man gives Anu attention. When he learns she is just two years short of 60, he says ‘wow!’. He respects her earthy wisdom and listens to her ordinary experiences with care. He tells her about his life, his need for total freedom and how he dodges his parents when they talk marriage. Marriage is struggle, he thinks. It is a perpetual clash of egos. He prefers to keep his ego well fed and not bring in a competitor. Anu thinks a man with a big ego should be more interesting to live with than an ego-challenged one. There is scope to prove one’s superiority there. But she thinks it is wise not to tell Rahul about her dull marriage so soon. He fills her in about modern concepts, need based stands and quick fix solutions. Anu likes what she hears. Especially the concept of dating. When she asks him more, he proposes a date. An evening at the beach, the two of them. They will meet, talk, walk and go back home. He will drop her back.
Anu is in a quandary. When she tells Tara about it, Tara encourages her to go ahead. A beach is hardly a place where things can go wrong. Yes, make a rendez- vous for 5pm on Saturday, she advises. Anu warily tells her husband that she is to meet a friend at the beach on Saturday evening at 5. He is happy for her. Does not stop her, does not question her. ‘should I drop you by car?’ he asks gently at 3pm on Saturday. To her emphatic ‘no’ he nods and goes away. Not for long. When she is getting ready, sure enough Romeo is roaming not far. He thinks yellow chiffon will suit the occasion best. Should he get her some jasmine? He gives her change, he gives her a water bottle, he gives her a kerchief. He gives her a goodbye kiss.
Anu is with Rahul. ‘sexy’ he mutters appreciatively at the yellow chiffon. Anu feels a little odd. Never heard a compliment, for her sari or for herself, from a man other than her evergreen husband. She does not know how to look at the man before her, 30 years younger to her. ‘nice shirt’ she says by way of introduction. They look around. Crowds everywhere. The anonymity is heartening. It is liberating. They cross the stretch of sand and come to the sea. How symbolic! The turquoise vastness rolling out in front of Anu opens out her heart like nothing before in her life. A hand does not hold her (as if she will melt away in the water); anxious eyes do not search hers to know that she is not feeling too hot, too cold, hungry or thirsty. For some time, Anu simply takes in the freedom of being by herself, like a peg or two of unadulterated Scotch. In a moment her mobile rings. Her husband wants to know if she reached safely. If her friend has arrived. Anu feels her anger rise. ‘yes’ she says briefly. She wonders what he used to do in the pre mobile phone days. She is happily ignorant of the utter anxiety he used to feel when she was away, with no means of instantly knowing her welfare. She wishes she could go back to those days. Rahul is telling her about his family, work, likes, dislikes. In the backdrop of the swoosh of the waves and the various sounds around them, it takes Anu some effort to listen attentively to Rahul’s chatter. Also maybe because she never has had to listen to her husband for so long in one go. A man of few words-and oodles of attention. Rahul and Anu are more at ease now. She tells him about her parents, her home town and how she was brought up. He suggests he get them both tender coconut by way of starters. What to eat can be decided later. Anu is ok with it. She says she will sit on the stone slab while he goes and fetches the coconuts. Anu idly looks around. Finds it downright horrible that couples should come to the beach and hold hands, look into each others’ eyes and bury heads into each others’ shoulders. Do it in your homes, she mentally tells them. This is a place to feel free, not to celebrate bondage. The mobile rings. Anu is furious now. It is him again. ‘two women have come. I am making tea for them’ he whispers urgently. ‘so, what should I do?’ is Anu’s typical reflex, but he has cut the call. From beneath her blanket of anger at his repeated intrusion into her freedom, Anu is jolted. What! Two what have come? He is making what for them? And in a jiffy, Anu is up. The turquoise has turned turpid. Without another look towards the sea, without any thought of her coconut-laden date, she takes long strides on the sand, her chiffon threatening to fly away. Bolts across the beach like sprinter Bolt. She rushes to the road. Catches an auto. Goads the driver to hurry.
Rahul returns with two coconuts, looks for the yellow chiffon, sees a mere speck disappear.
Anu climbs the two flights of stairs as if running for her life. When her husband opens the door, she looks hard at him. Almost like she expects half of him to have vanished. He is there in full, bald head, thick glasses, paunch and all, but strangely, he seems half engaged elsewhere. Two empty cups are on the table. So it was real after all. Anu is no- not furious- but something else. After a long silence of five minutes, he says dumbly ‘are you back?’ That’s all. Anu is worried that something has happened to her Romeo. Like the hero, or his father suddenly turning paralytic in a movie. She should not have left him and gone. Two empty cups of tea….
Then slowly he says ‘two women had come. One roughly your age, the other much younger. They were doing a survey about conjugal happiness for a magazine. I told them you were out but they said they wanted to talk to me. We got talking. Then I offered to make tea and they accepted. They were so impressed with my thinking and my philosophy of marriage that they have asked me to work with them. They have asked me to share my experiences at a seminar. They have taken my mobile number too.’
Anu is torn. Anu is shattered. Like not two but a dozen china cups. Nooooooo, of course not, she won’t share her husband’s attention with anyone else, let alone his thinking and philosophy, his absolutely nothing. She is his, he is hers, period. Anu sits on the sofa, takes her husband by his hand and seats him next to her. She pats him, she cuddles him and whispers sweet nothings into his ears. ‘the bitches (witches too)’… she looks in the direction of the door and curses. Her husband is like an oxygen starved mountaineer, who has been confronted by two summits-and now embraced by the third and most formidable one.
Does the story end here? Depends on whom you sympathise with. Anu, the electrified wife, her husband hypnotised by the sweet talk of two sexy(he didn’t say so to Anu) women-and now his wife’s never-dreamt-of attention or poor Rahul left with two coconuts in the middle of nowhere.
‘Social engineering for a good cause’ ‘wink’ goes Tara’s diary entry.

I am toothless Tangam. Of course I am not mere toothlessness; I am also shriveled skin, snow white whiffs of hair and walking stick. But toothless is what the world sees me first as. No offence taken-in the age when small things in their twenties get dental implants, a nonagenarian without teeth should not cause great visual shock. It makes people wonder why I am not equipped with at least a pair of old fashioned dentures in the new age of multiple dental possibilities. What I eat and how I digest interests everyone. In my early sixties I did try out a pair of dentures. The first ones fell off unannounced; the second threatened to leave my gums permanently ulcered. So I gave up. Anyways I am a free flowing spirit, free flowing like some brands of table salt, or fizzing champagne. So impediments bother me. I do occasionally miss crisp murukkus and the like but on the whole a toothless mouth is, I find, actually helpful. It wards off gustative temptations and also teaches me to talk less for fear of swallowing syllables. A toothless smile is an asset, like untaxable money. It creates a halo of goodwill and trust around the mouth!

Trust is what you need to survive. Trust the Lord, trust the devil, the astrologer, trust your higher, lower instincts, trust your sons and daughters, trust your strength, trust your shortcuts ….anything. When my son was young he would tell me about the ‘survival of the fittest’ theory. With age I realized that survival skills are not only for animals of the endangered kinds, but also for oldies like me who refuse to exit decently before expiry date-forgive the oxymoron!. Survival is just as much a need for today’s toddlers who have to find a foothold early in life.

I have three sisters; we used to be very close when young. Two are in their eighties. Each one personifies a different survival technique. The last one, who was the most pampered of us four, has emerged a real dictator! At 86 she is fit and firm, in health and disposition. She has built an aura around herself which her sons and their spouses dare not disrespect. Though I do think they murmur behind her back. She has her husband’s henpecked attention 24x7. She is high-strung and she is a perfectionist. Imagine the explosive potential! No wonder, she has high BP and assorted ailments which she carries around like qualifications. The third sister, always a dreamer of sorts, is now in a dreamland of her own. She started losing her memory when she was in her early 80s and now at 88, is a happy baby, diapers et al, a digital camera without a memory card! Though people make sympathetic noises about her, I feel life without memory is not all that pitiable in old age. She does not trouble anyone with nasty innuendoes, does not demand this or that, and is well looked after-for the time being. The eldest sister, two years my senior, constantly made wrong choices in life. Though reasonably intelligent, she decided to abide by the decisions taken by her only son and his wife, when widowed. By 70 she was reduced to a wasted human with no mind of her own, let alone money or power. She was my closest friend and role model in our youth; in old age she is my anti-role model. I know now for sure what I do not want to be.
I was always the unconventional one amongst us four. A Leo with real lioness instincts. Oh! What sense of Me I had, it makes me smile now. My father boosted my artistic abilities and was proud of my accomplishments. Marriage did not lessen the lioness in me, because my husband and the family we raised never argued. Our three sons were a lively lot, devoted to me. As my life stretches behind me, like a ribbon of meandering river, I can relive phases of it. Happy, not so happy, wanting, satisfied….from the figure consciousness and complexes of youth to the relief of shrunken breasts and departed tresses today…My husband died when I was 67; people tututted me and made it sound pitiable. On the contrary, I thought it was perfectly ok. We had led a happy life together, he had done his bit without a frown and now I had my opportunity to take charge of the remaining years. The boys were grown up and married. Two of my sisters taught me what not to be in old age. Next best to losing one’s memory I decided, was to control it. As my sons moved to different cities, I chose to be the itinerant mother, like a sanyasin. Or the Time Share Mother. Or the Equal Division Mother-of attention, of troubles, duties, whatever. Anyways it suits me fine to not be in one place for a long time. Look here, I tell myself, you are a fencesitter now. Or a Humpty Dumpty on the wall. Live each day as if it is your last one. Which means that I adapt myself to the ways of the family I am living with then. My eldest son and his wife, though well past their prime, are well known socialites, page 3 and all( thanks to his ‘well connected’ father in law). When I am there, my diamonds and gold come out of the bank locker. As do my gold rimmed glasses and silks. I rub shoulders, so to say, with the cream of high society there. The respect these inanimate things bring is laughably amazing. I become everyone’s ‘mom’ there, though a toothless one. The glitter and glamour don’t not scare me. I make my presence amply felt simply with my aforesaid smile and nods of approval or disapproval. I flow free like the champagne I am served occasionally. My son’s only son is married and lives in another city with his family and we rarely meet.
My second son’s household is a study in contrast to the first. His wife, a self-styled devotee of a certain godman oozes spirituality, or is she spiritual-plated like gold plated jewellery? Whatever, my life changes there drastically. In go the bling things and I am at my humblest. I am ‘maaji’ to the visitors, who are all paranoid about spirituality. My simple white cottons and beiges, along with my toothlessness entitle me to bless visitors. Some even think I can travel into their future! I just shut my eyes and murmur an inaudible syllable or two. ‘learn your lessons and find your way you ignorant folk’ is what I mean to say but they think I have already resolved their problems! Am I tickled to the ribs! It’s wholesome fun. It is an opportunity to observe people and their petty fears and aspirations and superstitions. My granddaughters are married. Our paths cross if they drop in during my camp there. Like meeting at a traffic junction. I refrain from passing judgments about my family members; I flow easy like Holy Water here.
The third son’s household is nice and messy. Their son and his wife live with them too. And the whole bunch of them go out to work, leaving the house in the care of a full time servant. So for me it is mostly about maintaining a working rapport with the maid and ensuring harmony. And to discourage back-stabbing about the mistress(es) of the house. Occasionally I make a small snack for the little one, my great grandson, returning from school to a motherless house. But I make sure the maid is not distracted from her work because of me. Nor the little one. The grandson and his wife are still much in love and come to coochicoo in my room for lack of privacy elsewhere. ‘smoooooch’ he goes right before my eyes! That’s fine with me. Live your Moments kiddos! I tell them. This house has reasonable neighbours, with oldies like me thrown in for good measure. Here I can dress as I please, sari, pants or even Bermudas. So we meet up in the park, hearing aids, sticks et al, schmooze around and amuse ourselves. The fourth floor grandpa is a charmer you know; the dude flirts endlessly. ‘I wish I had known you 70 years ago’ he says from behind his thick ‘cataract’ glasses. ‘the here and the now is fine too’ I reply (without) batting an eyelid! He reserves my place next to him on the bench and you should see the comforted glee on his face when I place a wrinkled hand on his. Maybe one day he will just pop off with the happy memory of this illicit touch.
Oh yes, here I have some young fans who are fascinated, or is it infatuated, with my free flying spirit -like spirals of cigarette smoke. I tell them not to get stuck with hurts, anger, competitions, disappointments and other sticky emotions like love, life-long gratitude etc. They are happy when I go visiting and share happenings and problems. I also meet up with my greatgrandson’s 5 year old boyfriends in their Nike shoes and colourful bicycles and girlfriends wearing backless dresses and high heeled shoes who vie for my attention.

There I am, toothless Tangam. I have bared myself silly before you. The above is my history, or story, or my practical vedanta. You may call it my CV too. 90+ years of experience in the business of life; like some departmental stores exist in the service of society! I have the ability to work my way around handicaps. Weakening senses are simple facts of life to be lived with. Hearing less and less or seeing dimmer and dimmer is perfectly ok. After all at my age there is nothing much which is new to see or hear or even process. Everything, from the recipes on TV to the new age film songs, to stories and saris, husband-wife feuds, husband-wife affections, the ups and downs in prices, in feelings, hopes, deceit and aspirations of people, everything is a cycle. Governments come and go, storms and cold waves and heat waves too. Superpowers collapse, cities are rased; others readily take their place. Krishna and Rama have not made sensational terrestrial appearances in this century that I have seen roll by. You believe in some funda today and think you have found the path to salvation. Till something new comes to help you fumble and stumble and move on. I have seen plenty of old wine in new bottles. Tasted them too. I have also the ability to work myself around those more troublesome handicaps called emotions. I take care not to catch a flu and I take care not to catch an emotion. I dust my mind and heart clean each night before sleeping. As I said, next best to losing the memory card, is to voluntarily remove it each night! Glamour and godman, gossip and grievances are never allowed a night’s stay in my thoughts. What about the sons you may ask. They have their own salads to garnish and their partners to cosy up to. And my little greatgrandson? We are simply co-survivors at either ends of the spectrum.

I have been called zealous, wily, witty, wicked, whimsical, worldly, fun-loving, femme fatale, astute, affable, artificial, amiable, charming, cheeky, and much more with the rest of the alphabets. Like products in the A to Z stores. A lot of adjectives-and attitude- for a fragile 90+ woman I agree. One fall in the bathroom (where else!) and my CV would go bust like an internet scam .

C’est la vie quoi!

bower bird

So what is my bower bird bringing for me today? Thinks Sandhya fondly as the door bell rings.
And sure enough, in a non descript plastic bag, atul has got her a set of three green scrub pads. Made in China, frowns Sandhya but nonetheless with utter mindfulness, places it on the shelf. ‘got them real cheap in the subway, thought you would need them’ he says gently. Last week it was city map with bus routes and what not and during his other recent outing, atul had bought home the most luscious avocados ever. When she asks how much he paid for them, he simply says ‘ for building up your good cholesterol’.

Not that he was always this way. In the beginning of their marriage, he had no clue. She was an unknown commodity, a typical female with brimming eyes and mood swings. He a down to earth, linear thinking fellow, who knew little more than office, two pairs of smelly socks with holes and a few bachelor friends. No one demanded to be pleased or pampered.
It is her birthday, just 3 months after their marriage. Sandhya has struggled to make a sweet for him as anticipatory response to the gift he is going to bring her. Her day has been happy with calls from her parents and siblings. She is missed and it makes her feel good. And when the bell rings and she opens the door in trepidation, in the new sari gifted by her in laws, Atul hardly notices. He changes, turns on the radio and settles down comfortably with the unread columns of the day’s newspaper. The sweet is untouched. Sandhya is enraged, disappointed, hurt….the situation is new to her. The only male she has known till her marriage, her father, would never have done this. She has always been made to feel like a little princess until her marriage. When Sandhya does not come out of her room, nor the dinner, Atul realizes that something is amiss. And when she splutters out her heartbreak, he is aghast…at himself, at her, at the torture called marriage. He brings her a gaudy looking handbag the next day by way of compensation. She will not open the newspaper wrap. Nor thank him. Atul runs to his close friend who is in splits over the story. ‘you deserve it’ he says most helpfully. Atul must fend for himself.
By the first wedding anniversary, Atul knows the small ‘a’ of conjugal life. Tread carefully as soon as you enter home; measure your words, take minimal risks emotionally. He laboriously writes in his dairy, in capitals that he should get Sandhya something. He can’t think much, is on tenterhooks, so decides to pick up a bouquet from the nearest florist. And just fills the small tag with ‘love, Atul’. Looks at her anxiously as she takes it from him. Is she perhaps a little disappointed? No clue. ‘wish females were easier to fathom’ sighs Atul. He dare not take a peek into the future, stuck as he is with poor imagination, averages means and nil ambition.
Sandhya, on the other hand, is all expectation. Her college friends, married some time soon after her, boast no end in their letters. The latest to marry, just a month back, brags that her husband is president of a local club. That she was invited to a welcome party there soon after marriage. Sandhya wishes she never kept up with her friends. They trouble her already waverly mind. With her typical temper, only recently discovered, she wishes to run away from this man who may never make her feel like a loved wife, leave alone a club president’s wife and of course not a queen-no way! She is homesick, then morning sick and before she has grappled with the issue, is issued a new status in life.
And so on…from newness to more newness, between hurts small and big, clumsinesses galore Atul and Sandhya pull along. No, she does not run away from him; she gets busy with motherhood. He with promotions. If there are still unresolved matters between them, they are conveniently forgotten under the living room carpet.
And now, umm…he has suddenly turned bower bird. Sandhya had read about this bird in the National Geographic and had graphic visions of it.‘The most notable characteristic of bowerbirds is their extraordinarily complex courtship and mating behaviour, where males build a bower to attract mates. There are two main types of bowers. bowers that are constructed by placing sticks around a sapling, in some species these bowers have a hut-like roof. The other major bower building bird builds an avenue type bower made of two walls of vertically placed sticks. In and around the bower the male places a variety of brightly colored objects he has collected. These objects — usually different among each species — may include hundreds of shells, leaves, flowers, feathers, stones, berries, and even discarded plastic items, coins, nails, rifle shells, or pieces of glass. The males spend hours arranging this collection. Several studies of different species have shown that colors of decorations males use on their bowers match the preferences of females.’ Sandhya had shared the excitement of this information with Atul during their honeymoon; he hardly seemed impressed.
And, while her friend’s husband has now become regional chief of god knows what and what, Sandhya is content to be a bower bird’s mate.‘A tad late in the day’ Sandhya smiles to herself thinking that he does not need to imitate a bird any more-they have had their hearty share of the procreative business without hassles or regrets. Not flamboyantly, passionately but yes…it has been fun! But strangely his instinct to bring her things has become more pronounced with the passage of time. The other day, he got home 3 red roses, dew fresh for a change, unlike the first anniversary fiasco! A 1 foot tall, dyed-in-blue paper mache Krishna entered their home one day, all smiling. Sandhya, the non-believer, took a deep breath, before placing him carefully in the puja room. A decade ago she would have thrown a tantrum and thrown the statue. She has suspended the ‘why’s and the ‘when’s’ from her life. She may never own a Solitaire pendant in her life…it’s ok. She has somewhat mastered the easy level sudoku puzzles from the second hand book he bought her from a pavement vendor. And she has mastered overlooking or analyzing his choices and his motivation. She does not look at the ghastly flowers in the sari that came one evening with him-just like that. She simply accepted it. She accepts him just as simply. He is incapable of higher thinking. He will never be the intellectual companion she had longed for once upon a time. She will never have philosophical discussions with him like with her father. He will not unravel the mysteries of afterlife for her. Why, he may not even take her to Paris some day…Never mind. He is kind. He is gentle. For his part, from plumping into the sofa and turning on the TV, Atul has come some way-comes to the kitchen where Sandhya is making his evening tea; he asks her how her day has been. And yes he genuinely appreciates her creative bursts- overlooking the creative busts-in the oven, the microwave and the tandoor.
It is their 38th wedding anniversary. Atul the baldie, with a lone comic tuft of white hair, a paunch and a spot of arthritis. Sandhya, salt and pepper, real teeth, mind fresh as ever. Atul has got her a gold covering necklace with (artificial) red stones. Could have been ruby or garnet, sigh…but still, it looks pretty on her filled up figure. The ghastly floral saris are gone and she is wearing a figure hugging black cotton sari. ‘Quite fetching really’ says Atul as he plants a kiss on her cheek. She has made a simple kheer-the years of culinary experimentations are over. They settle down on the sofa, side by side. Talk things, talk shop, talk children, talk grandchildren.
Sandhya is in pain. Writhing, blinding, searing pain. 3 weeks to live is what she overheard the doctor say. 3 weeeeeeks? What will I do? How will I bear it? Tears flow pitter, patter. She is in knots. She is lost. In the midst of the tsunami she hears a gentle voice- Instead of dreading Death for oneself and for the loved ones, why not be in preparedness for it? Along with a will for children, why not make a will for oneself, putting things in order, clearing emotional dues, vacuum-cleaning the mind and soul, not leaving behind stifled, dependent, unhappy souls... Death is like a Test, much like what we faced as school kids. Sometimes it is a Surprise Test, when a life ends-just like that, like a movie. No follow-ups, no repeats! At other times, it is an elaborate Final Exam- a deposed leader awaiting the hangman’s noose next Monday, a cancer patient with three months to live…how terrible! Or is it?? Doesn’t it give one a chance to better prepare for the Exam, recapitulate the known, critically examine it and weed out what Life has proved wrong? This is a Test which no one can write with borrowed wisdom and memory!’
Atul the mediocre thinker had said these words when she had been intimidated by the thought of Death. She had barely smiled, caught as she was in the fear of losing her father. She had not fathomed the depth of the words till today. From getting her cheap things of fancy, her bower bird had taken a great flight of wisdom, when, how? This piece of enlightenment was his last offering to her. Suddenly she understood. Looks like he practiced what he had preached; his mind was vacuum cleaned at all times, his offerings to her were an atonement for all that he could not give her. Bower bird…had he, in fact, been mimicking the bower bird, just because she had a fancy for its ways? His personal will was made that day he ran to his friend in distress. With every gift he had got her, he was more and more at peace. No wonder, when the Surprise Test came a year ago, he passed in flying colours!!

‘The smart selfish bugger! What of me now?’ wails Sandhya. But in all fairness, he had shown her the way. Three weeks? That’s ALL I have to tie up loose ends, to wind up, to unwind, to make peace, to ….look beneath the living room carpet!