Born free

Born on 1^st July 1939, he would have been 82 today. If he was born on 1st July 1939.

Instead, if we were to go by the date when his birthday was ‘officiated’ and ‘celebrated’ for the first time, then he’d be 20…only 20.

The first time he ‘celebrated’ his birthday was on 1 of July, 2001. The date of his retirement.

He had served the college for nearly 4 decades and given his sweat and blood to it.

A grand send-off was arranged. My mum and I were representing his family (my brother couldn't attend due to end of year exams) . However, from the moment I stepped into the college, I realised that we were but a very small part of the very large family he had built. We were the most important part mind you, but a very small one indeed.

Speeches were made, garlands were adorned, bouquets were handed and presents given. Finally, just when he thought that was that, an old friend and colleague walked in with a cake – a large sponge cake covered in white icing and yellow butter-cream roses. Everyone began singing ‘Happy birthday to you’ in unison, and the surprise and happiness that filled his face were un-missable.

And that was the very first time that his birthday was celebrated.

Having lost his mother at a tender age of six, no one ever knew when his birthday was. His three sisters were born on certain major or minor Hindu festivals making it a convenient coincidence. (No one knows whether it was in fact convenience or coincidence, but the girls had specific days to hold on to. Perhaps, it was girls being girls…but not this man).

As a child, I would often ask my dad when his birthday was. Frustratingly, he would give me three, sometimes four dates between February and August, including 1^st July, which was the date on his matriculation certificate. He would joke 'I am born free'..

While not knowing ones’ own birthday was a great topic of entertainment & frustration for me, it wasn’t until this cake cutting ceremony in 2001, that I realised that he missed having his own day. As he started to cut the cake, his eyes moistened and he mumbled in a trembling voice … “this is the first time I am cutting a cake for myself”.

And thus, 1^st of July became his ‘real birthday’. And the annual celebrations began.

We celebrated his birthday in Singapore, US and UK; with his family, his sister, his nephews and nieces, his grand-children, his friends, his colleagues; their families, their friends and their colleagues….all of whom were part of his big family.

He’d be 82 today. And boy, I miss him! There are thousand things I miss about him; and miss him for and of course, I miss him in his entirety. But, if there is one thing I miss the most, is our long chats…the ’gappa’ as he called them.. over long distance calls, on walks, during car drives, on park benches, on the sofa, in the garden, even perched up on someone’s compound wall in London, because he was too tired of walking!

I miss those ‘gappas’ .. in Hyderabad, in Singapore, in London, in Seattle, in Paris.

Those ‘gappas’ about politics, nationalism, education, life, society, history, economics, commerce, religion, philosophy, literature, technology, social-media, cinema, names of new heroes and heroines (he took particular interest in knowing all their names and watching all the new movies because he thought it kept him young)

I miss having that one person, with whom you could talk about anything…for hours! I know many people cannot boast of having such a person in their lives, but I did…

                    ...and he would listen; and engage; and debate; and deliberate; and persuade; and disagree; and argue; and even fight…

                    …but never humiliate; or demean; or belittle; or taunt; or patronise, or ridicule, or mock.

At the end of every session, I would always come out as a wiser, calmer, and a better person…

…and yet at the end of every session, HE would say, “really, I enjoyed our talk Palla, thank you for that”!

Thank YOU, Appaji! Thank YOU! For always being the giver...

...for thanking others for what they took from you....your knowledge, your wisdom, your time, your hard work, your money, your happiness, your laughter.. 

..and never wanting anything in return. Thank you!

And happy 20^th birthday!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

50-50

"WE ARE ALWAYS 50-50", he shouted from the living room.

"We are NEVER 50-50", I shouted back from the kitchen.

"But.... it has ALWAYS been 50-50 between us?" he insisted.

"Not really....NO!", I persisted.

"But it really HAS always been 50-50 with US....always".....he appealed.

I hobbled into the living room, my sight obscured by the load I was trying to balance.

"It never WAS...it never WILL BE"...I maintained.

..disappointment filtered his face... his gaze drifted...he was hurt.

The hurt was tangible..

..."it's not of YOUR making,

... it's GENERATIONS of moulding, 

..it's the gender GAP,

.. it's ME..

..as much as it's you,

...it's the SYSTEM,

... I added hurriedly.

His gaze picked up once again and held mine..
Our eyes smiled...a knowing smile that the other won't concede..

We shared a moment..

...a moment of mutual sizing-up
...a moment of mutual disagreement
...a moment of mutual appreciation (of the other's ignorance)
...a moment of mutual respect (of the other's obstinance)

..and then..

He reclined back into his 'match of the day' on TV
And I returned to the warmth of folding fresh laundry.

REACTIONS

On a crisp sunny afternoon in 2009.

Here I was,  retching bile into the toilet. I knew people vomit at the sight of something disturbing or at a repulsive smell, but I never really imagined that the brain would read a piece of ‘information’ as being so unsafe to the body that it triggered a reaction such as this. And here I was emptying my putrid gut into the stark white commode. The truth had hit me. It felt like that cold slap across your cheek that numbs the pain for the first few seconds, before you begin to realise the sensation of pain.

I was thought to pursue knowledge which as they say, is beauty.  But beware, not all knowledge is beauty. When you are privy to ugly and sickening knowledge, it is far from beautiful. It is ugly and sick.

How had I ended up in this mire? Why me, why us, why them? Is this actually happening? Thoughts and questions exploded in my head and as the water flushed down the toilet, it felt like I was being sucked into the whirling vortex.  I wanted to vanish into its depths of blissful darkness too.....but at the same time, I knew too well that, I wouldn’t ever want that wish to come true.  To vanish and be gone would have been utopic.  But asking for that would be unfair because, as much as I hate to admit, I was the least affected in all this.  Yes, the shock hit me hard, but for the two others in adjacent room, it would have felt like…..…. …like….

……………………well, I don’t know what it felt like for them really!

They were frozen in a daze. Their brains hadn’t reacted the way mine had. Their brains did not process the information as being hazardous and they weren’t rushing toward sinks and bowls.  This was perhaps the culmination of the years of angst, confusion, disgust and helplessness. And rather than a revolting effect, they had been relatively calm.

Of course, they were furious, disgusted and dejected at the same time. There was screaming, crying, trembling, shouting, questioning and all the elaborate gesturing that comes with it. They had felt betrayed, deprived and hurt. Their ‘hero’, their ‘protector’, their ‘inspiration’ had turned out to be an illusion.

 But it seemed to me that their energies were directed more towards the culmination.  At that moment, they had probably attained that elusive state of enlightenment, where one gets to know that they were correct all through…that their doubts and fears were not, in fact, unfounded. The feeling of finding that lost nail with which, you have been waiting, to shut the coffin.They weren’t shocked. They were shaken …..and who wouldn’t be. A piece of information such as this would make any rock shudder….

……………..but then would it?

……….for in the same room was another person who remained surprisingly calm. Even at this juncture, where for the rest of us the axes on which our lives rotate had permanently shifted, this person seemed completely at peace.  May be the strength came from the fact that this was the person controlling the ‘knowledge’….revealing fragments of information exactly when they had the potential to make full impact.

I can probably never ever begin to understand this enigma, incarnated as a human.  Years of grooming must wipe out basic sensitivities from an individual. The one that had suffered and harboured the doubts for years had, eventually on knowing the truth, decided to bury it back into those abysmal depths. The intention may have been never to reveal the truth, perhaps even to forget the truth… until of course the (un)fortunate turn of events decided otherwise.

It was probably an extremely relaxing moment for this person, to be able to unfold the layers of pretence and falsehood that were used to bury the truth and finally unfurl the dark secrets out in the open for others to take charge. A catharsis!

'One' situation.....'different' REACTIONS.

 

Tech .. NO!

I have been a late comer on Orkut, on Face book and on Twitter. I have been slow in adopting and adapting to technology and slower still in getting all starry-eyed about gizmos. Talk to me about the latest mobiles in the market, new age gaming consols, poking or pinching on social networking sites…I am not your audience.

I do feel sometimes that I will be left behind very quickly and people around me will be talking stuff that will remind me of the Sin ø Cos ø days in school or worst still the Econometrics classes in college which they said were important but kept me wondering if they are required to lead a normal life. I do know however that this is different.

My problem is that I am a thinker.  I don’t have to sit like Rodin’s ‘Thinking Man’ to do the thinking..I can do it anywhere, any time. And that is the problem really. I get lost.

We would be barely 5 minutes in a “let me update you” lesson by a well meaning friend or ‘you need to know this’ session by my frustrated husband and I am lost. I am lost thinking about something that came up in the discussion and while am pretty good at putting up a face as if I am absorbing every piece of techno-jargon being bombarded at me..in reality I would have turned my mental jammer on and other than the sound of people talking..I am not listening at all.

“You M-O-R-O-N”.. my brother says.

I need help. I need to get into some kind of rehab to make me more acceptable in society. My parents told me I have to be honest, polite, wise, and friendly, have good manners, study well etc etc to be accepted by society. This was in the 80’s. And I did everything to become the quintessential good being that they coached me to be.

Now I am being told that if I do not adapt to the changes that Technology brings forth then all that I have toiled for in the last 30 years to become acceptable in the society will be in vain.

I need help. I need rehab. I need someone to tune my mind so that I not only understand the techno-babble but also shut my brain from deliberating on useless issues….

…issues like how long will it be before this super-human looking and sounding app is replaced by a super-duper human looking and sounding app.

..issues like how many lives can be changed if even 1% of the money we spend on these devises gets siphoned to the poorer countries.

I need help to shut down my system to prevent it from wondering how much plastic is added to planet earth every time a new technology makes existing gadgets obsolete!

I hear someone saying... "stop it - YOU   M-O-R-O-N!!!"wondering how much plastic is added to the earth everytime a new technology makes existing gadgets obsolete wondering how much plastic is added to the earth everytime a new technology makes existing gadgets obsolete

Caught!!! in darkness.

My mom grew up in a small but a famous and important town called Dharwad in Karnataka. As a criminal lawyer her father was well renowned and had established a sound reputation for himself. He was known for his professional abilities. For the obvious benefits of association, people from all walks of life had liked to be known to him. Doctors, businessmen, professors, theatre owners, shopkeepers, policemen, - everybody knew him and did little favours to remain in his good books. You never know when you would need a criminal lawyer!!

My mother, the 5th of 7 siblings and the last among daughters, was quite liked by her father. She shared a wonderful rapport with him, did all his daily chores, and helped him in his office work that was perched up on the first-floor of the giant house. She shared a lovely rapport with her brothers as well both of whom were now rapidly establishing themselves in their legal and banking careers respectively. Their new found success and social standing made them quite popular within the small town as well and that added to the list of people who wanted to be known to this family.

It was one of these days when my mother with her friends had planned to go to a Hindi movie in a theatre close by. Most of my family members have been movie buffs since generations and my mother was not unlike them. There had never been a restriction on watching movies and she would be ‘up to date’ with the latest movie in town. So this was just another plan. But as my mother came home she realised very soon that she couldn’t make it to the movie because something else was being planned for at home. She quickly went to her friend’s house who lived next doors to inform her of the situation hoping that she could slip herself out of the plan.

But you know how it is when a bunch of girls have planned for a movie or a day out. It’s generally so perfect and so involved that it is almost impossible to escape it once you have committed to it. So as expected, her friends cajoled her, requested her and finally threatened her into submission

But she knew it would be impossible for her to get permission from home for a movie on that day. What ever was planned at home was definitely more important than a movie. So for the first time in her movie watching career, my mother had to contemplate the idea of lying to her family.

She knew it would be difficult to lie in the first place to people who did not mind her watching movies unlike the parents of most of her friends. And it would be disastrous if she would bee seen by some one in the theatre and the news would trickle down to her dad or her brothers.

But she had committed to her friends and was helpless. She was scared but also exited. The prospect of the adventure filled her with an enthusiasm and a confidence, new to her. All she now needed was an alibi. With a little creative thinking, she came out with one, and she had her whole bunch of friends to back her with it, so she felt less intimidated. She told her parents that there was an important event being planned in college and she, being one of the few enterprising ones, was requested to attend a ‘student-teacher’ meeting at the college. Her folks bought the story and she backed it up with some preparations and some planned visits by her friends at designated times to give her family the feeling that they were all in it together.

By the next morning, she was confidant of her plan and knew that with a little cover by her friends when entering and exiting the theatre, everything would be just fine. And they did just that.
They did run into Radhakka, the lady constable on duty at the theatre who knew my mom as “Vakil ara magulu”, the advocate’s daughter, and acknowledged her presence with a large grin. However she was no threat. Once inside the darkness of the theatre, my mother, though with a feeble pang of fear and guilt, told herself that she had pulled it off.

It was a small town and everyone knew everyone else.

In about 40 minutes from the movies start, the wide 70 mm screen suddenly flickered out and the theatre plunged into darkness. The quintessential power failure led to hooting, whistling and booing by the crowd. This was not new for the girls and they knew that it would take about 15 -20 minutes till the power supply could be resumed and they began chatting among themselves.

The movie was a popular one and the hero, a hit with the local people. The delay in resuming the movie stirred up another bunch of college boys in a corner who began to make trouble by throwing paper balls at the screen and passing intelligent and funny comments about the theatre administration which amused the rest of the crowd who joined in and the noise began too grow. The authorities knew that if the hall continued to be left in darkness, the fun would soon change course to vandalism.

Suddenly in the dark hall a small but bright light emerged from the door. It was a small hall and the light was just enough for people to realise that someone had brought in a ‘Petromax’ gas lantern. As always and as expected, the crowd suddenly fell silent and began to get back to their seats. The girls were relieved too, for the nuisance would now be under control and they could enjoy the rest of the movie which would resume sooner or later.

The light kept moving through the crowd. It was a funny play of light as it momentarily illuminated a leg here, a hand there, a head turned to talk, or a face making ‘a face’. As the girls followed the light and enjoyed the flashes and shadows that it cast on people, my mother suddenly had a strange fear. A woman’s intuition told her that the light was approaching her. As she concentrated on the silhouette she could make out that it was a woman, in boots and a cap and before she had time to think, she knew what was coming.

Radhakka, the lady constable taking oversized steps reached the row in which my mother and her friends were seated, checked for the exact seat where my mother sat, squeezed her heavy self through the tightly packed rows and stamping others feet she went straight to my mother, rested the lantern on the arm rest of her seat and with one hand still holding the lantern, gleefully said to my mom, “with me on duty at the theatre, I would not permit any form of in-convince caused to “Vakil ara magalu”.

With rest of the theatre dark, and the lantern next to my mother, her face was the only thing visible to all.

It was a small town and everyone knew everyone else.

The CORE.

In the last 6 months, I have seen every possible kind of precipitation. Rain, Sleet, Hail, Snow, Frost, Fog, Mist, Vapor and just wet, cold damp!

In the city where I come from, Hyderabad - an arid, dry part in the southern India, Rain, in it’s one form, is celebrated!

After the torrid summer characterised by temperatures soaring to 45 degree centigrade, hot winds blowing even through the dark nights, the pouring sweat that laminates your clothes bodies together, the urge to just lying flat on the floor under a whirring fan, when you are so drained of your salts that you are tired of wiping the sweat off your face because it just makes no difference, the wet towels that my mother would wrap around herself, that would dry up in just over 3 minutes, the silence on the roads.......

...after all this, when the first RAINS come, it’s more than a reason to celebrate. A good rain brings joy, music, celebration and even reverence (many gods are silently thanked). Schools get shut so that the kids can enjoy the first rains, meetings postponed, appointments not cared for, and trips cancelled. No one wants to miss the Rain, for if they do then they might miss it for a long time to come.

Shift scene. ..Glasgow, Scotland.

From the time I have landed here, my down- feather jacket has become second skin to me. Of course between the first and the second skins, are another four layers of  thermals, t-shirts, cardigans and jumpers. Despite this, at any give point of time, I have felt one layer short of comfort. People here have different kinds of clothing and footwear to brave different forms of..the same RAIN!

I have never seen so much rain, or so much water for that matter, in all my life. Well, so far at least! The much hated sun in Hyderabad, has become a thing of the past, and I hate myself for hating the sun then. Nonetheless, people here are as exited by the little hide and seek game of the sun as we would be, with the play of the rain back home. The same energies and excitement are shared by people here for the intermittent deliverance that sunshine brings them.

But again, when I see people here getting indoors and draw the curtains when it gets a little too bright or warm, I wonder why they do it? It is hardly warm yet!!

And then I realise.. that its meant to be this way! I may hate the sunshine and might have enjoyed RAIN, and people here may be sick of the rain and dampness and welcome the SUN.  But in perspective, we are still comfortable with what we are used to, what we are essentially made of and brought up with ....that, which is our core. I still prefer the hot Sun and they are more comfortable with the incessant Rains.

Doesn’t it all boil down to exactly this? We are always drawn towards/ impressed by/ motivated to be someone else. But when we actually get there, we know it is not all rosy. And that is when we begin to miss the coarse comfort of homespun and wish to be back again…back to what we are …. at 'THE CORE'.

Uncommon Cense

Just a thought...1!

On a sunny morning in March of 1996, Lord Ganesha, across Indian temples started to guzzle milk by the litres. It was believed that Ganesha, being the most popular of the zillions of Indian gods, was happy with the country and its people, and would shower his blessings on any one who fed him milk that day!

People, young and small, rich and poor, atheists and theists, rushed to the nearest temple to see the miracle. Most were exited by the prospect of getting to please their favourite god, some others just went in so they could not be left out of the 'when -I went - to- the- temple- with- a bowl -of-milk....' discussions that would last well into the next couple of weeks, while the last few sceptics pitched in to find the hidden conspiracy behind it all.

The frenzy resulted in a demand - supply gap for milk that very quickly led to an unprecedented inflation in its price, that skyrocketed to as much as Rs 50 a litre form a mere Rs 9.

Weather divine or human, the intervention was well orchestrated to last just over a day.

Just a thought…

Would we have fed Ganesha with milk, if he had continued to shower his blessings over us well beyond a day?

Will people continue to believe in their God, if He actually begins to accept all their offerings??