For the love of writing

At the end of it all, when I think about the reasons why I love this little space of mine, it boils down to just that. The love of writing. The joy in seeing words form in my mind and find their way to the keyboard and then on to this nice little template on blogspot.

Admittedly, 2016 has come and gone and I have very little to show for it. I used moodle a fair bit for my course and even that was not with the same degree of enthusiasm as usual. Aside from that, I wrote a number of articles of a general nature for The Wipro Chennai Marathon's public outreach. The most fun I had was when I wrote for our magazine The Rundown. Here have a look at something I recently put together, just some irreverent stuff in the context of The Wipro Chennai Marathon.

From The Rundown, Dec 2016 Edition

I like my alter-ego Maami Thayir Saadam, or MTS. She has gotten around to saying things that I wouldn't have said as Preeti, or KPBM, for that matter. But it's a tag team effort with the one and only ludwig for the column (not that he is a Maami, though he could be I suppose!) and so it may be that we have to fight it out for our space there at some stage, we'll see!

Meanwhile, having finished with the myriad responsibilities of 2016, which left me breathless and with barely a minute of time for myself, I am glad to be back here, doing what I like to do on a Saturday evening! (Having spent Friday evening putting together a little space for my course, over here). 

A page for my current course

I am also determinedly attending to my twitter and facebook handles, I won't repeat what I said over there about the annual pilgrimage to the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon, go see it over there, instead! 

Oh I suppose I will do this. The child, monster, as it was referred to earlier times, does occasionally use the opportunity to diss me in public, on her own blog, at The One Blog To Rule Them All  as she likes to call it. Do have a peek and give her some back pats once in a while. I do rue the day I set up the page for her occasionally, as my name is dragged through mud, but I guess it's all a part of the joy of motherhood! 

Till later then. 

Practically a God, or, The God of Washing

I wake up every morning and religiously offer my prayer to the toothbrush motor god. Sure, he is a minor god, an almost dispensable god. But he can whirr at the press of a button, and my teeth feel squeaky clean after he is done with them. For that, I am thankful to him, and offer him prayers. My next step is in the kitchen. Its early morning, the sky still dark outside, the birds quietly stretching out their wings and stifling yawns. The aquaguard water-purifier god awaits her turn. Cool, sweet, clean, non-germy water into my bottle, and really, my cup runs over with joy, and reverence. The red button on the stove to automatically produce fire, without the mess of matches or lighters, next up.

Thus into the day I plunge, offering my thanks and prayers to the various major gods and minor deities that hold me up, give me succour, make me happy. The purr of the car coming alive when I tuck in the ignition key and turn it; the squeaky pulsing noise of the lift making its way up to fetch me to my almost heavenly abode; the gush of the warm soothing water out of the tap for my bath; these are the sounds that assure me that god is with me.

The most favourite of all is the boxy, sturdy, gurgling god I have in the back-yard. Tut I flip the switch. Ka-Chak I open the door. I tumble in an assortment of sweaty, nasty clothes. Kirrrrk I turn the dial. Done. Within seconds the water fills in with a whoosh. The detergent gets sucked in, and an hour later, its a miracle! The clothes are washed. What a practical god! I am absolutely thankful to this god, my survival in his absence is doubtful. Yes, you will question how come I exchanged my favourite god? Come on, if an idol in a temple breaks don’t we surreptitiously, in the cover of the night, replace it with an unbroken one? Don’t we? If my washing god broke is it not my duty to send him away and replace him with another?

Yes now I know you question my piety, my dedication to my gods, possibly even my religion which has a current followership of one. What kind of religion permits replacement of gods? Who goes around calling mortal things gods? Who allowed things created by (wo)man to become gods? But hold on right there. I do. When the companion to the washing god, the dryer goddess was created, I went into paroxysms of joy. So what if it was a trifle ugly? Pristinely white, with a strength that belied both its gender and weight, this goddess was really something else. You would probably find it difficult to understand.

The general populace will only come close to understanding my beliefs when they think of a computer. The male, desktop version, and the female, laptop version. With their various companions. Rama, Sita, with their Hanuman and Vali and Sugreeva. Could you survive without them? What if I took away the mouse for a few days? Huh? The printer? The CD-ROM? Cannot survive? Thought so. Not having god in your everyday life is living the life of a pagan, is being doomed to circle the earth in the eternal cycle of life and death and re-birth. The sleek new desktop in my study, my bright blue laptop in my lap, the laser printer whose price has been steadily falling, making him affordable to one and all, the mouse, the keyboard, the data-card, the DVD-RW, the billions of bytes of RAM, I bow to you.

Today I celebrate the invention of a new god. A god with several replaceable arms, legs, and sundry other parts. You give him your dirty dishes. Now please do not complain about maintaining purity and not bringing your half-eaten vessels near god. Imagine the situation where you give your impure half-eaten vessels, and god himself, applying all the necessary rules, purifies them for you. Oh Dishwasher God! Where were you all these years?

Jeans

As a parent, I ask myself, what is it I want for my children? Do I want them to be doctors, engineers, scientists, the Prime Minister perhaps? Do I want them to be happy, contended, pot-bellied, world-citizens? Do I want for them all the riches they can possibly ever desire, a large house with five bedrooms, all with attached bathrooms, all decorously made up in leather, and red brocade curtains, and maroon shit-pots with their own personally matched wash-basins? What is it I want, I ask myself.

Then I glance at my husband. He has donned a suit for the occasion. He looks preoccupied with trying to figure out how to work the lock on the suitcase. I glance at the youngest one on my lap. Its nose has a tendency to run. I wipe it with the end of my pallu. It leaves behind a yellow trail, creating a new pattern on my sari.

I close my eyes for a second. Imagine myself in Kashmir, the flower-laden garden of my dreams, the place I transport myself to, mentally smoothening out all the edges to curves, distilling all the emotions so I am left with nothing but happy memories and anticipations. I hear a thud, and the eyes open out. The husband has gotten frustrated with the lock and dropped it down. The child has started mewling a little. I am back in the present.

It is time now, time to go in to the children's room, gather them together, and head over to the airport for the flight. What is it I want for my children? The question is refusing to go away. I walk in to their room, the little one on my hips. The room is chaos. Toys, mostly cars, are everywhere. I see a pizza box, crumbs around it. The boys have a strong aversion to hygiene. My mother would have been appalled to see a room look like this. I am more open-minded. And less energetic. I catch the eldest by his ear and yell, "I want you in your clothes and out of the door in five minutes." They show a tendency to complain. I yell like a wild animal, but inside, I am calm, the question still in my head, my palms protecting the little one's unstable neck.

They obey, for a change. They are out of their room and running to don their sandals in no time at all. In fact, I am the one who is late, my last minute chores of shutting off the gas, the water taps, the windows, the cupboards, take longer than I anticipate. The husband has that look on his face. The boys are sniggering, as I come out of the last room. I glance at all of them. I look down at their legs. The answer comes to me in a flash. What I want most of all for my platoon of children is - PANTS! Their ankles are showing, they look really pathetic. So what if they have omitted to bathe, their finger nails have not been cut in ages, their toes have gunk between them? If I can only buy them shiny new pants...Jeans perhaps?

BYOB

Setting: Suburban Mumbai

Occasion: Weekend Party

It is suburban Mumbai, indeed. A gang of middle-aged friends are calling each other on the phone.

“Did you hear about it? Were you invited?” she asks.

“Oh yeah, of course, but something strange about it na?” her friend answers.

“What does it mean anyway? I really fail to understand”

“Oh that, I just asked her directly, you know, no shame in that. She claims that it means Bring Your Own Booze. What kind of party is that?”

“That’s ridiculous, what use is the host if we have to bring the booze ourselves..”

“Hey dude, did you hear about that, BYOB thing”

“Yeah sure, thought it would be fun, what do you think?”

“I don’t know, I feel OK about it, but my wife is quite upset”

“In a way it seems like a let down, you know, I don’t know what they are thinking, does it mean they really will not have anything to drink, that each of us walks in with our own thing?”

“By the way do we need to bring our own food as well?”

“That’s funny, I hope it does not come to that! In that case I might as well stay put at home”

“What about ice?”

“I think three months away in the US does not allow people to come and impose on others like this, if you want to host a party, host one the proper way, that’s what I say”

“Absolutely.”

The day of the much-talked about party arrives. The hosts are seen looking relaxed and gliding around the room, well-dressed, smiling.

A lady guest is sweating profusely as she oversees her contribution – a large dish of Aviyal, a southern dish with a distinct flavour of coconuts and curd (the label reads, helpfully). She has brought the cook and a maid, just in case there are emergency repairs to be made. The dish contrasts strongly with the food provided by the hosts, but our lady seems to be oblivious to this.

A couple arrive late, they look harried. They have driven in a large car, large enough to accommodate the full course meal they have had catered. They also contribute three waiters dressed equally in white and black, with red bow-ties. The waiters hang around for a few minutes, find that no one particularly is expecting anything from them, and go around to the back, loosen their ties and sit around, smoking and talking desultorily.

A husband-wife pair that have arrived earlier, with a bottle of expensive wine (for themselves to sip at), and a bouquet of flowers (because the store was selling it), look at all the hungama, and exit furtively, coming back a half hour later laden with sweets of every description. A casual observer may be tempted to think that the sweet-shop had to close for the day after their visit.

Everyone eats too much, everyone is dissatisfied at the end of it. Even the extraordinarily large amount of alcohol that is consumed does nothing to improve the mood. Factions are quickly formed based on who eats what and comments flit back and forth, with ill-concealed jealousy. The original food of the party goes unnoticed amid the fanfare of the guest’s contributions. A huge amount of food goes to waste. The hired helpers laugh secretly at their employers, eat to their heart’s content, and go home when they feel sure no one will miss them.

Thus the concept of Bring Your Own Anything met its untimely death in Mumbai, creating in its wake an enormous amount of excitement, resentment, and malicious gossip (even more than usual). In the next party, the hosts felt obliged, sort of to get people back in the mood for parties after the BYOB disaster, to give personalized napkins, cameras, and make-up kits in addition to food, wine, drinks, snacks, and so on of every description under the sun.

Paper Cuts

You have children visiting you. You feel the urge to engage them in something, feel the urge to connect to them. They are crouched on the ground. You step in between them. They seem to be arguing quietly, in an alien (as in American) tongue. You see the book. You light up, its origami. You are in the zone. Or, rather, they are in your zone.

Transported to childhood again. The boy could well be his uncle, your cousin. The girl, well a visiting friend perhaps, or that imaginary one even. You, you are yourself, several kilos lighter, eons and eons younger. The floor is a nice red-oxide (whatever) and not this fake Italian marble. The papers are papers though the scissors are a trifle sharper. Your need for cleanliness is markedly more now than then, but then you are also more efficient at clean-up.

Fifty-six hours later, you have completely exhaustively finished one of the two books. You have identified errors in the instructions. You have imparted knowledge about the mountain, the valley, the reverse folds. Your team has been successful in mastering the fish, the swan, the white-faced monkey, even the seagull. You are contemplating actually using the wallet. Your mother is in paroxysms again over the amount of cut paper on the floor. You have Karan Johar peering from the fish, Sanjay Dutt from the swan. The other book is inviting, it even has a section on three-dimensional models. But then adulthood kicks in, you remember your three-year old, grocery shopping, office.

You go on out on a high note with the fully mastered cube. The children have a tendency to use cello-tape to strengthen their models. You are a purist. Paper, maybe occasionally scissors. No gum or tape. The cube, with its perfect four-fold symmetry (during folding), is a hit. You have connected. They are to leave soon, a part of you will go with them. But a part will wait here, perhaps for their children, some rainy afternoon twenty years out.

Brown Wrapping Paper

It is late night. You are awake, almost widely awake. There are specific reasons, of course, why you are indulging in this thing here, giving yourself up to thoughts. But do those reasons matter? In the dull light of the time when the city is finally, exhaustedly, asleep, you turn to your childhood, with its rich store of memories.

The time is summer, as always, that time just before the start of the school year. You have spent two months in idle tomfoolery, by the stern looks on the adult’s faces, you will learn to regret this. A summer spent in playing, catching up with friends, mastering cycling without holding the handlebars, is a summer that is never going to come back, their eyes tell you. Your heart knows better, of course.

Clutching a bunch of rupees in your hand, you turn store-ward. You glance down at the money every few seconds, noticing suspicious (male) eyes looking at you and recalling anecdotes involving small children, money, and strangers, and Pinocchio. The store-front is small, the back a bit more spacious. It takes fifteen minutes to catch the guys attention. Meanwhile you practice your piece. But still, the words come out all in a blur. He is unconcerned. He pulls out a random assortment of notebooks, drawing books, pencils, and this year’s special treat, a geometry box. You are sweating by the time you check his math, pay him his due, and, proudly clutching a plastic bag full of fresh books, and a roll of brown wrapping paper, head back home.

At home, you are inclined to dig in immediately into the bag. You retire to your room. You find your sibling there, a look of scorn on her face. She is too old to bother with brown wrapping paper. She is too normal to understand your excitement over notebooks. You gulp down your enthusiasm, casually place the loot in your bookshelf, and head out, presumably to eat a snack, but actually to dig at earthworms in the garden.

A half hour later you are back. She is gone, out to a friend’s house perhaps. She is bound to come back laden with library books to read. The last week when such a thing can be done without incurring wrath of parents. You arrange a pair of scissors, last year’s left-over sticker labels, cello-tape, a ruler, and start your operation. Measuring, cutting, creasing. You have now converged on to one method of wrapping. The small cut edge to be tucked into the board of the book, and then the whole flap folded over. You are proficient, you are efficient, you are fast. Before you know it, you have a pile of neatly wrapped books ready to be labeled.

You have only pondered for a minute over the ‘rough’ note book. Does it need a nice brown wrapper? Will not newspaper do? You throw caution to the wind and use a brown one. You immediately write down the expansion of (a+b)² in the book, excitement coursing through your veins. Next, you open out the geometry box, admire the small pencil that is part of the set, sharpen it quickly, and insert it into the hole in the compass. You poke the point in and make a circle. Your hand slips and it comes out all messy. Oh well! That’s what they are going to teach this year, you say to yourself, arranging everything neatly in the shelf.

************************************************************************

The Dance

Do you think they know? She wondered as she lay down, her head throbbing, all the various conversations swirling inside. Know what, she smiled as she asked herself. Know that, underneath this smiling face, I hide so much pain? She almost laughed out loud as she realized how melodramatic that sounded. No, not pain, but happiness, so much happiness, do they know? She got herself in a twist now, what really, was the difference between pain and happiness? Two sides of a coin, both resting in the same hand.

Veering away from the abstract, slowly, her brain started unraveling the various incidents of the day. One by one, she dwelt on and caressed each of them, pondering long on the good parts and skimming quickly over situations she had embarrassed herself in.

It was a wedding. Thankfully not one in which she was ascribed any sort of responsibility. She just had to attend the event, walk around, meet people, chat, eat. Unbidden the thought occurred to her that she was ‘expected’ to look good doing all this. The eyes, even as they asked her what she was doing, how old was the child, and so on, were roving critically over her body. Her clothes were being examined minutely, her jewelry, make-up, everything was scrutinized. But she had not planned her look at all beyond finding a blouse that both matched a sari and fitted her. Oh well, this is my true self, take it or leave it, she thought to herself.

She recalled the old lady’s comment ‘Why are you not wearing the toe-ring? All married women have to wear it, it touches a nerve in the toe that ….’ The rest of the lament was drowned out by the naadaswaram guys. Toe-ring. She had her arguments all set up for that one. Who wears a toe-ring to the gym, who can be bothered to remove and put it back again everyday? Why shackle oneself with all these uncomfortable metal parts just because one is married? Are married men wearing a toe-ring? And so on. But she never had a chance to say any of these things, as she realized that the disapproval was strong, and her defense, well, irrelevant.

For many years now she had worked hard, concentrating on not falling into the same trap as many of her acquaintances. The trap of being unable to derive enjoyment from life, any aspect of it. The trap of finding fault with everything, everyone, and always wanting something more and something else than what was offered. A trap that was very difficult to get out of. Of course her genes, her upbringing, these were driving her in as well. But thankfully, she had overcome them. I have been successful in this, she told herself. I manage to enjoy things, I manage to not have hidden agendas, I manage to be directed by myself and not others, I do this casually now, without any great effort. I am happy, she told herself, glancing briefly at her watch. Gosh! It was late, midnight already, and an early flight to catch the next morning. But she could not sleep, her mind too intent on the full day she had had.

She had bonded with so many people, old and young, at this wedding. The children were of course fun to be with as ever. She had quickly transitioned between Kannada and Tamizh and English, when she found herself in the midst of three children, each comfortable in one of those languages. The language barrier notwithstanding, the three had the same idea. Switching on and off, endlessly, the colourful lights on a miniature dancing fountain they found at the entrance to the wedding hall. After an hour of this activity, she had found herself imagining a situation of electrocution. She started pleading with the children, in turn, to stop the game. She suggested several alternatives. And when they just ignored her, she followed the crude wiring to the main switch and pulled it off. Was she happy she had saved them for sure electrocution? Was she angry at herself for spoiling their fun? Was she embarrassed at her extreme reaction to a normal situation? She was not sure any more, but at that time, it seemed the right thing to do. Oh everything was so confusing, two sides to every damn thing.

With an aged relative of hers, the discussion had been about waste of food at the event. She had argued vehemently against this, and, although the uncle could not hear her well, he had nodded sagely and repeated his set of arguments, which also, if you interpreted it, amounted to the same thing. The conversation started well but got tricky once she realized that her speaking was far less effective than her facial expressions, and that any sign of impatience on her face as the man droned on would cause immense hurt. She was almost thankful when she was called away for a quick bout of singing, although it was uncertain that she had any skills in that direction.

She had also run into a large number of cousins, racked her brain to remember the names of all their children so she could inquire after them, been largely successful in convincing them that she really cared. Which to a large extent she did, but not so much that she would lose sleep over it. They in turn had asked after her family and job and daily schedule, and the weather, and also acted as if it mattered to them. She had quickly discovered that various parts of her family harboured various unrelated and funny apprehensions about the big city. One was afraid of the rain. The other of terrorist attacks. The third was concerned that the schools were all co-educational. A fourth, of panthers! And so on. She could hardly tell them that living there you did not particularly have time to dwell on such matters. You found a job, it put you in a city, you hunted for a home, and then the day-to-day things just overwhelmed you so much that you did not question your choices. They would not accept that. Perhaps they were right, perhaps everything was about geography, or, location. Now where had she heard this one before?

As the day wore on, although she told herself that she was having a great time, and that meeting all these people was a damn good reason to attend a wedding, she felt immensely tired. Having a conversation with just one more person, trying to connect with them on their terms, paying attention to what they were saying, jocularly warding off unsolicited suggestions about how to lead her life, even listening to those that insisted on praising her and narrating incidents from her childhood which had led them to conclude, then and there, that she was special, all of it was getting to be too much. I am not used to this, living all the way away and not talking to adults much, this is an overdose, she told herself.

It was night, everything was done, she had helped with the cleaning up, loudly singing hindi movie songs all the while much to the amusement of the remaining, over-tired, people. She had returned back to her hotel room, alone in an auto, escaping into one before anyone could see, and now the crisp and cool white sheets on her bed were really inviting. Another young couple married off, hope they know what they have to do! I wish I could have told them, wish I knew what I could have told them, about married life. It is an intricate dance, the easy steps for the everyday, the twisty-difficult ones for special events. You can enjoy each and every part of it, but just as easily hate it too. I wish I could have... she was thinking as she finally fell asleep, just as the clock struck two, for joy.

Hanuman

Hanuman’s tail snakes up in large fat coils. High on top of the coiled tail he perches, surveying the land below with a smug look on this face. The builder is incensed. He whips his workers who quickly pile bricks and fill with cement. Another floor comes up in nanoseconds. The building is now higher than Hanuman’s head. The builder is satisfied, but worried, after all, Hanuman is a god, is this the limit of his powers? Or can he rise higher? Hanuman laughs and shrinks down to human-size. “Really,” he says, “at that size, I would have to drink the whole ocean to quench my thirst. This is better.” The builder is left scratching his head and wondering who to whip to create water.

A birth...

It was, you might say, the dawn of middle-age for her. At least going by her chronological age. Surely it had begun to show in the texture of her skin (a tad rough in places, the face marked a bit with small but clear brown spots), the creaks (like when she got up after sitting down for a while), in the time to recover from minor illnesses (she did not bounce back so fast, took a week to seven days), and a million other things. Miraculously the hair retained its original black colour. Not a strand of white or gray in the profusion that covered her head. It would have pleased her a lot if you said the same of her mind, that it retained its youthfulness, the years notwithstanding.

Life had been rich, it had been full. Countless experiences to look back upon with fondness. Countless people to remember with fondness, a few with regret about not speaking to for years now, but mostly a fondness. Current life was settled. Job, check. Career, check. Husband, check. Child, check. Good Friends, check. Family, check. No extremes, neither a genius nor an idiot. Neither a real stressful job nor a too easy-going one. Not obscene amounts of money, no pecuniary worries either. And so on.

Now came the question, what else? Really, after you have finished your education, completely, with no thought in the head of signing up for another degree, once you have a job and a career that is a keeper, once you have a family and a household set-up, and things running smoothly, what else? What is a bite-sized end point that gives meaning to daily life? Tough to see! Of course you could blame her for making this a complaint; so many millions struggling to have that level of comfort, making ends meet, forever thinking with frustration of who to marry, when to have kids, how to settle family squabbles, how to this, how to that. And here is she, all done, apparently. Biding her time, clicking seconds and days off a wall clock-cum-calendar, just completely all done.

A million books to be read, but after a point they all seem to say the same thing. A million movies being made every day, but wait, that’s not of interest to her. A million new people she could get to know…A spiritual awakening…A re-emergence of god…Another child…Volunteering…Change fields…New job…

What? What? What?

If every birthday is to be treated as reaching a crossroad rather than a milestone, surely she was there. Which road to take now? How many damn roads are there? What is she going to do now? How is she going to do this?

How? How? How?

In the middle of it all, the light clicks. Click. All of the externalities of life are meaningless. Everything. Food, hunger, skin health, black hair, elevators, load-shedding, shiny floors, Wifedom, Motherhood, Friendships, all ephemeral. The only thing that survives is inside, inside the heart, its love. So that’s the road she decides upon. All of life the same, except when lived with complete love. They do say that names are special, even if they repeat, they are unique. She was named well, cause at the end of it all, or perhaps right from the beginning in real fact, what she does best, young, middle-aged, or old, is that. Love. Like her name says. End.

Discussions

Tangential foray into fictional stuff again

It was the four of them together, their heads low, laughing at something, laughing boisterously, the smoke curling from their cigarettes in unison, like a cloud of mutual admiration and love. She watched from behind the curtain at the door, the curtain waving gently in the breeze, her hands steady on the tray, balancing the four china cups of coffee with determination. Wistfully, she wished she could join them in their laughter, unknowingly she took a step forward, into the wide, open verandah where they sat, and smoked and laughed.

The minute she entered their line of vision and saw their happy smiling mouths, her apprehensions and jealousies vanished, and she turned hostess. Handing over the coffee, steaming, placing the extra sugar deftly on the center table, confident that the coffee would be appreciated with deep aaaaahs. As it was, at the first sip, again as one, the four men closed their eyes and said ‘aaah. Wonderful coffee’ ‘Yes yes’ ‘As always’ ‘but I think you have done even better than usual today.’

It was with a satisfied sadness that they both, shoulder to shoulder, husband and wife, stood at the gate and waved them good bye. The men trooped out, their laughter carrying them forward. They walked to the end of the road and then parted ways, each heading sort of reluctantly towards their respective homes. Still the couple watched them, finally when not even the glistening oiled back of hair of the last person could be seen, they walked back into their home, the air still around them, the house eerily quiet in the immediate aftermath.

She bustled about clearing the tray and cups. He sat down, not even making the effort to help out in the activity. In their years of marriage that was one thing they had figured out, it was better all around when he did not try to help. The first time, a cup had smashed to pieces, the second time the glass, and the third time led to a bit of a fight as he had been careless in the washing. After that they both wordlessly agreed that there were some things that he best leaves alone, like anything to do with the kitchen, the house, the children, in fact, pretty much everything other than the scooter and his office stuff. His wife handled with unending energy and efficiency every other aspect of their lives.

His thoughts flitted back and forth over all these things. His friends, three of them, carried over from his college days. All of them in the same profession of teaching. But teaching different subjects and in different colleges. Between them they covered Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics and English. The lines between the subjects blurred in their discussions, there was a pleasing unity, and a focus on the teaching part of the exercise which is what interested him the most.

She came into the open verandah now, wiping her hands on a towel hung from her waist, and held in by her sari. He briefly toyed with the idea of giving her a brief summary of their most interesting discussion, about the University examinations, which they had merrily dissected and dismissed, but he could not muster the energy and so retreated back to his thoughts.

She thought briefly, joyously, that now, today, he would include her in their midst, and have a discussion with her. Her mind sifted through the clever and intelligent comments about examinations that she would make, her own independent opinions, although she had overheard what they had been saying. A brief smile spread on her lips and eyes, but as she saw his face close up again, she pursed her lips back, and said, ‘the children will be here soon, let me go in and make dinner.’

Stay, stay here a while, lets talk, he wanted to say. But he let it pass a few minutes, and then the silence was a bit too long and it was awkward to say it so he kept quiet and watched her as she stood up, her feet flat and her look determined as she flicked open the door curtain and entered the dark house.

Death

They happened in rapid sequence. Not one, not two, but three deaths. Well, four if you count the dog. All in the same house! Neighbours could be heard clicking their tongues in pity (or was it superstition that said clicking at someone else’s misery protects you from experiencing a similar one yourself?) The neighbourhood was a typical middle-class one with a few small houses with tiny gardens, a couple of hutments where the maidservant families lived, and a bunch of garishly red nouveau rich ones that seemed to be bursting concrete on to the tar road. Nothing spectacular about it, really. If you sat and thought about it, last year, just last year, everyone was participating joyously in festivals and celebrations, and no care in the world they had, no pall of gloom or anything.

That is what shook us all up so much. The suddenness of it. Imagine, one minute in silk veshtis and saris and singing slokams and vilakkus lit all over the house. Laughter, gaiety, scores of visitors and relatives. Ruddy-cheeked children running around smiling, prosperous looking (and therefore pot bellied/big hipped) adults. The next minute - all gone, poof! Just like that! As a close observer, and if only in my own mind, a superior thinking sentient being, I could not have foreseen what befell our household.

The house itself belonged to no particular category of houses of the neighbourhood. I would say it sat plumb in the middle. Not too shabby or run down. Not too new or expensive or garish looking. To my eye, possibly because of having lived there for so many decades now (we could never agree upon a new colour so always stuck to the beige and brick red; through all the repaintings), the appearance of the house was soothing. It looked well-lived in, cozy, comfortable. Of course possibly people commented that I had become ‘part of the woodwork’ of the house myself, no surprise I thought it cozy. Not that there was that much wood work to speak of really. Mostly reinforced cement concrete, a lot of metal grills and meshes on windows and doors (mosquitoes found our house a comfortable abode too), even the massive door of the olden days was now hidden by giant iron bars criss-crossing (for additional protection from thieves and marauders and the like).

To get back to the deaths, first it was the boy, I can never remember his name. It was a bit gory, to say the least. A big truck trundling down the road, the boy on his bicycle. They say he was on his way back from school. I find that a bit fishy. I mean it was nearly dark by that time, which was why, the lorry with no lights on, was not very visible to the poor boy, I guess. In my recollection school must have finished at least a few hours before. I cannot of course say anything much about this, people would look askance if I said my own grandson was a loiterer, I mean it may have been okay before but now that everyone believes Vishnu took him to away to make him a god, my opinions about his various activities are best kept out of their hearing.

Anyway, I am not saying I don’t miss him. He was good to me, frank and honest as I like people to be. When he needed money for cigarettes, he asked me and told me about his experiences too. The first time I coughed like crazy, now I’m fine he said. One day a pesky neighbour spied on the boy and reported back. The women went crazy. There was much crying and wailing and yelling and screaming. Is this what I sacrificed my whole life for type of dialogue. The poor boy had no idea what hit him. I was promptly assigned the task of ‘putting the boy back on track.’ I took him away from the noise, sat him down near the river, in the shade and said ‘Well boy, it’s a bad habit. Hurts your health and some such. Don’t let anyone force you into it. It smells too, I can tell when you come in, and I am sure so can the women. You cannot really hide it. Try reading a book instead, worked for me when I was your age.’ He was quiet. I was not really sure if he really quit smoking them or found some other source for cigarette money (I admit, unashamedly, that that would hurt me a little), and a secret remedy for the smell that used to linger on his clothes.

This line of thought is ‘worthless’, as my family would be quick to point out to me. The boy is gone, I am sure he is in a better place than the rest of us. Look at me, I am as old as the jasmine tree in the garden that sprouts wildly out every summer. I am as old as the hills you can see from the window upstairs (from the cave like little room that no one dares enter any more). The boy, well he was just a little baby, one of those little coriander saplings the daughter-in-law planted last week. I miss him incredibly just like everyone in the house. Only my memories of him are more realistic than theirs.

The next to go was his mother. She was heart-broken of course after the event. She blamed herself totally for the boy’s death. I must say I definitely did blame her, at least a little bit. On the one hand she was intent on spoiling the boy with sweetmeats and so on at every possible moment. On the other hand she would never listen to him when he talked about his friends or school or anything. She would also insist on his doing the Sandhyavandanam and saying the Gayathri Manthram every day. He definitely saw no compelling reason to believe in these things, and when he questioned them, instead of explaining it in a way that would appeal to him, she would throw a fit and hit her head against the kitchen wall and wail and scream and go on about asking god (aloud of course) what crime she had committed in her previous life to get such a son. What choice did the boy have but to misbehave and stay out late and so on?

Of course her husband, that good for nothing son of mine, was absolutely no use in such matters. He was too involved in himself. It was his job the whole day and when he came back it was his friends at the sports club. He could care less to be involved in settling any disputes between his son and wife. In fact I don’t think he ever even talked to his son. No wonder then that the boy roamed about at all times of day and night on the streets. No wonder then the mother started getting crazier by the day with her prayers and so on.

After the boy’s passing, our house was never the same. There was a gloomy atmosphere. People would forget to switch on the verandah light when the sun went down. The mother would be praying almost non-stop in the puja room. The house would reverberate with the sound of the bells being rung and the scent of incense would pervade all the rooms. Initially I thought the incense smell a welcome change from the slightly musty smell of the house. But after a few days, it started getting oppressive. I tried talking to the woman, but every time I entered the Puja room it was as if she was in a trance or something. Constantly muttering slokams with her eyes closed. When I did question her about it once when she was serving me my dinner, she mumbled something about how a man could never understand the ties between mother and son.

It was all very depressing. I tried to stay away more and more, visiting the one or two friends of mine that still remained. I got constantly yelled at for walking around by myself at ‘my age.’ I started my vow of silence around that time because I was afraid of what I may say to them if I spoke. It would not have been pleasant. And there was enough happening in our household without my stirring things up by speaking up about what was on my mind.

She died as she would have wished, in the puja room, eyes closed in prayer. The quack doctor that visited after said she died from grief, as if that is a real medical condition. He had that air about him, as if he was omniscient. I bet he discussed his patients over whisky with his quack pals. I bet he philosophised about it. It must have been cardiac arrest. Of course I said nothing. What does it matter if I was a qualified medical doctor, my days of ministering were over, and besides, I was not speaking at that time.

I have been reading these modern novels of late. The stuff that comes out of New York and San Francisco and so on. The language is not good in a classical sense but it seems to be very free, not so constrained by rules like the English that we were taught in high school. In a way it seems straight from the heart. I really like it. I think I have picked up some of it as well. In case you were wondering, I thought the time was right to clarify why a ninety-year old man would speak in such casual tones. It’s a whim, a fancy, a fad, possibly the very last one I can indulge in.

We were talking of deaths were we not? The next one was the dog. He was old, he was frail, he was coughing and had lost his appetite. He passed on and was not even grieved much. The house was still reeking of wood-smoke – that inevitable part of death ceremonies. In my youth I used to, foolishly, romantically, think of this smell as the smell of death itself. I would resent the happenings on these days but was obligated, ordered, to participate. The food would be excellent but the pervasive smell and the round bellies of the priests usually made me lose my appetite. I would manage to lose my mother in the crowd. It was usually distinctly unpleasant around the ladies, with the loud bawling, the inevitable breaking of the bangles (if the husband dies first, the bangles of the surviving wife are rudely broken, presumably to lift her out of the shock to the reality of a life alone), and repeated recriminations flung at god. I cannot recall whose death we were lamenting that day (first there is the initial fourteen day period of mourning through ceremonies. And after that, once a month, for a year, there are ceremonies performed on a smaller scale, after the first year, they are done once a year), the boy or the mother. The dog died that day. Needless to say, he received little attention even in his last days. The poor soul had found the worst day ever to breathe his last.

Evenings were the most awful times in the house. The lights, when someone remembered to switch them on, were dim and dusty. Cobwebs hung menacingly in every corner, casting gloomy shadows all around. The television was played only occasionally and that too only at very low volume and that too only for news. It was considered improper to watch a movie or Chitrahaar or even the funny serials. FOR HOW LONG I would wonder but not ask. The food had also become terrible. It was as if the women were rebelling. Bland, watery rasams and semi-cooked beans curry most days. They routinely forgot to make the curd the previous day and had to water down what was left over and make thin buttermilk. Ah if only I had the strength to go down the road to the café and eat my fill. I don’t dare do that any more of course, thanks to the bout of dysentery I suffered the last time (nothing against the café, I am just not young enough for such excesses any more).

I’ll end of vow of silence today. I will call my son, that strapping young lad of fifty years (and no teeth) and ask him to take me to the hospital as I have decided to die today. The wood-smoke that you will smell tomorrow in this house will be in my honour.

Dust

I fear dust. It has the ability to make everything look old, faded. My friend tells me that it has the ability to make the computer bow down and break down. I did not know that. I fear that. My life is in my computer. My computer is my life. But clearly I don't know how to take care of my life. I let dust play havoc, especially in the back of the computer table. I saw last night there are clumps of dust. They have agglomerated to form this monstrous looking ball. It is fluffy but scary looking nevertheless. Not fluffy like a teddy-bear or mommy's fur coat. My mommy does not have a fur coat. She does not need one, we live in Mumbai, India. Its hot here, and dusty.

Dust is on everything. I cant see the faces of the numerous gods I worship everyday. They are all covered in dust and grime. Their faces have turned black. When they were new, they shone like silver, probably cause they are silver. Now they have all turned black. Their features are indistinguishable so I cant figure out who to pray for what. For my exam grades I need Saraswathi, the goddess of learning; or Vinayaka, the elephant-headed one. For sorting my love affairs I prefer Krishna, the whimsical, playful one with the flute. For overall protection from stray dogs and other calamities I approach Rama, he must be in-charge of such serious things. Occasionally I dream up connections and need to pray to someone in particular for something in particular but nowadays it is hard as I cant distinguish any features anymore. Dust and grime are too strong.

My friends ask me sometimes about my computer, and about my gods. If marooned on a desert island, which of them would you rather have with you, they ask. I think they are teasing, I am not sure. I don't know the answer to that. How to get the ac power my computer needs, on an isolated desert island? But then, if my gods were with me, I could pray to them to get me power for my computer. But I don't know the answer to that. Perhaps it's a joke. But there the sand would be powerful. In a way, it is the same as dust. It is eternal.

I once saw a picture of a house in America, on television. It was real clean. It had a wooden floor, one room in our house has a wooden floor. Mommy says it's a fake floor. But she scolded me when I tried to break it open to see what is underneath. Anyway the American house did not have dust. It was gleaming and sparkling. The television was kept at low volume, not like our house. The tap and kitchen sink were also shining. No one had written their name in the dust on the window-sills. The curtains did not have an edge of black grime. They left a whole opened cake on the table for several hours and it did not get destroyed by ants and flies and dust and grime. It was amazing. I told mommy. She was angry. She said I must not watch such things. She said such a house did not have gods so was a bad house. I agree. I did not see even an old calendar with Vinayaka on the clean walls there. It must be bad there.

I tried to tell our maid-servant that she has to do a better job cleaning. She laughed for 15 minutes. This is Kali-Yug she said. You cant save anything now. I told her that I was worried about the gods. She laughed and said they could take care of themselves, don't worry. I took her to the puja room door (she could not enter as it is only for us). I showed her the black idols. She told me to tell mommy she would scrub them with tamarind to make the shine come back. I was very happy. She is so nice! I told mommy. She got angry again and said I must not permit maid-servants to touch the gods. I asked her why, she said they are impure. But mommy I said, she is the only one that cleans the house, she is the only chance again dust, how can she be impure? I was scared when I said that, mommy's nostrils flared up in anger. I ran away to my computer.

My friends laughed at me again. They said I was sure to lose my computer soon. I quickly tried to make copies of my files on a CD but the CD burner door was jammed. I pried it open and found a dust ball. I looked for a cloth to clean it, but the dusting cloth used for the TV cannot be used as it is touched by maid-servant. My computer is in the puja room. Only few things are allowed there. I like it there because I am close to both my computer and my gods. But it is too dusty. The CD burner does not work any more. There is a crunching noise when I put the CD in. I don't know who the god for computers is. I have to find out and pray to him or her. Perhaps it is Vinayaka again, he has a mouse.

Jasmine

Account of a day in the life of a TamBram lady.

The sun was just appearing, an early morning mist hung in the air, the world was still asleep. She woke slowly from her bed, the springs creaking a bit. She rubbed her eyes, and moved out of the room softly. Though her eyes were partly closed, years of routine enabled her to reach the back-yard with no mishap. Finally cracking the eyes open she undid the innumerable bolts and locks and proceeded to the well. The main thing is to wake up before the rest of the household, and to look like you are immersed in work by the time they wake, she told herself. A secret every woman must be let into by their mother, she thought, smiling to herself at the idea of her mother harbouring such ideas.

Her trained hands quickly pulled up two pots of water from the well. Then, hesitation. It’s a cold winter morning. No one is looking. How important is it to wash oneself, clothes and all, in freezing cold well water? She decided on the basic ablution, a bit of water on each foot, some for the hand, a handful for the face. Then she washed the pots with the remainder of the water.

She moved inside the house and put on the switch, in five minutes the boiler would give her pleasantly warm water, and she could have a real bath. Brushing her teeth, she went inside to the little drying room by the kitchen. Grabbing a stick from behind the wooden door, she carefully removed the clothes hanging on the lines running across the room near the ceiling – clothes that she had washed yesterday after her bath, ‘pure’ clothes that she would don after her bath today. At no cost must she touch the clothes now, she told herself, a small seed of guilt about her shortened stint at the well gnawing at her.

Clothes securely placed on top of the wooden stick, she moved into the bathroom. The water was nice and warm, as expected. She had a relaxing bath, avoiding all the soaps in the little alcove and sticking to the turmeric powder and gramflour mixture. Donning the fresh clothes, she went in to the kitchen, a large but dark room in the interior of the house.

With quiet efficiency she boiled milk, made coffee decoction in the large stainless steel filter, and decided upon Rava Uppma for breakfast.

Then she remembered suddenly that she had omitted to pray! Turning the gas low on the milk, she quickly stepped in the Puja Room. She felt satisfaction at the largeness of the room, the innumerable portraits and statues of god that occupied half the room, the neat arrangement of flowers, incense and other assorted materials around. Left to them they would have relegated god to a corner of the kitchen, she thought. Thank god I put my foot down, and got this room made so nice, she smiled at the memory of the fights and the tantrums she had resorted to. Though her hands were folded, eyes closed, and her mouth reciting slokas learnt in her childhood decades ago, her mind was wandering, as usual, over the various aspects of the household, and in particular, the role she herself played in it.

Without realizing it consciously, she reached the end of the recital, did her four namaskaarams with perfect posture, and decided to make Vermicelli Uppma instead. Digging out vermicelli from a gleamingly large vessel from the back of the kitchen shelf, she started on the dish, the mustard seeds spattering and crackling, the aroma wafting out to the rest of the household through the single, small, window in the back of the kitchen.

Soon the rest of the house awoke, with the incessant demands of milk, coffee, sugar, breakfast, food for the children’s school lunch boxes and what not. Till the children (two girls, not hers, her husband’s brother’s) left raucously on their bicycles, she did not have moment to breathe.

And no sooner had she waved them good-bye with a slightly plastic smile, then her father-in-law demanded his lunch. How she managed to get everything ready single-handedly in so short a time, no one knew. But then she was famed for her efficiency, especially in the kitchen. She had to live up to that every day, and god was her witness that every single day, she managed to. And not just with the kitchen, with every aspect of the household and the family, she had demonstrated many times over her abilities and talents.

The morning wore on in the routine manner with servants and work in the Puja Room, and the rest of the cooking. Before she knew it, it was the slow time of the afternoon. Her father-in-law, uncaring of the afternoon sun (it was winter after all, pleasant in the afternoon, he would say, if asked), had had his tea and left on a long walk to his daughter’s house in another part of the city, his big black umbrella held behind his neck. The house was empty and quiet.

She went and lay down on her bed. Of course with a book in her hand – one of her favourite Tamizh magazines, called ‘Kalki’. She had had to work hard on her husband, again resorting to some temper tantrums to secure this year’s subscription to the magazine. He had put forth arguments such as the articles were not of high quality, no one else in the house could read it, whereas if an English magazine were subscribed to for the same price, then everyone could read, and in fact she could improve her English herself too. No doubt he was instigated to say these things by his brother, she could plainly see his hand in it. But she had put her foot down. Nothing doing, she had said. What she did not add was that she had to read the magazine quickly herself and then circulate it amongst all her relatives who could not buy it themselves, and her prestige, her place in the society was hinged in no small measure on her ability to supply magazines to all the women. They all looked up to her – look at her – so strong, can buy magazines, our husbands will not hear of it. And also, as soon as she got a whiff of the brother’s hand in this, she had to, had to change her husband’s mind. Anyway this was last year, and after that episode no one had dared to say anything more on the matter.

She thumbed through the pages desultorily – the magazine a few months old, she had already read it several times. She had to concentrate on not sleeping. Everyone knows that sleeping in the afternoons is not beneficial to one’s health. But the crisp air of the winter afternoon, the pleasant sun, they were intoxicating. She could vaguely hear a few birds on the guava tree outside the window, and far away, someone crying out their wares. Tamarind or vegetables or steel vessels, she could not tell.

She woke up with a jerk at a bicycle bell rung repeatedly. Dragging herself to her feet she went out to look. It was the postman. A plump old man on a large black cycle with a huge bell, ringing it as if the world was ending. Without hiding her irritating, she asked him to stop the ringing.

‘Were you sleeping Amma?’ the fellow asked.

It made her more irritated.

“Of course not, can a woman ever sleep? The whole household’s work is done by me, everyone manages to eat and then just come back for more eating, all the work is left to me, where is the time to sleep? “

‘Sorry Amma, I was ringing for so long.. Anyway maybe you were in the backyard. Here is a letter from Amrica. Amma, how about some bakshish for this poor old man?’

She absent-mindedly reprimanded him for this insolence, handed a few coins, and proceeded inside staring at the letter. It was from her brother, the one that was a doctor. She was very fond and proud of him, and was glad to carefully read through the small handwriting, speaking of his work and food and Americans. She did not read between the lines, did not see his unhappiness and inability to marry the orthodox Brahmin upbringing to the freedom in the West. She spent a few contemplative moments imagining him married to a very suitable young woman, with yellow mustard staining the skin near the ears and a long black plait studded with jasmine, and a befitting coyness.

Slowly her mind turned to rumination on her own spouse. Her lips curled up unconsciously in disdain. With characteristic clarity, she blamed him for her rather drab and boring life. He was, after all, a drab and boring man. He could never express himself clearly or firmly. He was tall but in a gangly way, not in the wholesome healthy way of her father. He was well-educated, and in a well-paid government job. But he did not exhibit any particular interest in moving up the ranks, and did not even apply for promotions in the aggressive manner which she prescribed. He was content in continuing with his routine life, job and family. She was convinced that the reason they were childless was because he did not want a child himself, so satisfied with the current scenario was he. Hmph, she finished this analysis in disgust, I deserve better than this. She went on to think of her other brothers, and the weak, giggly women who were their wives and decided with finality that all of her siblings too deserved better spouses, and that it was unfortunate that god had chosen in such a manner.

Proceeding slowly to the kitchen, she mixed up a cup of coffee – automatically making up the milk with a bit of water, so she could confidently argue later that she only drank black coffee through the day, saving all the milk for the rest of the family. A sudden pang of guilt at this subterfuge drove her to the adjacent Puja Room, where she spent a half hour in additional slokas to the gods, winding up with four proper namaskarams, and a couple of minutes of detailed requests to god about means of improving her daily life.

The door bell brought her out of the room, and when she opened the door, in burst the children, laughing and talking and generally creating a huge noise. She shouted at them to stop it and ran into the kitchen, and quickly whipped up some green gram sundal. They took one look at it and turned to run away, but her stern look and general combative demeanour with her hands on her hips stopped them and they somehow ate up the snack, although clearly hating it. Thankfully, before she could really lose her temper at them, they drank their glasses of milk and wandered away to the friend’s house to play, arguing about which game.

Next to arrive would be her husband. He would as usual bring a string of jasmine flowers for her hair. She loved the smell of jasmine and welcomed the opportunity to sport it in her hair, but had never admitted it to him. She looked down at her batter-stained sari and thought that perhaps she should clean up a bit. Then when she wore the jasmine he would say ‘You look just like Goddess Lakshmi’ and she could feel proud of herself for a short while at least. She latched her bedroom door and slowly pulled out a brown sari with a thick gold border. The nine yards of the sari did nothing to intimidate her, and she quickly wound herself up, taking care to arrange the rich pallu delicately around her waist. After a few quick tugs, she could ensure that her legs were not constrained and she could, if necessary, move fast. Combing out the white-peppered hair, she wound it into a bun and took a sideways look in the mirror. With a grimace at the smallness of the bun, she undid it quickly, and pulled out a long, thick cascade of fake black hair. Now the bun was thick and luxuriant, and the white of her hair barely visible. The little black net she wore on top, and secured with U-pins, made it even less evident. Daubing pink powder of her face and marking out a rather large red dot in her forehead, she eyed herself in the mirror with satisfaction. It was true, she did look like Goddess Lakshmi, she told herself. The red bindi caught her attention and she quickly cursed the new fashion, where people insisted on wearing it between their eyebrows as opposed to high up in the forehead. It looked ridiculous, she thought, look at how elegant mine looks, she wanted to tell them.

Her husband entered the house just then, ah, what perfect timing, she was saying in her mind when she noted the agitated look on his face. She quickened her step and brought out a steaming hot cup of coffee for him. He took it with shaking fingers and looked at her for a moment, but his pathetic look evoked not pity, but anger and frustration in his wife. He spoke haltingly, as he was wont to when excited. And when he finished, and she had still not uttered a word in response, he looked confused and tried to move away. ‘Wait’ she said. Then a small smile played on her lips. “This transfer to Chennai is a good thing. We will get way from here – all this,” she said spreading her arms out. “Our own cozy little house, I will grow jasmine there, we will be happy..” she continued, half to herself. Her busy mind planning what to take, how jealous her friends would be, and for a fleeting moment, she sincerely believed her life could only look up from here. It was just that afternoon, after reading her brother’s letter, that she had gone into the Puja room. “God works really fast,” she told herself, stepping into the kitchen to start the preparations for dinner, a spring in her step.