My mother and her surprises

I have strange memories from when I was a child. The sun felt different against my skin and retrospect makes my vision clearer, the dust of wisdom gained from disappointment doesn't cloud my vision in memory.

I was listening to this throwback compilation by U-Penn's desi a Capella band and realised I'm a child of the 90s. I may have come chocking, kicking and screaming into this world in 88- and yet the music that makes my heart melt (unconsciously and embarrassingly) is from what the screen tells me is the 1990s.

Yes, this isn't where I started but I get side tracked by the opening dusty little rooms in my mind and the people who inhabit them, you will forgive me.

The memory I have listening to this compilation is, again, of my mother. Always my mother. She was and continues to be the greatest advocate of surprises. The small things would come gift wrapped in the bubble wrap of happy, the big things would shimmer and shine with a certain dazzle nobody else can conjour. My brother has picked up on this fascinating art but Amma is, without a doubt, the ruling queen of all things surprise.

Now, I was born a morose old soul who felt the weight of the world and lashed out in dark mood swings. It's quite a shame really to be born into a large family that is so energised by the thought of every breath and a life that has given so much, to find that the one dark unpredictable cloud in the room is really- the baby of the family. I like to think that it adds a dollop of the "unexpected" and spices things up in the family. That is far from the truth and I will be the first to admit it, but let's not pay heed to the truth for today, for today we will believe the version my kind family at their patient best will explain to me and I will get on with the memory that drove me back to this blog after so long.

Chennai is a very hot city. For a child with trouble being in a good mood, the heat that wrapped itself like a thick blanket around my mind filled with the worries of the world. This is bad news.
In Madras (yes Chennai now but we ignore that as we do my sullen demeanor) it is inescapable bad news. For a child sitting in the front seat of a navy blue Maruti van powered by an LPG cylinder and cooled by an AC that would only work on being fueled by acceleration... I can't begin to explain the tragedy. Nobody should be subject to such melodramatic tragedy.

Amma would drive us, the world and God knows who else all over the city in this car. We had a music player that I think may have been more important to Amma than the gas tank. I can sing more RD Burman and Mohammed Rafi songs than I can explain to the people who catch me singing along, or in fact myself, thanks to the many car drives to music, dance, tuition, schoool, I-35, birthday parties and everything in between.  

I was just discovering going out with my friends when the film Na Tum Jaano Na Hum released. I can't explain why this was the movie we (and I don't remember who else was part of this group) chose to watch but I remember coming back and announcing that at some point of time we should buy the cassette (yes that is how long a time back this was, we bought cassettes). 
Given the tone of this post so far you get no prize for guessing that a few days later on our way back from somewhere, while we sat baking in our trusty Maruthi Van at the traffic signal in Annanagar's famous Roundtana, I announced that whatever new music was playing on the cassette player royally sucked and Amma had no taste in music.
I have always thought that Amma deserves a Nobel Peace prize for calmly telling me that this was music from Na Tum Jaano Na Hum before gunning the accelerator to cool, I suspect, my head.
I destroyed her little everyday surprise and it wasn't the last time.

The other time I remember with frightening clarity is when I was forced to move with the family out of one house to where we now live. I had my reasons, very many actually,that I continue to think are more than valid. I explained my point of view to my parents over and over again. I think I even went on a hunger strike and some strange version of mouna vrath  that only the two then villains in my life- my parents, were subjected to. The thing about my parents though is that they have never ever given into a tantrum, a lesson I am grateful (now, most certainly not then) to have been taught very early on in life, and we moved to this new house.

Unlike often before I suspect Amma felt guilty about this one. She knew what it meant to me for them to give in just that once and just how alone I felt for not winning. So one day I came back home to find Lalith and Amma working together to set up a Tata Sky Set Top Box. This was the year it was just introduced and Chennai unlike any other city in India could not access cable TV without a digital box. In that world I was one of the few privileged children, who despite my atrocious 10th standard results still had access to cable TV. I couldn't be less impressed. I was too upset, or so I let her believe.

I'm quite sure I'm screwed now. Karma is finally catching up.
Amma I still love the surprises, nobody shall ever know but it is true. Whether it is the surprise of a special dish at dinner, kulfi in the freezer on a hot summer day, a note in my suitcase when I walk into yet another new life, an elaborate party, the not-so-surprising-anymore surprise-birthday-party or a carefully and secretly thought out gift, I will always love all of it not because it is about me (ok, maybe a little) but because it captures who you are- the master happy maker.

If you've ever met my mother you know what I'm talking about.
Tarun Menon, sharpen up those skills, if you've got all the good genes you might as well make the best of them.

Here's the compilation that started this up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lErtjguuvSw

For my Velliachan

I am twenty five. I live alone in a city that is still a stranger to me, with two friends whom I only recently met. I have no children nor a special somebody, not even a pet or a favorite book. I should know impermanence. Given my zeal to try new things I must expect, no crave, impermanence.
And I find that I do. Where I have the freedom to choose what changes.

In less than a year I have learnt the truth of mortality. Of human emotion and human beings. I must be grateful though. The latter I have only been given a cruel peep of but I find I am not equipped, despite my many years and many lives, I am simply not equipped to even acknowledge in peace, the frail hold I have of things dear to me.

I was recently introduced to the side of a man that is so ugly I cannot believe it exists and yet I find I can't hate that gender yet. The men whom I saw growing up have always been too perfect in their imperfections to deserve such hatred.

I have a brother whom I cannot stand and yet can't live without and a father who has encouraged me to believe in this ugly world that there is power in forgiveness and strength in truth. I wouldn't have the courage to be the good I am without knowing they will catch me when I fall and are strong enough to beat the crap out of the people who push me down if the other would only prove being worth the effort. Today though I think about my Velliachan.

Amma told me today that Velliachan had a brain surgery. That he had clots in his brain that bled, moved his brain a few millimeters and if left untreated would have killed him. I cannot believe that Velliachan's life can be threatened. My disbelief comes from the fact that few people are ever, really, truly, as alive as him.

Velliachan has always been my father in a shadow- the one who didn't get the gifts nor bear the brunt of my tantrums.  I'm told he petrified me as a child,that I would go nowhere close to him from fear. Of what I can't remember and nobody knows either because when I put myself in the smallest shoes I can remember I only see Velliachan sitting in the drawing room in I-35 telling a joke but with a face that looks like an animated announcement of torture; I think of him outside in the sunlight walking Twiggy, Lara and Buffy- teaching them to pray at lunch and giving up; I think of stories Oppa would tell me of being ridden to school and back on an old Chetak because he couldn't bear the thought of  watching her cry through another day of academic torture; I think of Arakonnam where I watched him soak shirt after shirt in the perfume from a bottle he dropped while laughing and cursing at the same time as only he can; I think of A-76, standing on the red carpet of my parents' living room reciting my speech for him to correct and learning the quiz he wrote me for the morning assembly.

I think of an older me and I remember sitting at the dining table with Achan and Velliachan as they taught me why not to smoke- dragging deeper and deeper on a cigarette until I choked and they burst into a laughter that was both apology and mirth. I think of Velliachan as I saw him the day they took Twiggy's body when she died and dumped her, unceremoniously, at the back of that garbage truck- of the words he never said and the tears I never saw; I think of new year parties and Antaksharies and Gazals. I think and think and think and I just can't see him in a hospital bed fighting for life. It doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem possible to me.

The Gods agree for now it seems and I hope it stays that way Velliacha. We have many stories to live yet and I have so much to learn from you. Stay strong. I'll see you soon.