Of Every Quarter

As the rain pours down today and thunder crashes outside I’m drawn to memories that can’t possibly be mine and yet form the veins of my existence. 

I’m an immigrant child. It’s something I say with pride. My heart bursts with the thrill of my gypsy roots. I live far away from anywhere my accent would place me, so every few days I get asked “where are you from?”
I’ve taken to laughing each time somebody asks me this question in anticipation of their puzzled frowns when I answer. It has been pointed out to me how rude this is, but for once my intent is not to be rude. I like saying,
“I’m from Chennai, that’s where I grew up but I’m a Malayalee. Honestly though, it’s probably more appropriate to say I’m an Indian because before we moved to Chennai my father was in the Navy and I spent some time in Goa and Arakonnam; After school I moved to Bangalore for a bit and spent what feels like an awakening in Mumbai.”

It’s a slow journey to Rajasthan where I find myself now but as people piece it together they go back to my name (Menon, mind you) and ask me if my family lives in Kerala. I like telling them then that my parents grew up in Chennai and Bangalore- not Kerala themselves. That a love story worthy of the movies took my grandmother on my mother’s side to Chennai with her husband while a love story as tragic as any Greek poet would write took my grandmother from my father’s side to Bangalore. 

This would mean that my mother is more Tamilian than Malayalee- she grew up in Chennai; while my father’s childhood gets more mongrel. He grew up in Sainik School, in a place called Bijapur and would holiday when he could in Bangalore. He speaks a smattering of Kannada,  Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil and English and understands a bunch of other languages, speaking it all together in a language of his own. It’s hard for most people to tell when he’s trying to speak one language instead of another (other than with English)- it sounds the same but funnily enough he’s understood.

And so I was born with the bloodline of my gypsy grandparents. To draw from poker, I saw their stake of immigrant lives and raised them on it, moving more than them, more than my parents in their life on Naval bases (we’re counting up to each of your 26, oh parents of mine).

But it’s a funny story that started this entire legacy that can’t be measured in wealth.

(Note: Look for the Malayalam to English translations at the bottom of this post)

Nobody who has met my mother’s parents can deny that my Ammama and Ammachan were madly in love up to their dying breath. By the time I met them Ammachan was terribly ill from emphysema and Ammama was losing the power of her heart and sight from the complications of diabetes, and yet, as Ammachan sat with Ammamma on the dining table or Ammama called out “Noku (look)” to Ammachan in the middle of her TV serials that nobody else was allowed to make a sound through, there was a peace between them- a love that was theirs.

I didn’t know it then and can barely believe it now, but there was almost twenty years between Ammama and Ammachan. I’m told that Ammachan at one point had declared he didn’t want to be married and one day, on a visit he saw Ammamma in the porch of her house and found his heart had changed his mind. I like to believe that he stood mesmerized by the beauty he saw debating with himself about the child she was to his late thirties and finally gave up the battle and spoke with Ammamma’s father. Muthashan wasn’t terribly rich and he has a lot of children to take care of.  I’m told Ammachan and his family met with Muthashan, he was convinced that his Lakshmi would be taken good care of because of the family Ammachan came from, and agreed to the marriage. It was that easy.

And so my Ammamma found Chennai- a city that I can imagine being so much more her style than Pattambi, that gorgeous little village (now town) in Kerala where she grew up. Mind you, from my few visits to Pattambi I can tell you that I will forever hold a torch in my heart for the place. The Tharavadu (ancestral home) with its endless well, steep stairway and wooden floors, the temple with its Kollam (a Kerela version of a swimming pool), and Jolly cottage are filled with memories that I can’t place of joy and laughter. 

There is a room that Apputimama, Ammamma’s youngest brother, used to live in. I remember for some reason this being my favorite place in the mini Tharavadu. In our U shaped house, Apputimama’s was the section that was by itself. His rooms were in the first floor. I used to be scared mindless about going there alone- spiders, darkness and any number of monsters would jump out of crevices but the lure of Apputimama’s voice and actions as he pulled out book after book from his vast library and point out the joys of the world in them was more than I could resist. My bachelor uncle was every kind of eccentric but nobody would dare question his love for books. My mother likes to point out that his book collection, before it was emptied, was probably worth as much as the house is. A cousin found her greatest plunder in Apputimama’s books- of the many wonderful things there was a first edition Shakespeare. I’m not surprised. The leftovers I rescued from the trash cans may not be first editions but they smell of adventures and many evenings spent in discourse. 

This is the one thing that makes me like my Ammama. She was a voracious reader. I remember that towards the end, what upset her more than my Velliamma insisting that she follow her dietary restrictions, was the fact that she couldn’t read. She had this humongous magnifying glass with which she would struggle to piece words together. Ammama would read in Tamil and Malayalam while Ammachan read his English novels beside her, his glass of whiskey (or was it rum?) on the table between them- a companionable silence filled in by the ads on TV.

But we weren’t similar at all my grandmother and me. She was the young beauty whisked off her feet by a debonair older husband. A man who introduced her to the many wonders of the world and loved her for the enthusiasm she brought back to them. They really were a sight to behold even in their old age but when I look back to the pictures of their youth- that is when I truly lose my breath. The pictures have a woman in clothes that would put even the fashionistas of today to shame. She had poise and grace to match a queen, and beside her smiling like the cat who knew he won the world is my grandfather in his suit, neatly combed hair and perfectly styled mustachio. When I close my eyes and try to remember the picture I also see a car and a pipe, sometimes a telephone- the signs of wealth, the proof of their life, a far cry from my other grandparents.

My Achachan and Achamma were the very opposite it would seem. I have never met Achachan. I know little about him other than his love for cycling (like Achan), his insistence on having his children learn their arithmetic tables absolutely right (like Achan) and his quick temper (like Achan). When Achan’s youngest sister was 6, Achachan passed away. I always thought he died alone of a heart attack on his bicycle but Prasanna Cheriamma told me the details when we met last.

Where Amma and Velliamma’s childhood in my mind is of studying in the best private school, being chauffeured around in cars and spending weekends on the beach after a movie; my picture of what Achachan could offer his five children on his meager income as a post master casts the Vakkiyls in a grey pallor that bursts into surprising light each time I hear one of my aunts or uncle laugh as the wise adults they are.

I’m told that Achachan was working with the Indian Postal Service. A funeral is really the worst time to ask for details so I didn’t, but I know that there was a common house for men and another one for women in Bangalore where all the recruits lived. One by one everybody in both common houses got married. While I can’t grasp at what Achachan wanted, what is clear is that he went home to his village in Kerala once and came back with a bride. 

Now my Achamma, if you see pictures of her (and I’ve only ever seen one from that far back) is the picture of a Malayalee beauty. She married young (like my Ammamma) and though the pictures have faded into a black and white sepia, you can see a shy woman unsure of herself attempt to sit up straight for a picture, her face framed by a shock of curly hair pulled back. She looks shy, like she would do whatever it was that she was asked to. And maybe she did. 

I’m told that unlike Ammachan who fell in love at the first sight of his future wife, Achachan married Achamma in what was (and probably continues to be) an acceptable barter. For his sister to marry the man who had "enquired" about her, Achachan would have to marry his brother-in-law-to-be’s sister. I could draw a diagram to explain this, more easily understood but the crude way to explain it is that the daughters of each family were exchanged for the sons to marry. 

I don’t know how happy or unhappy anybody was about the arrangement. I have reason to believe that there were some tensions but these memories can’t be mine because I haven’t seen the house in Bangalore that my Achamma lived in.

I’m told it wasn’t poverty but my privileged mind with its privileged upbringing finds that hard to believe. Achamma lived in a four room house with her husband, children and a colleague of Achachan's with a compound bathroom to share with people in other houses. Her oldest son (my father) was sent away to Sainik School because it was all Achachan with his ambitions for premium education for his children could afford (Note 1). I remember Achamma telling me this story, but if the voice I remember is indeed hers I find it hard to believe that the memory is mine. 

I can hear her voice as she tells me in Malayalam in that soft voice I would have to tilt my head to hear. She tells me Achan was a sickly child. He always had a cold sniffing and sniffing constantly looking malnutrition-ed. He had a handkerchief, often hers that he would twirl around his finger and walk around with. When he was (I wonder if I have this right, I can only hear her say she was young) six, Achachan came to know of admissions in a Government Residential School where boys would be taught in the English medium at the State’s expense with the hope that they would serve in the national defence when they grew up. He offered to coach a neighbor’s son while teaching Achan. 

If my childhood learning Maths with Achan is any indication, I can imagine the thirst for knowledge those evenings stoked and the stark terror that any incorrect answer on a test would bring. I have no doubt anyway that both Achan and this neighbor’s son were thrashed impartially into learning all the facts it takes to do well at one of these tests. 

When the results came they found that Achan had cleared the papers while the neighbor’s son, with his less frightening father, hadn’t. I always ask Achan why he wrote the exam if he was so frightened about leaving home and he always looks at me like he is asking himself how somebody he has invested so much in can be so foolish. He yelled at me last time in his attempt to explain that he wasn’t spoiled like our generation is. He did what he was told to- there would be consequences for anything else. What he was told to do then was to excel at this exam despite being the sniffly dunce (Note 2) that he was deemed to be; that his father did not need permission to make him write an exam. 

I suspect he’s right about that, we really are privileged in knowing we can get away with the choices we make. I know when my parents tried to pull that trick with Ettan it didn’t work at all. They wanted him to join the National Defence Academy after his 12^th standard and seeing no way to escape writing the test (is it a good time to point out that when my brother was born his name was decided on because Flt. Lt. Tarun Menon sounded best of all the options they thought of?). Ettan did everything he could to fail the exam- he makes no secret of it and there were no “consequences” other than my parents accepting his choice. 

And so, on clearing the exam, Achan was bought one trunk and whatever else was on the list of demands Achachan received from the school to prepare him for the next seven years of his life. I’m told Achamma broke down and amongst the few times in her life refused to do as she was told to. Achan was her first son, the boy who survived despite his elder brother’s death in infancy a close year before, her Sivan. But Achachan held his ground, locked Achamma into a room and made a little boy say goodbye to his mother from a window while she cried rivers (Note 3).

Achachan wasn’t a bad man at all. I’m realizing as I write this that it come across as being that because if somebody did that to me I would run screaming for the hills accusing him of abuse. I don’t think his intent was to hurt anybody. Achachan was a poor man who was doing everything he could to give his five children an education that would find them a way out of the poverty he suffered and didn’t take any pride in. (Note 4)

Baby Mema told me a story about him- Baby Mema is the youngest of Achan’s siblings. She says that when she started school a van was arranged to pick her up and drop her back- a luxury in those times, especially on a post master’s salary. This convent that she went to was just far enough for a little girl to not be able to find her way back home from and thus the luxury of a van. This is the story in Baby Mema's own words,
"On the very first day, my dad was busy and so sent me in the van putting me in charge of a 7^th std student of the same school, called Sheela, requesting her to drop me in my LKG class. As planned, the van dropped us kids at the school gate and Sheela took me by hand to my LKG classroom and since it was quite early, my teacher Ms. Dallal was not yet in class. Sheela told me to sit in the first bench and wait until my teacher came. I guess I waited for sometime and not finding anyone come in I walked out the gate (God knows how I found it) and then walked all the way home from Frazer Town to Shivaji Nagar (what Google maps says is a 2km walk).
I reached home around 11.30 or 12, that too since my house was at the corner of two roads, my mom was looking out of the kitchen window and saw a little girl with a red sweater with lot of slush around her legs, walk past her window. She initially thought that the red sweater looked similar to her baby’s only to suddenly realize with shock that the child indeed was her baby. She rushed out to pick me up from the other road and then all hell broke loose. My dad took the van driver, the teacher, the gate keeper, etc to task and that was the end of my van usage." 

Mema says Achachan didn't trust her with the van anymore and so would drop her to school and back everyday but I can't help but think that a part of it was also that he was a softie :)

I’m sure Achachan wasn’t cold, he was a man of his time making sacrifices whether in his life or another’s for what he believed was a greater good, things that must be done.

When Achachan passed away Achamma went into what can only be called depression. This was even before Achan was married so the woman she was got lost in the tangle of sorrow and confusion she felt at his sudden instantaneous death to a massive cardiac failure. The story Prasanna Cheriamma told me is that Achachan was cycling to the house that was being constructed in RT Nagar- the three bedroom house with two bathrooms of their own- a step forward in life. He collapsed while still on his bicycle (note5) but managed to have Prasanna Cheriamma called from her classes at the veterinary college. When Cheriamma rushed back, she took her father to a clinic close by where he was injected to bring his BP under control while they made a longer journey to a bigger hospital. By the time Cheriamma had him bundled into a taxi- a rare luxury that she couldn’t enjoy that day, she could feel his heartbeat gallop even faster. They cut the web of a toe to relieve some of the blood pressure but the man in the clinic had injected him for low blood pressure instead of high, ensuring his death. 

My aunt had one brother at sea to inform of their father’s death, two young sisters and a brother at home and one mother who did not know life outside the four walls of their house. Achan I’m told couldn’t even make it to Achachan’s funeral. He received news of his father’s death two days after the last rites- something the eldest son usually performs. I remember somebody mentioning that Achan had received his first stipend as a cadet earlier that week and had set aside money to finally give his father, a token of one dream coming true. He didn’t get the chance.

The Achamma I visited every summer in Bangalore was a quiet woman. I knew little about her other than how she would plead with her children and their spouses not to punish her grandchildren as all us cousins would get together and turn her house upside down. All the ettans would climb up the mango tree in our backyard yelling incorrigibly or turn Achamma’s bedroom into a skating rink by emptying a tin of talcum powder to slide around in.  As I grew older I saw a woman who shrank further and further into herself not even being able to hold her books of prayer or recognise the faces of her children. I always wondered if she saw Achachan in the dreams she would wake up from. I wonder if it mattered to her that none of her grandchildren ever met him. I’d like to think she had a fire in her that wasn’t entirely extinguished from being a woman of her time; that the bursts of anger on her sickest days weren’t her only release from injuries inflicted years ago.

My Achamma passed away a month back. I woke up to 5 missed calls from my mother and called back to hear Amma telling that Achamma had passed away. I remember feeling relieved. The woman I spent my college years in Bangalore visiting wanted nothing more than death even as she watched life go by from her place beside a window. She was ill- physically and mentally but most frighteningly, every time I saw her I felt like her soul had already died and that when she saw the rest of us she felt ashamed. On my lowest days I felt like she could see right through the façade I would put up for her benefit into the shame in my soul and on others I thought she felt ashamed of having to be taken care of by the son she took care of. 
On a note that has nothing to do with the rest of this telling- my Elema is a gift to the family with how much love and understanding showered on Achamma well after Achamma could no longer recognise her despite seeing her almost every hour of the day. 

In a strange stroke of luck I managed to get onto a plane to Bangalore that morning and make it in time to see Achamma more peaceful than I had in years. Achan truly does have the worst kind of luck. He was in Kerela to attend a Pooja that was meant for Achamma, something that my otherwise very practical father was told would ease her soul. When he got the news he hurried to Coimbatore to catch a flight to see his mother one last time- a flight that was delayed twice before being cancelled. His cousins who left Kerela at the same time that he was in Coimbatore for his flight, reached Banaglore hours before he did despite hurrying into a taxi as quickly as he could. 

As we waited for Achan that day my cousins, aunts and uncles from across the country came to Elechan’s house. We were her legacy and as each person walked in I couldn’t help but marvel at what this unlikely couple, thrown together as a bargain, had achieved for the world.

It took me back to when we sat around Ammama as her life slowly ebbed out of her. I know we sat around her- Reikhi and Pranic Healing all around and Oppa straight in from the UK changing her clothes and singing to Ammama as she drew her last breaths.

Both my grandmothers passed way in peace- one with all her family around her and the other in the peace of the early morning looking more serene than ever before, still waiting for her son to return. My grandfathers died differently but both in their daughter’s laps. One left a family that needed to pull itself together and find a way to survive while the other left a family who mourned his loss but celebrated the life he lived.

When Velliamma and Velliachan  (my mother’s sister and her husband) drove up from Chennai to pay their condolences I realized that I was in a room full of the people my four grandparents caused to happen- a room that was bathed in the sparkle of laughter and a certain togetherness. Their life, their sorrows, the dreams they had, the people they were- the people we are. Every chance was held together in this room.

Us cousins were banished into Amu and Ponnu’s room for being too loud. The “adults” (as if we weren’t that already that with my two brothers’ wives in amongst us grandchildren) smiled at us as they said we were too loud for a house in mourning. But, I wanted to shout (and knowing me, I probably did), we weren’t a house in mourning- we were in house in celebration; a celebration of the legacy my Achamma and Achachan had left the world. 

--

A special thank you to my Baby Mema who read this and tried as best she could to point out my madness and prejudice without being judgmental about any of it. These are her notes to clarify a lot of what I got horribly wrong. 

Note 1: I personally wouldn't put it this way because it was prestigious and honorable at that time to enroll one’s child for the service of the nation and not because of an affordability issue. I’m not sure if I’m right or wrong but my understanding is that it was not very cheap to do so and had tough entrance exams and interviews to get through. Your dad was brilliant in academics and so he got through to Sainik School

Note 2: He wasn't a dunce! There are stories of him and Prasanna winning prizes like toys for standing first in class

Note 3: Haven't heard about this part and don’t think it was necessary because nobody raised their voice against my dad's, ever! Other than under-the-breath protestations once in a while by my mom, or shedding quiet tears which was always over looked because the need to do what's best for everyone prevailed on dad and mom was considered as not having seen enough of the world to be able to know whats best! I don’t blame him for it because unlike today, that’s how all families behaved where the father was truly the head irrespective of whether he had the capability or not  

Note 4:  I know that each one of us found my dad very strict and found nothing wrong with not being given the chance to voice our opinions because the families we lived and interacted with around us, too behaved in exactly the same manner. That’s how below middle class families lived and we were happy too because the expectations were not there at all in the first place to feel unhappy or disappointed. 

Note 5: Either you got it wrong or she has- the fact is that he reached our constructed, completed and now rented house, collected the first rent, felt uneasy and went to our neighbor uncle(his own friend’s house and told them he was feeling uneasy and got them to call  call Prasanna from college over telephone

--

Malayalam to English

Achachan	Paternal Grandfather
Achamma	Paternal Grandmother
Achan	Father
Amma	Mother
Ammachan	Maternal Grandfather
Ammamma	Maternal Grandmother
Cheriamma	Aunt (father's younger sister)
Elechan	Father's younger brother
Elema	Father's younger brother's wife
Ettan	Elder Brother
Mema	Youngest Aunt (father's younger sister)
Tharavadu	Family Home
Velliachan	Uncle
Velliamma	Aunt (Mother's elder sister in this case)

Of things jagged and Beautiful

I like broken things. I like laying out every piece, feeling the bite of every jagged end and wondering whether I should let it slip into oblivion at the bottom of a trash can, fixed back with glue and love to a measure of it's former glory, or find an artist to transform the broken jagged ends into art that is as stunning and under-appreciated as every broken piece is. I can spend years sitting on the floor of my room cross legged as the jewel tones of my curtains drift in and out of the periphery of my vision making up stories for every piece, drawing parallels to my life that don't really exist, convincing myself of the missed opportunity of that broken thing, the newer opportunities that await it, in my home or of somebody more deserving. I can spend lifetimes, as many as the strands of hair I have on my head. Because broken things don't make me cry. Broken people do, but oh how they appeal to me anyway.

I can't explain it. I love imperfection. I am obsessed with it, especially in people. I'm suspicious of people as clear as fiction- as good and neat- or not, as a character I could read about or easier yet write about. What hooks me is reams and reams of flaws tucked into a beautiful package of disdain. I like the complexity of broken people who are convinced of their perfection.  I'm obsessed with unraveling the flaws and chewing on them, turning each flaw to catch the light and observe as it bursts into the dazzling human brilliance that it each is.

It starts with a conversation. A simple hello, I find intrigue in that warm confidence. And then it begins, rapid exchanges of a humor I don't possess, of a confidence I can't be bothered working on. New cities, new experiences, questions- lots of questions that I hold my breath waiting for the answer to. It's a volley really, I like answering questions more than asking them. The things people are curious about say so much more than what any other conversation reveals.
One word builds one castle, one card over another, one idea over another, a simple exchange, a thoughtful gesture, a brutally honest- indifferently delivered truth seen as harsh but oh so endearing. A display of anger, a measure of comfort, the intensity of a plan, the casual comfort of knowing safety, of finding a smile everyday. Slowly the pieces come together- a reward for patience that I work at.

The warnings are clear, from me. I can hear myself shut down conversation with myself and not inspect the many pieces I've collected, a warning echoed repeatedly but gently, another piece of the puzzle collected. It's a cruel test of myself to feel every jagged end, but not find out just how deep every cut could be- I repeat to myself every lesson learnt the hard way from the past; of the parade of beautiful, good people too perfect in their imperfections to wait while I take a hammer to my life. I know beautiful people, broken, mysterious, beautiful people and I know what I let them do to me. After years I have given up trying to change my preference. I can't help but be fascinated by every deformity; discoloration is my oxygen.

And so I wait for confirmation, to be told the jagged ends won't cut bone- not mine, I wait to set out the pieces until I have a hypothesis I'm fairly certain of. I hold myself back because the only way to inspect the perfect symphony of this pristine imperfection is to take a hammer to it and see what happens. My most dangerous imperfection is self destruction with a wide minefield of every person who matters. The battle scarred but surviving are the keepers.  But here's the thing about people who take their time with people, a little secret we're ashamed of. People who wait for people hold the could-bes dear, we don;t know how to give up while doors are slammed in our faces.

Calculations and possibilities are laid out from one constellation all the way back, the hopes mulled and debated and paced out until an unshakable truth presents itself- to continue enjoying the space or dive, head first, life in hand trusting unconditionally in the power of that hope questionably. And this is when the jagged broken ends emerge and do exactly the opposite of all those calculation. You see, they're beautiful. Radiantly beautiful, the kind that is blinding and brilliant and magnetic and so we race in a white darkness into the harshest of the impervious jagged ends being cut in a heartbeat like paper ribbons; at once amusing and exasperating in our giddy obtuseness.

And so, like unwanted paper ribbons we fall away as waves crash, slowly to gather again, quicker this time because of a knowledge learnt over and over again from many years, shutting out the questions and berating our weakness to hope.
Until the next parcel arrives and this dance begins all over again.

Because mornings are clearer

This was an e-mail I received. Yes he is fine (I checked) but I wanted to share this here because I can't find my own words today.

i wanted to write this on a public blog (or facebook notes or whatever) but i decided not to, though i am drunk. in fact, i was too ashamed so i am writing to you in person

it's so tempting for me to write '[FADE IN]' here but i will not because i like to believe this is serious. AND resist my film-maker's instinct or wanna-be filmmaker's instinct rather.

i see her online right now and i wanna ping but i decide not to. there was a time when she wanted me to be something that i refused to be. it was more material than emotional - like having a job, making money et al. hence i refused. OR may be that was just an excuse. i did not do what she wanted me to because i was too lazy. or because i wasn't good enough.

looking back, after a few years, i think she was right. or at least her advice was. i feel like a loser right now because i DID NOT listen to her. i should have been what she wanted me to be. i would have been happily married with kids and money and whatever if only i did listen.

i always thought my life was gonna be perfect - like since i was a kid. with a dream job, love of my life, a super awesome home with remote-controlled electronic appliances, lots of money to throw away, people to look up to me etc. i do have the maturity to accept that not everything we wish for happens. but not even one single wish? seriously? how the fuck am i supposed to believe in god then? or screw god, how am i supposed to go on with life?

I DO NOT KNOW.

that makes me feel like an immature IDIOT and i don't like it. but in the end it doesn't even matter, does it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVTXPUF4Oz4

yes, i was a fan of LP in my early years. still am, secretly

doesn't make sense, does it? that how nights are. mornings are better & clearer.

GOOD NIGHT!

Dear Pen

My dearest pen,

Courtesy of http://www.penherostore.com 

I miss you. I can't put words to how heavy my heart feels at the thought of replacing you and yet I must.

I loved you the minute I set eyes on you- my first true acquisition. I wonder if you could tell how scared I was about losing you as I had everything else dear. He said I had earned the right to have you, that nobody else he knew would take care of you as I would, that you and I deserved to be together from the first salary he ever drew.

Oh I loved you but I was so scared I would lose you. For a whole year you lay in my draw with jewelry and cameras, only used at home. You dried out so often I would wash you out after every use and search the internet every time for proof I wouldn't destroy you. I worried and worried and worried that I would ruin you- that you would be like all those perfumes Velliachan would bring back for Ammama from his travels across the world, stored away until they turned putrid. Oh but I loved you; I loved you so much that I couldn't resist your demand to see the world.

I remember the first day you came to work with me. We were writing lists, boring boring lists for a production house that I would later discovered, I loved. I remember being asked about my handwriting, you- you always gathered so much attention it almost took away from the work of art you are. Oh but how we flew- you me and stacks of magazines, the sheer joy of writing...
I also remember the first time I couldn't find you- the panic and tears, the prayers and amusement on the other end of the phone. You were you and so much more. I wonder if it is the same relief parents speak of, the feeling of my sins being washed away on your discovery the next morning, exactly as I had left you, on my desk the night before. We had our adventures didn't we... so many. We traveled, you found words for my tears and stoically refused to speak of our travels, so many letters bear your mark mistaken for mine.

Today somebody else said I had earned a pen. I was so happy, discussing the details in giddy excitement as only those who labor over a nib for a year and a half for the perfect angle will ever understand. We were discussing the weight of the nib and I could only think of you love. I couldn't replace you but now I must, I've earned it, she said. You will always be my favorite discovery but I hope you know I had to let you go. I couldn't bear the sight of you anymore if you weren't all of you. It wasn't you love, it was the world and that is the tragedy of it all, that mighty as you are, you weren't allowed to have your say.

I remember when I decided to let you go. I felt frozen until I washed your ink out in water just the right temperature and wiped you down one last time. I can't remember if I kissed you and held you tight, if I whispered my words of regret as I packed you away for the last time as my world shattered around me.

I hope you're happy. That you are treated with the love and respect you deserve. That he understands you need love and care, some adventure and some bravery. I hope you have ink and sunlight, paper and solemnity; I hope you don't miss me but know how much I miss you, how much I will always miss you.

You were my wings love, I look up into the blue for you- always, always.

The last 24 hours of being 24

I turn twenty five soon. In a matter of a few minutes I will officially cross the line I drew myself to find all my dreams and make them real, and at that line I will look back to the 8 year old me, convinced of happiness and success and say, “I’m sorry love, life didn’t turn out like we planned and I haven’t found what we are looking for, but what a journey!”

It all starts with a ridiculous plan to travel ten hours for a hair and one ridiculous friend who decided to make that journey with me.

24 has been many years put together. I have seen myself succeed well beyond my expectations, or anybody’s for that matter and then watch everything crumble. It was April and I had decided life could not get more perfect. I had almost everything I wanted and what I didn’t have was tied up in ribbons to arrive soon. I was as happy as I have ever been and thanking the universe for aligning the stars just for me. 2 months later life caught up with me and bitch-slapped me like never before.

I hit my lowest yesterday over something as stupid as speeding over a speed-breaker and crashing near a sewer. I stood up gathering the shreds of my dignity, my bicycle and phone (that I shouldn’t have been using while riding) and resigned myself to the life I now found myself living. Every single thing had the unpleasant odor of failure, even something as seemingly trivial as riding a bicycle home. I wasn’t looking forward to the stupid trip to Delhi. Given the course my life had run since June-July I just couldn’t bring myself to believe things could be anything but rotten.

But Nivi had booked our tickets and it seemed more of a pain to live with my ridiculous hair and cancel my tickets than just suck it up and go. So go I did and how very glad I am, I can now see that it might just get better, my faith in humanity is restored and I have the best bloody hair cut I have had since leaving Bombay.

Today, things just worked. We found an auto to take us to the station-easy peasy. We got the best damn seats on that beautiful double decker train- the one across a table with ample leg room. As if that wasn’t good enough there were army jawans on the other side of the table. I will apologise at this point for not doing anything special to show them the gratitude I feel for all they are willing to do to make sure I’m safe. I hope they know, I wish I had, in some way, let them know. I’ll forgive myself knowing I woke up at 5.45 (thank you Anju) after a late night.

I reached Delhi and realized the man I wanted to cut my hair (the entire purpose of this 5 hour journey, remember) was on holiday. Given how I am now used to having things not go my way I made my way to option two- this place called Looks in Khan market where Deepak (man number 2) had taken the day off. It doesn’t help that I didn’t have an appointment but then the guys at the counter suggested Nicky, and thank God they did.

They say a hair cut can change your view of the world, Nicky seems to have worked his magic on my day. A brilliant hair cut, cinnamon roll and a few book purchases later we walked around Khan market to some random place called Mamagoto because we weren’t in the mood to travel to where I wanted to eat lunch. Oh Mamagoto… how happy you made two girls craving sea food in faraway land-locked places. I love you.

Ne, Sashaa and Kaka… it was so blood good to see you despite the madness of Sarojini Nagar market. Ne and Sash, you were absolutely right- bad call, we should have just stayed in Khan market’s blissful laziness, but now I have a beautiful lamp, you’ve met Kaka and I have discovered his cool Ninaja skills. I’ll be sure to recruit you if I’m ever on a manhunt Kakkey. 

I will now take the time to thank the strangers who made this day everything it was.

1. Strangers on the road who told us three times to not listen to an auto man. They told us (three times I remind you) to get into the auto and then tell him where to go and insist on going to the police station if the meter wasn’t turned on. You had no reason to help two very lots very adult women but we thank you. I love how happy you looked when we got into the auto and I stuck my head out to flash you a thumbs up sign.
2. The auto man. We didn’t need to pick a fight.. You took us where we wanted, without driving around Delhi. I know because I turned on my Map-app expecting to be over charged. I love how you joined in when Nivi and I were sounding excited like every other tourist about how gorgeous the Rashtapati Bhavan and India gate look. I love how you then showed us every sight there was without a single detour. When we got off at Khan market at 11 something you even cautioned us about not being disappointed about seeing the shops shut because everything only opens at 12.
3. Auto man 2: You made zero drama outside Khan market when I insisted you drive us through an absurd route to pick up Ne befor heading to Sarojini Nagar. I didn’t put on my app but honestly, auto man 1 and you are part of the same brother-hood, and you were so patient even reversing on a road you knew better than to simply because we asked.
4. Bubble gun man: We were at a signal racing to the station when this man selling the coolest bubble making device ever passed our auto. I saw Anju gift even before I saw you. I thank you for giving us a new bottle of the funny liquid we need pointing out the leak. We wouldn’t have known and were very confused till you told us why. Nivi and I love you even more for telling us there was time enough to show us that it worked fine- clearly you know what can be done in 40 seconds better than either of us.
5. Uncle on the road: We came back to Jaipur and with very little sense sat in an auto despite suspecting our driver was drunk. He was pulled up by a cop, sped away after an argument and like stupid ducks we continued sitting in the auto all the way home. Drunk auto-man and his friend then picked a fight with us about how much to pay him and we saw you walking towards us. I was sure you wanted the auto or were walking to the shop until you came up and asked us if we were ok. I love you even more for turning back around and walking home as soon as you found out we were safe. Thank you, in this lonely city that shuts down at 8 and can’t be bothered with strangers (other than stare at them like aliens) I love you for going out of your way to make sure we were safe. You didn’t need to- you and I both know that and that is precisely why your gesture meant so much.

My faith in humanity is restored.

Bring it on 25, I’m ready. Could you though, make an effort to beat 24’s highs and never ever drag me down as low as your predecessor?

Lots of love and the happy bubbly feeling of the world not being such a shit-hole,
Me.  

Reposted from: http://sitaramenon.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/the-last-24-hours-of-24/

Bad choices

Life is defined by bad choices. Nobody tells you that growing up and it's too scary an admission to make once you are well and truly an adult; but it's true. Any body who has truly lived will know that successes or the lack of them might define what people think of you but it is your failures that play out over and over again as the milestones, the markers of growth.

I turn twenty five in a few weeks and a summation of my bad choices and consequent failures lead me to believe I have lived a life fuller than I deserve. Make no mistake, my gross miscalculations of risk have lead me to my every victory and there are enough of those to please the world, pity the world won't rescue me from my own voice every night demanding answers I don't have.  

It's silly, how each bad choice is based on one single miscalculation over and over and over again. I trust the wrong people. Repeatedly. I trust the wrong people t burn me to the ground and most certainly the wrong ones to teach me how to walk on water. When I got it wrong the first time I believed I wouldn't again. That I would somehow find wisdom in that betrayal and guard myself. My circle of trust shrank to a quarter of it's former glory and then again and again until it was just one person whom I would trust with my life and every thought, the latter more precious by far. No this isn't about my soul being crushed over and over again, well maybe it is but what of that?

I can only write when I feel choked by every emotion I have tilting to the dark side. It is this side a lot of people choose to believe is the real me, free of powder and lipstick. Somebody I trusted could see into my soul said that I was filled with darkness that would extinguish anybody else's light. I see how myopic she is now, mostly because she couldn't say it to me. I would re-write that sentence to take the sting of betrayal out of it if I could re-write my whole life. My bad choices led me every single time to my good ones but the pain and insecurity that they each bring before the clouds part hardly seem worth the trouble.

Have you wished, as I have to live joyfully oblivious to the duplicity in yourself and the world? 

A complete life

Today a certain social media site, filled with advertisements that have no connection to me whatsoever, makes my life look complete.

I have a picture up that announces professional recognition- from speaking knowledgeably at a public gathering, many others that announce personal fulfillment- from travels across the country from different times, a new profile picture that make me look beautiful in the funny sort of way that only pretty people can manage.

There are congratulations and declarations of a brightly shinning future. Words I'm soaking in while laughing at the truth that I know- that there are smaller details that make me up- details scattered so far and wide I can't put them together yet.

But today I will believe what everybody is telling me, I will believe the illusion of myself that I find so easy to believe of everybody else. Today I will convince myself of having a full life and laugh secretly at everybody who will believe that illusion like me.
--

I'm listening to Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone

Some days

Some days I wake up convinced I will be fine.

I'm woken up by the ring of my alarm instead of another dream of you. I'm chained to no memories- not good nor bad. My clothes- washed over and over again since you last saw them, bare no smell of you on this morning. I don't feel the phantom of your touch every time I feel the wind on my skin nor hear your sigh in every rustle of leaves.

I know for certain on days like this that I will be fine; that it will get better. I have reason to believe that with time I will find every shard of my crushed soul and glue it together transforming into somebody more breathtaking and complete than you ever knew.

On days like these I'm told there's a skip in my step and a tune to my laugh.Nobody asks about the colour of my eyes or why I won't smile. They ask instead of my childhood- whether I climbed trees and pulled pranks. I laugh in response, my love for the universe bursting out of every pore of my being- gratitude for the many gifts I have received that I haven't earned, the many opportunities that seemed gift wrapped with my name on the label. The world is perfect under the bandage I've plastered on and I feel the mile deep gashes in my soul begin the slow process of healing.

Just as I settle into my peace, a corner of my mind unlocks- I see an image of the inevitable future. A future I want with all my heart for you to have of happiness, success, joy and most of all, of peace. I see that future without me and that isn't what reminds me I will never heal, it is seeing somebody else in every dream we shared. And so I begin again, from the very bottom, tying again to forget, not hope, not believe and to stop praying to Gods who won't listen anyway.
---

I'm listening to Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd

My mother

I sometimes smell that particularly flowery smell of sunshine- I can be in a sweaty compartment of the train, in a restaurant, in the canteen- and I feel like I've been thrown into another world. Time stops, my body is independent of my mind and I can do nothing but let fragments of a memory that I can barely remember take over.

There is a strange comfort in things that don't change. At 24 there is very little that hasn't changed and yet when I smell that mix of sunshine, starch and flowers I'm transported to a warm cocoon. I feel four again. I watch as my beautiful mother wears make up and combs her hair, watch as she stands in the middle of what looks like reams and reams of beautiful silk. I feel the cool breeze of the air cooler and the magic in the air as the puddle of silk on the floor rapidly disappears. Amma was always impatient dressing up, she would click her heals and swear at safety pins. I hardly blame her, there is a bewildering ritual in wearing grown up clothes. The click of heals, the touch of rouge, the right shade of lipstick and the precise fold of every pleat.

I watch as she carefully combs her hair and snaps at me for getting in her way or bringing food into the room- I'm a clumsy child and in my jaw dropping wonder I can't seem to balance my plate. Sometimes, and these were prize days, I would be called on to to be part of the enchanting ceremony. I would sit on the floor and yank on pleats so that Amma could tuck them in just right. She would then spray on that perfume- it was never the same perfume, I could tell by the bottles being of different colours- and yet it would be that same ambrosial bliss.

When I was a child I dreamed of growing up, of dressing to Naval balls just like my mother did, of being as pretty, as perfect. It's amusing how childhood dreams turn out. I don't yearn so much for any of that anymore, we live lives that are of mutual pride and yet so cosmically different; but sometimes, on that rare special evening I'll walk into my mothers room and pretend to watch TV as I take in the unchanged present and revel in the permanence of that smell.

I have "borrowed" a tidy sum of perfumes from Amma in the hope that I can conjure that moment on demand but it's never the same without my mother, her boxes of make up and those magical reams of silk.  

Colaba is now home