Of my love for water

A lot of people have asked me about Petrichor. I love the rain and often times the anticipation of it more- the smell of the world just before the clouds burst open- and thus Petrichor. 

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It rained last night when I was sleeping and I woke up today to a different world. 

As I touched my skin this morning I felt like a different person, the air smelt different too but I was still me and the house looked the same.

Rain for me is magical. It has the power to wipe me clean, to pause time and circumstances to make peace with them. To stay calm and wait as the world continues to be in motion, bringing me all I want heaped on a silver platter. As much as I love that platter what I crave most is this moment of weightless suspension. Everything is tranquil here just like it is at the bottom of a swimming pool.

My brother tells me I learnt to swim as a toddler but that my introduction was more graceful than his to the world we both love so much. He claims that at some unknown age soon after he could walk, my father- man in the navy- the man from whom we have inherited our deep, unquestioning devotion to water bodies- picked him up and threw him into the water. 

Ettan says that like any child he floundered a little bit under my father’s watchful gaze (and my mother’s silent- voiceless aquaphobia) and then paddled around merrily for the rest of the day.

I must be clear that a) I have no idea how this boy remembers all this and b) my parents love my brother. He is, after all, their cherubic first born who to this day laughs merrily at the slightest provocation. I must also clarify that as barbaric as it sounds, I wholly support this dumping-of-toddlers-in-water-bodies-under-controlled-environment method of teaching, especially when I meet adults who can’t swim and don’t understand the best friend they have given up on- everybody is always regretful.

My introduction was not quite the same (according to my brother with his elephantine memory). I got a pink polka dotted bikini (despite it not being yellow, it must be said that I was quite a fashionable toddler), a matching float, and my father’s shoulders as we chilled in the sea beside Goa’s beaches. I also got a pool and very specific lessons on how to and not to breathe and co-ordinate my limbs. At some point we bid adieu to the float- I’m sure it was more from my family’s collection exhaustion from filling it with their life breath each time I wanted a swim- which was pretty much everytime I saw water- which, incase you haven’t connected the dots yet- on a naval base, on one of the most beautiful coastlines of the world- is a few times each day.

When Achan retired from the Navy and we moved to Chennai. Amma signed us up for swimming coaching. 

Here’s another something you must know of my civilian childhood- those stories you hear about kids who have done more extra curricular activities than most sane adult indulge in through their whole life put together- that was my brother and my childhood. Between the two of us (and then if you throw in Oppa who for all intents and purposes is much more sibling than cousin) there is very little that we have not done as children. 

And so of course if Oppa was swimming for the country when we moved to Chennai, Ettan and I would swim atleast state.

Every evening we’d be off to the pool to swim swim- swim- swim- swim. 

This was competitive coaching though, so we got whipped by the nylon end of a whistle for striking out wrong or splashing about in the water instead of working on speed or technique. We’d be taken to task about turning up 15 minutes late- "20 laps extra", or turning up exhausted- "get out of the pool and run 50 laps around the pool- WAKE UP!"

I loved it. I know if Amma or Ettan are reading this- especially together they’re going to look at each other with that this-one’s-memory-is-a-joke look but I swear I did. I love being pushed. I like having my endurance tested and beating the crap out of a challenge you will set out for me. I like basking in the glory of that victory. I learnt that as a child when the coach- Pratap Sir would clap us on the back with a huge smile for having learnt something well or swimming into the deep end when told to and not harassing him about it, or diving off the highest point on the dive pyramid (I’m just calling it that. I don’t have the slightest clue what it’s actually called) when your big brother thinks you won’t and has already started bullying you about it. 

Of course I made faces and pretended to hate my coaching classes- I was some single digit age when we’re meant to hate all authority figures and I didn’t know myself well enough to not care about what the done thing is.

The last time I was part of the team that was coached, I got the back of my foot stuck on some ledge and had a hunk of flesh ripped out of my foot. I was meant to swim 5 laps across the breadth of the pool and I remember crying through it and saying I was tired (because as an active child who knows what pain is) while Pratap Sir having dealt with my crap a hundred times before firmly told me to just shut up and keep swimming. 

When I did get out of the pool (after finishing all my laps let it be said) and he saw the mess my foot was, poor Pratap Sir was more upset than I was. It’s weird but I still remember going to SMF Hospital where they said some new bandage had come in that would deal with the wound better than having to get stitches and hearing my mother talk about Pratap sir apologising to her beside the pool while I was in the shower washing off the chloride before being taken to the hospital.

By the way, the hospital lied. The stupid wound took 2 or 3 months to heal and needed to be redressed everyday. I hated it but love the softly fading scar.

During the time it took for my foot to heal I know Ettan stopped going to his coaching lessons so when I was completely healed I wasn't sent either. They were really more about him than me anyway-  in the first state level event that I was signed up for (and the only one for me) Ettan finished 3^rd in freestyle for his age group while I came last. The crowd cheered me for having finished because of how far back I was! 

And so Pratap Sir and I never really worked together after that day and the SDA pool in Shenoy Nagar just became this pool that I thought of as having swum around in knowing full well that kids were pissing their life out in as explanation for why that particular pool has chlorine enough to kill anything but us thick skinned humans.

Then I started traveling from one coast to another swimming in the sea, challenging the waves as I swam deeper and deeper in; Enjoying the excitement of first swimming out through rough waves to calm seas and then- the far more thrilling challenge of swimming back to shore while the waves throw you in whatever direction they feel like in a battle to hold you forever. 

Amma if you’re reading this- I’m not reckless;  I make sure to swim only as far as I can see another human being and if not then to make sure I tell the lifeguards on the beach and swim in their line of sight. 

Recently I was in what is popularly called a “bad space”. I needed an escape and despite my derision of pools only four feet deep I decided to make a run for it and work off my thoughts in a pool (I’m not a runner. Think Phoebe-from-Friends not a runner). I swam lap after lap not realizing the time go. 

I wasn't racing against anybody this time, only my thoughts and we have a lifetime together, speed would take me nowhere. The pool was mine as much as my thoughts were and as I swam I felt some of the caged anxiety drain out of me. 

There is a rhythm to swimming. One-two-three-four-five-six breathe or dip--- breathe------dip---- breathe------. It’s a pulse that codes into your heart beat and clears your mind. I felt suspended, time didn’t mean anything, physical limits didn’t either because, there was no conscious thought, lesser conscious action- it dawned on me that time is elastic.

Of course I got out of the pool and my mind caught up as I stared out of a window- even after a swim I'm still me. But I did it everyday for the next ten days. Everyday I would stake claim to two hours of my life and make it mine. After many years I dived off a board giggling like I did at 6. My father joined me a few days- we didn’t talk or even acknowledge each other in the pool but strangely I felt at peace- like life would work out anyway.

It’s been two weeks since those ten days and I’m on a quest to find a pool in my little desert city. One I can cycle to everyday and stake my claim of two tranquil hours in everyday. 

But today I woke up to that feeling that I need a swimming pool for- that feeling of infinite possibilities as you tuck your ears under the surface and watch the world go by through shuttered eyelids. 

Everything is possible, everything is rushing to you as you drift on- life is blue-green-tranquil perfect. 

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 Faultmate

As I speed down slopes on my bicycle with the cold wind biting into my skin I am transported to dark alleys in a different part of the country. We didn't have a bike then and we certainly weren't in any hurry. I remember then that my mind wasn't filled with questions, a to-do list or a mental inventory of what is in the fridge to fix a meal with, it was filled with the sound of your chatter as we walked down lanes like tributaries off a road that was mistakenly called loafers lane. I still hold the opinion that it should be called rat lane to warn every other 17 year old about what on first sight looks like an earthquake but is actually a rat pack on the same prowl as us.

I haven't forgotten any of it, or maybe my mind reconstructs the portions that I have forgotten. However you see it I will always have a memory of us silly 17 year olds heading out as often as we were hungry looking for the latest to eat in the little shops that dotted Vasanth Nagar. How brave we were setting out into cold, dirty, often dark streets,  looking for meaning on the pretext of finding a good meal. By the end of our year I could navigate the streets better than any auto driver, a habit we carried into the discovery of lanes behind RT Nagar filled with the mouth-watering goodness of fresh kebabs (that come to think of it I never ate!). I wonder if they would be surprised, our 17 year old-full-of-faith-in-the-future selves, that though our lives turned out nothing like we expected, so did our friendship, across geographies that span continents and multiple oceans.

Oh we were silly weren't we, forsaking the surety of a meal every night for our adventures on that little strip of networking hopes. I wouldn't change a thing. Not from that year at least.

We have come a long way from that simpler time where our greatest worries were managing a princely rent of Rs. 3,000 and waking up in time for class, or in your case convincing people that I really wasn't addicted to drugs- that sleep was my poison of choice. They wouldn't believe the horrors we now tell each other of or the depth of anger we can feel for other people who caused those stories to be each others' truth.

I still have our book of meticulously kept accounts. They remind me of a happier if frugal time, times that neither of us would have sought to add a descriptor to, consider a benchmark.

We're so pretty I couldn't pick just one picture :P

I can still hear your voice when you sent me that message- "His loss. He has
nothing. No spine, no you". It was the first time I had laughed since that great tragedy that we let seep into our lives then. I remember you telling me later about you, my all consuming worry that you laughed at and even got mad at me about. I worry because I can't confuse you with the anger I feel on your behalf, I worry because you will walk into structures with your heart on your sleeve making friends with people whom you love more than yourself- with people who love themselves more than they appreciate you and your distinct brand of care. I wonder if you remember that time on the terrace. I had just walked in and saw you crying about somebody who wasn't fair to you and took off in a range about just what would be done to that person. What I remember most bout that night, other than the biting cold, is your confusion at my anger and how that night turned into you calming me down instead of the other way around.

We have our memories don't we, that nobody else would understand; The very best and the very worst. So here's to you dear flatmate/faultmate and our plan of retiring at 30 to explore Africa as we did once Karnataka.
You bloody well make it that far if I will, we have vineyards to explore and men to heap hate on.

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.