Of Ants, Antlions, lizards and crow.

“Stop day dreaming” - Girls who day dream get into trouble, strongly believed my mother pinching my arms bringing me from the dreamy world.

Like most children of age 5 and 6, I always lived in a dream world. Unlike my daughter whose dream world consists of myriads of characters from Disney and toys and movies, my dreamy existence were associations with  ants, bugs, lizards and my all-time favorite antlions or otherwise called Kuzhiyana in local language.  One never had difficulty spotting antlions hiding in the garden and ours was home to umpteen funnels in the sand indicating the presence of the little bugs.  I used to sit with my knees folded, legs behind (a seating position that was then disproved for some totally unrelated possibility of dad incurring debt) watching them religiously and patiently waiting for them to come out so I could swoop them and place them on my hands, much to the disgust of my mother.  I held the belief with my neighbor an equally dreamy boy, that singing to them helps them to come out of their hiding.   So we coined the lyrics together kuzhiyane vaa vaa;  kuzhiyane vaa vaa; paalum pazhamum vannal tharam …. 

Reasonably disgusted at our rendition, it would never show its face until its home was rummaged with our little fingers.  The destruction was saved for the days when I was being shouted to hurry back inside, which then meant I had to take them with me inside my petticoat pockets. To be kept under my bed later.  Hence the rummage. Other days and like most days when my existence was ignored by the weird adults around me, I patiently sat and watched the funnels, humming the song. The slanting funnel in the warm sands, each deeper than the previous one until the entire construction becomes a slippery, cone shaped hole about two inches deep – trap laid for the clueless ants that wander into these clever traps.

Once the Ant-lion makes the slanting funnel in the sand, its victim, the Ant, slides down the slant and is then stoned, from the bottom of the funnel, by the hunter, who turns his neck into a catapult.  There is a lot of activity that happens in the Antlion’s gazebo and you need the microscopic vision, focus and all the time in world abundantly available to a 6 year old who then hated school and the nuns in habits, to understand the antlion’s conspiracy theory early on. There were days that I took the antlions view of things and there were days when the Ant’s held my pity, depending on my mood.  But more often, I was cross with the ants, for falling into the trap over and over again, for not having the foresight to realise what lay in the soft blanket of sand.  Decades later, as I type this I understand that like the ants there are no traps as deadly as the ones you set yourself up for in life.

Often, I left a mark of some sort near the funnel, sometimes a twig or sometimes a flower, hoping to come back from school and continue the conversation or witness the activity which had ended abruptly.  But the little treacherous things they were, almost as if they feared my kathi ( relentless talking), would have moved their trap by the time I came back from school the next day teaching me early on that the traps are never set consistently. 

Inside my home, I had another friend. I was completely besotted by Lizzy the lizard and her family  who also lived with us. Lizzy constantly kept an eye on me, following me even during my private moments, watching me from the ceilings of bathrooms.  Anything that falls from a certain elevation breaks, including humans. I broke many bones as a kid.  I was living proof. But the little lizard was the wonder creature which could never hurt itself when it fell from the walls. How was that even possible ?  Unlike the bugs I had to hide underneath my bed and in my pencil boxes, the lizards were held with much more reverence in our family as it was believed that if they tch tchd whilst humans spoke, it would come true.  But mostly that seemed to be applicable only to whatever my mom said. I tried to convince her that Lizzy my pet had tch tchd that I was not well and had to be kept away from school, albeit on deaf ears. Many hours blissfully passed at me staring at the lizards, whose belly sometimes seemed to hide little baby lizards and they many days they offered me consolation on a bad school day. For a long time I thought that it was lovingly gazing at me and listening to every word I spoke to it in the bathroom.  It was only in 7 th standard I learnt that lizards did not blink and therefore you never knew whether it was gazing at you or not.

For many happy summers, I thought the Lizzy and I were best friends until I realized that I was its  unwitting butler, who brought the antillion inside home every night serving Lizzy’s dinner.  Unknowingly, I was rendering karma to the Antillion  punishing it for its trap by befriending the lizards.  Such is life, you never know how you get caught in the cycle of karma of various things and people who come into your life, knowingly or unknowingly.

And then came my best friend.  The common crow.  There were two varieties known to me during my early childhood days of keenly observing the surrounding wildlife. The crow with a grey patch on its neck and the crow which was completely jet black aka without the  grey patch.  The jet black one was a source of depression  during many days as I then completely believed “ One for sorrow and two for joy” . I would wallow in self pity and misery if I had not spotted two jet black crows and that alone would be reason for me to be depressed the rest of the day. I would search in vain and allowed myself the new rule that spotting the next one within a span of one hour would resolve the misery and bring in joy. It is a wonder that we learn from early days to make the rules and beliefs for sorrow only to emerge from them happier.  My mother had different views about the crows. A crying crow, according to her does not indicate hungry crow but brings bad news.  According to my mom, crows never cried for their food. If food was unavailable, they grabbed or snatched their food and were natural scavengers.  I believed the latter part as many times I was the gullible victim and have seen my toast blissfully carried away in its beak.  Nevertheless, I loved the crows, enjoyed playing the gullible and never resisted the food grab, a habit which got ingrained much into latter part of my life.

The ant trappers (kuzhiyana), the entrapped(ants), the anti-fragile (lizard) and finally the scavenger crow were all my childhood wild life friends teaching me various lessons with their lives.   In hindsight, I believe I should have taken onboard the lessons offered by my wild life friends with the seriousness it actually deserved as opposed to the lessons offered by the nuns with  what that deserved -contemptible mirth.    

 

 

The Final Journey !

It’s Thursday late night or wee hours of Friday morning, as you wish, whichever side you are facing the sun.

I have bid farewell to my chithi’s final journey, heaven bound.

A very beautiful soul.

The transition period from one body to another is supposedly the most difficult time for the departing and for those bidding farewell.  Prayers and rites are marked to ease the transition of energy from one space to another, said my father to me once.  That it was important, we pray and wish the soul happiness for the onward journey .. a peaceful transition.  I don’t know. Sometimes it is easier to believe than to challenge.  If anything, I have understood in these four decades that there are somethings that will always be beyond the challenge of human mind. Death- one such phenomenon.

My Susilamma passed away Saturday morning.  Exactly a week ago, we had spoken and she had encouraged me to find a suitable placement in India so she could come and live with me whenever she needed a break, she had said. I had teased her that Dubai is closer than she thinks and promised to come for the next shopping festival.  She spoke about her 40 day grandson, her own daughter’s temperament, buying a house in Madurai and reminded me to take to the hair salon next time she came to Trivandrum. 

Death was not in the agenda. Not then, not now, nor in the near future. 

Come to think of it, it is never in our agenda unless we are looking for a convenient escape. Even then, Death has its own mind.  My own days are filled with agendas; one structured for the corporate, one for home, one for health and fitness, one for retirement and so on. Those agendas mostly are full of objectives to be achieved in this world. Therefore, we put the death—the inevitable agenda as the last priority. This life is a long journey which will come to an end sooner or later. We all have got a ticket which will take us to a station unknown to us. We do not have an option not to set on a journey.

There was something about my chithi that made everyone in the family feel that they were special to her.  Everyone I know had a special bonding with her. She had the childish innocence about her and was never known to speak harsh.  She would rather be silent but not say words that word hurt anyone.  I always admired the quality of her mild temperament sweet words which could turn into the most abusive language when she was in control of the laborers and their  hundreds of families around her, who lived under them, working as labourers , solving their issues. She owned several match box units in and around sattur.

Her management skills and technical skills will bring an IIT IIM to shame.  She could calculate the quantities or bundles as she called, the cost, the quantities that were unpacked, all while simmering the rasam for her diabetic husband. She would know when someone cheated her, but would chose to ignore most times, telling me that it was the circumstances that made man do that. Just as she was catching a nap, someone would knock her house asking for food, she loved children in all sizes shapes and colors. In a village that was caste creed bound, she would play with a nigger’s child, much to the antagonism of my grandmother. My mother once said she would cry, if anyone in the hostel cried. Compassion was her soul quality.

She blamed me for being unable to complete her studies. I was born when she was 15 and had just finished her schools.  My own mother was nine months away to her 20^th birthday and was too young to tend to two children below the age of two and therefore I was under the care and custody at my grandparents’ house.  My chithi blamed me for turning her life topsy turvy.  I wouldn’t sleep unless it was she who rocked the cradle, I wouldn’t eat or drink unless fed by her. I used to call her amma and my own mother akka, according to her. A fact which my mother never denied.  I have lost the person whom I first called amma and I am shattered.

In many ways I prided that I had 4 mothers. My mother’s three sisters always were at our side when we needed. My pregnancy, mothers illness, any trouble in the family one of them always came. But it was always my susilamma who was the first to rush to come to see me. I could go on and on and it pains me terribly to type her memories. I know I should be happy for her transition. I know that the end marks a celebration of her life. An end to a life lived to love. But, I also know there will be none like her. I miss her. Terribly so.  She has left a hole in a shape where no one else can fit in.

Funny, how it has to take death to summon all the love within to surface.

I couldn’t make out much from the call that came on the fateful Saturday afternoon. I was angry that she had a fall, she was so clumsy so careless.  My mother grumbled that she often forgot her medications.  She had hyper tension.  But not in the wildest dreams, did we think she would have left for the final journey…couple of days short of her 56^th birthday.  Death is a badly timed cruel joke. Period over.

I have to accept that she is no longer living with us, and I will no longer see her giggle childishly, never have her sumptuous food, never be able to sleep on her lap, and never be able to fulfill the promise of Viji’s salon or for the Dubai Shopping festival…I have to find peace in the happy moments that we shared, in the love that she unconditionally showered. Every life has a death and her light has now gone to take care of another darkness.

I once read a Korean story where God weighed souls on a pair of scales. On one is the departed soul and the other the tears of those who wept for the soul at the time of departure. If nobody cries, the soul goes straight down to hell. If there are enough tears and they are sufficiently heartfelt, it is believed to rise to heaven. My Chithi, the one who found joy in all endeavours, even the most mundane is smiling at me from heaven, I am sure.
Death and a journey to funeral and last rites, is one unique phenomenon.  It teaches you the biggest philosophy of living is dying. But the lesson is lost as soon as you are back from the funeral. And to lose that lesson is perfectly normal and acceptable in this mundane life.  We continue to thrive in the certainty of the uncertain and philosophically lament that life has to go on!

My blackberry's cruel ringtone jolts me back into the present. I have to catch up on the myriad of emails that I have not responded for a long time, back to the corporate rat race with super celestial outlook and subterranean conduct, strive to earn those that are denominated valuable by the humans, believing that I will own a space in the world, fully aware of the futility of it all, but not knowing if I will live to live.. and so on until my own end beckons me for the next journey and how many more to go, to that I wearily bow.

When people don’t express they die one piece at a time…allow me her life in my words at least. Good day !

 

From Thee

I arise before the sun can slice,
The darkness of my sleep.
Soon as it slays
the blanket of my dreams,
I whisper to Thee, wherever He may be,
Thank you for whatever you have been
On my unconquerable soul !
Trapped I am, under the circumstance,
Care not to cry or as much wince,
Bloody in my heard but unbowed,
Remains my head abode,
For beyond wrath and tears,
are my Forty years!


You are the master of your fate
And captain of your soul, replied Thee.

Journey.

Trust not anyone to share the journey,
Alone is where the soul belongs,
When life alludes only the uncertain,
I compose my own song.


So I sing, at this dusking time,
Beneath the evening star,
In distress, I shear the latest rhyme,
hark, there is no sorrow that will follow tomorrow.


And so I draw another life of courage,
without regret on its damage,
As the time has come to grip distress,
By its roots and shred beneath my stiletto boots !


Tasks plenty, many more than you think I can do,
For I have taken the untrodden path without ado,
Shant admit the moss to chew my sanity
As I take on my soulful journey.

No more will I reminisce
things that I miss, thoughts lost in abyss,
Love surrounds me as blessings
As pain lessens the karmic musings.


Bramha

White Ambassador

Thursday, September 1, 2016, Sharjah.

5 Pm.

I am driving my kids to their Carnatic music classes and ironically English music is blasting in the car, incomprehensible lyrics, but clearly the children’s favourite. My son is not happy with the car I drive, and he wants me to upgrade it to a bigger one. I feign ignorance of the model that he is referring to and he painfully explains, “you know amma, the one with four circles”, of course, that one, which would leave as many holes and a dent as big as its rear into my savings.  I smile, listen to the crap music, their complaints, and muse.

It was early eighties. And I was seven or maybe eight.

My father was driving the whole family – my amma, brother and me from Trivandrum to our village in the neighboring state of Tamilnadu, in our white Ambassador. You know the old 70s model with its enormous and perfectly circular headlights, which looked like an old man staring with his eyes wide open, the radiator grill suggestive of a wily man with thick upper lip. The white ambassador stayed with us for a long time, until my marriage, and witnessed many happy trips with the family. The white ambassador was an upgrade from the previous herald car,  which I always felt was a beautiful but spiteful woman annoyingly calling it a day when we were about to set off for a happy trip to the beach.

I drop my kids at their classes, KS Chitra’s sweet voice now filling my car with Enna Thavam Seydhanai yasoda; I drift to the white Ambassasdor that had no stereo, no AC and not that I missed any of it, not for the lack of knowing advanced things then, but the wind blowing on my face with my neck craning out of the window, when dad was at the steering wheel was one of the best thing in the world of an nine year old girl.

A visit to my grandparents’ house always excited me. I loved being around my thatha who was the village head of some sort and was always busy but still tagged me along to sit with him while he pompously chewed the betel leaves and resolved the disputes, not all of them were trivial. From extra marital affairs, property issues, sibling rivalry, water problems, festival dates a whole lot of issues were discussed and consensus arrived. My thatha, the sole unquestionable arbitrator indeed of Melakkaranthai. I would sit hiding behind him, pretending to be invisible, sniffing his sweat and sometimes scratching his back, twisting his mustache.  I adored him - his mustache, his bellowing voice, his walking stick, his crispy white clothes. Everything about OSP, as he was affectionately called, invoked a lot of admiration in me. He was so regal in his mannerisms which reflected even when he would fart most impertinently amidst a group of people. His loud farts were with such impertinence that was shocking to the little girl from the city. Today, there is a lot of dispute surrounding his possessions, who has inherited what, but there is no debate that it is my fortuitous mother who inherited his thundering farts.

A few days into my village and few annoying questions was all it required to undo the excitement of being with my grandparents and prompt me to get back to Avittom Road. At the village, regardless of the young, old, male or female everyone would openly ask my mother or me if my eye risked meeting them, me if I got my first period, attained puberty ( vayasskku vanthacha) and in a fashion that appeared it was a goal that I had to achieve, and not a natural course of events. I would cringe with embarrassment and hold my breath for some time believing that would make me drop down dead. It must have been one of these questions that got Sita sunk into the earth, I was convinced at that time. People at city never asks you these questions. But then there are no secrets in a village. Everyone is into everyone’s life. That is what they do for amusement. Life is one big soap opera. I vowed to live in city when I grow up ignoring that thousands of little women in the villages have lived more gentle and equable lives than those in the city.

I park my car and return home. I acknowledge my neighbor in the elevator with a nod and a smile that fails to reveal the lines around my mouth. She has been my neighbor for 7 years but I barely know her, I mused, save that they are from Lahore or is it Karachi? Isn’t it funny, at Melakkaranthai my grandfather knew every single family in the village, how old their children were, what was their crop valued, the margin,  how much was their debt, whether they had money to marry their daughters, where their children studied, down to every detail which would put the detailed calculations of my space scientist dad to shame.  He took ownership and accountability of the every family, the education of every child, the marriage of every girl, bailing out the odd one. Maybe that is why city life is preferred for the solitary. The city reflects the sadness of sophistication. Of Privacy. Of solitude. Secrets kept in compartments. No one wants to know because no one cares.

My father’s ego never overstayed at my grandparents’ house. And despite being told by my thatha to travel next morning, he insisted that the journey in the evening hours was better and …would be in time home before midnight. Nothing is more pleasurable than an opportunity to out conform the leader. Dinner at Thirunelveli, beat the rush traffic from Nagercoil by 10pm,  he would say as though he had all planned to the fraction of seconds, like his space launch vehicle. Funny, how we think we know better and fast forward thirty years he is the recipient of similar adoration from my kids and rebuff from his son in law.  The saturnine karmic cycle continues to do what it has to do.

That journey, ominous to my thathas words took much longer than my father’s scientific calculation. On our way back, we lost our way and kept circling in the middle of night to find the high way to Trivandrum. My father was furious, he blamed it on my thatha’s ill-omened words. My father, known for his intellect and his temperament, each outdoing the other, was not known to be calm. His paranoia caught on to all of us and that night, all of us were frightened out of our wits. It was late and there was no one to ask the direction. Father was banking on the fuel pump in the high way to fuel his journey. My mother took out a book with picture of Thirupathi and began to murmur fervently . We got lost and I was terribly frightened.

Predictably, we ran out of fuel and we were stranded in middle of nowhere. The only thing to do was switch off the engine, lower the windows and wait for dawn, for help to arrive and pray that the night passes by safe. It was terrifying. There were stray dogs, bandits, and it was not a safe place to be in. My brother is 18 months older than me and he can’t have been more than 10 years, when he volunteered that night to go by himself looking for help. His words and the bravery on his puppy face would have prompted courage to any timid man. Dad told him to stay and he left us under the care of the 10 year old boy. After what seemed an eternity, he returned in a TVS 50 with a man and a plastic can of petrol. 

The white ambassador eventually brought us home by early hours of next morning.  We learnt a new route joked my father, trying to lighten up things. I did not find it funny. Not then. The road less travelled is peaceful because it is deserted, I thought. It is not always safe, because when you need help the travelers are on the road frequently travelled. 

As always at the end of a long journey, when we returned to Avittom Road, the following day, dad would give the white ambassador a good wash and wipe till it shone and would turn to his little helper and beamingly ask me “So how was the journey” Out of sheer fear of his temper, or maybe the longing for more trips to hometown, I would tell him exactly what he wanted to hear, the development of early ostensible appreciation aka interpersonal skills.

Its time to pick up my kids. I drive back to Symphony. 

My own journey has taken unexpected detours, I muse. As I sit in the parking lot, listening to songs from Punnagai Mannan, waiting for my children, I realise that I am no longer afraid of being lost. I am no longer afraid of new journeys. Because it always reveals something new, and this is ultimately life changing.

There is a time in the life of every girl when she for the first time takes the backward view of the life. Reflect. Perhaps that is the moment when she crosses the line into becoming a woman? The new journey that I have embarked upon last year revealed me to myself, that all I wanted was to live a life where I could be me, and be okay with that. I had no need for affirmations, material possessions, or company with me on my journey. Yet, at times loneliness largely looms ahead like a scary destination. I have to shrug it off. Eagles don’t flock, they fly alone, and that’s fine.  All I want is the chance to be the creator of my own world, my own reality, my own journey.  I want the open road and the new beginnings every day. I know, that is a tall order. My stupidity has no limitations sometimes.

It is past sunset.

My children are back from the class. They have now forgotten that they want a new car. Gautam opens the roof shield and wistfully stares at the moon.  At moments like these, when I catch my son staring at the stars, talking to himself, I know he is creating his own childhood, travelling his own journey, picking up some marks and leaving others… It scares me, yet can’t wait to read his journey someday….

My journey or yours.

Aren’t we all forever travelling?

Seeking other states, other lives, other souls? Some of us in White Ambassador, some of us like the eagle, some us in flocks...but arrive at the same end.

Good night. 

 

Mango Trees

July 2016.


Here I am, a discontented sojourner.

Several contemplations led me to conclude that no place was as good as my hometown to spend my hard earned holiday.

 I am in Trivandrum, the city which adopted me and nurtured me and still loves me unconditionally. Despite Technopark, Infosys and the threat of an upcoming metro, Thironthoram retains its charm, grace and the accent so unique to it.  The city which seeded my soul, fostered me by beauty and by fear ..a city where I spent 23 birthdays and will I spend more? That I do not know.

Its 2 pm.

It seems the entire neighborhood and not just my family is enjoying a siesta after a heavy lunch. It is a quiet neighborhood with most of the residents of Avittom Road being retired and senior citizens like my own parents, so I can’t be wrong, I mused.  I sit at our Car Porch, checking emails, with Peeku, snuggling at my side occasionally licking my feet. The breeze from the neighbors mango trees makes me drowsy…I realize how relaxed I am. How serene it is.  I dint need a spiritual or meditative retreat after all. All my soul missed was the afternoon breeze at my home.

There is something about this cool noon breeze teasing the paradoxical sun that sends you into a state of semi consciousness.  If the breeze is from a mango tree that has withstood more than three generations, plenty stories are whispered through the breeze.  Pictures of hanging mangoes on overburdened branches taunt me this afternoon, like my dreams hanging from a thin branch, waiting to be blown away by the next strong wind.

July breeze is Aadi Kaathu according to my mom. (the breeze that is exclusive to the month of aadi which has the strength to blow an Ammi- the roller grinding stone ) I don’t know if the Aadi breeze ever managed to blow any Ammi as my mom claims, but many seasons it has blown away plenty of rational and logical thoughts from my mind. Emotions often swaying with the breeze was the hallmark of the nonsensical mind of a girl and more often the teen girl sending her into whirling into whimsical reveries, the nature of which varied with the biological year.

I rarely stepped out of my dreamy imaginary world as a child.  I would pretend I was invisible and it wasn’t hard as mostly I believed I must not be visible to the naked eye. My mother and grandmother would talk for ages and not know that I was in the room and my mother wouldn’t respond to my frantic search for my pet lizard.  Adults seemed blissfully unaware of my existence. I was left alone with my books, my two other girlfriends Leni and Priyanka all locked in room discovering puberty and the horrors of growing breasts which I secretly but painfully tried to submerge it back into my chest with insulation tapes. My dad would grumble that the insulation tapes got stolen by workers while yards of them would be wrapped around my chest, inside a thick petticoat, which mostly resulted in me choking when I spoke. My mother thought I was having slur speech, an effect of evil eye, and to my horror prayed aloud to shave my tresses in Tirupathi if my speech returned. God responded immediately and Insulation tapes never went missing again.

On occasions I decided to step out my dreamy bookish world come to think of it, I used to love to climb mango trees.  They were more appealing as opposed to the long limbed  coconut trees which was the Thengavettukaran’s forte, the intimidating jackfruit trees which was home to ant- nests plenty not to mention the bees and the flies around the scattered jackfruits was revolting. But mango trees, aha they were warm and welcoming and no other living thing so immobile could be friendlier to an adolescent girl.  There was this mango tree in the compound of the house which we lived.  It was not a particularly tall one, it was a sturdy one with shallow branches which made it easier for tall lanky girls to climb.  Once when my grandmother visited me, during our summer holidays, she was aghast to find us three girls climbing the tree.  I was immediately called inside, and warned that I should never climb trees.  My future husband in my grandmothers own words “would suspect me”. I was not allowed any further questions on such irrational wisdom and neither was I provided with any further explanation on what seemed upon me an impromptu death sentence on a sunny playful afternoon. For the life of me, I could not understand then or many seasons later why climbing trees would provoke my future husband’s suspicion on a mysterious matter.

13 years of my life had been spent acknowledging, albeit begrudgingly, that an adolescent girl had little choices and those were limited to whether she wants to sleep with grandma or amma, choice between idli or dosa, hair in single plait or double plait etc, I accepted most things but not without  tantrums at what seemed then unnecessary things, such as wanting to cycle, climb trees and swim. Not particularly athletic and having found my period excuse during PT days, I cared less for the cycle or swim. But separation from the Mango trees hurt and not being allowed to climb them deeply left me despondent as the many things I enjoyed was also arrested.

Several probing later my exasperated mother told me I would lose my virginity if I climbed trees.  This piece of information was mystifying.  Would the mango trees seduce me? Do they grow dicks? Turn into men? Does it happen when I am on the trees or when I climb down?  I already knew what “sex” and “virgin” meant thanks to locked up room time with my girlfriends, but I was only aware of boys on top of girls.

Cut to a 40-year-old me looking smug, because now I know all about sex and how rarely it involves trees. Although climbing trees is one of the many ways that a girl might tear her hymen, hence my grandmothers concern. The hymen is commonly seen as some kind of gatekeeper of virginity – but a very bad gatekeeper who can’t stop anyone entering; it’s more like a transparent withered guy who stands by the gate, and snitches on those going in and out. And even that information is unreliable. I remember asking my friend who had got married earlier than me whether men had evidences of hymen or virginity.  The response partly paved my feminist path, as you can understand.

The breeze is strong, as if conscious of the joy it beholds on me and demanding an entitlement in return. I drift into my semi-conscious state, my memories taking me back to when I was 12 years old, and puberty knocking at the door, my tantrum holding it wide open at every opportunity.  My grandmother, her stories, anxieties, oily long hair, sacred virginity… all forming a part of my childhood. The thought of her love is still so heartwarming, but I am glad she is not around to know that my husband cared less for hymen and had no other suspect other than economical. I still hope someday her words would be profane and my husband/lover would suspect me for it.  That would redeem the time lost on the Mango tress.  The leaves on the mango trees from Sudha auntie's house, quivering in the breeze as though sending me a message from my grandma. A surge of contentment rushing through my veins. I edit my own words - A contend sojourner. Women are like salmon,  in the end they always swim back to the same place.

The breeze is orgasmic, ironically brought me to a topic which I still consider to be an evolutionary mystery. Hymen – the focus of the oppression of women’s sexuality for many generations and probably still remains an object of oppression in many parts of the world placing restraining order on adolescent girls.

 

 

My Alma.. Mater!

"Good girls have long hair, well-oiled and pleated”

Such hairy logic resonated with my father, mother and grandmother and great grandmother, uncles and aunts. Short hair was for bad girls I was told. Either they are bad or sick affirmed my grandmother with a conviction that a physician would not dare to argue.

My mother had long hair that reached her bottom and my grandmother even longer and everywhere around me were aunts and sisters- women with long hair adorned with jasmine flowers, tulsi twigs and with an amount oil that could fuel a truck for a long trip.  Wrapped in a white towel and twisted into a bun that was only taken off after she saw us to school, she kneeled to draw a kolam in the wee hours of morning, with Kausalya Subrapabhatham reciting in the background, my mother was a picture of Tamil harmony and her hair did everything to complement it. 

Thus started my hatred for long hair and equally abhorred the logic associated with it. I had thick long black hair as a child and every time my brother and dad went for haircuts, I stayed home and brooded.  The philosophy that anything forced is never beautiful was beyond the understanding of my family. Such antagonism triggered my love for short hair in all its forms.  Soon as I grew up and figured that I could get away with tantrums, the first of many to come, was to chop my tresses when I was 12.

A decade later, a highly spirited newly married girl that I was, when I moved to Dubai in the summer of 2000 and that’s around the time I met Alma in the Pafan salon at Al Riqqa street.  We used to live in a one bedroom apartment in al Rigga street, a place then known for Russian prostitutes, when and I first met her few days before I got into my new employment into Al Tamimi.  Alma, a heavily boobed Lebanese girl was the most beautiful sexy hair stylist I had ever seen. She gave me a blunt cut because that is what my husband of six months asked her and she was quick to agree with him that it would befit my new role as a junior legal counsel in a reputed law firm.  I think she had a crush on my husband that time, not to be blamed for it, for he has the kind of looks that attracted tender feelings in women.  My wavy curls were trimmed and ironed into a blunt cut that barely teased my ears. And as long as it was short, I dint care much.

 There is a saying in Malayalam that translates that the dog’s tail shall always remain twisted even if you try straightening it for years…and that goes for my hair. My hair and my attitude are pretty much the same. Straight and then ends up twisted.  Neither my blunt haircut nor my attitude remained straight. When it got washed it curled up like a dog’s tail much to the annoyance of Alma and my husband: one of them struggling to straighten my curls and the other my attitude to their liking; needless to say both, of them failed.

From the first time we met, Alma adopted me. She believed she saw a lot of her in me. Other than the D cup bra which we were both constrained to shoulder, I failed to see, at that time, what we shared. Every month I went to her for a haircut, and mostly in the evening after work.  Her interpersonal skills weren’t as sharp as her scissors and she was brooding kind of person.  But despite that, she could magically sense my underlying anger, sadness or bitterness and would give me a good neck and back massage ignoring the looks of the manager. Her soft hands and breasts touching the nape of my neck relieving me of all tension marital. She was tall, big girl with beautiful eyes and thick hair which had different color every time I met her and I never knew what her real hair color was. The fairest of all. Heavy smoker.

After six months or so, she declared that she liked me more than she loved my husband and stated the obvious that my curls should be left as it is. My husband however relentlessly continued with straightening my attitude which fortunately never changed to his liking.

Alma and I liked each other quite a lot. I always found her beautiful and she believed I was intellect on legs. She would religiously turn the pages of the book I was carrying, and ask me to tell her what it was about.  Trifle embarrassed and but condescending at large, I would tell her during the course of the hair pampering session, about the book I was reading and she would pretend to understand, pampering my ego.  Maybe she did. After all, wasn’t it my audacity to demean her intelligence? The silly 25year old that I was, had not reached to the understanding that that a person who led a courageous life has more wisdom than the promised realization in the books.  Turtles can tell more about the roads than the hares.

Alma would have given anything in the world to be in my shoes.  To be a lawyer- for her was far beyond dreams as she had never dared to dream of an education beyond the forced religious discourses, education was never in the agenda of her family’s priorities and more so as she was one among seven girls. Alma made me bow my head in shame over my laid back period during my college days. We take so much in life for granted. Let me tell you, Alma didn’t speak English and neither could I decipher Arabic save a few words.  But there is a language which love speaks. When I took an appointment within a week or two after a haircut she offered more consolation than words in any language could offer. She would pamper my hair, play with curls, massage my neck, lie how beautiful I was ; masahallah whispering into my ear …habibi fuck him; pretending not to notice my black eyes or my bruised neck or arms. She would ignore the tears that rolled during the massage.  We women; we strong -she would utter in broken English reinforcing the kind of language only women would understand.    Sometimes she asked for a bigger tip and most times she refused to take any. The fact that she never took advantage of my generosity undermined mine. She gave me various hairstyles for 10 years.  When I became pregnant with Gautam she was ecstatic for me and prayed for a girl, a girl with your eyes and spirits she would praise, she would massage my toes and say the baby would have lovely hair which he did. Gautam was born with a full house head – black curls.  

 

One day, as strongly as she appeared in my life, she disappeared.  She wasn’t there and I got vague responses from the Manager. Despite moving 15 km away, and to another emirate, I went several times and never found my unlady, but sexy, twisted hairstylist there.  I was disappointed, sad.. but yet I was then immature or overshadowed by a presumably larger life, that I did not let her disappearance affect me with the grief or concern it really  deserved.

With a shameless nonchalance, which I now find unbearable, I moved on.

Soon I found another salon but it was never the same and every time I sat for a haircut I thought of her for a few minutes and soon she became a memory.  Sometimes you move on in life with presumably more important people, more important things, and fail to see the little rainbows that magically touched your life when life was clouded…until something somewhere brings a painful memory and you wish you simply have that one small wish that you could have a glimpse of that rainbow one more time… just one more time.

Last I saw Alma was six years ago. 

 

Alma died.

I was told that she passed away two years ago with untreated breast and lung cancer. As I type this, I feel numb and I feel happy.

Happy because she is in a space which is hopefully beyond pain; numb because I could have helped… all the riches seem meaningless as in her own words a last night’s fuck. In a way, I am happy because each day passed is a day closer to her, numb out of the disappointment of her belief that dint allow her to contact me.  My insignificance rendered by her ignoring me and not being able to do anything for her shatters me.

She was never vocal about it, but I deduced over the years that she also spent nights with Arab men seeking solace as she would laughingly say.  It is no big deal, she would shrug her shoulders and say. Fuck without any meaning, she would say.   My philosophy could never accept that, at least not then. She said the more the ethics, the more the chains. Life is beyond one’s body, she would say as she blow dried my hair. But the thought of sharing the most intimate pleasure with a stranger revolted in me and we agreed to disagree.  She once said something in Arabic which was translated for me as “A wise woman never loses anything if she has herself”. Strange isn’t, creatures without backbones have the hardest shells? Never treaded on the doorsteps of a school, she seemed to be living the fundamental philosophy of stoicism, removed from all empathy.  I loved the big beautiful harlot for all she was.  And she was right –it’s the rebellious spirit within the big boobs that bound us.  

Beneath every beautiful face there is a cause and Alma’s beauty laid neither in her courtesan nor coiffeur skills, but that she was fearless.  Fearless of life. She had nothing to lose she would say. It took me many more years to understand that nobody has anything to lose for we don’t have anything, we think we do.  During those sessions, when she chopped and played with my hair, she taught me to be only afraid of one thing – fear. Fear only fear. Nothing else deserves that much respect or equally the lack for it. She was a woman honest to herself with no qualms on fidelity. Because let’s face it, there as far as fidelity or lack of it is concerned, there is no animal in the world more treacherous as man.  

Alma, I write to you now. This is the least I can do for you. I believe you are in now a space that is not restrained by language or education...

 As nature demonstrates to us that the dead retain an occult relation to life.  The wine changes its flavor and complexion in cellars, according to the changes and seasons of the vineyard it was produced, the flesh and colour altering its condition in the powdering tub, same as my beautiful coiffeur in her coffin, its taste according to the laws of the living flesh… nobody ever dies.

 Alma remains. Somewhere giving someone or something a high.

 Alma, now a memory, lives in me, in the biggest lesson of life that she taught me ..Fear only Fear.  

I don’t care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself, so said Montaigne and so lived Alma.

 

 

Nadia Hashimi at Buhaira Corniche !

It’s almost 2 am. Sleep has condemned me to another night of desertion.  

My mind is alert although my body and especially my legs are very tired. 

Last evening, a friend had twitched a raw nerve and it hurt.  Although, I had turned down two invitations to dinner and party simply because I wanted to take that time to run, I was so gutted by that friend’s remark, that my mind suddenly sought company.  I came back from work, got dressed and went for the dinner invite to a book club that I had earlier turned down.  

Human beings are essentially lonely.  I have always felt so.  And it becomes clearer to me during company. As I realized during the dinner, we cheat on the loneliness by amplifying ourselves. There were seven of us, three men and four women from although different backgrounds, having similar passion and modes of intelligence and seeking out new experiences and hoping that the volume of experience that we share with other people will allow us to connect. It was a book club dinner and we were discussing Nadia Hashmi.  The thoughts exchanged over dinner and drinks - his thought, her thought, my thought – every thought being owned. Belonging to different personal minds. The distance between such thoughts are the most absolute in nature.

I listen to each of them keenly, while sinking in the tastefully done house in the suburbs of Dubai Marina.  I feel like an Octopus when I hear myself speak.  Reaching out with one tentacle while seven others are searching the empty space.  The host is a lawyer and works for a reputed law firm in Dubai.  Have known her for three years and wondering if she is my friend, close friend or acquaintance as per Facebook category.  Wondering if I really know her and wondering if it matters that I know her.

Whilst driving back, my thoughts drift back to the cutting remark made by friend last evening, which had succeeded to wire me up. I smile. It is not his fault at all. It is in the beach of our thoughts. I reach the signal near my home and the smell of fresh pizza reminds me of my husband. The breaches between my thought and his thought, those streaming and ethereal flows which we denote as mine and his, can never be crossed. 

During tonight’s discussion. As always, I consciously and painfully chose my words of opinion as I know that through my opinion I will be known and understood and in many ways that scares me equally or more than the need to be understood.  It is conflicting really, the need to be understood against the risk of being judged. 

When I got back, I still needed a run. I know it is difficult for some to understand that, but I am at utmost peace when I am lonely.  Almost a pathological need.

The sexy loneliness of Thursday evening pushed me to a run longer than my usual. I jogged for three hours with water breaks in between and dint count the miles. I must have covered about 10 Km I think, maybe more maybe less.  Nowadays, the distance doesn’t matter.  When my legs or my neck start to complain, I start to count the miles.

Another runner passes by and smiles at me.  He probably understands. I stop and turn to watch him jog.

To watch a long distance runner is a lonely sight which probably matches the loneliness of runner’s life as such.  I feel, runners or not, we all travel paths that cannot be retraced or fully communicated. The image of a lonely runner speaks to us because it reflects a broader fact of life.  Even among friends, spouses, parents, pets and children, one’s life is always lived alone, from the beginning to the end.  Alkoothathil thaniye was a movie I saw as a kid and understood as an adult.

In a few hours’ time, I have a run with my Buhaira striders club.  I like my Buhaira striders club, a group of folks who join together early Friday morning to run. We are all strange birds of different folk – different jobs, different talents, different politics, and different humor. I do not know them much at all and I don’t want to either. I just want to run beside them and not know them at all. 

Yes the difference in these two clubs bring me to a sinking realization.  No matter, how close we think we are with the other, there is a line that is denoted as mine and yours and can never be crossed.  I am not sure, if it is Rumi who said – I can speak to you, I can write to you, I can walk with you, I can hold you and kiss you – but there is a part of you with which I will have no intimacy.

You cannot experience what I experience and I cannot experience what you experience. There will be such a part in each and every one of us. The strange experience of being a lonely long distance runner has taught me endurance- not to live too close to others; to give the sufficiency of space to live together but to live on despite being apart.  

 

Happy Birthday Bramha Raju.

40 years it is today,

Since this soul took abode

Within this body of a woman.

Reincarnated as many times,

As only divinity knows.

Yet how many more to go?

To that I humbly bow!

 

 

On this day that marks yet another birth,

Grateful I am, for all the mirth

That binds me to this life’s joyful misery!

Bless I, heartily on those who parted,

That’s when my spiritual journey started!

 

At Forty years I learn

Not to grieve or rejoice; for what I lose

Comes back in form another.

What I think I gain I lose to another in wither!

That’s why Krishna chose to laugh,

When every mortal cried at birth!

 

Took me four decades,

To say we are bound to one voyage

United solely by karmic bondage

sooner or later to sail away

from the urn called life

 

 

Love education family career

Passionately sought all those each year

Fully realizing that karma

Is the only baggage that remains 

I shall reap what I sow

Today’s journey I must have earned from a class

Worthy of a karmic pass

I know some day this form too will end

To which I have no dread

Aware that I have been given the will

To pave my way for the next journey

And so on until I reach thee..