Metaphysical musings on Republic Day

Representational photo of small tableaus on The Ridge, Shimla
Source: Google Images

 

Sitting atop an Electricity Board tableau that had the permission to drive through the generally restricted The Ridge and The Mall in Shimla, my 4-5 years  old self back in the eighties understood nothing about republic or the need to celebrate it.

 

A  small procession that began from the old Telegraph building up to the Christ Church  and the perk of a good refreshment was enough to get me excited about it.

 

That year the theme was how electricity had changed lives in remote areas and the moment the bulb hanging on my head was to be lit , I had to give excited expressions sitting there with a book.

 

All the "artists" were chosen from the residential complex of the board for ease of access.

 

Cause and effect are such a strange phenomenon, what we think is the cause might be the effect of something previous to it.

 

For decades I had completely forgotten about this  but now as I struggle to pinpoint the meaningfulness of a republic or its celebration, the memories are back.

 

My father's family paid a huge price of freedom in 1947 and lived for years with the label "refugees" from across the border. Home was always a very fluid concept for them.

 

I spent a large part of my life in the hills and in some parts of my state democracy or republic has still not changed quality of life services much.

 

The city I live in now, the glorious capital is struggling to find clean water and fresh air.  The disparity between the "haves" and the "have nots" we overlook everyday because we are all helpless in its face.

" Things are changing" is such a lame argument because I feel my 7 years old girl is still as unsafe as my grandmother was in 1947.

 

Yes I am the sceptic, I am alright with being labelled  "naysayer" for asking the cause and effect questions, for asking what use is a latest radar to me if I don't have clean air.

 

To me glorifying the soldier without his human rights is pseudo, to me the façade of a republic where all voices are not equal is a sham.

 

I was reading  Emil Cioran earlier and I so relate to - I feel completely detached from any country, any group. I am a metaphysically displaced person.

 

PS: I will do a follow up post for all the trolls labelling me "traitor" after this, if need be.

Questions for a New Year

• Is new always good?
• Till when is new year new?
• If change is the only constant, then what changes, what is constant?
• Living the same life everyday, we only change dates. Don't we?
• Wishing "happy" doesn't ever ensure only happy, does it?
• The year gone took away its days, why doesn't it take away its pain?

Evidence

The manuscripts of some

fellow souls

are easier to read

 

because we know their codes

because we were together

in some nascent phase of

the evolution of emotions

I do not need to see

the dagger you sharpen

for my heart

hidden behind your back

 

I do not get insulted by the

hateful names you call me

I am ready for

the kick of betrayal

in the pit of my soul

I see the open graves

of a future we dreamed together

in your eyes

and that is all the evidence

I need.

In a city winter looking for a home

A dead pigeon
on the sidewalk
bare feet children
begging at the signal
destitution written large
on faces and souls

life's pathways
as complicated as
the routes of the metro

what ifs hanging
like half-constructed pillars
why? why not?
changing like traffic lights

Christmas lights, blinking at wealth
emptiness, deep, dark
and hope faint, cold

a shiver runs down the spine of
the silhouettes of tired trees

its cold
very cold,
winter is a state of mind

all knowing is frozen
love runs down
as a warm, salty liquid
from the eyes

the security guard looks
straight into the fire

we are all looking for home.


 

Little Buddha, Milestone no. 7

Dearest Little girl,

 

Seven years ago today you chose me to be raised as a parent by you. The moment you grabbed my index finger in your new born chubby fist for the first time, I knew you had grasped my heart and soul in your iron grip.

 

As you grew each day, I was your pathway to this strange and confusing new world and you were my window into myself. You had to learn language and I had to learn to read silence, to understand the subtlety of baby burps and the softness of baby yawns, I started looking at everyday routine like food and sleep also as wonders.

 

Life is a miracle because of you, if at all I will ever come closer to the peace and wisdom the world knows as Buddha , you are that Little Buddha. In your stories and anecdotes you make me a better human being, in your imagination you give wings to my dreams, in your curious queries I learn the humility of real intelligence.

 

I am thankful the way your enriched my father’s last few years in the physical world, the way you held me together in my grief of losing a parent, how on occasions you with such natural ease became that missing parent for me.

I am amazed at how this same world I inhabit for the last almost three and a half decades seems new from your perspective, how you make me feel meaningful and loved unconditionally.

 

Dear girl, I am eternally grateful for being your parent, co-learner, friend and student.

 

 

Be yourself. Always ask your questions, never shy away from your core, let your light shine whatever the odds. Never be scared from following your instincts, no matter how against the grain these are. Love yourself-body and soul. Keep the warmth,compassion and enthusiasm alive and keep sprinkling your stardust on your mamma.

Happy 7th Birthday angel !!

Soul Winter

Pic courtesy: Google images

its a thought smog
a haze
through which
life looks like a
faded silhouette

No gadgets or doctors
can determine
this blockage
of words

it could kill
a writer you know

the way
the simmering core
of a dormant volcano
eats its insides
till its all ashes

in a soul winter
the heart is a barren patch of pain
and spring is far behind.

Rigor Mortis Love

Some days it’s a chipped nail

or a forgotten scar

the memory of a child I never had

the peculiar lump in the throat

that thickens with the smog

My writing is a variable matter

Semi-liquid-solid

Translucent-fragile

Its roots lie

somewhere deep inside

maybe under my lungs

from where I breathe

or in this life clock in my chest

Tic-toc, tic-toc,tic….

My heart is a kaleidoscope

It makes images

out of broken colorful memories

and then it’s a killer

Its weapon- again memories

Am I losing it?

What if I never had it?

that valued thing

called S-A-N-I-T-Y

Rigor mortis love

looking for its mortuary

Buddha and peacock feathers

and a cup of limp tea

Another day in what you call life

and I call unfinished memory.

A day in my magical life

the smog sits heavy
like the carcass of
a dead relationship

in the rhythmic jostling of
a cycle rickshaw
lies the irony
of the ego spins
we derive
from the race
for being the superlative

the sedatives are strong
they blur memory
and sensation
but pain can't be extracted
like a rotten tooth

my fingers itch
my eyes twitch
looking for the next object
to scrub
while my mind fiddles
why ? why?

my late father's voice
reading out aloud
the laws of insulation

I know he is dead
I know the word "hallucination"

I close my eyes
and I jump off the cliff of self
into me

now I scrub
my soul's lamp
waiting for
some real magic.

 

NAVRATRI SNAPSHOTS 2015



•  A 40 years old, mother of two teenagers is distributing ice-cream sticks on the road near her apartment complex to street children. Some of them pre-teen and teenage boys, soon she is being pulled and groped and loud whistles and leering and she runs back inside the gated residential complex. The misguided kids enjoy the free ice-cream, aunty goes back to her condo, runs a hot bath and all that remains of the incident are the wrappers piled on the footpath.
  When we let go of any incidents as minor incidents of street harassment, don’t we pave way for far more dire incidents?
  What makes our boys believe they are entitled to rowdy behaviour ?Is our "Charity" misguided?

•  I am watching news, my little one who is unaware of the technical gross details of sexual violence and RAPE, knows the word and knows that it is a cruel and bad thing to do to anyone. She stops colouring and after overhearing bits and pieces of a debate over the rape of two minors, she asks, "Mumma why do people hate and hurt little girls , so much? " I have no convincing answers.

• In a neighbourhood Kirtan, almost every other song or line has the word "laal" (red), traditionally the colour for married women ( Saubhagyavatis), those singing these lines loudest are widowed mothers, sisters and wives , sitting in a corner away from the deity, the inauspicious women.

• Not far from the Indian capital two little children are charred to death because they were not fortunate enough to be born upper caste, we look away and feel we have done our bit for the future kids of this country by distributing a few plates of poori-halwa.

•P : Mumma we Indians are generally brown you said , because of our genes and race and ,and climate.

Me: Yes dear.

P: Then why are all the goddesses fair, other than Kaali?

Me: ahmm....

P: and why don't they make Kaali beautiful? If a woman becomes angry does she become ugly?

I have taken some time from her to answer these difficult questions.

A ZEN TALE

Once there was a little boy who was very sad about the way his parents treated his old grandfather. They kept him in the outhouse, he wore torn clothes and was served little or stale food in his almost broken plate and chipped mug.

A few days later the old man passed away, a day after the funeral as the parents were clearing the outhouse of the old man's things, the little boy rushed and snatched the plate and mug from them.

they thought he was just being sentimental about his grandpa's things but he said, " I want to save these so that when you are old and I put you in the out house, you can use them."

What goes around,comes around

Dad's last goodbye !

I don't remember much
of his firm young hands
that threw me in the air
as a little girl

the stern hands with which
he taught me how to
hold a screwdriver
and open gadgets

I remember his dry,flaky
frail old hands
that held mine
to get up and sit down

the cold rough hands
in which he delicately held
my little one
every time she hugged him

the unsure hand
that waved to me
from the car's window

his last goodbye !

 

Voice

My voice is all I had                                                       
even that I was taken away
and beaten into
so many we's
by the chains of tradition
that hold tight


and I was scared
REBEL was a bad label
so I bargained that voice
to find an insensitive
and eerie silence of peace
the peace that never lasted long

The newly trimmed "I" for me
was difficult to fit in
like a gaudy dress
two sizes small

those dreams of flying
of love being the wind
in my wings
flew away

and when the wings
in the cage could make
no more noise

I reclaimed my voice
because that's all I have
to give to my wounds
the balm on my tales !!

Once upon a Time - Snail mail

One of the best experiences that social networking has brought for me is the networking with other bloggers. B-A-R is one such support group of a few very enthusiastic and intelligent bloggers and recently they hosted a snail mail challenge.

We had to opt for sending and receiving a snail mail , could be a real letter sent through post and for those of us who had geographical or other issues a personal e-mail.

An additional fun factor was that though we knew that we would be sending as well as receiving a snail mail, the people on the other end were chosen randomly. This was much like the old fashioned pen-pals.

I wrote my mail to Shantala who writes the wonderful Shanaya Tales and received one from Suzy who writes a couple of amazing blogs , one of which is Someday Somewhere .

The letter I received was made even more special by her by attaching a picture to it :

One page of the letter I received from Suzy /Ila

Though I had interacted with both these ladies on previous occasions via chat and discussion on social networks, writing and receiving personal letters is a notch apart.

Both my letters were e-mails but nevertheless the excitement of making new friends through personal mail was amazing.

With so many instant messaging platforms and even our blogs we connect with only the online persona of people while a letter is a much more private and safer space and thus allows for a trust and patience missing in other online interactions.

I love these out of the box ideas and though the feel of real paper, the visit of a postman , the joy of pasting a postal stamp is lost some of the old world charm was renewed by this experience.

 

Conical Tales

A few weeks ago while our summer vacations in my hometown Shimla I witnessed a small road side shop selling plain pine cones. It was absolutely outrageous- putting a price tag on what the nature gives us freely and in abundance. These beauties are actually fruits of the pine trees found aplenty in the hills.

My relationship with them goes way back to my idyllic childhood spent in the hills and particularly to the long winter months spent at my maternal grandparents' place in Upper Shimla, known for its apples and so many natural treasures including the pines.

Image Courtesy: Google Images

Those were still pre-LPG days for the village kitchens and wood stoves were used for cooking, keeping the house warm and even heating water for hot baths. Most of the days when it used to snow,me and my cousins would cuddle in a quilt in the dimly lit kitchen near the "choolha" (stove) and listen to grandma's tales while smelling the potatoes getting roasted in the hot ash.

On clear days however keeping us occupied without many toys or books or TV like things grandma would handover a small "Kilta" (a multi-purpose conical handmade wood basket widely used in Himachal ) to each one of us and send us to collect pine cones for the evening fire.



Image courtesy : Google images

The rules of the game were simple - no climbing pine trees, no forceful pulling of cones and no snatching from each other , the third one being the most important because the one who got maximum number of cones would get a small prize from grandma, most often an extra fistful of sun-dried apricots or apples locally called "Boi".

This was such an interesting game for us because while we searched for pine cones through the apple orchards we would also discover other treasures as bonus. Sometimes an interesting looking pebble , or a rabbit in the grass, a unique leaf and the like.

As I grew up and my cousins also moved out the visits to that house became few and far between, a few years ago grandma also passed away, but I always loved pine cones. So whenever I would find one while walking in Shimla I would pick it, bring it home ,clean it and keep it as a treasure. Over the next few weeks I would slowly witness some of them to expand and take full shape, while others would just change colour.
Gradually I started painting them and turning them into colourful paperweights .

DIY Pine Cone paperweights

Now I am a mum to a six years old, who also incidentally is fascinated with pine cones. Whenever we find one out in the open during our trips to the hills, we bring it home and now my little one paints them too.

There are no wooden stoves to show her, even the handmade baskets have been replaced by ugly plastic ones but the stories and the charm of the pine cones is my gift to her , its a link for her to know how different was my childhood three decades ago than hers and how devoid of fancy toys, games and gadgets, nature gave us plenty to play and relish.

So whenever we can we take to the outdoors and that is what I wish more and more kids would do more often. The bounty of nature and how much it can give us in terms of learning and memories can never be matched with gadgets and toys.


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Square

For sometime now my world is a square
with equal sides of hope and despair
I walk from one corner to the other every day
witnessing people and promises
on a litmus test on the way
and now as the sun goes down
I am at the edge
once upon a time
the world went round
and now there is no beginning, no end
cosmic cycle is more like a
10 x 8 prison cell

Emily & Emily

across two continents
two lonely women
trying to make sense
of this hostile world

through pseudonyms and anonymity
were born their classics

posthumous love
is just a consolation prize.

* Emily Dickinson & Emily Bronte


 

Little one and her #isms

I have a little curious mind
whose queries never end
and to catalogue those
I made a hashtag
#priyamvadaisms
and I often see it trend

so here are a few of her gems of wisdom:
*****************************************
I thought I knew my languages well
before I was put to this
It began with now/नाव
the latest queries are ugly/अगली ,key/की, bail/बेल, cub/कब

*****************************************************
P casually while doing homework: Mumma what do we exercise in an exercise book -mind or hand ?
************************************************************
P : mumma does God know clay moulding?
me: why do u ask that baby?
P:because there are so many shapes of leaves abd all different greens.
Me : yes so it must be a huge clay kit.
P : yes and does God need his mom's help to do all this....
Me: (wondering where did that come from)may be
*******************************************************

Scene: Neighbourhood wedding band party are dressing up the mare in the parking.
P: Mumma is this a girl horse m-a-r-e mare?
me: yes baby !
P: Why is that boy bad touching her?
me: no he is not ,he is helping her getting dressed for the wedding....
P: oh ! then its okay !

***********************************************
P: Mumma is Malala brave because she got hurt by a bullet or because she fights for sending all girls to school?
Me : I guess both baby.
P: Mumma I think Malala studied well and that made her brave, which means intelligence is brave and bullet is not brave.
***************************************************
P( after watching a flower with hybrid colors) : Mumma ,where is God's paint shop?
me: well God does not need to buy paints.
P: okay ......because he has magic hands !!

*****************************************
The little one talks to me fascinated about her navel and mine being attached and asks," where is the um-b-li-cal cord now mummy? And I tell her now we have an invisible cord that binds our hearts and not our navels. She smiles, I know I am home, for now, in this moment. The journey pauses, smiles, resumes.

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

P: ( while discussing living and non-living things) mumma a baby grows out of mumma-papa, a baby cow from her parents,a baby plant from a tree or its seeds, so they are living.
Me: yes you have got it now baby.
P: but mumma poor Baabushka (that is her Matryoshka doll)has dolls in her tummy but is non-living.
...

Me:(trying to choose my words carefully)because they are not her babies some toy maker made them.
P: and also because she has no feelings she is non-living.
Me left wondering if that would be scientifically correct or not. Poet's daughter for sure in the making.

**************************************************
P: Mumma what is my religion ?
Me: What do you think religion is baby?
P: praying and being a good person.
Me: so who do you pray to?
P: long list ABCD (all kinds of spiritual and religious figures) and trees and almighty....

Me: and are you a good person?
P: (thoughtfully) yes , I think so mumma.
Me: So it means your religion is humanity.
P: okay H-U-M-A-N-I-T-Y.Sounds good mumma.
**************************************************





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A woman of Stone

She had a heart beat

image courtesy : http://www.crystalinks.com/dreamtime.html

and a pulse
a smile and a sulk
and yet

only she knew
in every birth
they would meet
and part

he would move on
while she remained
a woman of stone
in the Blue hills *


*According to an Aboriginal dreamtime story, the three huge rocks formation were once three beautiful sisters named "Meehni", "Wimlah" and "Gunnedoo" from the Katoomba tribe. The three sisters fell in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe but their tribal laws forbade their marriage. The three brothers did not accept this law and tried to capture the three sisters by force. This caused a major tribal battle and the lives of the three sisters were thus threatened. A witchdoctor decided to turn the sisters into rocks in order to protect them and thought to reverse the spell only after the battle. Unfortunately, he was killed in the battle and the three sisters remained as the enormous and beautiful rock formations until today.

Blessing of a Human Question Bank

My little girl is the perfect extrovert revenge by life on both her introvert parents. Apart from her apparent love for reading, story-telling   and being a quiet child happy with herself, she is a people's person to the core.

 

So we were not surprised when even at such a  young age she had an extremely warm and friendly relationship with everyone in the family and extended family that she met.

 

A particular trait that stood out was her incessant tirade of queries and questions about everything. So much so that I often call her my human question bank.

 

She shares little anecdotes about her and make the keep asking the other person to share theirs. She has dozens of supplementary questions for every query that she has, and to top it all the perseverance to be a patient listener of tales.

 

One of the people she formed a special bond with is with my father. He was 74 when she was born and by the time she had started having meaningful conversations his health had taken a dip, resulting in frequent irritability and some age-related bedimming of memory.

 

But he was the most peaceful when he was with her. She would put him at ease and they spent hours huddled in a blanket sharing anecdotes about friends and incidents. Some of his stories  going long back to a pre-partition childhood in now Pakistan.

 

Three months after she turned six he passed away. She was my pillar of strength and as I was trying to come to terms with this new life without him ,I was surprised, how she knew details about his childhood that even I didn't- like his first bicycle was red, his younger brother had bitten his ear bad enough for a couple of stitches just to snatch a few mangoes, the boy who taught him to swim in the Jhelum was a Sikh.

 

Three of my four grandparents were alive for many more years than her brief six years with her Nana and still I don't know as much about their childhood, their memories with their siblings and the like.

 

I am glad my  aaj-kal-ka-baccha had the time and the patience for all those questions to him. I am glad she was so involved in my father's last years and that she has created so many fond memories with him.

 

So while most of the world complains about #AajKalKeBacche , I call mine my personal little Buddha, who is an amazing teacher and co-learner in this master class called life.



“This blogger contest is supported by Kid Social Shell, a unique digital parenting platform with 11 gaming-learning apps. Use it play 3D nursery rhymes, counting number games, shapes games, fun math worksheets, coloring games and more!”

Monsoon

Like a dark cloud
heavy and brooding
wanting to pour out
forced to move on

life is monsoon.