the universe and I

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Vanilla ice-cream with strawberry sauce.

I am conflicted about writing, it requires focused soul searching, it leaves me out of breath, panting for air like immediately after a long intense run. Everything/everyone requires nurturing and affection - even your sub aspects - like your ability at sentence formation.

It's almost the end of another new year - moments get woven into hours that get twined into days that become yarn-ball of years in a mix of colors - red green yellow white grey blue - often blending into new colors when thought about retrospectively. Sometimes though, incidents are able to keep their original color even in the light of perceptions altered with the burden of life experiences.

Someone observed (and was harmlessly envious) of my life-pattern having very few, if any, soft turns - mostly I am seen navigating around and about acute-angled maneuvers in the 3-dimensional space. Things are not offered the luxury to become comfortable before they are flipped over and you have to start from (0,0,0) again. It is unsurprising that the (0,0,0) point is also a variable. One can argue that it keeps one agile, nimble on the feet, like a ballet dancer forever posed for her next pirouette. And then, also, a sapling trying to bloom into a tree in trans-planting pots. Where next? What next?

I forget what I started to write - I find myself being extra-contemplative lately, perhaps as a foolish escape from the urgency of work that I am running behind with or that I feel ill equipped to handle.

We lived in a small snooty island of Type5 officer's flats in Gol Market in midst of Type2 flats. Apartment2 had an open door policy for students linked to an adult in the family for upto n-degrees of separation. There was lots of room and little furniture, and therefore plenty of space for people. If you needed to be in Delhi for any reason (education-related reasons were priority), for any length of time (days-weeks-years) you could find food and board here.Very few questions asked, and parental supervision provided without asking.

The bustle was often that of a railway platform moments after the arrival of a train. People getting in or getting out at the same time, frayed nerves and a strong smell of urgent hanging in the breathing air. Having temporary family members was the norm. Perhaps it is the reason why I have not had trouble trusting and liking strangers till faced with a compelling reason to not. My current physical setting is in such contrast to my positively skewed comprehension of life that it makes me quite uncomfortable when cornered into providing reasons for being trusted. I don't do well in those situations.

The household operated on a threadbare budget of an honest government employee salary supplemented with that of another working adult employed in a government-owned company. I was too young to calculate, comprehend or care about the economics of running a household. The mothers of our big family seamlessly led us from one financial year to next. This involved a weekly trip to the local vegetable wholesale market at daybreak, around the time when street dogs chose to huddle around rags to keep warm instead of investing energy to intimidate passers-by. The blue scooter would come home laden with sacs of fresh vegetables that would be washed, dried and put away for use during the week. There was also a time when none of us in the family were averse to eating meat - which was expensive and unaffordable, however. When Ma's younger brother worked in Delhi and was naturally living under the shade of freely provided parental supervision, and would sometimes happily splurge to pamper the collective palate of us kids.

For a few years, my school had a policy of sending report cards through postal mail prior to meeting with the parents. So the weeks between the end of exams and declaration of results were full of worry for us students. Unsurprisingly, my sixth grade results were stellar without a lot of hard work on my part as I had had the advantage of ICSE schooling up-until class 5th before being suddenly transported to Delhi over a weekend. That year, a local ice-cream parlor ran a promotion that entitled students to two scoops of ice-cream for good grades.

On the weekend just after having received my result, Papa took me to Cafe 100% in Connaught Place. I  stood next to a very proud father and fished out my report card to show it to the person behind the counter for the (anticipated) yummy prize. As I write this, I can taste that particular bowl of vanilla ice-cream with strawberry sauce. It was my first time eating ice-cream with any topping and I remember how beautiful it looked to me. It was an experience of complete happiness and contentment. So real and so precious.

Thank you, universe.




Thursday, June 22, 2017

did you write something yet? --3

It is getting really easy to name these posts (hehe!)

The 'hehe' in the end is a complete lie. Not sure if I am the only one who has to trudge through the slush of serious birthday/newyear/some-arbitrary-point-on-the-calendar related blues wearing cotton socks. My cerebral cortex activity takes me on these exhausting treks and I am an unwilling puppy tugging on the leash in my attempts to release free.

I write this to snuggle in the warmth of a life excerpt (I discovered my fascination for stories dating back to when Siddharth and I would hold our badi dadi (everybody calls her Didi) hostage for them while lying width-wise on a khatiya. The dimensions on the jute-rope cot were such that while us little people fit just fine, our badi-dadi was forced to curl her legs awkwardly while keeping mosquitoes at bay with the back and forth of her palm leaf fan. We would be all-ears-aboard shrouded in the octopus-ink darkness and far-far away glow-worms of the sky. It was fantastic. Sometimes, I can still manage to haggle out stories from her.)

And suddenly, academic noose became tight enough to be noticeable when we stepped into the Board exam year. Up-to that point, I was a decent student who coasted along with less hard word and ambition than her peers; and had fuzzy life plans based on meaningless data from Hindi movies (Only now, much later, I realize why TV curfews were implemented with such rigor at home.) My pre-Board math scores didn't quite match up to the expected and I remember being pinned down by Tr. Chari's unhappy-accusing-eyes and later bawling myself inside out in shame. I had no training in working hard for doing well at tests (!) and was often careless in my hurry to complete answering an exam (!!)

On that day, the day of the exam, I was yoked to my anxiety and my disquiet while I attempted to recollect everything I had studied at a per second frequency. On the first page of my Math question paper was a 'prove:' problem whose solution did not jump out at me and I decided to save it for (as advised by Math practice books) when I was done with the rest of the questions.

My panic had started cutting the oxygen supply to my brain as the allotted time drew to a close and I could not get back to the skipped questions (a total of 8 marks of the maximum 100) before my answer sheet was taken away. My world became viscous and I waded out of the classroom alone with the reverberation of having done badly.

My comprehension returned to focus on my father's face in the crowd. He was there, standing at the gate("wait, why isn't he at work?"), sparkling with ("but how did he know?") and actually radiating confidence and pride ("perhaps our umbilical cord attachment tugged at him to come and see me at the exam venue") . My countenance, a tightened grip at not giving away how mulched up I was peeled away to show the crumpled, defeated and lost me. Papa wrapped me in a giant hug and I let myself be the little girl I actually was. Together we walked back, with my school bag slung over his arm. We stood under the big tree near home to discuss the question paper, and assessed that I would score a 91. By the time we arrived, I felt less dispersed and the world took on her hues again.

Later, Soumya mentioned to me that she couldn't imagine the possibility of being hugged amidst people if she dared cry in public.

My brother and I have had the fortune of sharing our parents with a lot of people and have grown up thinking that it was the way. I have kept this story (and a few others) within several memory folds lest I am tempted to share the bits that I am fiercely possessive of.

Perhaps I have grown up. Oh well.

For the sake of your curiosity, it was 79 for my math exam. I spent the first few months of 11th grade skirting around Tr. Chari, afraid of having let her down too. One Friday, she smiled her compassionate smile at me in the second floor corridor. I could not walk up-to her, thinking I would on Monday. But that was too late.








As Swadha turns five.

My Swadha has completed five whole revolutions around the sun - she is now a five-year old girl. I wear my motherhood with confidence and pr...