Friends of the heart

The circle is complete. I sit by my window and look out at the leafless flame tree outside the terrace. I feel a bit like that – drained and colourless. It shall pass and the tree will once again sport verdant green and that glorious orange. And I too shall heal. I am frequently told I leave my heart wide open. I make friends easily and so I make room for hurt as well. A lot of my friends continue to be my friends. Others have walked away or I have walked away from them depending on the circumstances.

For close to ten years after my marriage I made no friends. My experiences in college had taught me to be wary of all but a few close friends. I had the habit of trusting almost everyone till I was proved wrong. I still do it and I still regret it. But I don’t regret being trusting. I would not have known love without trust. I would not have made the few valued friends I had without trust. I would not have given life a chance without trust.

The downside of getting close to someone is the opportunity they then have to hurt you if they so wish. No single human being can judge another. No one is worthy enough to do that. Is there anyone out there who has not had a bad thought or acted without thinking or hurt someone so badly they felt like they’d been physically beaten even if it was unintentional? It doesn’t make sense to think that way. And it is a terrible thing to judge based solely on your perceptions and world views. One cannot generalize people and put them away in neat labelled boxes. People don’t come with tags.

Each and everyone one of us are complex creatures – no one can be totally understood. No matter how many times I write about the pain of seeing the kind of life that is in store for my child, no one will comprehend it unless they go through with it themselves. No matter how well I explain the joys of perfect companionship, one who hasn’t felt that at least once will never understand. No matter how well I detail the hurt that comes from being judged harshly, no one will realize its depth. Then how can anyone make blanket statements concerning your behaviour, your intent and your character? Why do it at all? We are here on earth not to be miserable but to find joy and rejoice in life no matter what hardships we have to face.

So I will yet have faith in friends. I hope the friends of my heart will always hold me as dear as I hold them. I believe that one day sometime my trust will bear fruit and the cycle will be renewed.

Its not goodbye

I am not very accomplished at graceful goodbyes. Its never been easy for me to leave a friend or a place that held memories. I have always moved on of course but then I was so much younger then. A goodbye now is hard indeed. I suppose growing older means one is less resilient to pain – our hearts do not have that elasticity that seems to mark the hearts of the truly young. Instead pain leaves us bruised and discoloured for what seems like an eternity.

Leaving my friends in Kuwait when I left the school and country to return to India was the first set of goodbyes I remember. I did have to bid farewell to my grandmother and uncles and everyone else who doted over me when I was three but for some reason while I remember my school-going uncle buying me ice lollies or very meticulously lining my eyes with home-made kajal and drawing the perfect bindi on my forehead, I cannot remember saying goodbye.

I was sad saying goodbye to my school friends at thirteen but I still kept the worst of my hurt behind a newly-created shell. Leaving the miserable school I attended in a forgettable corner of Kerala was more of a pleasure than a pain. So my next major goodbye came when I left my college friends after five years together. For the first time in my life, I had learnt how to have a little fun – I learnt how to go on stage and act or mime – even dance (just the once!) and the friend who taught me all that was too precious for me to bid adieu to. Yet we went our separate ways and only connected again on Facebook a decade and a half later.

More goodbyes after I left my next college by which time I was engaged. That was another hard goodbye to a phase of life that I would never know again. The carefree existence of a college student is looked back on with fond nostalgia by anyone who’s crossed that stage. So that goodbye was two-fold – to my friends and classmates and to my single life. There too I moved on with not much contact with any of my friends afterwards. Sometimes I wonder if I keep no contacts because its easier to harden oneself totally rather than in parts.

Many goodbyes followed as life went on. A permanent farewell to my father. A farewell to the idea that my life would be like any other parent’s. More farewells to many a dream. Today I find myself on the threshold of another goodbye. It promises to be painful. The exact time I will have to wave farewell is not even known but my instinct says its not very far away. Its inevitability does not make it any easier to accept. But of course accept it I will. I have learnt over the years that I am way stronger than I think and life’s unexpected twists sometimes lead you to pleasant surprises. One day, perhaps even saying goodbye will cease to be painful.

Words shouldn't come easy...

I wondered all of last evening about why a word or words uttered while one is unfocussed could be the cause of so much recrimination. I have written more than once about how words are such an imperfect medium of expression that more often than not they cause misunderstandings instead of clearing them. The same holds for words written or spoken while one’s mind is elsewhere. The simple fact is that no one can know all of what goes in another’s mind and the world of messaging is fraught with greater peril as one normally goes about responding with absolutely no thought.

I sometimes feel that the words on the tip of our tongue or the top of our mind are not indicative of the mountain of feelings beneath. Therefore it often happens that a single word cannot capture the poignancy of emotions behind it. A word spoken in absent-mindedness is thus construed in an unintended manner. Similarly we often treat people we love best with a ‘taken for granted’ attitude but truly no one can never know another so well as to assume he or she is an open book – were that the case then there would be no conflicts in relationships the world over.

There was this one incident that stays in my mind so many years after I have heard it. I had gotten a new dress or some such thing and was modelling it to my father. I was all of fifteen. He was reading the papers and didn’t notice me much. When I asked him how I looked, he replied that it was fine. And then added,“It’s such a pity that neither of my daughters can come anywhere close to their mother”. The words are not exact and the incident is probably a juxtaposition of a couple of different ones that had the same theme. I was obviously very hurt on hearing it and yet my father had never meant to cause me any pain. He probably only saw a young girl who didn’t have the potential to be beautiful and completely missed the young mind that was so well endowed with intelligence and creativity. Perhaps he just longed for beauty to be added to the more obvious brains. I know for a fact though that he adored and took pride in me and ten years after his death I still think of him frequently with an intensity that brings tears to my eyes.

When relationships of the closest kind are subject to moments like this, what chance have we got when we make new ones? I think its inevitable that ups and downs happen when words fail us but the strength of any bond is indicated by the elasticity with which we can bounce back to a stable level. Is a misunderstanding worth hurting someone deliberately and repeatedly? Is a sincere apology not a source of alleviation at all? Is existing affection not a palliative for words gone astray? It all depends on the people involved. I have lost friends over time who have walked away without explanations. It has always hurt. And yet those who can walk away at some time will likely leave anyway – that is one way to think of painful situations. They will happen. We learn from them. We hope it will not happen again. And yet if they do, then so be it – one learns again...

The Devil's Dance

The hour was eleven in the night. I stood by a wooden pillar in the women’s enclosure of the temple. I knew no one in the jostling crowd and had waited sleepily for close to an hour for the karimkutty chathan vellattom to begin. A vellattom is a prelude to the actual theyyam itself where the artiste dons a simpler costume (all vellattoms regardless of which theyyam they belong to, look alike) and perform a smaller version of the actual theyyam’s routine. In another ten or twelve hours, the same artiste would then become the personification of the Karimkutty chathan as the theyyam. The preview generally has a song as part of it – called a ‘thottam’ which explains the story of the character behind the theyyam or how that particular theyyam came to be.



After what seemed to me to be a rather long wait, the chenda drums began to beat with a fast rhythm quite different from the slower beats that marked the official start to the vellattom a while back. The karimkutty chathan vellattom then rushed into the arena with each of his arms being held by a young aide. The area inside the temple was not a large one. One side hosted the men’s and women’s enclosures with a large well to the east of the women’s section. In the centre was the structure housing one of the idols and directly opposite was the entrance to the temple complex. Five feet high laterite walls surrounded the space. People thronged everywhere as the members of the temple committee tried their best to push back the crowd so that the vellattom would have enough room for the performance.

As the chenda beats waxed faster, the vellattom shook with suppressed fury pulling at the men who held him back and bellowing in anger. Each gesture and step displayed power that refused to be contained. His enraged growl was a primal sound that filled the watchers with unnamed dread as he launched headlong into the crowded women’s section. Seeing him a few inches away from me, I was mesmerised by the terrific display of madness in his beautifully painted eyes. The eyes were rolled up showing mainly whites as his head moved from side to side like that of a beast scenting his prey. One leg was outstretched on the steps beyond which I stood watching with awe. All the while he continued to growl in a low-key and was being pulled back continuously.

Leaping back, he headed straight for the well and made a mad dash to jump into it while his aides frantically dragged him back. He continued to lunge at the crowd in the different sections and kept shaking his arms crazily so the aides jumped up and down in time to the chenda beats. After a while he yelled loudly and threw off each aide one after the other and continued his furious dancing. The rhythm suddenly changed and slowed down and just as quickly his madness passed and was replaced by a wicked playfulness. He walked up and down jauntily. He beat his baton on his shield. He looked saucily at the crowd and grinned.

Just as suddenly, the chenda raged again and so did the vellattom. He jumped up high, twirled in continuous leaps and filled the entire arena with his breathtaking performance. The torch-bearers surrounding him beat the ground with their coconut frond torches or ‘chootu’ sending up sparks amidst which the dancing karimkutty chathan appeared to be the true manifestation of the devil himself.

I was riveted by the awesome display of madness, playfulness, power, beauty and grace all in one performance. It was well after midnight by the time we got home and the images would not leave my mind – nor would the throbbing chenda beats stop resounding in my head. I could close my eyes and see as clearly as if he were before me again, that incredible whirling and leaping in the other-worldly light of the ‘chootu’ backlit by the flying sparks and underscored by the racing rhythm of the chendas dashing towards that final crescendo...

On loneliness.

There are many kinds of loneliness in life. There is the loneliness of ostracism as a child when you stand alone and watch the others play. There is the loneliness of being the only one who believes differently in a family of conformists. There is the loneliness of being superfluous in a relationship. Solitude is when one is alone by choice as I often like to be. It is only in solitary moments that one renews oneself or let’s one’s thoughts flow freely without apprehension as to whether it would offend or be misunderstood. Solitude is to be savoured in small doses however and I like being with people almost as much as I like being by myself.

Loneliness is not something one chooses – it is thrust upon you when you least desire it. I am often lonely even in a crowd if I feel no connection whatsoever with those around me. I can get lonely in a room full of relatives and loved ones simply because there is an intense disassociation when I feel misunderstood. But probably the hardest kind of loneliness to face is the one where you are in a relationship and yet you feel like that extra bit of coleslaw on a plate of burger and fries that no one quite wants.

I deal with loneliness the way I deal with a lot of other unpleasantness that sometimes comes my way – I acknowledge it and then move on to other things. If it is a particularly strong and painful kind of loneliness, then I let it wash over me and try to write down how I feel. Sometimes none of that works very well and I immerse myself in my children or a zillion mechanical chores so I am too tired to think and then the feeling passes.

I think my current feeling is inspired by the fact that my birthday is around the corner – somehow my birthdays are when I feel the most intense loneliness ever. The day when I used to expect to be treated as though I were special is the day when it is driven home to me how routine my existence is. No one goes out of their way to make that day worthwhile. Maybe as my children grow older they will celebrate with me. For my husband, its simply too much effort. My friends are few and mostly far away so I only get calls. My sister and brother always remember to call too. And yet the day is something I just want to get over with because while it is fine to be ordinary on other days, that one day of the year I always crave a little bit of attention and unfailingly get disappointed. Perhaps this year is different or will be if I decide to simply go and celebrate myself – maybe just this once I can look forward to a birthday instead of hearing the oft repeated “but that’s just too much effort” over and over again in my mind.