For a fuller life

Life is not linear. Nature isn’t linear either. I think knowing that has sort of lightened my being. I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t inundated with expectations from without. I simply had to be brilliant. I needed to be first in class although by nature I used to be about as competitive as a placid duck. Studying came very easy to me so the years in school and college were perhaps my most enjoyable moments ever. There was never any solid responsibility. One did not have to worry about running a house, making sure children are taken care of or think about whether or not to pursue a career after being, rather unfortunately, good at academics. So possibly it was the idea of having a comfortable routine which involved no responsibility beyond studying that made my college days as memorable as I now feel they were.

I started talking about life being sort of curvy and not linear because I have always thought just the opposite. I thought that one absolutely had to be good at studying. I thought I had to graduate at 20 regardless of the fact that I had absolutely no delight in the subjects that I chose to graduate in. I also knew that I would be married off to anyone who asked in my 23^rd year itself. I also felt socially obliged to have children. I really cannot understand why I believed i had no choice in any of these things – it could be because I was not allowed any sort of choice even in marriage and being rather placidly duck-like as I have mentioned before, never thought of fighting for anything I believed in. My only goal at the time was to be able to work. I had vague ideas of what I would do but I believe my dreams centred around possible applications of the cheques I would receive. So my life has always been forcibly linear right up to the point where I could not get a job when I wanted one. I started panicking. I was in the US in those days and just out of post graduation with no work experience whatsoever. The job market was down and no one wanted to sponsor a work visa for me and I was truly depressed. It never occurred to me to think of other options and follow them. To be honest I never wanted to be an engineer. It was not my thing.

I did of course get a job and do fairly well till I found myself pregnant. I was further depressed because I did not want a baby when I had just started working. I had my son and learnt that my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer – it was in its most advanced stage. I was devastated and we decided to return to India - both for my father and my son. Thus my career was finished before it had even begun properly. The years in India were not easy. I took care of my father and a colicky child as well – not very successfully but then I was very young. My father passed away the following year. I could not handle it – for years after I simply could not stop grieving. I had forgotten how to smile and was a spectre of my former self. I lost weight which I couldn’t afford to lose since I had always been skinny. I found myself pregnant again and completely lost it.

Thinking back I find I always had a choice to be happy – a choice that I did not take. I was miserably throwing up during both my pregnancies – I kept losing weight alarmingly. I was unhappy at having to rely on someone else financially. I could not take pleasure in anything and I simply wanted to leave everything and go away – somewhere where no one could find me. I truly feel if I had known then what I know now I would have taken life much more lightly. Things don’t have to be rigid, expected or linear. It can happen any which way and that needs to be accepted. An entire lifetime of upbringing and education had left me incapable of handling life itself.

Where do I start with my kids? How do I tell them that it doesn’t matter if they miss a year or two or maybe postpone college and see the world? Or that these little ones will be loved even if they don’t have three dozen awards for dancing or singing or kite-flying or whatever it is that all the children around me seem to be attending classes for. I continue to have expectations of them and find myself emulating my parents. But I am working on it. I am trying hard to break the mould and the vicious circle of expectations and criticism. I want my children to grow up into happy human beings. They don’t have to be able to play a violin at age four. They just have to be able to handle what life throws at them without being worried like their mom or hiding their head in the sand trying to ignore things like their dad. If I can raise my children to treat life like an adventure then my life would truly have been worthwhile. If I can, one day before I die find out what it is that I was put on this earth to do, then I can die happy...But for that I have to learn to live life fully myself.

Need for speed

I was watching through the window as the traffic rushed past. Everyone was in such a hurry. They could barely restrain themselves enough to actually stop at the red light – instead they would be inching along way beyond the white marker and ending up at the middle of the junction so that they could zoom ahead as soon as the lights turned green. Parents would drag little children as they ran through the melee of cars with no care as to whether the panting children could get their little legs to move fast enough. Kids on bikes were lurching up the sidewalks in an effort to overtake the cars waiting at the lights. I saw accidents on a daily basis – most involving two-wheelers and all of them involving an excess of speed.

In the mornings, it would seem, the whole world is in a rush. I rush around too and the children barely have time to get their act together and go out the door on schedule. My hyperactive maids rush through so superficially that nothing gets done but they go through the motions and are out in less than two hours. I get back from work and complete their tasks. I tell them time and time again that rushing serves no purpose but no maid will listen. Its like the chaotic traffic all over again. Why would one rush heedlessly in order to avoid a few minutes or sometimes seconds of waiting and end up jeopardizing things a lot more valuable than time? Why should anyone think that getting things done quickly is better than getting them done thoroughly?

The answer I think, lies in the fact that we Indians, as a nation do not care for perfection or completion. There is a lot to be said about our lack of interest in the consequences of slipshod jobs. We have wells dug up and left uncovered waiting for the unwary to fall in. We have buildings that cannot last more than a few years. We have roads that have to be resurfaced every year at great cost to the taxpayer instead of doing a good job that would last at least five years the first time itself. We have fires breaking out and no way for people to find the exits because the exits have been blocked off (as a quick solution) to get more space to fit in even more people into an already crowded space.

I don’t feel that this means we have no way of being any better. It could be that professionalism or pride in one’s work is not an ethic that is inbuilt. We are capable of so much more as we prove when we live abroad and follow rules and do work that anyone would be proud of. Our country needs us to adopt just such an attitude. Instead we choose to give India our worst and take for granted that freedom with which we are blessed.

The little story...

Once upon a time there was a story. The story had been waiting for very many years to escape the bonds chafing it. It was not a big story – just a little seed but it was capable of growing as large as an oak. If it were given a little sunshine, a little rain and a little love, it would grow beautifully. Of that, the tiny story was sure. But alas the bonds that prevented it from having this rich life, were painful in the extreme. For years, the story told itself that this mind holding it would recognize its own ability to give life. And it also believed that the mind only lacked belief in itself to go on. But wasn’t it time to let go of non-belief? When would the story be released? An idea has a right to live independent of its author since every idea leaves a footprint and has a presence.

The story was nearing its last days for you cannot deny life forever to a pulsating thought. It would die and with it the hope that one day the mind would find out what its true worth was. Negativity was its greatest enemy. It controlled the mind that gave birth to the story – so much so that the mind no longer recognized its own child. All the ‘cannots’ piled up over time suffocated the story and as it lay buried alive, its only hope lay in the thought that even now there was a glimmer of a chance that its mother would see it and rescue it and bring it forth in the world like she had promised herself all those years ago...

'Improved' Roads

I have been observing the changes in the roads along my daily commute during the past couple of years. These changes are instituted by the civic authority under the misguided impression that it improves a fairly painful state of affairs. No change can make a desired-for difference to the choked traffic that’s a perennial sore in Bangalore city. However, a little courtesy and willingness to follow basic traffic rules would make all the difference in the world.

If the drivers were asked to follow lane discipline or pay up say 10k in fines, I am sure people would see reason. After all a large percentage of these very drivers or their employers seem to follow rules with alacrity while living abroad. Apparently white men’s rules are sort of easier to digest while in India, we automatically become annoying and ill-behaved and couldn’t care a fig for rules. Another case for consideration is that of drunken drivers – those special people who believe that drink makes them invincible and why bother about the poor souls that are hit? If you get caught, slip the cop five hundred rupees and you are free to go your way. If instead of patting these imbeciles on the head, the police actually penalize them as well as confiscate their licenses, potential drunks can simply arrange for cabs and leave the other road-traversing populace well alone.

Without taking such basic steps, it seems to me to be an utter time-wasting exercise to widen roads, build flyovers or plug in the nasty curses known as magic boxes. Widened roads make no difference if cars are jammed door to door since everyone wants to get to places fast and no one sticks to the lanes. Thus a two lane road metamorphoses into a 6 lane disaster during peak hours. No one can go anywhere and no one will get anywhere on time. Flyovers seem to be a matter of personal taste. Depending on which short-sighted idiot is the head-honcho, flyovers are either built or left half done. The ones that do get built are mostly a hastily thrown together mix of pillars and slabs and are so uneven that anyone going beyond 10kms an hour had better watch out unless of course you drive a world-war 2 issue tank.

I need a whole new section to discuss those monstrosities of Bangalore roads – the (black) magic boxes. As I understand it, these things which look like boxes with two open faces for vehicles to pass, were first developed to function as drains and are primarily pre-fabricated and touted as instant underpasses. Our wonderful authorities spend taxpayers’ money to fly to various countries to ‘study’ road development technologies and come back with bulging shopping bags and obsolete drain technology. Thus my commute was made inordinately long and even more painful by the introduction of these crappy boxes at major junctions. Consequently where cars once shoved each other but managed to turn, now cars shove each other and not manage to move an inch. These boxes themselves are designed only for small cars and if you have the misfortune to own anything larger than a snuffbox, you need to find alternative routes.

The best example I have to prove my premise that whoever decides how roads should be improved is basically either drunk or stoned is the infamous Cauvery Junction just before the Mekhri circle underpass on the way to the international airport. I have no way of avoiding it except a route that adds an hour to my commute which I simply cannot endure. So every day as I go along merrily, this is what happens at that very special junction -I go due north (the route is straight as an arrow) and lo and behold I am asked to do a yogic asana like u-turn to continue along the same direction. Why should I turn left and then right and then left again and get back to the same road instead of going forward ten feet? Nobody knows – certainly not the drug-infused architect.

After that its pretty much go up(hold your breath folks) and come down (wheeeee!) over three magic boxes before I hit the sanity of the Hebbal flyover and thence to a magic-box free stretch all the way home. Formerly all of it was just a straight stretch of road but how boring was that! So my commute along this apparently signal-free corridor (which has only 8 signals!) has gone up by at least forty-five minutes in peak time and the only consolation I have is that I am told constantly by the media and the asinine politicians that this is an improvement if I only make myself accept it! Jai Ho!

The girl at the window

The breeze smelled salty and so very fresh. She inhaled deeply and happily. The sun felt warm and comforting on her face and arms as she leaned on the window-sill on a bright summer day. It was the place they always came to in the summer – away from the noise and bustle of their town residence. Her heart always leapt in glee when the first sounds of the waves reached her ears on the approach to the seaside. The sound embodied peace as well as a promise of hours of relaxation or sport as one chose. She loved soaking in the sun and could usually be found leaning on this particular sill for it was her favourite part of the cottage.
Her enjoyment of the sea was in no way diminished by the fact that she was blind. In fact it made her even more sensitive to the nuances in the sounds of the waves crashing on or embracing the shore depending on the tides high and low. She could hear all the children at play around her. She could feel the gritty sand beneath her feet and the delicious coolness of the water playfully splashing at her. Her laughter would ring out joyously when she felt the waves sucking the sand out from under her feet so that she lost her balance just a little. Her mother always fretted and worried but for her who had never known sight, the lack of it seemed a part of her existence and something to be accepted and not obsessed over.
Her mind painted vivid images of the blue seas and the bright sunshine till she felt herself lost in that cheerful world within. How she longed for the cottage and the bay during the months in town! Each time she returned, she would go to her special place and lean contentedly against the sill once again, feeling curiously complete. Each time it was a true homecoming.

Note :Written as part of an exercise for my book club

Woman by the roadside

The two children were playing outside in the dust. They were plump and looked healthy though a little dirt-encrusted. They were also bottomless and seemed inordinately pleased about that state of affairs. The mother stood nearby in the outfit that seems to have emerged as the symbol of today’s Indian womanhood – the nightie. One would think that a nightdress was something one had to wear at night. But this particular manifestation of nightwear is most often seen in daytime as well and is a shapeless tent like attire commonly made of synthetic fabric – cotton being more expensive. The women of the lower classes liked theirs frilly and about ankle length to allow for the showing of decrepit and frayed petticoats. The middle-class women wore longer ones which were neatly ironed and possibly classified into day-wear and night-wear.
So the little kids were playing in the dirt in and around a prone and rusted bicycle with bottoms bared for the world to see while their mother fed them some sort of mash out of a dabba which she further mashed in her fingers and pasted onto their tongues. The boys were perhaps a year and a half old and were twins. They seemed to be mesmerised by the rusty cycle and parked their rear ends on dangerously pointed and variously dented parts. I cringed when I saw one tiny bottom settling on one of the toothed wheel s on which the cycle chain rested. The mother seemed oblivious, standing by the roadside and watching the cars go on the road with a vacant expression, moving on a hidden timer to paste more mush into one of her offspring. She was the shopkeeper’s wife and they were rather decently off. He owned the small shop and the property around it and also rented out four or five small sets of rooms to make a comfortable living.
I wondered what the lady was thinking while she watched the cars and the people pass by. Did she yearn for a lifestyle different from hers? Did she display a sense of superiority over her neighbours whose shacks did not even boast of a tin roof? Did she wallow in a sense of achievement for having produced two male offspring in a land where daughters-in-law were likely to be abused or abandoned for giving birth to girls? Did she merely stare in order to watch men strut around knowing that she watched? Perhaps she was catching a break and failed to see her sons almost impaling themselves. Or perhaps she didn’t care – it was one more chore on her list and she would do it and that was it. Meanwhile, she could always dream.

Smiling Hippos

Mornings are always hectic in my house. Breakfast has to be made, lunch has to be packed, and assorted characters have to be woken up. I am frequently business like and curt in the mornings since that is my mindset at the time. Who has time to stop and enjoy the fragrance of freshly-brewed tea? Who has the time to glance at the newspapers in anything more than the most cursory fashion? Who has the time to berate tardy maids? This then is how I greet each day. Every morning I resolve to be cool and pleasant-tongued only to wake up late and screech “Oh, no!” before diving headlong into a fury of work.
My children have, over the years, learnt not to respond verbally to my frequent admonitions to hurry and brush, hurry and bathe, hurry and eat. This does not mean that they wake up on time or brush their teeth without squeezing half the contents of the paste tube into the sink. This just means that they drag their feet and irritate me and my husband wordlessly! As soon as we are all in the car, I relax and so can everyone else.
So this morning while I was furiously towelling my daughter dry, she grinned and asked me if I knew why the hippo was happy. I raised my eyebrows and continued with my work of slathering on lotion on her arms and legs and replied that I had no clue why any hippo should be happy. She said that the hippo in the zoo was smiling mightily just like the chimpanzee. “So why was the chimpanzee smiling?” I asked. “Don’t you remember that someone gave it some biscuits, Amma?” she piped up. It was true – some nut had thrown biscuits at the chimpanzee in the zoo completely disregarding the sign that said “Please don’t feed the animals”. “He was so happy to eat it and that’s why the chimpanzee was smiling”. I agreed and started helping her with her clothes. “So why was the hippo smiling then?” I continued. “I think he liked me because I waved at him and said softly “Have a nice day, hippo!””. I smiled at her and said she was right. She skipped merrily away downstairs to eat her breakfast.
So I found my morning was easier when I allowed myself a moment to smile instead of running around like a headless chicken. I marvelled at a child who could go to sleep full of dreams and wake up thinking of smiling hippos. How lovely it would be if all of us could care enough to make at least one person smile in one day! Even if it happened to be a hippo ;-)