Standing by me

Working and living with autism has not been an easy journey. There have been so many challenges along the way that sometimes I wonder why I do it at all or why my partner and I keep the school going against all odds when we are financially, intellectually and emotionally worn out from all the adversity we run into. There is no rational answer to it. It could be that we both hate giving in to defeat. It could be that there is no one else doing what we do and so we owe it to the children. It could be that we are gluttons for punishment. Hard to say really. Maybe its all of it.

The other day a man from the house opposite the one where we run our school came to the gate when neither my partner nor I were present and proceeded to demand entry. On being denied it he grew abusive and hit one of my teachers who promptly locked the front door to get away from his tirade. The man then threatened to get the school closed. He had seen one of the children throwing a tantrum and wanted to see for himself what the child was up to. We don’t allow strangers to come into the school for obvious reasons. My partner went to speak to him only to be lectured to for half an hour. He claimed that she seemed highly qualified but how could such an uncouth guy be our staff – someone who couldn’t respect a government employee enough to let him in. He demanded to see the child and his parent. He wanted to know what was going on.

So today morning a whole host of parents came to our support as I walked up to the man and introduced myself. Immediately he sounded humble and apologetic. He claimed he did not need to be convinced. He was just concerned when he heard the child throwing a tantrum. He sounded like a completely different person. He averred that he had no issues with us. The tantrum-throwing child’s father came forward to explain to him why the child was going through a bad phase. Other parents stood by and declared that ours was the best, most caring organization for autism in Bangalore. I stood there and smiled. To see our parents come together and be right by my side when things mattered was a wonderful experience.

I walked back to the school with them. It was like being part of a family. Every parent supported us. Every parent was happy to take time to come and spend time with us to tell us that our work mattered. Today showed me how worthwhile our work is, how appreciated it is by those whose lives we have changed, how important it is for us to help more such children and their families. We aren’t alone. We never will be alone. Our work can go on. Such reassurance brings forth my warmest gratitude. Today, was a good day…

Golden Caramel Memories

My Caramel was taken from me almost 3 months ago. He was my golden boy, the cat who was a part of my heart, the one whom I remember every day. I try to forget that the lady next door had him taken to a place that she refuses to this date to reveal the address of. I try to forget that she was abusive to my daughter. I tried to forget that her husband messaged me that I better not go in search of my cat and that my children and I had no right to even see pictures of Caramel. But I cannot. I know that the better way to handle this is to let things be. And yet somehow I simply cannot.

The only reason I manage to get by without him is that I have his two daughters Caju (caramel jr) and Ponnu. They look so much like him that it eases my heart. Caju is a miniature version of her dad whereas Ponnu has his voice, his adorable trot and his naughtiness. They both like ghee dosas like their dad. They both climb the window meshes with the same alacrity that their dad used to show. And they both are as cute as their dad was. But what they are not, is friendly. They are 5 months old and while occasionally they allow me to cuddle with them, for the most part, they are independent. They don’t come and lie down on my laptop when I am working. They don’t follow me around and give me special attention when I am ill. They don’t curl up in any little gap they can find as long as its close to me. That was all Caramel. And its so hard to forget all of that.

I wonder what it is in a human heart that can make a person so selfish that they think its okay to hurt others with impunity. I wonder why the lady is continually lauded while my children and I are ostracized for fighting for our cat. Don’t animals have rights? Or do only certain animals belonging to certain people have rights while the rest of us have to hope and pray that their eyes don’t turn upon our pets in anger?

Anger and hatred are corrosive emotions. I know that. I cannot help feeling both of them towards the lady who knowingly hurt my children so callously. I don’t believe in fairness or justice. I know that there is no right and no wrong in this world as it is today. A world where a cat has no right to live and where children are made to cry in their sleep because they do not know how else to cope with the pain of a lost pet.

I tell my children that Caramel is safe and he is plump and he is happy. I tell them many lies so that they hurt less than I do. My golden boy is living the life of his dreams, I tell them. I so wish I had someone to tell me that too…

Second chances

‘The Shawshank Redemption’ is a movie that I had the opportunity to watch many times but that I managed to actually watch only last week. I know it sounds unbelievable that I would miss out on a movie like this especially when it came on TV countless times but maybe the time wasn’t right. So Mahi and I sat down together or rather I lay down and she sat in the sofa close by and we watched it. She had already watched it and decided to record it when I mentioned that I had not. She was eating snacks, sipping her lime tea and stealing looks at my expressions as I watched the story unfold.

Needless to say, I loved the movie. Who wouldn’t? It is the ending one would have wished for the Count of Monte Cristo. It is the sort of revenge that is not based on hatred and in that sense it resembled Tolstoy’s story ‘God sees the truth, but waits’ more than Dumas’s. You see on the screen an entire macrocosm of human foibles and virtues in a compressed time frame. The story of Andy is so well told that we forget that he isn’t real. We forget that he is a wisp of someone’s imagination. We forget that there is a distance between Andy in prison and us over here, watching.

Mahi, my 15-year-old, loved it to bits. And I, 45 years old, loved it to bits too. For different reasons perhaps. She loved the story. I loved its compassion. It is steeped in human kindness even among all the instances of greed, selfishness and cruelty. It shows us how it is not incarceration that is a man’s worst fear, it is loneliness. A man who has been institutionalised for so long, penned in and regulated, cannot be on his own in a world that doesn’t forgive or believe in second chances. And that is perhaps the message I took from the movie – the power and the blessing of a second chance in life.

Too often we believe our lives must go through paths that are already existent. We are born, we go to school, we take pains to follow rules, we study some more, we get married, we have babies, we think if we are financially successful we have made it but more often than not we get bored. Sometimes we don’t get the great jobs and that makes us feel even worse. Sometimes life throws us curveballs like a failed marriage, an accident that changes our status to dependent, terminal disease – anything that isn’t part of the above plan. And we have to find the resources to deal with it.

That’s where we give ourselves that second chance. The chance to conquer situations that we find daunting. The chance to forgive mistakes that we made for whatever reason. The chance to value ourselves or believe in ourselves. And therein lies our true redemption.

Of golden pooris and sunny aloo

Today is one of those days. Anything that can go wrong, has gone wrong. Today is my new beginning – the day I re-commit myself to my writing. I woke up excited. Started breakfast. Went on to the chores. My son’s fever was not abating so we had it checked and he tested positive for dengue. I was expecting it since I just got over a bout of dengue myself but it still is hard to watch him in this condition. I settled him in his room with plenty of juices and went upstairs to get into my writing zone. Lots of calls and interruptions followed. Lunch happened. The maid came in 2 hours early. I sighed to myself. When would I have the little window of alone time I needed, to write?

And then I decided. It didn’t matter. I would just write in the middle of all of this. Life is messy and whatever avenues we need to pursue; we need to do so while still immersed in life. Few of us have the luxury to escape to some beautiful deserted spot and write or paint or do whatever it is we want to do. So right here, right now, in the midst of the messiness, I write.

When I was lying in my room for more than a week, I let my mind roam over old memories. I remembered the oddest things from my childhood. I was constantly hungry but everything tasted like sawdust so I couldn’t eat. I had cravings for the food I ate as a child but who would make it for me? So I sat eating dry toast and drinking loads of juice that my patient husband and son kept making.

And one day when I was able to sit up for longer periods, I remembered something my dad used to do. He was not fond of visiting my maternal grandmother’s home so on the rare occasions that my mother and the three of us kids would go there, he stayed back home. When we returned after a not-too-long bus journey, he would be at the door waiting for us. And on the table would be a huge bowl piled high with pooris and a dish of aloo (potatoes) to go with it. We would dive in. And it tasted so good.

I could imagine my father carefully kneading the dough and trying to flatten it out into perfect circles (I was picky enough to point out if they weren’t just so) and then frying them up. I could imagine my father mashing the potatoes just so, so that the flavour would seep into each and every bit of the dish. I could imagine him setting the table and waiting for us in the days before we had a telephone and when he would have just guessed and hoped he got the timing right.

Always he made this dish when we were away and he was waiting. Always it tasted of love and homecoming. Always the sight of pooris reminds me of Acha.

So that is what I wanted to eat when I started to recover from the fever. For just one moment, I wanted to be a child again. A child who could rest easy in the fact that her parents knew her mind so well that even before she needed to ask, they would be ready with the answer to her cravings. I take care of my twosome in the same way but oh, to just be little once more and stay happily taken care of with so much love and indulgence – that is a gift we are never entitled to after childhood. At least I have my memories of golden pooris and sunny yellow aloo to keep me going…