Life is a voyage that is homeward bound

Living away from one's country of birth can be the fulfilment of a childhood dream, the end of a quest for a better life, a compulsion, and sometimes a decisions that you spend your life trying to reverse. For me it has meant many things...it was definitely not the realization of any dream. While growing up I never harboured the secret desire to 'go west'. It started off as being just a transition into a post married life. I did not like the experience of living in cold places, being away from friends and family, without a job, of not having the comfort of familiar sights and smells. Not then...and not now though its been six years. Fortunately, I have not been in a situation where i've had to dig my heels deep into a place. Through the last six years, on many occasions I have travelled back to India and lived there. Such transitions put you in a 'constant comparison mode' - while you are in one place you are longing for life in another and vice-versa. But these moments of transition also give you a chance to reflect on what is it that really matters to you, what do you value, how do you want to live your life and more importantly where?

There are pros and cons to every decision. I have often heard people say - that outside india - the systems work & the air is clean and there is no filth on the streets and no potholes on the road and the standard of living is higher and there is respect for personal time and space and people don't cheat you and everybody is so literate and polite and courteous and its ok to see on celluloid - shahrukh khan go to the village & try to create electricity but ground realities in india are different!

My point is - yes - if you buy what you just told me and are happy living like that, if you chose to lead a systematic and ordered life and a materially comfortable life, please go ahead and live it. My choice is different. I chose the chaos, the colour, the noise, the warmth, the feeling of belonging, the rootedness, the comfort of familiarity, the pollution, the potholes, corruption, inefficiencies, faith, the sound of my language, sunshine, crowds, sweat, curious inquisitive people and everything that comes along with a life in India. I feel an inexplicable sense of peace and calm when i am there.The reassuring feeling that one experiences after returning home from a luxurious holiday. The home that may be a far cry from the comforts of the hotel you stayed in - but warts and all -it still is your home! I know so many people who have lived abroad for so so long that leaving everything behind and returning is a next to impossible situation - because of a feeling that their kids may not be able to live in india, they may not find work that suits their credentials, they may not be able to adapt themselves to the work culture of this country - but still yearn for life back home as it were. My point is know what you want and make that choice! Don't spend a lifetime yearning for one thing, doing the other and regretting your decisions when you look back. And for god sake don't travel on a road so far, so fast that you forget your way back home.

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I had this conversation with my mom (whose family had to leave their home town during partition & moving to another country was not a decision - but an unfortunate play of fate) a few days back who asked me

Mom: mujhe to samaj nahin aata ki basa basaya ghar, basi basayee zingadi ko ujaadkar log kahin aur jaakar kyon rehna chatein hain?
I dont know why people would want to uproot themselves from where they have been living and go and try and settle down somewhere else.

Me: (not very interested in the conversation) Paisa...mom...money!

Mom:Kitna paisa...kya karoge paise ka...humne to jitna mila otne mein zindagi guzar li...aur achhi hi guzari
How much money...what will you do with it...in our time, we learn to make do with what we had...and i think we led a good life

Some days back i was listening to the song from the movie naam (chithi aai hai)- that describes a father's plea to his son who goes abroad to earn money & before he knows it gets sucked into the situation so badly that is unable to get out ...and these lines stuck in my head...

Tune paisa bohot kamaya, is paise nein des chudaya...Aaja umar bohot hai choti...apne ghar mein bhi hai roti...

You have earned a lot, tis the money that made you leave your homeland. Come back - life is too short...we have enough at home to afford our meals.

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As I sit today and reflect on my choices, my conversation with my mom and the song i heard some days back...and though I think i can still trace my way back home, just in case i falter these thoughts will act as a beacon of light that will help me find my way on my road ahead. And I hope you find your way back home, too !

Home,india,living away from home,

When Boredom Strikes..

Its quarter past eight
When boredom strikes
3 rounds to the kitchen I make
But nothing appetizing insight
Why oh why
Do I suffer this plight
When inertia takes over
…The psyche
Then the fly on the wall
And I are alike
Not an inch we feel moving like
What does one do?
When boredom strikes
When staring at the TV
Becomes a rite
Or writing up verses like these…
So trite!

Vidya's story - Part 3 - Her questions to the universe...

If you'd like to read about Vidya you could read it here (part 1) and here (part2)

She gazed out of the window as houses, trees and people ran countercurrent. Beads of water trickled from one curve to another on the corroded window grill. Hanging with resolve for a while before they would ultimately give in and fall below to the next level and then the next… until there was no trace left of them. Where would they all ultimately go, she asked her self? Some droplets flew right at her along with the cool breeze that gently slapped her face. It had stopped raining only minutes back. Unusual for the time of the year that otherwise had incessant rain washing away the fringes of life that existed alongside railway tracks. Vidya, though was oblivious of the starting and stopping of the rain. Her eyes focused on the rain droplets that fell into a rhythm, pulling her thoughts inwards. I watched her closely sitting at the diagonally opposite end.

There was an unusual silence in the compartment. No sound of women clamoring for seats…no bunch of giddy college girls breaking into a raucous laugher at a drop of a hat. This silence created a song of its own. The cadence of the metal handles atop swaying from side to side and the near empty compartment lilting to that tempo. Her still…calm face veiled the battle of thoughts in her mind. Her small voice throwing at her - a dozen questions a minute...it did not wait to even get an answer to one question before there were a barrage of others…Vidya knew that any answer she would give to herself would only open a chain of new thoughts…new questions. Years of conditioning and advice from elders about ‘learning to accept’ her situation had quietened her senses.

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Vidya was amongst the brightest of her 8 siblings, a trait that won her disproportionate affection and encouragement from dada. Amma of course was quick to express her displeasure. ‘Don’t encourage her so much that her expectations take her soaring into the sky. One cannot fly high on pure hope alone. It is not in our means to let our girls study forever. After her matriculation, we must find a suitable house for Vidya. That’s it. Then our duty is over. Then she has to comply with what her in laws wish for her. You don’t fuel her desire to study further. She cannot think of herself and her life only when she has 5 younger sisters in the waiting’

Rukmini Devi (amma as we know her) was a woman of few words. Most of her time and energy were consumed by the domestic duties. In a marriage defined by traditional roles she did not find it her prerogative to voice her opinion. But Vidya was coming of age and amma knew that if her dreams were allowed to rise unfettered…the fall from those heights would be equally excruciating.

They were coming to see her. Her pleas were met with silence. This is the first time she had seen her father’s stone grey eyes filled with helplessness instead of hope for her.

His silence infuriated her even more. She paced up and down vigorously. Amma circled around her, holding the bright pink saree in her hand trying to calm vidya’s nerves. All the while that she was made to sit in front of her prospective in-laws she did not utter a word…nor did her eyes move away from her toes. Her face brushed with a crimson hue stuffed with anger that she could not express. If the fate of her life was to be decided without any consultation, she saw no sense in offering her approval or the lack of it. She married Shaym not knowing what he even looked like. That was her first and perhaps biggest lesson in ‘acceptance’.

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Over the course of her life….she learnt to accept….an early marriage, a sudden loss of support and encouragement from her father, an almost overnight change in status from a girl-without-a-care to a woman responsible for a family of five…an acerbic mother-in-law…loss of dreams…loss of freedom…loss of personal time and space…being treated like a guest in the house she grew up in…that every night she would have to sleep with a man for whom she was always less beautiful than the cover girls on cine magazines…less attractive than the characters from the prurient literature that he indulged in….that nobody would ask her even once how she felt or what she wanted…constant fatigue…that holidays only meant more work at home…that children who she devoted herself to would grow up and get a life where she was not going to fit in…that when she fell ill people in her house got irritated until she dragged herself out of bed and started cooking again…that her life was all about give…give…give…that no matter how hard she tried she would never be good enough for them!

The day started as usual today…nothing out of the ordinary…except it was one of those mornings when repressed emotions and rebellious thoughts refused to listen and stay contained with the bounds of the self where they would not been seen or heard by anyone else. One of those mornings when on waking up you get the feeling that someone or something has died and you silently mourn the death of a part of you! One such days Vidya would lose herself in introspection…trying to draw strength from her thoughts. As she wound up her morning chores her eyes were tearful - a result of the acrid smell of onions which she chopped deftly. She thought – that she chopped onions everyday – they why today did she feel a pain in her heart while her eyes shed water?

The storm caused by such an upsurge in emotions did not take more than a couple of hours to settle down. The cacophony of noises of women laughing and joking in the train drowned out the feeble voice of her conscience throwing questions at her. Except today when Vidya was alone…well almost…there were only two others besides her…me and a woman standing at the door holding up the fluttering end of her saree in an attempt to dry it. Vidya had involuntarily fixed her gaze at the speeding train that she could see sitting by the window. She thought about the length of time ahead of her…all the days…months ahead that she would have to live. She wondered whether it was it possible for her to remain stoic, unemotional…undisturbed by her life? Was it possible for her to hold back her reactions, remain unaffected by their constant barbs? She had learnt to accept no doubt, but had continued to be affected by it all. Then in a flash, a thought nudged her out of her trance like gaze.

If the soul is the seat of all that one senses and the body only a vehicle to facilitate this experience, she questioned - whether it was possible for her to allow her soul to die a premature death and leave her body to lead its mortal existence on this earth?

Her thoughts escaped her being. She looked expectant. As though she had posed her question to the universe and was waiting an answer. As the train approached the shadowy domes of the tungsten lit VT station, the universe answered…‘The train arrived on platform 1 is slow local for Thane…’

Vidya slid her bag on her shoulders and walked away into the distance. My eyes followed her as I saw people from the opposite side, almost walking into her and moving away just in time…giving her strange looks. She seemed oblivious of her surroundings…as though her soul had just escaped her.

The sun and his twin

The sun has a twin
Who looks at him through the day
Like it’s shadow…
He rises alongside every morning
And at dusk…merges with the sea

The twin - whispers to the sun
Though I’ve always been with you
How come you don’t know me?
If I can see you
Then why cant thee?

Is it possible then?
Like this sun
I have a twin too
Oblivious of its existence today
I will discover it someday

Standing face to face
Will I hear him - telling me…
Though I’ve been with you
Since you’re first heart beat
You have looked for me
Sometimes in stones and rocks
At other times in temples…and around trees

1947

Sometime back I got to meet a few people who shared with me their first hand experiences around the partition (1947). Even after so much time has passed, the disillusionment and tears in their eyes - as they recalled incidents with horror and grief - were very real. A few thoughts that remained with me post those interviews – I guess I will never forget.

I cannot even begin to imagine / understand how it would have felt to be leaving one’s land…one’s home knowing (but perhaps not consciously accepting) that one would never return. They had not known of life anywhere else. Some were made to believe, while others held on to the belief that they would return someday. That the transition was temporary till the riots settle down. As the thought sank in - that their life in a new strange land was a reality they had to live with – many lived and died in the pure hope that some day they would be able to return – to just see what they had left behind.

I imagined what it would be like to visit one of the many abandoned, desolate homes there. It is possible to oust people out of their cities, their dwellings – however in the nooks and corners of such houses the spirit and the memories of the people who inhabited those continue to live.

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Chaukhat ke ek kone mein
Dekha…
makdi jhalar boon rahi thi
Oopar haath tatola
Dekha…
Killi ab tak wahin padi thi

Darwaze par lagi dhul ko
Ponchkar, dastak di
Andar jhanke dekha…
Angan mein to koi nahin tha
Par rassi pe jhul rahe kapde the…
Ab bhi taaze
Shaayad koi yahin kahin tha

Mitti ab bhi taazi geeli
Pairon pe woh chipak rahi thi
Jis par
Maachis ke dibbon mein kankar wali gaadi
…Khamosh khadi thi
Aur sannate ki awazein
Kaano mein kuch goonj rahi thi

Door farsh par…chat se aati
sooraj ki kirne chamkati –
maile peele zevar the woh
Jo ek ched se taank rahe the
aadhe andar aadhe bahar gade pade the
chukar dekha – parat ab tak sili hui thi
mano pehen ke abhi ootare
Aur rakhe the

Rasoi ghar se kisi cheez ke
jalne ka ehsaas hua jo
Chuleh tak jaakar dekha to
Thandi bhuri raakh padi thi
Thandi aag mein chehre dekhe
Kuch jaane the kuch anjane
Cheheron mein aankhein thi…
Jaise gehri peeli
Aahein ab tak sulagh rahin thi

Warm friendly homes…a rare breed.

Childhood memories brings to mind some strong and vivid associations

Sunday movies on DD when everyone stayed at home and religiously watched the one movie that was dished out on TV. Those times were also about the ‘family’ – we were too young to crib about family vacations being boring. Relatives often came calling un-announced…I guess since very few houses then even had a telephone! I remember that the practice of dropping-in uninvited continued even when the telephone had become ubiquitous. One seldom called a relative to find out whether one could drop in or not – unless relatives stayed so far away that finding a door locked at the end of a 3 hour journey was a possibility one did not want to face. Even on calling one seldom heard a NO…don’t come…we are busy today…kind of response.

No matter what time of the day one called in…I remember people mostly greeted each other with oodles of warmth, an honest excitement and loads of good food made with love. Well mostly...here we exclude the temperamental aunts and uncles...since they were not truly representative of those times. Houses were relatively smaller (perhaps that’s what lent a cozy welcoming air to them), some times unkempt, most often with un-coordinated upholstery. Bed rooms (and that time there were no separate guest bedrooms) were open for kids to go and jump onto the beds…beds that often doubled up as surrogate dinning tables on which people sat with folded legs around durries that protected the sheets underneath from curry spills. No one cared about paint chipping off from surrounding walls which sometimes had leaky patches too, or about clothes, toys and books strewn around since nobody bothered to look around and evaluate the room or its décor with a sense of judgment. What caught and engaged one’s attention instead - were the people and the atmosphere charged with a sense of belonging. It was a home and homes (at least then) were not supposed to look clinically clean and color co-coordinated. The chaos in the surroundings lent it that homely character.

These days homes with such character and the people who inhabited them are becoming extinct. Now-a-days houses appear well kept but un-inviting, formal…distant. People make an effort to do up their houses and their smiles meticulously – but somehow it shows…things look so made up!

Breaking the silence and breaking a knee

I never intended this blog to be just a chronicle of events I go through in life and so I have consciously refrained from making posts that are purely personal. This one is an exception since the last month has been one which offered one of those ‘first time experiences’….difficult to forget. That…and somewhere I am feeling very guilty about the silence on the blog for over a month.

Aug 2006…most part of the month was spent limping around the streets of Bangalore (thanks to a bad knee)…begging auto drivers to take me back to my house…which is located in an area that is clearly not amongst one of their favorites. Finding an auto from home is even worse. I can never spot one close to home and ironically whenever I spot one at a distance craning my neck and waving my hands desperately trying to catch his attention…people mysteriously appear around me making their way towards that same lone auto…with me limping in the background…muttering under my breath. ‘Heartless creature…just because you can walk faster than me… does not give you any right to steal the auto that I spotted first’

What can be worse than a painfully stiff knee? I don’t have to think much about that answer. Its is a painfully stiff knee PLUS not knowing what caused it to happen. Have spent the last 3 weeks trying to conjure up possible reasons for its occurrence, asking doctors who have - paraphrased my questions and thrown those back at me, explaining to people that I honestly don’t know how it happened and getting strange looks from them in return and then there are people who know me really well…who nod their head in resignment as though to suggest ‘such things can only happen to you…why am I not surprised?’

The long ride to the operation theatre lying down i recall was quite a disorienting experience. All I could see was bright tube lights on the ceiling alternatively flashing at me and disappearing. Each time I tried to raise my neck up to see how far I had reached I heard a stern voice from behind me…madame…please lie down…I have half a mind to say ‘but why…why should I lie down - when I can sit enjoy the ride and smile at strangers along the way…its just my knee which is affected...the rest of me is fine.

As I entered a rather somber looking zone - ensconced within which lay the rooms where people like me would be operated…I wonder how people who opt for cosmetic surgical procedures are insane enough to willing put themselves through such an experience. I am made to wait in room where there are 4 others like me clothed in green and absolutely silent. The atmosphere is closest to one I have seen at airports…people on stretchers are made to queue up - like air planes on a tarmac waiting before take off. It’s as busy in there as well. 25 – 30 operations per days between the 2 operation theaters – I am told. The silence in the waiting area breaks by the sound of the 98.3 Radio FM jockey…which has been turned on at my request to compensate for my I-Pod which has been taken away despite my doctors promise that I would be allowed to carry it with me inside. The song cannot be more opportune…sunidhi chauhan crooning…marne se pehle jeena… seekh le. By this time, tired of lying down, I have defied the orders and am sitting up straight on my wheelie bed following the grim faced, green masked denizens as they pace up and down with surgical instruments in hand. A rather chirpy doctor – anesthetist pair wave out at me from the other end of the waiting room before coming close and realizing that I am not the patient they are supposed to operate on. We break into a giggle and while I am still gazing in amazement at their high spirits – distinctly out of place - with the rest of the ambience…in a split second I am made to lie down and am taken in.

I have lost my vantage point and all I can see now is bright lights atop with pale blue tiles on the surround walls and about 6 – 7 men / women – some bespectacled – asking me a rapid fire of questions…

Right knee or left knee?
Are you allergic to any medications?
Is this your first surgery? ….

Post a spinal anesthesia - I am given some drug that has me partially sedated. The music player is perched on one corner of the room and I continue to listen to a mélange of doctor speak and FM radio. I shiver…not out of fear but due to the spine chilling room temperature. My teeth chatter and in my partially sedated state I try to recollect when the anesthetist asked me the night before whether I have any lose teeth – is this what he meant? I have only a semi conscious recollection of what transpires during the next 1.5 hours. More FM radio, conversations that ranged from my profession…to my interest in how surgery is performed under hypnosis…to my stay in Ireland…to Guinness beer. Of course I also see the entire arthroscopic surgery on the TV screen which at the time seemed like I was just watching a science video.

It all ends with my surgeon asking me – so what do you like better…Ireland or our operation theatre…and my reply…I don’t think I enjoyed my stay in Ireland as much as I enjoyed my experience here. After exchanging the thank you(s) and goodbyes - my surgeon and anesthetist leave.

Out of the operation theatre once again I crane my neck out to look up at the world outside and I see a bee line of eager smiling strangers looking back at me.

The journey in and out of that operation theatre - on the wheelie bed has changed my perspective about operations…hospitals…doctors – forever! Of course…if I could just get over my fear of the MRI scan machine…and stop thinking that if I look straight ahead at it…it will suck me in…I’d say…I’ve done it!!!