one more from Remitha…
When Faith becomes the Scapegoat
Could the recent Sabarimala tragedy have been prevented? Read about it here…
Kudos to Kanyakumari
The torch has been lit. Now carry it on. Read all about it here.
http://www.yentha.com/news/view/5/562
September of Losses
April might have been the cruelest of months to T S Eliot, but to me it’s been September. Every year as September approaches my heart fills with trepidation. It has been the month that has brought in almost every death that affected me one way or the other.
1996 September took away my grandfather. My grandmother, dutiful wife that she was, promptly followed him the next September. After a brief respite for a couple of years, 1999 brought in the worst of them all. My father. I still remember the phone call that Tuesday night. It was September 21st. Curiously my husband shut the room’s door when he took that call. I was having dinner and watching ‘Something about Mary’ on HBO. I thought the TV’s volume might have bothered him. He waited till I was done with dinner before he told me. After that I always turn the TV off when that movie plays. I don’t think I will ever watch it again.
I’d just seen my dad off at the JFK airport 15 days back. The last I saw of him was just before he turned the corner behind the Kuwait airways counter on his way to board the plane. He turned back and stood there for almost a minute just looking at me till my mother urged him to move on. I can never forget the look on his face and that’s the image of him that I carry in my heart. I never saw him after that. I didn’t make it for the funeral. Told them not to wait for me. I’d rather remember him alive.
I also learnt a valuable lesson that night. ‘Never wish for anything too hard’. You just might get it and it might not really be what you wanted. The day my parents left, I remember thinking, “I’d give anything to go home for a visit.” I got to go home. But the ‘anything’ I had to give was my father.
The year 2000 took away an uncle barely a week after the first anniversary of my father’s passing.
2001 brought no death, but there was a setback of another kind. The twin towers came down in NYC and so did the new startup company in California that my husband had just joined. A few weeks later I made the most memorable journey in my life. I flew halfway across the world, racing across airports with my three month old baby in a sling over my shoulder, my five year old daughter in a stroller and my mom who had fallen sick (she had come to help me with my daughter’s delivery) in a wheelchair.
The next three years went by with no incident. 2004 brought tragedy again. This time it was a cousin. One I had grown up with. He had fought with me, told me several tall tales and brought me plenty of books to read. A kidney failure claimed him. He was just 46. He left behind a 36 year old wife and an 11 year old daughter.
The past few years again were uneventful and at midnight on September 30th, as the clock’s needle had edged towards October 1st I had been able to sigh with relief. I usually hold my breath the whole month and breathe only when necessary.
However this September tragedy struck again. This morning I heard what must have been the most shocking death of all. My sister –in-law’s nephew whom I’d known since he was 7 or so. Played with him and fought with him, quibbled over comic books and teased him, when I used to spend a few days every summer vacation at my sister-in-law’s house. I saw him last on September 4th 2008, the day before I came back from India after attending my niece’s wedding. This September 4th, he is no more.
Just 35 years old. Too young to have a heart attack. I am still reeling from shock and my heart goes out to his bubbly and charming young wife and the adorable imp of a daughter who is just 3, and his parents whose grief I cannot even begin to imagine.
26 days more to go… before the wretched month comes to an end.
happy birthday!
as husbands come, the guy’s one of a kind. she had always wanted a love marrriage… but that didn’t work out. uh uh, her family wouldn’t even entertain the thought. not even in their wildest dreams. so after a search that took more than three years, several misses and close misses, they finally found him for her.
maybe you could call it an arranged love marriage, the parents arranged the match and she promptly fell in love with him.
she had been pulled out of college where she was teaching in the middle of the day. “come on hurry up… someone’s coming to see you.” after the last ‘girlseeing’ fiascoshe was determined it would not happen again. she had reached the end of the tether and had just stopped short of telling her parents that she couldn’t care less if she got married or not and that she had had enough of the humiliation of being paraded in front of a stranger and the following rejections. the only reason she didn’t tell them was because she couldn’t bear to see the hurt in her parents’ eyes. they were getting on in age and well, beginning to get slightly desperate.
she opened her mouth to tell them she had no interest in seeing him. if he was keen on seeing her, he could just see her somewhere without her knowledge. but no one let her speak. “this is it. the search ends here. this will be the last,” they seemed to promise her.
“oh well, i’ll go along with it. but remember, this is the last,” she delivered an ultimatum.
on the way home she was told his ‘qualifications’, his job, and all those trivial details that parents and family are majorly bothered about. what did she care if he worked in a multinational company or where his sibling was married and settled.
“does he have a sense of humor?” does he think his wife is an equal or subordinate? will he treat me as a friend? will he give me the freedom to follow my dreams? will he be around to catch me when i fall? will he be patient enough to put up with my craziness? will he squash spiders for me? will he sing to me? does he have brown eyes? will he boost my morale when i need it most? will he help with the housework? will he be too proud to make up after a fight even if it is my fault? will he just turn around and go to sleep or hold me close and cuddle me? will he love me despite every annoyingly trivial and stupidly major blunder i manage to do through life? will he be man enough to say ,”i love you” atleast once a day?
those were the questions she needed answered, but they had to wait. she would find them all along the way; way deep into her marriage…
“He’s the guy for you,” her brother-in-law who was the first person to see him remarked to her as soon as he saw her at home. “all these years, and all the proposals we went through, nothing gave me a gut feeling that we found the right guy until today. you both will suit each other”. he said as he smiled warmnly at her. as a person who had seen her since she was a little girl, she was almost like his daughter.
finally he was there to see her.she was the first girl he was seeing and she was a veteran by the time, with a heart brimming with cynical pessimism.
the first time they saw each other. what she remembered most was his smile. open, friendly, a smile that touched his eyes. then they were sent to speak to each other alone, to understand each other better. she wondered at the absurdity of the whole thing. what exactly would they learn about each other by talking for a few minutes. but they were to be crucial few minutes. they spoke. a talk which was expected to last no more than 5 minutes somehow went on for longer. the five stretched into 40.
“are you a very serious person?” that was the first thing she asked him.
“do i look like one,? he grinned back at her.
somehow she knew they could get along on the same wavelength. movies, music, poetry, expectations, they discussed a bunch of stuff… at the end of it, both decided to stick together, for better or for worse…
14 years down the line, they still stuck together despite some mostly ups and rare downs. to his credit he never forgot an anniversary or a birthday. he even remembered some valentines days and mothers days as an added bonus. not that they really mattered.he was her daily bread – warm, nourishing, stable and reliable…
he helped her up everytime she fell. stood by her despite all her follies and foibles. made her dream on and pushed her along her chosen path – a fact that even she did not realize-, treated her as his friend, companion, and beloved, made her laugh, made her cry, squashed a whole bunch of spiders and vanquished her demons, allowed her to crush the bones in his hands everytime a contraction took her in the delivery room without batting an eyelid, made up everytime she picked a fight, companiably shared the housework, told her to stand tall and proud before him even after she had done badly, willingly forgave her even after she hurt him real bad, and held her long into the night whispering ,”i love you ” in her ears.
sometimes she felt she would go mad with her love for him, which usually overflowed its banks. she felt she could love the whole world , loving him. but he could never have enough of that love.he was always hungry for more just like her. even after 14 years they still managed to whisper sweet nothings to each other. he still sang to her and when his warm brown eyes looked deep into hers, she felt like she could let go the whole world, just for that one look from him. before him, nothing else mattered, and no one else mattered.
together they had built a shared life of laughter and tears, when faith in each other could get them through the worst, when words were not really needed for a conversation. it was not worth nothing…
that’s the way it is and that’s the way it should be.
with a deep sigh of realization and satisfaction, she placed her hand in his and turned to him and whispered, “happy birthday dearest! would you like for your birthday present one whole heart, untainted and happily given, just for you?”
I am…
I am Earth
Raw, passionate,
Fragrantly alive
In my cool bluegreens
And lusty reds
Deep, sensuous,
Warm, musty, abundant
Vibrant, mysterious
I am River
Overflowing limits
Of bonding banks
Sinuous, laughing
Tremulous, turbulent
Stretching lithe curves
On the way to join
My deep blue sea
I am Sea
Eternal, longing
Unconquered depths
Of timeless treasures
Forbidden mystery
Tireless, beckoning
Fathomless, calm
Stormy, tempestuous
I am Mountain
Silent, menacing
Darkly brooding
Secret caves
Of hidden turmoil
Fiery passions
Of violent fervor
Cooling mists
Serene, tranquil
I am Earth
River
Sea
Mountain
I am Woman…
Rediscovery
Sometimes a simple conversation can throw you off balance. It can either turn your world topsy turvy or take you on a ride on a time machine. Sometimes it can come along at the wrong time and make things just worse. Or they can pop up at the right moment and pull you out of the dumps. It can put you in a totally different frame of mind. Take you back to those magical days of youth when u saw rainbows in shards of glass or to mundane days of reality when you view everything through jaded jaundiced eyes.
Thankfully I went back and opened up doors I long thought were closed forever, awakened old memories, heady days of open rains and swirling mists of dust. It made me read again it made me write again. It brought back the songs I had forgottn to sing. Dusted off old volumes and rediscovered Whitman and Neruda. Realized I once dwelt with the likes of Shelly and Keats. I smelt the fragrant earth after the new rains, heard the mountains whispering to each other and relished the liberating pleasure of a simple sneeze. Slowly the slumbering lover, the dozing romantic in me sprang back to life as I tore away the straightjacket from my heart and the veil from my soul.
In my desperate bid to play the adult I had smothered the youth in me. In a never ending quest to maturity, I had forgoten who I was. What was I but for my dreams, my music my poetry, my heartful of passion and unbridled joy? I looked at my love with new eyes and suddenly wanted to be me again. He deserved to see the real me, the one I don’t think he ever knew. I had been acting a role trying to be who I was not, trying to fit into dutiful roles.
Let me be me, the true me, the unfetterd spirit, the dreamer, the lover, the poet, the idealist, the friend, the insufferable pain, the incurable egoist, the enigmatic non -conformist that defies description. Let me rekindle the fire that once burnt glorious in me. Let me be me…let me be free…
