…where i live

a bird cries, no two

dogs bark and fight

like the drunkards

at night.

in the orange

daylight

bursting with heat

(35 degrees c)

an auto rattles

to life.

shutters go up

clanging

metal against metal

the garage

opposite

is open for work.

engines roar

put-put and hum

and roar again

white water jets

on to machine parts

piercing, washing

the grease away.

buses

accelerate

not moving

raising dust clouds

off the road.

nearby,

a pump stutters

loud water

gushes and spurts

from the square well

coughing into

an empty metal tank

for four hours

at least.

the bullet

lot of them

in fact,

thunder up and down

the single lane.

in the kitchen

a loose lid slips

over vapours

of hot rice.

outside a crow

caws into my ear

lying

that a guest will come home.

ladies in blue

at noon

work their hands

over me

their mouths

never cease

sharing gossip

gasping, laughing

like the fan

whirring overhead.

more voices float in

just then

high pitched and violent

incomprehensible.

my neighbour

(with his right-side,

paralysed)

competing over

the ten tv boxes

on our floor.

eighty channels

ten different moods

to suit every room.

a remote control

falls from nodding hands

batteries and plastic

all over the place.

on the street

where i live

a morcha, muslims

hundreds of them

march together

for a long time

shouting slogans

wriiten on little printed chits

in their hands

i watch

from the fourth floor

ugly traffic lagging

behind them

honking, grinding

braking…

a police siren

screeches through

the cacophony

for the rest

of the day.

fascinating.

that’s what i think about the people of kerala. the women especially are intense and have so many secrets (to share)…be it gossip about a neighbour or someone in their own family, stories are fanned over the flames in the kalladuppus (stone/mud stoves) in the kitchens, until the perfect recipe is concocted. and yet like kaangoshtee or chinese whispers, there will be no final version.

i have been to my achchamma’s house only occasionally. but everytime she has a story for me to take back. just like it is for most grandchildren whose grandparents live far away. for me, evenings in kerala meant frequent powercuts and lots of creepy and tiny fluttery insects around the oil-lamps and candles. if i was lucky it would rain; i could stretch my hand out to catch the drops sliding down from the rooftops, and somehow manage to drench myself to the bone. then she would narrate stories of children who didn’t listen to their parents and what happened to them. if it was daytime, she would warn us of gandharvas catching our souls.

don’t go out in the hot sun, once a gandharva catches you he won’t want to leave…

and then she would go on to explain how gandharvas look for innocent young girls who wander about, trapping them into falling in love and not leaving their minds for a long long time. when they did, eventually, she would go on, the girl would have no memory of what had happened. while i looked on wide-eyed, imagining fine young gandharva princes roaming around unseen, she would add threateningly…

and they can take any form, mind you!

things had not changed much when we visited achchamma this vishu. there were the powercuts all evening accompanied by thunder and heavy rainfall. i had been waiting for a phonecall from praveen and, afraid that there would be a problem with the phone line (cell phones don’t work in the region either), picked up the receiver to check.

don’t use the phone kutti she cried out suddenly. assuming she wanted to tell me there was no ISD connection, i said i would use the booth down the road then.

it’s raining and there’s thunder and lightning in the sky too, don’t use any phone now. don’t you know what happened to old rehman’s wife? most of us laughed but she went on, punctuating her story with meaningful sighs…

rehman’s wife was talking to her son in dubai…he had been gone for long and she was missing him. (sighh)
just then there was lightning and it struck her through the receiver, killing her instantly. these things cannot be trusted you know…

the rest of the family was out in the verandah now catching some words from the story…my father (who was visiting her after two years) came in last and asked who the family was and what happened.

old rehman’s wife, the poor lady had been missing her son. (sigh)
one evening he called from dubai and she was just telling him to come back, when the lighting struck…
the old rehman remarried however, as soon as he could, to a girl half his age (long sigh…)

i guess i would have believed most of the story had she not concluded with…

nature has strange ways that cannot be laughed at. do you know? the poor woman’s words just when her son called were: “when will you come to see me son? after i am dead?” and that was when she fell.

i think my father got the clever message that evening. but now my mother does not allow me to use the phone when she hears a noisy sky! :-))

it’s difficult to put in words how i feel right now. with my email inbox full of updates by ex-colleagues — where they are and how well they’re doing — everybody busy, doing what they love to do…

i’m so very happy for them; today though, i’ll hold back my reply to them.

meanwhile, i’m learning to stick to a diet of fruits, vegetables and bitter medicines. i’m reading (ray bradbury), sleeping because i get tired very often (and it’s too hot!), waiting for the drawing books and learn-malayalam-series that my father has couriered from bombay, and another from praveen. it was humbling to request for a tv in the room because it sometimes gets too boring when i cannot get out; it was funny to learn we were on a long waiting list. i’m learning to use a cybercafe.

i’m learning to spend one day at a time, and not get frustrated over this forced-rest. and when i see the many other patients in my ward, some coming to terms with a recent accident and some learning to walk again, i am learning to count my blessings.

…online, that is, at least for now 🙂

have missed out on a lot of reading, writing, email, and yes, praveen…but all that is for a good reason. i’m finally in india (right now, at kottakal) to sort out my back.

coming home was rather eventful, or should i say the homecoming was…with my sister and i having planned a surprise landing in front of our house in thane, you can imagine my parents were far from surprised. they were shocked. we were too, initially, when we saw the huge lock on the door and had to wait for another three hours, tired and weary from our over-24-hour-long journeys–one travelling on the train from chennai and the other flying from london. (thanks sanjeev, for the taxi-ride from the airport at four in the morning, and the cutting chais that followed soon after 😉

first impressions of being back in mumbai were good, though weather-wise it was sweltering in comparison to the pleasant, budding spring i left behind in london. the roads have improved (however, not all of them are safe for my back condition), tall new buildings seem to have sprouted everywhere and the cost of living seems to be shooting up with every new shopping mall or multiplex (cinema) … not only are mumbaiites willing to pay; they are embracing the new lifestyle even before it’s here.

i’m no authority on countries and their ways of living, but having left mumbai four years ago, surviving the london winters and culture-contrasts, and looking at mumbai now, me thinks it’s a good sign. there is a lot to learn though, in terms of the little things that get left out when everyone is looking at the big picture. but i’m sure that will change too.

what i was glad didn’t change, was the medical system here. unlike in the uk, i wasn’t given six-/nine-month waiting times or handed a list of ugly side-effect-inducing-medicines. rs 10,000 and a week later, i came down to the south of kerala, armed with my medical reports.

for anyone who plans to visit this part of india, there cannot be a better time.
rains wash the hot earth every evening, birds fill the air and fly all over the place if a storm is approaching, brown and green fields are dotted with young banana plantations, their new leaves pointing to the clear blue sky…i spent vishu with my achchamma and cousins, waking up to the sound of firecrackers at five (and a snake that got into the compound), wearing new clothes and visiting age-old temples that seemed to be alive with tradition, drenching myself in the evening rain in spite of amused aunts and uncles asking me to get back in the house, listened to the *vishu-pakshi…

*according to achamma, the bird has never been spotted by anyone but heard on the new year day (april 14); it flies over the countryside, asking people to sow seeds and work hard. it was eerie as i observed…other birds had fallen silent too, as if paying respect to its majestic cry.

i just realised i must be getting back to my room, so i’m cutting short on my entry for now. i also wanted to thank everyone for their kind wishes and words of encouragement over the past few days. now coming back to what i was saying…it’s my second day here at the kottakal arya vaidyasala. for the next 28 days, i have a diet to follow, yoga classes i can enrol in (after consulting with my doctors tomorrow), lot of books to read (more on this soon), restrictions -not to sit for long or move out of the hospital premises; not to forget the bitter-tasting medicines- one for every time of the day, and my mother for company.

i also, finally, have a high-speed internet connection 😉

there’s no particular reason for this long silence. this entry is just for me to get back to writing.

a lot has been happening around me, i’ve been reading about what goes into chicken nuggets and how salads are packed, i’m trying to make sense of the two and a half pillars of wisdom (and wondering why i didn’t pick the book up from the library instead), i almost enrolled in a £360-documentary-making course but pulled back because i decided i would have to have the energy for it first; it has been snowing all week and when i look outside my window it’s like a life-size-christmas-greeting card, yet i’m waiting for the daffodils to open, and watch the sunshine bounce off all the spring flowers. i am waiting for the spring.

i also finished those kitchen curtains, and got back to stitching my quilt, something i started (by hand) about two years ago. now that i have my sewing machine, i thought things would speed up a bit. wish the body would work as fast as the mind though. instead my pains have increased over the past few months and i’m just watching the world go by. sometimes angry i let it get this far, sometimes peaceful, sometimes tired, or just comfortably numb.

i’ve been missing out a lot from life these days. there’s so much i want to do, so much to learn…

that’s why i’m going back to india to refuel my energy. going to take another chance at treating my backpain, through the residential ayurvedic hospital at kottakal this time.

as for the doctors here, they have officially washed their hands off my case. they called it a ‘mystery illness’ at first but thankfully gave me all my medical reports to take home. now they think it’s CFS/fibromyalgia, a disorder that used to be dismissed as ‘phantom pains’, having no particular cause, therefore no cure (more here). “and then there are the other complications as well, apart from the chronic pain itself…”

was i better off not knowing what the problem was, or am i better off knowing there is no cure? does that mean i’m going to spend the rest of my life enjoying half the quality it deserves?

i am 30. life has just begun, enough time has been wasted. once again, what i need is to just get out of denial mode.

late one evening

it was about 8pm (i think)

a girl, 15, walked

alone

on a lonely road

fast

she had disobeyed

a warning

don’t take that road at night.

it was a quicker route

and no one would know

she thought.

night-crickets chirped

the sound of her chappals

on the gravel and tar road

suddenly

was interrupted

by a whirr…

a cycle

perhaps, she thought

and continued

through the shadows

more towards the right

the whirr came closer

was it someone she knew?

she grasped her books

to her stomach

still walking…

it was a cycle.

dangerously

it came this close

and whirred past

the wind in her hair

sending

a shiver down her spine

she should have listened

she regretted

taking

that road

that never seemed to end.

then again

the whirr turned

a streetlight far away

glistened on a wheel

this close

the shiny spokes

not making her see

a quick hand

slapping

her young breasts

cycling away.

pain

shot through her senses

sharp tears

anger

and shame

even as she entered her house

she never reached home

that night.

miles away today

i wonder why

this long-forgotten

story

came to me

i just

am curious

i guess

if young girls

are still being warned

don’t take that road at night.

if you have been running away from what your mother wishes for you, one day you will be the one chasing those very wishes. remember this.

i am not usually the kind to let “fate” be the cause or effect of the circumstances in my life. i am a believer in reason and science, and well, okay…maybe there is someone out there (or up there) looking out for me too. but sometimes i think i am cut out to learn things the hard way.

take sewing for instance.

the low rhythmic hum of my mother’s sewing machine has always been one of the sounds i grew up listening to. over the years, the machines changed, old ones got repaired and second-hand-ones came and went, a separate table came in for all the cutting and measuring work, then an entire room was taken over, more machines came in, and a german pfaff-machine was left behind by a dying friend.

when she was not stitching dresses for my sister and me during our adolescent years, my mother was teaching others to do the same for their family. sometimes she taught them all day, two or three batches of three women every morning and afternoon. when they were gone, she called me to check out a new pattern she had made herself, or to hold the ends of a long cloth so she could zip the scissors through and cut it in two. when the years finally caught up and made her ankles swell into shades of green and purple, my father got her a motorised pedal that she just had to rest her foot on lightly. i still remember the mechanic who came in, smelling of machine oils and sweat, his greasy fingermarks on the glass of water that i had offered him to drink.

we never had to ask for new dresses, my sister and i. and i never waited for an occasion when i was handed a new dress ‘to try out’ either. because i had learnt that a new chudidaar or salwar kameez would be stitched as if by magic everytime there was a function at school or college and i had run out of something-new-to-wear. all i had to do was stand in front of the open wardrobes and make a long face (which is very difficult in my case, since my face is round), and all that night the walls would sing that familiar rhythm…

the walls would hum even when there was a celebration at my neighbour’s house, and the tailor had let them down. at short notice, clothes would get mended, sarees would be married to their matching falls and blouses would be stitched, because everyone in our building knew my mother would work something out by the morning.

sometimes when my masi would come home with her embroidered bedspreads and quilting ideas, both the sisters would be at it again, between cups of filter-coffee and stories of their children’s (ours) homework-not-done and exams-to-prepare and lack-of-interest-in-house-work and the new-car-the-husband-was-planning-to-buy. by the end of the day, we were called to admire what they had created, colourful patchwork sheets and cushions and embroidered quilts that left some-more-work-left-but-isn’t-it-nice?-sincere expressions on their faces. so for as long as i can ever remember, the walls in my house have always hummed, and my mother has always been sitting at a sewing machine.

i took it for granted, the stitching and the stitched, and in spite of repeated requests and orders to learn to stitch myself, i pretended i had better things to do. and i did…like setting fire to the kitchen (almost), when my mother appreciated my neighbour- (and my best friend)’s self-made candles.

“see, see,” she poked at me in front of her, “see how she’s made it by herself!” i swallowed my bruised ego and applauded for her sake, and after she left i thought if she can do it so could i! all i had to do was heat the candles and put some crayon in it. after all, i was in the prime of my teens and hurt and wanted my mother to be proud of me, and say that “see, my daughter could do it too” to my neighbour. so while i day-dreamed with the candles in a pan over the gas, a huge cloud of fire scarred our freshly-painted-pale-yellow kitchen ceiling forever. my sister began to wail, she was very good (and exceptionally fast) at that believe me, and all the ladies were in the kitchen in no time. they saw me bravely trying to put out the fire by taking it to the water filter and turning the tap, after which more flames flew upwards and i panicked, until my mother flew in, snatched the hot vessel from my shaking hands and turned it upside down in the sink.

the ladies clucked their tongues and nodded at each other that i indeed was lucky that i didn’t get burnt. i wished otherwise because i could barely hear anyone above my mother’s scoldings that day. i would never make a candle again, i promised myself. nor would i ever learn to stitch like my mother.

years went by and i chose the computer over the sewing machine. she joined pieces of cloth and turned them into beautiful clothes as a seamstress would, i hacked away at words and structure and made them presentable as a copy editor would. then i got married, learnt other things and made my parents happy and came to a country that loved plain shades and pastels, and labelled bright colours and motifs as ‘indian’ and sold them at over �45 and �60 a piece.

for a year or two i lived with it; i lived with the dull t-shirts and trousers, and tried to forget the bright new clothes i would get without even asking. i lived with the dull curtains and spent more time in the kitchen learning to cook instead. what could i do, i wasn’t like my mother i thought. over the phone i told my aunt and my mother how they could make millions if they even displayed any of their work here, and i told them their work was far better than any i had seen in all of europe. in my mind i had felt that they stitched with their hearts and the sewing machines were just a medium…

my mother must have wished the same for me, and she must have wished very hard at some point in her life. for i was to walk into a needlecraft store one day at hemel (just because it was the only local shop i had not checked out in the two-plus-years that i have lived here), and i would recognise all the sewing apparatus and what-is-used-for-what. i would compare all the women there to the women at my mother’s sewing classes, and i would learn how much it all must have meant to her.

soon, instead of pining for colourful duvet-covers and bedspreads and some indianness in my london home, i had begun to think of making them myself. i had begun to gather ideas and put them together for different corners in the house. so what if i didn’t know to work the sewing machine i thought, and i began stitching a patchwork quilt by hand. if i made a mistake i had to re-do the entire thing, but i didn’t give up, and i could see where my mother was getting her patience from. the process of change had begun.

months later, when praveen and i were busy renovating our home and scattering ikea all over the place, we thought of making a divan ourselves, and not get it shipped from india. we got two low-coffee-tables (from ikea) and put them together, and then laid a three-inch-foam-layer over it. it required a sturdy cover and i thought of my mother again. and i wished i had listened to her while she stitched. the kitchen needed new curtains too, and getting these things would prove to be too expensive. we had overshot our budget already…what we could afford was a good sewing machine.

today as my mother and i exchange crash-course sewing lessons over the internet with scribbles like these, and i find that i have cut the curtain cloth into equal strips the wrong way, fumble and piece them together and re-join them again, mentally calculating how much cloth i will have left with me eventually…i think with regret of the walls in india that stopped humming years ago, all because a mother failed to get her daughter(s) to learn what she knew.

but with this new machine it’s like i have a second chance. i let my mother scold me again, and humbly listened to her going “see! i told you so!!…” because the circle had to be complete. i am hoping that perhaps if i start stitching, i can convince her to get back to it too. because now, the (canvas) divan covers that i stitched look just like we wanted them to be! when i stitch i feel a quiet confidence inside me, humming like my mother’s sewing machine, asking me to go on, telling me it’s okay if i made a mistake.

i guess, it’s the only way daughters learn.

ps: my mother is coming to visit london this year. finally, i will be her student after all 🙂

it all started with the homework.

after regular weekly topics to write 200-words about, nick, my writing class tutor had a maha assignment for the three-week christmas break…write something for a magazine or paper you choose (from the writers’ handbook), get it to class along with your envelopes and send it off.

we all had been writing our homework every week. it was fun reading it out in class and getting the feedback from everybody. but here was a big one. i have always managed to wriggle out of contests and competitions because i hated being there. but this was different and yet a contest in a way. the contest was between me and the writer inside me, and this time i wanted the writer to win.

so i began to research a lot of (non-fiction) topics and shortlisted two. i discovered i couldn’t write both at the same time so i picked one. three thousand words and a preview at class later, i realised i had enjoyed the experience. now i want to start my other article, and start another one, and another…but i can’t begin unless i know the fate of what i have already written.

i guess the first pangs of will-they-accept-it-will-they-not are just hitting me now, and i dont like it one bit. and i haven’t even sent the article out yet. when i set out from the bbfc* today after my movie assignment i was happy. i felt like sewing the kitchen curtains (i have never done it before) and cooking all the pongal dishes and cleaning up the home. when i came home i opened the word document and didn’t do anything else. i called the newspaper to make sure i have the word count right, but i only heard the answering machine.

this is going to be my longest weekend.
and i hate answering machines.

*british board of film classification, where i (am one of many who) interpret/review tamil movies that come into the uk, and get paid for them too. yes, sometimes its funny what you can do in this country.

this very helpful page tells us how and why earthquakes happen.
this page, and this page shows us the earthquakes had been occurring since december 22, 2004, right along the tectonic plates (refer to image on the ‘why earthquakes happen’ link). so does this page.

i am not a student or authority on seismology or natural disasters. my basic common sense tells me there is a purpose for those colourful charts and readings. a disclaimer does say the readings could be inaccurate, but i wonder if anyone could be sued for saving a life, once in a while.

so is it just me? or does anyone else agree that there could have been a decent warning?

mood: angry X-(

most of us perhaps visit other journals to find inspiration there, whether we consciously seek it or not.

since my surgery three weeks ago, i have been doing just that…trying to escape the ill-effects of the dreadful tablets i take three-times-a-day (for three more months!), trying to get back to what i love doing the most…painting, writing, creating.

i also have been thinking about life and how its phases or of those around affect us ever so subtly, pointing out that we too are changing inside, growing, accommodating, changing our needs for space to just be…

my space these days is my kitchen, my territory as praveen likes to call it.
and this year since we have been giving the house a make-over i wanted the kitchen to be more than a place where i cook food and wash the dishes. something like a mini-studio where i can try out what i want to…and yet be simple in its own way.

we started with painting the walls white, and got a terra cotta-tile-effect vinyl flooring to go with it. then we got a small ikea table, with bright red chairs and colourful straw-placemats (from a charity shop).

i am experimenting with crayons and watercolours, so i can get some of my favourite ingredients on the wall. i hope to stitch some bright-yellow-checked curtains soon, and paint more often, so my space, like life itself, remains fresh, curious, and interesting.

nancy, keri smith and duane keiser, thank you for getting me to paint again.

i had to give a background for the garlic-and-chilli picture since it looked dull against the white. now i’m wondering if the curry leaves and ginger need a background too. what do you think?