Ms Helplessness

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During Saagar’s illness, I was helpless. Also, I was rubbish at asking for help. A few weeks into Saagar’s unrelenting and forever changing moods, I was baffled. I realised I couldn’t do this alone, I needed to ask for help. Most of my family lived in India so I needed to hurry up.

Looking back, I asked somewhat hesitantly, by sending a group e-mail to my family members in India. Some tried to help and couldn’t. Others didn’t try. Yet others kept mum. Some advised me to send him to India. Some couldn’t even pick up the phone. I was so panicked that I couldn’t think straight. It didn’t cross my mind that I needed support too. The fact that I was a hot shot doctor at a hot shot hospital did not help. At that point, I was simply his desperate mother.

I texted a distant uncle on Tuesday night to say I was really worried about Saagar and we needed urgent help. He lived 20 minutes away. He texted back to say he could only help on weekends. By Thursday, it was all over. I suppose none of us had the slightest inkling of the disaster that was hurtling towards us.

Helplessness was the darkest cloud there ever was. It was a humiliating beast of a thing. It had completely obliterated the way I saw myself – capable, resourceful. It had made me a stranger to myself. Again and again, it invaded from the past to leave me without oxygen. I imagined I would limp through the rest of my life, trying to get to a point of relief, of grace. There was no way of getting that ghost of helplessness off my back.

A few years after his death, on a warm quiet afternoon on a beach in Goa, I invited Ms Helplessness to sit with me. We sat cross legged on the wooden floor of the beach hut. We looked into each other’s eyes for a few still moments. With tears streaming down my face, I extended both my hands toward her, and she took them in hers, gently squeezing them and then loosening her grip. I steeled myself and looked harder into her eyes.

I hate you. I forgive you for nearly killing me once. Thank you for showing me I can’t control what happens.

Maybe there’s a power beyond us both, that rules.

Promise me, you won’t be so cruel again. Will you? She had her gaze fixed on the ground in front of us. A tearful silence ensued.  Then she stood up and walked away.

Fall like snow on tall peaks

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There are laws followed by falling things

not humans

but things cannot determine the conditions of their fall

humans can.

Since childhood I was advised, if you want to fall, fall inside the house. ie. not outside

ie. fall onto the letter but escape from the envelope

ie. fall into the eye but escape from the glasses

ie. escape from words but fall into the meaning.

I, of average height could not have fallen more than five and a half feet

but how high was that?

My falling is not coming to an end.

The reality of falling things is revealing itself to me

in the middle of my 70th decade.

Look around and observe the falling of things.

fall like the snow atop glaciers from where sweet rivers erupt

fall like a sip of cold water on a dry throat

fall like drops filling a clay pot with music

fall like a teardrop in someone’s sorrow

fall like a ball amongst children playing

fall like the first leaf in autumn making space for a new one in spring

for if there’s no autumn, there’s no spring

fall like the first brick in the foundation of a home

fall like a waterfall on a turbine setting its fans in motion

fall like light on darkness

fall like sunlight on moist winds, making rainbows.

But stop.

Up until now only rainbows have been drawn.

No arrows have been drawn from rainbows.

So, fall like an arrow of a rainbow

onto barren earth and

cover it with flowers and leaves.

Fall like rain on parched land.

Like a ripe fruit,

fall and offer your seeds to the ground.

My hair has fallen.

So have my teeth.

And my vision.

The shells of memories continue to fall.

Names. Dates. Towns. Faces.

The pace of blood-flow in my body is falling.

My temperature is falling.

Why are you still standing, Naresh?

Before all of your existence collapses

for once

make a decision about your fall,

the correct cause and timing of it, and fall on an enemy

like lightning

like a meteorite

like a warrior

like thunderbolt.

I say, fall.

  • An excerpt from a poem by Naresh Saxena. (Translated from Hindi, by me. It is customary for Urdu and Hindi poets to insert their pen-name into the last verse of their poems. I enjoyed the instructional tone of his voice and the ebb and flow of all his metaphors.)

Raintree

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This is not a monastery, a hermitage or a cave.

It is our one-bedroom house. No bellringing to tell me it’s time to go to the church hall to pray.

No fixed routines. No group meditations. No tedious chores.

This is my home. I have been here by myself for 6 weeks. Mostly silent. Listening. Being.

The wind, whispers and then howls, bashing the banana plantation outside my window, pushing all the birds back into their nests, felling trees and forcing me to stay indoors.

The monsoon makes a dramatic entry, takes over the skies.

The morning ritual of making ginger tea. I sit by the big window, drinking it, present to the light of the day. Grateful for it, I smile.

The luxury of silence and solitude!

I drive to the farm. Today is the day to plant a raintree. Early monsoon is a good time for it. The three feet tall sapling has travelled on an overnight train all the way from a friend’s garden in Goa. Known for its fifteen-meter-wide umbrella shaped canopy, it needs a lot of space. We mark the spot on a clearing, dig a hole, put the root ball into the moist soil, add some compost and cover it up. Two sticks support the young tree and it’s on its own. Good luck, Buddy.

My brother calls in the evening to inform me about the air-crash in Gujarat.

I light a candle and sit with my eyes closed. Tears streaming down my face, my chest bursting with pain. God bless their souls and their families. God bless them all.

Night arrives. Si calls up. He asks if I was aware that yet another war had begun in the middle east. I didn’t.

Why? Isn’t there enough suffering in the world already?  

I think about the raintree. I wonder if it will survive this sharp heavy monsoon. Who can say? No one.

Silence. Solitude. Surrender.

That’ll be a NO.

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The singing lesson online was ending. My teacher is a good one, possibly a couple of decades younger than me. She suddenly declared that there will be a test next week.

What test?

It’s just a small one. Everyone must take it after 25 lessons.

I complete assignments every week, and you give me feedback. That’s enough for me.

This is the rule. Everybody is doing it.

I am not everybody and I shall not be doing it.

Well, all teachers have been told every student has to be tested. By the management.

Is it the same management that makes you wear that boring hospital-blue jacket on top of your nice clothes for lessons and you trust their judgement? I wanted to say but did not.

They make the rules. We have to follow.

I am too old to follow rules that don’t make sense to me. I don’t do tests.

It will only take ten minutes.

I would rather spend ten minutes doing something else – listening, learning, singing.

It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.

If it’s nothing, then let’s not do it. I was thinking of buying another ten lessons but if I’m forced to do tests, I will not. Please would you tell the management for me?

Yes. I will, she said, as she shrunk a little.

Pause.

It’s not an exam. It’s only a test.

I am not fifteen. You can’t make me do it.

The emphasis on testing and scoring in India is possibly the reason why most students are into rote learning rather than enjoying the process of gaining skills. It is also the root cause of much anxiety and shame.

Students accounted for 7.6% of all suicides in India in 2022. The number is an astounding 12,000 per year which amounts to 32 per day and rising. There is a fundamental need for culture change for these numbers to come down.

Reference:

https://qz.com/india/1728666/indias-high-stakes-testing-culture-needs-to-be-dismantled