poetry

Varanasi

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This ancient city of learning and burning sits on the banks of the river Ganga which is home to Saagar’s ashes. We were here twice, within a few months of Saagar’s passing for various ceremonies related with the sudden and tragic nature of his death. A year ago, my Irish medium who I have come to rely on, informed me that the elaborate prayer services that were held for him here had been greatly helpful in freeing his soul. I have no reason to not believe her as everything else she tells me makes sense.

Last month I was back in this iconic city for a long weekend, celebrating the writings of my favourite 15th century poet and philosopher, Saint Kabir.

“Scholars are never made 

from reading countless books.

You only need to understand ‘love’

to be a true scholar.”

Twenty three years ago I left India as a motivated young professional thirsty for knowledge, professional growth and ‘success’. I was a naive kid. I did not know who I was. Now it feels like I’ve taken a tortuous and torturous route to finally come back home, to myself.

Yes, I passed many exams. In the year 2000, I traveled to Dublin for the day, for my first post-graduate exam at the Royal College. As soon as I returned home, Saagar, who was six at that time asked me, “Mamma, did you win?” A huge smile descended on my face and my entire being. I forgot about the stress of that day and the preceding months and got lost in our cuddles and giggles.

I did grow in my work and was ‘successful’ but the most important lesson I am learning is to understand, experience and be love.

The only lesson that is worth learning.

Long shadows

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A few months after Day 0, at a SOBS (Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide) meeting at the All Saints near Euston, I met a father who said, “Eight years” when I asked him how long it had been since his son died. I looked at his face as if he was the most spectacular and wondrous impossibility of the world. Is it possible to live as long as that after the death of a child? He was proof. It was. I had never seen anyone who had been bereaved that long, standing and smiling and speaking sense.

Last Monday I joined the 3 dads on the last leg of their long walk to Westminster alongside many people who want the government to add suicide awareness and helpful resources to the school curriculum. We walked and talked in the rain. I said ‘Nearly eight years’ in response to how long has it been since my son passed. I got the same look from a young mum recently bereaved. She stopped and looked into my eyes through the thick rain drops. Past and future, face to face. “Gosh! Does it get any easier?” she asked. It does, I replied, holding her hands.

All these years I have tried to keep Saagar alive in every way I could – writing, public speaking, teaching Youth Mental Health First Aid courses, advocating for young people, working with various people, charities, NHS, Churchill Trust and other organisations, making films and so on.

I have read other people’s accounts of loss, hoping to lessen my pain and deepen my understanding. The latest book I read was ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ by Joan Didion. She says:

“I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us.

I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.

Let them become the photograph on the table.

Let them become the name on the Trust accounts.

Let go of them in the water.

Knowing this does not make it easier to let go of him in the water.”

Eight years! No time at all.

“Time is the school in which we learn.

Time is the fire in which we burn.”

  • Delmore Schwartz.

Borrowed light

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It sits on my shoulder like a monkey. Annoying. I’ve had a long day, I say. Go away.

It pulls my right ear and searches for lice scrambling all its fingertips over my scalp, irritating as hell. There are none. Get lost. I am not a child.

I’m losing it. The moon is winning.

Proud of its super-fullness. It is evil. The tides it excites, the fights it ignites, the way it bends minds, the resting foetuses it pulls into this cruel world, stealing sleep from the depths of the night. Milky and serene on the outside, within a serious trouble-maker resides. Hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes it invites.

You’re an imposter. I see you. A big black rough rock with nought to your name. No water. No gravity. No air. Certainly, no light. This thing you proclaim as your own is in fact not so. We all know. It belongs to the star called Sun. The one that gives life. Not you. That’s the real star. You, a mere appendage, borrowing importance, gloating in your pretend beauty, cycling and circling with poor intent.

You’re no good to me. Go away. You bad bad moon.

What do I do with this thing?

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It churns inside me all the time. This thing does not settle. It does not sit still. It burns my tummy, wets my thirsty eyes, parches my tongue and pokes its elbow into the longing in my heart. It doesn’t rest and doesn’t allow me to rest. It kisses my forehead, only to kill me with its kindness. It stays with me, no matter where I go – to the park, to work, on a bike-ride, at my desk, in the kitchen. It seeps into my words. Into the movements of my hands. Into the mirror. Into the songs, I choose. Into tea and toast. There is no getting away from it. It pervades my silences and my sleep.

I wish it had never appeared but it has. It wish it wasn’t mine but it is. The problem is, it won’t leave me alone. Not for the briefest of moments. In a Stockholm Syndrome way, I hold on to it and defend it. How I wish it wouldn’t tear me up so mercilessly.

What do I do with this thing?

Once I heard a Therapeutic Writing Coach say: Name it. Claim it. Tame it. Re-frame it. Proclaim it.

‘Re-frame it’ stayed with me. It does not mean I tell myself false pacifying stories but encourages me to see it for what it is, beyond the drama. Grief, as love that has no place to go. Longing, as the other side of the coin of love.

If I don’t transform it, I will keep transmitting it and I don’t want to do that.

(Resource: Therapist and Writing for Well-being Coach

Nigel Gibbons : http://www.nigelgibbons.co.uk/About-Me.htm)

Come home, my darling.

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I still hear the key turning in the door from the outside and you stepping in. Can you believe it? I still see your face, darkened by the sun. Dressed in your cricket whites, you drag your massive cricket-bag-on-wheels behind you by your left arm.

“Did you take the sun-screen with you?” I ask.

“Yes, it’s in the bag.”

“Did you actually put it on?’

 “Mamma, I’m hungry.”

I still wait for you to join us for dinner. I cook the foods you like, especially on your birthday: spinach-paneer for mains, chocolate mousse for dessert. I wonder what you’d be doing in this realm if you were here. Job? Girl-friend? How silly! Isn’t it? I can’t help it. It’s involuntary. It’s got something to do with the heart. With longing. With missing. With love. It’s not supposed to make sense. You would have had a good old chuckle at my expense if you were here. But you are not and I am. How random is that?

I still remember the first time I felt you elbow-ing or knee-ing me from inside my tummy, as if we had an inside joke between us. I remember holding all three kilos of you in my arms for the first time. I couldn’t believe you were for real. You were all mine. Now my arms ache with emptiness. Is this real?

Do you miss me sometimes?

Happy birthday my darling.

Heaven

It will be the past

And we’ll live there together.

Not as it was to live

But as it is remembered.

It will be the past.

We’ll all go back together.

Everyone we ever loved,

And lost, and must remember.

It will be the past.

And it will last forever.

                      – A poem by Patrick Phillips, on the New York subway.

(“Ghar aa” is a Hindi phrase that means “Come home”)

Demonic dunes.

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(Kolmanskop, Namibia. Photo by Emma McEvoy)

Chasing me. Haunting. It wants to swallow me. I wonder why. I am a mere witness standing by. It viciously runs to get me. Grains of sand penetrate my eyes, making me squint and blink and tear-up. But I am just a spectator. I wrap my head in a pink cotton scarf. It soaks up the water, protects my head but my ankles are now submerged in the sand. I extricate them and lunge away from it, breathing hard. Then stop. Turn around, stand still and stare at it. It hisses, plumes of sand flying off the top of it like flames. It threatens to burn me alive.

Images, echos and winds of the past. Dancing dunes of time.

It has blocked my doorway, invaded my home, drive, my garden, front and back. There is grit in every crevice and crack. All I have is sunk underneath this deadly dune. Only the slate-grey gable roof and the chimney tops breathe.

I am not running away from it. From anything. This dune does not have my permission. It may not bury me. It cannot. I know it has a weakness. It can only play in the field of the Past. It cannot enter this Present moment of mine. A silk veil of breath undulates between the damned dune and me. It keeps me on this side of the line. Here, I am safe. This side of the boundary line is mine. Here, all I need I have. The field of my presence is spacious, clear and blue, untouched by this devil of a dune. As pure as my smile. In. Pause. Out. Pause. In. Pause. Out …

Oceans apart

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My mother.

she was known by

her chum-chum silver key ring

tucked into her slim waist

and her swishing saris.

Those delicate fabrics

draping her like feathers.

Her face so gentle, her red bindi

was home.

Still is.

*

No other.

I saw me in her.

Years carried me away

to far-off places,

where every house

had steep staircases

inside.

Outside, the winds blew hard and

the terrible winter

could bite.

*

Why bother?

Here, jeans and polo-necks,

only they would do.

The stairs would unfurl

my sari in milliseconds,

if I dared to.

My dupattas would sweep the floor.

My bindi out of place,

found no spot to decorate.

The years I blame.

*

Not like her.

Yes. Oceans apart,

she is she, in her handwoven

white, pink and blue cotton sari

and me is me, in my blue Gap jeans.

Yet we are somewhat the same.

***

Grey day

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I didn’t light his candle today. Not because I forgot. But I just couldn’t be bothered. He left without saying bye. I know it’s silly to bring this up now, after so many years. He needed to do whatever it was he needed to do. He needed to go. I understand. But the missing makes my heart crumble again and yet again. How is it possible to keep going after its smashed so many times? It feels like the old yellow rubber duck in his bath, being stamped heavily upon, by a topless angry Arnold Swarzenegger wearing big black military trousers and boots. What is this thing that pretends to drum in my chest, tattered and torn?

He broke the rule. Saying good-night was our ritual for many years. After settling him in his bed, I religiously kissed him on his chin, both his cheeks, first left and then the right, his closed eyes, first the left and then the right and then, once on his forehead. He put his little arms around my neck and we both held each other for a short while before I switched off the light and went to my room. We loved it and slept peacefully.

He didn’t respect our little rule. Maybe he couldn’t. But, I deserved at least, a proper good bye. But then, can anyone truly know who deserves what?

all my love,

endlessly

black and white portrait.

Interbeing

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“Suppose we look deeply at a rose. With some concentration and mindfulness we can see that the rose is made of only non-rose elements.

What do we see in the rose?

We see a cloud, because we know, without the cloud, there wouldn’t be rain and without the rain, the rose couldn’t grow. So, a cloud is a non-rose element that we can recognise if we look deep into the rose. Next, we can see sunshine, which is also crucial for the rose to grow. The sunshine is another non-rose element present in the rose. If you took the sunshine and cloud out of the rose, there would be no rose left.

If we continue like this we see many non-rose elements within the rose, including the minerals, the soil, the farmer, the gardener and so on. The whole cosmos has come together to produce the wonder we call rose. A rose cannot be by herself alone. A rose has to inter-be with the whole cosmos. This is the insight we call Interbeing.

When looking at a rose, if we can see all the non-rose elements that make up the rose, then we can truly touch the reality of the rose. No matter what we look at, if we can see that it is made up of everything in the Universe that is not itself, then we touch the true reality of that thing, its non-self nature.”

– Thich Nhat Hahn.

His words brought light. His voice, peace. His presence, compassion. He said, “No coming, no going. No after, no before. I hold you close to me. I release you to be free. Because I am in you and you are in me.” I will always hold you close to me, dear Father of Mindfulness.

I inter-am with you, wherever you may be.

Resource:

How to stay calm in a storm: