Half-saree ceremony

We’re back home, in Sakleshpur, and finally, after more than six months of monsoon, the rain seems to have stopped for now. After making us wait for ages, the sun is finally smiling in all its brilliance. The monsoon arrived one month earlier than expected and stayed a month longer. Many coffee beans were knocked off their branches by sharp rain drops. Moisture laden air meant that fungus started infesting the plants. Months of sogginess in the soil made the roots of the pepper rot. The local farmers were seriously worried, and the return of the sun has brought them and us huge relief.

One of my students reached puberty this month. How do I know? Because her family hosted a celebration, the Half-Saree Ceremony to mark the occasion. The name comes from the brightly coloured silk dress that is worn by the young girl at the centre of it all. A long skirt with a matching blouse and an unstitched piece of silk draped elegantly around her. She wears beautiful jewellery, adorns her hair with flowers and sits on a throne like a precocious princess. The maroon lipstick looks terribly out of place on her cherubic face.

In South India this ceremony symbolizes the communal acceptance of a girl’s transformation into a young woman. It is sacred and hence accompanied by elaborate rituals and fragrant prayers using sandalwood, roses, jasmine and a hundred other things. It is an occasion to formally introduce the young lady to her extended family and community, as well as to reinforce her traditional roles. Generations up and down gather, fostering a sense of identity and belonging, celebrating both, her individual milestone and the timeless traditions that define her heritage.

I wonder what it’s like for her to have the entire village know this very personal thing about her. Maybe it’s so normal here that there’s nothing strange about it. A healthy normalisation of a potential taboo. I wonder if this is a hidden invitation for marriage proposals not so far in the future. I wonder if she feels the pressure of expectations of her family and community change overnight. I wonder how she sees herself now. She is only 12.

Fresh off the boat

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Twenty-two years ago, when I first landed in the UK, I arrived as a qualified anaesthetist. I didn’t think of myself as a ‘female doctor’. I did not classify myself as one from the ‘ethnic minorities’. Both of those things were incidental to the fact that there was a job to be done and I could do it well, even if it was in a completely different setting, four and a half thousand miles away from home, at Antrim Area Hospital, Antrim, Northern Ireland. I was nervous but being from an army family, I was accustomed to moving every couple of years from one state of India to another (states as different as Punjab and Bengal), making it my own, learning from a different way of life and moving on to the next. I was sure of my ability to adapt.

My belongings comprised of a family photograph in a silver frame, a suitcase, mostly filled with books and two hundred pounds in cash. From the window of the plane I could see forty shades of green, in a mesmerising patchwork across the fields and hills of Ireland. The sky was the deepest, most startling blue. My heart was up in my throat with the excitement of living and working in a country where everyone was educated (why wouldn’t they be if education was free?) and well-mannered (why wouldn’t they be if everyone was well looked after by the Government?)

One of the secretaries from the Antrim Area Hospital, Mary, very kindly came to receive me at the airport. The drive from Aldergrove Airport to the hospital was like gliding through a picture postcard. After Delhi, I could fully appreciate the wide golden-green expanses gleaming in the sunshine with not one human being in sight. When I complemented Mary on how gorgeous her country was, she was perplexed, “Really?”

Saagar was 5 years old then. He had stayed back with his dad. My plan was to find my feet and have him join me as soon as possible. I wanted to get my post-graduate exams within one or two years and go back to work in India. In the next few months, as I settled into my job, I acquired a cheap second hand Renault 19, found a family home and an appropriate child-minder. In the tea room of the hospital, the nurses would tell me about their families and ask me about mine. When I told them that I had a 5 years old child back home, they would say, “How could you leave him there?” I didn’t know what to say to that.

I still don’t.

Storyless

Posted by kidsaregifts20

I need my story.

Who am I without it?

It’s a habitual place.

A refuge.

Something I can lean on and hide behind.

This is my story. This is me.

Is it? Really?

Am I not more than the way I have been taught to respond and speak and act?

More than the stories they told me and I tell myself?

Am I not a mysterious, wondrous creation of the galaxies?

Am I not more than a feelings-crunching machine?

An events-processing factory?

Like all other life forms, am I not designed to evolve through challenges.

Adapt. Learn. Grow?

Processing kills it. My creativity.

Thinking locks me up. In familiar prison cells.

Who I am

flies, flows, dances, melds and reaches out with all its arms.

It knows not what it is.

Like the ocean knows not how deep it dives.

Like the sky does not care how far above the planets it stretches.

Like the day knows not the secrets that will unfold as it extends into time.

Like the stars twinkle on, oblivious of how many eons pass them by,

Which telescope catches them, which doesn’t.

Like the spring knows not where its flowers will grow.

Like the river sings along, not knowing who will drink from it or

The apple tree that offers all to friends and strangers and

Stands. Story-less.

Who am I?

I am. I am. I am.