No mystique

Sitting in mesmerising remoteness, I’ve been falling in love with Maya Angelou. Her words in this interview on The Paris Review have been singing in my ears and I am compelled to share the music as it resonates with the beat of my heart. And, is she funny or is she funny? Astounding combination of humour and profound fundamental human truths.

“We may encounter many defeats.” She says. “Maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats. I don’t know. But we must not be defeated. I see people who haven’t gone through anything and you think, ‘Ah! Honey, go through something. Go through something.’

If I have a theme in my work, it is that we’re much stronger that we appear to be. And maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. And that human beings are more alike than we are unalike. There’s no real mystique. Every human being, every Christian, every Jew, every backslider, every Muslim, every Shintoist, Zen Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, every human being want a nice place to live. A good place for the kids to go to school, healthy children, somebody to love, the courage, the unmitigated gall to accept love in return, some place to party on a Saturday or Sunday night and some place to perpetuate that God. There’s no mystique. None. And if I’m right in my work, that’s what my work says.”

Truly inspired. Love the sweet little made-up words like ‘unalike’. Thank you Ma’am.

Move over Sainsbury’s

Posted by kidsaregifts20

The nearest village to us is Shukravara-sante, which means Friday-fair. Sante is a periodical gathering of buyers and sellers at a particular place. This coffee-growing region has huge plantations where hundreds of people work. They get the day off to rest and do their weekly shopping. Hence, Friday is Sunday. It is the highlight of the week. The nearest town is miles away and why would one take the trouble to go there if the freshest produce is available nearby?

A collection of temporary and permanent sheds with people sitting on the ground, selling glass bangles in fancy colours, coconut-graters for a pittance, honey-mangoes, unfamiliar greens, dried red chillies in heaps, dried fish emanating its peculiar smell, plastic buckets and mugs in bright colours, cardamom and pepper, clay pots made locally to set curds in, snacks being fried on the roadside, fresh cane juice with ginger and lemon. A hundred yards of pure delight.

We’ve been here three weeks and visited the market three times. We can get most of our weeks shopping and see all those smiling faces again that are becoming more and more familiar every week. My flimsy Kannada and their meagre Hindi and English are sufficient when stretched. In the moment inadvertently provide live entertainment to the locals and laugh with them at myself.

The milk collection point is just down the road. It’s where the villagers bring milk from their farms for being sold and sent to a big dairy 40 Kilometers away. At 6.30 every morning when Simon brings a litre and a half of it in the steel milk churn, it is warm.

Opposite the chicken shop is a general store that sells eggs. The lovely family that run the chicken shop can’t sell their eggs in their own shop as people expect them to give them away for free. So, they sell the eggs to the general store and people buy them from there. An egg costs seven rupees which is roughly 7 pence.

Saagar would be surprised that I was trying to learn a new language, that we had moved to an unfamiliar part of India and started afresh. Simon and I have wanted simplicity for a while and it’s finally coming. Couldn’t agree more with Charles Bukowsky who said, the less I needed, the better I felt.

Looking forward to the market tomorrow. Move over Sainsbury’s.

Equal night.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Vernal means relating to occurring in the spring. Fresh or new or youthful.

Yesterday the light and dark equalized for the first time this year. Today has pulled a little more light over to its side than Yesterday. The Earth’s axis tilting as far as it could and the Sun shifting to meet with it, like lovers under a warm blanket on a cool night. The soil awakening, the snow melting, the birds singing a little bit earlier in the morning, as if on cue. The leaning and longing of the oncoming Summer taking root here, now. The round shutters of our pupils readjusting, recalibrating. The underground murmurings of tulip and daffodil bulbs, the fluorescent greening of the tips of the trees looking forward, looking upward, rising in love.

The end of one thing, the inception of another. The old continuing as new. The same Earth, the same Sun, now in a lighter role, in a brighter mood, curating space for a distinguished guest to sneak in. A shy new bud on a rose bush, a fresh tender heart-shaped leaf still half-folded on the Anthurium, a long-tailed black bird strolling on the curved spine of a green coconut frond, young green mangos picking up the redness of the Sun.

It slinks in as a cup of fresh mint tea, a phone call from a long-lost friend, an old photograph of my grand-mother. Sometimes as a spell of utter silence. Sometimes as the whisper of my breath. Joy chooses me and shows up in unexpected places, patiently waiting to be recognized. Acknowledged. Embraced.

Shiny-new-object Syndrome

Posted by kidsaregifts20

If you’d ask me, what’s the one thing I want to do before I die, I’d say – write my book.

I have been working on it for years but it fails to materialise because there is work, home, travel, putting away summer clothes, family, packing, births, films, reports, reading, e-mails, deaths, Diwali, slumber, too-hot, too-cold, Christmas, don’t-feel-like-it, may-be-later, not-inspired, not-now and the list goes on to fill five pages.

This blog is a friend, a punch-bag, a vent, a discovery, an exploration, a path and a ready distraction. It is my creative play-ground, seemingly under my control and gives me instant gratification – writing a few hundred words within an hour or two and hitting ‘Publish’. Done.

It takes tonnes of time, sweat, blood and gut-wrenching angst to get the first draft of a book done. Things to think about – the setting, characters, voice, pace, first-person or not, genre, authenticity, shouldn’t sound preachy, shouldn’t be too emotional, shouldn’t be too short or too long, chapter-isation, privacy, audience and mountains more. It needs reworked, edited and rewritten many times over till it’s polished and ready. It needs to pass through expert scrutiny before it gets anywhere near ‘Publish’. It needs my full attention.

I’ve spent the last three days at a little village called Satkhol taking part in a Creative Writing Course at The Himalayan Writing Retreat. It’s been an exercise and a luxury. The air is pristine, the hospitality impeccable, the space serene, the teaching clear and the long range of snow-capped Himalayas in the near distance, stunning. This environment elevates me and brings me home to my truth. So, distractions will have to go. For now, I shall take a break from blogging to focus on the book. Stay in touch. I will resume when I have made a submission to a literary agent. Thank you for being here with me. I have felt your warmth. It has sustained, inspired and encouraged me for as long as I have been with you. Thank you. This is no more than a pause.

May each new day and the coming New Year bring you clarity and unveil the joys that lie within your heart.

“Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?”

-an excerpt from The Summer Day by Mary Oliver.

Thirteen weeks

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Date of admission: 2^nd Sept 2022 (Friday)

Date of Surgery: 5^th September 2022 (Monday)

Date of demise: 2^nd December 2022 (Friday)

Length of hospital stay: 13 weeks (91 days)

82 years old gentleman with no significant medical history was admitted for an elective Anterior Decompression of Cervical Canal Stenosis. He wanted to regain his confidence in walking and return to playing golf. He was not on any regular medications. He was not overweight, diabetic or hypertensive. He had no history of heart or lung disease. He lived independently with his wife in their flat on the second floor of a building that had no lift. He went out at least once or twice every day without much difficulty. He was an ardent and proficient bridge player. He drove his car to a friend’s birthday party one week before he was admitted to hospital.

He underwent an uneventful surgery but afterwards he lost power in all his limbs. They took him back to re-operate and make more space for the spinal cord that had swollen up, according to the MRI. That didn’t make any difference. His lungs were unable to work properly as the muscles of his diaphragm became weak. The domes of the diaphragm separate the chest from the abdomen. They play an important part in effective breathing and coughing. Yes, surprisingly, the nerves to the diaphragm, originate from the neck (C3,4,5). They stopped conducting electricity. His lungs became unsupported.

His doctors said he’ll get better. It was just a matter of time. We needed to be patient. He needed help with his breathing so his windpipe was hooked on to a machine with numbers and waves and graphs and bleeps. He could not speak. No air came through his vocal cords.

Over the next few weeks he regained the sharpness of his mind and found that he was unable to breathe or speak, move or eat, turn from side to side in bed or have any control over his environment. He couldn’t really tell if it was day or night. The machines in the ICU made mad beeping sounds throughout the day and night and no one cared.

Patience wasn’t one of his best qualities but he was patient. Over the next few weeks he regained some strength in his forearms, enough to wave us hello and bye. Enough to blow us kisses and indicate that he was enjoying the music we were playing for him. Enough to bring his hand up to my ears and mouth the words “Nice ear-rings.” He learnt to communicate through his lip and arm movements. He said thanks to everyone who came to see him. He also said, “I love you” more than ever before. He smiled a lot despite his predicament.

His younger son is a writer and a storyteller. He told him a story of two well-known writers of modest means who visited a super-rich investment banker about something. In conversation the banker said he had great wealth, what did these two measly writers have? One of the writers said, we have something you will never have. “Really. What might that be?” He asked with a smirk.

“We have enough.”

After a moment, this patient father on Bed number 19 formed these words with his smiling lips, “I have enough.”

His lungs got infected five times in three months and the morale of his family went up and down like a yo-yo with him. No one knew what would happen next. In between, there were good times – going for a spin on a wheel chair, bowing to the statue of Buddha down the corridor, having bits of tomato-ketchup-flavoured-pringles with tiny sips of Coke, watching sparrows on frangipani trees. But this was not his chosen way of life. He had had enough. His heart had had enough. It stopped. The time to say good-bye left his doctors and nurses in tears too.

Ninety-one days of pure love and deep suffering. The former remains while the latter is done.

May there be peace for all beings everywhere.

“What will survive of us is love.” – Philip Larkin.