Rainy October

October 8, 2022

I’m sitting in the green-pink balcony munching spicy khakras. It is a moist grey morning. It’s been raining since yesterday afternoon. Evening dojo with Sensei Mistry got cancelled because of the rain and I sat at home sipping cold vodka and luxuriating in Annie Ernaux, whom I discovered after hearing she had won the Nobel Literature prize. 

 

Rain in a Bombay October is unusual for me, but my sis says it rains almost until Diwali now. We tried to plan this trip to avoid rain because it sometimes scuttles plans when low-lying roads flood. But I am glad of this, for me, unexpected rain, as it is a special pleasure to witness Bombay thunderstorms. 

 

Several social plans also were called off this trip. One because I messed up the time and it clashed with a work appointment, but the others dropped by the other side. A friend got a stomach bug, another fell ill with covid, and another’s father-in-law went into hospital. At first the suddenly empty hours unnerved me as I felt like since the structure of the day that was holding me together fell apart I might too, but then I accepted it as some ‘wise force’ trying to get me to slow down. I still think in this irrational way sometimes. 

 

Initially I  felt a resistance to occupy this slow mental space as it brings up anxieties that have been camouflaged under busyness. The deeper space though also allows these worries to become less threatening. Once it felt like an outside force was saying slow down, be alone even if it is hard, I found myself wanting not to re-schedule or make new social plans. This led to a strange guilt that I don’t know how to name. Like I shouldn’t be wasting this time in Bombay, which I could use to connect with people I don’t normally get to? 

 

It’s been long now that the pace of my life had slowed this much. I read three books here and now I am only five books behind my Goodreads goal of fifty a year. One was a book of exquisite short stories, another a book with articles on racism and whiteness, and the last the Annie Ernaux last evening. 

 

But mostly I watched the trees around my home, fresh and vibrant, in this rain. Though there is a lot more built up around this house, my great-grandfather built, which was once the sole one on this hill, the area has remained dense with trees. I watched them sway in the mild or strong winds, I watched leaves flutter and swish. I watched squirrels scampering the green lawns, particularly in the mornings. I felt joy seeing this. I watched the birds that populate these trees and skies—crows, sparrows, mynah’s, pigeons, parrots, and kites. 

 

There is a tree with yellow flowers and leaves the green of Bombay parrots. The parrots like to hide in it. I stare for hours trying to spot and photograph them, but often I only know their presence when they fly off. There are flocks scurrying across the sky together as if on an important errand and then suddenly turning around as if they forgot something. There are kites and eagles, circling and gliding, mostly at dusk—finding the wind currents they can coast on. Most often I watch two kites protect a nest that I discovered one morning when I saw one of the birds fly repeatedly into the same tree. The nest is high in a tree, that seems to be some kind of fir, and the two birds are often either hidden in the branches of the tree next to it or sometimes on the tip of one of the surrounding ones. They seem extra vigilant at dawn and dusk. They also sat there through the hours of evening and night rain—I looked for them until I fell asleep a little past midnight, and saw they hadn’t moved, and when I woke in the morning they were in the same spot—and only now that it is slightly dry, they have flown off perhaps to find food. 

 

I think I needed to re-acquaint myself with the beauty and silence of this slow mind. There is no desire to do, to catch up with someone else, or with where I imagine I should be. Maybe this is what might heal some of the distress and lostness I have been feeling for a while now. Maybe it won’t, but it is good to be in this space.

From the Green-Pink Balcony

  

October 3, 2022

I’m sitting in what used to be the green, and now is the green-pink, balcony in my Bombay home. I arrived last week. The pace has been slower than in any visit in the last decade and I’m relearning how to relax in this home.

 

The first few days I roamed the corridors of the house restlessly trying of think of what I was forgetting to do. I called a few friends, two of the closest asked, ‘Can I come over for a bit,’ and visited the day I called. The conversation was instantly deep and connective. I yearn for these talks. 

 

With one, I sat in this balcony, and she admired the cushions—coloured leaves on a white background—my sister had painted. I said I loved them too but would probably have used a different set of colours, or left out a few that were there. But my friend connected every colour to those present somewhere in this space and said the cushions bind the room together. My friend is a healer. She picked up a stone that my sister leaves on the sofa there and asked what it was. I said, probably some feng shui my sister thought up. My friend caressed the stone and said it had a lovely, peaceful energy. My sister walked in then to say hi, and she revealed that she had found this stone at Gangotri, the source of the holy Ganges river. 

 

Legend has it that when sage Agastya drank up the oceans, to find an asura that was hiding from the devas in them, the world faced drought and Ganga was brought down to earth from the heavens where she flowed, to bring relief to the people of the world. She descended at Gangotri. The force of her flow was so strong that first Shiva had to receive and hold her in the coiled locks of his hair before allowing her to flow. Ganga is the Goddess of purification and forgiveness. There are so many legends about her, many sound like they are about taming the wild flow of a powerful woman. The legends are patriarchal and misogynistic, but I love them nevertheless. They contain a sense of timelessness. 

 

This week is busier than the last, and I have also decided to clean and clear out some book cupboards so my sister can use the space, but on this possibly last slow morning I wanted to write a blog post. About time since I hadn’t written one in six weeks or so. Six stressful and hectic weeks in which I visited doctor’s clinics six times and the dentist twice. 

 

Maybe I will write a short one daily here.

Seventy-Five

August 19, 2022

 

Over the last few days, there are times, often in the afternoons when the ground suddenly drops from below me and I find myself at the edge of a crumbly bottomless pit. My words tumble into that void and I reach out to grasp the few I can. 

 

India turned 75 on August 15th. A great milestone for any nation. Like many I took time to feel the gift of being born in this multi-cultural, fierce, and loving land. Without ever being religious I always felt a strong sense of identity of being Hindu with its rich culture and literature — radical myths and characters of every shade of the rainbow — twining within, giving me fragrance and depth. But the greatest gift of India for me have been my school and college days where classmates of every shape and religion shared each other’s food and stories. 

 

Even though I was born after independence the freedom struggle had deep meaning for me. Uncles, aunts, told stories of their protests and as I grew, I felt a strong civic sense — a need to fight for equality and justice for all. This was my India. Of course, I was privileged by my class, my city life, my education, while many others were not and probably felt differently about their India.

 

I walked the streets around Dhoby Ghaut with my daughter at noon on August 15^th. We had just seen the doctor and were looking for a place to eat lunch. We talked of India and though there was a lot of sadness about the erosion of democratic values there was no prescience of what we would see that evening. 

 

Eleven men — who in 2002 gang raped five members of one family and killed fourteen, including a three-year-old whose head they dashed on a stone — being garlanded outside the jail, and later at a special function held to felicitate them. 

 

Those images are etched into my brain as are the images of Bilkis Bano, the five month pregnant woman who they had raped and left for dead in 2002, was etched in then. She called these men, her neighbours, uncle and elder brother and begged for mercy, but they held her down and took turns. They raped her mother alongside her. 

 

These men were released as a celebration of our 75^th — freedom for saffron, gang rapists, and murderers in Amrit Kaal India. Remission is part of a judicial system and state governments were encouraged to set prisoners free to celebrate this 75th, but apparently gang rapists and others who had committed heinous crimes were not to be included in this. Yet a ten-member committee consisting of MLA’s and leaders of the ruling party, and government officials set all eleven rapists free. One of the MLA's said, the men were Brahmins and had good values. I don’t know if they could have done this. This about eleven men who had been tried and convicted of the crimes.

 

The rapists must have been remorseful? Nope, many are insisting they were innocent and framed by some NGO. I can guess which NGO will be named. 

 

I am shattered. I take refuge in my little email group where we share our feelings of horror and hopelessness, and exchange articles written by others similarly shattered. I am also shattered by the lack of outrage in the general public. Many too numbed, too ‘conditioned’ by the excesses of the BJP to react?

 

But what if these had been Nirbhaya’s rapists? Would society be more outraged if those men had been released? The eleven men, rapists of Bilkis Bano, looked well-fed and groomed. They were fed laddoos and themselves were distributing them just outside the jail. 

Sitting here. Stopped momentarily. When such horrific happenings do not stun citizens, I think it is time for us to take stock of who we are as a country and do something, even if we haven’t a clue where to begin. 

Welcome August

August 4, 2022

 I haven’t set goals in a while, but August certainly has goals. 

 

I told my artist friend, on our chat yesterday, that I had been able to drop my compulsive news following, and now instead of staying up late to watch debates or checking on news from India every hour, I check twice a day and switch off the late night shows and read. Mostly this is true.

 

Reading eight books in August is one of my goals. 

 

I woke after only about four hours of sleep this morning and said goodbye to my spouse. He’s out for a work trip. I couldn’t fall back to sleep and brewed the last of the white tea from Teabox, the one called Silver Needles, cultivated in the foothills of the Himalayas, with more caffeine content than black tea. The day seemed to smell of rich, strong, black, assam tea. Don’t know where the full-bodied, malty, fragrance in the air came from, but I closed my eyes and breathed it in. I drank my less fragrant golden tea slowly and read, finishing the first of the eight books—Either/Or by Elif Batumen—this morning. Then took a picture and posted it in the FB book group a friend had added me to a few years ago

 

The low ache of separation, even when it is only for a day or two, felt in the first hours of apartness, hit me as the not-so-empty day stretched ahead. I had a schedule, and I was tired. Always a challenge to negotiate. 

 

My artist friend completed his PHD defense last week and now is a doctor in waiting. We hadn’t chatted for a couple of weeks, and it was special to hear of his frenzied preparation, moving viva, and the cauldron of feelings after. He said he no longer felt stupid, and we laughed and discussed the areas in which we feel stupid. He had been told that he was stupid since he was a child and in some ways I had too. I solved it for myself by studying Physics and doing well in it. I developed an arrogance, try calling me stupid now, I’d emanate to the joint family who often pulled me down. But later when I started karate I felt very, very, stupid. I told myself that karate was my side passion, a hobby, and it was ok to be stupid there. I couldn’t say that though when I began teaching it and had to grapple with my insecurities. 

 

I don’t know why we don’t like feeling stupid. I want to embrace those stupid parts more. 

 

What next, I asked him, and he told me his plans related to deep listening and art. I shared what I want to work on. I had been trying to write about my karate journey with little success. It was rich but it felt without much body too. Last week an insight-bolt jolted me. It makes only intuitive sense yet, but I began to think of the second event/activity in my life that had altered me irrevocably, the one that my human rights activist self was born from. These identitites, karateka and human rights activist, journey like two parallel rails of a train track. I think I need to see if I can braid them together. 

 

Along with the ache of separation there is a feeling of freedom that comes with being alone, even if it is for a few days. I miss my solitary travels, or days by myself in my home. I don’t know why I need this, since my spouse never restricts me. But this need exists along with the equally strong need to have somebody to be with. 

 

We talked of other things too on our chat, and there is so much more to reflect on and write about as July was very full, but the day’s tasks call. 

 

Unquiet Yet

July 28, 2022

 

A long unquiet time it’s been, and the mind’s felt like a cardboard box holding hand-painted porcelain teacups that have been crushed in transit. I constantly hear the rattling of the broken pieces. I dared not open this box until today. 

 

On Tuesday, I couldn’t wake to the alarm and had to take a taxi to the group I was co-facilitating in. It was my last day at the outreach I have volunteered for all July. Rain fell in thick sheets and the large meeting room was too cold for my thin black sweater. My head hurt because the weather had aggravated the sinus again. After the large group presentation, I walked to one of the smaller rooms for the breakout groups. Mine had five young men, two of which I had seen dozing off in the first hour. I shook away the lethargy that remained after the two cups of tea and approached them.

 

Right away the young men all identified themselves as people who didn’t talk to anyone about their problems. Their ways of destressing were smoking, alcohol, football, or music. Right away they expressed thoughts and opinions conflicting with the presentation. I pulled down the sleeves of my sweater to cover my reddening palms (when very cold they lose circulation sometimes) and began doing what I know how to do — throw in all ideas presented into a pot, elicit more, and begin to cook them. The sleepy group livened up as they argued with me and when I requested them to remain open through the role plays to explore new ways to respond to crisis, they did. I ended up having the best group of the month. 

 

It felt like the river’s flow was favoring me again. I paced the corridors, by the floor to ceiling windows, to warm up before the debrief. I encountered one of the other co-facilitators, whom I don’t know very well, wearing just a t-shirt over jeans. She had been drinking hot water through the morning she said, and stood next to me for the group photo. I said she was so warm and it felt nice, and she hugged me closer. And just like that I wasn’t cold anymore and I broke into a huge smile. It's lovely when a project ends on a high note. 

 

Soon, I hurried out of the building to the warmer outside. The rain had stopped, and cloud cover made it a pleasant day to walk. I pulled my mask off and walked, and walked, beside the waters of the Singapore River, feeling my ruptured, jangling mind settle into temporary quietness. I found a quiet place to eat, ordered chicken curry, and drew in my journal. 

 

I have moved away from True North again it seems. Or rather True North is being redefined internally. I haven’t been able to see myself clearly for a while. It’s all been murky and sluggish with a sense of ‘non-starting’. It has been so in my swollen sinus and throat, and my always roiling stomach. My state reminds me of what I felt in those times, 1992 and 2003, and places when the raw material of myself was being sorted through to be re-organised. 

 

Today I opened the cardboard box and began sorting the broken teacups. I wrote for a while about the raw ingredients within me. Unsure if the cooked product will be palatable or will have to be discarded.