If You are a Marginalised Voice… Speak Up Anyway.

 November 28, 2024

            Recently I read an essay by George Orwell on the Spanish civil war of 1937. Some of the things he wrote about are as relevant today.  Things like the spread of misinformation, the war between fascism and liberal ideologies, the rewriting of history. Orwell was a prophet of the times to come and his skill I think came from seeing the understory of things, seeing underneath the most forceful narratives of the times and being able to show and tell it. Also put himself in the story and describe his internal dilemmas.

            The rewriting of history by the victors, so that future generations have a one-sided view of what happened is a concern I feel deeply. And I’m not sure why that’s important but it is, right? Isn’t having as objective a history as possible for our children important? Yet how many of us do much about it? 

            Our ideologies, and political affinities sway us, and misinformation which is easier to spread than in those times mire us in a bog of ideas that suck us down and suffocate us and then we operate not from clarity but from that bog and perhaps many of us just give up and get on with our days, our cups of coffee in cafes, our social evenings, feeling helpless, believing that there isn’t much we can do. I do this but I also feel empty at the beginning, the middle, and the end of every day. 

            Orwell had a suggestion for preserving history. He spoke of us — everyone, individuals — recording the moral atmosphere of the time with as many visceral details as possible. And I thought why not attempt it. It might be an antidote to the helplessness I feel.   

            Sitting here at my desk in Singapore I can only record the details of what I see on TV, which is limited as I can only see what somebody else, in this case a govt appointed channel, decides to show. I don’t know what the camera has omitted and what the editor has included. But still, one doesn’t need to be a seer to guess who builds what narrative. 

            The moral atmosphere in visceral details...

I saw chaos in both houses of Parliament. The Rajya Sabha redone in garish red with Dhankar sitting over the proceedings. Kharge introduces a need to have a JPC on Adani. And all Dhankar says is nothing is going on record, nothing is going on record, nothing is going on record. Isn’t Parliament where everything is discussed – at least in other times it was.

In the garish green house, the Lok Sabha, before even anything was done, on day one the proceedings were stopped as the opposition demanded a probe. I saw on the second day the opposition still demanding a probe, shouting on one side of the room, business as usual on the other. Things introduced and passed without the speaker looking up at all. Just saying, I think the ayes have it. How does he see the arms raised when he looks down at something I cannot see on his table. 

Outside the ruling party blames the opposition for the chaos, the non-functioning of Parliament. I was told when this ruling party was in opposition that the business of running parliament even in 'noisy' situations was the job of the ruling party. But the PM stands on a podium, surrounded by yes men, before the start of Parliament and says, these 80-time losers haven’t learnt their lesson yet.

 They have won something — that’s why they are inside though. Besides just because you lose in an election doesn’t mean you have to shut up until the next one. You still are a voice, a leader, of those who didn’t vote for the rulers. Of course unfortunately our leaders don’t necessarily act for the best interests of the public, the voiceless, the ones who have chosen them as representatives of their needs.

I see highly paid lawyers calling a press conference to defend Adani. Doling out incomplete information to the public to convince them of his innocence and about Big Bad USA bullying poor little Adani and trying to destroy the forward growth of India. BBU is jealous of India, they say. Lawyers who at one time seemed intelligent, and perhaps ethical, dole out partial truths. 

I see Adani using the might of his channel — the channel he acquired because the channel’s owners suddenly came under a probe by SEBI, and the CBI, for failure to disclose some assets, and other things —to distort facts, to shout out his innocence. BTW the charges against the previous owners were miraculously dropped, a few years later after Adani had successfully acquired and made the channel Modani TV. There was no evidence of wrongdoing SEBI and CBI said. 

This isn’t visceral detail, there are no sounds, no smells, no atmospheric descriptions, or even details of what who wore what (and somebody did wear an ill-fitting suit and somebody else a suave turtle-neck), and whose nose was bigger than whose, who was bald, and what the mike shoved into somebody’s face looked and felt like, but it is images — though second-hand, and memories — all raw and fresh and mine, and I am glad to record this as my truth. 

I watch independent channels. They are not allowed inside Parliament. They don’t have the resources to stand outside too. They are moving faces in boxes on my TV. They offer alternate views that I want to hear. 

But I too only write with incompleteness. The ‘everythingness’ of happenings is too huge. But a short addition here — the opposition also wanted a probe into Manipur and the continuing violence there. And a discussion on the revival of temple/mosque politics despite an act called The Places of Worship Act. A discussion on the deaths, only of minority men despite both religions rioting, caused by police actions in Uttar Pradesh. Of course denied by the police but then we know how that state operates. 

That is even more sickening and it makes me more determined to tell my temple story if, if, if… only if I can get out of the stuckness and silence that the enormity all this creates, and find the words. 

Meanwhile if your story is a marginalised view continue to tell it in any way you can. I am sure at least one person is listening. 

I am not reviving a weekly blog, still not able, but I will write about the moral atmosphere of things, whenever I can. 

 

Taking a Break

October 27, 2024

             My body and mind are recovering from a violent gastric virus. It started with my spouse getting it two Fridays ago, and two days later I followed. I’m not going to describe it for even thinking about it makes my head reel. Too close to it yet.

He recovered faster though still feels drained at times. I am taking longer.

It disturbed my balance, and what I thought the rest of the year, or at least October would look and feel like. I had thought I might slip into finally doing the things I felt I had missed out on during this turbulent and windy year that pulled my inner boat off any courses I had set for myself. Currents pulling away and out, which I fought hard for a while to get back on course.

The illness further added to the feeling of being blown off course by winds and currents and now it seems the better course is to go with the winds and currents. 

And I feel a blankness, an inability to reclaim the structures from my life anyway. They feel meaningless, alien. Which makes me wonder that perhaps they are no longer the ones I need. Nothing makes sense — the things I hate or the things I love or the things that help relax. Nothing makes sense.

Sunk deeper into the darkness. 

And the reason I write this blog are no longer clear. I have felt my writing unauthentic for a while, but I thought I would find the genuine voice and self again. Perhaps, or of course, I will but not anytime soon I am sure. 

So, taking a break from blogging. Doing it while not knowing why I do it, does not make sense. Thank you to some of you who have read and responded. It always feels nice to know you have been heard. 

But the forces I sense are telling me to be quiet and 'unheard', for a bit. I’m sure you know times in your own life when you’ve felt this. It feels a bit sad. A bit scary. A bit isolating but the ‘world’ is really never far away. 

Back to the Before…

October 16, 2024

            Two days after I returned to Singapore the helper we had found for my mother quit. My sister didn’t tell me until the weekend was over, so I spent the weekend trying to recover from the sense of not knowing who I was and trying to find my way back to my life and dreams.

            I walked in the hill park, trained, sketched, read, though I couldn’t find myself back into the writing space yet. That is still all a jumble, and I guess it requires a slowing down or a change in the way I do and view things.

On Monday when my sister told me the helper quit any sense of feeling that this trip had been worthwhile disappeared, and I fell down a rabbit hole of anger and fear that shook apart any wholeness I had achieved over the weekend of doing things I thought would return me to myself. 

You think things will go one way but they have their own agenda. I know in writing this sentence I reveal a lack of control or agency. 

            For two days my sister reverted to the person she had been before I had gone, the one I would constantly be in a war with. Our calls ended with a sense of tension. But I think the trip had shifted something for me —I could step back from my own thoughts and reactions and try to step into her shoes, and through the day I found myself calling her back at odd times to say this or that and it made such a difference. 

            I am in limbo. But where else would I be?

            I dreamt of being on a boat between places. I didn’t know where I had embarked and where I would be getting off. It is what I call a transition dream but normally I am on airplanes or at airports, or on trains and train stations, in these dreams. Being on a boat is different. 

            It has the sense of slowness, the sense of luxury, as also a sense of intense fear — after all slaves were transported in the holds of boats in the most disgusting conditions from Africa to America and there was nothing slow, luxurious, or enjoyable about that. People died or were blinded or permanently maimed on these journeys. 

            Part of me thinks that I should go back to Bombay. My mind is there anyway and no amount of trying to relax here is working anymore. At least I’ll be useful there. 

            There is another part though that still feels I need to be here. Not sure why. That this is not the time to be there. Not sure why. 

I do need to plan a longer trip to settle things in Bombay but first I need to settle things within me. Things that have felt unsettled since the year began. These are not material things, or visible events, but things internal that when so off true north put me in a state of unbearable unease. 

            This self-examination, this seeing who I am in this world where I disagree with more things than I agree with is intensely needed. I need to have a map of myself again.

            If what I am writing is not making sense, then it simply means that I haven’t been able to explain it to myself well enough and so cannot express it well on paper. Maybe understanding and expression will evolve as time moves on.

Towards the End of the Trip

October 7, 2024

I’m reaching the end of my trip. On most trips here on the last days I am sad to leave and wish I had a few more days. On my February trip though I couldn’t leave fast enough and even the last day felt too much. This time I am sad to leave but not desperate to leave, and I have no desire to stay. 

            Until yesterday I felt the trip was a waste but suddenly all three of us felt something shift at teatime yesterday, something very heavy and dense lifted and our moods were lighter and hopeful, even though mom’s left ankle and calves, and knee had swollen up. There was a sense of accomplishment or completion though not much has been accomplished or completed. At the most I can say that the point we have reached is that of lowered confusion; we have a good ortho, and are able to figure out what might help her. 

            I can’t yet see the path that got us here — from the apprehension I felt while flying in, to the cheer between us all; from the pained, shrunken, person, I saw on the first day to the Mom who pushes herself up from her bed without help and walks more steps on her good days. 

            Mom and I fought a lot. Even yesterday morning we had a bitter fight in which I huffed off. I felt her language was that of victimhood and of ‘dis-ease’. She felt no agency but would say things like her health condition prevented this or that. As I tried to shift it, she got more stubborn about it and stuck to identifying with being unwell — and yesterday wasn’t even one of her bad days. I had to meditate and then walk around until noon, when I go help her stretch and put on a cold pack after, to feel calmer. I also watched the garden — crows were chasing the kite who was waddling and looking for twigs on the ground but when it turned around the crows scattered. A cat appeared once the sun was higher and the birds and hidden away. It groomed itself lying partially in the shade of large yellow-orange flowers. Each garden vision made me smile. 

I guess on this trip I learnt to communicate in ways Mom would listen — humour and even at times mimicking her actually helped. My sister and I fought less than ever. She began enjoying the exercises I used to try to get her to do in the past but never had succeeded. I understood Mom has good days, medium days, and really bad days — and sometimes all of them on the same day. On bad days she can barely raise her left arm and is super cranky, on good days she feels hopeful of getting back to the old normal though she can’t do most things that she could do just in February. On bad days I would never force her to exercise, though I did force on her a very light massage, and gentlest of movement and stretching. As the days passed, she agreed that it didn’t increase the pain and helped loosen some of the stiffness.

            In some ways my presence was essential in getting here. I too, like them both, was a lazy person until my karate dream got me involved on this journey where I understood my body and its limits better. I understood more about the bone and musculature supports of the body when I trained vigorously. I learnt self-massage on points of pain, and this helped me to massage out her knots. I know how muscular pain goes up and down and I know the difference between the pain of pinched nerves, a fracture, or just sore muscles after weight training.

            All this is unknown to them.

            I am weary though and I think it comes through in this writing. I feel bereft and very far from my own life and dreams and unsure how I will find my way back. I am scared that I might never because the effort might be too exhausting. I guess I have to go the way of doing without doing and waiting without trying. That’s something I have forgotten how to do.

            I know though that the counting of days until I leave wasn’t about desperation to leave but about the feeling that I need to be elsewhere. That feels like a ‘truth’ for my Self.

Storms and the Calm After

October 2, 2024

            It’s a Saturday and I am sitting in my bedroom, which used to be my dad’s study and mom’s bedroom after he passed on. I like that it is mine now. The paneling is peeling and so is the green paint, but it is the coziest room in the house. It is the smallest and I have placed lamps all over the room and at night the room is lit in a gentle light from the lamps which relaxes me.

            It’s noisy this morning — traffic, construction, and a kite that may or may not be old squealer. S/he exhibits the same behaviors and squealing as squealer from my Jan visit. I still don’t know why I am so obsessed with him/her and why I project a personality into him/her. It does bring lightness into the days here.

            Yesterday mom refused to eat her protein biscuits at tea. They are thin biscuits, and she only has to have four a day. After two days of eating them, she exclaimed, ‘Biscuit holiday,’ and ate another snack. I asked my sis for support and she sided with mom. I yelled, both said something in a condescending tone, and I said, whatever, and left the room.

            I sat in my bedroom and drew and made notes. I drew two pages on different sides on a page in my A6 and wrote my sister’s name on one and me on another. I then drew a page in the centre with both our names and a question mark. I drew scales with the words empathy and compassion on one side, and pushing through and discipline on the other. I said I tilt towards the latter and called myself stern. I said my sister tilts towards the former and called her coddler. 

            My sister came into my room to try to patch things up. A first for her. Normally she waits until I make a move. My anger was huge and I couldn’t re-concile. 

Earlier that day we had fought. I was helping mom wear a belt-harness. She had asked me to pull out her older ones and air them so we could see if they might help her stay straight while walking. My sis had walked in on this scene and begun yelling, ‘Stop it. She can’t do it. Look at her face.’

            I had said, ‘I am just trying. You talk as if I torture her. She asked me to see if I would help, but do it your way.’

            That argument had ended when we had held up mom and taken her for her first round of the day and then helped settle her in bed. I felt remorseful as I could see that attempt had increased her pain considerably. 

            So, there was tension and difference already building up since noon and yesterday evening I told my sis I would handle talking to mom when I was less annoyed. ‘Let us both cool off,’ I said, and she went off to do some chores.

After a bit more drawing, I went to my mom and told her gently about the biscuits and what the doc had said. She said what she ate had the same nutrients. I got angry walked out, walked back in and said, ‘I challenge you to say that to the doctor.’

            She went silent, then stuck her head out and waved her hand and said, ‘I challenge you…’ and we both began laughing. 

            But of course it didn’t end there. I asked her when she will do her round of walking — we had decided she’s start with a few and slowly build up, three times a day. She said, no to the walk and added, ‘Once the new meds work, I will be able to exercise.’

 There was a difficult conversation to be had as I felt a need to remind her that the doc had said clearly that only the meds will do nothing, she must exercise, walk, and eat right too. She sulked. 

            I left the room and went back to mine, muttering under my breath. Then went out to look for my sis. I found her with mom. I pulled her aside and told her that mom was back to expecting the meds to create a miracle. She frowned and asked mom when she would do her next walk. 

            Mom, huffed off, feeling persecuted I am guessing. While my sis and I were chatting softly about her, she suddenly passed us with her walker. Normally she needs help to get it out as it is wedged in a corner. She ignored us and took a half round down the long corridor. 

            I guess that storm passed and for a bit my sis and I were on the same page.

            But I couldn’t let it go. I didn’t understand my anger. I know it partially came from worry, now as I was more than half way through my trip, but I had been gentle and allowed her to drop out some exercises when she said she was in pain. Why had ‘biscuit holiday’ bugged me so much?

            Only late at night when everyone was asleep, and I was dropping off after reading a few pages of Maya Angelou, I realized that while I was willing to understand days when pain would keep her from exercising, I couldn’t understand her lack of commitment to her healing when it came to consuming four thin biscuits.

            There is probably more beneath this simple explanation but right now I am not sure what. I am wondering if my time here is useful in the way my sis wanted it to be. I worry how she will cope once I leave. 

Before this entire experience I used to think that I was probably a selfish person and would not be able to dedicate my days to taking care of someone. I am glad to see I was wrong about myself. Yet a lot of growth is needed in the direction of selfless care for another, or is it also true that being aware of the needs of me as a care-giver will in fact make long term care easier? 

            Again, I guess each one finds, their own path.  

            Squealer 2 is making a racket outside, even more than squealer used to make. I don't know what his/her problem is.