Unexpected October in Bombay

October 10, 2025

I’m sitting on the swing in the green balcony of my childhood home and icing my knee which got severely inflamed after my flight. We used to have family lunches here on weekends when I was little. I love it here even though some of the sliding windows don’t open anymore. The pink small sofa and armchairs were added by my sister and an hefty stone I picked up on a beach in Calvi while visiting my friend Midi is placed on the sofa. Two areca palms on the two ends occupy most of the space in the balcony. Nobody uses this spot much but when I visit it is my favourite morning spot. I can keep an eye on squealer’s favourite tree from here and watch an expanse of sky and spot other flying kites. 

Only a few days left of our trip here. When we booked the tickets, my mum wasn’t having eye issues, but a few days before we flew in, she suddenly had a blank spot in her right eye after shampooing her hair. My sister acted quickly and set up an eye appointment, she had a blood clot, and on the third visit to the clinic she was administered the injection. She has trouble walking because of scoliosis, particularly climbing steps and each trip took its toll on her. Though I wanted to go she asked me to stay home and make sure lunch etc. was prepped, while my sister took her. I wasn’t offended as my sister is her primary caregiver. I wrote up questions to ask because (like many of us) my sister goes blank at the doctors, but I felt redundant and a bit like my mum didn’t trust me.

I remembered my visit last October when she had been unable to walk because of muscle loss, and unable to lift her arm because of shoulder pain. She needed help with getting out of her bed or even bathing. My sister had panicked, and so had I, and I had made an urgent trip here. When I helped mum my sister always yelled at me – be careful, don’t hurt her, you’re exerting too much force on her arm. I had blown up one day and said, she’s my mum too, I’m not torturing her. My mum had not intervened, but she was steeped in pain and was quieter and more turned inward than ever, hardly aware of the surroundings. She slept a lot more than she ever had. All this scared me immensely. But with good orthopaedic advice and physiotherapy she is stronger again and her alert self now. 

The evening before her injection I asked her again if I could go and she said no. Then later that night she asked me if I would go down to the porch when she returned to help her up the short flight of stairs to reach the level on which the elevators are. When I asked about my sister, at first mum merely said she will be carrying bags, but when I offered to go down and carry the bags so my sister could help her, she replied, no I like your strength and support. Her support is too light. 

Surprised and pleased, I realised that my mum knows what and who she needs for different things. Knowing this made the waiting at home for messages from my sister easier. 

This was the nicest part about this trip so far, but something happened that also shocked me. I’m not sure what exactly started the topic for I don’t talk politics with my family as they prefer not to know about ‘the things they cannot change’. But one morning as we drank tea mum said, we (India) needs to be careful with Muslims, what they teach in Madrassas is not known, and they hide their weapons in their Mosques. I wasn’t surprised she said the latter for I know that she had experienced bad Hindu-Muslim riots in Ahmedabad as a child before, during, and post partition. She has memories of cowering with her siblings in the dark as people ran across their roofs yelling. She has told me about swords and knives, blood and bodies. Of course to her the aggressors were Muslim men and the defenders Hindu men. 

When she remembered those stories I would say, times are different now and it’s Muslims who are threatened under a right-wing government. Most times she used to hear me out and she’d nod her head as her sharp brain integrated what I told her about current happenings. Even when I was with her when the Ram Temple in Ayodha was inaugurated and there was a frenzy about digging up more ancient mosques she told me that she was happy to see this temple but there was no need to break down old mosques. What happened then can’t be corrected by more violence and destruction now, she’d say. 

This time though she spouted a few more ‘myths’ that have been spread through the BJP IT cells. It floored me. There were population growth myths (that Muslims were now 41% of the population) and myths about how Muslims use Hindu names to fool people. She doesn’t watch news, and she barely meets people and when I asked who told her this she said, 'everyone', and 'one hears these things'. 

Not wanting to upset her I walked away. I could tell she was upset by that, but I needed to calm down. These kinds of statements set me off badly and I often find it difficult to stay connected with people who buy into the myths floating around.

Yet this was my mother. She needed care not an argument — and we’ve had plenty of those over the years. Of course, I made my peace with her later — though I took a shower first. But frankly I am still processing this as I don’t know how to be with a person who will believe and repeat these things. I guess I will find another time to investigate what has changed her moderate views. Maybe I will get some understanding about how these 'myths' take root in a person’s mind. But yes, still processing.

I haven’t been out and about and meeting people much. There are only two friends I want to connect with this trip, and I have a few days left. But spouse and I had blood tests done and the person collecting our blood brought up the topic of Modi, Ambani, and Adani. I know in 2014 the man was a firm Modi supporter but the vehemence with which he talked about how the above three, and more, have messed up the country made me feel hopeful. 

Is the tide turning? Can it? It often feels it is too late for any kind of normal change of power for now all institutions have been ‘captured’ by the BJP, and they arrest and lock up those who oppose them, journalists who ask questions are found dead. Political change will take more effort than ever but hoping it will be peaceful, unlike the recent Nepal Gen Z revolution. And I don’t know how long social/mindset change will take. 

It’s been an heartful and instructive trip, but tiring. I am waiting for the day when I can wake up in my Singy home.  

Dojo Magic

September 15, 2025

            I think I must be the world’s worst ‘re-settler’ or even ‘settler’. Been home two mornings, and a full day already, and I am still wo(a)ndering around the home fiddling with this or that and not doing much. I used to be better, but though I moved into the cats’ home just 20 mins away and just for two weeks, I feel like I was living in an alternate universe for an unknown number of years, where language was distorted and words disappeared from memory, and even when I went out for a bit I felt like a stranger in a strange land. I’m thinking sleep deprivation can do weird things to the mind-body, but I need to figure this out—why each time I live at the cats’ home I feel disconnected from the city I am living in and the life I ‘normally’ live. 

            Yesterday I arrived at the dojo from my own home in that altered mental state. Only one of the brown belts was there doing some stretching, and I joined him. One of the other black belts was prepping the lesson for yesterday and he had got stuck because of rain and was late. I’m not sure how we got there but we found ourselves in a conversation about death, living alone, aging, and meaning at different stages of life. I shared how as we aged spouse and I became more dependent on each other and my fears of being the one being left behind. I spoke of how I felt I had done almost everything I had wanted to do in life which money didn’t constrain, and I wasn’t holding out for a long life. The brown belt talked of his grandma who lived almost forty years after her spouse passed on and what the last years of her life were like. When the black belt came in, changed into his gi, and joined us on the black mats of the gym we rent on Sundays, he said, “I was thinking this same thing on my way here.” He shared a bit of his thoughts and the memory that triggered his reflections, then we all stood up and trained hard for the rest of the time.

            It was magical. Outside it was dull and cloudy and sitting on the black mats felt cosy and conducive for such a conversation. Then hitting the bags first, and then doing other training, the thoughts we had shared and heard softy assimilated within. I have experienced such magic in the Singapore dojo community—on Sundays when fewer or us train and we linger for a chat, or on Saturdays when several of us go out for brunch to the coffee shop at Aperia and have conversations where anything could come up—from career explorations, post-retirement plans, existential issues, the terrible genocide in Gaza, something going on locally, besides of course thoughts related to martial arts. 

            We are a dojo, and we train hard together, but we also meet weekly, and the bonds that this regularity creates allows space for intimate sharing. People who join the dojo take their time to find their comfort levels within but most end up feeling this camaraderie. We also have had disagreements but today I want to bask in the magic of our small karate family in Singapore. I suppose this magic happens in any group where people meet to practice a common passion in an atmosphere of co-operation and not competition. We listen to each other and encourage people towards their dreams. 

            I didn’t know that I came ‘here’ today to say this. I merely sat at my desk, flipped open my lap top, and opened up my blog to help me gather my scattered self after finding it difficult to settle back into my tiny home, where paint smells still waft in from open windows, and I hear workmen chatting somewhere close, and I worry if they will be painting something outside the window or in the corridor and I will be back to battling allergies—already my ears feel a bit inflamed and the eyes burn. 

I know this time I will pull on my sandals, grab a notebook and perhaps the laptop and head out. And I am about to do just this soon, as I don’t have any left-overs for lunch and am too lazy to put together something. But the magic of yesterday and writing here today has grounded me a ton. 

Time with the Cats

September 11, 2025

            My time with the cats is coming to an end this weekend. 

I had ‘work’ and ‘play’ goals when I came here and based on vague memories from my last visits, I knew to be moderate with them. I’m not sure how this is possible, but I am feeling both ‘empty’ and disappointed about what I’ve managed and feeling good too. I guess in this blog I am trying to make sense of this contradiction.

            But before that I want to share a conversation that spouse and I had this morning. After twelve consecutive days of being woken up early and earlier with each passing day, by Yoda the spouse asked, ‘why do cats need to wake sleeping people?’ (Yoda of course even wakes sleeping cats!) And then the spouse added, ‘why do cats need to knock things off the table?’ (He had knocked off several things including my iPad off the bedside table.)

            I don’t know the answer to either and might google them later. But this morning, as we sat looking bedraggled and droopy-eyed while I tried to jolt awake with the caffeine in a second cup of  Assam tea, I replied, ‘ya, and they get rewarded for it. We don’t punish cats the way dogs sometimes get punished.’ I mean we had fed the cats despite Yoda’s annoying behaviour, cuddled them, and I had even stood sleepily keeping watch near the open door as Yoda had his morning peek at the corridor—I would call it neighbour spying but most days there is nothing to see. But this visit though Yoda has been particularly pesky, and I have been particularly patient with him. But except for the very early wake-up visits, and one chomp when I tried to syringe water into him (left it to the spouse after as he is better at it), he's been particularly affectionate with us, though it was also easy to see he had some very 'bad' days towards the end of the trip when I am guessing he is missing his mum (he is mama's boy) He either sat on his mum's bed and self-calmed or when he was being his old self he chased Heka around and woke her constantly when she was asleep. Heka has been smooth and sweet except for two days when we gave her the wrong breakfast and she complained vociferously. 

            But back to that weird contradiction. This was one of the most ‘distracted’ visits, dominated by trying to heal from symptoms of the allergies that I had arrived with, never having even one night of six hours sleep, and unexpectantly being shocked by renovation/hacking sounds from above for three days. Despite this I managed some of the stuff from my ‘work’ goals list. I couldn’t do anything that required a ‘full brain’ but first drafts, reading craft essays/books and making notes, and other such stuff, got picked at daily. My ‘play’ list was dominated by drawing and painting. The sleep deprivation made even this hard this time, but I sampled all the colour pencils from my daughters around seventy piece water-colour pencil Derwent set (that she’s had since school) and drew the same tree outside the window in a different set of colours every day. This morning’s tree in shades of brown (my favourite from which was burnt carmine) was significantly improved from the first tree in shades of cream and pale yellow. 

            I’m going to have to find a way to get more ‘brain involved’ work done even while tired—I can train something or the other even on my most physically challenged days—but I am glad that I had some discipline and worked despite fairly severe illness and fatigue. I also drew/painted much less than I have the last two times I’ve been here, but my one daily drawing of that tree and some practice of negative space cat drawings showed improvement and for that I am more than pleased. Actually just doing a daily drawing of the same tree is what I am most pleased about and not the improvement — daily practice is more desired than the one lovely image, process over product. I guess this is where the feeling good comes from, and the source of the self-criticism is obvious.

            In my time here but I have watched the news but haven’t had strong reactions or formed opinions around it, I think because of the tiredness. Only this morning I did feel outraged at Netanyahu’s statement that the world should be ashamed about condemning Israel’s Qatar attack targeting a Hamas delegation, and I felt anxious watching the unfolding chaos in Nepal—will something better come from it or will it just end in more suffering for the people. I have reached a point (and I hope I get through it) where even when I see or hear of something that has partial hope, I find it hard to muster up hopeful expectations—whether about the world or my personal self—because of so much disappointment for so long. I journalled about the state of my mind on most days and this stood out.

            So ya, this is where I am at the end of my days with my cats. Earlier this week I read the blogs I had written during my last two visits, looking for similarities, differences, hope, or advice and decided that even though I don’t have much to say it will be good to have this record to refer to next time. I will be happy to be home in two days and get a full night’s sleep; and I am hoping that the painting of the external walls of our building on our side is done so I am not assaulted by more health disturbing smells and sounds. 

An Un-birthday Sharing

September 1, 2025

            I’m writing from the dining table in my daughter’s home, more correctly the cat’s home, where Yoda has decided to share his bed—the pullout Futon—in the guest bedroom with us. He uses it as his whim calls during the day and sighs and gets off when we decide to go to bed at night. He sometimes visits at night and sits purring on my tummy. Hekate mostly colonises the ‘moon chair’ by the window in the living room. My daughter is ‘keeping’ it for a friend who is away from Singapore for a couple of years. The friend has asked for it to be used and both yoda and heka have made the most of it. 

            I’m unsettled this visit, which is post my birthday week/month. The most un-birthday week I can remember. I guess I should explain. I have an expectation/hope that birthday month or at least the week or if not that, at least the day will be magical—some problem resolved, some good news, an insight about life, or something else in this vein. This year there was heightened hope for one, any one would do, of these as the preceding year had been full of humbling, unpleasant, numbing experiences, a general lack of productivity, a lot of health issues. 

            I think it is always a good thing to be humbled, to be reminded of how fragile, and insignificant, I am in the large scheme of life, the world, and history. When I was little, I had this thought that I would leave behind something important that people would remember me by. I meant some scientific discovery or other, as I was a Maths/Science person and my s/heroes came from that field. Then I thought I’d write a book that would be deep, and people would read, put it down, reflect on something I said, then go back to it, and be filled with introspective moments while and after reading. But of course, by my 65^th nothing of this sort had happened and though with the unpredictable nature of the future anything is likely I doubt if I will make a scientific discovery. I suppose I can still hope for other things.

            Though these days the only things I hope for are good recovery of my knee or some health issue a friend or family member is dealing with or resolution of one long standing problem in Bombay. Nothing magical happened last month and the only insight I had was that nothing about life was in my control. But a beloved teacher gave me a private class on something he thought I might enjoy learning, the day before my birthday, and that was special. Also, my knee inflammation ebbing steadily has been a great gift for the 65th. 

            The week of my birthday began with paint fumes from first the corridor and then the outside walls of our apartment building being painted. The work was supposed to have completed mid-August but barely a few strokes had been applied by then anywhere at all in the building and when we called the supervisor he apologised for the delay and said the work on our side would only begin in September. We had felt elated that it would be completed while we were away, but in a frenzy of efficiency they began the Monday of my birthday week. I felt sick with a very scratchy throat almost immediately and as the week progressed it turned into post nasal drip, aches, and a slight fever. I had to cancel plans and stay home on my birthday and normally I welcome that but this time I either felt light-headed, because of the fumes or claustrophobic when I had to shut all the windows, and was unable to think. I struggled just to remain in the land of the living that week and I’m not sure if I am thinking clearly today too. 

            So, I arrived here on Saturday already ill, and unlike other times cat fur began irritating my nose and throat, and I got sicker. Not sure how the rest of the two weeks will proceed but through the fogginess of mornings and slightly clear afternoons, and evenings when I am ready for bed, I am enjoying the silliness and joy of Hekate, her mad morning rolls, her very structured day—get cuddles, eat, play, sleep, repeat and Yoda whose each day is different, sometimes neurotic with wanderings until 2 pm and others where he eats and promptly choses a perch and sleeps calmly through the day. Nights of quiet or yelling, chewing his blue ball, and more or fewer visits to my tummy and either a soft mew fifteen minutes before cat breakfast time or loud yelps that begin an hour or two before. 

            Just mundane everyday stuff, I guess. I have brought work with me. I’m working on a braided essay (a structure we learned in Memoir class) that came about from my last blog post—what being a white belt in poetry was like. First draft should take a week and then I’m not sure what next week’s project will be or if I will be well enough for one. The allergies are feeling very oppressive today. 

            So, no birthday reflection though I had an insight about the areas in my life in which I am not being ‘authentic’ and how that is making me feel sluggish, numb, and cut off from the source of my life and creativity. I also realised that in am still in a phase where I desire more hermit-ting than contact. Good to have the booker longlist to get through—some acquired and some on reserve at the library—while the world moves deeper into chaos, and inexplicable tyrannies, and blindness to the suffering of those different from ourselves.

If I did have a birthday genie, then that would be my wish—may all tyrants and their blind followers find compassion and right sight. Yea, really if we were lucky enough to get a birthday wish then perhaps… 

How I Survived My Poetry Class

August 12, 2025

            This post is for a friend who asked when I would write about my writing classes which I had talked about in the previous post. It’s hurried but it’s a start.

I survived poetry class by tapping into my first year of karate. 

The second assignment for my poetry class was to write a sonnet — in two days. I must have read sonnets in literature classes in school, but do non-Math/Science folks remember algebra from high school? I have friends who recite poetry and Shakespeare as easily as they breathe, even the spouse can recite a few things, but I don’t remember any poetry from school days except Tagore’s Where the Mind is Without Fear. On the Wednesday evening when the sonnet was introduced, I realised that I had trouble counting syllables accurately. And at the end of class, we were told to write a sonnet by Friday midnight. It felt impossible.

I decided to just focus on having 14 lines and the correct rhyming structure to construct my Shakespearean sonnet. I chose Gaza, Netanyahu, Trump, and Iran as the subject and managed to submit before the Friday midnight deadline though I was terrified of seeing it on the screen and reading it aloud the next morning, particularly since I have a fear of reading aloud anyway. We were doing a lot of writing in class and reading aloud our pieces—no compulsion—in the same class. I had decided to try to get past my fears and critics and read out my work too. It was easy to tell which of us had never written any poetry.

            That Saturday morning the three or four English teachers in my class helped me sort out syllable count. Each had a different way of explaining and their combined explanations helped the impossible become possible. But of course, my submitted sonnet didn’t have the right syllable count and my voice trembled as I read it out that day. I got through. Later during that class the ghazal was introduced and that was the challenge that made me think I should drop out of the class.

            And as I write about this, I see that I am focusing on the poetry class, I suppose because it was harder. Memoir flowed easily, the readings were enjoyable, the assignments doable, and the teacher had an extremely structured approach that helped me learn quickly. The first week’s assignment I worked on over two days and could submit two days before the deadline. 

            But ghazal week was different. I wrote and submitted a ghazal by the deadline. I got the comments back a day later. I read them out to the spouse at night. It was obvious that I had totally missed the essence of the ghazal which is to tap into the metaphysical and the eternal. But the comments were so detailed that the spouse quipped, Wow! I’m sure you can use these and rewrite easily. 

            Nope. I spend all my free time on the ghazal that week, using only 45 mins for the memoir assignment and barely remembered to read the memoir pieces. So, by the time I reached the third Saturday of classes the beached whale that I had felt in the first poetry class began to give up on its struggles to ever reach the waters again. Despite all that effort no revised ghazal had emerged. Luckily the second assignment for the week was one which could be completed in prose, so my critic was hushed. 
            I felt I had two choices—drop the class or continue going but not put any pressure on myself. I was leaning towards the first, until I remembered my first weeks of karate. I had the same feeling of ineptness, clumsiness, and hopelessness then. I don’t think I thought of dropping out but the hours before going to each class were filled with the same trepidation and the feeling of breathlessness. Huge fear combined with excitement too. I remembered plunging into the class without hesitation, even going to camp in week three. I remembered how Sensei Mistry didn’t test me until I had been there for eight months.  Trust me, he said, and allow yourself time. Which I did then. 

            In karate as well as poetry class all belt levels trained together. I felt like a white belt in poetry as there were published poets in the class, one whose fifth book was coming out later in the year. The way they expressed and reacted to poems, all the in-class writing they read aloud, everything was at least a fourth degree or above black belt level. I could struggle on and on in poetry and spend less time on memoir as things felt more complex and speedy, but instead I wrote to the poetry instructor and asked if I could still come to class but not submit anything. I focused on doing the memoir assignments and readings which had also got more complex. 

            Of course, the poetry teacher agreed. I’m not happy about giving up the struggle to keep up in poetry, and am contemplating how I could have struggled on, but I was glad I could attend and enjoy the class pressure free. Maybe someday I will write more poetry, and poetry that is good. Maybe I will go back and write the other forms introduced like the haibun which felt so beautiful. Maybe one day I will write a decent ghazal. I did borrow a few poetry books and read them during class and poetry will be something that I will read more frequently now, even though some of it still feels like wandering through a dream in a foreign land and where a foreign language is spoken. 

            But July, my vacation from regular life is over and all the issues that I had kept at bay are occupying my being again. And though it is August my birthday month I don’t yet feel the excitement and hope of the month. The days feel bleah and tiring.            

            There is much more to mine from July 2025. That poetry class was incomparable to any other writing class I have done. With so many more ‘black belt’ poets than beginners it was a space where I saw how ‘real’ writers operated. Most classes before had a mixture of all levels and my comfort level in those was average or better. Most classes before had twenty-plus students so it was easy to stay in my comfort zone, but in the poetry class there were only ten of us, and no place to 'hide' from myself. Also, both teachers were especially warm and encouraging in their own different ways and the sense of possibility in terms of writing has grown immensely in the month. Needs further unfolding.