Liberum Arbitrium

"Sometimes you just require to be strong, Hema.", Says the counselor. Hema watches the doctor's beautiful majenta chiffon sari and her chest lightly breathing the air conditioned oxygen in and out. She nods. She has always been the strong one. There was never a problem with that. But dealing with death was another thing. All that running around along the hospital corridors, queuing up at the TPA desk, listening to the doc with acute concentration, seems juvenile now.. almost unnecessary. Why all the drama when she always knew she this was how it would have ended? If it were not for those anti depressants, she would have been a vegetable by now.

"My child was just fourteen, Doctor.", She says studying her nails and trying to appear calm.

"You have another daughter, Hema."

"Yes i do. In another years time, i shall know if she suffers from the same gene defect. That means another round of running around and preparing for death. Well at least next time, i would be prepared. Sorry, more prepared."

"If that gives you the strength to move ahead, i wont stop you."

Hema nods and leaves the room. On her way back her eyes linger at scenes that have been a part of her life since the last six months of weekly visits to the counselor. The Nimbu Soda vendor wards off flies from his cart, the little old lady a large mole on her forehead nods to sleep in front of the many jasmine garlands she intends to sell to the vehicle owners, a young couple sits at the bus stop with their backs to the road.. the guy's hand on the girl's beaded dupatta, watching it chime against the steel bench, his jeans hanging dangerously low revealing a part of his butt crack.

Hema stifles her giggles and walks by, both marveled and disgusted at how monotonously everything around her goes on as if nothing happened.

A few steps ahead, her car is parked with Ameya watching her walk towards it. His large eyes have become more droopy than ever and the hair near his temples suddenly seem to have grown more strands of white than black. In his eyes, she reads love, expectation, hope and... need. He is in no less distress than her. But he shall never show.

She musters a smile and quickens her pace.

Not yet. She tells herself. I dont have the mind to give up yet... and opens the door of the car.

"Hi Dear, wish to have a Nimbu Soda?"

The little mayhem called life

I scratch my cheek and watch the fly crawling on the sandpaper. It makes funny noises as it walks all over it, stopping intermittently to rub its tiny little hands together. My nails are dirty and filled with soot. It comes from scratching... and off late it has worsened. But i don't think i can do anything about it. I don't know whether i am supposed to. The tap from where i filled water for myself was uprooted a few days ago to make way for a wide road. The new road looks nice, i must say. But there's less space for me and my brother to sleep now.

I yawn and sit up. The fumes from the vehicles blur my vision. It may be twilight or it could be early morning.. i cant tell the difference. Cheenu opens his eyes and crawls to me. It has been a few days since our amma left. She usually goes away for some time.. but not for this long. But i am not scared. There are so many people around. Why should i be scared? I am just hungry. And so should be my brother. He cries a lot and i do not know what to give him. He usually goes to sleep after drinking some water but now there's no tap so there no water too.

I cross the road and pick up a packet. It has a few biscuits. I share them with Cheenu. For the first time i see him feed himself. I kiss him on his cheek and he taps on my chin. We shall wait for amma today. And if she does not come back, I'll take Cheenu and walk away. I don't yet know where to. Perhaps a place which has a tap nearby. Yes, that should do...

How to overcome a habit...

Sharanya usually doesn't like people disappearing into bathrooms. For her, this absence means total lack of contact and since she can't see what's happening, she is uncertain and thus scared whether we would come out of it soon or what. Though she doesn't mind or question the purpose of the visit, she surely does abhor the thought of being left 'alone' (even if that means just a couple of minutes). Our usual way to overcome this is leaving the scene quietly and getting the work done. I mean, obviously, we cant come up with anything more creative (or lets say defensive) in such 'delicate' circumstances. But that comes with caveats. One of them being deafening screams and the baby standing right outside the bathroom's door as we hurry with our ahem.. work (which, unfortunately, seems quite outside the realms of being voluntary when under pressure to perform faster). I know, it's tricky. But I must admit that I have seen this in quite a few toddlers - the anxiety when their parent goes into the bathroom. Quite inexplicable i must say. However, there's no other way around it. Some day, they would have to learn that going in is followed by coming out and that they are not actually being left out from whatever 'fun' we are thought of being having there (no puns intended ;)). Apparently, my lil one has learnt of other ways of coping with this....

This happened when she was at my in laws' place, and my mom in law sneaked out to visit the loo lest she created a ruckus. But then, she did realise the 'lack of presence' (if i can call it so) and started howling at the top of her voice. My father in law was left helpless as she simply wouldn't calm down. So he took her into the kitchen and gave her a lil bit of sugar to eat. To his relief, the situation at hand was immediately put under control. The next day, when Sharanya discovered that her Grandma was in to the loo, she went to her Granddad and asked, "Achhacha, where is Achhamma?" "In the bathroom..." he replied and braced himself for the repercussions. Sharanya blinked and said, "Achhachha, i want sugar." 

There... matter resolved. :)

I Discovered. Bribing doesn't always lead to corruption. ;)

The Re-Start

I Discovered. It's such a powerful phrase. The pride of having achieved something I never thought I would have (not to prove my win over someone, but just because i wanted to).. the burst of excitement of that little child within who wants to yell on top of the mountains about her lovely find.. the disbelief that this could happen after all... the relief of having reached that penultimate point. All of it bundled in two words... I Discovered.

It suddenly became important to document all of it... My discoveries. And then there were these ideas that never would stop flowing. My poor mind could no longer hold on to all of it.  Though there was my old blog to write in, it was as if i wanted to start all over again. But the feeling that time was not enough got the better of me. Until now. Not that i suddenly have a lot of time to kill. It is just that i dont want to regret not having done this.... Of writing about all of it. Better late than never! At this point, let me admit that this change in me came primarily with the coming of my daughter, two years ago. My life obviously changed forever as she came into our lives. Motherhood is like a bumper injection of maturity and patience, to say the least. But not only has my role as a human being changed, I too have changed as a person... for the better. 

My discoveries are, sorry to say, pretty run of the mill, ordinary ones. Nothing that one has not yet seen or heard or experienced. They are more on the lines of being rediscoveries. As my child grows up, a lil bit, day by day, i too am growing up.. as a mother, and as a sentient being who had forgotten about the intricacies of life. And i realise that as an adult, lil things dint matter. Lil things were overloooked. Lil things were ordinary and dint evoke any sense of joy or happiness. Over the years they became so forgotten that one fine day, i realised that my life was only full of huge huge things. Want a list? Huge lists, hugs bills, huge loans, huge chores. huge queues, huge traffic, huge buildings, huge potholes, huge corruption scandals. And the things that were now lil or less were things that i needed more.. like less time, less money, less tolerance, less beauty, less parks. I know there can be other ways of looking at this. Now, as i grow up all over again, i am re-experiencing the joys of all those lil things. And suddenly, my life is simpler, i worry less and i have solutions to everything. Okay, take that with a pinch of salt. There still are problems that hound me. There are days when i feel i am no good for man or beast. But what has changed is my way of tackling my problems. I now try to see the world from my daughters point of view. And that makes everything seem so trivial. You see, for a child, everything is simple. The elephant is huge and the ant is tiny. But both can be drawn on the slate. And on the slate, the ant can be bigger than the elephant. What the hell is so complicated about that? :) Got my point? 

I Discovered. Everyday of my life is full of little moments of joy that i usually overlooked. And i decided i write them down so i never forget them again. The crows that sit on the railings of my balcony have really shiny beaks and very long nails on their claws. The clouds in the sky run around like crazy with the winds. There are yellow, white, purple, pink and red flowers in the garden below my building. Little things that dint matter, matter now. Of course i knew all of this before. But i couldn't exclaim and clap and be overjoyed on seeing them. Not if i dint want to be tagged as a crazy woman. Imagine someone clapping and jumping with joy at the sight of a pigeon flapping its feathers to take off. I can do all of this with my lil one, without being looked at as a madwoman. Hehe.. One has to see the light in her eyes when she spots the moon in the sky. "Moon, Chandamama, Ambilmamman.", she would exclaim in all possible languages she knows. I echo her joy, reach out to her and hug her. And when she sees that her happiness is my happiness. She doesn't stop smiling for a long time. Small thing, isn't it?

So this one and the ones that will follow is for her. My lil child, Sharanya. Because it is she who inspired me to think again.. to write again. And taught me to discover life again. So here they are... My lil discoveries.