To learn to labour and to hang on

Looking out the window of my bedroom, I can see the wayside tea stall sort of leaning against a compound wall. Not very hygienic, what with all the dust stirred up by the wind, and maybe with even dried cow-dung particles afloat in the air.

But in spite of it all, the chai wallah seems to be doing good business. What fascinates me is the way he holds the glass of tea, high over his shoulder, and a second glass, low down at the knees, and pours the tea from one glass to another, repeating the process and then banging the glass tumbler on the counter, as bubbles froth atop the tea.

Taking a leaf from his book, I tried to do it. But what I got for my trouble was a table with pools of tea on it, like puddles in the rain, and only half the tea left in the glass. Well, I realised this feat was not quite my cup of tea.

I cannot sing to save my life, nor sew on a button properly. Nor can I make a perfect bull’s eye in the kitchen: the yolk wouldn’t stay at the centre, but would slide to the side. My bull’s eye would look more like a bull that got it in the eye, or a circus clown with a sideways grin.

Talking of eggs, how does one time a half-boiled egg, and what makes my dosas recalcitrant imps, sticking to the tava like Casabianca to the burning ship? After poking and prodding, they come out in bits and pieces.

Why can’t a cork that I try to pull out with a cork screw, behave itself and come out properly, instead of going right in? And why does a poori that I try to roll out in a round shape, refuse to conform, and look like an outline map of Australia?

Nor are my travails confined to the kitchen alone. When I try to basket a ball into the hoop, why does it have to make its own choice, and go right out of the court? And when we play a game of rummy, and it is my turn to deal, why can’t I do it, as to the manor born? I don’t have the dexterity, nor do I know the tricks of the trade.

I have watched others dealing the cards in the wink of an eye. By the time I finish with it, many an eye will be closed with vexation and many may be cursing under their breath. Maybe I do take an unholy length of time, and maybe I sometimes deal extra cards as well. But putting me on the mat for it, is surely not quite cricket.

Maybe some day I will get the hang of it all and learn the ropes, as they say. Didn’t H.W. Longfellow conclude his famous poem with the words — still achieving, still pursuing? Learn to labour and to wait.

An abode remembered

I don’t think I will ever again get to go back to that quiet and serene place nestled amidst the Anamalai Hills in Tamil Nadu.

From the plains below we took a bus, which kept climbing slowly. Looking out the window, all that one saw were trees and bushes, and estates with interesting names such as Shamrock, Lockinvar, Paradisa, Waterfalls… There were hardly any shops, barring a few ramshackle ones.

Neither, it seemed, were there any people around. No streets teeming with humankind. No traffic whizzing past. Was this No Man’s Land? The back of beyond?

And like will-o-the-wisps, doubts assailed my mind. Here I was, a new bride, my newly made husband by my side. I stole a glance at him. He bore a serious look. I wondered, what do I know of him (an arranged marriage, you see). What if he is a blue beard, taking me on a journey with no return? Here in this deserted land, who would ever know?

I almost shivered at the thought — and just then he took his coat and put it on my shoulder. “Feeling cold?” he asked gently, and my silly fear died down. I knew I was safe in his hands.

But I am digressing. I was half asleep by the time we reached cinchona territory. And then, climbing two stone steps, I came face to face with the house, where I would be spending a part of my youth.

A cute little grey stone house, with a chimney over the slated roof. A fireplace with a mantle shelf over it. A bedroom, a sitting room, a kitchen-cum-dining room, and a bath. Not a mansion. Not a palace, but a humble abode. And the onus of making it a home will lie on my shoulder. For a moment I closed my eyes and prayed I should meet the challenge. Home is where the heart is. Would I be able to make it a home?

Well, a challenge it was. Getting my bearings, learning to cope, adapting to the solitude, after my husband left for his work in the quinine factory. Here in this silent ambience, amidst trees and rocks and a blanket of quietude, I was hoist with my own petard.

The silence was overpowering, Monotonous? Alone in the hills, with the whisper of a breeze in my hair, and fresh air in my chest, did I get a feeling of well-being? A realisation that a human being is never alone. That a supreme power, albeit unseen, is always there beside you? This is the charm of solitude. A sublime feeling. Why call it loneliness?

And so we lived there. Let me not forget the bird cry that woke me up in the morning. What bird was it, I know not. But I haven’t heard that sort of cry anywhere else.

I wonder if that same sparkling stream, like a white ribbon, still flows down the mountainside. Do the workers in the quinine factory still wend their way home, with a conical sack over their heads? Does the siren still sound twice from the factory, calling those workers to duty and relieving them in the evening. Or for that matter, does the very factory still exist at all?

The odds are that if I go back there, after so many years have passed, the factory will not be there. Nor will my grey walled house. But will my nostalgic mind, bring back the ghost of my former self — a young pretty girl, with not a wrinkle on her face? A girl who simply braved it out on those forlorn hills?

What’s It - Play ?

 It was Nelson, who as a child asked – What is the thing called fear?  Our children may not ask the same question, But the question they may well ask is – What is the thing called  play ?

As it is,  children are being deprived of wide open spaces, where they could have had fun and games.

With concrete jungles springing around everywhere, and living space becoming more and more cramped, there is hardly space  left for children to go wild.  To make matters worse, the child has no place to play in, neither has he the time.

Loaded with books, over-burdened with lessons, and taxed with homework, the child feels he has bit off more than he can chew.  And all the while that he is made to mug up a lot of relevant and irrelevant matter, the precious years of life, the El Dorado of childhood keeps slipping away, till it will be too late to lock the stable after the  horse has run.  What a raw deal for the poor kids.

The whole system of education, especially education needs a radical overhauling.  A shifting of chaff from the grain.  Poor Madame Montessori, would have a thousand fits, if she could see the mess that prevails in primary education.

The present system does very little to develop a chi8ld’s flair and individual capabilities. 

Right from the primary stage, education should be more aptitude – oriented.  What we have on the other hand, is a stock-in-trade education, a dreary drill of repetitive lessons, where the child is not given any scope for individual initiative  and expression.  Parrot wise the child repeats what is taught.

With or without comprehension, so long as the child answers the questions, the teacher is satisfied.  Lessons are memorised for the ultimate end- the examination marks.  It is a hell-for –leather grind, and the alpha and omega of it , the examinations.  In the vicious circle , if the child has a penchant towards any particular art or field, it gets atrophied.

In the competitive world, even the K.G. class examinations( Oh God, examinations for a K.G. class ) are prestige issues for the parents.  The parent, whose child betters the marks got by the neighbour’s kid, is as pleased as punch.

It is one up on the Joneses ! Between the teacher and the parent , the child is caught between Scylla and Charybdis.  The tragedy of it is, the child doesn’t even know, what he is missing.  The glorious days of childhood , where open nature and a free mind, would be a far better book for the child, t6han any printed book.

Even as I write , I hear my little daughter laboriously spelling out the words – atmospheric pressure, sure it is pressure, pressure on the child’s mind. By the time she has got it right, she is almost in tears, I wonder if Hercules, would not have failed, had he been set the difficult task of learning what a legislative assembly and a democratic government is, in St. 111.

So in airless, stuffy classrooms, the child who should be running with the wind in his face, and chasing wisps in the air, bends over his books.  If he isn’t quick on the uptake, he gets caned into the bargain , by the impatient teacher.  As if all this weren’t enough, to heap coals on fire, the child is set a heavy load of homework.

And parents who thought they had finished with education for good and all, are back on the band wagon.  For home work , is for the child, and for the parent too.  If a quarter of the teaching job  is done by the teacher, the rest of it is passed on to the parent’s shoulders. Staggering under a load of books in the hand, and lessons in his head, the child who goes to school , dare not tarry, to watch a bird on the wing, or a flower in the hedge.  The child who walks to the claustrophobic confines of the pent-house school , also walks away from childhood that is lost to him. 

Constant dripping wears the stone’.  Too much pressures on young minds will wear them too.  Like the Aegean Stables, our educational system needs a thorough cleansing. When   shall the task begin?

Somebody's Daughter

My son will be getting married soon, and we are excited over the coming event.  But in my case, is there also some trepidation, along with the excitement?  A strange girl, somebody’s daughter, is going to come into my house, be a part of our lives, of our household.  But somewhere in my mind, there are some reservations, some rejections, even a twinge of jealousy, or fear, or prejudice.  Do they all combine to put up a fence?  I will accept her as my son’s wife, but will I accept her as my daughter?  Or will I draw a line at that?

What was about a son being your son, till he got himself a wife?  Will my son, who is going to be hitched to a wife soon, become alienated from us, creating an island for himself and his wife?  Will I find I am pushed to the periphery?  Will this girl put a spoke in the wheel of our kinship?   Will she be an unknown quantity, a disintegrating factor?  Get thee behind me satan – perish the thought.

Yet come to think about it how will she adjust to our home, our family, our routine, our way of life?  Will she keep comparing things, to how it is in her home?  Compare me to her mother? Think her mother is an Angel, and I a witch?  And how do we start building a rapport!  Like we all sit down for  breakfast, and I pass her the jam   and say, “I hope you like jam, My son, you know, has a sweet tooth”. And she smiles, as sweetly  as the jam, but inwardly she fumes- what the heck? Does the woman feel I should like all the things her son does?  And my mother makes better jam anyway.

Like two kids in a kindergarten, will we quietly take each other’s measure, wanting to be friends, but not knowing how, or like a cat and a dog, will we be wary of each other?  Can I receive this girl, who is somebody’s daughter and is going to cross my threshold, with open arms?  Anyway, never being a demonstrative person maybe literally I won’t, and figuratively I can’t.  And on the other side of the side of the fence, how will she feel, how will she react?  Does she have nightmares thinking of me as a witch with a broom?If I am putting up a mental block against her , is she, in turn, doing likewise?  So that on the wedding day, we smile, but face each other like gladiators in a ring?  I ponder over the shape of things to come, and wonder which way the wind will blow in the days to come when this strange girl who is somebody’s daughter enters my home.

Then, suddenly like a flash across my inward eye, the cobweb is removed.  That was the stumbling block.  That expression that had coalesced in my mind like a cancer.  Somebody’s daughter.  Maybe.  But as my son’s wife, my daughter as well.  The equation was as simple as that.  Not an outsider but an insider.  Not a stranger, but a kin.  Sure enough, there may be adjustments to  be made, priorities to be settled.  But no cause for us to lock our horns in battle.  Now I know, I’ll smile on the wedding day – a smile that is straight from the heart.  Nor will my nails be velvet claws when I welcome this girl into our hearth and home.

Vignettes Here And There

Years at a time pass by’ between the whiles,that we never forget”. Not an original observation that I read it somewhere. But , when I look back, I see the truth in those lines. For it is some of the inconsequential things that, like lichens on a rock, forms vignettes in my mind.

My first school. The Goodwill Girls School in Bangalore. It is not the building , not the teachers, but a stone bench inside a barbed wire fence and I eating some dry lunch (cutlets)? On some day, that somehow lurks in my mind. Then the St Josephs School in Bangalore. I just remember my class was in a corner , standing on the bench was degrading, and textbooks were so smooth, so well printed. Kamala Bais ( I had a nomadic school life). The stone-walled grey building, the green stretch of lawn, overlooking a lake, the red school buses, and the poem ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’. And , of course the Sacred Heart School in Tellicherry. The gang of friends, rushing up and down, getting red as a berry on the school ground., the anxiety and excitements over competitions and exams.. Exchanging gooseberries for Jesus pictures; agh, gooseberries secreted away inside petticoats, who cared for perspiration!

Why do I remember , a black and white crepe satin frock? And why do I remember a certain long stemmed white flower, that blossomed on tall trees. I haven’t seen that particular kind of flower since, but should I do so, I’ll pick it up with nostalgia!. Talking of flowers , I remember a jasmine bower in a friend’s house, which was on my way to school. The stone flagged walk would be wet with the morning dampness, and the tiny white flowers that bloomed in profusion, gave forth such a heady fragrance, that in retrospect, I can almost smell it.

I remember as a child , sitting on the broad bay window, making a game of guessing from which side a vehicle would come first. Simple games. There was too, a game with cigarette packets. The thing was to throw a piece of stone, in such a way as to push the packets out of the circle encompassing them. The one who succeeded in pushing out the most number, won. Does no child play such games any longer? No they don’t. For it is the age of electronics and TV and video games. So that even hop scotch and I spy is a forgotten game, and it is Barbie dolls for ,the richer kids. But I think no child with a Barbie doll , ever has
the fun and the attachment that I had to my little wooden doll. A stiff little thing, who did not have eyes that closed or hair that curled nor limbs that moved. But now when I look back, it was to me a treasure, that gave me a world of pleasure, though it was an unpretentious thing.. I think nowadays there are no such cute wooden dolls.

And teenage, and tantrums. When one day you were on top of the world because you thought you were in love, as no one had ever been before and it was laughter and roses all the way. But the next day you were out of love, because, he stuck out his tongue at you and you saw he had pimples, and it was all thorns and nettles all the way. The whole world was with you one day, against you the next. One day you wanted to die-die-die because it was a hateful world. The next day you wanted to live a hundred years and more, because the world was right as rain! Oh those teenage years of uncertainty, unlike the teenagers of
today who are so cock sure of their ground.

And the I married, well may be not the knight in shining armour, but the one I was fated to and with maturity the realization came, that the stuff of dreams, is not the stuff of reality. But it is the later, that counts. And so it is, that the years have slipped by wearing the warp and the woof of my sojourn. And along the way, the children grew up, and struck out on their own, and one by one, I had to let them go. From their childhood days, I can remember stray incidents, stray happenings, stray remarks. Like the son ,who took a long time to weaned, and when refused the breast made the classic discovery “Mummy you have two! But now it seems to me, they have grown up all too soon. Was it aeons ago, that they asked me questions. “Why does the bird have wings, and cow has not? Why does a rose not grow on a mango tree? Why is the rat smaller than a cat? And the children round the tea table , and my elder son asking the key question. ‘For one man how many?’ (Meaning how many snacks, he could help himself to.)

I see the carom board that resounded, staying forgotten, and the hockey stick in a corner. I remember the days, of their , childhood; were the days of our glory! When the boys or girls were playing in tournaments, how avidly we read the news to see, if their teams had won. And when they put in a goal or basketed a score, we went over the moon! Now it is not the playground for them, but the battlefield of life.

There is one fledgeling left, and when she too will have fled , what will remain for us? Memories that lurk within these walls? Will we face a winter of loneliness, or in yearned for re-unions when they come back to us now and again, with their own children, find the old forgotten threads, to weave again, a new tapestry in our lives? Till one day we find an answer to that unfathomed question – quo vadis?

The Writing On The Wall

Today I was combing my hair when suddenly my heart turned turtle, and the comb slipped from my hands.  This is it’, I thought in panic, ‘the end of my world.This is Nemesis.  There won’t be any more fun to be had out of life”.Guess what happened?  I had found my first white hair.  No, not grey not auburn or golden, or even pepper and salt.  But white, plain, stark, staring white.   I tugged at it, like I would tug at a weed in a garden.  It came away.  But lying in my hand it seemed to mock at me. 

I could see the writing on the wall and knew without a shadow of doubt, that this wasn’t the end.  This was only the beginning.  Like the Biblical cloud no9 bigger than a man’s hand that had grown into a swarm of locusts, that one white strand presaged the shape of things to come.
I had plucked out one white hair.  But that didn’t mean victory would be mine.  No I knew it would be a losing battle, inexorably, inevitably, others would follow.. The trend had been set.  My knees gave way.  I sat down with a sigh.  That night I dreamt that all my hair was whiter than white, and my family shut the door in my face.  They took me to be a stranger.  Even my dog barked, and tried to bite me. 
Come to think of it, have you noticed, the whole world is out to get your age.  It is on your driving license, your insurance policy, your ration card.  Apply for a job, they want your age, enter a contest, state your age. Seek admission somewhere, give your age.
When one is young, and birthdays are fun, one does not draw any lines about proclaiming, one’s age.  But when youth is a memory, and birthdays are nightmares, it isn’t quite as nice celebrating birthdays or telling the world at large how old one is.There are some true sayings that are so much poppycock.  Take that one! Life begins at forty, or, you are not as old as you are, but as young as you feel.  Life beginning at forty?  Bunkum, tommy-rot, sheer baloney.  Age does not wither etc, may have been alright for Cleopatra, maybe it is all right for Liz Taylor and Jackie Kennedy, but not for the lay woman.
Some wise guy quipped that forty may be the old age of youth but it is the youth of old age.  Like hell it is.  He must have been talking through his hat.  Why, even at thirty, you are getting old, done for, finished.  By the time you are forty, the lid is on tight and secure on the days of your youth and your glory.  The world is no more your oyster.
Am I blowing my top?  It is high time I did.  For there are double standards in the matter of age between man and woman.  The former is young at fifty, even at sixty, maybe even at seventy.  Even at eighty he may yet wink at a girl, and get away with it.  But let a forty, nay a thirty-year old woman wink at a man, they will think she is off her rocker.  Any wonder then that a woman will lie like a trooper and jump through loops to cover her age.
Anyway, one thing I know, I am going to wink at them all, right, left and centre, before all my hair turns grey.  There may not be any takers, but what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander too.  If a sucker in his dotage can wink at a girl in her teens, what is to prevent me from winking at them , whether they be young enough to be my sons, and like it or not.  At least, it is one way of getting even with the blighters who think there are no rules to the game when the innings is theirs.  That in their camp, youth is elastic.  But in ours, a woman past her prime is something for the scrap heap.

The Home – coming

Today she is coming home, the first time after the wedding.  My daughter and her husband.  Should I have said my daughter , and my son(in-law)?

But just at first ,it all seems so strange to me.  I must get used  to thinking of him as a son. The fact has yet got to register.

The wedding was over, just a couple of days ago, and the aftermath of the occasion, is still felt, and seen , around the house.  It is there, in the tang of the freshly painted doors and windows, the polished furniture, and the curtains and cushions that are crisply new.  Someone has spilled a little p0erfume somewhere, and its cloying smell is still  around.

The bride and the bridegroom are coming home today.

It seems but yesterday, that she was a child, romping about in short frocks.  I can still see her grinning, with heer front teeth missing.  Her bobbed hair, unruly, her shin often scratched, climbing that mango tree.  And then the lanky stage, with the hem  of   the frocks getting shorter, and hair now in pig-tails at the sides.  Even that stage passed, and now the child had become half girl, half woman, and we knew then that the sands were running out on childhood, and it was time we looked around for a suitable mate.So, the wedding bells.  So the wedding.

We stand on the porch awaiting their arrival – and there is a conglomeration  of conflicting emotions.  I am to tell the truth both happy  and sad.  Happy that we have done our best.  Given our daughter in marriage to a suitable boy. and that today, she comes home- my wedded daughter.  Sad? Yes, a little thread of sadness, tinges the joy ,just because of that .Because she is wedded, and the daughter who walks into the home today , will not be the girl she was, yesterday.

I remember other  times other days.  Other home-comings .  Away at boarding school, she would come home,running up the steps, with a spontaneous joy , glad to be home.  For then home was with us.  But now, home is with him. Eager to see us the parents , the brother, the two younger sisters , who are kids.  And she would be jabbering away, thirteen to the dozen, news of the school, what had we been doing, what ‘s for  tea, anything in the tin, what pictures are showing, where, are there guavas  on the tree, where’s Judy the dog ?and by jove , guess who has got selected to the district basketball team…. A kiss, a hug, and a sprint up the stairs.  But those were other times, other days, when she was still a child- Now, she comes home – a woman.

They have arrived.  They are coming.  She is dressed in a Kanchipuram sari, with a heavy border ,there are jasmines in her hair, chains on her neck, bangles on her wrist.  Not anymore in jeans or bells.  Staid and proper she comes. A little demure, a little shy. Still , there is a new light in her eye, a blush on heer cheeks.  Her steps match his.  She does not come running.  Not to-day.  Perhaps, not any more days.

And he , my son-in-law?  Perhaps, he finds it strange , as I do too, to have a mother -in-law  sprung on him….But when my daughter calls me , ma, he does likewise, albeit a little hesitant, a little diffident .  But I smile at them both and the awkwardness passes.

So, we go through the day.  Special dishes, special behavior.  The brother who used to tease her, with his own typical jokes, with an easy camaraderie, is inhibited to-day, and seems to have lost his bearings!  And the younger sisters too are intimidated by this new sister.  They just can’t get the hang of it  all.

We talk trying to dispel the strangeness.  Trying to put him at ease, to make him feel he belongs.  But are we really islands, unto ourselves?  We ask him relevant questions, wanting to know how our daughter will manage , in her new surroundings.  And perhaps he feels like a schoolboy on the mat.

My daughter used to sleep in the same room as the younger brother and one or other of the kid sisters used to share her bed.  But now there is another room, prepared  for them, with  a double-bed, and as they go to retire , the smallest one who hasn’t yet gone to sleep, throws a tantrum crying for her sister to sleep with her. I whisk her away, and the child cannot understand , why sister has to have a special room, unlike other times.

Their bedroom door is closed.  It seems strange .  For the first time in our home , our daughter sleeps,  with a door that is bolted. It sort of reminds me , mutely, that one chapter of her life  has closed. That childhood is left behind.  Nor can I awaken her in the mornings shaking her up ,for now she sleeps, with a man by her side.

So, it is, the old order changeth, yielding place to new , and so it is, our daughters leave us,.

As my daughter kisses me adieu, my throat constricts.  Farewell, my daughter, farewell, my son.  They smile at me, as they get into the car, that is to take them away.

And in my heart, The question arises.

Have I lost a daughter?

Or, have I gained a son?