Rising to Grace

Finding Grace

2006-08-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

So I think this might be the final chapter of my blog. While I am still not a hundred percent sure about this decision, and I reserve the right to change my mind at any moment – I have a feeling that this is it. And I have my reasons. I mean no one reads my blog really ( my readership includes four friends, one teenage boy from upstate New York and some random passerbys); the words don’t flow as effortlessly as they used to; everyone and their cousin has a blog (even my uncle has a blog); I have moved departments and have way too much work to blog (and somehow I’m inspired to write only when I am in the office), and most importantly it’s time. When the solar system as you know it changes, then you know its time to move on. As the song says, time to turn, turn, turn. So I am saying goodbye to Pluto and my blog.

When I started this blog almost two years ago in the orange –amber days of fall, I didn’t really have an agenda - all I had was words. And I had this sense – of looking, searching – of trying to find grace. So for those of you who’ve wondered what the title is all about - this is it. Most literally, it is a biblical term that means divine love and protection (and I once got an email from some Evangelical Christian type guy saying he loved the title.), but for me it is that place where “everything’s ok.” We live in a world that is fraught with disillusionment, heartbreak, and pain, and through it all, grace knows that no matter what – it’s ok. Typically, we humans tend to fall from grace because of our stupidity and silliness, but I believe that through all our mistakes and failures – we actually find it. As we go through life and stumble and fall, we rise to grace.

“Grace in that force that infuses our lives, that keeps letting us off the hook. It is unearned and gratuitous love; the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It's the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you; grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there. “

These aren’t my words but something that I read in this book – Plan B. Before I go on to rave about this book, let me put in a quick disclaimer to say that this is not about religion even though Anne Lamott is a devout Christian. But the book is wonderfully written and funny. And I wish I had her way with words.

Everything feels crazy," writes Lamott, adding, "But on small patches of earth all over, I can see just as much messy grace as ever…'It meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.'”

The thing is that in life things don’t always work out the way you plan. But there’s grace. Grace that lets us know that even if things aren’t working exactly according to plan – it will still be OK. Because if Plan A isn’t working out, there is a Plan B. And Plan B doesn’t really require that much planning – all it asks is that we just show up. That we make ourselves get up in the morning and breathe.

So that’s what I am going to do. Breathe. I’ll still be writing. I’ve been keeping a journal for sometime now – and recently, I read some stuff that had written two or three years ago – and was struck by certain things. One – my life is quite boring. Two – I have a remarkable capacity to obsess and overanalyse (I have a five page entry revolving around a futon, a friend and a conversation, a eighteen page entry on a guy I met in New York and a phone call). And three – there’s been so much of grace in my life. I had been looking for it – only to find that I had it all along.

And that’s why I feel it’s time. And even though like the characters in my stories, I am still looking and searching – I have a feeling that we all will be ok.

Longings

2006-08-11T11:12:00.000-07:00

Drops of water trickled down the window. And as the train gathered momentum, the world outside became increasingly blurred. Two women dressed in brightly colored salwar kameez.; a lone bicyclist; a hand pump; patches of mustard flowers. Vishal wiped the glass with his palm to take one last look at the world he was leaving behind.

He had lived in Haldwani – a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas – for the better part of his twenty one years. His father owned a small grocery store where he occasionally helped out in the evenings. For Vishal, his true home, however were the hills that surrounded his town. He knew every color, every mood, every sound, and every legend behind those hills. While in college, he had exploited his intimate knowledge of the area and acted as a tour guide. He was an instant hit with Durga Puja Bengali crowd. Vishal was content with his life, he wanted nothing more but his parents, and especially his mother did.

Like most middle class parents, she wanted more for her son. It was her ambition for her son that had brought them to Haldwani in the first place. Till he was eight years old, Vishal had lived in a small village in Champawat. But his mother wanted him to go to one of the fancy English medium schools in Dehradun. Fortunately or unfortunately, his father had not been able to afford the move to Dehradun , so they settled for Haldwani instead – and his mother was relatively satisfied with the fact that her son had secured admission in St. Johns – which was an English Medium Convent. Vishal’s mother had also made him pursue computer classes along with his degree in commerce. Vishal never protested – he had always gone along with what his parents thought was best for him. So when an uncle made him an offer to work at a BPO in Delhi with a relatively good salary, and his parents seemed excited at the prospect – he accepted. Most people his age would have been thrilled to leave a small town for the pleasures of a big city, but as the train pulled further away – he felt a strange heaviness settle inside him.

Vishal heard a thud that pulled him put of his reverie. He saw a young woman trying to lug two big suitcases. He instinctively got up to help. The woman said, “Thank you, “and smiled. For some reason, he felt acutely embarrassed by her smile – he turned around and buried his face in the window.
A few minutes later, the woman unpacked a box of food, and tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Would you like some.” Once again, Vishal was flustered – he felt his throat constrict and all he could manage to do was shake his head feebly.
The woman laughed and said , “Don’t be shy – go ahead.”
Her laughter was full throated and free, and with her laugh Vishal’s inhibitions came undone.
They spent the rest of the night talking. Even after the switched off the lights, they lay on the respective berths and spoke in hushed whispers. Their thoughts floated up and enveloped each other as the train rhythmically rumbled into the night.

Vishal knew very little about the woman, except that her name was Gayatri. He didn’t know what age she was – he guessed anywhere between twenty five and thirty five. She didn’t have any of the wide-eyed naiveté or brashness of youth, but nor was she jaded like most adults tend to be. She was somewhere in between youth and adulthood. He also had no idea where she was from. He didn’t think she was from the hills because she wasn’t fair skinned and pink cheeked like the girls from his hometown. She could have been married, with kids – he had no idea. All he knew that there was something about her that held a strange allure.

He didn’t realize when he fell asleep, and when Vishal awoke the train was nearing its destination Delhi. He jumped off his berth, and saw that Gayatri was already up and ready to go. As the train approached the station, he once again helped her with her luggage. She smiled at him. And once more, he felt flush with embarrassment. She handed him a piece of paper with her name and cell phone number, and said, “Call me if you want.” And he was left clutching a piece of paper.

---------------------------------

A string of alphabets flickered across the monitor. Vishal stared at the screen unable to comprehend what it meant. He heard the buzz of the neon lights, the indistinct chatter of his colleagues; the incessant clicks of the keyboard. Every sound seemed louder than usual. His head hurt unbearably. He almost wished that his head would explode , so that all that was seething and churning inside it would blow up in smoke.

Vishal had been in Delhi for a little over a month, and had settled in with relatively little discomfort. He had found a flat which he shared with two other boys – one fro Jaipur and the other from Aligarh. He found that the work he was assigned to do was not particularly challenging, and he had more than enough money to meet his expenses. But while his roommates reveled in their new found disposal income, and splurged at multi-plex cinemas , malls, and restaurants that had mushroomed all over, Vishal still yearned for his hills. He missed the familiarity of the street that he grew up in, the rickety tea stall where Sunder sold sweet milky tea in tiny little glasses. Most of all, he yearned for the woman he had met on the train.

It was a yearning that consumed him. The office, his work, his roommates, watching television – all seemed unreal and pointless. His only connection to anything real in this strange and new city was Gayatri. It was a connection that was fierce and palpitating – it was the only thing that made him feel alive – so he hung on to it with every fibre of his being, even though he knew that it was a connection that was tenuous at best. Just a night on a train. He knew nothing about the woman – neither her past nor her future. He wasn’t even sure what he was yearning for. Like most 21 year old boys, he often had sexual fantasies about women but he knew that this wasn’t lust, but he wasn’t sure if this was love. He often thought about calling her, but was never quite sure what he would say. “Will you marry me? Will you have coffee with me? Will you have sex with me.? And he wondered how she would react – maybe she was already married or had a boyfriend, maybe all he was to her was a casual conversation – or was she thinking about him as much as he was.

He walked through life in a daze – all he could think of was Gayatri and the piece of paper on which she had written her phone number. One day on his way back from work, he decided that he would call her – at the very least he wanted to meet her again. He would know then if this would lead to something. Two cars whizzed past him, as he took out his cell phone from his shirt pocket. He took a deep breath and dialed the number – 984560224. He heard a ring at the other end; a faint click; and a familiar voice that said hello. His throat constricted. He fumbled and hung up. He realized that he was not yet ready to let go of his longings.

The shades of green

2006-06-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

Everything was bathed in an orange heat. There was nothing to shield the road from the sun’s fury – just a few large single storied buildings, and a vast expanse of emptiness. She checked her rear view mirror and saw two cars and another SUV.

Parvati turned on the radio. She found a country music station. She hated country music. She punched the seek button furiously - hip hop, classical, country music again, eighties love songs, some woman selling mattresses, country music again, some man selling Jesus. Static. Country music. After a few minutes, she gave up in frustration.

The signboard for the strip mall where the grocery store was located loomed up in front of her. “Shopper’s Delight. Best prices guaranteed” The parking lot was almost deserted. It was three in the afternoon. And in a town where nothing much happened in any case, three pm was a particularly uneventful time of day. A heavy stillness descended on the entire place. It seemed like a struggle to move. Sometimes Parvati felt that it was hard to even breathe.

There were a few stray shoppers there. A white old lady entered the store with her. She had poofy blonde hair that was carefully arranged to hide the baldness within. The aisles were a vision of plenty. Shelves and shelves filled with cartons and cans of all colors, shapes and sizes. A cornucopia of consumption.

She walked through the aisles – looking but unable to focus. She pulled out her grocery list from her purse. She needed to buy some things for the party on the weekend. Every month, one Indian family would host a party where other Indians in Edmund were invited. When she came here twelve years ago from Detroit, there were twenty Indian families and she knew all of them. Now there were more than a hundred, and she didn’t even know all the Telugu families even though she knew of them. Edmund even had its own Indian store now with avakkai pickles, dals, spices, and new Telugu and Hindi DVDS. For her husband, Charvarti, the Indian store had made life in Edmund, Oklahoma very livable. He desired nothing more than his pessaruttu and podi. After more than twenty years in America, he still had not developed a taste for pizza and pasta. He insisted on Indian food everyday. Even matar paneer was too exotic for his taste buds. And for this weekend’s party, she would be putting on an Indian spread. It would be completely vegetarian, and completely tried and tested. As a young bride, she had experimented with her cooking – wanting to impress her new husband. But she soon realized that her husband preferred the old and familiar. So for the last twelve years in Edmund, they had had the same friends, had the same meals, and had the same conversations. Conversations about which college their kids were going to, conversation about the cheapest fares to India, conversations about cricket and politics back home, conversations about property prices, and conversations about saris that women displayed as treasured conquests after their annual holiday to India.

Parvati picked up a bottle of canola oil, and as she was pulling her hand back – there was a loud crash. Six glass jars of olives splintered on to the floor. Shards of glass. Pieces of green bounced and skipped. Spiraling like those other green pieces from a long time ago.

***********************

She could still remember that summer afternoon. It was perhaps three in the afternoon as well. A quite time of day in Amalapuram. The dogs stopped barking, the birds stopped chirping. The men took a break from their fields and lay down under the shade of a tree. The women having woken up at four took a break from cooking, fetching water, feeding babies, milking cows and dozed in their courtyards. It was too hot for anyone to attempt to do anything – the afternoon sun was so brutal and scathing. For seventeen year old Parvati, this was her favorite time of day. There was a strange beauty and grace about it – a sense of tranquility and peace. Everyone would lower their guard and let themselves be lulled into the stillness.

For Parvati, this was also the perfect time to sneak out of the house. The youngest daughter of a prosperous land owner, she was always held back from the outside world. She was the family jewel . The village beauty. The bearer of the family’s honor. Her father , her grandmother, her uncles, aunts and assorted servants ensured that she was not allowed to step outside the house alone. When she finished high school her father refused to let her continue on to college. He didn’t think that a college education was going to be much use for young girl who was destined to marry rich. Offers had already starting pouring in for her.

So Parvati made the most of the two hours before dusk. She would quietly pry open the door, and run through the paddy fields pulling up her petticoat in her hands. She would jump across the narrow canal, climb over the fences of the mango orchard, and then run some more. She was breathless by the time she reached the other end of the orchard. And no matter what, he was always there waiting for her.

She had first met Babu – a shy teenage boy- when he had accompanied his father to her house. He had stood by quietly as his father pleaded with her father for some credit. She stood behind the pillar of the courtyard and watched him. Even while his father was groveling, he stood there with the demeanor of a warrior. Humble but not humiliated.

She had known from the very beginning that he was not right. She also knew from the very beginning that he would not fight for her or rescue her from her father’s fortress. They both knew that their ways would part, and they both knew that what they shared was just a moment in time. They would lie on the grass and look up at the leaves of the trees. She was always amazed at how many different shades of green they were. She would talk incessantly. And as she lay there talking, she could feel his fingers on her skin. She never did anything. She would just look at the leaves and the skies but she would let him touch her.

So far her afternoon trips had occurred without incident. Parvati had a faint suspicion that her mother knew but for some reason chose not to confront her about it. The only times she had to change her plans was when it rained because being soaking wet was a dead give away.

That afternoon as she tiptoed across the courtyard towards the door, there was a loud crash. Six glass jars of pickled mangoes splintered across the floor. Shards of glass. And pieces of green bounced and spiraled…

First the servants, then her aunts and then her grandmother – the matriarch of the house – were jolted out of their sleep. Her grandmother promptly decreed that Parvati be married within the next month. Several suitable boys were considered, but a twenty five year old engineer – the son of a rich landlord – who lived in America was seen as the most eligible. In 1978, living in America was still a relatively rare and sought after qualification for Andhra grooms.

Parvati unpacked the groceries and started putting things away in the refrigerator. She had bought a lot more than she needed. But her daughter, Shravani, was going to come home from college for the July fourth weekend, and she wanted the freezer to be well stocked. Though she was an only child – she had not shared a very close bond with her daughter. She had done what every responsible mother is supposed to do, and Sharvani was doing what responsible daughters are supposed to do. She wasn’t a troublesome child. She had got good grades at school, and had much to her father’s delight opted to go to med school.

Sometimes she wondered if behind the façade of a good daughter, Sharvani was sneaking out secretly to meet someone. But Parvati found it hard to picture such a scenario. There were no paddy fields, no mango orchards here. And there were no over protective aunts and grandmothers. Sharvani could hop into her car and drive up to Chuky Cheese to meet some boy anytime she wanted. No, Sharvani was a good girl. She studied a lot, and whenever she came home, all she really did was eat and sleep.

After she finished putting the groceries away, Parvati took out the bag of tondli she had bought at the Indian store. This was her husband’s favorite vegetable. She chopped them into thin circular slices and smeared some turmeric on them. And when the oil heated up in the pan, she threw in the tondli. The small pieces spluttered. And within minutes the shades changed – from a deep green to a dry yellow. Even now, she was mystified by how many different shades of green there were.

2006-05-12T02:44:00.000-07:00

I stand by the window with my head against the wall.

A thousand lights blaze. Bouncing off the glass pane. Shattering into a million pieces. Taxis screech, two men holler. A young couple walks past holding hands. A middle aged man speaks on his cellphone. Like a kaleidoscope, the city unfolds before me. And I stand by my sixth floor apartment – a mere observer. I almost get the feeling that I am standing by the ocean, watching the distant horizon.

The phone rings. I rush to pick it up.
“Rashmi, what time are we meeting for Anne’s birthday dinner?”
“ I don’t know maybe around 8: 30. I am not even dressed yet.”
“Should Dhruv and I pick you up on our way.?”
“No, thanks. The restaurant is just a couple of blocks from my place. I can walk.”
“Are you sure?”
“Seriously, its fine. I will see you guys later.”
“Ok, see you later then. Bye”
“Bye.”
Click. I hang up.

Suddenly, I feel a complete silence descend on the apartment. I can hear the sounds of the city in the background, and yet I hear nothing. I feel paralyzed – unsure of what I am supposed to do. A few minutes later, I snap out of my reverie and look at the clock. It’s almost 8:15. I rush to take a shower.

As I browse through my closet trying to decide on a dress, I feel a sense of apathy seep through me into my veins. It clings to my freshly shampooed hair, to my manicured nails. I even smell it in my 200 dollar shoes.

I watch myself in the mirror. I pucker my lips and apply gloss. I put on shimmering earrings. And I smile. I look like the confident, young, successful investment banker that I am. I look at my reflection. It doesn’t seem real. I feel as if I am playing a part - still waiting for my real life to begin.
------------------------------------------------------------

I enter the dimly lit restaurant with candles flickering on every table and successful yuppies having animated conversations about Syriana. It occurs to me that hundreds of similar scenes are being played out in the city at that very moment. Soho. East village. Upper Westside.

I catch a glimpse of the birthday girl. Anne. She is a friend from business school and works at another investment bank. She looks at me and waves. I walk over to the table and meet an eclectic collection of friends , acquaintances and lovers. We drink merlot, kid Anne about her new dating strategy, and then like all wannabe New Yorkers lapse into a discussion of the property market.

The waiter comes by to get our orders. I can’t hear him in the midst of all the chatter, so I turn around. And there he is.

He is almost exactly the way I remembered him. He smiles. Hesitantly at first and then it gets surer. I think of all the things this was what I loved the most – that unguarded wholesome smile. That smile was like my piped piper – I followed it even when I knew better. I was completely entranced. With the sun our faces, and wind in our hair – nothing else mattered.

A minute or perhaps two pass. My friend nudges me with her elbow. I smile back at him tepidly. I turn around and feel the moistness in my eyes. And a strange pain sears through the bottom of my stomach.

I walk back to my apartment. I jump across a puddle of what looks suspiciously like urine in my expensive new stilettos. I hear the cars. I see the lights. And suddenly everything seems louder and brighter. I feel the city in me. It’s visceral and fierce.

For the longest time I have felt that I was merely in between places. And my real life was around the corner – waiting to begin. I realize now that this is it.

It’s 1 A.M on the corner of 64th and 2nd. I can no longer hold back my tears. I crouch by a graffiti filled wall. And feel the waves come crashing down on me.

2006-04-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

But they said, but its not,
But I knew, but I was caught,
And you were, and in time,
And in nineteen ninety nine,
And I short of words, ran,
Less hopefully, I thought I can.
Fighting time to save a spill,
Part of a 6th semester thrill,
Short of that undiscovered you,
Look-a-likes but genuine few.
'Tis not meant for some damn girl,
For that matter, interests spurn,
Not an Oppenheimer rhyme,
Nor an Hercule Poirot crime.
Just some overtime idol muse,
Something somewhere, lit a fuse,
Been through the same familiar faces,
Or in space-time, the same damn spaces.
But natural, the mind unleashed,
Horizons wide, in passive speech,
How many times, will you read this drivel?
How much difference, difference can you tell?
And do you think, you'll show it around?
And do you think my mind is sound?
Or am I lunatic on the grass?
And will I never be first in class?
And will I be able to fill this page?
Having got this far, thus stage,
Yeah, right sure, I like to impress,
Yeah, right, nowhere in sight, impress,
Yeah, right, plans that come to nought,
Almost a full page of scribbled thought.
And this space, I have yet to fill,
For there are gonna be revelations still,
But then again, it's all the same,
Words and words, and then a name.
The last stanza-the maximum effect,
But there crept in, a slight bit defect,
Glowing tribute in free form verse,
No adjectives used, what could be worse?

Since I am currently running low in inspirration and motivation - I thought I'd post someone else's work. A long time ago - almost seven years now - someone sent this to me . We'd email each other in verse - and we had this "jugalbandi" going on. So this one is an ode to a friend (who I knew fleetingly), and an ode to a time when we were "younger" and the words came footloose and free.

Searching for Sara

2006-03-22T09:21:00.000-08:00

11 am on a Wednesday morning
the blood rushes to the head
words blur on the lcd monitor
a cup of coffee, twenty emails
the drone of the worker bee
the printer hums, the phone rings
and the breath comes in gasps
struggling to find a beat

A day, a hour , a second
but time stands still
meet friends for lunch
buy a new dress
make weekned plans, fret
over what I cannot chase
neatly arranged packages
waiting to be shipped
waiting for something to happen

Was it me who said
life is full of possbilities
go to the end of the earth
but make it matter
rip your heart out
bleed if you have to
take your blue skies
and run with it
like the six year old girl
in an orange wind swept haze

And here I am
with my face against the glass
sealed and protected
because what if
I break a leg or bruise my knee
and what if my Gods conspire
what if my worst fears come true
like I can't let go, but I want to
I say, its me Sara, and you say...who?

In pursuit of brand names

2006-03-07T12:32:00.000-08:00

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.

In a Newsweek article, Fareed Zakaria quotes Nehru’s famous speech made at the eve of India’s independence. Nehru was referring to India awakening from over 200 years of colonialism into freedom and dignity, what Zakaria is referring to is a country awakening to malls and bowling alleys. The lead photograph in the story is of a bunch of young people partying at a night club in Mumbai. Like most stories that have appeared in the media in the last few weeks as part of Bush’s visit to India, the country has been hyped as the next big thing. Its amazing GDP growth, the explosion of call centers and middle class incomes, the malls and the tech boom, the azim premjis and the narayan murthys, the next China – everywhere you turn, the same clichés are being mouthed. A article in the WSJ talks about India’s bright future by saying :

The nation's deep pockets of computer programmers have spawned deep-pocketed urban consumers, now at the core of the consumer boom. Many younger Indians are more confident than their parents about the country's economic direction, say executives, and are more willing to buy expensive foreign brands.

"There is a sense of a brighter future," says Nandan M. Nilekani, chief executive of Infosys Technologies Ltd., India's second-biggest outsourcing company. People are "loosening up their purse strings....

The immediate beneficiaries of the consumer boom have been India's ubiquitous celebrity endorsers. Outside the Metropolitan mall complex near New Delhi, Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan appears on a giant video screen, touting one of his 14 products. He hawks Cadbury chocolates, Eveready batteries, Parker Pens and Pepsi. The 64-year-old Mr. Bachchan, whose white goatee stands in blinding contrast to his chestnut-colored tresses, also endorses digestive pills and hair oil.
Inside the four-story Metropolitan shopping complex, Shruti Chowdhary spends her morning off from an outsourcing company loading up on new clothes -- Reebok tennis shoes for herself and black blazer from United Colors of Benetton for her brother. Ms. Chowdhary -- 25 years old, single and living with her parents -- estimates that 70% of her monthly salary goes to shopping.

For sure, there is truth and merit in all of these things – India is a growing and vibrant economy. Economic growth and prosperity is vital to any nation, but when millions upon millions of our fellow citizens lack the most basic amenities and dignities of life, can we really claim that India is shining. And meanwhile despite the fact that middle class and middle aged women are buying Gucci handbags in droves, they still haven’t figured out how to pull the flush in a public restroom (yes, this is my pet peeve!)

What saddens me the most is that we are defining our moment in history - our “nation’s soul” so to speak – by the trappings of the global consumer culture. There should be more to our aspirations than just brand names and the pursuit of a Toyota SUV.

P.S I know I have written about this before, but the overwhelming consumerism of middle class India disturbs me and it alienates me . Its not the place I grew up in . But I have a feeling I maybe in a minority on this one.

Lines

2006-03-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

I woke up to the shrill sound of the alarm. I looked at the clock and went back to sleep. The thought of sitting through another day at school filled me with dread and nausea. I dreaded school not like the average thirteen year old would, but I had this unhealthy, almost morbid anxiety come over me. Being in the eighth grade felt like being a middle aged office clerk who was silently dying within the confines of his 9 to 5 job and 4 by 6 cubicle.

I guess being thirteen, at this cusp of adolescence – that awkward place between childhood and youth is hard for most. Every decision, every tiny detail is blown up and examined under a microscope. I remember when I started the year, and had to pick out my seat – I agonized over the decision for days. We would sit in pairs of two, and once you picked your seat out you would have to sit there for the rest of the school year – so it was a big thing. I knew I couldn’t sit next to a popular girl or a cute guy. And I knew I didn’t want to sit in the front of the class or the back of the class, because the teachers always picked on students sitting in those rows to answer questions. I wanted to be totally inconspicuous, and in many ways I was. My presence was so ephemeral and unsubstantial, that my classmates barely noticed my absence. And if the teachers hadn’t been forced to make a note of it in their daily attendance registers, even they wouldn’t have known I existed.

Needless too say I didn’t have too many friends, probably two. And they weren’t even really my friends but we acknowledged each others presence because we were so alike. We were neither smart nor stupid. We weren’t popular or notorious. We didn’t excel in sports or music. We weren’t pretty or ugly. We were right in the middle. Mediocre. But I desperately wanted to have something, a quality that would stand out. That would redeem me from this abyss of mediocrity. I wanted to be a star; I wanted to be scintillating at least in some small measure. So while I went around school trying to be inconspicuous, at home I was stand in front of my bathroom mirror and wonder what it would be like to win a singing contest , and have the whole school look up to me and applaud. I would wonder what it would be like to be Surabhi who was a junior prefect. She was intelligent, she was pretty and everyone loved her. I even wondered what it would be like to be Manasi – the girl whom everyone loved to hate. She had lots of boyfriends, wore a very short skirt and somehow managed to have long nails even though it was strictly forbidden in our school.

One day I was walking back from school, kicking stones across the pavement as I stared absent mindedly into the space ahead of me. Lakshmi came up beside me, she gently tapped touched my shoulder and smiled.

Lakshmi was our neighbor’s maid servant . Through she called me Didi, she was in fact the same age as I was. I had seen her several times before, but had never really spoken to her. To me she was inconspicuous, part of the invisible world that cleaned our houses and washed our clothes. While I was not a badly brought up brat who was rude to the servants, Lakshmi was never real to me the way Suarbhi or Manasi were, so it caught me by surprise that she was speaking to me. The first thing that struck me about her was her voice. It hadn’t lost its innocent girlishness but it wasn’t shrill and self-conscious. It was calm, gentle, and genuinely friendly.

As I walked with her, she with her bags of groceries and I with my school bag, her voice engulfed me. And I felt an affection that I felt for very few people outside of my family. I felt strangely comfortable around her. We talked about stuff – girly stuff. We talked about movies and film stars. We debated the merits of chat versus bhel puri, and we even talked about boys.

Over the next few months, I began spending more time with Lakshmi. She was my first true friend in a long time, and I adored her. In fact I almost envied her. To me, she seemed to possess all the scintillating qualities that I seemed to lack. She could sing well while all I could do was croak. She was beautiful – fair with straight silky hair while I was dark and had unbelievably wavy hair. And she was incredibly charming. I would walk over to her house, and sometimes just watch while she went about her work in the kitchen. The fact that she could make a three course meal in two hours, while I could barely manage to boil water amazed me. While my parents never said anything to me about spending so much time with Laskmi because they were probably glad that I had finally found a friend, Mrs Bhagat who was Lakshmi’s boss had commented a couple of times that I was spending too much time at her house. In my naiveté, I responded, “But Aunty, Laksmi can’t come over to my house – she has a lot of work to do. Maybe she could come over next weekend. Could you give her the weekend off?”

Lakshmi was a Nepalese girl. Her parents had come to Delhi with their four daughters and two sons almost a decade ago. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother worked in several houses as a part time maid servant to make ends meet. Laskmi started accompanying her mother on her rounds when was eleven, and when Mrs Bhagat offered to take on Lakshmi as a full time servant, her mother was more than happy. Mrs Bhagat was one of the nicer memsahibs – kind and generous. With Mrs Bhagat, Lakshmi would get a roof over her head, three square meals a day and seven hundred rupees to spare. And she did treat Lakshmi well. She rarely screamed at her, and she often gave Lakshmi her daughter’s old clothes. Lakshmi was even allowed to watch her favorite night time soap on TV. Laksmi was grateful for what she had, and she didn’t want me to make things difficult for her – a weekend off was a luxury that was too much to ask for.

Lakshmi and I had an unspoken arrangement. I never talked to her about what I did in school , and she never told me about what she did Mrs Bhagat’s kitchen. But I did tell her about all the annoying, silly things that my classmates did, and at times she would tell me about Mr Bhagat’s snoring or their son’s ever-changing hairstyles. In retrospect, I feel that I needed her more than she did. She was my touchstone. She was the thing that made me special. But for her, being friends with me was a foolhardy thing to do. Neither her boss nor her mother approved of it. She was a crossing a line she wasn’t supposed to.

That summer, Mrs Bhagat’s daughter, Priya , who was away at medical college returned home for the holidays, and Mrs Bhagat invited my mother and a few other people over for a tea party in honor of her daughter. Rumor had it that Priya had to take the medical entrance exams twice , and even then she couldn’t make it to a regular college but had to go to a “donation college” in Karnataka. But her parents were delirious with joy when she finally got in. Mrs Bhagat took every opportunity to mention the fact that her daughter was studying in medical college. In a world where there are only two career options –engineering and medicine, and parents , especially mothers who do don’t have careers of their own, are judged by the success of their children, the stakes are high.

My mother insisted that I go with her for the party, but I didn’t want to. I knew that Lakshmi would be toiling away in the kitchen while we sipped nimbu pani and ate samosas. But mothers being mothers , she eventually forced me to go.
“Ananya, it will be rude if you don’t go,” she said sternly.
“But Ma..,”
“ You are over at their house every day doing God knows what with Lakshmi, and now that Priya is here and you don’t go, it will look bad. What will Bhagat Aunty think?”

So I trudged along to their house reluctantly. The party, as most tea parties go, was boring - middle class housewives swapping recipes and small talk. Everyone commented on how beautiful Mrs Bhagat’s garden was, and everyone asked Priya if she liked medical college. I as always was invisible. Well, to most people except Lakshmi. Every time she would come by to serve snacks, she would look towards me and smile. I smiled back but somehow my stomach knotted itself when she passed by me.

Priya who was sitting close to me, on the other hand, seemed to have no qualms about Lakshmi’s presence. She was more than happy to be waited upon. “Is that coffee or tea?, “ she asked peering into the cups as if they were a chest xray.
“ Tea, didi”, replied Lakshmi.
“I think I want to have coffee.”
Ten minutes later thirteen year old Lakshmi was back with coffee for nineteen year old Priya.
Priya took one sip of the coffee and wrinkled her nose in disgust, “Eeew, this is so sweet and milky. Why did you put sugar and milk into it?”
Lakshmi didn’t get a chance to respond, and even if she did, I doubt if she would have said anything.
Just then, Mrs Bhagat came by and asked in a voice that was so full of concern you would think that her daughter had just swallowed poison, “What happened Priya beti?”
“I drink black coffee Ma, and Lakshmi’s made this sugary milky thing. “
And Mrs Bhagat, who I had never previously seen raise her voice to Lakshmi, said in an annoyed and irritable tone, “ Lakshmi, how many times have I told you to bring the milk and the sugar separately. I teach you all these things and you keep forgetting – you do the same things again and again.”
“Now, go bring Priyadidi her coffee. And remember, milk and sugar separately. And bring the plate of sandwiches as well.”

I sat there, watching this happen. I don’t know what I felt. Shame; guilt; anger; pain. And just like that our friendship unraveled. A couple of months later, my father got transferred to another city and we moved. I remember the last time I saw her. It was about to rain and my mother had asked to close all the windows. I was in the study room and I tried closing the window but it wouldn’t shut. Across the wall, in the cemented backyard of Mrs Bhagat’s house, I could see her wearing a red Salwaar Kameez unhooking saris and shirts from the clothes line. It was dark and overcast, and she was struggling to get a grip on the clothes that were flapping wildly in the wind. I stood by the window, transfixed by what appeared to me as a delicately choreographed dance – girl against nature, red against grey. I knew then that I was the enviable one.

Serendipity

2006-02-24T09:32:00.000-08:00

Plans.

In an age of Mckinsey and cellphones, they are inescapable. Goals, milestones, timelines. The shelves at Barnes and Nobles are filled with well-intentioned books taht help you plan your life -how to find a husband in 30 days, how to be a millionaire, how to be CEO by the age of 40, five steps to emotional healing. There are self-help groups even for eight year olds which starts by saying "your parents got divorced - don't worry, here's how you can deal with it." And get this – there are self-help books for writing self-help books. There is no room for doubt here. It’s not for the faint hearted – there is one book that says, “why your life sucks and what you can do about it. " For every problem, there is a solution – all it takes is a plan.

But the best laid plans of mice and men sometimes go awry ….because no matter how hard you try or how meticulous you might be, you just never know where life will take you. I am not against planning per se. I am not advocating sitting on your butt and not doing anything. Sure, you need a plan if you want to save for your kid’s college or if you to want start your own business. But to believe that for all of life’s twists and turns, there is plan - is hubris. Because beyond all of us, there is a divine plan. A universe that has a mind of its own.

And sometimes in the minutiae of our plans, we lose our dreams. As an MBA type will tell you, plans need to be sensible and practical. But as any dreamer will tell you, dreams only need a wing and a prayer. Dreams allow us to indulge our mad passions, our insane aspirations. Dreams. They course through our veins like a mighty river. They let you believe in the infinite possibilities of life. Possibilities that are not bound by reason or rationality.

The tyranny of planning is almost pervasive. When we are not busy making grand plans about our life, we obsess about planning our every waking minute. We make checklists and to-do lists and schedules – because nothing can be left unaccounted for. What are your plans for this weekend is a common phrase in this part of the world – so we plan to meet our friends for lunch, we plan to go hiking, we plan to watch a movie. There are certain things that need plans – budgets, projects, meetings – but a Sunday morning is not one of them. Unless it’s a weekend expedition to the Antarctic – do you really need an itinerary? Aren’t weekends supposed to be easy – a time to kick back and hang loose. At times, we should perhaps let go and just be. And maybe life will quietly surprise us.

Was it John Lennon who said – life is what happens, when we are busy making other plans?
Serendipity. It’s a wonderful thing.

Happiness is a bullshit idea

2006-02-15T10:44:00.000-08:00

We live in a culture where we are bombarded by the notion that we ought to be happy. And the right to live in unadulterated bliss is an idea that has been enshrined in America’s constitution. Hallmark has made an industry out of this with sweet mushy cards that say, “may you find happiness which ever path you take…”, “happy birthday – hope you find all the success you deserve.” Ever occasion is used to peddle this idea – Mothers day, New Years Day, Birthday and oh yes …Valentines Day.

But after much research and careful consideration (that involved staring at the ceiling because I was unable to fall asleep), I have come to the conclusion that happiness is a bullshit idea.

There are very few people who are genuinely happy – happy in a deep, constant and grounded way. Perhaps, the Dalia Lama is – but then he is someone who is well on his way to Nirvana. For the rest of us, we experience happiness in bursts – when we get the job that we wanted, when we ‘fall’ in love, when eat chocolate cake – but that feeling lasts only for two months, two weeks or as in the case of the chocolate cake – only two hours. And then the yearning starts again, and we crave another dose of what we think is likely to make us happy – the perfect guy, the perfect job, the perfect dress.

Happiness has been a subject of much philosophical debate – and great minds such as Aristotle, JS Mill and Nietzsche have crafted complex arguments around this ("Two Conceptions of Happiness.) . More recently economists have started taking an interest in this issue, and it turns out that several studies confirm what Grandma always knew - money can’t buy you happiness. One of the most consistent findings has been that the correlation between financial wealth and well-being is relatively weak, especially as countries become wealthier. Paul Krugman has an interesting article about this – the CPI and the Rat Race. The Economist published a long, meandering article that examines the concepts of relative poverty and relative happiness. It compares two men--a doctor in Congo and a retired coal miner worker in Kentucky--who earn about the same amount of absolute income. The contrast proves to be a good set-up for some provocative questions. Another study published by UK’s New Scientist found the happiest people in the World live in Nigeria which happens to be one of the poorest and the most countries on the planet.

The thing is pursing happiness is counter productive and futile. For one life in inherently unfair - it was never meant to be a walk in the park. And the more time we spending wanting and yearning to be happy, the less likely we are to find it – in fact we may end up being more sad. 'Ask yourself whether you are happy,' wrote John Stuart Mill, more than 100 years ago, 'and you cease to be so.' So if only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

The roll of the dice

2006-01-24T13:33:00.000-08:00

I have often wondered what it would be like to not worry. To not live under the intense scrutiny of my own gaze, to not live with the constant exhaustion that comes with obsessing about the tiniest detail. But even though I know better, I cannot help it.

I am nor sure when this started. Perhaps in high school. I would wake up in the morning and spend hours trying to fix my hair. The result was the awful permed big hair that was almost out of vogue by the late eighties, but then I was the kind of kid who was the first to hop on to the trend bandwagon and last to hop off. I still spend a lot of time (and money) on my hair – but now my efforts are focused on straightening it out and undoing the damage from the years of perming. And through the years, my obsession has also spun off into ever widening concentric circles – and I find myself trapped in its orbit.

The holidays is the season I dread the most. In the garb of an independent successful lawyer, I can hide most of my neuroses reasonably well. They somehow seem to dissolve unobtrusively into the neon lit, temperature controlled ether of the office. But as I step out into the chilly wintry night, and see the shops dressed up in holiday colors – and all the people wishing (and almost) thrusting happiness upon me, I find myself facing my inner demons. Every year, I make the annual trip to Portland with the feeling that I have a big heavy stone sitting at the base of my stomach. I can hear Mom at the kitchen table, whipping up a batter and saying, “Linda, did you know that Reese is having a baby. I just think it’s great that she and her partner have decided to do this – who needs men really?” Mom is a left coast liberal and a staunch feminist, and since bra burning no longer has the appeal it used to, she has taken up the cause of gay rights. Every year, it seemed as if one of my high school classmates or neighbor’s kids was becoming gay and/or getting pregnant. I had the strange feeling that my mother was actually encouraging me to consider lesbianism since I wasn’t having much luck with men.

As I sat at the airport, waiting for the flight – I considered all the witty charming banter I would engage in to make myself appear carefree, jolly and happy. Keith –my oldest brother was the easiest to please, and so was Dad – an incredibly sweet and uncomplicated man. Jeff – my older brother is somewhat of a tough cookie – he is more like me – but I think that being a man allows him to mask his insecurities better. Then there’s Mom – in the land of the judgmental, she is queen. Keith’s wife and kids, and Jeff’s on again off again girlfriend are props but not major characters in our family Christmas play – I can handle them with relative confidence. Relative is a key word here, because in all my adolescent and adult life, I have never enjoyed unadulterated confidence. I have struggled to find absolute faith in myself or anything that has to do with me.

“Jet Blue flight 587 to Portland, Oregon has been delayed by two hours, 20 minutes. We apologize for the inconvenience.” A collective groan escaped from the passengers waiting at the terminal gate as the announcement was made. I unzipped my back pack to pull out my laptop and work on the project that was due two days after Christmas. As the computer booted up, I noticed a tall athletic and youngish good-looking man sit down in the chair diagonally across from me.

He possessed a certain casual charm which I always envied since I didn’t have a casual bone in my body. He looked at his watch and pulled out a book from his carry on case. I strained to see the title of the book, without making it obvious that I was looking. I couldn’t read the title, but I managed to read the sub-title. It was a book about the oil and the politics of the middle-east. So clearly, Mr. mysterious stranger was intelligent and well-read. I could see him as the sort of guy who’d play soccer, and have a decent college degree. (I had a weird genius when it came to such a things – almost Sherlock Holmes like.)

He looked up. We exchanged glances and smiled. Immediately, my mind went into overdrive. I had always thought about meeting a hot guy at the airport but even though I traveled almost every two months, I hadn’t had even a remotely romantic encounter so far. This was my chance. I had already checked to see that he didn’t have a wedding ring. (It was the first thing I saw when I meet a cute young guy). We had over two hours at the airport and he had smiled in a way that suggested that he might be attracted to me. Maybe we would get talking, hit it off and have instant chemistry. Maybe we’d have friends in common in Portland. He would come back to DC and call me. We wouldn’t have an awkward dating period, but we’d just bond. There would be no uncomfortable commitment issues. We’d be the couple walking down the street joking and holding hands. We’d be the couple for whom the song “somewhere over the rainbow” plays as background score.

A soft shuffle and a thump jolted me out of my daydreaming. And then the dice rolled…the other way.

Kira dragged her bag limply across the floor. She was glad to be going home. Glad to be going home to her all-knowing mother, her never say a cross a word father, and her two brothers – one sweet, the other… not so much. She knew her mother would be disappointed – she had been expecting her to come home Christmas with a fiancée. But Kira couldn’t really be bothered.

This evening, when she had walked out of her office – she felt the snow flakes skipping and floating across the navy sky and embracing her within their swirl. Suddenly, the pain and ugliness of the last four months seemed distant and faraway. She could see glimpses of Owen and herself, the fights, the break-up, the tears but it was like she was watching the rushes of an old film.

Kira had wanted it to work out in a desperate, almost visceral way. But now that it was over, she was relieved – it felt like a weight had lifted off. The burden of expectation had been wearing her out. The expectation of being happy, the expectation of getting what she wanted, the expectation of making others happy had all crashed and burned along with what she thought was her true love. And now, it didn’t even seem to matter. She wondered why she had made such a big deal about it in the first place.

She plonked herself on the first empty chair she could see. She put on the headphones of her Ipod and took a giant swig out of her Snapple Iced Tea bottle. She felt someone shove her elbow and her drink spurted out of the bottle and on to the pants of the person who was sitting next to her. She turned around and a six year old boy was looking sheepishly at her, while his mother was admonishing her son and apologizing to her in the same breath.

“I am so sorry,” said Kira as she turned again to apologize to the person who pants she had ruined with Snapple.

“It’s ok,” replied David, “It’s not your fault,” he said as he dabbed his trousers with his book.

Kira who had some tissue with her said, “this might be better,” and made a clumsy attempt to rescue his pants by dabbing the tissue furiously on his trousers. A split second later, she realized in the awkwardness and inappropriateness of her actions. She looked at him and they both laughed.

Sharing laughter is often more powerful than sharing glances and smiles. Later that night, Kira and David went on to share a burger and fries at the Airport’s restaurant. Rumor has it that, they now live in upstate New York with two dogs, and several kinds of fish.

A soft shuffle and a thump jolted me out of my daydreaming. And then the dice rolled…my way.

A pale girl with slightly unkempt (yet straight and silky hair) plonked herself besides the guy I was eyeing. She was listening to her ipod and drinking Snapple. Soon after a squealing kid and his mother joined them. The kid’s squeals were fortuitous – ‘my guy’ moved across and sat in the chair next to mine.

I rehearsed what I was going to say, and then after a few minutes asked, “Do you think we’ll leave in the next two hours or is the wait going to be longer? The weather looks quite bad out there …”

As events unfolded, the wait was in fact longer. David and I walked up to the Airport’s restaurant to grab something to eat. I was right he did have a decent college degree – he worked as a geologist at the National Science Foundation. He didn’t play soccer, but that was ok – I could live with that.

David and I went out on a first real date two weeks after New Years. In many ways, it was just what I had imagined it would be and what I had planned for. We were the young attractive couple that had interesting conversation on a date. I forced myself not to call him every single day, and I made sure that I didn’t sleep with him at least for the first one month. Occasionally, he’d surprise me with interesting (and mostly useless) gifts like a wooden sculpture from a flea market. Occasionally, I would surprise him with an interesting book or CD - even though I actually ended up spending hours agonizing over the right ‘casual’ gift.

Three months later, the plan began to crumble. David wasn’t sure what he wanted but I was. Besides, it turned out that David wasn’t my ideal man – he wanted to laze around and read the weekend paper on a Sunday morning, while I wanted to go running and then meet up friends for brunch. His casualness began to irk me. Things that in my mind had seemed charming, in reality – were not so appealing. A week later, it was over.

Rumor has it that, David now lives in upstate New York with his wife Kira, two dogs, and several kinds of fish.

Move over Gen X.

2005-11-29T14:41:00.000-08:00

I was listening to this thing on radio earlier this morning – about Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y. According to the radio show, a recent survey suggests that Gen Xers , unlike the Baby Boomers who wanted stable jobs and a house in suburbia, are not very ambitious and career oriented. They are rebelling against the monotony 9-5 jobs. So many companies are trying to change their work culture in order to attract and retain their Gen X employees.

Also apparently, I am Gen X . And apparently, my time is up.

Technically, Gen X describes those of us who were born between 1964 and 1980. Here are some tell-tale signs that you might be a Gen Xer.
- you have the tendency to make flippant ironic comments
- you are stuck in pointless job done grudgingly to little applause
- you are underemployed and overeducated
- You are often confused and riddled with self-doubt
- You wonder is there is something called "true love"
- You feel alienated – you want to desperately ‘believe’ in something but don’t know what
- You think the notion “you can be anything you want to be” is bull
- You drink overpriced “fair-trade” coffee
- You are overanalyzing and underachieving

Meanwhile Generation Y, those born between 1981 and 1995, have no time for Generation X whining and self-doubt. They are after style, comfort and the top of the food chain. They work hard, play hard, live hard, and spend hard. According to market research statistics – the current 14-25 cohort is by far one of the biggest consumers groups ever. So here’s how know if you are generation Y - you are obsessed with name brands and hair care products, you don't necissarily idoloze U2/Bono, you and you couldn’t care less about who the president of the World Bank is.

2005-11-10T16:04:00.000-08:00

It all seemed blue.

The train went past the station into the tunnel casting a neon hue on everything and everyone. Advertisement boards for health insurance, a bespectacled man fiddling with his cell phone, a teenage girl pushing her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt as she watched the train leave the platform. They all blurred into the darkness until all I could see was my own reflection in the window.

I glanced around inside the train. Some people had headphones on, two men in suits and ties were standing next to the door and chatting, holding identical black laptop briefcases. The woman in the seat opposite mine was doing soduku, that addictive number puzzle that appeared in the city paper. But most of us were just sitting there with vacant expressions. I hear it is a universal phenomenon – people commuting in train and buses look very grumpy. As stations came, people got off and got on. An endless ebb and flow of human beings, of names, of faces, of lives. But it didn’t seem as if we were on the train for a purpose – to get off and meet a lover, breastfeed a baby, play a concerto. We were there because we were just were. Suddenly life seemed so trivial, so ragged.

It had been a tiring day for me, and being in that train I felt the weight of all my worries come crashing down on me. “How did I get myself into this?” I wondered. Without my knowing, I had drifted into a place where I felt alone, scared and extremely uncomfortable. All that was familiar was fading away into the past, and the road ahead seemed unknowable and even unnavigable. All I could manage to do was drag myself from one day to another. I didn’t even want to think about it anymore, so I turned my face away.

------------------------------------------

Something about her earrings caught my eye.

They were large crimson danglers with glittering stones in the middle. She was sitting diagonally across from me. She was middle aged, big built but strangely beautiful – almost regal. If it hadn’t been for the frizzy braided hair, I might have thought she were Indian. She had had a long day as well.

Adina. It was an Amharic name that her parents had bestowed on her lovingly when she was three months old. Her mother was one of the many of the King’s grand nieces, though the exact genealogical relationship was never quite clear. Her father was the owner of a prosperous bakery in the heart of Addis. The bakery was known to have the most exquisitely fluffy pastries. It was also the place for the hip to be seen sipping coffee.

Adina had led the life of privilege typically enjoyed by most upper class Ethiopians. As Africa’s only nation that had escaped colonization, they had never known the degradation of slavery or discrimination. Then came the socialist revolution of 1974 and in a bloody swoop, the ivory towers came crumbling down. Cars were smashed and the streets were ablaze. Adina, her parents and her two brothers had stayed huddled together inside the house for more than two weeks. Their retinue of servants and drivers had disappeared, their kitchen closet was nearly empty but they couldn’t dare to venture out of the house.

A few years later Adina got married to a family friend’s son. The mayhem in Addis was less visible, but wars were raging on the border and drought and famine were stealthily and steadily making their way from the northern parts of the country. Every day hundreds and thousands of people with sunken eyes and exposed rib cages were walking into their city with nothing but a small sack on their heads in the search for food. Adina’s husband Souk had already begun making plans to leave the country. In fact that had been the reason why Adina’s parents had been so keen on the marriage even though they knew that, in many ways, Souk was a lesser match for their beautiful and talented daughter. After almost two years, when Adina had already had the first baby, they managed to get their papers to go to Canada. They spent four years in Montreal trying desperately to make ends meet, and then managed to move to Washington DC with the help of some relatives who had already settled there. By this time Adina had had her second child, and was pregnant with her third. She and her husband landed in the city on a grey November day with a five year old daughter and a two year old son in tow. They had three suitcases and an address written on a crumpled piece of paper. That crumpled piece of paper was their lifeline to America.

After the first couple of months of staying with their relatives, they found a small run down apartment in Virginia where all their neighbors were Ethiopian. Souk took up a job as a taxi driver and Adina found work in a new Ethiopian restaurant in U Street. During the day, she helped with the cooking and at evening she morphed into a waitress. She would wake up at 5 in the morning, cook for her family, send her kids off to school, leave the baby at her neighbor’s house and then catch the 39 D bus for work. It had been almost a decade since she had been in America. And while some of the initial nervousness of being in a strange country had worn off, she didn’t quite feel safe, didn’t quite feel at home. She still reminisced about the time when she was a nine year old girl. She would sit in the car with her father, and they would drive up to the bakery shop. She would press her face against the glass case inside were an array of cream filled pies, coconut cakes and chocolate truffles were kept. Her father would smile indulgently and ask her, “So, which one do you want? It had been such a long time since anyone had bothered to ask her what she wanted. Husbands. Children. Bosses. Customer. Bill Collectors. Now, she was the one catering to everyone else’s needs. Catering to demands of circumstances.

Just recently, Adina had enrolled in a community college and was training to become a nursing assistant. She had had enough of working for 14 hours a day in that dingy restaurant. By the end of the day her hair smelt of spices, and she could feel the raw pungency of meat used for Kitfo clinging to her fingernails. Her childhood dream had been to become a doctor. Now at 40, she was making a desperate attempt to grasp at the fraying ends of her dream. Adina was in fact on her way back from her weekly evening class. She was browsing through the notes she took in class. She would have to wake up the next day at 4 in the morning and finish her assignment. And now she would have to go home and finish dinner, do the dishes, look at her youngest son’s homework, prepare a package to her sister-in-law in Ethiopia, listen to her husband complain … Even the thought of all she had to do exhausted her. She shut her notebook and looked away.

-----------------------
She saw her silky, straight blonde her and felt envious.

Casey was standing by the door holding the pole. Long blond hair with highlights, a grey knee length pencil skirt paired with a beautiful black leather jacket. She seemed to have stepped straight out of a J Crew catalog. She was young, she was attractive, she had a beautiful house in suburban Maryland, and a husband who was a corporate lawyer and a great tennis player.

A little over a year ago, Casey had had her dream wedding. Everything was perfect. She and her husband Bryan had met at a friend’s barbeque and they hit it off instantly. Casey was an only child, and though her parents were divorced they both doted on her. She flitted between Portland and Seattle, and being a west coast girl, she decided to go to Berkeley for college. She loved the bohemian and eclectic lifestyle of the place, though she always knew that she would never end up becoming a human rights activist or a starving artist. She was a liberal, but the latte drinking kind. She majored in economics and then after a few years went on to get a Masters in health administration. She had found a job at a health insurance firm and moved to DC. For Casey, the city didn’t seem as exciting as Berkeley or even Portland, but it had its charms. She could go running by the river, and hang out at the uber cool art galleries and gay bars. She had a nice cushy job and was just beginning to make friends. And then Bryan happened and suddenly the city was all that and more. “I love the fact that DC has fall and winter unlike California and I love the fact that DC is not as cold and rainy as Seattle” is what she’d tell her friends. Bryan had grown up in Potomac Maryland and got his law degree from Georgetown. He had lived outside the Capital Beltway area for short stints in London, Houston and Pittsburgh, but DC was home. He had a self-depreciating sense of humor that had appealed to Casey. And it didn’t hurt that he was tall, blue eyed and not too bad looking. When so many of her friends were single and struggling to meet eligible men, Casey felt lucky to have him.

Casey and her Mom had planned the wedding meticulously. The church, the caterers, the decorators, the dress, the flowers, the cards, the gift registry, the rehearsal dinner, honeymoon, the photographer, the cake. She and her mother would spend hours on the phone going over every little detail. Bryan would kid, “I am not sure if you really need me at all, you seem to have everything taken care of.” Beneath the joke, Casey could sense that there was a little resentment. She knew she could be a little a bit of a control freak but she couldn’t help it. She had always been that way.

Casey had planned for everything that happened in her life. She had planned how she would spend her summers when her parents broke up, she had planned which courses she would take in college, which jobs she would apply for, what clothes she’d wear. She was always making checklists and to-do lists. Her lists had all kinds of things in them – big, small, and sometimes bizarre. 1. Take a mediation class; 2. Do interval cardio; 3. Read Blindness; 4. Complete report on Medicare; 6. Talk to Larua about Kaiser’s new plan; 7. Cancel credit card; 9. Call Jared, Rita and Carla; 10 Send check to SavethePlanet; 11. Go to a party a week (even) if you are not invited; 12. Find a boyfriend by thanksgiving. 13. Drink more water; 14. Buy the green jacket I saw at Bannana (but wait until it goes on sale). And now for the wedding, she had gone into planning overdrive. Casey had even managed to drag Bryan into buying a new four-bed roomed house near Bethesda. Soon after which she opened a folder on her laptop that was dedicated entirely to do-lists for home furnishings within which she had sub-folders such as bathroom tiles and kitchen appliances. Luckily for Casey, up until now, things were going according to plan. On a sunny October day, with the most beautiful white organza and silk dress and an obscenely big diamond ring, she had become Casey Richardson Davis.

Three weeks ago, Casey walked into the house and saw Bryan sitting on the living room couch with his head in his hands. “Is everything OK?” she asked gently. Bryan looked up – his eyes were red, his face wet. He had been crying. In the three years she had known him, she had never seen him like that. “Are you parents fine?” she inquired. Her first instinct was that something had happened to Bryan’s mother who he adored. “No, everyone is OK,” he replied. “It’s me.” Bryan had seen the results of an Elisa test earlier in the day. He had tested HIV positive. It turned out that his blue eyes and witty humor had turned on many women. He had been cheating on Casey almost ever since they got engaged, though he had concealed it well through his business trips and his nice guy preppy mannerisms.

Earlier that day Casey had gone to the doctor herself. She wanted to make sure that she didn’t have the virus. Her results were fine. Due to a vaginal infection, meticulous Casey had insisted that Bryan use protection. She was on her way back from the doctor’s office. As she stood there in the train, she wondered what she would do next. She had no checklists for this. She was at a complete loss. On the one hand she wanted to walk out and never see Bryan again. But on the other hand, she still cared about him and she didn’t want to abandon him now that he had this disease. He had cried, pleaded guilty and begged forgiveness. “I always loved you; it was just a sex thing. It was stupid and wrong I know. You have every right to hate me but please don’t leave me” he said. Casey didn’t know what to do – all she knew that it hurt like hell. She just wanted to get away from it all. She tucked a strand of her beautiful blonde hair behind her ear and turned around.

---------------------

He stood at the cross-section of our gazes.

The train which was packed twenty minutes ago was now almost empty. Lost in our own worlds, we hadn’t noticed who got off and who had got on. He was gorgeous. Unbelievably hot. Warm brown skin and the cutest butt. He wasn’t muscular in an obvious way but you could tell that he had the most perfect six pack abs underneath that faded blue shirt. We all gaped at him. For a split second, we were completely distracted from our troubled lives. The blonde haired woman and I exchaged glances. The lady with the big red danglers grinned sheepishly as well. We each knew what the other was thinking.

I turned my face and saw my relection in the window again. This time I was smiling.

The stuff dreams are made of.

2005-08-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

I tried closing the window but it wouldn’t shut. Across the wall, in the cemented backyard of the neighboring house, I could see a young Nepalese girl wearing a red Salwaar Kameez unhooking saris and shirts from the clothes line. It was dark and overcast, and the girl was struggling to get a grip on the clothes that were flapping wildly in the wind. I stood by the window, transfixed by what appeared to me as a delicately choreographed dance – girl against nature, red against grey. I knew then that I dreamt in color.

I know where this conversations is going....

2005-08-15T09:40:00.000-07:00

Men. Ever since I was a young girl they have been a part of my consciousness. After all, I was normal, healthy and straight. But they existed the way other creatures on this planet existed. I was not overwhelmed by them. I did not feel the need to study them, and I definitely never felt the need to constantly talk about them. I would look at articles in Cosmo which are devoted mostly to seducing a man, getting a man, understanding a man or understanding yourself so that you can understand your man and laugh with disdain. Little did I know….

Cut to circa 2005. Men. Men. Men . Men . Men. In the last six months I have devoted almost 3673 hours to the discussion of the opposite sex. What is worse is that I can’t escape my own paranoia because where ever I turn; I find others obsessing about the same thing. It’s like being in a B grade horror film where the heroine discovers the scary alien and runs towards the door only to be confronted by 200 other such aliens. OK, I am exaggerating a little here – men aren’t exactly like aliens but you get the picture – they are the unknown and if not scary most of them are pretty lame and seem to be from another planet.

In the last two weeks, I have had several conversations with several friends about “some guy.” The following is a highly abridged but entirely true transcript.

Sunday, conversation with friends over dinner at home
Friends 6, &7: “There are no decent men in DC…”
Me: “Oh, my God, I know where this conversation is going….”
Friends 6: “My expectations are not high, but pedigree is important ...”

Monday, conversation with friend over coffee Friend 3: “yeah he is sweet, but you know he has kids and lot of baggage…”
Me: “Oh, my God, I know where this conversation is going….”
Friend 3: “we have a good time, but I don’t see a future …”

Tuesday, conversation in restaurant with overpriced food
Friend 2: “How could that guy do this to me……
Me: “Oh, my God, I know where this conversation is going….”
Friends 2: “I mean who does he thinks he is….”

Wednesday conversation in cafeteria
Friend 1: “You know the trouble with men….”
Me: “Oh, my God, I know where this conversation is going….”
Friend 1: “Jason expects too much of me . I try, but he says I don’t…”

Thursday, I had a repeat conversation with Friend 2
who forwarded me an email that “some guy ‘ sent her

Friday, conversation with friend 8 in cafeteria, over IM, in the car, at home, in the train , over the phone
Friend 8: “ He is so hot, we had an amazing time but….”
Me: “Oh, my God, I know where this conversation is going….”
Friend: “Do you think he will call me …”

Saturday, conversation with Friend 9 in New York over phone
Friend: “Is it stupid to want to have a spark…?”
Me: “Oh, my God, I know where this conversation is going….”
Friend: “I mean I need to have that …”

Sunday , repeat conversation with friend 8, who is wondering if “that guy” is dissing her.

Now factor in long conversations with parents who are prone to histrionics and emotional blackmail, and factor in conversations with self where I lye in bed and wondering if I’ll find the one.

I am not sure what it is – the weather, the city or that time in life, but for the past few months it seems I have been going round and round talking about the same things. Men. Marriage. Relationships. Sex. Dating. Boyfriends. Commitment. Lack thereof. All conversations lead to Rome. It started at the beginning of the year as a tiny voice at the back of my head, I found other friends echoing it, and soon it was crescendo. In many ways, it is comforting to know that I am not alone. But seriously, sometimes I feel like I need a break!

2005-05-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

The New York Times ran an article on India’s fashion week – more is more, with a dollop of too much. As the title indicates, the author didn’t think too highly of the likes of Suneet Vernma and Ritu Kumar – page 3 icons of the Times of India. “Chances are slim, after all, that Ms. Allen's Worth Avenue clientele would be drawn to the patchwork, beaded, embroidered, hand-blocked and vegetable-dyed clothes Payal Jain imagined for a show she called "The Wandering Mendicant."

Now clearly, this sounds supercilious – like a rich aunt turning up her nose at her less well heeled country bumpkin niece. But frankly, when I read this I couldn’t help but laugh. Because Indian fashion is in fact quite pathetic. But for me, it is also the ultimate symbol of the decadence and complete callousness of the rich in India.

Hideous malls are coming up everywhere luring the great Indian middle class with brand names and designer labels – and in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune - mummy, papa, chintu and pinky are hopping into their Opel Astras by the droves and spending their Saturday evenings trying to get a hold of the latest Gucci bags and Louis Vuitton sandals. Meanwhile, there are kids on the traffic light intersection – unclothed, unkempt, with bloated bellies and bleak eyes. They watch through the darkened windows of the cars, as Chintu plays with his gameboy and Pinky flashes her new vuitton bag. We live in two Indias – those who are inside their comfortable air-conditioned cars and those who can just watch helplessly from the outside.

So Mr Friedman, the world is not flat. Yes, more Indians and Chinese are plugging and playing on this global playing field. And as an Indian, I cannot help but take pride in India’s IT success – the Narayannurthy’s and Azim Premji’s are worthy of credit, but as an Indian I also cannot help but feel that I am living in a bubble. A bubble where we watch Karan Johar films with Anjali and Rahul in Archie land, a bubble where we believe that India is shining with its call centers and software engineers, a bubble where we splurge in malls and multiplexes, a bubble where we chose to ignore the fact that we live in a country that is home to the greatest number of the world’s poor.

I am an unashamed advocate of economic liberalization and globalization. Over the last decade, India’s GDP has grown substantially and its middle class has enjoyed the fruits of this economic success. Fifteen years ago my parents couldn’t have thought of taking a vacation in the US. So there is nothing wrong about free markets or free trade. As Amartya Sen says – freedom – be it social, political or economic is the key to development. But with freedom comes responsibility, comes purpose. Last week I went to a synagogue (for the first time), and there this lady was talking about Passover and how Moses’s sermon at Sinai is often quoted out of context. He didn’t just say, “let my people go,” he said, “ let my people go so that they may serve me.”

So don't we have a responsibility to use our freedom wisely, to use it to look out for the other India. To believe in unadulterated idealism is naïve, and I myself am not likely to hang around in slums and villages. But the least we could do is roll down those tinted windows and look at those children waiting at the traffic intersections in the eye. For us, the poor are often invisible – they are the nameless faceless people who clean our houses, pester us for money outside temples and traffic intersections, and die in caste violence in remote villages in Bihar. So the least we can do is look the child in the eye - for seeing is believing.

In a country where more than 400 million people do not have enough to eat, to say its chic to look poor is cruel. And too much is too much.

2005-04-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

Dear D,

I know that the last few months, in fact the last few years have been hard for you. You’ve left behind the old familiar ways, and sometimes you wonder if you’ll ever find that comfortable place again. You’ve often asked – why can’t I have that. You probably feel that life has knocked you around and not been fair to you. Maybe you are right – perhaps life hasn’t been entirely fair to you. But look around you – you are the chosen few – the blessed and the fortunate – for you are loved and taken care of. Remember that day, almost 3 years ago, when you were alone and desperate and you thought that you wouldn’t survive another week. But it worked out, didn’t it. It happened again last year, and yet again it worked out. So trust me. It will work out.

And seriously, you know that it is futile and stupid to worry about things that you have no control over – so why bother. I know, I know – you are only human and at times you cannot help but worry. But don’t sink into that quite feeling of fear and pain. Don’t let it hold you down; don’t let it keep you awake at night. You need to close your eyes, let go and dream. After all, you’ve always been a dreamer. As a little girl, you would drift away in the middle of the class – your teacher thought you were too absentminded and hit you on your palms with a wooden ruler. You cried but you didn’t stop dreaming. You graduated from school with the nickname Alice in Wonderland. Some people laughed but you didn’t care. So why are you now so afraid to dream?

I know that you have this irrational fear that if you dream something, it will not happen. While part of growing up is the realization that life is not what we cracked it up to be and all our dreams don’t necessarily come true, that shouldn’t stop you from being who you are and living the life you want to live. You’ve come this far – you’ve done some stupid things, some amazing things – but you’ve been there and done that. And that’s what counts. And who knows, you dreams might come true. There is an infinite wisdom in this world. At times, it may not be apparent to you, but it is there. So keep the faith.

Love always,
O

The unfolding of our lives (4)

2005-04-15T23:08:00.000-07:00

The past becomes our present, our present our future. But we can never quite tell the seamlessness of it all, because we cannot let go the regrets of what was or the fears of what will be.

As I look at my mother now, I feel like I never really knew her. When I was a child she was always very busy, and when I grew up and started my own family, I could never really forgive her for what I thought was her betrayal.

I was born in a tumultuous year when India’s destiny was being shaped. But I was too young to remember what happened. What I do remember is that growing up, I longed to spend time with my mother. For Ma, the Quit India movement was her real baby. She became actively involved in the struggle. She would mobilize people and support underground resistance groups. She was working with many of the women leaders in Congress like Sucheta Kriplani and Aruna Asaf Ali. Ma felt especially drawn to Aruna Asaf Ali. She admired Aruna for breaking the boundaries to go to college, work, marry outside her community. Later that year my mother led the formation of a women’s wing in Lucknow and they had decided to join their comrades in Bombay for a large scale protest. And just as they were boarding the train, the police swooped down on them and all of them were thrown into Jail. My father also believed in the cause, which is why perhaps, he let my mother go on protests around the country and get arrested, but he was more of an intellectual, who liked to ruminate on his ideas on paper, and not get his hands dirty with the nitty-gritty the way my mother did.

Two younger brothers and a younger sister followed, and we woke up one morning in a free country, though it was hard to tell in Lucknow because people were being slaughtered and houses were being burnt. In 1948, when Aruna Asaf Ali and others left the congress to form their own socialist party my mother joined them as well, and later on she helped Aruna to establish the National Federation of Indian Women, the women's wing of the Communist Party of India. My mother would also occasionally sing for All India Radio and my brothers and sisters would gather around to listen to her – we got to spend such little time with our mother that sometimes hearing her voice on the radio was the closest we got to her. The only people that my mother really took time out for was our eldest half-sister Rakhi because Ma did not want to be labeled as the bad step mother, and my youngest brother Rudra (his nickname was Babla) who was pampered by everyone in the family. But we were all tremendously proud of our mother. In 1958, she won a seat in the legislative assembly, and everyone in Lucknow knew us as Kaaveri Ganguly’s children. And strangely enough, I saw her as Kaaveri Ganguli as well - and not really as Ma.

It was my father who I had a special bond with. He was a professor of mathematics, but he enjoyed writing. He would often write political essays and at times poetry. Whenever he wrote a new poem, he would read it to me and ask me what I thought. Sometimes on weekends, he would pack all six children in his Morris Minor and take us to the cinema. On rainy days we would all drink milky tea and Mukundalal , our servant, would make us hot pakoras. We would each take turns telling Baba what we would do when we’d grow up. I think looking back now on my childhood, it’s those rainy days that I miss the most.

The day before I was supposed to get married, Baba came into my room. He looked at all the silk saris laid out on the bed and said, “Bubai, you will make a beautiful bride."
I know it was silly but I immediately burst into tears.
That night Baba also told me about my real father -Asad Shaukat.

Over the years, my mother scaled back her involvement in politics , and by the time my daughter was born , she had assumed the role of a full-time grandma. Both my kids adored her, and surprisingly, she enjoyed being a grandmother as well. My mother had never made loochis for us, but every time any of her grandkids visited, she would ply them with all sorts of home cooked delicacies. I could have forgotten the years of neglect, but I could never let go of what she had done. She had made me not just a barstard child, but an orphan. She had robbed me of my entitlement to Baba, my brothers and sisters, and even to her.

I see her now, perhaps in the final months of her life. She sits by the window reading a book. She looks up and smiles. I dab the corners of her forehead with a handkerchief infused with Eau De Cologne. She pulls my hand from her forehead and brings it to her lips. Last night we made our peace. You have his nose and chin, she says. I see the moistness in her eyes. Tears that have waited for almostn sixty years. Ma is still strong . Kaaveri Ganguly. But for the first time, I also see her vulnerability. A young girl who fell in love in the summer of 1941.

The unfolding of our lives (3)

2005-04-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

Ma is asleep. Her body weak. Her face considerably unwrinkled, belying her real age.
And even as she lies in her bed, she has that grandeur that she has always carried with her. I have never known Ma, even in the toughest of times, to display even a hint of weakness.

But Kaaveri’s was a strength that was, in fact, born out of weakness. That summer afternoon, she sat in the midst of the dearly departed, struggling to hang on to the last dredges of hope. She had led a life of privilege, never having to struggle for anything. And here she was unwed and pregnant, with the man she loved perhaps dead. Nothing had prepared her for such a fate. She could feel her breath draining, her life slowly ebbing away from her body. She was so devoid of strength that she couldn’t even muster the tears to cry. All she could do was stare blankly into the earth, numb to all sensations, all thoughts. She sat like that for hours. The sun set and the half moon rose, yet she didn’t move. And as she looked at the tombstones around her, it suddenly occurred to her that she was still in the land of the living, and all she could do was live - let the chips fall where they may.

Kaaveri went back home and barged into the drawing room where her father was sitting with several other male friends.
“Baba, can you come with me. I need to speak to you, “she said.
Her father, Ishwarnath Diwakar, was annoyed by his daughter's impertinence. Women and children were not allowed to disturb hum when he was sitting with his friends. He replied curtly, “Not now. I am busy.”
“This is important, “she continued without the slightest trace of fear in her voice.
Her father was visibly angered by his daughter’s insolence. “Go inside Kaveri. I will speak to you later.” It was a command issued as the patriarch of the house.
“Baba, this cannot wait. I have to speak to you now. “
Her father sensed the awkward looks that his friends were exchanging, and politely excused himself.

“Kaverri, don’t you know…” But before her father could complete his furious tirade, she blurted, “Baba, I am pregnant.”
Ishwarnath Diwakar was stunned, aghast, outraged. In fact he wasn’t quite sure what he felt. After a prolonged silence, he asked, “Who is the father?”
“It doesn’t matter who the father is. He is dead.”
Kaveeri could sense all the questions and accusations stirring inside her father’s head –anger and hurt that he couldn’t find the words to express. She decided to pre-empt her father’s question and said, “I know you are hurt. I am sorry. I didn’t want this to happen either. But I loved him.”
She continued in a completely calm voice, almost sounding like the parent, “Don’t tell Ma, she will not be able to handle it, but I think I have a solution for this. “
“Solution, there is no solution to this – we are all ruined. All you can do now is throw yourself and your child into the Ganges,” her father retorted angrily.
But the moment he said those words, he regretted them. Despite everything, Ishwarnath Diwakar loved his daughter; he could not bear to lose her.
“You will have to drop the child - that is the only option,” he said in a mellower tone.
“I don’t want to lose the baby. And I think there is another way. You could get me married,” Kaveeri replied.
“Married – are you out of your mind? Who will want to marry a pregnant girl?”
“There is someone I know. Sudhanshu Ganguly. He is a professor at Lucknow university.”
“Is he the father of your baby?” Iswharnath interjected hastily.
“No, he is not. I told you the father of my baby is most likely dead. But Sudarshan Ganguly comes to listen to me sing at Akhtarabai’s house everyday. I know he likes me. Offer him my hand in marriage, and let me talk to him.”
Kaveeri spoke so forcefully that Ishwarnath couldn’t help but go along with his daughter.

Sudhanshu Ganguly was a widower with a six year old daughter. He had been entranced by Kaveri’s voice since the first time he had heard her. He kept going back to Akhtarabai’s house to listen to her, and gradually - he didn’t know exactly when - he had developed a deep attraction towards Kaaveri herself. Kaaveri had sensed that attraction. While she sang, she would make eye contact with her listeners and had an intuitive knowledge of what each of them was thinking. Often, in the middle of a ghazal, she would adjust the notes to cater to the likes of a particular listener, and both she and the listener would acknowledge this and exchange smiles. Akhtarabai often said that Ghazal singing involved flirting with your listeners, and Begum Ahktar had mastered that art. Almost anyone who had heard her sing would fall in love with her.

The following day, Kaverri and her father went to Sudhanshu Ganguly’s house, though Kaaveri did most of the talking. She told him about her unborn child and Asad. She told him that she needed a respectable home for her baby and herself, and she told him that she would be a good wife and a good mother to his daughter. In the end of her hour long monologue, she added, “I think you have kind eyes, and I think you like me.” Sudhanshu was appalled and impressed by Kaveeri’s honesty. He was offended by her brazenness and yet somehow touched by her courage. Three weeks later, Sudhanshu and Kaaveri were married. It wasn’t the grand wedding that Kaaveri’s parents had envisaged. The family gossip mill worked overtime with stories of scandal. Questions about why a beautiful, young Kaaveri was marrying a not-so-attractive Bengali widower were raised. But as is often the case with family scandals, before long there are buried, hidden and forgotten.

I was born on August 10, 1942. A day earlier, Gandhiji had made his famous 'Do or Die' speech in an open session of the All India Congress Committee at Gowalia Tank. The entire congress leadership was arrested and hundreds and thousands of people rushed to the streets to clash with the British authorities. The last big battle for India's freedom had begun.

The final instalment of this story will soon be posted...in a day or two.

The unfolding of our lives...(2)

2005-04-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

All we need to do is participate in the unfolding of our lives...because we can never completely prepare oursleves for what happens

Perhaps it was youth - a time when we are still untouched by the jagged edge of reality, a time when we can believe without a shadow of a doubt. Perhaps it was Asad who had all the makings of a teenage heartthrob with his knight in shining armor looks and his revolutionary like intensity. Perhaps it was the fact that in all of her eighteen years, he was the first man who had spoken to her like an equal. Or perhaps it was just hormones. But through those humid summer nights and cool grey days preceding the monsoon, Kaveeri fell in love.

Asad was Akhtarabai's distant nephew. All the girls who practiced at Akhtarabais house would giggle nervously every time he passed by. And for Kaverri, Asad opened up a world that she never knew existed. The world outside the "lal phatak wali haveli". A world where farmers were dying, wars were being waged, and where dinner table conversations revolved not around Shakuntala mausi's woes, but around freedom , self-rule and the quest for justice. Asad's father, a member of the Shaukat family, had been a prominent member of the Khilafat movement, and so he had grown up in a house which resonated with voices of dissent. But unlike his father who had been drawn to the Khilafat movement by his desire as a Muslim to protect the Turkish Caliphate, Asad was driven by a deep sense of anger against the British. For Asad, aligning with Gandhi's non-violent struggle was also not an option. He was a rationalist and a marxist who had little regard for tradition or for Gandhi's spiritual notions of ahimsa. So when Subhash Chandra Bose left the Congress to create the Forward Block - a leftist party that would rally all radical and anti-imperialist progressive elements in the country, Asad was quick to sign up. And while technically he was supposed to be studying law in Lucknow, he spent most of his time going to meetings and discussing strategies for reversing India's exploitation by the British.

Asad and Kaveeri would spend hours talking about what was happening in the rest of India, and even about the trouble that was brewing in Europe. And in the evenings, when Kavveri sang, Asad would sit in the corner of the room and listen intently. For all his aggressiveness as a political firebrand, Asad was also deeply romantic. He would surprise her with inconsequential gifts and sometimes with Pasanda kabab from her favorite shop in Aminabad. And it never bothered him that they were of two different religions. They never talked about what they would do in the future, but somehow Asad's invincible confidence and calm was reassuring. So despite occasional misgivings, deep down Kavveri felt that everything would be ok. Besides, she was completely entranced in the moment and had little inclination to think of the future. She would bury her face in Asad's chest, and would listen intently to his heartbeat. She loved the freshly laundered smell of the Kurta and the rhythmic sound of his heart. She could lie like that for hours, in the middle of the cemetery, and it was only after Asad nudged her repeatedly and reminded her that it was getting dark, that she would reluctantly part.

She waited under the shadows of the falling sun. A second, a day, and two months had passed since she has last seen him. An urgent missive had taken him to Calcutta. There had been no time for prolonged goodbyes or melancholic conversations. There had been no time to say, "I'll write to you" ",I'll think of you.", "When will you be back.?"

Through friend's of friend's she had managed to send a letter to Asad with the desperate plea, "Come back soon." There had been rumors that he had died in Burma, but she hoped fiercely that he hadnt. She sat on a tombstone, exhausted by her own fear. She looked at her stomach, and wondered if his child was really in there.

The unfolding of our lives...

2005-03-14T13:29:00.000-08:00

Of all our fears, it is the fear of the future - the unknown, that terrifies us the most.

The feeling in the bottom of her stomach wouldn’t go away. She closed her eyes willing the sensations to stop. For if the trembling stopped, so might the foreboding. Yet they kept washing over her in waves. All was not well. She knew it, and yet she didn’t. So she hung precariously between hoping against hope, and the desperate fear that he would never come.

It was here, in the exact same place, eight months ago, that Kaaveri had found herself uncharacteristically in love. Perhaps it was the time of the day. Dusk. When the heat and dust of the gangetic plains mellow down, and the trees, houses, and unpaved roads all soften in this golden afterglow. A monetary hush settles on the city, as the rickshaws, the vendors, and even the street dogs all grow silent and somnolent under the warm haze of the late afternoon sun. It was Kaaveri’s favorite time of the day, her secret escape from the world. She would wait in the cemetery behind her school for him, while, Ghanshyam, her driver waited for her in front of the school. She would tell him that she had to stay back for an extra class after school, and he would never bother to question her since he was quite happy to smoke his bidi and listen to the radio in the car. While she waited, Kaaveri wandered around, reading the headstones. Some were sweet, some matter of fact. “Hellen Jane , 11 Apr 1851 to 06 Jun 1872, Beloved Mother and Wife” “Capt. William Ford Blair “ 02 Nov 18 32 - 29 Apr 1866. Died of Septicemia” Kaaveri liked rummaging through the lives of those who were, it was only when she came across the headstone of someone she knew , that it unnerved her. “Sister Margaret Barnard, 08 Sept 1878 – 15 May 1936. A true servant of Jesus.” Sister Margaret had come from Ireland to join the Loretto order in India, but the searing summers of Lucknow didn’t agree with her. Kaaveri remembered her as the sickly geography teacher who could never get the pronunciation of her name right.

Kaaveri’s family was originally from Benares, but her father had moved to Lucknow along with a retinue of relatives nearly two decades ago. They lived in a sprawling mansion on Havelock road…everyone knew it as the “lal phatak wali haveli” because it had enormous red gates. Her father was a physician to all sorts of important people, including the nuns at her school, who had persuaded her father to send her to Loretto. Her mother had initially resisted the idea of sending her daughter to a Christian school, but when her father explained that it would increase the marriage market value of their daughter, she reluctantly agreed. Since then Kaaveri had discovered that playing the marriage card was often a good way to get her parents to agree to her wishes.

A few houses down, on the same lane, lived the legendary singer Begum Akhtar, known as Akhtaribai at that time. Often in the evenings, she would sing as people gathered in her house. She had a voice that seeped through the pores of the skin, and filled you up. She had recently acted in a few movies, and Kaaveri had secretly snuck out with her friends to watch Naseeb Ka Chakkar. She was completely entranced by the strength and passion of her voice. She begged her parents to let her go to Ahktarabai’s house.
“ Baba, please. I am only going to listen, “she pleaded
“All this is not for respectable people like us,” her father replied sternly.
“But Baba, you know she comes from a really high class family. “
“Kaaveri. Enough.”
“Baba, you know Rukmini’s parents are sending her to Ahktarabi to learn from her. Her mother says it’s good for a girl to know how to sing, have an interest in the arts. It makes her a lady”
Over the course of a few weeks, Kaveeri slowly and steadily worked on her father, who had always been very indulgent towards his only daughter. By the fourth week, her parents had agreed to let Kaaveri train under Akhtarabai, with the caveat that she would never perform in public. So at the age of twelve, Kaveeri started training under Begum Akhtar. Her peers and her mentor soon realized that this was no ordinary voice. It could scale the high notes with ease and explore the low notes with grace. “Your voice is like a stream. Clear and sparkling,” remarked Ahktarabai after one exalting session. She insisted that her young pupil join the Bhatkande University and earn a degree in Hindustani classical music. Another difficult battle with the parents ensued, but in the end even they had to admit to the beauty and wonder of their daughter’s voice. Kaaveri continued to sit in on Begum Akhtar’s evening gatherings, while she mastered the technique of Hindustani music at Bhatkende. Much to her own surprise, she had even been allowed to perform by her parents on a few occasions.

It was her last year in Loretto, her last year in Bhatkende. Perhaps even her last year in Lucknow if she were to get married to that barrister in Calcutta. Kaveeri was unsure what the future had in store. Music became her past, her present, and her future. It was the thread that held everything together. It was the only thing that made sense in a world that was changing, in a country that was churning. There were whispers of discontent, hints of intrigue and rebellion, and the quiet yet unmistakable rise of a brave new world. Kaaveri spent most of her spare time in Ahktabai’s house. She enjoyed not just the music, but the heady mix of art and politics. One such evening, while she listened to Ahktarabai experiment with the verses of a Ghazal, she saw him. Standing in the corner of the room, with his arms crossed, listening intently to the beat of the ghazal. She had felt a similar sensation in her stomach then. It was uncontrollable. A warning of what was to come.

Growing up...

2005-02-11T22:15:00.000-08:00

Perhaps it was a saturday
Ma stood in an orange sari
younger than even what I am today
radiant and beautiful
in the hazy afternoon sun
of a Delhi december.
I leaped from a tree
unafraid, in the pursuit of fun.
but I have learnt to be cautious
I could break a bone or a heart.
And now on a friday night
I look at the flickering lights of the skyline
and wonder,
when did we veer off course
why did we make those mistakes
how did we crash and burn
but the funny thing is
we've come a long way with all
our foolishness and follies
for without them what would shape our lives?
I pick up the phone and dial long distance
I can no longer take that smile for granted
I have learnt to believe, and yet to be
I have learnt to be brave, learnt to be strong , learnt to be wise
Yes, ma , I am a big girl now
I can fall, pick myself up and walk on.

So I choose to believe

2005-02-09T21:18:00.000-08:00

The road stretched out endlessly into the night, but all I could see was the path illuminated by my car’s headlights. I drove past a rest and refueling stop. “Its only 45 minutes from here. Maybe I can make it,” I thought. A few miles further down, I wasn’t sure I had made the right decision. And that was the story of my life. I never seem to have faith in myself or in the road ahead.

I am on my way to Shruti’s place. I have known her for more than five years, and seven months ago she moved to the suburbs with her husband and her one year old baby. It’s a “starter home” - a four bed-roomed row house in an upper middle class suburb with a good school district. As I sit on her sofa upholstered in chintz, I am gripped by a feeling of both relief and inadequacy. Shruti busies herself in her lime green kitchen and cuts the perfect picture of a housewife in American suburbia – seemingly safe and stable, and yet very sterile and stifling. Still, I can’t help envying her. Every night I return to my cluttered and chic one bed roomed apartment in the hippest part of Boston, and I find myself turning into the quintessential yuppie – successful yet cynical.

I know that Shruti’s invited me over for dinner to introduce me to some of her husband’s single friends. She is well-meaning, but I do feel like taking a bit of a break from the whole man and marriage saga. I am at a stage in life where most of my friends have recently got married/engaged or are trying to get married/engaged, and the rest are trying desperately to find me a guy. So much as I try, I can’t seem to escape conversations about love and marriage. Then of course there are magazines articles with helpful tips for single women on how to land a man, and there is my mother who insists that I am too picky and according to her someone who says “I Luvs to do meditation n go deep in to my self” has some minor grammatical issues that I should be able to overlook. Truth be told, all this talk about marriage and love scares me. Maybe I will not find the one. I had my chances, and perhaps I will not be given anymore. I want to believe, I want to have faith....but there are times when I can’t seem to find it.

-----------------------

I heap Biryani on my plate and move towards the edge of the kitchen. I am a little wary of going into the living room because for the past one hour we have all been oohing and aahing over Shrutis daughter. Now – don't get me wrong - I am all for cute babies, but honestly, twirling around like a headless chicken and saying 'pepki' is not a talent that needs encouragement - give me a buzz when she learns to do a headstand or play the cello. I was also sitting next to an extremely earnest Bengali guy who was single and clearly ready to take the next available Bengali girl home to his mother in Boubazar.

As I put my wine glass down on the kitchen table, I notice this guy walk towards me – he has a tired face but a nice boyish charm. We smile at each other – a
smile that straddles cultures, countries and cities; straddles youth
and adulthood – a smile that resides in this strange space called
in-between.

“Nilanjana, hurry up – we’ll be late for the play.”
“ Give me a minute .”
“Your minute will turn into an hour.”
“Sameer – if you’d stop rushing me like this , I could actually get stuff done faster.”
They had settled into the banter of a comfortable couple.
Both were too cynical to be in love.
Yet, despite their worst intentions, they were happy.
Whether, they will be so in the ever after
is another story...

though I choose to believe that they will
look at the stars , see how they shine for you.

Beyond the pale

2005-01-24T11:25:00.000-08:00

Clammy hands, breath jumping out
Of its own body
Be still now, be still
Woman with purple wool scarf
Overpowering with the sweetness of her perfume
Be still now, be still
Muscles of the jaw are taut
Thin and fragile at tipping point
Be still now, be still
The number 42 trundles along, choked with fear and neuroses
Say thank you, remind the feet to walk
Be still now, be still

A City Lost

2005-01-19T22:42:00.000-08:00

Sameer jumped over a puddle of brown slush on the side walk, and wondered why people made such a song and dance about New York. After several winters, his enthusiasm for both snowfall and the city were waning, though he still thought that it made a pretty sight from his eleventh floor office window – the whispery whiteness somehow seemed to soften the city’s hard edge. He entered the coffee shop, a place he had frequented for a long time now and realized that he had become the quintessential Manhattan yuppie – a latte drinking liberal who had just earned an obscene amount as bonus and yet was unhappy with both the state of the universe and the state of his life. He had worked on Wall Street for more than ten years now, and while he was competent and diligent at what he did, it was never something that he had thought he’d be doing as a seventeen year old when everything still seemed possible, seemed so exhilaratingly within reach. Of late, he’d been thinking a lot about his life and his work – which had become his life – and was a little unnerved by the discovery that he wasn’t really passionate about what he did, what was worse was that he didn’t quite know what he was passionate about. He felt trapped by his own apathy. As he sipped his coffee, he could see his hand holding the Styrofoam cup move towards his lips in staccato slow motion, drugged by the ennui.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The tiny dimly lit bookstore and café bustled with the chattering voices of strangers, the conversations of intimates, and clinking of silverware.
Sameer had decided to spend his Thursday evening here in the company of a book. Though he had been an active member of a literary club in college in India, he hadn’t read anything significant in ages. He had resolved to make his eleventh year in New York at least a little different from his last ten years.

Towards the back of the room, he heard a woman ask the sales person, “Do you have this book called A continent for the taking?” “It’s a book on Africa.” Sameer stiffened. It was a voice that he had known, a voice that he had fled – a voice that he still remembered in the occasional early morning absent-mindedness as he rolled out of bed groggy and sleepless. It was Abby.

“So, how’ve you been?”
“Good, how about you?”
They exchange pleasantries, like acquaintances.
The American way, asking, but not really expecting to be answered.
Sameer feels suddenly bereft.
He knows how the scar on the back of her knee feels like - every groove, and every ridge, knows the smell of her skin on sultry summer days.
Yet now he is neither stranger, nor friend.
Abby smiles, shuffles. She is visibly pregnant, and almost shy.
A trait that Sameer would never have associated with her.
“It was nice seeing you, and congratulations! Unfortunately, I’ve got to run.”
“Thanks. It was great seeing you too. We should catch up sometime.”
“Absolutely,” he says and places a sliver of kiss on her cheek, knowing that they never will.

New Year resolutions

2005-01-05T14:48:00.000-08:00

Do not fret. It will pass.
Drink more water.
Breathe.
Wake up early. At least try.
Eat breakfast. At least try.
Read.
Be less judgmental. It will make life easier.
Have fewer expectations. But be open to possibilities.
Travel.
Make an effort with your appearance but do not preen.
Seek love, but do not hunt.
Write.
Drink less coffee. Your skin will thank you.
Spend time with good friends.
Learn to be alone yet not lonely.
Pray.
Be less self–involved. Give a damn about the world around you.
Call/Email ma baba more often. They are the only parents you have.
Eliminate debt. Save, if you can do that.
Exercise.
Be more assertive at work. Make the job what you want it to be.
Think less of what others think.
Don’t over analyze.
Learn a new skill. Do two things you have never done before.
Spend wisely. Be more organized.
Give yourself a break. You deserve it.
(You are not half as bad as you think you are.)
Wash your face before you go to bed.
Brush your teeth thrice a day.
And always, always keep the faith.

An Angel in America

2005-01-01T11:55:00.000-08:00

My earliest memories involve a swing and a sky. I rise higher and higher until I am engulfed in a gossamer swirl. I feel my chest rise and fall, and the pale blue air fills my lungs, flows through my veins into my fingers, my toes , my knees , my neck, my stomach. I am like an angel floating above watching the little people in the playground. The swing descends downwards pulled by the brutal force of gravity, and I hear my brother’s voice pleading, “Buli, Buli come down. I want to use the swing. It’s my turn.” I disregard him and rise up once again into my angel’s abode.

That was one of my earliest memories, and also one that I cling to whenever I feel less than perfect. Like today. I woke up with a little bit of a headache. I had been to a party yesterday and drunk a little, but it wasn’t a hangover. In fact, it wasn’t even a headache, it was a feeling that had crept up on me slowly , insidiously without me really realizing it. There were no warning signs, no epiphany , and no unseemly outbreak of acne in which case I could have just chalked it up to PMS. Much as I hate to admit it, it was me.

It’s been almost six years since I came here. I remember the day I left India. My parents and my younger brother had come to see me off at the airport. My mother was fussing over me, and had asked me nearly twenty times if I had my passport and travelers checks with me. I was twenty-two and it was the first time, I was leaving home. I had received a scholarship to do graduate studies in Mathematics at a university in Boston. My parents had greeted the news with a mixture of pride and apprehension. Pride, because like most Bengali parents, they valued academic achievement. Apprehension, because like most Bengali parents, they were overprotective and reluctant to see me go to such a distant land. But I was unashamedly thrilled at the prospect of going to the United States. I had lived in Calcutta for the better part of my twenty-two years. I had grown up in house in Jodhpur Park covered with bougainvillea. All the women in my neighborhood were distant aunts, the men distant uncles and the older folks my grandparents. In those days, when Calcutta was plagued by load-shedding, we would spend the dark electricity less nights by playing badminton on the streets, while the older boys and girls would sit on the sidewalks in groups , giggle and make comments about each other. It was a city that I loved – the people, the food, and the damp houses with paint peeling off the walls. But as I went to college, the city felt too small, too provincial. I desperately wanted to venture out, and the scholarship was my magic ticket.

“Bulbuli, don’t forget to call as soon as you get there,” my mother reminded as I pushed my cart into the check-in counter. My father, who is usually not very demonstrative with physical affection, pulled me towards him and hugged me. He gently patted my head and said, “Nilu – Bhalo theko,” which roughly translates as ‘be happy’. My father was the only who called me Nilu – the shortened version of my real name Nilanjana. Others in my family knew me by my pet name Bulbuli . For a brief moment there, as I hugged my father, I felt a fleeting pang at the thought of leaving home. In those initial days , I was consumed by the energy of this country – it felt like such a refreshing change from the lethargy of Calcutta. It was all exhilarating – partying late into the night with friends, being graded on a curve, watching the trees change color in the fall, and even those sad , misguided attempts to cook. I was pleased at how well I had adapted to my new life. I felt young and ready to take on the world. I didn’t understand what the big deal about immigrant angst was. I had none. And then it happened. Not with any kind of fanfare or fury, but it was there.

This Christmas season, as I walked on the streets of Boston and saw the snowflakes crumble on my winter jacket, I suddenly felt not so young and not so ready to take on the world. Perhaps it has nothing to do with immigrant angst but more to do with the fact that I am on the wrong side of my twenties and single. Most of my friends who were with me when I first came here have moved out, moved on. I am still partying but now when I get back home, I am left with this feeling. Last night, I went to this party- with mostly Indian people, mostly Indian music and mostly Indian conversation – and this large country suddenly felt a lot smaller, a lot more provincial than my home town Calcutta where I grew up in a family that celebrated Bastille day and unsuspecting babies were often nick-named Pushkin (which turned into Pushku or Pushki). I met this guy – who conforms to the stereotype of the Indian techie in the US to a T. It was depressing. The week before that I was set up by a friends’s friend with an investment banker. A Patel. I am not parochial, but I could just imagine my father’s face at the thought that his daughter was trading in the grandiose surname of Roychowdhury – a name bestowed by the British Sahibs on a select few in lieu of some shameless ass-kissing - for the measly Patel. For Bengali Bhadralok’s, Gujaratis are way down on the totem pole , even below Punjabis and just marginally above Marwaris. The guy had a receding hairline which was forgivable, after all that is something one has little control over, he was vegetarian which is understandable, after all different people have different tastes, he wanted his spouse to be vegetarian – and that was both unforgivable and understandable. It was depressing.

So the last few weeks, I have been wandering around feeling sorry for myself. I was led here by the lure of opportunity, and now, like a child of Hamelin, I have no way out. At times I call up my mother and whine. “This is the life you have chosen,” she says. I know she is right, but her answer denies me the comfort of blaming someone or something. I know that this feeling will not last, like most things in my life – it’s a passing fad, but on days like these when I am feeling a little less than perfect, I take comfort in my memory. A swing and a sky, and my angel’s abode.

Tsunamis and stingy Americans...

2004-12-29T08:51:00.000-08:00

The horror of the Tsunamis seems almost biblical in its fury -- the sea rising and swallowing all. It makes ones realize how ephemeral life is , and how we are really wasting our lives sweating the small stuff.

On another note, I have been watching the coverage of the Tsunamis on the mainstream Television here , and it makes me cringe. I have always known that the US is a very self-involved society, but watching Tucker Carslon (yes, Jon Stewart was right - he is a dick) say "I hope you enjoyed the show" after having just seen ghastly images of lives, homes being ravaged was a bit much. Carlson was flippant through out the show, as if it were his usual crossfire type debate. NBC nightly news devoted all of 3 minutes to this "story" and CNBC had a 1 minute coverage of the story followed by a 3 minute debate on the UN spokesperson's comments about the rich countries being stingy with aid. All the 3 pundits who were on that program agreed that the remarks were outrageous, and that the US is very generous. Are you kidding me? Initially, the US had announced 15 million dollars in aid -- one town house in the neighborhood that I live in costs on average several million dollars. Other countries, like Germany and Japan have been even more stingy , and in comparison that makes the US look good - but 15 - now 30 million dollars is really pocket change for a disaster of this magnitude!

"Well, I felt like the person who made that statement was very misguided and ill-informed," Bush said from his Texas ranch. "We're a very generous, kindhearted nation, and, you know, what you're beginning to see is a typical response from America."
Asia tsunami relife - world vision
Sri lanka disaster relief fund
And there is Red Cross....

Crossings

2004-12-23T08:42:00.000-08:00

The state of flux , in between is a constant state, once you are out of your comfort zone, you have two choices -- to return or stay out and decide where one will go in the new state. The new state provides its share of ups & down -- but it is a path chosen, not a path dictated.

She looks up at the shimmering Chicago skyline
The freezing wind rushes past her face
a girl in the city, a city in the girl
she pulls down her cap, and quickens her pace

It is early evening, and already in the dark
She surveys her kingdom, ancient and new
It is the path that I have chosen, she says
but those thoughts are fleeting and few

Ten o’ clock meetings, nine’o clock parties
She rarely misses the intolerable heaviness of the monsoon heat
Then there is Shakrukh, Rani and the Messrs Karan and Yash
Immigrant angst – ha - nothing that some song and dance couldn’t beat

Between here and now, then and there
Traversing brave new worlds and imaginary homelands
Continents, oceans, and the taste of the tongue
Seamlessly, yet in flux, she knows where she stands

The air is thick with the spirit and the spoils of Christmas
People talk, their breath spiralling into the wintry night
She waves, smiles at her friend across the street
and as she walks, she catches the debris of falling light.

In hiatus

2004-12-21T21:38:00.000-08:00

So I guess, I am taking little bit of break from this. When I started blogging, I created fictional lives as a way to escape the reality of my own life. And now, as I begun to confront my own story, I feel a little confused, a little bewildered. But there is one thing that my life has in common with lives of my fictional characters - we all have no clue where we are headed, we are all inhabitants of the in-between.

For what its worth, all our stories are also inherently hopeful, which is why I call this blog rising to grace . Through all the highs and lows, confusions and conundrums, we will find grace ( which according to the dictionary is the state of being protected or sanctified by the favor of God, of being bestowed with divine love) So yes, I am a little confused but it's all good.

The terminal

2004-11-29T19:48:00.000-08:00

“Passengers travelling to Cairo by LH 782 are requested to come to the boarding gate. “
Names of cities, some distant some close, floated over the terminal through an echoing, disembodied voice coming from the PA system. Hundred of people were standing, waiting, reading books, fussing over their kids, counting their bags as they waited to catch their flight. In this place that lay in between cities, in between countries, where no visas were required – a transient space between destinations – Sameer felt a strange sense of comfort. He could identify with this feeling of in-betweenness.

He was on his way back from a 20 day trip to India. He could still remember the flight eleven years ago - it had been the exact same route - New Delhi to New York via Amsterdam. He had been excited and nervous – fascinated by the watches in the duty free shop. The flight had been half-empty, and this time there wasn’t even standing room in the flight, and the entire trip seemed very predictable.

It had been more than two years since he had last visited India and now he wasn’t quite sure what was home. On earlier trips, when fellow passengers asked him where and why he was going, he would reply, “I am going home to India – Delhi.”, but this time he found himself saying, “I am going to India for a vacation.” It hadn’t been a conscious change – the word ‘home’ had slipped from his replies silently and surreptitiously. T

Though Sameer had never intended to stay on America, one thing led to another and now 11 years later , he had bought a house and acquired the little green card. At 36, single and successful in New York, he suddenly was not as sure of himself as he had been as gawky twenty something fresh off the boat in America. Sameer had come to the US not as a potential immigrant wanting to settle down in a more prosperous land, he had come as someone who just wanted to explore another world. He often looked condescendingly on those Indians who clung on desperately to all things Indian – constantly went to Indian restaurants and had only Indian friends. He was also mildly amused by ABCDs – the American born Indians who went out of their way to prove their americanness. Though, in those initial days as a graduate student, Sameer had been struck by the alienness of this new land, he had never felt uncomfortable about himself or his identity -in fact, he had never really bothered to question it. Perhaps it was the transition from the cocky exuberance of youth to the mellow wariness of adulthood, but in the last few years Sameer had suddenly starting thinking about it.

Every time he went to India, he was amazed by how much it had changed and yet how similar it was to the country he grew up in. Most of his friends in India were now married, many had children and their lives were effortlessly mimicking the lives of his parents - though a little more decadent and irreverent. Servants milling around the house, expensive cars and wives laughing freely with their husbands – calling them by their first names – something he had never seen his mother do. He felt a little envious of their lives, of their certainty. His parents were also gently urging him to come back to India. “I see so many young people returning to India these days – with your qualifications, you could do anything you wanted, “ his father would remark while reading a newspaper without actually looking up. He wanted it to sound casual, and not as if he was deliberately trying to influence Sameer in any way. His mother and grandmother were also getting increasingly worried about the fact that he was still single. His mother desperately wanted to organize a grand ostentatious wedding, and be part of the conversations in her Bridge club where her friends criticized their daughter-in-laws.

Manisha’s proposal had fallen through. Despite her best intentions to keep it secret, word of her conversion spread. From a friend visiting to Boston to a distant aunt in Mumbai to a friend of a friend in Pune.- there was a brief detour in Indore by way of an errant uncle, and then it finally landed on the doorsteps of Sameer’s parents in Delhi. His mother was mortified and felt a little guilty for initiating the proposal but Sameer didn’t care since he had had only one desultory phone conversation with Manisha and was almost glad that he didn’t have to go through with it. But secretly, without Sameer’s knowledge, his mother had once again resumed her efforts to find a suitable girl for him. And Sameer, though he wouldn’t admit it to his parents, was also secretly yearning to find a suitable girl. In his middle years, straddling between two continents – he felt desperately in need of a destination. He was beginning to realize that being a citizen of a global village wasn’t entirely what it was cracked up to be.

As Sameer sat in the airport terminal waiting to catch his connecting flight - he watched the faces of people and listened to the sounds around him. Now more than ever, he was acutely aware of this feeling of in-betweenness.

Arranged destiny (part 2)

2004-11-18T13:19:00.000-08:00

Toledo, Ohio --- this was middle America, and this was not the country that wannabe immigrants thought of when they thought of the land of plenty and the land of opportunity. This was the country of strip malls, chucky cheese and god fearing Christians. This was not the country of the melting pot, but a country where all shades of black, white, and grey were clearly spelt out, and Manisha was always conscious of the fact that she was brown.

It was hard for Manisha to get used to the town and to her new life in the US. In Bangalore, she had always been surrounded by people, and she would go to book stores and restaurants and plays without thinking twice. In Toledo, she found herself holed up in a two bed-roomed apartment. Vivek would go the hospital at around 6 in the morning and not return till about 8 in the evenings, and on the days he had a night shift , he would spend the day sleeping. She tried to keep herself busy by experimenting with new recipes . She flipped through the channels on TV and watched the Days of Our Lives. She read, and on occasion re-read some of her favorite books. And yet, she couldn’t fill the hours. Since she didn’t know how to drive, she couldn’t venture out of the house. She had tried walking to the grocery store once, but the fierce wind had numbed her hands and feet. And after five months of marriage, Vivek still seemed like a stranger to her . Manisha desperately wanted to be a good wife – she had always excelled in everything in her life, and she was determined to make her life as a wife successful as well. She would often reads Cosmo articles on top ten ways to seduce your man to compensate for her sexual inexperience. She would try and make witty conversation. She would redecorate the house. She would cook butter chicken. Yet nothing seemed to break the ice.

One day Vivek walked in to the house late at night, and Manisha had been waiting up for him for dinner. She smelled alcohol on his breath, and asked him as demurely as she could, “Did you go out drinking tonight?”
“It’s none of your business,” he replied shoving her out of his way.
The next day at breakfast, neither Vivek or Manisha said anything about the incident. The frequency of such incidents gradually increased , and every time Vivek would become more taciturn and Manisha was pushed farther away. But Manisha didn’t or wouldn’t give up. In many of the Mills and Boons stories she had read, the man was often brusque, haughty and distant in the beginning, but would eventually succumb to woman’s love. Manisha was hoping that her story would also end that way. She kept her pain hidden from her parents, her friends and even from herself. There were days when she would look at herself in the mirror, and not see the bruise under her chin.

Of all the things that travel fast, secrets travel the fastest. Manisha’s parents had always suspected that things were not going well with their daughter, but a visit from a family friend who had just come back from the States confirmed their worst fears. Manisha’s father was livid – he insisted that Manisha leave Vivek. But Manisha’s mother was hesitant about the repercussions of divorce. But her husband who had once said, “I want everyone to talk about my daughter’s wedding” was now saying, “I don’t care what people will say – she is my daughter.”
Manisha, however, was reluctant to let go - parts of her still thought she could make it work. Her father gently but firmly pulled her away.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania --- Manisha walked out onto Spruce Street. The gothic structure of the Upenn’s school of medicine loomed behind her. She could feel the air getting cooler, and she pulled her lab coat more closely around her body. As a second year resident, she couldn’t quite tell when her nights began and her days ended. She would walk from work to home, and from home to work. Down Pine, and a left on 43rd. She had walked those six blocks for more than a year now, and yet today she was acutely aware of it. She saw the tram lines zig zagginng through the street, she saw the frat boys drinking beer on the porches, and she noticed the flamboyant flourishes of the Queen Anne row houses that lined the streets, with their columned porches and decorative spindle-work.

As she approached Pine street, she saw a middle aged man motioning to her with a flyer in his hand. “Sister, can I talk to you, “ he beckoned. “I have some good news to share.” Manisha assumed that he was from one of those evangelical groups trying to find prospects. She humored him and took the flyer, without slowing down her pace of walking. “Sister, wait, “ he said in a voice that was so gentle that she felt drawn towards it. “Praise be to Allah”, he replied as she turned around and faced the man. The man was an Imam at a local Masjid. He was originally from North Africa, and had lived in the US for more than 30 years. He was helping many new African immigrants cope with life in America , and in the process helping them to find their path to God. Manisha was never very religious, but she had always thought of herself as a good believing Hindu with secular ideals. But here she was listening to the man tell her about how she could find truth, strength and peace through Allah. He encouraged her to attend a weekend long course on Islam, and though she rarely had time to do things outside of work, she found herself saying “yes.”

For all her life, Manisha had struggled to grasp something real. Growing up as privileged child in Bangalore, she struggled to feel connected with life and she had thought that marriage would let her do that. In Toledo, she struggled to solidify her marriage and possibly latch on to this thing that was called love. Yet it always eluded her. But through the Koran , and through the Sunnah which laid out the rules and regulations of life, she finally found something, someone she could hold on to. There was no relativity here. It was absolute. It was unmoving. It was unchanging. It was infallible. And a week later, at Shahadah (conversion ceremony), Manisha embraced this absoluteness with the words, “La illaha il Allah, wa Muhammad arasool Allah. - there is no God worthy of worship except Allah, and only Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”

Arranged destiny (Part 1)

2004-11-08T19:24:00.000-08:00

"She was fair and slim. She was homely and convent educated. Good family background. Beautiful with traditional Indian values." Manisha was the culmination of the brides wanted matrimonial ads that appeared in Times of India. Not only was Manisha charming and well heeled, she was also a doctor, and for those who wanted beauty with brains, MBBS was the perfect suffix in a daughter-in-law. Even in the 60s, when feminism was still a nascent movement, it was acceptable for women to be doctors and by the 80s it was the desired qualification - being a doctor signaled that the girl was studious and industrious, and it fit in with the role of a woman as a nurturer and caregiver. Excited phone calls were made from Bangalore to Bombay, and from Bombay to Delhi, and the matriarchs of Punjabi Khatri elitedom were vying with each other to find a suitable boy for this golden girl of their clan.

Manisha had been born into a world of privilege. Her life was everything that Savita's wasn't. Manisha had breezed through life with her sweetness and charm. She was the only daughter, and Suresh Khanna , her father doted on her. She was dropped off to college in a chauffeur driven car, and her every whim was indulged. She knew that there was pain and suffering in the world, but she found it hard to imagine what that would be like. She often asked 15 year old Meena who worked in their house about her life. Meena was originally from Jharkhand in Bihar but her family had sent her to Bangalore several years ago. She lived in their house, and helped with small chores like making tea and ironing clothes.

Proposals had started pouring in for Manisha since the day she turned twenty. Her parents waited until she had graduated from medical school, and though her father was reluctant to part with his beloved daughter, eventually he was forced to give in to the onslaught of the Khatri matriarchs. "Suresh , at least meet the boy parents. They have a big shipping business you know. Manisha will live like a princess." "Suresh , you can't keep Manisha for ever. You have to let her go at some point. She is a daughter after all."

Manisha was quite excited at the prospect of meeting boys and getting married. Her parents had been very protective of her, and she hadn't really been with any men. Often, during exam week, she would read Mills and Boons and fantasize about falling in love passionately with someone tall, dark and handsome in the middle of a stormy night. Instead Manisha met her husband to be on a balmy summer evening at a restaurant in the Windsor Sheraton hotel in Bangalore. She was chaperoned by her parents, her elder brother and her aunt who had set up the match. The boy was accompanied by his parents and his grandmother. Vivek was a doctor as well. He was completing his residency in internal medicine in the United States. Vivek was good looking in the way many Punjabi men are. Manisha and Vivek spoke briefly about their work , talked about their hobbies and the kind of music they listened to. Around them their parents chattered about politics, common acquaintances, and the difficulty in getting reliable servants. The fact that they were consciously changing the lives of their children for ever was not mentioned once - as is often the case in upper middle class genteel environs in India, the most important things are left unsaid.

A week and two days later, Manisha was engaged to Vivek. Her parents seemed to approve of him, and she found no reason to dislike him either. Soon after their engagement, Vivek flew back to the US. He was only allowed three weeks of vacation in a year, so the wedding was set for early February after hectic consultations with the priest who decided upon an auspicious day. Manisha 's parents left no stone unturned in preparation for the wedding. Nearly a thousand people were invited, and rooms in two hotels were booked. Manisha's lehenga came from Bangalore's top designer Smita Prabhu - it was red silk encrusted with gold embroidery and sequins and weighed almost as much as Manisha. The food came from Bangalore's finest caterers , and though once or twice Manisha's mother had suggested prudence, her father had pooh poohed the idea. He wanted everyone to remember his daughter's wedding.

On the morning of her wedding, Manisha sat in her room trying out the different pieces of jewelry. She felt both excitement and nervousness. She had spoken to Vivek a few times on the phone, but still didn't know enough about him. The thought of the unknown scared her, but it also secretly thrilled her - all her life she had been protected and sheltered and she was itching to touch the world beyond. Outside she could here a gaggle of voices. Her father was shouting at the man who was hired to assemble the shamiana - the wedding tent. "Is this how you put a tent? Do you want kill all my guests," he said in a voice that was already hoarse with belting out orders. She would miss her father, whose eyes lit up everytime she walked into the room. She would miss this house, this room - where she had spent all her teenage years -the walls adorned with posters of Hollywood heroes, Vincent Van Gogh and the Beatles.
She would miss Banaglore.

Meena walked in to the room with a glass of juice, and watched Manisha as she fiddled with her bangles. Mansiha saw Meena's reflection in the mirror and smiled at her. "Didi, you look very beautiful," said Meena smiling back wistfully. Manisha gave Meena one of her necklaces. Meena hesitated and then very carefully she took into her hands and felt the radiance of the gold consume her. As Manisha saw Meena'a face shimmering , she hoped that marrying Vivek would give her that moment of shimmering happiness

Prelude (to Rockaby, Rockaby)

2004-11-05T20:10:00.000-08:00

There in the shadows of the afternoon sun I stood
Waiting to catch my breath, and a bus
And you smiled from across the street
Straight on, without prelude, protocol or fuss

Twenty minutes and a coffee later
As only the very young can , we fell
Head and heels, body and soul
lacing fingers together, we said hey- what the hell?

We heard the autumn leaves crumble as we walked
We let the last rays of warmth get into our skin
and languid nights strong and sweet
were spent in what some may call sin

And then without warning or word
The days got shorter, the nights cooled
And if I hadn't known you better *
You would have probably had me fooled

But seasons change, as they must
Who can you accuse, who can you blame
We loved, you did, I was , we were
Sometimes, losing is just as much a part of the game

But like all things that ebb and flow
What goes around comes around
This may well be my winter of discontent
But what once was lost will soon be found

Abby

*
Interpretation

Somewhere within your loving look I sense,
Without the least intention to deceive,
Without suspicion, without evidence,
Somewhere within your heart the heart to leave.

Vikram Seth

Rockaby, Rockaby...

2004-10-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

Here I am – all dressed up. The gown is almost white but decided to change its mind at the last minute and turn into this pale , old pink. I think its beautiful, and the cloyingly sweet and super irritating saleswoman was right – my shoulders do look divine in strapless. Its strange that I feel this way on my wedding day – I am not elated and ecstatic, (but then I wonder if anyone really is), but I am not nervous or scared either. I am at ease – its almost weird – it’s so not me.

For as long as I have known myself, I have always been the neurotic one, and no matter how much I mediated or however many books I read on Buddhism and Taoism, I could never quite get it – the art of letting it be. Three years ago, I succumbed to the ultimate Jewish indulgence – at 370 dollars an hour, I got to talk about my job, my love hate , mostly hate, relationship with my mother, my indecisive Indian boyfriend, my fetish with protesting, my inability to be on time. It was liberating – how often do you just get to sit in a chair and whine. It may not cleanse your soul, the way meditation is supposed to, but it’s a lot like a good pedicure – luxurious and self-indulgent. Did the shrink cure me of my neurotic behavior – probably not , but as I sat there looking at her plants, and telling her – this perfect stranger – the story of my life, the words gushed out - words which had once crouched in the hidden corners of my stomach – malevolent and dark – tumbled through my body and hurtled off my tongue , and once they were out , they were simply words which dissipated and crumbled into the air as soon as they had been spoken.

Until then I had not realized how much power words can wield – we say them , we hear them ,we think them and then we tuck them away inside ourselves. I say I like cappuccino, and those words linger with me , and nudge me ever so often as I pass by a coffee shop. I said I can’t imagine a life without Sameer – and those words reinforced themselves every time I thought them , and every time I cried for them, and soon they were like steel – words that I couldn’t break out of no matter how hard I tried.

And in a million years, I wouldn’t have imagined the words, “ Abigail Rosenberg and Joshua Steiner.” In a million years, I wouldn’t have imagined the words, “Abby – it won’t kill you to have dinner with him.” In a million years, I wouldn’t have thought of myself as living in Long Island and walking down the aisle with a nice Jewish chemical engineer, with a gently receding hairline and an earnest smile . But here I am. I don’t really have the words to describe the way that I feel, but I don’t think I need any. I will just walk along and allow myself to be surprised.

I am listening to the organ play here comes the bride, but in my head I can hear Shawn Mullin’s lullaby -
Everything's gonna be alright,
Rockaby, Rockaby.

In a New York minute ...(part 3)

2004-10-20T16:55:00.000-07:00

A few months after he graduated from Princeton, Sameer met Abigail – she was handing out flyers on the corner of Lexington and 3rd, and he was on his way to an interview. Abby was a flower child with flowing peasant skirts and red hair. She walked into a room like a hurricane, leaving a wreck behind her. She was anti- war, anti-meat, anti-pesticides and chemicals, anti-anti abortionists. Abby was a professional protester – she painted placards, sat in on candlelight vigils; duck taped herself to fellow protestors.

Sameer was not quite sure when he started going out with Abby, but a year and a half later, they were living together in an apartment in New York. Sameer was working in an investment bank on Wall Street, and Abby had taken up a job in a publishing house. Sameer enjoyed Abby’s company and was comforted by her presence. Abby mothered him, and took care of him. When he got the flu, Abby would diligently make him dhal. Although she was a dismal cook, she would painstakingly follow instructions from the recipe book that she had bought from an Indian store in Queens. Abby was the one who introduced Sameer to the bohemian life in New York – hanging out in smoke filled cafes, browsing through small, non-descript art galleries and record stores, and listening to underground grunge bands.

Over the years, Sameer had become very fond of Abby and almost dependent on her. She refilled his acid reflux medicines, she reminded him to call his parents, and she made sure she bought Honey Bunches of Oats – the only kind of cereal Sameer ate. His parents knew of Abby, and though they had tried to express their unhappiness, since they weren’t married, they didn’t really have anything concrete to disapprove. Sameer had also often accompanied Abby to her parents for Passover and Hanukkah. And though Abby’s parents weren’t pleased either, they had grudgingly come to accept Sameer. In fact, Abby’s parents had given up on trying to say anything to her. They had seen her date a tattoo covered biker, they had seen her go bald, and they had stood by , when at the age of eight, she had loudly proclaimed in the middle of the synagogue that she had seen the Rabbi kiss another man.

Sameer loved Abby, but it never occurred to him to ask her to marry him. He was so used to the notion of Abby as his girlfriend, he couldn’t really see her as his wife. Sameer was also busy climbing the corporate ladder - working 15 hour days – and it never crossed his mind that Abby might want to marry him – he didn’t think she was the marrying kind. But the thought of marriage had occurred to Abby. Sameer hadn’t noticed that Abby, the 80’s flower child was now the 90’s Cosmo girl. He didn’t notice that her long floral skirts had given way to designer fitted skirts, he didn’t notice that the red head had become a bottle brunette (he did notice, however, when Abby started waxing her legs instead of shaving). Abby was now a senior editor in the publishing house, and on her train-rides back from work she would often read articles on summer’s hottest fashion trends, and 10 ways to get a man to say I do.

One Sunday morning, while they were eating breakfast, Abby casually remarked, “I think we should get married.” Sameer was perplexed. It was not a question but a statement, and since it wasn’t a question – was he even expected to answer? But Abby often spoke that way – “Let’s eat Thai.” “We should get a new couch.” There was never a question mark. Sameer usually ended up saying OK – it was the path of least resistance. Though extremely aggressive and decisive at work, Sameer had never really confronted anyone or anything in his personal life, he had never needed to – he had happily walked down the path that was laid out for him.

Thus far, Sameer’s ambivalence had worked for him – but this time it didn’t. He wasn’t sure what he wanted. While Abby wanted him to marry her, his parents were vehemently opposed to the idea. “We are quite liberal you know. It’s not that she’s American, but she is Jewish,” they said. His mother would call him, sigh, and say in a defeated voice, “Do what you want to do, it’s your life. But remember, your father and I are getting old – and you are the only one we have.” Though Sameer had lived away from his parents for more than a decade, he still found it hard to openly disobey them or disregard their wishes. And while Sameer was struggling to make a decision, Abby had moved out from Alphabet City to Tribeca.

Sameer held Abby’s wedding invitation in his hand, and looked out the window. In the apartment across the street, was an old man watching TV; and in the apartment next to it, he could see an empty dining room with a large cherry wood china cabinet. As he looked at the row of apartments, the windows glowed like Christmas lights, and for the first time he felt alone.

Over the past one year, Sameer’s mother had tried to get him to meet girls – but he had buried himself in his work. His mother had occasionally been quite brutal about it. “You aren’t getting any younger, you know. All the good girls are already taken, and you’ve put on so much weight as well,” she’d remark.

Sameer picked up the phone, and called India. “Ma, It’s me – how are you doing?
“Oh, Sameer, it’s been ages since you called,” his mother replied, though they had spoken only four days ago.
After a few minutes of conversation, his mother made her usual pitch. “Sameer, I met Veena Masi recently . She had come down from Bangalore. There is this girl in Philadelphia – that’s quite close to New York, no.?
“Her name is Manisha, and she is a doctor. Veena Masi says she is a very nice girl, and her family is very well respected in Bangalore,” she continued.
“Uh, Manisha is divorced, but she is very pretty – I saw her photo- you will like her.” “The divorce wasn’t her fault. Veena Masi said that she was married to a really nasty man, “she added as if to justify to herself why she was setting up her son with a divorcee.

And as he had done so often in the past, Sameer succumbed to the path in front of him, and said, “OK.”

Random photograph

2004-10-20T16:28:00.000-07:00

This is a photograph by Henri Cartier Bresson. I just kind of like it, and also I am trying to experiment with photographs on this blog.

In a New York minute ...(part 2)

2004-10-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

Sameer grew up as a privileged only child in a sprawling colonial house in the middle of Lutyen’s Delhi. As a little boy, he was escorted to school by two mustached men who called him, “Sameer baba”. When he was twelve, he was sent off to Woodstock - a boarding school in Mussorie, where he met other boys who were also used to being called “Baba.” Sameer’s story was a familiar one – he went to college in St Stephens, Delhi and for a while he worked in his father’s friend’s firm where he toyed with the idea of taking the civil service exam (something his father wanted him to do), he played with the idea of starting his own business and, briefly, he entertained the idea of being an artist- but it was an idea that sounded ridiculous even to him. He ended up finally going to graduate school in the US - it was a decision that appealed to both him and his parents. Sameer was excited at the prospect of living in another country, and his parents were quite pleased about the fact that their son had been accepted at an Ivy League school – Princeton.

But when Sameer landed in the US, his excitement quickly evaporated. While the university was beautiful and imposing, and he was walking in the same halls that many Nobel laureates had walked down, Princeton didn’t impress him. It was a quaint little town that was trying desperately to be Cambridge, England – but the truth was - it wasn’t. It was a sleepy, preppy town with pretty houses, a canal and an ice cream shop called Thomas Sweets. What bothered Sameer most was the fact that it was so quiet – having lived with crowds of people everywhere – it was hard to reconcile to the lack of noise and chaos.

In those early moths, he spent a lot of time in the library being nostalgic about his life in India. In India, he was ‘Sameer baba’ and people waited on him hand and foot; but here he was a nobody who had to do his own laundry – worse yet, he was that Indian guy who didn’t quite fit in. He often though about his grandmother – she had been the only one who had been upset at the idea that he was going to be studying in the US. She doted on her grandson – for Aruna, Sameer had been the one on whom she had showered all her affections. Sameer thought fondly of all those winter afternoons, when he had sat in the verandah with his head on his grandmother’s lap. As the sun gently warmed his face, he would listen to his grandmother tell him stories of Hindu gods - Vishnu, Shiva, Durga and Ganga. One of his favorite stories had been that of Vishnu’s second incarnation as Kurma, the tortoise – when at the churning of the ocean, he offered his back as a pivot on which to rest the Mount Madera that was being used as the churning stick. He was fascinated by the idea that a tiny tortoise was at the bottom of this mighty ocean -- out of which emerged the Moon, a nymph called Rambha, Parijata - the celestial wishing tree, Surabhi - the cow of plenty, Airavata – the white elephant, and Amrit -the elixir of life.

At times, on grey rainy days, he thought of Savita. She had clearly not been his type – she was a little too dark, she didn’t have the sing-song voice that convent school educated girls had, and though he hated to admit this to himself – but Savita was not in same social strata as he was – she was from the wrong side of the tracks. And yet, he was irresistibly drawn to her. He had been with a few girls before – girls who did meet his eligibility criteria – but none of them had exuded the sensuality that Savita had. And Savita was surprisingly intelligent. In the literary club meetings, she often just sat quietly listening to others, but when she did speak in her shy, halting way – she spoke as if she had not just analyzed the book, but had known and felt the characters deeply. And he remembered the way she smiled – it would start as a tiny spark at the corner of her lips, and then spread slowly through her face like a forest fire.

In a New York minute ...(part 1)

2004-10-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

“Hey mister, do you have a cigarette?” “Hey, I ‘m speaking to you mister”
The ageless, faceless, nameless man who sat on the corner of the street engulfed in a big dark blue coat had asked him this question for the last six years. The man had sat there in the mornings, as people rushed past to the subway station, and made their ways to banks and boutiques and delis, and he had been there in the evenings when they rushed back again to go the gym, to take their kids for ballet class, to feed their cat, to make dinner, to watch TV. And he had sat there as the sweltering summers gave way to the frostiness of New York winters. In the past, Sameer had often stopped to give him a cigarette and sometimes money, but as the years went by the man had just become a distant voice that he heard while he waited for the lights to turn green.

It had been a tough day for Sameer. He had made an aggressive, speculative investment that had not turned out the way he had hoped, and though risk and loss was integral to the hedge fund business, not winning his bets was still something that irked him. But then, it was precisely his instinct to win that had made his boutique hedge fund so successful. His fund had even managed to stay afloat through the stock market crash that had taken down bigger names. Sameer had come to New York in the early 1990s, and in the span of ten years he had made his way to the top of the corporate ladder. This is what he loved about the city – the opportunities it offered to make it big. He felt driven by the energy, the greed for power and the hunger for success.

He walked past the art galleries, and the coffee shops to his apartment in a red brick row house on Avenue B in Alphabet city – the trendier part of East Village. It had once been a slum, and then it had been a bohemian hang out for writers and artists. And when writers and artists flock to a place, yuppies are not far behind – and now this was a yuppfied neighborhood that still had a little bit a of bohemian, quaint coffee shop charm. Ironically enough, the real artists and writers were driven out because they could no longer afford the place. Alphabet street got its names from Avenue A, B, C and D . East village wisdom has it - Avenue A, you're Alright, Avenue B, you're Brave., Avenue C, you're Crazy , Avenue D, you're Dead.

Sameer picked up his mail from the hallway, and walked up the stairs to his 3 bedroom apartment which had sunny yellow walls that were adorned the by the artwork of up and coming artists. Despite the fact that he lived alone, the apartment was well-kept . Modern and antique furniture were put together in a casual way – a casualness that had been carefully arranged. He went to the kicthen, and opened his mail. It was the usual assortment of bank statements, bills, discount coupons , and then he saw an envelope with a hand written address on it. He rarely got any personal mail, except from his mother in India. He tore open the envelope, and pulled out a card. On expensive ivory paper, in gold letters were the words, “You are warmly invited to the wedding celebration of Abigail Rosenberg and Joshua Stiener. “

Rain on me …a monsoon tale in three acts. (Act 3)

2004-10-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

After Savita’s eldest sister had got married, Sarita, her other sister, fell in love with the neighbor’ son and was also set to tie the knot. Her parents were keen to get both their younger daughters married off at one go – her father realized that he could not afford the expense of three weddings. So they stared hunting high and low for a suitable boy for Savita.

She sat through umpteen interviews, and patiently answered questions about her hobbies. She dressed up in her mothers’ favorite green chiffon sari, and she sat contritely with her eyes lowered to the appropriate level of docility. By the time, Rakesh and his family came to visit, she had lost track of the names and faces. It was all a blur.

“You should marry him,” her mother urged. “ He has got a steady job, and comes from a good family. What else do you want? “ she said. “ You can’t expect to get an engineer like your sister you know,” said another aunt who was still peeved at the fact that her elder sister had married an engineer while her own daughter had not. And so, at the age of 21 she was married and was Mrs Savita Sehgal.

Rakesh was eight years her senior. He was not a handsome man, nor was he a man of many words. And while he spoke little, he smiled even less. But Rakesh was not particularly unkind or unpleasant. He was hardworking, reliable, and prudent, and had turned out to be just the kind of husband her parents had hoped for. Even as a young couple, they had not shared any passion – they had not indulged in any giggly lovemaking nor had they had any loud fights that the neighbors could overhear. Savita could still remember the awkwardness of their honeymoon.

They had gone to Shimla, and as she looked out of the window to see the little train pull into the station, images of Nitu Singh and Rishi Kapoor cavorting in the hills flitted through her mind. As the train halted, her dream sequence was rudely interrupted as well. Here she was on her honeymoon with her husband and her mother-in-law. They got rooms in a hotel that was strangely called Seaside View though there was no sea or lake for miles around, her mother-in-law was in the adjoining room, and all through the night she lay uncomfortably awake beside her snoring husband.

Soon after their marriage, Savita and Rakesh got a flat of their own in a colony that at that time was considered to be in the outskirts of the city. She had hoped that the space would allow them to get closer, but Rakesh continued to be aloof and spoke in monosyllables. On the weekends, he buried himself behind the newspaper and occasionally commented about cricket. After they got cable TV, he became addicted to the soaps and stayed awake late at night to watch a show called MTV Grind.

But Savita couldn’t really complain. Rakesh did what a good husband was supposed to do – he was earning well, and had even bought a car. He didn’t drink or smoke or gamble, and he never really shouted or got angry at Savita. The only thing that he was not able to do was give her children. They had tried several options, and consulted many doctors. It had come as a rude shock to Rakesh’s mother that the fault lay in her son, and not in the womb of her daughter-in-law. But once she had reconciled to that, Savita’s relationship with her mother-in-law improved dramatically. But Rakesh’s inability to procreate drove them further apart. And while they had never shared any emotional or physical chemistry, even the perfunctory rituals that a man and wife share were gradually abandoned.

Two years ago, Rakesh had had a mild heart attack. The doctor had warned him that if he didn’t change his eating habits or sedentary lifestyle, things could get serious. For a few days after Rakesh returned from hospital, Savita tried to cook healthy and encourage her husband to go for walks with her, but they soon slid back into old familiar ways.

And then it happened.

Savita usually took a bath in the late afternoon after she finished dusting, and cooking and doing all the housework. On the weekends, she would eat lunch with Rakesh and while he took an afternoon nap, she would read a few pages of a book, and then take a long bath. This was the favorite part of her day - leisurely and self-indulgent.

This was a Saturday, and she had been reading a book that everyone was talking about - 'God of Small Things'. As she undressed and got ready to take a bath, she though about going to Kerala. She wished she could travel more. She looked at herself in the mirror. For a woman of 35, she looked quite young – almost like she was nineteen. Her face was still so young, but her body had filled out. She was no longer skinny, and her skin had ripened into a velvety brown. She placed her palm against her stomach and felt her breath come in and go. She thought of Estha and Rahel – the ‘two egg twins’ from the book – and wondered what it would be like to have something growing inside her.

Suddenly, she heard gurgling sounds coming from the bedroom. She threw a towel around herself, and rushed out. Rakesh was flailing and writhing about like a fish that has been pulled out of water. Savita rushed to the medicine cabinet to get the pills that the doctor had said she should use in a situation like this. Her hands wavered, she turned around and saw Rakesh's face contorting, she felt her breath rise and fall - she felt like she is standing in the path of a might river. She let go of the pills, and the waters rushed forth with all their force and fury taking her in the flow.

******************

Most of the guests have left. Her sisters and her mother-in-law are sleeping in the next room. Savita looks at the bed that now lies empty. She tries to imagine Rakesh sleeping there, but already she finds it hard to conjure his image. What did he smell like, what did he taste like?

She walks over to the balcony, and feels the cool moistness on her skin, and she can
feel the rain only a heartbeat away. She smells a familiar muskiness in the air, and she feels an old familiar longing returning – a longing from an ancient forgotten night.

At first there are just a few drops of water, and as the drops get sucked into the dry dreary earth, a wonderfully sharp smell wafts up. She hears a sudden loud clap of thunder, and she stretches her arm out with the palm facing upwards - waiting to catch the rain.

Rain on me …a monsoon tale in three acts. (Act 2)

2004-10-02T21:32:00.000-07:00

As a young girl, Savita had been skinny and not quite the fairest of them all. She had two elder sisters and a younger brother. By the time she was born, her parents were yearning for a son and had been barely able conceal their disappointment at having yet another daughter. Her eldest sister, Suneeta, was a traditional Indian beauty, and her parents were quite confident of finding a good husband for her. Her other sister, Sarita, was effervescent and bubbly, and while she was not very pretty or demure, she was the life of the party and despite the fact that she was constantly getting into trouble with her pranks, nobody could really dislike her. Her younger brother, Sunil, was obviously the apple of everybody’s eyes – her grandparents doted on him, by the virtue of the fact that he was a boy. Somehow Savita had always felt a little left out – and though she not particularly ill treated or neglected – she never felt that she had the affections of her family the way her other siblings did.

In college, Savita had begun taking an interest in literature and poetry. She had read almost the entire collection of Premchand, and even though, she had not been very fluent in English, she had begun reading Shakespeare and Tolstoy. One of her favorite books was Nabokov’s Lolita. She had felt a little naughty reading it – the book had created a stir for its portrayal of a young girl as a seductress. In reading the book, Savita had discovered the tiny hidden corners of her own sexuality – and unknown to her, she was filled with a secret longing – a longing that burned through her flesh into her soul.

In the middle of her second year in college, Savita joined a writers club. Most of the members of the club were earnest looking young men and women, and for some reason most of the men had beards. Over cups of tea, they discussed a new book or politics. While Savita never really participated in these discussions, she enjoyed the ambience – an ambience that was filled with the headiness of youth and idealism. It was also a welcome break from her life at home, which revolved mostly around her elder sister’s impending wedding to an engineer. Her mother was filled with pride and excitement that her eldest daughter had snagged such a good catch, and was gleefully enjoying the fact that she was the envy of all her relatives and neighbors.

In one of the evenings, as Savita listened to Vinod and Ismail talk about communal politics, she felt someone pull up a chair next to her. She didn’t turn around to look, but she smelt the muskiness with a gentle intake of her breath. It was Sameer. She had never spoken to him, but watched him wistfully from afar as he laughed and smiled in carefree guileless way. Sameer was the treasurer of the writers club, and he was one of the few people in the group who drove a car. His father was a powerful bureaucrat in the Indian Administrative Service, and he had studied in prestigious English medium schools. He had an easygoing boyish charm, and most of the girls she knew had a crush on him, and most of the guys wanted to be like him.

Savita took a small breath again, inhaling the wonderful muskiness. It was not the sweet, cheap, cloying smell that hung around her brother, or all other men she knew. This was refined, expensive, subtle and sophisticated. For Savita, Sameer was like Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. Before she knew it, the discussion on the tyranny of religion was over, and people were beginning to leave. Savita stood up as well, and she realized that her dupatta was stuck under Sameer’s chair. “Oh, I am so sorry, “ he said, as Sameer lifted the chair and pulled Savita’s duppatta. Savita was too flustered to say anything, but she smiled. A smile that was so unsure of itself, and yet so full of promise.

Savita and Samir kept bumping into each other at the weekly meetings, and while they exchanged polite greetings and occasionally spoke to each other about the books they had read and the authors they liked, they rarely had conversations with each other for more than a few minutes, though it was not for the lack of trying on Samir’s part. But Savita was strangely hesitant and scared. She found it hard to believe that someone like him should like someone like her.

One night, the group had a particularly prolonged and heated debate about where Indira Gandhi was taking the country. It was well past seven, and it was raining heavily outside. Savita glanced at her watch and jumped up realizing that she was about to miss the last bus home. As she stood in the door way trying to open her umbrella, Sameer walked up to her and said, “Maybe, I can drop you home. Its raining quite heavily and its getting dark” Savita was silent, and she continued fumbling with her umbrella. “Give it up, “said Sameer with that easy going laugh she liked so much. The two of them ran towards the car covering their heads with their hands, as if the web of flesh and skin was strong enough to withstand the ferocity of the monsoon rain.

Rain on me …a monsoon tale in three acts. (Act 1)

2004-10-02T19:43:00.000-07:00

It was close to five in the evening, and the skies were overcast. The air was so heavy and thick – you could almost slice it with a knife. Savita made her way wearily past the hawkers, as she felt the humidity seep through her, dragging her down slowly. She heard a wave of voices wash over her. “Tomatoes, just six for a kilo, just six for a kilo”. “Mangoes, Dasari mangoes.” “Memsahib, come here, what do you need. I’ll give you a good deal?”

She went through the motions of haggling with the vegetable hawkers, scrutinizing the potatoes and brinjals to make sure that they weren’t spoilt. It was like an elaborate play that unfurled every evening. Hawkers with vegetables and fruits and utensils gathered near the street opposite her colony, and husbands who were returning from their offices, and wives who were stepping out of their homes milled around. There were all familiar faces, and there were all familiar conversations. “Mrs. Sharma, I haven’t seen you in such a long time. I heard that you weren’t feeling well, hope everything is OK?” asked Mrs Parekh though they lived in the same building just two floors apart. Mrs Dwivedi invariably told all who were willing to listen about her son who lived in America, and Mr Rastogi constantly complained about how expensive everything was these days.

Savita sweated profusely as she climbed the stairs with her load of groceries. They lived on the fourth floor of the building which was the top most floor, and buildings with less than five floors were not allowed to have lifts – a law that was a source of much consternation for her. She stopped at the landings, and waited to catch her breath and wiped her lips with corner of her sari pallu which was already limp and soggy, though it had been freshly starched when she had taken it out earlier in the afternoon.

When she finally reached her flat, she switched on the fan and plunked herself on the sofa before she started putting away the groceries in the refrigerator. She made some tea for herself and her husband, and went into the bedroom to wake up her husband Rakesh. She saw him lying there with his eyes closed and his mouth wide open. Savita watched him closely – his skin was coarse and leathery, and though he was just a little over forty, lines crisscrossed his face. He didn’t look old but he didn’t look young either. In fact, Rakesh’s face rarely ever revealed anything – and after fourteen years of marriage, she still wasn’t sure what she thought of him or how she felt about him.

“Tea is ready,” she said in a voice that sounded like she was afraid to wake him up. When he didn’t answer, she just left the cup of tea on the bedside table and left the room.”

**************************************

People spoke in hushed voices around her, and she felt as if she were swathed in a sea of white. In the distance, she heard people moaning and crying. So, this is what death is like, she thought. She almost felt like she was watching a movie - afloat and removed - it was also eerily tranquil, like the lull before the storm.

“Savita, are you sure you don’t want to eat anything?” her sister asked. Suddenly, she was woken out of her reverie. “No, I don’t think so,” she replied. Savita scanned the room, and heard people whispering to each other about the death of her husband, Rakesh.
.
“Poor thing, she must be in shock. She can’t even seem to cry.”

“Mr Sehgal was such a nice man, I don’t know how this could have happened – it was so sudden. I heard that Savita returned from the market, and tried to wake him up for tea, when she saw that he was dead.”

“Didn’t he have a heart attack two years as well. It just goes to show, that life is so unpredictable. “

“Oh yes, life is uncertain. And I really should not eat those oily samosas anymore. I think I should start keeping a tab on this cholesterol velesterol thing.”

“I feel so bad for Savita – she doesn’t even have any children – I don’t know what she’ll do.”

“Well, from what I have heard, at least she won’t have to worry about money – she now owns this house, and Rakesh invested quite wisely.”

“Look at how well he has done for himself – when they came here, he had nothing. He was just a clerk at the Bank; ten years later he had bought this house, a Maruti car. It’s really quite remarkable.”

“Mrs Bhatia was telling me that he took a lot of bribes though. I mean see his house, I don’t know how a man who earns a mediocre salary could buy these big fancy brass lamps and marble statues?”

In the center of the room, was a large photograph of Rakesh and his younger brother, two sisters and Rakesh’s mother were sitting next to it. Rakesh’s mother was wailing audibly and swaying back and forth saying, "Hai, Bhagvan”

It had been three days since Rakesh’s death. This was the fourth day, when family and friend gathered to pay their last respects. In the opposite end of the room, sat an elderly man, who was reciting verses from the Gita. These verses were meant to comfort the mourners as they reaffirmed the immortality of the soul. Every few minutes, the man would pause to explain the meaning of the verses. “As Arjuna confronts his fears about death on the battlefield, Lord Krishna, his charioteer and mentor, says, ‘Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall anyone of us cease to be’,” he intoned.

here goes...

2004-10-01T21:04:00.000-07:00

It all started here . A night that was gently lit as people walked through the streets enjoying the first slight chill in the air. I looked around me , and while everything looked beautiful and almost festive, I felt a sharp pain at the sudden change of seasons....it had snuck up on me unexpectedly and caught me unawares...so here I was in the middle of this beautiful night, quite unsure what to do with myself.

I am also not sure what I'll do with this blog, or why I am writing this . I using this blog to try and weave a story - I don't know how or where this story will end - but maybe I'll just go with the flow....and see how things turn out.