Next is what?

It's around 8:30 pm and the day is pretty much done. I am closing out a 3 month engagement with a client and today I returned the laptop that I never used. I had asked for a replacement because mine had stopped working and no service or repair shops were open due to the lockdown. My keyboard was conked off actually. But just before I got the office laptop, I got mine repaired from a partially open store in Vashi plaza. The repair guy took me in through the backdoor, shutters were lowered, and I felt I was engaging in something illicit.

He told me we had to work quickly because the cops could come anytime soon. I conjured up an appropriate background score and tried to imagine that I needed my comp for matters of grave importance and not because I couldn't finish a content outline for a client who seemed to have lost all interest and disappeared.

My laptop was repaired and no cop came. I saw one take a stool outside and eat samosa after lowering his mask. But he seemed more keen to avoid attention than bust someone. I don't blame him. Maybe he didn't want to share his samosa. The repair guy handed me my lappie. I asked him if now my computer keyboard would work fine without problems. He said, "Corona ka time hai, madam. Aise time mein aap guarantee maang rahin hain?" (During the time of Corona, you want guarantees?) I didn't hear a background score but a suitable thought-provoking Instagram image did appear in my mind. Complete with a green pond, lots of lily pads, and blush pink blooming flowers.

I paid up and left.

The samosa shop was closed.

What grows under

I spent the last couple of days in Bandra where I had gone to just clean up the place because no-one is staying there at the moment. 2020 is not the year that we will possibly be renting it out. I wonder if I want to ever rent it out now. I want to make it a sparse, sanctuary type of place where anyone can just come, close their eyes for a spell, breathe in and out, look out the window and merge with treetops.

I can't explain this about the Bandra home. Before the lockdown, we were trying to give it out on rent and I was talking to a lot of brokers. They were all asking me about details like how many bedrooms, Bandra East or West, does it come with a fridge, etc. All valid and worthy questions. But it just put me off property dealing for a while. I have never really been very rooted as an adult. As a child I stayed all my life in one place because my mom wanted us to be in Bombay. Once Papa had written to me that our family could move to Aqaba, where he was. Or we could live in London where he was getting a job. And I wouldn't have really minded that. (My preference was Aqaba. I hadn't been to London at the time but Aqaba with the khubuz breads, olive and mince kababs, and really really sweet people were my pick.) Well, we didn't go anywhere. But then we grew up and my family decided to move to Vashi where we have a much bigger home. But I stayed back in Bandra. Like an old bruise. 

Anyway, sometimes I think I should have roots now. Whatever I have deduced from the chakra meditations I am doing, my root chakra is weak. So there is a tendency to feel scattered and all over the place. And interestingly the book that impacted me the most...so much so that it divided my reading life into two... before reading that book and after reading that book. That book is Roots by Alex Haley.

The book, 'Roots', the Bandra home, the decision to stay on in one place...all of these have been gifts from my mother. This is why sometimes I think I sense a connection of why were together, why we belonged, or what her role in my life was...to hand out the crayon that was missing in my set. 

Someday I will evolve enough to see the big picture - all sketched and filled out in vibrant Crayola. 

Aim for soothing

I have a really bad headache and I really would like to just sail through the rest of the week in peace. 

I don't feel like I am in a good space now so I will write about a few things that will soothe me.

There's a desert. Ochre and gold sand. A shaman is sitting on a small rock that is set up against a large boulder. The boulder gleams like an ivory-white candle. The shaman rolls up a thick, dried leaf - the leaf is almost black and stiff. But it does not chip or flake off. It gets rolled up into a flute and then the shaman plays the flute. It's a sweet lilting melody. As he plays, droplets start emerging from the environment - tears of poets and their uses who lived on that land - and all these droplets start forming a bird.

Warm paratha - a nice, thick, rich layered one with sweet boondi.

Thick, strong coffee with jaggery powder and creamy coconut milk.

Dress in a white crushed velvet, form-fitting and long and sweeting.

Satin shees in blush.

A pond with hundreds of white and pink lotuses. Each one carries a moon in the center.

A forest where there is a plant or tree or flower or fruit for every single desire in the world - the desire of an antelope and the desire of an empress. Some of these get moist with verse every dawn. And when the sun shines on them during the day, they raise up and disappear..only to come into being for a shaman who summons a water bird with his flute.

Zup, zup, tired

I think it's all in the title. I will not write much more tonight because I want to watch snippets of this show, "Say yes to the dress." Superb it is! It's such a feel-good show on YouTube. A woman and her entourage go shopping for their bridal dresses to a specific boutique. The show has a couple of US and UK versions and each version of the show has its own quirks. It's really formulaic but I love it all the same. A beautiful, white wedding dress with a gossamer veil...Makes me happy! 

The empty page

Since the last week or so, I have started writing a diary. I always had, as a kid. Then I had the blog. Then the posts on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is quite a time-suck. And unlike Facebook or YouTube, you really think that you are doing some kind of productive career advancement when you are reading some empty tripe n LinkedIn and then responding with empty tripe of your own. Now, to give an outlet to such empty tripe, I started keeping a diary. In the place I am consulting with now, a session was arranged with a counselor. She talked about the various ways in which journaling can help and she also spoke about the various types of diaries - there is the free-flow, stream of consciousness kind of writing, there is also the agenda issue-based writing where you write specifically to sort out a problem, and then there is a record you maintain after you do meditation or something like that - that is for regular therapy. And then she also introduced something called the 'Not-to-do' list. That was really interesting. I will probably write about some other day (maybe for LinkedIn). He he!

Yesterday was my mum's and my grandmother's death anniversary so we had a small puja at home. Havan with a mask on is really another level of suffocation. The priest was really nice and swift. I think that was the major appeal of the Arya Samaj ways of doing things. They did to traditional Hinduism what micro-learning seems to have done to the e-learning industry. I think everything in the world can be better served by good, hard editing.

Death, diversity, and inclusion

My mum had breast cancer and she passed on a year ago. She was cured of cancer but there were other health complications. We speak a lot about diversity and inclusion. From my experience, attending to a loved one who is dying a little bit in front of your eyes every day and how the various members of the family cope with this is a HUGE lesson in this topic. My brother and father were arranging for funds for the treatment. I have very little faith in Big Pharma so I was arranging for sound healing and in a rather desperate moment, even sourced marijuana. It helped my mom sleep through at least one night in peace. As time passed, my brother panicked more, trying to get anything or anyone to prolong her life. My father would sit with her every day (they had been together for 50 odd years.) 

I started praying hard but the more I saw her, I prayed that if she felt better right, then she move on. My brother had no patience for my 'Tibetan book of living and dyibg' kind of talk. I was aghast at this slavish stupidity to keep pumping meds into someone who just wanted to be left alone in peace. My father was aghast that his kids were so selfish about holding on to their own points of view. 

We still cobbled to hold it together. Then one day, early morning, we got a call. THE call from my father who spent every night in the hospital outside the ICU. He called me. I went to the room to wake up my brother. He woke up with a shock.

We sat in the car. I was sobbing. My brother looked at me and tried to ask me why I was crying. He couldn't because he was choked.

We reached the hospital. They didn't ask us for the visitors pass or anything. As we entered the room, the doctor said that they tried to save her. She was a young doctor and was wearing a bright blue and white salwar kameez. I don't know why that is important to write. But anyway, here it is.

My mom, my sweet, beautiful baby, was asleep. She always had great skin and that time, her skin was soft. Like butter. I saw a pigeon outside. I saw rain outside. I heard my brother crying and my father asking the doctor for the formalities. 

Each of us miss Ma in different ways. My father loved her and knew her in a way that my mom understood. This is not a small thing. To have a partner who loves you in a way that you understand is like capturing lighting in a bottle. My brother still thinks of her the way a child was. My mother loved my brother to bits...loved and protected him, sometimes from himself. 

What my mother was to me...what she IS to me is my life's work to find out. She is the little prism inside my head that sees through details and facts and catches a story. What I was to her...one day, she told me that I was her coconut tree. Strong. Not outwardly wild. But untamed.

Ma was very popular. And popular people have lots of admirers. And when they pass away, as their family member, you feel that these other people, these outsiders...have colonized your grief. I felt this way when my cousin made a compilation of Ma's photographs and sent it to me. I was very angry. I felt it was uncouth. I was angry at a friend who had made a list of recipes of my mom's favourite foods. I thought that was just uncultured behaviour of not minding your space. But my brother was happy and delighted that Ma's memories were being kept alive. Even though he felt so sad that he couldn't sit through the compilation or flip through the recipes. I saw it and understood that love and grief really belong to no-one. My father kept repeating the compilation 5-6 times with a quiet smile.

Ma used to tell me that I should write stories about her because she was so absolutely fabulous. I used to ask her to please be a little humble. "But why?! It's the truth." It is, of course. 

It's been one year and I am alive. I mean I am blogging  about this, after all. But I really don't understand the logistics of living without a mother. How does it actually happen? 

Maybe you keep going because you now have to write stories of someone fabulous who gave you many things - a life, impossible love, and a reason for the imagination to stay supple. 

It's been one year. It is absolutely not easier. I don't know if or when it will ever be. But it doesn't matter anymore. It's a ride and it will go as it goes. 

A strange roughish, peaceful day

You know how you sense a solid block inside your heart and you wake up in the morning heavy and sluggish. You feel as if you are wading through treacle. And then something happens. In my case, I stubbed my toe as I tried looking for a laptop repair shop close by. My foot hurt. And it was raining and I didn't have my umbrella. My wet mask was making it difficult to breathe and I had to get home. It was all too much. So I just started crying. It was so weird and funny. I literally felt the heft in my chest dissolve and mix away with the rain. 

Feeling fresh but wet, I stopped at a store that was about to close (due to the lockdown timings). I got bright green capsicums (so cheery they were that you could use them as Christmas decorations.) I also got cocoa powder. Then I limped back home because I couldn't find an auto.

But I was singing in the rain. :-)

(Typing this in my friend's cute and peaceful kitchen. We just had hot choc.)

When the silence is sinister or peaceful

I had ordered for an obsidian last month. It got delivered today and it is so beautiful. It's smooth and cool to the touch and a luscious, glossy black. But the black somehow doesn't make it seem dark and heavy. It's black the way the Chinese or Japanese symbols depict water. It's a lake. It's quiet and liquid. What's really nice, though, is its genesis. It's a volcanic glass that is formed when the lava spurts out and cools really quickly before any kind of substantive crystallization can form. I have not seen Game of Thrones because I find that kind of thing tedious. But apparently there is a reference to a weapon made of obsidian there. 

For some reason, I think it will be a really nice thing to use in beauty treatment. I don't know if it is or it's not...but it feels really good and soothing to the touch.

I think I have figured out, in some measure, what it takes to work out one's karma. It's like trying to get over the limitation of your last drawn salary as a benchmark in future negotiations. It's hard if you think you can be ahead of the curve by upskilking, jumping jobs, etc. (Do, learning mantras, having havana, etc.) You somehow need to persuade the other side to see that you are worth more according to the scale that THEY value. Otherwise, it won't amount to anything.

Writing this makes me feel wise and hungry. I will get myself a snack. 

A day of varying unpleasantness

Today was not very optimal. My computer stopped working. I contacted the company I am freelancing for and asked them for a replacement laptop. Have been feeling very irritated. Didn't meditate or work out. Last night was feeling nervous so ate a big bag of chips in the dark. Feeling a solid wall of anger and helplessness.

Today I came across something on Amazon Prime - a show called 'I, Pedophile: Understanding the Mental Disorder' and I almost threw up. A big part of me feels that this...THIS is why we are such a depraved society. That we will want a child abuser's point of view on things now. Another part of me thinks back to a story of a young boy in Norway who used to be aroused by pictures of children. He wanted to stop and get treated before he harmed someone. He couldn't find a support group.

I don't know what happened to him. Didn't want to. Until now. 

A comeback on a rainy day

This is the first post in 2020 and it could very easily be the first post in a whole new world. There is a pandemic (called Corona) around and I have shifted back from Bangalore, except that my stuff is still there. It is pouring outside and I wish one could record the sound of the rain onto the blog post. I wonder if people read blogs anymore. I wonder if people read anymore. I think as a discipline, whenever I blog, I should use my laptop instead of my phone. A phone seems to make everything dispensable. That may not be such a bad thing because everything really is.

It s raining and I am blogging after a really long time. Despite the sound of falling rain, it is quietish at eleven-thirty in the morning. It is not so much a comeback then as a return.

So, in the most modest of ways...hello.