Death of a Legacy

When the old ancestral house was sold I didn’t cry. I watched with dry eyes as the house was broken down brick by brick. Somehow I could take it philosophically. But when they cut you down it was as if a part of my past was being ripped apart. You were part of my childhood. It is strange but I always thought of you as a female, a sort of mother figure. I could snuggle against your big warm bosom and whisper my childhood woes. You were a silent witness to the agonies and ecstasies of my growing up. . Come April, sweet, warm and filled with promise of spring. And you were ready to burst forth with the sweet fleshy mangoes which the children savored greedily. Some raw, some ripe. We children loved them anyway. And the long sturdy swings that hung on you ready to raise me up in the sky! Holding me firmly on your lap you would whisper in my ears “Sky is the limit, my child”. And I always believed you. I walked along the strangest paths that life took me through and now finally I thought I have come back to your comforting shadows at the twilight of my life.

The dividing wall in between notwithstanding I could still be with you . Sometimes from your stretching branch the summer breeze will even drop a mango or two in my courtyard and you will wink at me when I run to pick them up. I became a child once again and it was our secret. Yesterday I was standing in my terrace watching you, bent with those luscious mangoes. How old are you, I wondered? Age has not withered you, you looked the same. Strong, comforting and forever generous.

From nowhere they came, five men carrying axes and ropes. Before I knew what was happening, the first axe fell on you. I ran inside trying not to scream .You didn’t utter a word and fell down without a whimper as the axes fell on you mercilessly again and again. If only I could give you one last hug. Through the windows I saw you being reduced into a few logs. The mangoes lay scattered all over. Suddenly I saw two of them lying in my courtyard. Your parting gift to me to relish just one last time.

The M factor in my life

No, I am not talking about menopause. Nor is it about men. Those are all things of the past . There are more important things in lfe. I am talking about the maid scene in my life now. Let me put things in the right perspective. Well, after my retirement we decided to settle down in “God’s own country ”. (Whoever coined that phrase has a wry sense of God) We came with many happy memories of our child hood and holiday visits. So far so good, till our troubles started. Kerala, as you all know has been declared as 100% literate State. While I was away from Kerala I used to bask in this reflected glory and will proudly talk about it till I had to face its flip side. With a high rate of literacy, the maid servants problem is increasing day-by-day. Added to it is the money pouring from Gulf ( till the recession ). My home town is a sort of pilgrimage spot and a number of shops have mushroomed in the town. Most of the sales persons are girls/women. Their salary is pathetic still the job is on high demand due to the ‘glamour’ and the air-conditioned comfort attached to it. The not-so-lucky lot opt for construction work where the payment is reasonably good. The net result is that there is hardly any help available for household work. Those who are available ask for a price and other perks. Take the case of Madhavi, a maid who worked for us for 2 days. Reason for her leaving ? That we watch only ASIANET where as she wants to watch the soaps in SURYA ! ( We came to know about it later through a reliable source ) Had we known, we would have sacrificed ASIANET for SURYA . After all what is more important ?

Then came Gayatri , a ‘sweet eighteen’ year old. While working in the kitchen she will be singing and doing some ‘mudras’ with her fingers. She did not miss an opportunity to remind me that she was the ‘kalathilakam’ of her school. Well, the ‘kalathilakam’ left after a couple of weeks for reasons best known to her.

Our major disqualification as an employer is that we are vegetarians . I am now willing to learn to cook non vegetarian stuff. After all what is more important ? But the demands will not end there. We have now got a maid through an agency ( a roaring business in Kerala). After a couple of days we decided to part as friends by ‘mutual consent’ due to ‘incompatibility’. But she has to be with us for one more week or so till her registration period expires. Only then will I get a substitute.

Yesterday while having her tea, she looked at me and asked ‘ Will you miss me when I am gone ?’ And that is what we call icing on the cake !!!

A midsummer wedding

It was a long awaited wedding . An arranged marriage is unheard off in our family at least for the last 2 generations. So the excitement and curiosity were on a high. Imagine the parents getting an upper hand ! The groom’s cousins asked him ( some loudly ,others secretly) “Are you sure you are doing the right thing ? ”.His enigmatic smile silenced them for the time being. The excitement of matching the horoscopes, the boy and the girl ‘seeing’ each other and both saying ‘yes’, we went through the entire rigmarole.

Two days before the wedding relatives started arriving, aunts,cousins,uncles along with their families. Music, dance, mehendi. Now –a –days there is no such thing as a ‘malayali wedding’. Films and television soaps have opened the world for us and now everything is a mix. Finally the D-day arrived. The groom arrived wearing a richly embroidered kurta and a dhoti. And the bride looking gorgeous in a designer sari, decked in gold from throat to naval ,gold bangles dangling from elbow to wrist. I looked around to see that touch of Kerala somewhere. No, there was none especially in the younger generation. I could see only salwar kammeez or ghagra-choli. No pattupavada or dawani or the long oily plaites. They looked smarter with the hair open and a string of mullappu dangling from one side. No jhumkaas. Only designer jewellery and sequenced dresses. Here is globalization in the true sense. The feast was thankfully pure Kerala, no innovations there ,so far. The ceremony over , the bride went home taking the groom with her.I know my north Indian friends will gasp, but that is pure Kerala for you.

It was time to say good bye .The guests started leaving. hugging and kissing each other, wondering when will they meet again.. I remembered Scott Peck’s words - love is not effortless. On the contrary, love is effortful. When we love, we take an extra step .Like R took a night train reaching in the morning to attend the wedding and left by the evening train. Her busy work schedule will allow only that much. Still she made it, even if it is her husband’s cousin’s son’s marriage. An aunt went through a rigorous ayurvedic massage for her aching knees because ‘God knows when will be the next family reunion like this !’. The groom’s grandmother took every care not to fall ill during the wedding because she felt this is the last wedding she will witness in her life time. She didn’t want to miss it at any cost. The list is endless.As Scott Peck puts it “ love is a verb, not a noun”.For many of us it is, at least in India. Thank God for that !

Empty Nests

He walked towards the waiting car, with his usual casual expression etched on his face. Only this time he didn’t push her away gently when she hugged and kissed him good bye. As the car moved away her eyes blurred and she walked back into the house, unabashedly letting the tears flow down her cheeks. He had squeezed out these 4 days out of his busy work schedule “to spend quality time with my parents ” as he laughingly put it ,to cover up the embarrassment. That is him. Disliking any display of emotions , she was remembering….

Two normal children growing up in a middle class family. The mother ambitious and idealistic ,giving her best to her children but expecting the best out of them .Her concerns were practical-cooking for the children, feeding them, disciplining them and above all coaxing them to be the best.She liked to believe that her children were special , although they didn’t show any signs of unusual brilliance, at least nothing that she approved of. Perhaps she wanted to live through them .She believed that Khalil Gibran didn’t know a thing about parenting when he wrote his famous lines “On Children”. Meanwhile between report cards and showdowns about poor performance, time flew by without any one noticing . When the children grew up and took roads less traveled, she stood at the cross roads thinking that may be Khalil Gibran did have a point…….

She laid down quietly on the bed looking at the mounted pictures on the wall,shimmering in memories, waiting for the next season when her fledglings will come home even if it is for 4 days……..

Where man is rendered helpless

“ Mom, R.. passed away”, my son called up to convey the sad news. It was a shocking news . I didn’t know he was ill and was in the hospital . It took some time to absorb its reality .I was thinking about R..I remembered his rich baritone voice, now suddenly silenced forever. Who would have broken the news to his widowed mother that her only son is no more. How his young wife would have taken the news ? Theirs was a love marriage. I had attended the function. It was a Tamilian wedding. R.. was a Tamil Brahmin and his bride a Bihari. She looked beautiful in the resplendent 9 yard Kanchipuram silk sari. She married R out of love knowing fully well that he is hemophiliac and HIV positive, something which he got in his childhood during a careless blood transfusion. R bore his condition and its

accompanied problems quite stoically. At least he pretended to be brave. I remember the arguments my son and R used to have as to how R is not taking enough care of himself or some such thing which normally happens between friends. R and his wife did a lot of work for HIV infected people . Things were almost normal in their life or so we all thought. But every time R fell ill his mother and wife must have gone through hell. I wonder if they were ever prepared for the eventuality . Or for that matter, is anyone of us ? At least I am not. As the great poet John Donne put it “Every man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind ….therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.” Perhaps I am reminded of my own mortality and the uncertainties of this joke called life.

Life@60

We are a class of ten ,a mix of men and women, average age group being 60 plus. We are learning Sanskrit at this ripe old age, that divine language which the Hindu Gods speak, so they say. What unites us is our love -a love for the language that defies age and reason. What else can explain as to why S limps into the class bearing the pain in her knees, D squinting at the black board with her failing vision and the way P barges into the class apologizing for being late .( She baby sits her grand daughter) Our teacher is a 30 something young man who is as eager as his students . We are a studious lot eager to lap up as much as our aging brain permits us to do . Let me admit at the outset that when it comes to learning, it is not all that divine. It has its moments of agony. The language is terse and not easily digestible. Grammar is tough and confusing ( “Only in the beginning”, assures our teacher) The more I try to learn it the more evasive it becomes.

But all of us are having fun.

Seriously, life @60 need not be serious at all. We can be adventurous since we are no more in the rat race. We can give family a break, our career a break, explore the unexplored ,do what we always wanted to do but didn’t have the time or energy. It is the time to rediscover oneself. It is the age to explore and experiment. Like my friend M did. ( May be she was 50 or something at that time) She chucked a well paid job, migrated to US and plunged into spirituality and spiritual healing or something like that. The point is that she dared and is living life king size. On my 60^th birthday M wrote to me quoting Tennyson “ ……. the best is yet to be . ” You bet !

Notes from a grandmother

Notes from a grandmother

It was love at first sight when your dad handed you over to me. You were bundled up in a hospital blanket. I can still recall that tiny dimple on your right cheek as you pursed your lips. I was desperately trying to see something of your dad in that bundle as you cradled so comfortably in my arms. But, no, you were a carbon copy of your mom. Your mom had a triumphant gleam in her eyes as she looked at you and me. She laughed when I pointed out that those dimples on your tiny fists were exactly like that of your dad. For the time being we settled for that.

It was time for us to take you home. I settled down in the car all ready to put you in my lap when your dad matter-of -factly carried you to the back of the car and buckled you to a tiny seat. I gasped but was immediately reminded that here the rules are blind even if it is a grandmother’s first love. All the way home I was nervously looking at my bundle of joy who was oblivious to all this and was sleeping blissfully.

Home sweet home, I assumed that you will be all mine, only to realize soon that you are mine but not exactly the way I thought. Your parents were hands on , what with all the classes and counseling sessions they attended prior to your arrival. I was allowed to give you an oil massage and bath, rock you to sleep and even feed you sometimes, but all these under the supervision of your efficient parents. For women like me who are accustomed to being in charge (read: bossy ), the experience of being a grandmother was pretty humbling. I learnt a lesson or two :

· Dr. Benjamin Spoke is outdated.

· Accept that your parents are adults fully capable of looking after you.

· It takes time to be a fully accomplished grandmother.

But there is (almost) always a silver lining , I found out that quite soon. During my last visit , your mom mentioned that your mom and dad were planning to go out for a couple of days leaving you under my care ! My heart missed a beat .Hooray! I have graduated !!!