She had woken up from her sleep long before dawn. She lay on her bed enable to go back to sleep again. She got up, sat on the bed and let out a long sigh. She reached for her walking stick and stood up with difficulty. Age had multiplied the effort required for simple things as this.
It was a cold winter morning and she felt the chill hit her bones. She lit a fire and slumped into the comfort of her favorite rocking chair beside the window. It had snowed the previous night. The white ground that seemed to stretch into eternity looked as if it were painted… as if the sky was floating gently on earth.
She could hear the sound of the wood cracking in the fire. She watched the flames dancing in the air and the shadows of light dancing to its tune. It is fascinating how darkness could evolve from something so brilliant. She could feel herself crawl into the warmth that filled the room. That room was full of memories. She looked around the room that was witness to her kaleidoscopic world. She glanced past her children’s medals and trophies, past the drawings they had made a long time ago, to where the collection of photographs was kept. She picked up one framed photograph out of them.
A man… a smile… a solace for almost a lifetime… Now just an image in a faded photograph. She ran her wrinkled hand over his face. It had been years since he had gone… years since his hand had held hers in the paths trodden.
The first sun beam that was to break the darkness that dawn, would mark her 80th birthday. It was hard for her to believe that eighty years of her life had passed by in an eye blink. The few days ahead seemed like a struggle, with the present hanging onto a bunch of forlorn dreams.
She closed her eyes and drowned into a panoramic rummage of her mind’s cache of memories. Images flashed before her eyes… images of her wedding day… her first child… her children’s first steps… their laughter in that very garden… her grandchildren… The thoughts brought a smile to her face. All that she had been through in life was worth holding her grandchildren in her arms. But they were all away in different corners of the world. Maybe they would send her a card wishing her happy birthday or maybe she would receive a phone call.
She looked at the other photographs of her family. They were moments of life captured for eternity that never grows old and never ceases to look back at you. You never see the bad days in a photo album; life simply seems to travel from one happy snapshot to another. Time in all those years had revealed the beauty in the multiplicity of patches. The time ahead was marked by the wait to ultimately become an image in a faded photograph.
She leaned back in her rocking chair and closed her eyes. Slowly everything around her vanished into nothingness. When the sun rose in the horizon of the slate blue sky, its sunrays kissing the sleeping night awake, she was asleep clinging onto the faded photograph of her beloved.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
A LITTLE BIT OF OURSELVES
When people come into our lives they take with them a little bit of ourselves. People that define everyday of our lives are nothing but extensions of us – little particles of ourselves floating around in our little universe; like the firecracker that bursts into a million sparks against a dark moonlit silhouette.
I would like to dedicate this post to such a spark in my life who has been on my mind for the past couple of days… An impulsive laugh, loud enough to shake the very ground that we walk on… An inspiring persona any living thing would look up to… A tender touch filled with unconditional, genuine care and concern… She came into our lives like a breeze with a sunshine smile, created a tornado which swept us off our feet to simply steel our hearts away.
Some old lady once told me that only good things happen to good people. Well, life does not walk around in the streets with an evil detector in its hands ready to shower curses at people when the machine starts beeping. In reality we are like this feather in ‘Forrest Gump’ floating ever-so-heedlessly wherever the wind called ‘life’ takes it. The wind could either take it to a sea of daffodils or to a busy Mumbai street to be trampled by the mob.
So the fact is, bad things can happen to good people as well... and it did… to her of all the people in this world…
She had been living in this bubble created by her, shut away from reality, wrapped in the comfort of memories and all the time hiding the torment within. We had watched the bubble burst before our very own eyes – helpless and in despair. It should be awfully scary to look at the wide blue ocean knowing that you may have to sail through it alone. Would she ever know that we would be there for her through all odds? But the truth was - will it make a difference?
Weird are the ways of life and the paths that it takes us through. The difference between life and classroom is that “Class room teaches you a lesson and then tests you. But life tests you first which in turn teaches you a lesson”. You silently seek answers to unspoken questions knowing very well there are no answers and that the only choice is to succumb to life’s magical hands.
I shut my eyes tight, excluding myself from the deafening silence and prayed to that unseen force to give us the strength to sustain, survive and strive through all obstacles that life has in store for us and look at every impediment in the eye and say “Life truly is beautiful”.
I hope time, being the ultimate healer, would bring back the sunshine smile and impulsive laugh back to that spark in my life.
I would like to dedicate this post to such a spark in my life who has been on my mind for the past couple of days… An impulsive laugh, loud enough to shake the very ground that we walk on… An inspiring persona any living thing would look up to… A tender touch filled with unconditional, genuine care and concern… She came into our lives like a breeze with a sunshine smile, created a tornado which swept us off our feet to simply steel our hearts away.
Some old lady once told me that only good things happen to good people. Well, life does not walk around in the streets with an evil detector in its hands ready to shower curses at people when the machine starts beeping. In reality we are like this feather in ‘Forrest Gump’ floating ever-so-heedlessly wherever the wind called ‘life’ takes it. The wind could either take it to a sea of daffodils or to a busy Mumbai street to be trampled by the mob.
So the fact is, bad things can happen to good people as well... and it did… to her of all the people in this world…
She had been living in this bubble created by her, shut away from reality, wrapped in the comfort of memories and all the time hiding the torment within. We had watched the bubble burst before our very own eyes – helpless and in despair. It should be awfully scary to look at the wide blue ocean knowing that you may have to sail through it alone. Would she ever know that we would be there for her through all odds? But the truth was - will it make a difference?
Weird are the ways of life and the paths that it takes us through. The difference between life and classroom is that “Class room teaches you a lesson and then tests you. But life tests you first which in turn teaches you a lesson”. You silently seek answers to unspoken questions knowing very well there are no answers and that the only choice is to succumb to life’s magical hands.
I shut my eyes tight, excluding myself from the deafening silence and prayed to that unseen force to give us the strength to sustain, survive and strive through all obstacles that life has in store for us and look at every impediment in the eye and say “Life truly is beautiful”.
I hope time, being the ultimate healer, would bring back the sunshine smile and impulsive laugh back to that spark in my life.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
THE COMING OF THE GREAT ;-)
Like all things good and bad that inhabit this universe, I also have a beginning.
The Genesis…
The day I was born the entire world celebrated. Till today the day is cherished as that of dreams, happiness and eternal love. OK OK… You guys stop giving me that “you-twister-of-facts-look” one would give Mr. Bush when he says “We are STILL trying to find Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq”. I happened to be born on the V-Day. (No no… my parents weren’t married on Children’s Day… Oops! It is supposed to work the other way round, isn’t it?) So when young couples walked hand-in-hand in dimly lit parks, gays returned peoples stares silently yet vehemently saying “Dude! Today is Valentines Day and we are in love” and dogs trotted around with their bitches with that “I am gonna get laid today” look in their doggie eyes, my mother was trying hard to bring this bundle of joy (I bet she would beg to disagree) into this world.
It was a calm morning compared to the catastrophe that was in store. I mean the earth didn’t shake, the volcanoes didnt erupt and tornados didn’t wipe away lives to mark the debacle that occurred on that Winter of ’83. I guess it was the lull before the storm.
Topsy-Turvy…
To begin with I was born upside down. Well I am not referring to how my cupboard looks (which btw looks as if Bin Laden has done a test bombing in my closet before WTO) or my twisted brains (which I am sure during my post-mortem would look like a chunk of entangled spaghetti). I mean to say that I was LITERALLY upside down in my mother’s womb.
Watching the sonogram of their unborn child is one of the most touching moments for any couple. My parents would have had a picture perfect view in there minds of an innocent fetus cuddled in blissful slumber. They were in for a shock!!! Besides being upside down I was striking this pose as if I had just been electrocuted. My parents were amazed at how I could have imitated Jayan even before my birth, with my limbs stretched out wide and adorning a ridiculous grin. (for the non-keralites Jayan is a mallu actor of olden days who had the dressing sense of Elvis Presley and danced as if he was about to have a nervous break-down).
Well my version of the story was that I was embracing life with open arms ;-).
Cry my Child…
So that’s what my mother carried for 9 months – an upside down Jayan. And finally on the V-Day I decided this is the day that’s gonna mark my grand entry into this universe. Well, it was grand indeed…
My mother had to have a cesarean. I gave her complications before birth and have been continuing the legend till date :-). But when the doctor cut her up, he realized that I was too spread out in my Jayan posture that he had to cut my mother up a couple of times more (I have sworn to hunt that doctor down and cut HIM to pieces!!!).
So finally after replicating Mask of Zorros’s signature on mummy’s tummy I was taken out of her womb and into this world all bloody and wrinkled. But when all normal childbirths were marked by the cry of life, I decided to be a little different from the rest. I was so consumed with my sleep (which became my favorite pastime in the years to come) that I forgot about the rule that I should cry. My mother let out an anxious cry, only to be silenced by the doctor who gestured with his hand against his chest (in the background came the ICICI jingle “Hum Hai Na…”). So, the doc held me by my legs gave me one tight slap on my unassuming bottom (Another reason why I intend to hunt him down). To the relief of my mother I let out a loud cry that shook the hospital structure. WAAAAAAAAAH… (Translated: “You *&@#$#^!^#^^$”).
Lonely… I am so lonely…
The cute male nurses (there are a lot of cute male nurses in U.A.E, where I was born) immediately wrapped me up and took me away to clean me. As they put me on a table I struck a Pamela-Anderson-on-the-beach pose and cooed “Blookloo…ma…coooooo?” (Translated: “Aint I cuuuute?”). But they took one look at me and ran away into the theatre room to find refuge away from the horrific creations of nature. I cried out with my little arms outstretched “Gulooooo…ma…nanaaaa…; Bulooooo…ma…nanaaaa…” (Translated: “Hold me now; Touch me now”). (Four years hence Glenn Medeiros found inspiration in these words and thus came the most famous love song of our era “Nothings gonna change my love for you”.)
Apparently, my mother was having complications after she delivered me and was bleeding profusely. While the doctor and nurses were fighting against fate and hope to set things back to normal, I was left in some corner of a hospital room oh so very lonely. Outside the theatre room my father was feeling as if he was living a nightmare.
All in the eyes of a Man…
Finally after it was ensured that my mother was safe, the nurses decided to display me to the world waiting outside. After what transpired one would expect a reaction something like this when one took a look at me: “That’s it??? All this pain and trauma for THIS???” But as I was kept snugly into the warm arms of my father I was ready to strike my Pamela Anderson pose again, only to be stopped by the look in my father’s eyes. The common opening statement by the nurse “It’s a GIRLLLLL!!!!” was easily forgotten amidst the havoc. The doctor did tell my father that my mother wouldn’t conceive again due to the operation undertaken to save her life. But as my father gazed into my half-closed eyes, the news didn’t seem to him the least bit important. (In short my parents were stuck with me for life… only me… Only years later, did my father realize the true gravity of what the doc was trying to tell him :-)). What I saw that day in my father’s eyes was probably the purest form of love-at-first-sight.
So that was the beginning of my journey into my Topsy-turvy world. The 23 years that followed have been punctuated by unexpected events that have defined the very essence of my life.
But I am still searching for the doc though… ;-)
The Genesis…
The day I was born the entire world celebrated. Till today the day is cherished as that of dreams, happiness and eternal love. OK OK… You guys stop giving me that “you-twister-of-facts-look” one would give Mr. Bush when he says “We are STILL trying to find Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq”. I happened to be born on the V-Day. (No no… my parents weren’t married on Children’s Day… Oops! It is supposed to work the other way round, isn’t it?) So when young couples walked hand-in-hand in dimly lit parks, gays returned peoples stares silently yet vehemently saying “Dude! Today is Valentines Day and we are in love” and dogs trotted around with their bitches with that “I am gonna get laid today” look in their doggie eyes, my mother was trying hard to bring this bundle of joy (I bet she would beg to disagree) into this world.
It was a calm morning compared to the catastrophe that was in store. I mean the earth didn’t shake, the volcanoes didnt erupt and tornados didn’t wipe away lives to mark the debacle that occurred on that Winter of ’83. I guess it was the lull before the storm.
Topsy-Turvy…
To begin with I was born upside down. Well I am not referring to how my cupboard looks (which btw looks as if Bin Laden has done a test bombing in my closet before WTO) or my twisted brains (which I am sure during my post-mortem would look like a chunk of entangled spaghetti). I mean to say that I was LITERALLY upside down in my mother’s womb.
Watching the sonogram of their unborn child is one of the most touching moments for any couple. My parents would have had a picture perfect view in there minds of an innocent fetus cuddled in blissful slumber. They were in for a shock!!! Besides being upside down I was striking this pose as if I had just been electrocuted. My parents were amazed at how I could have imitated Jayan even before my birth, with my limbs stretched out wide and adorning a ridiculous grin. (for the non-keralites Jayan is a mallu actor of olden days who had the dressing sense of Elvis Presley and danced as if he was about to have a nervous break-down).
Well my version of the story was that I was embracing life with open arms ;-).
Cry my Child…
So that’s what my mother carried for 9 months – an upside down Jayan. And finally on the V-Day I decided this is the day that’s gonna mark my grand entry into this universe. Well, it was grand indeed…
My mother had to have a cesarean. I gave her complications before birth and have been continuing the legend till date :-). But when the doctor cut her up, he realized that I was too spread out in my Jayan posture that he had to cut my mother up a couple of times more (I have sworn to hunt that doctor down and cut HIM to pieces!!!).
So finally after replicating Mask of Zorros’s signature on mummy’s tummy I was taken out of her womb and into this world all bloody and wrinkled. But when all normal childbirths were marked by the cry of life, I decided to be a little different from the rest. I was so consumed with my sleep (which became my favorite pastime in the years to come) that I forgot about the rule that I should cry. My mother let out an anxious cry, only to be silenced by the doctor who gestured with his hand against his chest (in the background came the ICICI jingle “Hum Hai Na…”). So, the doc held me by my legs gave me one tight slap on my unassuming bottom (Another reason why I intend to hunt him down). To the relief of my mother I let out a loud cry that shook the hospital structure. WAAAAAAAAAH… (Translated: “You *&@#$#^!^#^^$”).
Lonely… I am so lonely…
The cute male nurses (there are a lot of cute male nurses in U.A.E, where I was born) immediately wrapped me up and took me away to clean me. As they put me on a table I struck a Pamela-Anderson-on-the-beach pose and cooed “Blookloo…ma…coooooo?” (Translated: “Aint I cuuuute?”). But they took one look at me and ran away into the theatre room to find refuge away from the horrific creations of nature. I cried out with my little arms outstretched “Gulooooo…ma…nanaaaa…; Bulooooo…ma…nanaaaa…” (Translated: “Hold me now; Touch me now”). (Four years hence Glenn Medeiros found inspiration in these words and thus came the most famous love song of our era “Nothings gonna change my love for you”.)
Apparently, my mother was having complications after she delivered me and was bleeding profusely. While the doctor and nurses were fighting against fate and hope to set things back to normal, I was left in some corner of a hospital room oh so very lonely. Outside the theatre room my father was feeling as if he was living a nightmare.
All in the eyes of a Man…
Finally after it was ensured that my mother was safe, the nurses decided to display me to the world waiting outside. After what transpired one would expect a reaction something like this when one took a look at me: “That’s it??? All this pain and trauma for THIS???” But as I was kept snugly into the warm arms of my father I was ready to strike my Pamela Anderson pose again, only to be stopped by the look in my father’s eyes. The common opening statement by the nurse “It’s a GIRLLLLL!!!!” was easily forgotten amidst the havoc. The doctor did tell my father that my mother wouldn’t conceive again due to the operation undertaken to save her life. But as my father gazed into my half-closed eyes, the news didn’t seem to him the least bit important. (In short my parents were stuck with me for life… only me… Only years later, did my father realize the true gravity of what the doc was trying to tell him :-)). What I saw that day in my father’s eyes was probably the purest form of love-at-first-sight.
So that was the beginning of my journey into my Topsy-turvy world. The 23 years that followed have been punctuated by unexpected events that have defined the very essence of my life.
But I am still searching for the doc though… ;-)
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