The Silence of the Crows

It was a long pending kiss of love between Chennai and Cyclone Nisha. The two made sure that their rendezvous was truly spectacular, their passionate romance in full swing for four solid days. Nisha truly swept Chennai off its feet – so much so that Chennai looked a, ruffled, exhausted man on day five.

Caught at home with my niece who had just landed from Coimbatore, shooting out abuses (at no one in particular) for our unfortunate house arrest, I was glued to the television set flipping between channels that covered the Mumbai episode. Nothing seemed to go right – people were dying, our media seminar was going nowhere (not like we could’ve helped it, colleges were locked up in Chennai and Pondicherry) and miss sunshine seemed embarrassed to witness Chennai’s love story. My niece was highly restless and annoyed with the 24 hrs news coverage and the doors that were tight shut. Graciously (quite graciously) my mom announced we could go to the terrace to experience this rare spectacle. The entire family ran upstairs in child like enthusiasm. And God! The Wind God – he truly deserves a pat on his back. It was amazing to stand there, by the riverside, amidst the wild winds and all that… we giggled, beating the branches of the Ashoka tree that dangerously swayed into our territory. My niece couldn’t have laughed louder and we played around with the trees and the irrepressible umbrellas.

Suddenly my brother pointed at the crows. They were trying hard to combat the winds, to get their wings sailing. But Nisha had the upper hand and the crows tumbled down to the tress, out of balance and out of control. It was a hilarious sight, to see those nasty, mean crows, who peck at our heads for peeping down their nests, (would they ever understand that we had better things to eat than their silly red mouthed babies?) go haywire, rotating 360 degrees vertically in the cyclone. We doubled up looking at them; we had the cheap thrill of getting back at the crows for their unexpected shower of crap, at the most helpless moment (we would only have a dried leaf to our solace), on the way to school and work and their merciless cawing all round the day.

But strangely, the crows were dead silent that day. It was their nightmare, and they chose to battle their way quietly. The silence ferociously countered those frightening gun shots from the Taj. The crows tumbled down, spun back to the branches. I don’t know why, but they bounced back to try again and again and again. Not giving up ever, maybe they were bewildered as to why something was acting against the norms of nature. What were they trying to prove and to whom? Why didn’t the brash counterforce intimidate them? Where did they get the will power to fight the odds and prove their point? We can and we will… they had resolved in their small bird brain.

Soon after, when Chennai bored the hell out of Nisha, she left, abruptly. The city wept in sorrow and soon little miss sunshine peeped proudly above us. The silent crows started chattering again, though many of their green homes had turned bald from beautiful. Nothing could stop them and they worked towards normalcy. Today their nightmare has turned a fairy tale and they live happily ever after – mom, dad, babies, everyone! It’s quite a crow’s story from a nightmare to a fairy tale… but the episode remains ‘my moral of the day’. India is recuperating and our media seminar is taking shape. The venue is booked, sponsors are happening and we’ve got a “BIG” radio partner. I feel good and I can’t wait for my turn of happily ever after…

The Capital of Sikkim is America!

Funny or not, I’m still unable to figure out. Or maybe as someone once said, it’s funny, but in a not so nice way. As a part of our educational campaign, “Kalvi”, we had to visit various corporation schools across Chennai city, to spread awareness about the government policies for school going children. And this was in turn supposed to encourage the children to continue their education and reduce the number of school drop-outs.

Mrinalini and Gayatri did a great job at explaining why education is important to each one of the students and how they could avail the government benefits for school-goers. The bribe to make them listen was a promise that there is a prize awaiting them at the end of the day. Mid-day meals, scholarships, cycles and innovative activity based learning programmes were some of the schemes that the government offers and surprisingly many of them drew a blank when we spoke about it.

After a lot of commotion, the four finalists were chosen. Being the quizmaster (!!!:P), I was quite apprehensive about the choice of questions. Our target group was class 8 – class 12 and I didn’t want to deviate from what would be appropriate. Given the fact that the class 4 & 5 students of a private school were a lot smarter and proactive than expected (I am referring to our previous campaign on global warming), I decided to prepare questions that fall somewhere between easy and moderate. Sitting with my mom, brother and cousin and taking in a lot of suggestions, I decided upon twenty questions.

So yeah, coming back to the classroom picture… I went on to ask the first finalist, Shanmugam… “What is the capital of Sikkim?”. “Uh…Sikkimaa?”, he blinked. I managed to explain where and what exactly Sikkim is all about. After some deep thinking, “America!” came his reply loud and hopeful. I was baffled. Shocked. Dumbfound. By this time there were other hopefuls in the class, jumping out of their seats with their hands well above their heads, emulating a pendulum, screaming “Meees, meees (Miss)”. Okay, so maybe Shanmugam was not the right choice for the finals, I assumed and went on to give the other aspirants a chance. “Bhuuuutan, Ootttttyyyyy, New Yoooork”. Embarrassed, I moved on to the next finalist. Who is the Indian who won a gold medal at Olympics 2008? “Ummm…ayyo…oru second meees”. He scratched his head and tried to get it out of his mouth. “Edho oru Brinda mees!” (I’m sorry Mr. Bindra, I didn’t mean to cause this sex change!)

What followed in the higher classes was no different. Expand (a+b)2 . Offended looks, we don’t have this meees, a square plus b square and wrong et ceteras…. What is the capital of Madhya Pradhesh? (Well, it is at least closer to TN and I personally thought it would be easier). Again, America, again New York… and something new, “Pudhu Delhi”. The change itself was a relief. We finally gave up and asked them about something that they sing everyday at school. The Tamizh Thaay Vaazhthu. “Name the person who wrote the Tamizh Thaay Vaazhthu. Murmured discussions and then “Thiruvalluvar, Bharathiyar…!”. My goodness! We saw one smarty pants hurriedly opening her Tamil book beneath her desk. Now we had to tell them that though the government policies were good, Honesty was simply the best policy (he he…sorry)!

Exhausted mentally and physically at the end of the day, we returned home quite baffled. The status of the government run schools was sad. Could I take their answers as an excuse to innocence? I tried but couldn’t, because they were 12, 13 14, 15, 16, 17 and I doubt if adolescence still holds innocence as its component. And innocent people don’t catcall, they wouldn’t dream of asking women the time for the kinky pleasure of it. They don’t roam the town with perfectly tweezed eyebrows (I remember myself sporting ragged, bushy eyebrows till I was eighteen…) and don’t sit in class whispering obscenities.

I did get back home and give a funny recount of my day. We had a good laugh… but the funny side apart, there was nothing really funny. The education standards are so poor in these schools that they don’t even know how to distinguish between cities, towns and countries. They follow the English medium, but stutter and splutter over English words (they couldn’t read the words of wisdom on the graffiti table top that they got. They were in fact disappointed that the prize was something so “mundane”. They were not chocolates or sketch pens, you see). They didn’t know math, they didn’t know Tamil… and well yeah, they did know an Indian astronaut, Kalpana Chawla, but not that fact that she’s no more.

Statistics show that Tamil Nadu is listed under the states having the worst literacy rates. And we could see why. Right in front of our eyes. We didn’t know who is to be blamed. The government? The teachers? The students? Or ourselves? Initiatives to improve our condition do exist, thanks to the CSR drive of some organizations and the self-interest of a few activists, like the one whom we met at the school. She voluntarily works with children at the level of pre-schooling itself (it may be irrelevant here, but the pre-kg classroom at the school was done in pinkJ), training them towards a proper mindset to learn and know and to never drop-out.

We are all not Mother Teresas, and we don’t have to be either. We can still spend a bomb on education abroad and fancy courses in schools in India. Still throw tantrums over boring food and still be indifferent to our books till just before our exams. I don’t intend to change too much. But sometimes, when life shows you the darker side of the story, you can’t help but be concerned. I appreciate whosoever is concerned in originating a department like ours. I’m happy for this campaign that happened, however big or small. I appreciate all the people who have volunteered for the Teach India initiative. I’m glad that there are many individuals rising to perceive a change.

Barren lands don’t make a nice picture and I pray for greener pastures to come.

Strangers in the living room

I didn’t know until a few days back that the feeling was a common thing in the world. You don’t know the person sitting besides you in your own living room. And what’s worse, they don’t know you too! I mean you’ve lived with them for more than two decades… they’ve given you life, food, shelter… and in many a case, a lot of concealed love and care. But why is it totally impossible to feel and understand the other’s likes, dislikes and emotions? Why do we fail to respect their thoughts, philosophies and way of life? Though we literally live in each other’s shoes everyday, it’s so hard to empathize with them, to pause for a minute to know who they are.

Living under the same roof, but raised in obviously different backgrounds, we end up being selfish, absolutely selfish, always wanting the other to compromise for our comforts and apprehensions. The dad/mom never sees a reason as to why their daughter has to go for her school trip and the daughter of course is hardly mindful of the zillion fears that her parents hold. So who wins in the end? The one has better control over the other, the one who can get his way out with a tight slap on the other’s face.

So what about the one who’s crying with her hand on the cheek? If this is the same case everyday, for very obvious reasons, an invisible wall builds its way between the two parties. So it’s like this – a living room, two parties, a hell a lot of commotion and a thick wall between them. But one of the two sides eventually gets bored of being a rebel, always trying to break the crapshit rules. What’s the point when it’s all proving to be oh so fruitless? Like a pregnant woman, with her life so full of hopes and dreams, our protagonist has waited all her life. But with frequent pregnancies followed by frequent (painful) miscarriages, she is forced into hopelessness, followed by a long cold silence. The two sides don’t fight…they just drag their feet along in the lonely road of dark silence and here stops the need to know the other. But here we need to understand that the problem is not solved. They feel its better this way; the fools just mistake the void for peace of mind.

But one day one of them slowly does realize that their lives, together is not for too long. At this point of time panic sets in. Is this the way things are going to be forever? Will the emotional distance widen with the map? Will I ever know the people who are a part of my biological cells?

Both sides have private lives of their own, which they don’t bother to talk about to the other for simple reasons that they are afraid to. But there is a lot to share, a lot to talk about and this would in fact make life a more beautiful place to live in. There are moments, joys, tears, relationships, which would gain more reason for existence, if shared with the other. But who is going to make the first move in 20 years? Who would be the first to realize that beneath that detestable veil that the other dons, there’s a beautiful person who is worth a lot of love?

Life’s about a lot of unanswered questions. Like those very desirable parent-child relationships in Jaane tu ya jaane na (I’m sorry, but for some strange reasons I’m still unable to get over the movie), everyone, I bet, would love to get close and personal with their kith and kin. No one loves to hate and no one hates to love. It’s all in that stupid, stupid mind! It draws polluted patterns in our heart, patterns which we should sweep out ASAP (even if it means getting the ONYX back in town!). A touch here and a touch there, and the pattern is now clearly a design …yeah, can you now see the shape of the heart?

We can try hard to make it simple. So here goes...I shout it out loud, for the world and for myself to hear – “Go to your bedroom. Slam the door hard behind yourself. Say, “don’t break the rules, just break the barricades”. Then rush out, into the living room and whooooooooosh, the strangers have gone!

There’s one more Angel in Heaven

This is one entry that I never imagined will ever take a place in my blog. It pained us when to know that even thatha’s post-operative scars had disappeared without a trace. It’s been exactly ten days since he left us, but the scars in our hearts are permanently etched. In fact I’ve never before experienced the pain of a dear departed and I still don’t understand what’s hit us.

Even a month back, he was sitting right here, keenly looking at some family pictures, making light hearted comments in a voice ever so loud. Came new years, came a fate, so wrongly written. It’s difficult for each one of us in this grand old family that he has raised, it’s almost impossible to come to terms with life’s weird plans.

Thatha’s been a part of me for as long as I can remember. His mini greeting cards with a small paper attachment always reached us without fail on Pongal and birthdays. There are always a few friends who forget my birthday, but I could always take it for granted that thatha would wish me. He would always cheerfully call out his wishes, speak a sentence or two and immediately pass over the phone to ammama. But this year, there was no call…no thatha… and at the strike of twelve I was gazing back at the mug shot of his picture, synthetically touched by some studio guy. I was waiting for a sign of blessing, a sign to tell me that his wishes are always with me. Then I gazed out of the window with flying curtains… then I slowly closed my eyes praying for a dream. I woke up the next morning, only to realize that nothing’s changed. Maybe miracles don’t happen; maybe I wasn’t worth the miracle.

We could still smell the ‘thatha scent’ (thatha was the most loyal customer of Chandrika soap!) in his hand towel as he lay there, cruelly bound by a freezing glass box. He bore a smile, a sign of peaceful departure. I’ve often heard people saying that their dear ones never seemed dead, but just appeared to be lost in a peaceful long slumber. I’ve never felt the intensity of those words then. But, Oh my God…how true! He seemed to be silently smiling at all the drama around him. Everyone who shed a tear at his rites had a memory to carry, but for us, the memories are endless. Everything at home reminds us of him – his water bottles, BP apparatus, tablet boxes, the two new shirts that he had kept in the locker so that he could come back and wear them for Pongal, his inner garments that he always insisted on washing himself. Such a disciplined person, so clean and pure in body and soul… there are a million things that one could learn from him.

Right from when I was very small, I would never share his gifts anyone. Thatha was someone so unimaginable special…someone whom you’d never want to share. I remember the gold chain with the Krishna’s pendant (that was the first gift, as far as I remember), the double sided studs with American diamonds, the magic sketch pens, the fluorescent multi-coloured erasers, colouring books, the chewing gums, toffees and chocolates before our three day trips, the long walks, the cassata ice cream at shakes and creams, stories of kings and mantris, and the hilariously tweaked real life tales based on one of us, state express ice creams, Cooimbatore Annapoorna’s tiffin, library books… he never ever said no. In fact I have a few remnants of the gifts that he gave me fifteen years back, in an old red handbag and it breaks my heart to open and look at them now.

I’ve never seen a person relish simple things in life with such childish delight. Pizzas, and my custom made omlettes were at least a one-time requirement during his comebacks. We shared a love for Chinese food and made sure that we have a Chinese treat during birthdays. He loved sunglasses and was particularly proud of a pair that was attachable to normal spectacles. His latest passion was sudoku and he carried an empty notebook which he filled in with samples from newspapers and books. Even now my mom found some fresh, dated ones in the notebook. He loved to talk and talk all day and night long, but strangely he was an introvert to the outside world. He loved children, he loved compact, empty boxes… he rarely smiled for pictures, but smiled a lot in person. He could only be loved and respected; he was worth so much love and affection. He’s someone who will be cherished till our final breath. An engineer, a great football player, a lover of cricket, a brain so sharp, a roaming encyclopedia, a loving father, a loving grandfather, a teacher, a friend – a friend who made you laugh and cry.

We greedily ask for just one more year with you… six more months … Even if we’ve had ten more years with you we would have missed you just the same thatha.

As I see my mom crying in anguish almost everyday (I’ve hardly seen her crying twice or thrice in my lifetime) I wonder if he’ll come back some day. I went to the terrace a week back and stared at the brightest star for half an hour. His presence was so binding that maybe it’ll never hit us completely that he’s gone. Am I still going to play games with myself, thinking that he’s gone for a ten day break to Coimbatore or Neyveli? His return ticket for Jan 5^th flutters in the breeze… are we ever going to understand that there’s no more a Jan 5^th with thatha?

I touched his feet while he was lying there in his slumber. They felt so soft and supple. I felt his beautiful fingers, they still seemed to beat with life. Even during his final few hours with us, he taught us the pain of love, the healing touch of togetherness. That was when I knew how it felt to cry all day...nothing could to fill the void in the heart. The mostly painful part of death is the ‘take away’…every vessel in the body screams and wails with you, on knowing there’s never going to be another day with the most beautiful creation of God. A brufen did heal the pain in my body, but the grief in our heart will never find any solace.

He’s had a quite a satisfying journey though for all of his seventy six years and that’s just one consoling thought. Being a heart patient for more than 35 years, he pulled his way through, raised five daughters and got them to safe banks. He saw all of his doting ten grandchildren and a great grand daughter too. What more could a person want? Happy and hearty till the last breath, I think it’s a peaceful demise that he truly deserves.

Joseph and his Technicolor coat had a few lines that seem so aptly written for my thatha…

There's one more angel in Heaven
There's one more star in the sky
We'll never forget you
It's tough but we're gonna get by
There's one less place at our table
There's one more tear in my eye

There can never be anyone like you thatha. Absolutely no one in this entire world. You belong only to us and we’ll miss you forever.

I love you.

Just one more time...

Oh yes, I have ignored you… I was in a concealed world of my own

And yeah, I have pretended not to hear you… your questions were such a bother…

Many a times I have screamed my lungs out, despite the generations between us

I have often been spiteful; my pride then, was more important than your age

I didn’t respond to your zillion efforts to put me back on track … I paid no heed to your care

Maybe I turned a deaf ear to your pleas… My vision was more important than yours…

But that unfortunate day I realized,

With every tear I shed,

With every pain I felt,

That I love you with all my heart

Now I don’t know where I stand

Do I mean anything to you after what I’ve done?

I have no answers, coz when I saw you there, eye to eye,

You never smiled.

All I can I do is hope with all my life, that there’s a tiny place there…

In that diminishing heart of yours

But I realize that the great man that you are,

Would never fail me the way I’ve failed you all these days

You wouldn’t be judgmental; you’ll look at me as none but your dear old granddaughter;

That’s because you have the greatness of God.

And that’s where I place you.

Yeah, next to God.

Is it too late to apologize?

Is it too late to be forgiven?

I hope not. I pray not.

Because you and I and all of us here,

Know you aren’t ready to leave.

The time will come though, no matter what,

But the time is not now, we all know that

So let’s fight together…

You’re a survivor, you are a little more than just special.

You’re a rare creation, a piece of art,

Who’s here to stay forever and forever

You define permanence, you define goodness

You define us, you're a big part of us.

Please come back for the crayons,

Come back for the magic sketches

Come back for the fragrant pink erasers…some like an umbrella, some like a football

Come back for your stories

Come back for your hilarity

Come back for my smile

Which you always complain I lack

Come back… I promise to be good.

I need you to give me that second chance

To love and to show you what you are really worth

I need you to give me that second chance

Because you are God.

Gods always take chances

And grant us that ‘just one more time’