Thirty Years Ago

Thirty years ago, on this day, I was rushing out of my room to get to a Halloween party.  Just as I had locked my door, the phone began to ring.  The sound was shrill and persistent, so I went inside and took the call.  It was Raghavan, proposing to me.  (I don't think the word 'marry' was ever mentioned, but in those few halting sentences, I understood that it was a proposal).  He was in India and I was in the U.S. at the time, and it meant a sudden change of lifestyle, which didn't really worry me.  

It was a time of "I don't have time to deal with my hair, another day is beckoning."  A time when one didn't really think too much ahead.  Leaving a bustling campus not far from New York where I was a student, to settle into a quiet campus in a relatively conservative part of Bangalore, where I would set up house with the person I wanted to spend my life with, and do... what else?  I didn't know but it was a dream come true.

And so it was that the following year found me in Bangalore, looking at a tiny two room apartment meant for postdocs (but campus accommodation was scarce so we were lucky).  I arrived with nine bags in tow.  "No space!  Keep two and send the rest back to Delhi," said Raghavan.  So my possessions were unpacked gradually over time.  The most important first - books, music, herbs and my favourite crockery.  A few clothes and shoes.  Everything else could wait.

We had a house with a stone wall on which hung our first rug - a wedding gift from a master weaver that was filled with colours of the sea.  Raghavan felt it was too beautiful to spread on the floor and on the wall it has remained ever since, in each of our houses.  A wall to wall bookshelf and a small space for the music and crafts that we collected.  Stone slabs served as seats and tables.  There was no space for a dining table and other luxuries.

The kitchen was sparsely equipped.  Raghavan had bought a microwave and an ancient toaster.  The shelves initially contained packets of pea soup and cashew nuts.  The first dinner I cooked required a walk to the campus outskirts, to search for a small shop selling any kind of food.  Sure enough, there was a tiny shop just outside, catering to the needs of a traffic intersection - displaying eggs in a rack, sweets and glucose biscuits in glass jars and a bunch of bananas that dangled overhead.  I chose the eggs and went home to cook cashewnut omlets and to microwave the pea soup.  That was our first and most memorable home cooked meal.

We had a little patch of garden where marigolds planted themselves each year.  A small hardy custard apple tree and a papaya tree which yielded delicious yellow papayas (these are now hard to find, they have all been replaced by their hybrid orange-red cousins).  I remember my first few spirited arguments with the Bengali neighbours who lived above us.  The lady would keep plucking unripe papayas from our tree without telling me.  While I claimed ownership to the tree because it grew in my garden, she claimed ownership to the papayas because they appeared at the level of her house!  A dispute that was mercifully resolved a few months later, when they moved out.

I remember learning to rat proof my house.  There was a large group of wily rodents of varying sizes and shapes that would sneak through gaps in doors at the slightest chance.  Raghavan's hockey skills proved very handy in chasing them out and we gradually learnt to seal every possible crack in our house.

Raghavan's first birthday celebration was to be a surprise party.  It was indeed a surprise filled evening, more for me perhaps than for anyone else.  It was to be barbecue dinner.  The friends who were to bring the barbecue set called at the last minute to say they could not come.  There was a power cut that entire day, which meant no mixie - so all marinades were hand pounded.  Large pans of drinking water were furtively boiled and cooled.  I did not possess an oven so I made gulab jamuns from Amul full cream milk powder (which has since vanished from the shelves- it's all toned milk now so I am unable to use that splendid hand me down  recipe from my mother any more).  I fried the minced meat that had been kept to make seekh kebabs- a kebab by any other name name tastes almost as good..

"No more surprise parties, " I decided at the end of the day.  It had been a nice celebration but I needed more hands to help out at parties at home in the future.

What I loved most about the campus were the magnificent trees.  They really made me feel connected to an ancient and natural spirit.  I still love seeing them and reaching out to them each day.  

Summer brought tamarind, and in those days when the campus was devoid of stray dogs, homeless monkeys, security guards and resident construction labour, I was free to cycle down the little lanes, gathering tamarind pods that had fallen on the ground, to make into a delicious tangy pickle.

I remember our first Diwali, when my father in law made a special trip from Delhi to see us.  It was filled with light and happiness.  We lit a huge number of fireworks on our terrace and ate home made sweets, then drove him to the little airport in Indiranagar (which was rather a peaceful drive in those days).

When I look back, I get a warm, contented feeling thinking of all those moments.  Not knowing where I was headed and not worrying about it, life moved on exactly as unpredictably as it had begun for me on that happy Halloween day, thirty years ago  Not knowing where life was taking me but knowing it would be a good journey, and that was all that mattered.

Seeing What Is

 On Tuesday morning, it was raining cats and dogs.  "Why not candies?" asked my son Nayan.  

"Candies would be like little rocks pelting on our head," I said, "And I'm not sure if we could eat them.."

"Of course, we could," said Nayan who actually doesn't eat much candy in real life.

"It might rain frogs," said Renee Aunty, who knows all about these things.  "It does, sometimes, you know."

"It's raining rhinos and leopards in Arunachal Pradesh," said Ram Uncle who likes a bit of a jaunt now and then.  "All I have been seeing are car wipers."

"On my farm in Maharashtra, it usually rains elephants and hippopotamuses," said Hasmukh Uncle with a smile.  Nayan was worried that the farm animals might get squashed but I said they would probably be wise enough to keep away from the rain.

But after Nayan had sent the video of the rivulet flowing past his bus stop to all his friends, everyone agreed that this was an unusually torrential downpour.

"We used to float paper boats in the water," sad Mona Bua from Kolkata, "But that isn't a good idea because it could clog the drains."

"There are no drains near my bus stop," declared Nayan.  "The next time it rains, I'm going to float a boat."

"We could make a banana leaf boat," said Raghavan aka Appa.  "Did you know that leaf boats are decorated and floated on the river, on Kartik Purnima (the full moon day in the Indian month of Kartik)?  This happens during a festival called Boita Bandana celebrated in Odisha to mark the day when merchants would set sail from the coast of Odisha to Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka for trade. Now it's a festival to mark the ancestral maritime journeys.  There is also a similar festival in Thailand called Loy Krathong."  

No, we did not know any of this (actually neither did he, but a few minutes on the Internet is all it takes).

"Actually,"continued Appa, "Kartik Purnima will be coming up soon, it usually occurs in November.  And look - here's a video showing how to make a banana leaf boat without any pins or staples."

Wow!  Appa sure knows how to ferret out important information.

So we agreed to try and make a banana leaf boat to set sail in the next rivulet we found.

But before we could find a banana leaf, the rain began again.

On Thursday morning, it pitter pattered without warning.  There was no time to find a banana leaf or watch the video but Appa did make a perfect paper boat while the rest of us were rushing to get ready.  I carried the boat carefully for Nayan but as we reached the bus stop, the rain tapered off.  No rivulet!  Not even a reasonable sized puddle.

Nayan was very upset.  Tears trickled down his face.  

I did not take it too seriously.  "Look Nayan," I said, "Look at what all we have around- it's a beautiful day - crisp and clear, the sun has risen, the trees are all saying "Good morning' to you.  We have time for a little walk.  Look at what is, and not at what is not, or you will never be happy."

But he couldn't be consoled or diverted.  So I just let him stand there with tears running down, until the bus arrived.  He wiped his tears off as he sat in the bus and he did not see me wave goodbye.

"Why does this child have to feel so intensely?" I asked Raghavan. 

"Maybe I shouldn't have made the boat.  I did tell him that there would probably not be enough water and we could float it later at home, but I didn't think he would take it so much to heart.  Anyway, it's a learning experience for us, and for him too."

"I told him," I said, "not to miss out on what is by dwelling on what is not, but he wouldn't listen."

"It's okay," said Raghavan, "He will soon get over it."

As I relaxed and thought about it, I realised that it was I who needed to see things as they were.  Yes, it was a beautiful day for me, and not so at that moment for my little son, whose heart was aching because he had imagined and dreamt and so looked forward to floating a boat. ("Pray to the gods for rain," he had told me earnestly).  

But in wondering why Nayan was so upset, I had stopped seeing him for what he is - a boy who is sensitive about things, and there are many things each day that touch his heart.  When I freed myself of judgement, I appreciated the fact that Nayan could feel strongly about things that were important to him, and he could express his feelings without worrying about how others perceived him.  I also know how buoyant he is - that once he is back from school, he will create a giant artificial puddle to float that boat, with much glee and splish-splashing.  And later, Raghavan will watch that video and make that banana leaf boat for a rainy day.  My job will just be to procure that banana leaf from our neighbour's garden (and pray to the God of Rain for a torrent even though our walls are dripping with water). I am gradually learning to see.