The Yellowed White Coat

"They'll call when they call," M. informed me, her closed frown underlined by her streaming cold. This was unacceptable, not just because of the meaningless tautology of her non-response, but because M was the nurse sent out to attend to me. She interrupted herself and me several times to blow her nose, her belligerence rock like, a most uncompromising oncos, snarling like a Cerebus.

M. is the face of my nephrologist's office. The office has failed to file the necessary paperwork to follow the next step needed in care of my disease management. The office has been singularly deaf to my protests that I need no referrals or authorizations, that I had confirmed this with my insurance. It seems, as it was with my burnt house, I am doomed to fight for basic rights against an army of scrivening, sniffling bureaucrats, who treat me as though I am an annoying fly in their smooth ointment.

Today, M showed me forms I had filled in, which they had faxed to various people, with the word "URGENT" stamped on four drafts. However, recipients of those faxes are not concerned with what the nephrologist's office is supposed to do, and so these "URGENT" summons go unaddressed. My GP's office called me today to remind me that I hadn't seen them in months, and if I needed help with my kidney disease, I should talk to my nephrologist. Furthermore, if it was "URGENT" that a response be made, then it defies logic that the nephrologist's office refuses to follow protocol and address the urgency of the matter.

I called the nephrologist's office, but then they were closed. They are closed every week day between 12pm and 2pm, and there is no way to leave a message during those times. They do not answer the phones before 9:40am,  or after 3:30pm, so divine intervention would be needed if a caller worked from 9 to 5, even counting for the usual 12-1 lunch break. The only way to reach the office is to take time off from whatever useless profession one pursues, and just arrive, unannounced and unexpected, exhaling fire. Then there is much scurrying and a file emerges.

I asked to see the file, and the first thing that caught my eye was the name of the nephrologist attending my case; it was the wrong practitioner. I asked about it, and M covered the objectionable information with a swollen finger, stabbing at the word "URGENT" repeatedly instead in an excellent demonstration of the Red Herring Logical Fallacy that my Freshman Composition students would immediately recognize.

The doctor's office had drawn blood (after attempts on different arms, resulting in many bruises that spoke horrible lies about my tendency to addictions), but had failed to collect the results in time for my nephrologist appointment a couple of weeks later. The nephrologist is personable and interesting to talk to, and my office visit with him resulted in a rather pleasant conversation without much matter, since the relevant results were not available; it felt like a $35 tea without the tea.

Today, M condescendingly explained (as though to a rather slow four year-old in need of a nap) that without the blood work, there should have been no appointment. I asked her whose fault that was; M blew her nose noisily in response and went back to stabbing the "URGENT" on the file.

I asked, "Do you think that no one will notice if I should die or get really sick because your office did not file this? Why did your office not check if the results were received before confirming the doctor's appointment and assuring me that the results were, indeed, in?"

Her response, patient reader, deserves a concrete description. She stood with one hip jutting out to express her extreme boredom with the situation her virtues were tested in. She sighed and coughed in a single noise, blew her nose again, and cocking her head first northeast, then southwest, and finally northeast again to punctuate each word, she spat, "I don't know."

Then she escalated the voltage of belligerence in her glance and stance, and stared hard at me, pursing her lips so tightly that her lips completely disappeared and caused a little balloon to blossom underneath her flaring nostrils. Had I stayed farther, she would have been unable to stop the raspberry that was so obviously blooming.

Stress aggravates my disease, an obvious observation, considering the sudden plummeting of my health after my home burned. I regularly practice stress management techniques and common sense assures that my medical team's constant vigilance should decrease my stress. However, my dealings with my nephrologist's office might well have taken years off my life, negated many a meditation session and calm morning.

There is a vertical frown above my eyebrows. It reminds me of Shiva's third eye, the one that opens when Shiva becomes Rudra, the angry deity whose dance brings on the end of a world. However, unlike the god, I am of mortal flesh and do not have the skill to the burn a world without killing myself first. But I know the shape of that third eye too well. If I could control mine, it would burn off the consummate indifference and its attendant belligerence radiating from self-aggrandized care givers who remain convinced of the need to keep the sick from their hallowed halls, to keep the diseased fettered in reams of indefatigable bureaucracy.

A Little of All

I have been amiss in updating this blog and I could offer some really good excuses; but that's not what this space is for. I asked the universe, and the universe rained down gifts on me. I did get my book contract and I am working on my book more hours than can be contained in a day. It is rewarding work, even though I am still writing and not getting anything concrete in return. Just the writing feels cathartic.

I have been complaining about stories haunting me, itching me beneath my finger nails, fluttering beneath my closed eyelids, racing through my brain path ways, running along my veins, like plasma I cannot rid myself of. So every time I write a story or a section, I feel like I have been drained of all blood and must rest to fill myself up again, like I have poured out a part of myself. However, this pouring out is exhausting and leaves me unable for the rest of the week. Instead of these intense writing schedules, I'd love to be able to write a little each day, grade a bit, clean up the house regularly, and keep up with my reading, all as part of an unremarkable daily quotidian.

I wonder at all who write for the love of it. One of my best friends writes in the wee hours of the morning and is disciplined enough to command her pen. She, along with a lot of people whose writing habits I read about, can write for a couple of hours a day and not miss time. She can have normal appointments, meet people for lunch, attend and contribute meaningfully to meetings, and do the same thing the following day! She has amassed a formidable body of varied genres, all because she has the discipline to write a little everyday.

One of my favorite writers describes her writing routine: she tends to her family, takes a walk, meditates, and then settles down for the afternoon of writing. All that I have read about writing habits point out the importance of having a routine, the richness that comes from disciplined expression of one's passion. One should have a specific place to write, like a desk, Virginia Woolf's room of one's own to write most productively. This designated place and routine validate one's writing.

To that end, I have cleared a desk, arranged my work schedule, and given myself lots of pep-talks on the importance of establishing a writing time-table and following it through. After all, I reasoned with myself, I do submit my grades and manage the Learning Management System at work! My mortgage is never late and the cats are never hungry. So I must possess a modicum of self-discipline. Why not use that for the one thing that nourishes me the most?

Aye there's the rub! Writing is my nourishment and I have a writing-disorder!

 Last year, when my kidney disease suddenly plummeted my well-being, I began a diet that is stricter than a movie-star diet, and for the most part, have kept it up. I lost some weight and people around me exclaimed at my self-control. However, no matter how much I talk about it, I cannot fully express the ferociousness of the battles I fought to resist pizzas, to walk away from chhole-bhature, piping hot bhajias, the dhebras that used to be my staple, or the constant struggle to refuse cheese. The problem is, I can resist all that food, even get used to my salt deprived, lean bowl, mainly, I believe, because my body is more biddable than my writing habits.

I fear that my writing habits are sofa loungers that resist all discipline and refuse all commands to get up and get going. I have always felt guilty when I have given in to them: I should be cleaning up a bit, grading, updating, arranging my house, tending to the cats who share my living space. After all, I am really not the only person extraordinary enough to love writing! So on days when I give in to my unhealthy writing habits feel like wicked indulgences, though the aftermath is cathartic. I do not mean to say that the quality of writing is excellent; actually, quite the contrary. More than 90% needs to be re-written. But then there is a separate relief that comes with each draft.

The stories I am in the middle of inhabit me. I remember last week, I came home from work, got my dinner together and opened the story I had been working on. The television was on and the cats fed. I'd just meant to give the story a quick glance. When I looked up, it was 3:00 a.m. My dinner was untouched and my back hurt. I did finish that story but the next day at work was difficult, to put it mildly. I vowed and promised and threatened myself against such extravagant immoderation. I felt as though I had fallen off my diet and my stomach was paying the price of my intemperance.

I love that my stories have a purpose, a deadline, and a home. I am more than grateful for the close reading they receive; it has been  long time since anybody read anything I wrote this closely! Yes, I have problems with weaving plots, maintaining perspective, and ensuring tense consistency. However, it is a labor of love and I feel more meaningful, more like an active participant of a purposeful universe, more relevant than when I am doing anything else.

This entry is an exercise of discipline in itself. I am forcing myself to take a break from the story that owns me right now. Little by little, the gods willing, I shall tame my unruly habits. Perhaps, one day, I, too shall command a clean house and a body of writing I can show off, all because I finally will have trained myself to do a little of all everyday!

When You Wish Upon A Star . . .

The dance form that I had been trained in is Kathak. The word Kathak means Story Teller (the one who tells a katha or story is the Kathak). You could say that all my training in all I have studied has purported towards teaching me to tell stories. I have always taken this ideal very seriously and have made it the end of all. I have wished to tell stories that would tell listeners about themselves. I have not been able to sustain the rigor of my dancing training, but I have sought to hold on to the idea of the story teller, and connected to that has been my dream of a fiction book contract. But you know what they say about wishes, though: they all come true and they are not free.


Yes. This is what it feels like when dreams are granted: the constant nervousness, the unending fear of inadequacy, the unimaginable excitement (which feels like big cats cavorting around one's innards), and the desperate need to maintain balance, to keep things real.


Yes. I have a book contract, and I only hope I will not disappoint. On the one hand, I do believe that this is what I have always wanted, that my training, teaching, indeed, my living has been leading up to this, that at least some of my stories now have a validated purpose. I remember being ecstatic for exactly four days when I first heard; but after that, this deep fear has taken home within me. I think that this fear is the price I will have to pay for this wish.


We are forever told stories of happily-ever-after, of dreams coming true, of wishes granted. These stories end there. What else is left to say, the story-teller asks. The after-story is boring, like all accounts of "happiness" are boring (just ask Tolstoy!). What is interesting is the journey to this shining gem of dream, the process undertaken, choices made, prices paid to achieve it, that we might step on the same stones to our dreams.


I would insist that the journey and process are boring. They are often accidents, not even vaguely connected to what they lead up to, and the choices are not deliberate; such a narrative would lack focus and would ramble. What happens once the goal is reached? That is what interests. I wanted to come home when my house burned and I did; I wanted a fiction book contract and I have it (if I do not disappoint). How does one figure out exactly what it was that caused this? Most importantly, how does one avoid waking up and losing the dream?


I do not mean to seem ungrateful. Of course, I am grateful. I also recognize the wonderful, unimaginable feeling that has accompanied this gift: I no longer feel alone with my story; the validation has done wonders for the stories and an editorial voice is just the infusion of freshness my stale stories have needed, something I had not even realized until I got it. I love the absolutely new perspectives opening before me, like the revolving doors for Walter Mitty. The possibilities seem endless and instead of feeling defeated or diminished, the editorial feedback has given me a focus and an excitement for working on those stories; I actually look forward to the work. I cannot believe that my stories merit this serious treatment!


The popular adage advises that if one meets the Buddha, one should kill him; life (and the journey) are more important than achieving perfection. What if one could actually avoid killing the Buddha and begin a new road? That is the process that would interest. That is the story that would need no sub-plot. That would be a story of true courage, since I don't think I am the only one who is enveloped with this dark fear once the euphoria of a granted wish evaporates.


This post goes out as a validation of all fears, especially the ones that form the dark shadow of a granted wish. Perhaps we need these fears as much as we need our dreams; they provide depth to otherwise single-dimensioned ideals. I will try to study the face of these fears so that I may understand the actual nature of what happens when a star grants a wish.

Movie Magic

There is an explosion, a disturbance throbs through the air, and the chase is on! Yes, reader, I saw Dhoom 3 on the big screen and I cannot think of a better way of enjoying a holiday afternoon with my family. I have previously waxed exuberantly about the magic of Hindi movies, and I am reassured that that magic has not waned as I get older.

As a girl, I remember the excitement that flooded the pit of my stomach at the prospect of a film outing, especially if a large number of people were to join in. During vacations, the afternoon or morning shows were preferred, and during regular school days, we went for night shows. The entire day ended up revolving around these outings, even when we had other things going on, other treats. We had consultations about wardrobes, who might say what, who would sit next to whom, and conjectures about what possible plot lines could lead up to the songs we all knew by then, thanks to the Binaca Geet Mala on the radio. Buying snacks at the theatre was out of question; those snacks would be prohibitively, exorbitantly priced. But perhaps, we could go for bhel or other spicy-sour-irresistible street food after the film. Oh the possibilities of how the outing could turn out were endless! Who knows what adventures awaited us in the unpredictable, electrifying hustle-bustle of the city streets and cinema halls! We wanted to be prepared for it all!

As I grew up, I promised myself I'd bloom into this sophisticate, for whom a film outing would be no big deal, nothing to be excited about; such excitement was for silly young girls, who had no real "life" to speak of. I had plans for my "life," which would be scintillating and sparkling with all manner of unimaginably brilliant things. Hindi films would pale, I promised myself.

Last week, when I went for Dhoom 3, I realized that this was one of the many promises I'd broken to myself. I could not resist the excitement that flooded over, unexpectedly. Of course, since I am no longer the dashing thrill-seeker, I do pray that no unexpected adventure awaits me on the streets or cinema hall. But when the chase is on, I find myself on the edge of my seat; I love the surprises splashed on the large screen; I do not need the screen to be 3-D to get fully immersed in the movie.

There are a few selves I wear, which help me live most fully. The un-aging self in the cinema house is one of these selves. It is well-known that those who read, get to live a thousand alternate lives; I would contend that the same is true of those who love the movies!

On this last day of the year, try out an unfamiliar self; go to the cinema theatre! Find a motorcycle you'd never ride, navigate vectors you could never balance or control, swing behind the screen to discover an unforeseen, amazing reality; who knows what astonishing, electrifying adventure awaits a half-forgotten imagined self?

Ibsit Invidia

Once upon a time, there was a king who sought to banish all pain, sickness, and death from his kingdom. Now this story, though old, is not alien. It defines the consciousness of all ages, a very human quest for an impossible utopia. This story illuminates, like few others, the importance and inevitability of all that Pandora let loose on the mortal world.

I do not remember the first time I read this story; as long as I can remember, I could rattle it by rote. So this story is not new to me. Yet every time I have been brought before it, it has affected me. It is an ancient tale, the definition of happiness very superficial, yet amazingly, it resonates with undiluted power. Our mythologies have sharpened and shaped our fears, our pain in so many forms, some sacred, some obscene, yet others that are neither. Systems of belief insist on logical connections between the profane and the ills our flesh is heir to, even provide methodologies to keep ailment at bay.

The Gita points out that what causes fear is the imagination of a circumstance rather than the circumstance itself, and so what needs to be addressed is one's imagination, not avoidance of a circumstance. The Ramayana counsels to embrace all circumstances with equanimity, presenting as role model a prince who accepts crown and banishment with the same smile. However, I find it impossible to live up to these very simple, very wise ideas. I find it impossible to react in the same way to the birth of my daughter and the loss of my son; the only similarity in those reactions is the intensity of almost exactly opposite feelings. My nightmares abound with imagined horrors that I am unable to control.

I suppose this is the reason why the old story speaks so clearly. This morning episode of Buddha addressed this part of the story. I had never thought what it would mean to banish all suffering from a city. It was a horrifying picture. Old age, sickness, pain are woven in the fabric of life, along with youth and good health. Ripping the two apart would loosen unimaginable hells, rob all that makes sense in organized civilizations. Children would languish for grandmothers' tales; sons and daughters would worry about their infirm parents; families would not be allowed to care for sick loved ones; young children, missing grandparents, could be reunited with them only if they were diseased enough. Flourishing households, torn apart, would wither away, like a city of insects deprived of their shade of a felled tree. The episode ended with the image of the infant prince weeping helplessly in his sleep at this heavy loss to his land.

 I find myself blaming the king for his short sightedness. However, upon reflection, I am guilty of something similar: I too have wanted to banish all suffering from my child's life. In fact, I count my failures in terms of horrors, disappointments, heartaches, and illnesses I have been unable to keep away from her. Today, I ask if I have done her any favors by trying to protect her; I, too, want her to be a feared and respected conqueror of lands, rather than a wise ascetic her peers jeer at.

This post goes out as a prayer to the universe, for strength to accept (if not welcome) whatever awaits. I am counting on old stories to hold my hand and light my household when evening insists on advancing, when night seems unending. I pray for eyes enough to discern the twilight of dawn from dusk and remember the importance of both in a fully lived day.

Still Life

I know I should be working, honing, polishing, sharpening handouts, but a heavy weariness weighs me down. I cannot imagine the cause for this fatigue, but it does feel bone deep. I know I can ill-afford these almost constant naps; I have too many clamoring projects. But my eyes burn with left over sleep and my senses shift, unable to fixate on a coherent task. I feel unable, limbless, immobile, even, so that even the passing winds fail to sway me from this spot. A friend suggested that perhaps my fatigue emerges from my strict diet, the depleted portions from a limited list. Perhaps that is true; but my diet is not a new thing. I am quite used to it and comfortable with it. I have not over-stretched myself in physical labor by any stretch of imagination.

My spirit could also be homesick, a longing to go and touch something, some place of my birth and formative years, an event nowhere on the horizon. However, the buzzing of my tribe's presence every time I get on Facebook or emails reassures me immeasurably. A brief visit from some of my tribe feels more than wonderful. So it is not abandonment or despair that is responsible for this.

I believe this torpor is a natural cycle of my being, a condition that regularly drowns me as the year begins to set. Someone asked me for recommendations for a reading list for an upcoming trip, and I have been unable to come up  with any meaningful titles, something I'd thought in my youth, would never happen. I'd believed that I would ALWAYS be in the middle of at least 3 books, and the local public library would be my second home. However, things have not unfolded thus. My bedside is strewn with the most predictable of all reading, the epics. The new Atwood (of the Oryx and Crake series) is out, but I lack the will to hunt it down; today Salman Rushdie is in town, talking about his newest book, but the very thought of driving exhausts me. Once, I'd believed that as an active reader, I was an integral component of the world woven by words. This belief used to be the prime motor of all my willingness to hop aboard many a whirlwind and carousel, the dizziness convincing me of my relevance. Now, however, just sitting down is enough.

This exhaustion could be due to the time of the year. Elements are changing their wonted liveries; the golden sunshine glimmering on the still leaves has left for the West. Days are smaller, silver, breezy, like little jewels. This landscape demands almost constant rain, but the colors bouncing off the torrents have mellowed. The moon is getting larger, nearer. Perhaps the year wants me to sit still, take stock, and exhale the months passed. Perhaps I should listen. Perhaps this is a natural part of growing older, calming down, an increasing quietude.

Before I exhale, I breathe in the advancing Autumn. It smells different, like a dream of smokiness, of promise of a chill not here yet, of  velvet moonlight, of crisp dusks. I must confess, this particular evening smells not of endings, but beginnings. The air needs a little crispiness to herald the clanging of the Goddess' chariot; the days need to be silvery that Diwali lamps shine brighter.

After all, there are so many ways to banish the darkness; to banish such darkness properly, however, it needs to descend properly. I will not resent this sluggishness, since it looks to the busyness of the festive season. Inertia is a necessary component of animation.


 

This happy breed of men, this little world!

No, patient reader, I do not speak of England; I speak of her Bard. I have realized today how much I miss Shakespeare being the axis mundi of my day. Today, the trailer for Richard II is released on Facebook, and more out of habit than genuine curiosity, I clicked it open. I cannot express the flood that overwhelms me! I have missed the absolute perfection of phrase, the underlying lyricism that flows through and balances those words, the well-loved, well-remembered cadences that do not require closed captions, the list goes on.

There was a time when I used to do  A Midsummer Night's Dream with students, in days of yore, when I taught Literature survey courses. I no longer do that, but when I did, I feared that my enthusiasm and excitement at the primary text would be misconstrued as an affectation or, worse, snobbery. So I'd like to take this space to establish that there is nothing snobbish about Shakespeare; there never was. He is the easiest to meet and own; the very humanism and poetry ensure this. If we learn to babble poems, lyrics, and rhymes before we can consciously string words in deliberate, coherent syntax, then nothing is easier than meeting Shakespeare. The best part of doing the Bard was how smoothly the students connected with him. What a joy that was!

Of course, my Literature courses now are more than wonderful, and they feed another starving part of me. I would never give them up at any cost (were I allowed to tally costs). And then again, doing Shakespeare can be a personal thing, an acquaintance that can be renewed as I sit here, away from students and classrooms. In fact, I would even argue for the value in meeting Shakespeare when one is not distracted by the concerns of the happy breed of men, this little world.

Before my child got too busy with her school work, I remember doing a lot of Shakespeare with her. We used to own quite a collection of plays, especially our favorite productions; we used to spend weekends, days, evenings, indulging in dream realities of Twelfth Night, arguing over which Shylock we preferred, delighting in Beatrice and Benedick's rapier exchanges, succumbing to helpless hilarity at the Rude Mechanicals' Pyramus & Thisbe, cursing out Petrucchio, and sighing at Juliet's hormone-driven decisions. Now that my child is at college, hours away, I haven't indulged in one of those sessions; it seems silly, like cooking for just oneself. What's more, our collection has burned with the house, so it also feels like an unnecessary plucking of a healing scab, which might do more harm in the long run.

However, today, I am also thinking of my father, with whom I associate my first memory of Shakespeare. I think of all the losses that my particular flesh has been heir to, and I realize that I owe the Bard much more than an association with people I miss. If it hadn't been for The Tempest, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, I would never have dared to walk upon these golden sands when I first moved here. If it hadn't been for Richard III, King Lear and Hamlet, I could not have survived any of my losses. If it hadn't been for Winter's Tale and Cymbeline, I would never have learned of the comfort that comes with losing and regaining oneself. My understanding of a large part of European history I owe to the History plays.

This morning, my good friend and I attended a training session for literacy tutors, a volunteering opportunity we are considering. It shocks me that in spite of being in school, such a large percentage of children find reading a serious challenge. I am all the more grateful to the star (that twinkled, and under that was I born) for affording me this privilege and awareness of the magic that words can weave, so that the brief candle of my life is no walking shadow.

I am grateful for the Bard, whose words help me rise from a poor player that struts and frets her hour and let me stride this  narrow world like a Colossus. This post is a shout out to Shakespeare (please forgive the alliteration). So long lives this, and this gives life to thee!
 

Food, Glorious Food!

  The evenings always look different from this side of the August full moon. The Summer is survived, with endless comings, goings, staying-ins, and outings. I love the hullabaloo; it makes me feel relevant, central, somehow. My fridge bulges with fare I am not allowed to even fantasize about; all seats in the front room are occupied; extra fans are strewn about the front room and the cats have to strew themselves to accommodate uncompromising angles of the re-arranged furniture; the washer-dryer are usually on, and we run around searching for more medium sized victuals to try out reinvented recipes. Today, in stark contrast, my fridge caters only to my dietary regimen; I haven't used the washer-dryer for an entire week; the cats, spooked at the emptiness, perch around me after mewling pityingly, beckoningly at empty bedrooms from where no obliging opposable digits emerge, offering treats; the seats in my front room hold books I am working with, the fans silent; and I have packed away the extra pots till the sun returns next year, when they might be needed.

I have given myself this evening off. The grading is shelved for now, bills abated (for now), reading stalled, and the TV ignored. I haven't felt words on my fingers for a very long time, it seems to me, and even though my fingers have been quenching their need with quilting and embroidery, these words feel fitting in with the quietude of the shortening twilight. It feels familiar again: the increasing haziness of late evenings, the rings around the full moon, the smell of the clear sky and the wind skipping through. It smells and feels like the holidays: Rakshabandhan is past and next week is Janmashtmi. Soon, my child will be back for Navratri (our favorite holiday) and before I know it, Diwali will have passed and the year changed! Certainly, the Summer is past, and Fall strides in. Today, however, is given over to reflection, to catch breath before the whirlwind of the holidays begins to spin dizzyingly.

This brings to my mind the idea of food. I have never been a foodie; I have been content when I am not hungry, or subjected to a certain inborn annoyance I associate with hunger. In fact, I don't even associate holidays particularly with food. So why mention it now, my patient reader might well wonder? The answer lies in the Summer that is just past, that aged not just the year but me as well. Most of my foods are taken away and existing quantities reduced. My kidneys are failing, so I am on an extremely low sodium, low potassium, low calorie diet. For someone who has preferred savory to sweet, this feels like a personal vendetta: no more spinach or tomatoes or just plain yogurt; I mourn when I think of handvo, daal, and dosas!

However, that was Summer; now, I am getting used to my diet and feel confident enough to share a few recipes that I've invented. The problem has been that my dietitian does not understand my food, so I've had to gather material from obscure sources, which makes me feel justified in sharing.

The first of these is a staple. One of the first things to go away were dhebras, and I love radish, so I came up with this one:

1 cup chapatti flour
1/3 cup bajra flour
2 oz. cube of frozen methi leaves (thawed in microwave)
1 tsp freshly ground jalepenos, garlic cloves, ginger, and lemon juice
1/3  tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp low fat yogurt
1 cup freshly ground radish
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp cilantro paste (1/3 cup freshly chopped cilantro / coriander if preferred)

Knead into dough, make 12 sections, roll and roast like you would a chapatti or paratha. Makes 12 servings.

These dhebras / chapatis / parathas are very low in potassium (in spite of the yogurt, methi, cumin, and the flours!). If this is tried, do let me know! If you like it, I'd especially like to know; hopefully, that'll help me stop fantasizing about pizzas!




 

Patronus!

Give me a ghost, a ghoul, a witch any day. Lonely evenings do not frighten me. Rats? Disgusting,yes, frightening? No. Spiders are fascinating, not frightening. There is only one being that elicits uncontrollable screaming from me, and that being is organic, mortal, and weighs a fraction of what I do; but the thought of this being on my hand is unbearable.

Fear amazes me. I realize that fear is the most primal feeling, undefinable as it is unmistakable; insubstantial like the wind, but solid like a typhoon. The world bows to it, yet it is often the axis mundi of our horizons, a compass. In fact, I have willingly circled my home with poisons, like spells, to keep away undesirable insects. One strong dream is enough to send me running around, checking bank balances, or shutting windows and doors, or plunge into boxes in quest of objects which MUST be found. I HATE to admit this, but Freud does have a point about fears defining who we become.

I see the cats learning, unlearning, and otherwise navigating fears as they step around with caution and deliberation, unwilling to explore terrain with hind legs, as they get used to sofas and shelves that form the landscape of my house.

My daughter, who is unafraid to speak her mind, can happily live on her own, and remains unfazed at prospect of harrowing journeys across time zones and date lines, even she holes up in the only place she feels safe, her room. If an unwelcome bug flies in the window, she believes that her closed door will keep it out. Likewise for all movie ghosts and ghouls that frighten her.

When I was young, I remember the best cure for all that frightened me: the voice of my father. I knew, then, that if I only called or screamed loud enough, he would speak, sometimes only a word, and the world would turn back to the recognizable familiar, everything in place, everything explained with a name.  Now, I have shlokas that calm whatever restlessness haunts.

I wonder, now, in times of fear, what my father's solace must have been. He often used to tell me to order myself to think of some happiness, plagued as I have always been with strong, concrete dreams. I suspect my father was not the only one to counsel their restless child thus; this might be the reason why the idea of a Patronus is so easily grasped!

My sincere gratitude goes out to my father for righting my topsy-turvy world with a mere word. I thank him for banishing and diminishing my fears, for giving my sword light in all manner of darknesses, for filling up  my dreams with the sound of his voice so they never bleed into my waking worlds.

Something scared me today, frightened me enough so I forgot myself momentarily, and behind a closed door, I ordered myself to hear my father's voice saying my name; I produced a corporeal Patronus and my Potterite readers will know what a big deal THAT is!

Happy Fathers' Day, Daddy!




 

Price for Free

This is unusual. I do not wake up on a day suddenly feeling the need to acknowledge the price of whatever we mean when we think of freedom. If I do feel this need, it awakens around August 15, India's Independence Day, an inevitable programming for someone who grew up in the often hysterical jingoistic patriotism that super-scripted the Emergency years of Indira Gandhi. Furthermore, I come from a family of doctors, not freedom fighters, so it is challenging to excavate genuine sympathy at the many ways in which the human body is deliberately harmed by others of its own species. I must also confess that I am spoiled. I have always thought of myself as a product of all that the brave sought to preserve, and like all such products, I take many kinds of freedoms for granted; I mean, doesn't everybody?

I do not need to count the ways in which we are free for my patient reader; it might smack of unimaginable boasting at worst, and will be unimaginably boring at best. I will also not tell bravery tales of battle heroes; that belongs in a classroom somewhere. What I do want to acknowledge is home courage, the kind seen at home, not on battle lines.

A discussion I invest a part of course time to every quarter I teach Greek Mythology, revolves around what happens to women in a war, not women soldiers, but other leftovers, like Hecuba and Cassandra. I tell of their plight, my material derived from a tragedy (Women of Troy) millenia old. I know this resonates with all of us because we know that nothing has changed. Often, the heaviest price for freedom is paid by those who did not choose the war, did not fight in it, and were not free enough or fast enough or resourceful enough to run away from it.

I do not mean to say, of course, that wars are bad and that we should not indulge in them. I know that wars have many benefits, like a rich cultural exchange, a forced open-mindedness, expanded gene pools, and profitable trade and travel opportunities. After all, my grandmother was lucky and resourceful enough to run away from Hitler's Dresden, all the way to the shores of Gujarat, an event I think of a great deal every time I think of my daughter away at college. We are also, it would seem, a family of globe trotters and think of all the countries we call our own as Our Country, rather than choosing one. I remember when I was in college, I made sure to Read what I loved, pursue my passions, live as fully as I could manage, because SO MUCH had gone into the making of me! All the angst of history, all the terror of immigrating to a place where no one speaks one's language, the horrors of wars, all culminating into one moment that was my life: it was an awareness I carried on my shoulders at all times.

When I think of freedom, I think of my maternal great grandfather in World War I, who chose to step out of his trench after being confined there for over three days, insisting on his need for air and a smoke, even at the cost of possibly being gunned down. When he returned from his smoke, he found himself the sole survivor of his unit, the trench bombed in his short absence.

When I think of freedom, I think of my grandmother telling us of the importance of answering door knocks in Mumbai during the Partition, with chili powder in hand, of instructing children to hide behind gas cylinders (we cook with those) and not emerge, no matter what they see or hear.

When I think of freedom, I think of my paternal grandfather, choosing to travel six villages away (by boat), because his village did not have a school offering studies higher than 6th Standard. I think of my father studying beneath street lights (his house did not have enough light after sunset).

And this is only my family. All our families have willingly paid, continue to pay the price for all flavors and sizes of freedoms, even bartering some other freedoms in exchange. None of us is an accident, I like to think, but a deliberate movement of history, that sentient river which hold in its depths the uneasy, sludgy, slippery, stinky muds, some of the richest fertilizers that can foster life.

Today is my day off. I have the freedom to chart it as I will. As I navigate it, I will try to remember what an expensive moment of history I am.



 

Open House

The rains are early this year, and ferocious. This spring-monsoon adds to my discombobulation, since I have felt stretched too thin these past weeks. I've added mileage to my life and car, neglecting parts of my life that have needed tending, juggling, settling, changing, cleaning, picking up and putting it all down in a different place. One of the most important parts that I've had to ignore is, of course, my writing: I've not written a single word in these past weeks, not a poem, not a story, nothing. I must confess I am feeling snarly, often tempted to spread a few hisses all around. Even as I write this, I know it is an indulgence, a sudden thunder storm that has forced me to settle on the sofa, to calm the cats.

Ever since I've moved back to my house, people have been asking me how I am settling down. Honestly, I don't know! My patient reader knows that I lost a cat in the fire and that the two surviving felines had to be well-nigh homeless for a few weeks. I am still reeling with the fallout from those two circumstances. So I don't know exactly how well I am settling down. I have been trying to reclaim my house from the cats inch by inch, with a great deal of help from the fragrance spitters and body sprays.

The fallout I referred to earlier is about some other stray or abandoned cats that my surviving cat seems to have befriended. Already, two of them have taken residence with us in the house and two more come at night to eat and visit. Sometimes, when I wander in during these visiting hours, I get a few causal hisses by way of greeting and warning. Sometimes, I have found "gifts" left by the visitors, namely dead birds, some even partially plucked. I wish I could tell the visitors to feel free to eat, but feel no obligation to leave behind gifts of any sort.

This has, of course, driven my cat food budget beyond the modest allowance granted to it, but that's not the worst. The worst has been the uneasy truce governing the space the cats share with me. We each have different views about how the space should be configured and inhabited. I have placed the fragrance spritzers at regular intervals around my spaces, which has kept the visitors and inhabitants away from my space, but also caused my older cat to feel ever more unwelcome and nervous. To remain fair, I have brought in some more cat furniture, to encourage the live-in cats to leave my perches alone and choose scratch-able, catnip infused, cat-friendly seats and perches.

I have spent weekends building cat shelters in my postage-stamp sized backyard, to give the old cat a place in my house, the old cat who is the only cat I can really call mine, in the sense that I had chosen her to live with me and who has, since, been driven out of my house by the other cats who have decided to cohabit with me. These shelters were meant to lure the old cat back, if not INSIDE the house then at least AROUND it, a safe place during thunderstorms.

However, both, the outside shelters as well as the cat furniture remain cat less and ignored. The old cat does come every time I call her because she has trained me to feed her, but she won't come in the house, nor will she stay. The live-in cats give my fragrance spritzed spaces a wide berth, but also ignore the perches I want them to use.  Of course, I love the cat snuggling between the back of my knees and the back-rest of the couch; after all, I HAVE been trained and conditioned well.

The first wave of thunderstorms has passed and I see three cats stretched out in their preferred spots around the room. I scarf through e-bay for inexpensive cat furniture and wonder how well I am settling down in the new house. I will have family and friends visiting the house over the Summer and I wonder how the visitors and live-in felines will react to this. Hopefully, I will be trained enough not to wonder at whatever awaits for us all this Summer!




 

Navigating the Tornado: CMS and Other Frustrations

This month has somehow taken wing and I stand here, on its exit threshold, not quite remembering how I got here. The first quarter of the year is past, my child's FAFSA updated, my CMS  (Classroom Management System) updated for next quarter that begins on Monday, and even my laundry is more or less done. So, of course, I worry about my work ethic, hopefully to re-examine the way I work, the hours I spend on it, and if I am doing too much or too little for the job that has defined my decade.

One can always argue that it is not possible to do too much: after all, this is the only job I have and the way I do it will define who I am in ways I cannot control. Do I love it? Yes, most days I honestly do. I don't love it so much on days like today, when I look back at my break week with frustration and defeat.

My patient reader would argue, of course, that all that frustration and defeat stem from within me, and that my job has little to do with it: after all, no one has mandated that I change the text book for the course no one asked me to create in the first place; no one has mandated that I construct individual, detailed rubrics for each assignment in each course; no one has suggested that my courses have insufficient assessment / evaluation tools, or that these tools need to be rephrased, re-constructed, or changed in any way. I also know that no one really likes change, and that these hours and days I have wasted on these updates are going to earn me dissatisfaction and frustration from the very people for whom I've made these changes, the students, who will not be able to use their friends' notes, books, and tests for this quarter.

I also know I am isolated in my struggle to manage and force my CMS into doing what I want it to; it resists! It seems that no one has the power to make it do my bidding, even though everyone wants it to. So I have spent most of this week constructing, breaking down, revising, adding, and subtracting the same elements repeatedly until my head is spinning and I've had to walk away to get a perspective. I have felt what the doomed Athenian youth must have felt as they blundered around the Minotaur's labyrinth, trying to get an idea about its structure and ending up lost, not knowing which way North lies.

Actually, most of this month has felt that way, like trying to navigate logically through a tornado. This week, I talked to a few people at work about our CMS and some other electronic resources available to faculty. I have been embarrassingly, foolishly enthusiastic about adding customized rubrics to my GradeMark, about the new databases our library is going to add later this year, about the new tools I am discovering, like the Prezi. I confess to waxing poetic about the wonderful free Google resources for educators.

I usually look for my compasses in the eyes of the people around me, to get  my bearings, to figure out if I am headed the right way or at least the way I want to go. But I have received mixed signals: half the people give me thumbs up and seem to cheer me on, promising to call me if they get lost; equal number of people have looked away, vowing to have little to do with me or my ways, shaking their heads over how lost I've allowed myself to become. A friend suggested that I should learn to curb my excitement a bit, for if I indulge it, I am likely to spend hours, days, weeks in learning about these resources, helping whoever wants my help and that to realise that I am not going to get paid for all those hours, days, and weeks. A respected, well-meaning colleague, only half in jest, showed me a pencil and asked me if I'd forgotten how to use it. I remain shell shocked and lost.

The form and idea of higher education are changing at Warp Speed. I realise that. I also understand that institutions like the one I am with presently might either not survive this change or might metamorphose into something completely different. So my enthusiasm and excitement do sound pointless and foolish, even to  myself. I stand here at the end of my break week, and I must confess to an undeniable strain of guilt and indulgence that run through my enjoyment in learning little things I didn't know before, things that are little more than clicks and links and a few taps on my keyboard, when everything is said and done.

A very good friend, one of the few people whose opinion I value highly, one of my Axis Mundi, wondered at my excitement at the saw that is cutting away the branch I perch upon. I feel unwarranted in pointing out that there would be no other way for me to fly, unless that comfortable branch were sawed off. Most probably, I will have to leave my body behind in this flight. So this post goes out as a hope and prayer that the skies are worth it, that the wings are strong enough, and that my eyes are keen and wise enough to absorb the views.

 

Lumos: of MOOCs and LMS

I must confess to a largely cursory interest in the future of Higher Education until this week. I know, I know, patient reader; this is the business that keeps me in cat food and samosas: how could I not be more aware, involved, curious? However, there you have it: I have been apologetically, blatantly incurious. I've had plenty of excuses for this, of course, and all of them quite, quite valid, all tinged with only an obligatory tinge of apology.

All that changed this week, when I attended a conference (Cengage & SXSWedu) that shook me awake and forced me to turn my head and look out of the window. The landscape has completely changed, and what is more, is rushing fast, faster than my eye can keep up. It is a veritable stampede!

Before I address the changes, I want to first validate what remains reassuringly unchanged. All reliance on a keyboard is not always the best thing, yet. Everywhere I looked, attendees were plugged in (for lack of a better epithet): they all (with probably less than 1% exceptions) had ipads or tablets which were busily buzzing along, talking to them and their phones, and a variety of other devices. I cannot express the strangeness I felt as I whipped out a pen and notebook to take notes during sessions. But then I realized that no matter how much I type, and how fast I've learned to type, I still write much, much faster, with greater coherence, since my hand doesn't require me to press the shift button, or do anything extra when I want to change languages or use symbols instead of words. A part of me feels reassured to know that I am still the most efficient and fastest note taker for me.

At the same time, however, the material I was taking notes on has widened my eyes, popped my inner ears, and lighted up unexplored corridors in my brain! Ah brave new world! I learned of the very real impact of MOOCs, of Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Multi dimensional interface, and Analytical feedback (like the recommendations one sees when shopping on Amazon, for instance).  It was really like an instructor's dream: we were treated to lunch as publishers and authors of textbooks asked what our perfect texts would look like! I know I am not alone in feeling the isolation behind the desk, and I have often wondered about the value of what I do. I have often dreamed of "if only" and "by now, we should be able to" scenarios; well, those scenarios are already here, it would seem.

One of the sessions used the trope of Peter Pan's shadow to point out the impact that Web 2.0 has on our sense of self. This has resonated to me and at last, at last, I have a clearer understanding of why we all prefer Facebook to PDF's of texts (a pointless thing, if you ask me; if students don't read the hard copy, why would they read the PDF of the same?). However, now, I understand why students (and, I confess, the instructor in me) are so attracted to our LMS (which is neither the best, nor the worst) and I plan to exploit it to its fullest capacity.

I do not, of course, mean to indicate that I shall be completely reliant on my LMS: if it goes away, I will not be lost, since I have found  many compasses. I learned how to use completely free resources if one has no LMS. In fact, one of the fascinating lounges I visited was the Google lounge, which offered a wonderful respite from the crowded sessions, provided time and space to explore how to use free resources to teach and learn, even try out the new technology to be released later on this year.

I have heard a great deal of doom saying when conversations meander towards the future of Higher Education, especially during the last year, with its stampede of MOOCs. The sessions I attended, however, have reassured me: learning is not becoming obsolete and the value of the educator in this maelstrom of changing technologies, is unshakable and central. I have a clearer idea of what I'd like my absolute dream job to be (though this job, of course doesn't exist yet, I don't think).

I have spent the greater part of this weekend trying to catch up on the grading that has loomed large in my absence. But today, I don't resent it like I used to. My attitude towards the endless grading (the lot of every writing instructor) has been similar to the unnamed Maiden's attitude to her endless spinning in Grimms' "Mother Holle." However, like the Maiden, I have glimpsed at the alternate world beneath the well, a world that coexists with mine, where meaningless, repetitive chores have cosmic impact and all work is meaningful, relevant, and rewarded.

Primeval Forest of Stories

Deep in the center of the forest called blinks-of -the-eye, the Boar tells the Earth all about the creation of the world, its destruction, the various dynasties, the families derived for the Sun and the Moon, and the many eras that have been, are, and will be: yes, my patient reader, I am held by the Puranas. The one that I am in right now, is, of course, the Varaha Purana. I amazes me how the stories compiled over a millenia ago, still hold their magic. Even though these are attributed to Ved Vyasa, reading them, their contradictions, their unwillingness to support each other's contentions, the very nature Ved Vyasa, all of it reminds me of nothing as much as the Vulgate Cycles through which the stories of Arthuriana come down to us.

It is true that I first turned to the Puranas as I tried to heal from the absolute loss of my home back in 2011. However, this need to heal goes beyond my individual loss and I find, as I drown in the labyrinthine interpolations, that these stories address the very nature of humanity and seek to articulate questions about the validity of a cosmos that is continually being destroyed and created. From this larger perspective, my individual losses, lacks, complaints, whittle away into nonentities, fade away into normalcy of losses, lacks, and complaints of all humanity, nothing unusual. For some reason, this is reassuring: there is comfort in knowledge that all previous and present generations have more or less the same problems, which makes me part of a teeming whole that has survived.

Beyond that, there is the sheer magic of these stories, and I hear the crusty, gruff voice of the very land telling them. There are the stories of cities submerged into the ocean, destroyed by random pieces of unthinkingly discarded metal. Serpents coil around mountains to churn the ocean, which yields unimaginable poisons, riches, nectars, and muses. Gods and demons emerge from the same family, and there are as many admirable demons as there are petty gods. The many levels of heavens, underworlds, the various islands, the ending and unending worlds, all assure that the cosmos is a very balanced structure, with a proper designation for everything in it: the serpents, for example, argue that their venom is no reflection of malice or fault; they insist on a proper allocation of their own place in the world, and their suit is honored.

Along my trek through the Naimisharanyak (Nimesh = blink of an eye; aranyak = forest), I have often found that my sympathies lie with the demons and the gods seem unreasonable; often, the rightful remain unrewarded, not because they were being tested for patience, but because they wished for improbable things. The stories point out that neither the store of merit, nor the hoard of faults is inexhaustible. Sometimes, nothing is lost, not even a blade of grass, a drop of blood, or a grain of rice; sometimes, the very Earth is lost and she has to be sought after, rescued, and healed, that life may be sustained.

I no longer look to be healed by the Puranas, though I find many catalogs of medicinals, curing rituals, and herb lore in them. Without my asking them, these stories have grounded me, and after all, the only way that finds us when we are lost, is the path through the darkest of forests that lie between the blinks of the eye.

 

To My Father (In All His Forms)

Today is my late father's birthday, a day my family remembers as we all feel his absence most poignantly. Along with my family, I miss him terribly as well. People tell me that he and I have the same smile.

The myth of Orpheus (my students well know where I am going with this; I can feel them roll their eyes and say to themselves, "Here she goes again!") cautions us against looking backwards. Orpheus, the musician, convinced the gods of the Underworld to let his dead wife's soul to follow him out of the Shadows; the gods agreed, with the condition that he not look back until both of them are out of the Underworld. Orpheus agrees and somehow holds his patience until he is out of the Underworld, waits a bit, and turns around, hoping to see his beloved smiling at him. However, she is not out yet and he loses her all over again and spends his days mourning him, unable to do anything else, until he is torn apart. This myth resonates heavily with me. I have tried very hard to avoid looking back, no matter how strong the lure. The myth cautions that every time we look back, we lose that which we love the most, all over again; who can afford any more losses?

There have been many days when all I've wanted to do is submit to debilitating grief, rage against the most basic principles of existence, and I am ashamed to say, I have indulged in this. When I was young, this was my nightmare, a world without my father. Then I grew up, made choices, and it turned out that I never saw my father once I immigrated.

Before my patient reader resigns to a litany of self-pity, let me stop. This post is about celebrating all those we miss, not a list of all things we miss about them. Yes, I miss my father's voice, his laughter, the way he said my name, his fingers circling my wrist in protection and comfort, even his silent rage. Then, I went back to visit my home town after over a decade of having left it, imagining that my father's absence will yawn at me and I was apprehensive.

What happened, however, was the absolute opposite. I saw my family alive and well, his favorite foliage swinging in the breeze in our backyard, his favorite knick-knacks on many, many shelves, even the cadence of his speech and pitch of his laughter every time I talked to anyone in the family.

The time away from my father during the first years of my immigration taught me to seek him in the world around me. I learned to recognize my father's voice when I heard his favorite songs; I learned to enjoy the sunrise and sunset for him; I learned to remember the maxims he repeated and use them as guiding metaphors. I was pleasantly surprised when my daughter picked up the violin in middle school for her music credit; I was happiest when she would practice, since my father used to love his violin and played all the time.

Now, even though I miss my father's presence all the time, I do not feel his absence any more. Every time I see my sibling and cousins, every time I meet my uncles and aunts, every time I get an email or message from my mother, every time I see my child smiling, every time I see my niece concentrating, every time I see my nephews laughing, I feel my father's presence. The nightmare world of my youth does not seem nightmarish at all!

Today is his birthday and we all have greeted each other in his name. I raise my tea cup in his name, on this warm, silvery day, as I look forward to enjoying my Sunday afternoon, stretching out infinitely before me. I know that somehow, somewhere, I will meet my father in many many forms and I only pray that when I do, I recognize him as we share our smile.

To Explore Brave New Worlds: A Boston Weekend

Vacationing is most effective when it doesn't just offer an escape from the debilitating regularity of a routine, but goes beyond to open a window to a completely new reality. I do not mean an alternate reality, like a visit to the land of What If; I mean a world that has gone on inexorably, crossing unimaginable horizons and thresholds, one that redefines our very reality. My trip to Boston did that for me: it showed me a brave new world, so that even the railroad tracks in the middle of the street looked incredibly cool instead of impractical.

I spent a couple of days getting to know all about Paul Revere and Beacon Hill. But then, across one of the bridges, lay the cobblestones to another time, more Star Trek than Revolution. I walked past places that were as exotic and improbable as any that the Starship Enterprise could boast knowing; I walked past 100 Technology Square, with MIT buildings owning all horizons all around; Microsoft proclaimed its newest generations on a live billboard in Kendall Square; next to a crepe place, a large window advertised the map of the human genome; across the street were the MIT center for cancer research and center for brain research. Really, I felt like I was perched on the edge of human civilisation. My worries about the cats' feeding times, my child's dorm bill, and the price of gas seemed embarrassingly trivial, even outdated.

There are some cities that just call to me to own them, invite me to explore their labyrinthine alleys, discover new worlds in their roofs and skylines, and through it all, a river runs, lending a touch of the archetypal, cities that, for lack of a better descriptor, simply sing to me. I can barely resist this song, and the fusion that Boston is, with its stately architectures that dream of London and Florence, with the red vein of Freedom Trail that runs through it, with the little ducks all in a row, it hums with a heady aria. People who know me often mistake me for a history buff, but I can barely aspire to be one. My personal touchstones for European history are based on the most unreliable of all historical sources, Shakespeare, Malory, Gildas! So it would be safer to say that I am passionate about and attracted to the drama of human experience that history promises, rather than to a commitment to keeping a chronological string of events untangled in my head. So it was with Boston, which spoke hauntingly of Paule Revere's lanterns, and in the same breath, claimed Leonard Nimoy as its own.

In Cambridge, we passed by this really beautiful local college. There was snow on the ground and the sky looked like a desert with tree skeletons scratching at its cold, grey expanse. But students skipped and strode purposefully and all but danced the extremely serious nature of their excitement at returning to their Alma Mater after a winter fortnight away. This local institution proclaimed its universal appeal with an insignia that summed up its mission in a word, Veritas. Here, as I witnessed the active pursuit of ancient truths, I inhaled and knew the thin, cold air that stratifies the very pinnacle of the highest achievements of our species, from the mundane concerns of lay visitors, awarded a glimpse of the busyness of the business of being human.

I return humbled and enriched to my blue-gold skies and lands of eternal summer, back to my trivial routine. My hope is that this entry shall remind me of this sweet air that I had once breathed, sauntering around in one of the Coops, buying a fridge magnet in exchange of a promise to these cobblestones of many future tramplings.

 

And A Veil to Tether

One of my colleagues says that veils fascinate her and I confess I have had veils on my mind since the past few weeks, all they reveal and represent, the hues they lend the world. Indeed, the blank canvas of the sky laughs with colors of life when seen through a veil, whether it be a flowing scarf, a dancing kite, or a twinkling paper lantern. To paraphrase a thousand Hindi songs, the unruffled dupatta changes climes and brings on Spring.

Like any South Eastern native, I can tell you what the scarves I wear represent: they supposedly represent female modesty, but if the same scarf were tied on a man's forehead, it would proclaim his pride in the tradition that birthed him. Freedom sings in the flight a girl's scarf sketches as she swings from a grandfather of a tree. The audience of a Hindi film knows the scarf well. With bated breath, we watch as the villain considers the innocent girl's scarf through a veil of cigarette smoke, and gasp as he snatches the dupatta off the terrified girl; the camera focuses on the swinging, broken lamp smashed in the ensuing struggle and we all know that she is lost.

Most salwar suits come with a matching scarf or dupatta. The material for a dupatta must be special: it cannot be as heavy as the fabrics that actually cover and protect. In fact, it must be woven of texture light enough for the air to lift, which would require something heavier, like lace or a twice rolled hem to hold it against the wind and then it acquires a fall of graceful ripples. At the same time, the dupatta must match the heavier cloth it is constructed to compliment, with an edging, with contrasting hues, or most frequently, with the same print as the salwar suit. The function of the dupatta, it seems, is to serve as the dream of the salwar suit.

I have worn through a lot of salwar suits, whose stitching has given out, whose exhausted weave has unravelled, but whose matching dupattas retain their original form. I collect them, lightly worn fabrics of numinous use, whose sole purpose seems to be to recall the varied textures our world is made of. When I tried to quilt them, I could not imagine the finished quilt, and they resisted my needle and the stodgy quilting threads, preferring to ripping to submission. Occasionally, I give them to my daughter and she uses them to make a statement of her jeans-and-t-shirt.

As I get older, I find that I need the wrapping of my scarves to protect me, to keep me warm and alive. I have begun to prefer the sky veiled in clouds, and today, on a cool day immediately following the Winter solstice, I look forward to the kite flying in January, which will welcome the sun back. Nothing says Spring like unfurled colors of insubstantial material.

I am working and my lap is not free for the cat. He paws at the laptop and looks inquiringly at me. Of course, I obey and spread my scarf. He accepts this extension of me and it is enough to envelop him, tie him to me beyond language and species. I look at the content, sleeping cat and wish for my dupatta to extend beyond my organic self and chronological life, to envelop and warm my child so that her universe may unfurl around her in weaves of many colors and textures, enriching her life, tethering her to me as she soars and flies off, like an un-achored kite, across unimaginable skies.

Well-Watered

There is a tree in the center of some of my stories. This tree stands near a well. All around these two swirl the many tales that need to be told, that once told, perch on a branch, like wish-threads, anchored, yet weaving in the passing breeze. Even though I have fastened a few, my basket of untold stories seems to be just as full as it was when I first began telling of the tree and the well.

Sometimes, this defeats me. I cannot imagine how I am to get words enough for these tales, if my life time, with its too, too many demands, will be long enough. Somehow that worries me more than availability of a receptive audience for the stories. The beings that live in, around, before and away from the tree nag me, haunt me, insist that I tell, though I don't know to what end. I don't think that these tales have any edifying value, or provide an insight about how one may improve oneself or enrich one's life. In fact, the stories are more dusky twilight than golden dawn. Worse, they offer no apologies for their dark hues.

I make a deliberate effort to help each story to stand on its own, a valid entity irrespective of the larger tapestry it helps weave. I explain to the tales that they all should be independent, as though they were my girl children and I, their concerned parent, were trying to impress upon them the importance of good grades that they may support themselves and their offspring instead of relying on their future wife-selves. However, they wish for nothing more than to gather near the well, sit cross legged beneath the spreading shade of their tree. No matter how far I have them wander, when I look behind, I find them clustered around their well, like Grimms' Twelve Months.

I hope to pass muster as I seek their guidance. I shall make an effort to be polite and offer them what poor nourishment my pockets hold. Most of all, I shall try to listen very closely to their riddles. After all, I could scarcely hope for a better map, no matter how dark or labyrinthine my wooded path!
 

The Suq at the Library

If you stood outside my door, you couldn't tell what month it was. Today, on my way to my chores, I caught myself wondering how far November was, just so the days could cool down a little! It is an awkward season caught at the wrong time of the year and all the rush to meet the holidays seems  strange and disconcerting. After all, when the sun shines so mercilessly, aren't we to prepare for the Summer vacations? Why is everyone talking of Christmas? That seems many many weather systems away! However, weather ready or not, the end of the year is almost on our threshold, almost knocking. It seems to be the right time to give little tokens, gifts to one's friends to show them how much they are appreciated, how grateful one is for all their patience and tolerance through the year. That part does not feel awkward to me because everyone else seems to feel the same way.

But here is the conundrum: what to give? What could one present that would assure a grin or a light or a smile upon first glance? In other words, where would one find a marketplace that sells objects that are as unique as they are familiar, things that are not hawked at every mall at every cross roads, but not so strange that no one understands what they are.

I wish for a global suq through which I can meander, exchanging friendly banter with the sellers, who are always in a good mood, who always have (for a pice) a cup of fresh coffee brewing for wanderers like me, a bazaar where, under a cloth shade, I'd find incredible treasures for my friends, treasures that even my meagre budget would allow.

I know what my patient reader would suggest: the Internet is one such bazaar and I would agree. In fact, this year, I put together my child's birthday gift basket solely out of things I'd bought online. However, that took me months of planning, ordering, approving, disapproving, a process that took a very very long time. And things I order online sometimes disappoint horribly and then what am I to do? So unless I KNOW the quality of my order, I avoid this particular marketplace.

However, this week, I found a wonderful suq, of all places, at my local county library. It is run solely by volunteers and boasts everything from Scottish tea chests, to scarves, to Vietnamese earrings, to purse hooks, to local art, to Spanish gold! The people at the desk are retired, do not have a personal stake in what they are selling, and at the same time, care deeply for the cause they espouse. They are always friendly, always ready to discuss the merits and demerits of the objects you are considering, and if they'd fit your friends, and yes, they have a complicated coffee machine that they are willing to fire up for a perfect cup (I could even choose my flavor!).

Patient, harried reader, compare this to the absolute incoherence that is your local mall at this time of the year. No sales personnel, no matter how their determined smile, has the time to discuss each object and determine its appropriateness, especially if they are not sure of a sale. If one sees something that looks extraordinary, one is likely to find something similar at the next kiosk. When we last went to a mall, we had to wait in a line for about 20 minutes before we could order our coffee and we definitely were NOT encouraged to choose our own flavors!

So, reader, if you find yourself overwhelmed, would rather meander among shelves of books than the exhaustingly cheerful stores, visit your local county library. You can meander to your hearts' content, maybe find some treasures, perhaps treat yourself to an armload of books, even check out an electronic reader if you are brave!

Who'd have thought that the love for reading could open even these doors!

Flickering Lights

The tiny votives flicker in windows as though the flame had real heat, as though these are real flames. However, much to my peace of mind, these are LED lights and their twinkling a kind lie. Today is Diwali again, and a year has passed since last Diwali, when I came home to find my home burned away. For some reason this day has affected me without warning, with more force than I had thought. The day has been uneasy and this unease has not left my side since my dawn dream, in which I didn't want to leave but just hold my child, the cats, my quilt, a doll I had forgotten about, all of them.

Fortunately, I could indulge my unease and stay with my house, puttering around, sweeping up, picking up, so the Goddess might be tempted, that she might step in with gentle feet. The little votives, like hopes, flicker around the colorful rangoli in my porch, in the same place as last year.

This year, my Diwali is quiet, if a little uneasy, and I am grateful for the quiet little lamps who seem reassuring, as they murmur shadows, whisper gleamings, their soft glimmer giggles spill and tinkle around the floor; after all, no Diwali should be silent. I am very grateful for their kind company, as I am grateful for all who have quieted my unease today. One of the many lessons I have learned as someone who lives alone is that all undefined unease must be publicly acknowledged, that one should not be allowed to feel alone when these airs raise the hair on one's nape, when these gulps drop to the bottom of one's stomach.

Usually, I have my child at home for Diwali. Usually, there are sparklers that sketch golden shapes that linger on eyelids after they have melted away. Usually, we get the camera ready and worship a few coins, a special puja to woo the Goddess. Today, I have no sparklers, and yes, I could have gone to the temple, where a welcome is assured, and yes, they'd have sparklers and other fireworks. I could have done the puja on my own. I could have taken pictures of my little rangoli.

However, today, I want to woo my home back to me: the Goddess cannot be wooed without one's own threshold. Last Diwali was unforgettable, loud, big; I want this one to be unmemorable, quiet, contained within my comfort zone.

The festival promises lamps to aid lost footsteps back home, on dark nights when heavenly lights, the sun and moon abandon us earthbound beings for other orbits. This festival reminds us that the lights that can be most relied upon are of this earth; extra terrestrial light sources have their own agenda and may often seem indifferent. The fault, then, lies in our failure to recognize our place in the larger cosmos, not in the orbs that we imagine have abandoned us. This festival reaffirms our kinship with little lamps whose flickering lights accompany us through different nights.

The twinkling lights of my windows and I, all of us wish my patient readers a very Happy Diwali!