“No, I am not married” I replied a tad sternly, but the sternness went unnoticed by this prying fellow who sat on the opposite berth with a kid sleeping next to him. It was 10pm and all I wanted to do was read my book. But, this middle aged man kept coming up with all sort of personal questions as he rubbed his palms together sprinkling some kind of coarse powder on the floor.

“What is the purpose of your visit to Patna?”

“Do you have any relatives there?”

“Yes.” I lied. I didn’t want him to know that I would be a stranger to the place.

“Madam... what is your full name?”

“Sorry what?” I raised my head from pretending to read.

 “Full name, surname?” he motioned his head up and down as a gesture of questioning.

“Uh, it’s Shaheen Sarbhan.”

“Shaheen sarbhan... strange... Mohammeden name, Hindu surname, strange. Sarbhan...hmm...which caste is that?”

“Bhai Saab, now this cast creed, religion is old concept. No good comes out of it. It’s better to keep it out of conversation.”

“Oh, no, yes, that is fine.” A moment later... “Must be OBC. No need to hesitate. These days belonging to a lower caste is considered a privilege because of all the quotas and reservations.”

Did this guy really say that to me? After a couple of minutes he spoke again. “What do you do for earning money? You look like you earn a decent living.”

This was too much. He was close to knowing me better than my mother. I decided to give my best shot at lying.

“I am an Aayaa.” Did I really say that? Fun had just started. He had the same look on his face as the 6^th century Greeks when Pythagoras suggested that Earth was spherical.

“Aayaa?”

“Yes. You know those who take care of other people’s babies.”

“No No. I know. You look like a well-educated decent woman.”

“Well, who said Aayaas are indecent and uneducated?”

“But why Aayaa?”

“I just love kids. I work in 5 houses with 12 children all together. Oh such a pleasure it is. I could just eat them up. Sometimes I just wish all of them were mine and I could just take them all away with me. Hmmm.”  I sighed, and a moment later I said, “Hey!! Is that your kid?”

The man looked spooked, he drew his kid closer to him and never left him alone, not even to go to the toilet. He did not speak another word with me for the entire journey.

Poetry on a six yards long paper

I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that next to Diamonds, Silks are a girl’s best friend. Hailing from the holy land of Kashi or Varanasi or Banaras as popularly known, I have my fair share of Banarasi silk sarees as Collectibles, which I find an excuse to show off in front of guests every now and then.  I become the Gollum of the ‘precious’ six yards of fabrics.

I wonder many times why I crave my sister’s homemade cake better than a fancy BlackForest. I still have my old woolen poncho in Blue-pink stripes, that my Mother knit for my 18^th birthday and wear it year after year. The ones I bought have already seen their days. And when it comes to Banarasi sarees, handloom is not just an option; it’s the only option that I go for.

There is something in the touch of the maker, the labor done in the making, and the experience that guides and alters the creation, which brings about the inexplicable aura of preciousness around that Cake, that poncho and that Banarasi that covers everything else by a haze.

Handloom weaving is an ancient tradition that is still practiced on a large scale. It was one of the uniting factors among the Muslim weavers, the Gujarati weavers and merchants, the Bangla weavers. Together they took this art to faraway places.

Lately, though, due to the tough competition from cheaper Chinese textile, emergence of Power looms as a quicker mode of production, Banarasi weavers are living on the edge of existence. The exploitative middle men do not give the weavers their fair share for the effort they put in(Did you know, that it takes 2-6 months for making one traditional banarasi handloom saree, which is class apart from any of the machine made ones ?) . Cheaper Chinese goods have choked the demand of authentic handloom product. The old weavers do not know anything else so they continue to weave but they definitely do not want their children to continue their legacy.

Will this art die a slow death or can we do something about it? My appeal to all saree lovers is that, the next time when you buy silk, buy an authentic handloom product, be it Banarasi or Kanjivaram and do your bit to keep this tradition alive.

“Vodka on the Rocks – Literally”

“I will stick to Beer. No JD for a couple of months… Man!! They are burning a bigger hole in my pocket?” – I threw my head backwards in exasperation sinking deep in my chair. I was reluctant to join my colleagues for our weekly after work drinks, in an attempt to limit my expenditure. But a beer wouldn’t hurt and I needed to unwind. And so we settled at our favorite joint close to work.

We were munching on the complimentary peanuts and moong daal, almost polishing it off, when our waiter arrived with our drinks in a tray. A golden drink, another Blue,  a colorless one and two bottles of beer.

“Boss, you are late... we are almost done with the snack and now you bring the drinks?” One of us said whiningly in disappointment. “Anyways, get some more complimentary snacks please.” The oldish waiter walked away at a slow pace, grumbling under his breath after putting the tray on the table a tad strongly than required.

“Did you see that?” I frowned – “Attitude does not pay in the hospitality industry, yet they do expect a generous tip, don’t they?” My colleagues eloquently joined me in relating their own stories of how once they were mistreated by a waiter.

“What!!?? That is nothing. You know, once this chap... deliberately stepped on my foot while serving us food, just because I sent him back a couple of times to reheat the food. I did not tip him at all” – he gleamed with pride at the justice he had delivered. “Saved hundred bucks there”- he winked.

 And from there the discussion moved on to money matters which was exactly the thing that was irking me these days.

“Fuckin market these days. I am already 50K down.  And to recover that, another 30K is in a limbo”

“Why do you bother to play this game when you don’t have the risk appetite?”  My colleague asked, bored.

“Fuck you man!!” I addressed him lovingly – “You drive a Honda Civic – with a chauffeur – while I drive a hatchback I wouldn’t even bother to mention the make. If I don’t take the risk I might not be able to take my family to the Europe trip I promised them a year ago for crying out loud… Forget the Beer, I need vodka.”

“Easy dude. Just because I drive a Civic doesn’t mean my life is all roses. You remember I told you about the plot I invested in? Well… turns out its disputed. I might rather have to sell the Civic and buy that hatchback of yours.”

And thus we related our stories of chronic financial crunch, hours of slog, stinker emails, embarrassing salary hikes, work-life imbalances, demanding family(demanding time), and my favorite – fading ambitions. Glasses clinked every now and then as a gesture of empathy.

 Our waiter returned with more peanuts.

“Chaccha I ordered another vodka. Don’t see it”. The waiter stood there for a couple of seconds with a blank face and then spoke unapologetically, rather sarcastically – “You ordered the FREE snacks sir. I bring that.”

“UH-NO, I ordered the drink as well. Ahh! Nevermind, could you please get it now, and …” The waiter turned around to leave before I finished speaking. “…and hurry up at that?”  I heard a sharp ‘pcchh’ sound from the direction our waiter walked.

“What is the matter with him? Did you not tip him well the last time you were here?”  My other colleague decided to blame me for our ill treatment.

“Actually, I haven’t seen him here before. Must be new. He does look out of place. Way older than the rest of the waiters.

We were brought back to the topic by another colleague of mine, “Hey by the way next week on Diwali you have a chance to book your profits. Heard of Muhurat trading sessions? ” .

 “Aah yes, but I think I have had it enough.” The vodka burned in my throat as I took a big gulp and sat straight.  “Enough of this extra marital affair with stock market. I am going back to my ‘wife’ - my business venture, who I had been ignoring.”  I think it was the vodka that brought out the weird analogy.

“Oh you are still on it?”

“When was I ever off it? Dude I have spent sleepless nights thinking about the impact my product will have in the industry.” My adrenalin made me restless on my chair. “ Ideas keep popping up in my head like popcorns and I get so excited and anxious ... that I have so much to do and I am running out of time. Who needs a workout ? Just have a far-fetched dream, and you will have your daily dose of cardio lying on your bed at 2 am.”   I was a little high by this time.  “ I regret over the lost opportunities, lucrative opportunities abroad that I turned down for the sake of starting ‘something of my own’. God knows I could have been driving that civic today, if only I had given up on my convictions – if you sense the irony of that.”

My friend gave out his lopsided smile of agreement. “Take a break. Your adrenalin has used up all the alcohol in your blood. You need another. Now where is this guy?” My colleague cranes his neck to locate our waiter and saw him approaching at a painstakingly slow rate.

“Who hired this oldie for a bar?” I would have liked an answer to that rhetorical question.

Our waiter finally approached our table, straight faced, and put the tray at one corner of the table. He started to leave when I almost yelled -

“Excuse me!! Do you mind making the drink for me , or at-least place it where I can reach it?” Sarcasm in my tone.

 “pcchh” again . He made an imprudent motion and in a split second the glass was on the floor, shattered . The loose thread of the table cloth was still stuck between the gaps in his watch. I was fuming now and was about to utter something hurtful when I saw our waiter picking up the pieces with tears in his eyes.  My anger was now turning into curiosity and confusion. I was on a back foot now for the fear of being held responsible for his misfortune. I asked him, “What’s the matter chacchha?” in a concerned, friendly tone hearing which he began crying uncontrollably. We made him sit with us till he gained composure. 

“Here, have some water. Why are you crying in this manner, it’s just a glass, no big deal.”

“It is a big deal Sahib. And it is my fault. I had been in a foul mental state and this happened.” He spoke wiping his tears, on his sleeve. “The manager is now definitely never going to give me the advance payment that I had been asking. I will have to return home without the fire crackers I promised my grand-children for Diwali.  I spend sleepless nights worrying about my son’s recovery. He broke his legs after he suffered a fall on the construction site he works in. Now sahib, for a daily wage earner like him isn’t it the end of all hopes.  But I had to step up. These are not the times when an old man can spend an entire day lying on a charpoy reading newspaper, playing cards and sleeping.  I had to work. I haven’t told my son that I work here, serving food and drinks. He will be hurt. But there is no choice. I could afford to ask my grandchildren to pick just one treat for Diwali - Clothes, sweets or crackers. Without a second of thought they jumped for crackers. Oh the joy. I could see the sparkles of crackers in their eyes. I tried to convince them to choose clothes or sweets which they could enjoy for longer than crackers. But children think and feel in mysterious ways.”

“Working at this bar gave me some hope to fulfill their wish, but I keep breaking things and being yelled at. But you are nice people, you did not yell at me.”  I was embarrassed at this undeserving praise.

“Well, this is life. We got to do what we got to do. I am sorry sahib for this mess.” He rose up with his tray, wiping his face. “I will bring another one, quickly.” He smiled sheepishly and left.

There was several moment of poignant silence between us. I couldn’t help but imagine an uneven weighing scale with a European holiday on one side and a bunch of fire crackers on the other.

Undulating Dreams

She ran hard. Heart pounding against her chest, legs numb, but she didn’t stop. She crushed the frothy waves on her way and crushed the little snails. She was running away from the deafening din of thoughts. She was running away from the image of blissfully happy face of her husband, transforming into a dense smokey claw.

Two weeks ago her dreams shattered on her bathroom floor when those red lines emerged on the plastic stick. She had planned long years of travelling, writing and exploring, with her husband which had brought them to the remote coasts of Kerala. They would stay there for few months, she working on her book and he collecting pictures for his grand gallery opening.

She remembered the day when they first met. It was a November sun set when he stealthily took pictures of her while she wrote in her notebook sitting on the white sand as the waves kissed her heels and shied away. The thin strap of her white tunic would reveal a strip of pale skin on the crimson shoulder as she stirred to wrap her hair around on one side. He would later admit that he had fallen in love with her that very day, weeks before he called to tell her that her pictures had won him award and that he wanted to apologize over a cup of coffee for the undue liberty he took.

The rocky shore was tearing through her shoes now, hurting her feet – yet she ran to grasp that ever elusive future she had imagined. How could he put his life, his passion, his camera aside, she thought, for the nameless, shapeless unsolicited life that she was carrying? They had argued for three nights when she finally broke down. He cupped her face, looked at her with his moist eye lashes and begged “Sweetheart - the only thing I want to do is to give this child everything that my father denied me. Please let me have this closure.” She relented, just to see the childish smile on his face.Then why did she wake up in the middle of the night every day since, dreading her decision and devising a way out? Why did she take up running on the beach every day since, as soon as he left for the shoot?

She returned to their cottage exhausted enough to think anymore. She took off her shoes and hung them on the fence. As she crashed on her bed, melting into a trance, a fragile little ‘dream’ like thought sneaked into her consciousness.  She heard a giggle, and saw two silhouettes. It was more lucid now. She saw herself as a child, pure and vulnerable, and then she saw herself, older, wiser, holding the child’s hand. She was teaching her to write.  She planted a kiss on her nose. They giggled again. ‘What is happening?’  A shadow witnessing the dream, questioned. ‘This is not what you desire – Or is it?’ Her countenance grew serious. She tried pulling away from the child who clung to her waist. It was late; she had to go but the child held her tight around her waist, so tight it hurt.

She came out of her trance in pain. The white linen of her bed was now red. She cried. It was indeed too late to ponder over the lucid dream. He had returned to their cottage and rushed to her side.

“Baby- we need to get you to the hospital. It’s a long way. ”. He was heartbroken but his wife was his first child and his first concern. He carried her outside in his arms and gently laid her inside the car.

“Let me get your shoes.” He ran back to the threshold of their cottage and picked the shoes that hung on the fence. It was drenched, battered and sand smeared. He stood there frozen momentarily as it dawned upon him - a cruel possibility. His steps grew heavier as he returned to the car to his suffering wife. His piercing glare ordered her to look him in the eyes and refute the allegations that his wounded heart was throwing. She didn’t. He gave the shoes in her hand, not by her foot, but in her hand and drove off in silence, not comforting her, just a hollow silence - leaving behind only the dreams undulating over white sand.

Its "That" time of the month

Its that time of the month.

Hold on to the reigns of your thoughts for a moment guys. I am talking about the time when you pick a piece of paper and start practicing the alphabets for adults –

A             for          Aata

B             for          Besan

C             for          Chai

D             for          Daal

and so on. You visit the distant corners of your modular kitchen, open each shelf and each pet jars to check if you need a refill and add the item nevertheless to your list, just  to get the value for money that you spend on fuel when you drive your car to D’Mart or BigBazar or Namdhari’s or Nilgiri’s.

And as you drive your way to these stores, or should I say Malls, dreading about the size of the mob you might encounter  there, your FM radio informs you that you are an idiot to be grocery shopping in the real world when there is a plethora of web apps and mobile apps that can take you to the virtual shopping world. You might as well be the Alice of your wonderland where you don’t have just one, but several bottles that say “DRINK ME” and several packets that say “EAT ME”. Disclaimer : None of those will make you grow too big and shrink too small.

You recall that your next door geeky couple never go grocering and have things delivered to their house or sometimes to your house when they are not around. So you decide to give it a try next month when you are PGS-ing(pre grocering syndrome – Trademark registered).  You are excited to see such products available that you had never heard of . You search some of these items on google to know the ingredients and the nutrition facts. Oh, and there is a comparator listing down the criteria on which a product differs across different chains. And then you realize that you have spent the entire Saturday evening in your bed , with your laptop on your lap, viewing the exotic therapeutic oil you never needed before, exotic sounding seeds and nuts that supposedly help in losing weight or gaining weight, that Ready to Eat Sooji halwa mix(seriously ? how lazy can you be)

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against online grocery stores. But you better pay a visit to your next door geeky couple to master the art of ordering online.

As for me, I get nostalgic thinking of the times when we used to make 2 copies of a list, one for the local kirana wala and another for us kids to cross check, striking off the items matched, shying away to call out in presence of father when it came to sanitary napkins . Those days.

Learning, Unlearning, re-learning

 

“Hit it and drive it away Parvati for god’s sake. How do I work if this rascal keeps barking? Kill it by all means I don’t care but I don’t want to hear even a leaf rustle….”

He was never like this before. This irritable, angry person that he had become. Gautam had been into competitive swimming with Swimming Federation of India and was a remarkable gymnast. His quarter at the academy campus in Delhi was adorned with a pyramid made out of the cups he had won. A photograph, among several others, was captured in a frame of him making the winning dive into the pool. There was another highly ornate but blank frame resting on his “pride” shelf. He had purchased it in advance to capture his yet another winning dive in the upcoming federation cup. It remained blank. His last dive was a dive into darkness, uncertainty and years of yearning for a reason to live.

He was physical very strong and thusly for the initial few months he remained quite hopeful of his recovery, after he got paralyzed waist below due to the tragic accident at the swimming pool. He suffered from Lumbar spinal cord injury which rendered his lower body lifeless. He listened to doctor’s advice carefully, underwent as many physiotherapy session as he could, tried perceivably hard to project his former ebullient self.

Gradually he started getting sucked into the quicksand of despair. The initial visitors from the federation; friends, colleagues, competitors; were now replaced by peons who dropped by to deliver the mails that were addressed to his account at the academy. His physiotherapist had started looking at his wrist watch more frequently during their sessions. His sessions got shorter, with no visible improvement. He had no close family members to be with him, but he had a good rapport at the federation and that’s how he got Parvati, a 40 something woman, as his care taker and occasionally his stress ball

“..…but I don’t want to hear even a leaf rustle.” Parvati rolled her eyes in a routine fashion and dashed out of the house, picked up pebbles from the garden and threw them at the dog which barely missed it but scared it enough to stay away from the house – for some time.

“You don’t own the street Mr. Nehra, and I can’t keep going out on the street to drive away every dog that barks or breathes.” She retorted from the garden glaring at Gautam who was sitting at his desk by the window of his room facing onto the street.

Actually it was just this one dog, not “every”, which had got on Gautam’s nerves with its sporadic barks every afternoon, when he worked on the administrative tasks that the Federation handed him for he had bills to pay. The dog used to bark right in front of his house in the same sporadic fashion every afternoon even before the accident. But Gautam was never around during that time to notice it. On days when he was around, he didn’t bother to spare anything more than a meteoric one sided smile of amusement.

It had been a week since this routine started. The dog that looked like a poor man’s German shepherd, would arrive, who knows from where, on the desolate street on which Gautam’s quarter was, sniffing the path all along. Occasionally raising his head up he lets out a bark then turn in a different direction ,moves a few steps ahead, barks again, waits for a moment and turns around to go in a different path .  The poor man’s German shepherd had caught Gautam’s and Parvati’s attention for his erratic behavior. They suspected it to be a dangerous diseased creature.

***************************************************

The poor man’s German Shepherd arrived quite punctually on Gautam’s street the next cloudy afternoon and started barking in different directions moving jerkily to and fro. Gautam lifted both his legs one by one with his hands to adjust his position on the wheelchair and furiously wheeled towards the outer gate which opened on to the street. Parvati was scared for the dog’s life and rushed behind Gautam and asked rhetorically: “How are you planning to harm the poor thing in any manner. By glaring at it?”

 Parvati pitied the confused thing on the street, while Gautam, more so, hated it. Probably because at some subconscious level he had started to compare his life with such diseased low lives, which had no significant reason to live except to survive the time on this Earth. His desk job at the federation was no consolation for his morale as he saw it as a stale chapatti thrown at a stray dog, not out of love, neither pity, but just because that’s what they are for. This proud man had to kill his pride with every morsel of the “chapathi” he ate. Gautam was still strong in his arms; after all he was an adept swimmer and Gymnast. After a year of therapeutic help he could in the least pick himself up from a lying position using just his hands and place himself on the wheelchair which Parvati strategically placed for him. Once it happened that he missed his mark by a couple of inches and fell down. Parvati rushed to his assistance but stopped short looking at his expression, both angry and scared giving out a silent order, “..Stay there, I’ve got this.. But please don’t go”. Parvati was amazed to see Gautam pull himself up with the force of his arms and managed to drop himself on the edge of the bed. But his legs were dead to him. In a way he had disowned them for their betrayal.  For two years he had been carrying their weight around. Twice he tried to stand up on his own but suffered a fall. The Doctor gave a strict advice against such adventurism as it would put his spine at a greater risk.  At some point during this time, Gautam gave up all hopes of standing on his own legs ever again, let alone swimming.

Gautam stopped with a jerk a couple of feet away from the dog hoping to startle it. The dog didn’t even cringe a bit. “Woof” it barked and a moment later started jumping in excitement. Gautam tried to move forward but was stopped by Parvati’s hands on the back of his chair. Both had a good look at the crazy thing and were amused to see that the thing never opened its eyes. They remained closed.

“Don’t go any near Mr. Nehra, this thing is bad news. Let’s go inside it might rain” Gautam gave her a condescending look and moved closer to the dog out of curiosity. It had a collar with a metallic label - “Simba - Anubhooti”.  It didn’t look like a rich breed – poor man’s German shepherd. The dog started jumping playfully on Gautam and on Parvati who ran back inside the house. Gautam turned back towards his quarter as the dog followed. He let it.

**********************************************************************

Night had befallen. Parvati had left for the day. Gautam never took his eyes off the dog. He was sure now that Simba could not open its eyes. He kept watching the dog in muted astonishment. It barked and sniffed most of the time moving around in the house with unsteady steps. Eventually it found the most spacious part of the house and settled down for a nap.

At 11pm, Gautam woke up with a startle and found himself still sitting at his desk facing not the window but the spacious area in his house where napped the dog who would not open its eyes, only that now it was standing on all fours, fully alert, facing the door.

“How!!??” He wondered out loud.

He had dozed off and was awaken by a loud blow of whistle somewhere nearby on the street. It had started drizzling. Simba barked approaching the door and with another blow of the whistle he grew excited and barked incessantly. Gautam wheeled towards the door and opened it. Simba ran straight to the outer gate and stopped exactly where he should have to avoid crashing into the gate.

Another “How!!??”  He opened the outer gate as the dog dashed towards the source of the whistle.

 

Gautam didn’t recognize the woman with the whistle but he did recognize the man with her.

“Hello Neeraj. Your Dog?”

“My sister’s.”  He motioned his hands towards the woman with the whistle who was by now being assaulted by dog saliva all over her face, but didn’t complain a bit.

“Annie.. Meet Gautam. The best our academy has ever seen.” It felt like a blow below the belt. Only this one, he could feel. Neeraj was his competitor to look out for in the glorious years.

She pulled herself away from the dog’s grip and let out her hand. Gautam took it.

 “Yes, I have heard about you. Anubhooti” She introduced herself with a warm smile. “I am sorry. Did he bother you a lot?”

He didn’t answer. “I think you should come inside and wait for the rain to stop.”

“I’ve got this.” Gautam almost snapped as Neeraj started to push his wheelchair.

Anubhuti thanked Gautam for letting Simba rest in his house.

“You see I am visiting Neeraj here for a couple of weeks. And since its safe here in the academy I let Simba free in the afternoons to explore the place around by himself. But I guess today he got tired and chose to rest at a good man’s place such as you.”

Gautam had explained Neeraj and Anubhooti the events of the afternoon over coffee. With a bit of hesitation he asked her,

“Why does Simba never open his eyes?”

“Coz he doesn’t have them.” Came out a very casual reply with the same warm smile.

“Doesn’t have what?”

“Eyes” She shrugged her shoulders speaking as a matter of fact. “Ah... I am sorry. My bad. I keep forgetting that it’s difficult for other people to understand. Let me explain.”

“I am a dog breeder. But I ran into a bit of a bad luck with this little sweetheart.” She said reaching out for Simba resting next to her chair on the floor and stroked his forehead.

“When he was born prematurely, we waited for a week for him to open his eyes. But he never did. We were told that his eyes weren’t formed. I was disheartened but couldn’t come up to terms with the idea of putting him to sleep. And so I decided to raise him.”

 

“So Simba is blind. But how do you explain his moving around like any other normal dog?”

“I understand your curiosity. This is not the first time I am explaining Simba to someone.” Warm smile.

Gautam had never spoken as much to any one since his accident as he did with Anubhuti that rainy night. Some chord was struck in him by the events of that afternoon.

 

“You might have observed that Simba barks a lot and moves in a jerky manner. There is a phenomenon called Echolocation. Simba is highly sensitive to smells and sounds, more than a normal dog. But what sets him apart is that he can listen to the echo of the sound that he creates and based on that he locates different objects around him. Trees, traffic, people, obstruction, anything. His movements are jerky at an unknown place as he has not marked it yet, but once he does he can move around without you having to worry about him.”

 

“But it’s unbelievable. Who taught him the phenomenon? It’s all too scientific.”

“It’s not at all scientific. It’s natural. Its evolution. Its adaptation. Simba does not pity himself for being blind. He does not know what being blind feels like. He knows no eyes. For him the whole world is the same as him. Nature taught him how to move about when there is simply darkness all around. It’s difficult for us humans to believe that such an existence is possible because we have a preconceived notion that we need to see objects around us because we have eyes. That you need legs to swim.”

Gautam was taken aback at this direct reference to him.

 

“Imagine if you were born without legs. Would you know what legs felt like? No. And if you had the passion for life, for swimming, nature would have helped you.”

 

“Why doesn’t the so called nature of yours help me now?” He retorted.

 

“Because you don’t let it. You have all this memories and notion of how complete and valid you felt when your legs were alive. The secret behind Simba’s amazingness is his sheer ignorance of his blindness. You need to forget that your legs ever moved. Only then your body will learn to adapt. Have you ever seen an amputee walk on their hands? Have you ever seen a painter with no arms holding the paint brush between his lips and paint a masterpiece? It is enlightening Gautam. It’s unravelling. “

 

Several minutes of silence was broken by Neeraj-“The rain has stopped, I think we should make a move now.”

***********************************************************************

 

Gautam locked the wheels of his chair at the edge of the 7ft deep pool and sat there in his swim shorts in silence staring at the water for a long time. This pool had taken away 2 years of his life at its prime, and he was there to reclaim it. He remembered the last dive of his former life – a dive into darkness, uncertainty and years of yearning for a reason to live. He found that reason in an animal – the poor man’s German Shepherd- Simba.

No, the reason to live will not be to bounce back to fame, to win titles and prove his physical superiority (well, who knows?)But this time, he chose to live to explore and harness the internal superiority of a human body and soul. He chose to actually “live” to celebrate the ability a soul to adapt itself with any circumstances it is faced with. To keep on unlearning, learning and relearning.

With that thought in mind, he let out his one sided smile of amusement and took the leap of hope, off his wheelchair into the pool.

=======================***************================================

 

 

When your time is up

My long day is almost coming to an end now. After serving Nanaji his early dinner and sending him off to an early bed, I have my dinner with my husband, Mom and Dad. After clearing the dishes i am going to resign to my room, switch on my laptop and continue the travelogue that I had been working on.

I stop by my husband's nanaji's room to say goodnight and put eyedrops , which has now become a ritual exclusively for me. No matter who else is around him, he would ask only me to do the job. I admit it makes me happy.The lights are still on. I, playfully make funny hand gesture to see how long it takes for him to realize that someone is standing by the door. He didnt for quite sometime as he has lost his left eye to Cataract and probably also because my NanaJi, an 87 year old fragile figure, kept staring at the ceiling while lying on his bed. I sober down and stand leaning against the wall watching him.. just watching him.

His eyes shrinked , a toothless mouth half open, as if watching his entire life being played on a projector screen. Smiling at scenes where his children are growing up to be fine individuals, feeling the pride when the particular scene is played where he was forced to leave behind his home and garment business in Pakistan during the partition, and he starts from scratch in Rajkot to build even bigger a business.

In one of the shots he saw himself as a King and the luckiest person in the world to have a wife who would make his life so fulfilling; In yet another scene he was a beggar in front of God praying for his terminally ill wife's life.

I see the longing on his face and a trembling jaw making an effort not to choke up. Which scene is he watching now ? Probably the one where his son is getting married and migrating to London with his wife. How he had accepted the painful and dreaded possibility that he would see very little of his son this day onwards. Something twisted in my heart.

He used to be one handsome and tall figure, he still kind of is. But now his wife's absence has opened his eyes to his silver hair, wrinkled skin; and opened his eyes to a doubt that he probably isn't wanted anymore, is a burden , a trouble to the ones who are "stuck" with taking care of him.

He is tired but still wont sleep. He is waiting for the climax of this film. Its late Nanaji, you must sleep now. I know you will keep playing this movie, tomorrow and day after and the day after that, till you find peace and stop waiting for the climax.

There is a climax to every movie. But I hope you act your part to the best of your capability, as long as you are directed to act and when your time is up, you clap - teary eyed, smiling face - and you clap hard at your performance.