It’s a quantitative measure of how far we are apart
For each of us has to play one’s own part
Is it limited to this world? This life?
In a world that’s torn with strife
Does it make one think about the other?
Or completely forget one another?
Really why does it seem longer?
When it is actually much shorter
Perchance we make it out to be,
More dramatic than it should be
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Strength of Character
I did my entire schooling in a girls-only convent school. My parents’ friends’ daughter was also in the same class. Sunita and I thus thrown in together mentally urged on by our parents to be best friends. We sat together in our identical blue pinafores, exchanged pencils and swapped lunches. I was in best-friend heaven. Sunita was a studious mild even-tempered girl, while I was notorious among the teachers for my sudden-flare ups and misplaced sense of righteousness.
Sunita did valiantly try to put with me, but the she was after all a small girl and no sage. Sunita found me too impulsive, impassioned and something of a pain. Once she found out that her parents echoed her thoughts, she punctiliously removed herself from my company. I wish I could say that she slowly distanced herself, but it was not so. This sudden alteration of my social dynamics threw me off my kilter. I was bewildered and confused. It hurt to see her methodically immerse herself into a group of girls, whom her mother thought were excellent examples for her to emulate.
The world around me changed so fast that. It always felt like I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. My life was a never-ending vacuum of wrongs. Every day was a bad day. My academics never great to begin with, hit an all-time low and it worried my parents. I wish I could fall back into a cliché and could say that at this point, there came an understanding class teacher who changed the course of my life, but there wasn’t. To make matters worse, the one that there was, was the bane of my existence.
My teachers didn’t waste any time typecasting me into the spoilt-lazy-wild schoolgirl slot, especially my class teacher, Ms. P who seemed not to like me very much. Most of the time in her 5th grade classroom, I spent either pointedly ignored by her or being given razor sharp glares. It didn’t bother me much, as I was pretty used to it by this time, but somewhere in the back of mind, there was looming feeling of dread, like something unpleasant was about to happen and it did.
As much as I disliked my school, I loved my school grounds, especially during the rains, when it would be peppered with deep delicious puddles, so much fun to splash around in. I would wait for the afternoon recess bell to go out and get my feet into these puddles. On one such rainy afternoon, after a particularly trying math hour, I stepped out into these puddles with welcome relief. After a nice feet-wetting session, I went back to find out that I was asked to meet ‘the class teacher in the staff room’. I went a heaviness in my heart, throat paralyzed with fear.
“You splashed mud on your classmate’s skirt on purpose”
She greeted with that statement and icy glare to match her tone.
“Ma’am, I didn’t...” I spluttered
To cut the long story short, it seemed that one of my classmates, her favorite, was walking near as I was splashing around merrily and was dotted with mud that I was unwittingly spattering about. She made me stand there cringing and watched me with measuring gaze. I don’t remember how long I stood, it seemed like I was there forever. I mustered all my courage and looked at her directly in the face. She looked like a wax statue to me, so still except for the vein that was pulsing at her temple. I looked at her eyes, measuring me and condemning me and strangely hypnotizing in their blackness…it felt bizarre, it felt like I was watching myself from somewhere else. Suddenly stood up and gestured for me accompany her. I did so, my head ringing with fear. On reaching the classroom, she pulled me to front of it, amidst all my curious classmates, some wary, some cackling and made the announcement that I will never forget in my life.
“ Roopa Culas ( heavy stress on the last syllable), you have been a shame to this institution, a shame to me and I am pretty sure, a shame to your parents as well. What you did this afternoon, just shows how much of a nuisance and trouble you are to me and your classmates. Well… I am going to give you ample time to reflect how bad you have been and how you can try to better yourself, until then no one in this class will speak to you, walk with you or even look at you. You will sit all by yourself in the last bench until you realize your mistake.”
She said this with all the gravity of a feared oracle. Her words were uncontested and her hate for me, blatant. This was accompanied by an astonished silence and then a few cackles of approval.
I sat there, in my dark lonely corner, with my head held high, as if I didn’t care, for a day, then two and on the third day I broke, laid my head on the desk and sobbed. Nobody dared come near me, I knew and I it did not surprise me. I was a shame and a nuisance. Why would anyone want to talk to me? I sat there for a with my lowered head, hating myself, wanting to fling myself out of the room and running all the way home without stopping. But I knew that wasn’t even an option.
A week passed in a haze of misery and confusion. I really was confused; I didn’t know what to do. Something about the way, the quiet maliciously confident way, which the teacher did this, made me think that I wouldn’t want to take this home. So I kept quiet.
On the 7th day, a Tuesday, I remember so vividly, I opened my lunch box when I heard a tentative “ Can I join you”, I thought I imagined it at first and then I saw a lunch box in front of me, I looked up to see a girl in my class, whom I hardly even knew. She was delicately built, average in studies, silent and more or less invisible. She smiled shyly and opened her lunch box. I stared at her, speechless.
“Won’t Miss P (our class teacher) know?” I asked her in amazement; half-expecting her to suddenly come to her senses and run away.
“I don’t know and I am not thinking about her. You just cannot eat alone every day you know” She said quietly but firmly.
That’s when the real meaning of something that my Dad had been talking about came to me; Strength of Character. It came to me in a sudden rush of realization, that’s what you call it, when someone, as small and young as my classmate, stands up to what she thinks is right. Whether it was risking a terrifying teacher’s wrath or the condemnation of the other girls, she just sat next to me because she didn’t want another human being to suffer alone.
I will never forget her till the day I die.
Sunita did valiantly try to put with me, but the she was after all a small girl and no sage. Sunita found me too impulsive, impassioned and something of a pain. Once she found out that her parents echoed her thoughts, she punctiliously removed herself from my company. I wish I could say that she slowly distanced herself, but it was not so. This sudden alteration of my social dynamics threw me off my kilter. I was bewildered and confused. It hurt to see her methodically immerse herself into a group of girls, whom her mother thought were excellent examples for her to emulate.
The world around me changed so fast that. It always felt like I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. My life was a never-ending vacuum of wrongs. Every day was a bad day. My academics never great to begin with, hit an all-time low and it worried my parents. I wish I could fall back into a cliché and could say that at this point, there came an understanding class teacher who changed the course of my life, but there wasn’t. To make matters worse, the one that there was, was the bane of my existence.
My teachers didn’t waste any time typecasting me into the spoilt-lazy-wild schoolgirl slot, especially my class teacher, Ms. P who seemed not to like me very much. Most of the time in her 5th grade classroom, I spent either pointedly ignored by her or being given razor sharp glares. It didn’t bother me much, as I was pretty used to it by this time, but somewhere in the back of mind, there was looming feeling of dread, like something unpleasant was about to happen and it did.
As much as I disliked my school, I loved my school grounds, especially during the rains, when it would be peppered with deep delicious puddles, so much fun to splash around in. I would wait for the afternoon recess bell to go out and get my feet into these puddles. On one such rainy afternoon, after a particularly trying math hour, I stepped out into these puddles with welcome relief. After a nice feet-wetting session, I went back to find out that I was asked to meet ‘the class teacher in the staff room’. I went a heaviness in my heart, throat paralyzed with fear.
“You splashed mud on your classmate’s skirt on purpose”
She greeted with that statement and icy glare to match her tone.
“Ma’am, I didn’t...” I spluttered
To cut the long story short, it seemed that one of my classmates, her favorite, was walking near as I was splashing around merrily and was dotted with mud that I was unwittingly spattering about. She made me stand there cringing and watched me with measuring gaze. I don’t remember how long I stood, it seemed like I was there forever. I mustered all my courage and looked at her directly in the face. She looked like a wax statue to me, so still except for the vein that was pulsing at her temple. I looked at her eyes, measuring me and condemning me and strangely hypnotizing in their blackness…it felt bizarre, it felt like I was watching myself from somewhere else. Suddenly stood up and gestured for me accompany her. I did so, my head ringing with fear. On reaching the classroom, she pulled me to front of it, amidst all my curious classmates, some wary, some cackling and made the announcement that I will never forget in my life.
“ Roopa Culas ( heavy stress on the last syllable), you have been a shame to this institution, a shame to me and I am pretty sure, a shame to your parents as well. What you did this afternoon, just shows how much of a nuisance and trouble you are to me and your classmates. Well… I am going to give you ample time to reflect how bad you have been and how you can try to better yourself, until then no one in this class will speak to you, walk with you or even look at you. You will sit all by yourself in the last bench until you realize your mistake.”
She said this with all the gravity of a feared oracle. Her words were uncontested and her hate for me, blatant. This was accompanied by an astonished silence and then a few cackles of approval.
I sat there, in my dark lonely corner, with my head held high, as if I didn’t care, for a day, then two and on the third day I broke, laid my head on the desk and sobbed. Nobody dared come near me, I knew and I it did not surprise me. I was a shame and a nuisance. Why would anyone want to talk to me? I sat there for a with my lowered head, hating myself, wanting to fling myself out of the room and running all the way home without stopping. But I knew that wasn’t even an option.
A week passed in a haze of misery and confusion. I really was confused; I didn’t know what to do. Something about the way, the quiet maliciously confident way, which the teacher did this, made me think that I wouldn’t want to take this home. So I kept quiet.
On the 7th day, a Tuesday, I remember so vividly, I opened my lunch box when I heard a tentative “ Can I join you”, I thought I imagined it at first and then I saw a lunch box in front of me, I looked up to see a girl in my class, whom I hardly even knew. She was delicately built, average in studies, silent and more or less invisible. She smiled shyly and opened her lunch box. I stared at her, speechless.
“Won’t Miss P (our class teacher) know?” I asked her in amazement; half-expecting her to suddenly come to her senses and run away.
“I don’t know and I am not thinking about her. You just cannot eat alone every day you know” She said quietly but firmly.
That’s when the real meaning of something that my Dad had been talking about came to me; Strength of Character. It came to me in a sudden rush of realization, that’s what you call it, when someone, as small and young as my classmate, stands up to what she thinks is right. Whether it was risking a terrifying teacher’s wrath or the condemnation of the other girls, she just sat next to me because she didn’t want another human being to suffer alone.
I will never forget her till the day I die.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
My time machine to the past
Beautiful dust mites floating in the sunlight, dancing in suspended motion. It makes everything so mystical. I would be laughing with my cousins, chasing the hens in the coop or even just lying down in my grandmothers cool dark room, staring into space, thinking of nothing in particular, when my eyes would stray by its own volition to the shaft of golden sunlight falling from the window or from a crack in the tile roof. There they would stay, my eyes and my attention, unable to tear away, hypnotized to a wistful dreamy trance. Everything under that soft light was molten gold, the dust mites turned into errant fairies that soared along with the overactive imagination of my 9 year old brain.
Whenever I get terribly homesick, the way when my heart feels really heavy and my throat pains, I put on ‘Venkatesha Suprabatham’. It gives me instant relief, though making me even more wistful for the days that went by. In my father’s ancestral home in Trivandrum, we used a green bedroom on the upper level with a small verandha which opened up into the tiny village hidden by thick foliage. It was always slightly chilly in the mornings, making it even more cozier to sleep…it was during this snug moments that the ‘venkatesha suprabatham’ would blare through those trees, coupled with a multitude of reassuring, homey noises like the pressure cooker going off from the kitchen underneath, dad snoring from the next bed, the dog barking outside. It would send me into a luxurious limbo of sleep and wakefulness; stretching contentedly I would savor my waking moments, knowing that I belonged, there to that moment.
I think, if asked to name some vitals smells from our childhood, most of us will come up with at least one fruit, rain wet earth and a favorite dish.. Well… I do have all this and some more…The list of comforting smells which would conjure up my childhood is long and complicated…I do have a strong olfactory memory. It would go onto something like this; intoxicating carbon dioxide laden fresh night air, petrol fumes (we used to stay in a house next to a petrol bunk,when my sister and I were small),camphour,fresh green mangoes, the musty smell of old silk sarees, Yardley lavender(my grandmother’s favorite soap), chalk, bata leather, moth balls, coconut oil, jasmine, old bound books, sandalwood incense and it goes on and on.. I catch a whiff here and there of some of the above mentioned items, and it transports me to a time, when everything was good and not so good and now, beyond my reach.
Some days I worry myself into a panic. It starts innocuously enough, with me gazing at my grandmother’s picture on my dresser and reminiscing about her. I start to think about her and almost always, the first thing that comes into my mind was her touch…it was warm, soft and firm at the same time…and I would try to remember her hands, work-worn, lined and tender…Whether she was cooking, feeding us, stitching or even speaking…her strokes were minimal, efficient and loving.. Satisfied with my memory, I try to imagine her voice and sometimes, just sometimes, I draw a blank. In those worrying moments when I despair that forgetting her voice would be the first step in forgetting her memory…I focus back again her touch, which evokes her eyes, alight with affection, to her smile and then finally her voice and then my panic ebbs…slowly I recede back into the warm cocoon of my childhood memories, strong and clear as ever.
The sensation of taste is very potent, because it is almost always accompanied by the sensations of smell and sight…Take the staple food of my family, red fish curry, I doubt the fish curry would be half as appealing if it didn’t smell the way it did or didn’t have that fiery red hue…Who wants to eat a sweet but odourless colorless mango? But nothing summons the instant advent of gratifying childhood memories as the food of our childhood, which, over time, acquires a cult status in our memory. It holds sway of the comfort, the sense of security and belonging and the key to one’s past and identity with a taste, a whiff or even sometimes, a glance.
Whenever I get terribly homesick, the way when my heart feels really heavy and my throat pains, I put on ‘Venkatesha Suprabatham’. It gives me instant relief, though making me even more wistful for the days that went by. In my father’s ancestral home in Trivandrum, we used a green bedroom on the upper level with a small verandha which opened up into the tiny village hidden by thick foliage. It was always slightly chilly in the mornings, making it even more cozier to sleep…it was during this snug moments that the ‘venkatesha suprabatham’ would blare through those trees, coupled with a multitude of reassuring, homey noises like the pressure cooker going off from the kitchen underneath, dad snoring from the next bed, the dog barking outside. It would send me into a luxurious limbo of sleep and wakefulness; stretching contentedly I would savor my waking moments, knowing that I belonged, there to that moment.
I think, if asked to name some vitals smells from our childhood, most of us will come up with at least one fruit, rain wet earth and a favorite dish.. Well… I do have all this and some more…The list of comforting smells which would conjure up my childhood is long and complicated…I do have a strong olfactory memory. It would go onto something like this; intoxicating carbon dioxide laden fresh night air, petrol fumes (we used to stay in a house next to a petrol bunk,when my sister and I were small),camphour,fresh green mangoes, the musty smell of old silk sarees, Yardley lavender(my grandmother’s favorite soap), chalk, bata leather, moth balls, coconut oil, jasmine, old bound books, sandalwood incense and it goes on and on.. I catch a whiff here and there of some of the above mentioned items, and it transports me to a time, when everything was good and not so good and now, beyond my reach.
Some days I worry myself into a panic. It starts innocuously enough, with me gazing at my grandmother’s picture on my dresser and reminiscing about her. I start to think about her and almost always, the first thing that comes into my mind was her touch…it was warm, soft and firm at the same time…and I would try to remember her hands, work-worn, lined and tender…Whether she was cooking, feeding us, stitching or even speaking…her strokes were minimal, efficient and loving.. Satisfied with my memory, I try to imagine her voice and sometimes, just sometimes, I draw a blank. In those worrying moments when I despair that forgetting her voice would be the first step in forgetting her memory…I focus back again her touch, which evokes her eyes, alight with affection, to her smile and then finally her voice and then my panic ebbs…slowly I recede back into the warm cocoon of my childhood memories, strong and clear as ever.
The sensation of taste is very potent, because it is almost always accompanied by the sensations of smell and sight…Take the staple food of my family, red fish curry, I doubt the fish curry would be half as appealing if it didn’t smell the way it did or didn’t have that fiery red hue…Who wants to eat a sweet but odourless colorless mango? But nothing summons the instant advent of gratifying childhood memories as the food of our childhood, which, over time, acquires a cult status in our memory. It holds sway of the comfort, the sense of security and belonging and the key to one’s past and identity with a taste, a whiff or even sometimes, a glance.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
Little Red Frog
My mind was a Tabula Rasa and I searched desperately for my Muse. She simply refused to come. As a last resort I randomly searched for some writing cues and stumbled upon a science news report of a red frog found in the jungles of Borneo. This is a combined result of that news and Elmo singing nursery rhymes to my little Son, who is having a grumpy day!
I saw it hop into a green thimble leaf,
Posing and trying hard not to leap
The Little Red Frog sat there
Sunning itself without a care
“Are you for real?”
“Are you a boy or a girl?”
The Little Red Frog Huffed,
“Why would you want to know?”
I smiled because then I knew
It is a girl or else it would be blue
I saw it hop into a green thimble leaf,
Posing and trying hard not to leap
The Little Red Frog sat there
Sunning itself without a care
“Are you for real?”
“Are you a boy or a girl?”
The Little Red Frog Huffed,
“Why would you want to know?”
I smiled because then I knew
It is a girl or else it would be blue
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tagore - Gitanjali
Mind Without Fear
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action---
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action---
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
The Malayali and the Monsoon
Every malayali worth their weight knows the most elusive signs of the monsoon; it can begin with a tantilizing breeze,a falling leaf ,a dragonfly, an overcast sky and mostly, the fecund aroma arising from earth..its pulses underfoot and engulfs the being ... monsoon is the blood which runs in a malayalis vein!
And before even the first raindrop hits the ground, umbrellas mushroom all around, skirts and mundus are hiked up with amazing alacrity..People step out of shelters and roofs and scores of beautiful black eyes turn skyward, inviting, calling..
Newspapers torn and paperboats made
Hot steaming teas and shiny green leaves
Writers sharpen their senses and pencils
Fertile and seductive the earth beckons to the sky
Its a mating dance of nature and the malayali celebrates.
And every single time, it amazes, inspires and lulls me into a wonderful cocoon of shared belonging. A special kind of bond of the most primodial kind, composed of water,life, pain and joy..Yes, all of us Keralities love our teas, midday naps, repressed yearnings and arguments for the sake of argument all presided over by a passionate shower of wet wet rain.
And before even the first raindrop hits the ground, umbrellas mushroom all around, skirts and mundus are hiked up with amazing alacrity..People step out of shelters and roofs and scores of beautiful black eyes turn skyward, inviting, calling..
Newspapers torn and paperboats made
Hot steaming teas and shiny green leaves
Writers sharpen their senses and pencils
Fertile and seductive the earth beckons to the sky
Its a mating dance of nature and the malayali celebrates.
And every single time, it amazes, inspires and lulls me into a wonderful cocoon of shared belonging. A special kind of bond of the most primodial kind, composed of water,life, pain and joy..Yes, all of us Keralities love our teas, midday naps, repressed yearnings and arguments for the sake of argument all presided over by a passionate shower of wet wet rain.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
for me
Starting now
I will write for myself, ruthlessly and truthfully
I will not pull punches
I will catalog life as I have lived it
I will discipline my imagination
I will not let my emotions get the better of me
I will put down the things as simply as they could be put
I write for my own eyes
I am writing because I have to
I will write because I need to
I am a writer
At least I aspire to be one...for me
I will write for myself, ruthlessly and truthfully
I will not pull punches
I will catalog life as I have lived it
I will discipline my imagination
I will not let my emotions get the better of me
I will put down the things as simply as they could be put
I write for my own eyes
I am writing because I have to
I will write because I need to
I am a writer
At least I aspire to be one...for me
The 2011 entry
I am thinking what I should write. Darkness and silence do not offer any motivation, nor does the bright white space in front of me.. still thinking… somewhere deep inside I know, I want, I need to write. But the muse disappears as soon as the screen appears.
Where do people gain inspiration to write from? What makes the letters flow and the thoughts dance? Why is some writing so clear and crisp that you can taste rainwater in them and the saltwater in others? How can reading certain writing make you want to cry and laugh at the same time? How do they(the real writers) make you smell the soil and touch the air?
Hmmm...I wonder
Does the smell of turpentine and shaven wood awake in them a sob that has been smothered deep inside?
Do green wet trees soar ones thoughts?
Not wanting to see the sadness in eyes so young trigger compassion or self-loathing?
Or maybe real writers write for themselves
...there.. I made my new post for 2011
Where do people gain inspiration to write from? What makes the letters flow and the thoughts dance? Why is some writing so clear and crisp that you can taste rainwater in them and the saltwater in others? How can reading certain writing make you want to cry and laugh at the same time? How do they(the real writers) make you smell the soil and touch the air?
Hmmm...I wonder
Does the smell of turpentine and shaven wood awake in them a sob that has been smothered deep inside?
Do green wet trees soar ones thoughts?
Not wanting to see the sadness in eyes so young trigger compassion or self-loathing?
Or maybe real writers write for themselves
...there.. I made my new post for 2011
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