Once you’re dead, no one else will remember your memories.

Saigon circa 1963

Once you’re dead, no one else will remember your memories.  It is such a true statement and yet we never truly understand its the poignant meaning. We feel we have shared many of them with our dean ones, often our children and friends. Then there are diaries, pictures - even old yellowed ones - and letters for those of us born before the age of the Internet. Today we may write some of our memories in the form of blogs - I have done so - and feel we have left an imprint of ourselves and maybe we have, but what a selective and paltry image of the millions of memories we have, memories that come rushing when one reads a quote like the one in true Proustian style. How can you leave a true impression of your memories with the paltry amount of tools you have - words for one -, when memories are made of a heady cocktail or images, words, smells, sensations, feelings, emotions and so much more.

The picture on the left says nothing per se. Were youth find lying on the street you would at best say it is a girl and it must be old because of the texture and colour of the paper it is printed on. If you find it amongst my things and look hard enough - provided you know me - you may say it is Anou when she must have been young. The rest of the picture is neutral: it could have been taken anywhere in the world. When I look at it I know where it was taken: Saigon - now Ho Chi Minh Ville, in 1963, on the terrace of our home which was one of 7 villas that housed the International Commission for Supervision and Control of the UN of which my father was Chairman. But when I see this picture a flood of long forgotten memories come to mind. In a land where security was tight and you were not allowed to go out as you wished, this terrace was my sanctuary, my alone space. I remember my little red  scooter that I use to drive round and round the terrace for hours and end. What no one knows is the daydreaming that happened as I whirled like a dervish. I too on many imaginary avatars, depending on the book I was reading or the fantasy of the moment. I could be a Navajo girl, an air hostess, an astronaut, a desert princess, one of the Famous five, just anything anything   an 11 year old can imagine herself to be. As I turned endlessly I lived these stories as if they were real. Only only children create their own imaginary world. I somehow still do. Could not face the world without it.

Ankara circa 68

Such memories die with you as you do not have the time, the need, the desire or even the inclination to look back at your life unless it is necessary or serendipitous as was the case today. Had I not read the quote then dived into my photo trunk to look for 'anonymous' shots. But then how often does serendipity comes into play. This picture was taken in Ankara in the winter of 1968 in the garden in front of hour house. Again the background is unspecific and only our clothes and the snow could point you towards a cold place but it could be anywhere in the world. But to me it again brings back memories a 16 year old rebel would have. How I crossed this very garden every night, rain or snow, after my parents had retired to go to dancing with my friends at club 66. Gosh I had forgotten about this too. It is also in this every spot that I got 'caught' one night and the result was not my being grounded, but given the house key officially. The funny part is that after that, going out was not fun anymore. It was the forbidden fruit that tasted sweet. And before I forget, the cap I am wearing was my Papa's Chinese fur cap which was a boon when temperatures dipped to minus 35C.

So our memories die with us, unless you are famous and have written an autobiography or been written about. But there too you reveal only what you chose to and not every tiny memory that is the sum of who you are. I guess a part of us only remains. We take the rest with us when we breathe our last.

Stop breaking my brain

Yesterday my darling boy Agastya was engrossed in a game of Temple Run on my mobile. Normally 'video games' are a big no no with his parents who are away at this moment and quite surreptitiously as I still do not know who is the 'culprit', could even be his aunt, he discovered the world of Temple Run and now is always after my phone. I am amazed at how quickly kids as young as him master the nuances and techniques of of these games in no time. I have still do get past the first step! Anyway here was Agastya sprawled on the bed in a position most kids playing such games opt for, in deep concentration trying to keep his virtual pal on track. The husband chose this moment to pat his head and of course the little fellow's concentration was disturbed and he 'crashed'! He looked at his grandpa and said: Stop breaking my brain!

I guess the word concentration has still not become part of his lexicon and breaking the brain was the best he could come up with. Needless to say both husband and I burst out laughing.

Children come up with such powerful images expressed in the simplest and endearing turn of phrase. Breaking my brain was just that. Needless to say it is going to be an expression we are bound to use starting now.

Anecdote apart, imagine how many times our brain is 'broken' and how we always find an inadequate way of expressing ourselves. From the mere headache to a break in concentration at an inopportune moment, it is a brain break!

A letter to mom

Dear Mom,

Every year on this day I count the number of years I have had to live without you. Twenty four this year. It has been too long and I do not know how many more I will be able to go through holding on to memories that are slowly fading and need to be jolted back to life. Your smile greets me every morning as I walk through the door of the house you built with so much love and strife and I try hard to remember the sound of your laugh and the lilt of your voice that never rose in anger during the 38 short years we lived in symbiosis. Every year on your birthday or death anniversary I feel the need to speak with you and be heard so the way I have found is to write a blog - oh what a blogger you would have been - and share with  it friends. For the past few days the issue of motherhood as been up most on my mind and I felt the need to try and talk about our relationship.

I needed a picture for this post and the reason I chose this one is because I realised that you had but me on a pedestal since the moment I took my first breath on this earth. Come to think of it, you did it well before: on that fateful day when you decided not to marry before Independence because you wanted your child to be born free! This was so important to you that you were even willing to sacrifice your chance to be a mother. I cannot begin to imagine how blessed I am that you become a mother as you were an exceptional one. The question that will remain unanswered is whether I met your expectations.

When I look back at what I have achieved, I realise I still have a long way to go.

Ma you broke all rules and traditions in many ways and everyone has been a lesson to emulate, however imperfectly.

I know how you cherished the notion of a free India and today I would like to talk about just that. I am glad in a way that you are not here to see how little if at all, we respected the freedom the likes of you gave us. True none of you made the ultimate sacrifice but I know the suffering you went through. Today rather than holding our heads high, we who still believe in India, have far too often had to hang our heads in shame. The beautiful land you left us has been raped in every which way possible. It is almost as if we 'free' Indians had to fall for the seven cardinal sins! You name it and we did it all. The party you all belonged to and which was made of like minded passionate people united by a single cause who were all willing to bear blows without flinching, to refuse food and drink for days and weeks at an end, to wear clothes that chaffed your skin and to sleep hungry rather than ask anyone,  has sunk so low that even I had to renounce it though I know you too would have done so. From a free and fair party it mutated into a dynasty whose slaves we became unwittingly. India was far from being free. 

Even today after 67 years of freedom children sleep hungry and 5000 of them die everyday. Millions of them do not go to school. Women are raped and killed in the name of misplaced honour, caste, or simply lust and everyone who could do something is in a catatonic state. You would be shocked to learn that greed has reached such a state that predators even feed on children as every programme aimed at benefiting the poor is hijacked to feed bottomless pockets. You cannot walk safely on the streets if you are a woman. Actually you are even killed in the womb if you are a girl. There are so many things that one is helplessly ashamed of and yes I say it again we are not free. 

I have tried to do my bit but it is such a tiny drop in this huge ocean, but being your child I know I will soldier on till my last breath.

Recently there were elections and we seem to have been able to break away from the stranglehold of the self chosen few. We now have a Prime Minister who was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth but has risen from the ranks as one would say. He may belong to a party that I never warmed up to earlier but from the time he got elected he has spoken a language you and I vibe with. In one of his speeches he said that people like me, born in free India had not had the privilege to 'die' for our country but we were given the unique chance to live for it. These words touched my heart as a precondition to my birth was a free India.

Today, the day you moved on many moons ago, I want to truly live for India and redeem a debt I owe you. Unless I do this, I cannot face my maker and more than that, face you who placed me on a pedestal before I was even a thought.

your daughter

anou

You do not get a second chance

There is one thing you do not get a second chance at and that is motherhood. And yet it is a unique experience no woman should be deprived of. The magic of holding your baby and counting her toes to make sure they are all there is indescribable. You fall in love for the length of a life time.
Laura Schlessinger said that children are our second chance to have a great parent-child relationship. At first you would tend to agree but in hindsight it is not quite true. You see your idea of having a great parent-child relationship would be to do exactly the opposite of what you have experienced as a child, sort of throwing the baby with the bathwater. What you miss is all the good things that your parents taught you but you were unable to appreciate. Every parent does what she or he thinks is the best at the given moment it is just time that changes and brings new realities. I wonder how my mom and pa would have reacted to TV, screen time and social networking. I fuss they would have set boundaries as they did with outings and parties. Deadline was 10 pm! Today parties do not begin before 11pm and I renumber how shocked my daughter was when I suggested a 10 pm deadline. One learns along the way.

This was just an intro to some much deeper feelings triggered by the 'second chance' thought and the experience of more than six decades. It has been 24 years since I lost my mom and it has taken me that much time to realise how much I owe her and I believe there is more soul searching ahead. I am who I am because of who she was. Today I wish I could tell her how sorry I am for the times I hurt her because of my foolishness and lack of sensitivity.

True you do not get a second chance but what children need understand is that you always do what you think best for them within your limitations and even beyond. When I see either of my girls sad, upset, faltering or lost, I ask myself whether it is something I did that brought them to this point. And as I go back in time and do some harsh soul-searching, I do feel that I could have done better. It is a painful ordeal and yes you do find faults that you could have avoided, but then you also realise that it is you today with the experience garnered over the years that makes this judgement. You need to try and sit in judgement of yourself at the age when you took that supposedly faulty decision.

You cannot and should not beat yourself but you still do and that is because you love your children so much that you would want them never to stumble let alone fall. Your child is now an adult but you are still a mother who feels responsible for every moment of her child's life. You simply learn to control your emotions and actions and keep quiet.

Children do not come with an instruction book. You have to make one along the way. You have 20 years to do so and the rest of your life to wonder where you went wrong.

I do not like your smell

I do not like your smell Nani, is what my little grandson told me recently. I normally do not 'smell'. On the contrary I am quite fond of Parisian fragrances and my lovely man always make sure that I am never in want. I guess there must have been some odour that he did not quite appreciate. I just laughed the comment away but it set me thinking, not about any unsettling stench but about life in general. Maybe I was just smelling 'old'!

I wanted to hold my little bundle of joy and tell him about the 'smell' but how do you tell a five year old that the redolence that emanates from you is the sum of your entire existence, an eclectic mix of good and bad that makes you that sixty two year old woman who was grown from being a baby to today via being a daughter, a friend, a wife, a mother and now a grand mother, not to forget a working woman and even a boss.

But the 'smell' he pointed out is one I wear with pride. I am glad my bonny boy reminded me of this 'smell' as I now recall a blogpost I had written almost two years ago when I felt the need to gown and get rid of the little red shoes and finally make my scapecoat. These are images from the incredible book titled Women who run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, a book all women should read. The 'smell' is my scapegoat and I need not be ashamed of it at all.

The famous scapeCoat is a coat on which a woman  stitches details in painting, writing and with all manners of things pinned and stitched to it all the name-calling a women has endured I her life, all the insults, all the slurs, all the traumas, all the wounds, all the scars. It is her statement of her experience of being scapegoated and instead of burning it you hand it where you can see it everyday and pat yourself in the back for having borne all this with a smile and are still there to tell the tale.

I had forgotten this and the candid remark from the smiling boy brought back a promise I had made to myself two years ago.

I love my 'smell' and now it is time everyone else learns got love it too!

If I let in the laughter, the tears will follow.

It has been more than a week since my darling grandson landed once again in my arms, and yet I have not written a single blog about him. Rest assured he has not lost his incredible ways - granny speak - and has come up with loads of moments that can only been described as pure unadulterated joy. No, it is Nani who seems to have changed. She has become numb and frightened of opening the little door in her heart that leads to laughter but also tears.

That door was shut tight and double locked in July 2013 when she heard the word lymphoma appended to the name Ranjan. She knew that if she were to leave even the smallest of interstices, the flood gates would open and that was something she could not have happen.

What she did not realise was that there would be a huge price to pay.

Today I am so numbed that I have become impervious to the joys of life, even the ones as precious as those that I am being smothered with for the past days: the little and tight hugs, the kisses, the endearing eyes, the welcomed manipulations. Don't think I do not answer with the right responses, far from that! But I realise that everything stops at the shut door and what I say, do, get manipulated into doing is part of the act I had to master to deal with Ranjan's cancer.

It is not a happy situation. But I am terrified of letting down my well honed armour as I know that it cannot be selective. If I let in the laughter, the tears will follow.