Long due update

the latest punk 

Last year on August 1st we were balling Sir Hodgkin and wading our way through the mystery of upmarket hospitals. Those were chemo days and learning days and worrying days. I would write numerous posts on this blog and share my terrifying angst. Then, as always with we humans, we set in a pattern and all the chemo, juices, etc became a habit. When chemo ended I really thought that life would never the same but I was wrong. For a few months tree still blood counts but everything was normal or as normal as one can get in our 7th decade. Everyone, except yours truly, seemed to have forgotten than cancer is not a viral flu that ends but is an elephant in the room for the remaining days, even if the elephant has been made so tiny that only I can see it.

This picture was taken 2 days back when Agastya decided to celebrate his Nanou's birthday before he left and so party it was with balloons an streamers and the birthday cake of course. I had seen some coloured wigs at the friend's shop and thought we needed some fun. My friend kindly lent them to me as I would not have bought them at the price they are.

So here is Ranjan version 2014. I love the look and I love the man. May he remain this way wig and all. 

A self to suit society

Beijing April 1954

I guess we all along our lives have to create a self or many selves to suit circumstances. They could family circumstances or social ones. To survive you need to adapt even of what you are compelled to create us someone you do not like. Survival of the fittest said Darwin, and here the fittest means the one that is the most compliant. But there comes a time when you can, if you so wish, abandon that self and try to go back to the real one. It is not easy believe me and can have calamitous consequences that can hurt you and your loved ones beyond repair.

The little girl in the picture is all dressed up for her second birthday. She feels like a princess thanks to doting parents who love her unconditionally. She will live in the warmth of this love for some time till the first hurt that cannot be wished away by a gentle kiss from her mom or a hug from her pa. Sooner or later she will learn that she has to bear the brunt of blows and work her own solutions, some of which necessitate altering ones self. This is a survival lesson she will need to accept but what she does not know yet is that there may come a time when the multitude of band aids and masks that she has been compelled to place on herself will render her unrecognisable. That is when she will wonder whether there are still some pieces of the little girl left in some crevice of the mind that can help her retrace the journey she had to travel. The catch is that is she decides to do so, she may open old wounds and create new ones that may never be healed.

I would have never thought of all this and gone happily to my grave were it not for the insistence of a loved one to get answers twosome things that I agree look incomprehensible if not placed in a proper context. I have spent some sleepless nights trying to make some forays down memory lane and ask myself what the consequences of airing the past at this moment would be and it did not take me long to realise that no matter how much I am badgered to reveal my reasons, I would not succumb as it will bring more hurt than healing. So I may for my own self unravel the knots but simply to assuage my conscience and see whether I could have done a better job. Life as we know gives us one chance at a time, and a lifetime to regret it.

I have an example that would validate my point of view and it comes from no less than my mother. For the less than 4 decades I spent with my parents, my strength came from the knowledge that my mother and father were happy as that is what they both seemed to be to me in my childhood, teenage and adulthood. I basked in that warm feeling and could live my life with ease and insouciance. Had I tried to delve deeper and found the reality, my life would have been shattered. But my mother must have felt the need to share her pain with her only child as she wrote a rambling diary in the penultimate year of her life, before she lost a part of a memory. In those pages she shared her innermost feelings.

I found that diary more than fifteen years after they both died and by that time I was mellowed and matured and could look at things with a distance and with my heart. Had I read that diary when I was not ripe for it, I could have even hated one of them. But far from that. What I read in those lines was how much my two parents loved each other but how inept and clumsy they were at showing their feelings. I will not say more.

The point I am trying to make is that every action we take has a reason that needs to be respected. When the time is right, in some serendipitous way, truth will be revealed and will be a healing experience.

the before it's too late crusade

I do not know what is the right age to start making a bucket list as we all know that the word 'bucket' in this case comes from the expression: kick the bucket! Now that is if the bucket list is yours. However I guess there must be the ones of 'others' who are connected to you and that is when things become difficult. Ones own list often consists of finishing pending agendas, making wills, clearing debts - the financial ones - if any, ensuring to the best of your ability that things you have begun carry on smoothly if possible but here I think there is a tinge of hubris as how can one forget the age old adage: the King is dead; long live the King. It is us foolish humans who believe that we are essential to the game called life. The other extreme is the course followed by the likes of my father who believed that nothing happens without the will of the almighty. In that situation bucket lists seem quite futile.

However a list can be fun if it includes things like learn swimming, driving, flying should you make it in your sixties and such an exercise could add some spice in your life when your bones creak louder by the day. By the way swimming was NOT on my bucket list

When I look at a bucket list I made in 2010, I cannot but smile! Then came another one in 2013 after Ranjan's cancer that I still stand by and guess will, adding to it whatever else should come my way. This I presume will go on till exit time.

There is another list however which is not easy if not impossible to make and that is the one when your loved ones ask you to heal supposed past hurts. Easier said than done. As a dear and wise friend says: complicated lives are not always open to retro-fitting. She is spot on as you it is impossible to know what is really asked of you to slay inner demons you are not privy to. That is not all, there are part of your life that you have locked for ever as should you find the key, the result may be more devastating than silence. Our lives ware filled with coping strategies that we have evolved along the way and made so much part of our lives, that trying to find your way back may just be impossible. We are no Penelope and have not mastered the art of unravelling to perfection the piece we have woven through our lives to protect ourselves from hurt. The process of trying to do so may result in more hurt than healing.

Things have to be heard at the appropriate time and rather than play God, let us leave it to his wisdom. I remember how I found a diary written by Kamala my mother a year before her death and found by me 15 years after her death at a time when I was going through a rough patch and needed most of all my mama's lap to put me back on track. It was not her lap, but pages written in a yellowed diary that had survived many a spring cleaning waiting to be picked up when the time was right. How she had seen what lay ahead was uncanny and comforting at the same time. But more than that, she revealed a part of herself she had held carefully concealed as it might have rocked my boat and shattered the image of the perfect life she had conjured for me. At the same time, I guess she felt the need of sharing her pain with her only child and must have hoped that I would find these pages when I was strong enough to read them.

I did and felt the need to answer each page this remarkable woman had written. My answer was my way of celebrating not the wife or the mother, but the woman. I hope I did herb justice. Should you want to read this lengthy missive you can here.

Mothers do want the best for their children but often fall short not because they lack love but because they are so blinded by it that they are unable to see what is right.

My bucket list will remain blank but for this touching poem by George Bernard Shaw.

True Joy of Life

This is the true joy of life.

The being used for a purpose

Recognized by yourself as a mighty one.

The being a force of nature

Instead of a feverish, selfish

Little clod of ailments and grievances

Complaining that the world will not

Devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life

Belongs to the whole community

And as long as I live,

It is my privilege to do for it

Whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly

Used up when I die,

For the harder I work the more I live.

I rejoice in life for its own sake.

Life is no brief candle to me.

It is a sort of splendid torch

Which I've got hold of

For the moment

And I want to make it burn

As brightly as possible before

Handing it on to future generations.

Damask

Damask is a fabric using basic weaving techniques of the Byzantine and Islamic weaving centre of the early Middle Ages and derives its name from the city of Damascus, a city that is sadly torn and destroyed by conflict today and where one hears the jarring sounds of rockets and missiles instead of the soothing sounds of weaving looms. As Damascenes say: we don't know what tomorrow will bring.

This post however is not on the war in the Middle East but on the fabric damask in one of its favoured avatars: tablecloths, as you would have guessed by looking at the picture. This is a picture taken from the net but it could have been taken in my home when I was a little girl. Even the glasses, the tableware and the flowers look uncannily like the tables my mother use to set for the numerous parties that she organised in her 30 years as a diplomat's spouse.

Yesterday in one of the sporadic cleaning sprees that happen in this house, two rather used and yellowed plastic bags were discovered in the linen cupboard. They were stuffed with ma's old damask  tablecloths and napkins. For those who did not know their story, they were good for the recycling bin.  I was not party to the cleaning spree and happened to see the two bags in time. I guess my extreme reaction to the idea of throwing them away was incomprehensible to all present but I was in no mood to explain and say more than: you can throw them after I die!

They will once again take the place they have occupied in the cupboard and wait till my time comes. I guess I should have explained my feelings and thoughts but somehow I knew that no one would be able to understand them truly. If you open and look at them, they are a far cry from the beautiful pieces lovingly purchased by my mother. Today they have stains and even tears and have lost their sheen. But every stain and tear holds a childhood memory and I am sure many forgotten ones too.

I guess some of them must be almost 50 year old and it is a tribute to Ma's skills that they have survived in such a good condition. I remember how each stain was first handled and how each piece was hand washed under her supervision. Ma did not like cooking and I think the God's played their cards well when they selected her husband as Pa's passion was food and cooking. Mama's forte was the table decor and she did a great job. These yellowed pieces of cloth remind me of how well my parents dovetailed their talents.

It is around these now ugly tablecloths that my parents entertained what one may call the rich and famous but also a bunch of eclectic people that could range from painters, to poets and writers; royalty and nobility form many lands; diplomats and politicians but also the humblest of people that they met along the way. Around their table everyone was treated equally and probably that is one of the lessons their only child learnt very early: all humans are equal and need to treated and respected in the same way. I have never allowed myself to forget this lesson.

I also remember the number of times I was awoken hastily from my sleep my mama and asked to put on my best party dress and come down to the dining room as a guest had dropped out and there would be 13 at the table so I was to be the 14th guest. For a 7 or 8 or even 10 year old it was exciting beyond words. Never mind if I had already had dinner and had school the next morning. I could eat a meal all over again and loved the fact that I was doing so at the beautifully laid table talking to adults and important people. Being an only child born to middle aged parents, the adult world was a familiar one and somehow I liked talking to grown ups. My parents often told me that I could hold an intelligent conversation. I do not know if they were indulging me or whether it was the innumerable number of books I consumed. But sitting at a table with big people was as close to a fairy tale I could get. It was on these worn out tablecloths that these fairy tales were unfolded. I cannot recount each of them as there are hidden in deep and almost unreachable recesses of my memory, but the sight of these pieces of cloth bring forth collective memories that fill me with warm and happy feelings. How can one throw such memories in a trashcan!

I know they will remain in their ungainly plastic bags, but the memories tucked within their folds make them precious and unique. Once I am no more around, then I guess they will just metamorphose into yards of tattered cloth fit for the dustbin!

Too much energy

Agastya my darling grandson is a master of words and can come up with the most amazing retorts that leave you kind of speechless and totally zapped. Wanting to go straight to play outside by passing his breakfast he had to come up with something that would shut the old badgering granny down. When I asked him for the umpteenth time I guess what he wanted for breakfast, proffering all his favourites, he looked back and told me: I do not want breakfast Nani, it gives me too much energy! I wonder how he came up with that one. Anyway all the old biddy could do was beat a meek retreat.

Come to think of it I would like to be able to say the same words some day!

Let me finish my dream

I love kids. They can make the darkest cloud lift in the batting of an eye! Yesterday my little grandson who sleeps with us woke up when his aunt came and after playing with a little and realising that there was nothing great planned for the moment declared: I am going back to sleep to finish my dream. And he promptly lay down and closed his eyes tight. Sleep was nowhere in sight and after a while I asked him if the dream was finished. Yes he replied, now I am making another!

You guessed the right, the other dream was made and dreamt in a jiffy and the little chap was all set to go for the day but his words lingered in my mind for long. Dreams are of great importance to me. I conjure all the times as what else would you call the quasi impossible challenges I set for myself time and again. Alas, though some come true, many remain unfulfilled, leaving me somewhat helpless. I so wish I could go back to sleep to finish my on going dream and make another!

My mobile reading room

I love reading. I have always loved reading. I presume it is the happy fate of only children with older and busy parents and nomadic lives. I cannot remember a time when books were not a part of my life. Without them, I feel lost. Even today I have a pile of unread books as a security blanket. They are sustainment as well as therapy. In yore time, when I was still travelling I needed a couple of books in my hand luggage should one not fulfil the need of the moment and in spite of having them, I would also drop by the airport bookshop and pick one or two up. In communist Prague where we were posted in the 80s there were no English book shops so when I came home for a visit my main shopping consisted of books. Prague had one English library run by the British Embassy and within a year I had read every book they had.

I often read more than a book at a time. There is one at my bedside which is often a thriller and another lies on my office table and could be anything, from a serious book on Economics to the latest Booker or other Literary Price. It could even be a serious book on economics of social issues.  The first thing I read in a magazine is the book reviews and should one catch my fancy I am at the bookstore at opening time to buy it and if they have not received it yet, then to order it. I am not comfortable with on line bookstores and use them only when I cannot find the book I want.

My all time treat is to go to the bookstore and look at books, feel them, smell them and feast all my senses. Choosing a book is a sensuous experience, at least for me. The eyes get attracted by the look of the cover, the title that often echoes something familiar, then touching the book gratifies you in another way, its feel, its weight, its volume before you turn to the back cover and read the summary or the reviews before making a final decision. I normally go to one bookshop and the staff knows my taste by now. Soon after walking in numerous books are proffered and I find a place to sit and chose the ones I may buy keeping in mind the weight of the wallet. I linger on, chatting with the manager who has become a friend by now. I seem to have digressed from the topic I set out to write about: my reading room.

For the past few years now I have mastered the art of reading in my three wheeler. This at first was a coping strategy to taken on Delhi's nightmarish traffic. Lost in my book, I felt safe and was often surprised at how quickly I reached my destination. Those were the days when I travelled far more than today as I visited my various centres and went to meet people. All that changed when Ranjan fell   ill and my going out was terribly restricted. I felt I was missing something and it took me a while to realise that I missed my reading room a.k.a the three wheeler!

You may wonder why a person who lives in a huge rambling house with nooks and corners and all kind of seating options chooses to read in a three wheeler whatever the weather and notwithstanding the bumps. I guess once again this is a very precious and unique alone time that is a lifeline and an oxygen shot. So the recluse does take her time off in her mobile reading room everyday. The husband things I am a shopaholic as I need to find a reason to move and the answer to the where are you going is undoubtedly to the market. How does one say to anyone: I am off on my mobile reading room!

If I can't be beautiful, I want to be invisible

If I can't be beautiful, I want to be invisible wrote Chuck Palahniuk. I would mend the quote and write: If I can't be heard, loved, appreciated and respected, I want to be invisible. Just like the kid who covers his face and thinks the whole world cannot see him. Just like wearing coloured glasses and believing the world to have turned another hue. I guess being a mix of a control freak and a bit of a mama bear I do tend to try and make everyone happy but do it all wrong and then feel all upset when someone says something totally logical but that becomes hurtful in the context. So it is time for inventing coping strategies that would be workable and not rock the boat. Hiding in my den and resorting to my no fail catharsis: writing. Does not seem to do the trick so it was time to resort to the big guns. At first I did not quite know what the best option(s) would be till I had an epiphany! To become invisible to others I should simply become visible to myself and spend quality time with me. But there was a problem. The recluse cloak needed to be taken off at least for some time. No easy task but had to be tried just like the golden rule my daughter has for my son: try it once and if you do not like it then do not eat/do etc it! I guess I could at least do what a 5 year old accepted to do.

I signed up for Pilates classes. Thankfully they are held at a short walking distance. The big question was to get myself to accept being in a class with others whom I knew would be years younger than me. Normally I like exercising alone or at best with a trainer. But I did make the effort to go and sign up and found myself with a group of young mothers and a very nice trainer. The first class was a bit awkward I must admit but soon I got into the groove and am proud to say that I am as good as most of them and even more flexible than some! I now look forward to the three mornings when the classes are held and feel good. That was step one in my visibility to myself programme.

Step two was even bolder. Signing up for swimming classes. Now the lady cannot have a private pool so there was not only the fact of having others around but of getting in front of them in a swimsuit with all the sixty two years old battle scars: flabby skin et al! Here it was again my first born who pushed me to come once, and then the next step were easier. Once the stage fright of swimsuit appearance dealt with it was getting in the pool with my trainer and his other pupils most of them closer to my grandson's age than mine. I remember the first day when the young trainer asked me to make bubbles next to a frightened little girl. I did my best. Thankfully the next lesson was with an older trainer whom I felt more comfortable with. Now I can swim lengths on my own and even keep my head under water. We are still at the breast stroke and there is a long way to go but you cannot imagine how good I feel when I am in the water and swimming. This certainly was a giant leap in my visibility to myself journey.

What happens next is any one's guess. If things fall in place I may just retreat into my comfort zone and go back to being a recluse. On the other hand if I like this visibility trip then who knows I may learn to drive, travel beyond a radius of 3 km from my house or even get over my fear of packing a bag and walking out of the gate of my house for more than the usual hour of so. Only time will tell.

Battlescars

Ok, Ok. This blog was started to follow the peregrinations of Sir Hodgkin who had dared enter our home and lives. It is almost a year since that fateful day and for those of you who have been faithful followers, we went through some tough times. It has also been a journey of discovery and understanding of cancer itself and the multitude of 'cures' proffered and their true worth. I have shared all this in this blog. As writing is a catharsis for me, I also shared many personal events and non events and thank you all for bearing with me.

What I realise today is somewhere along the way the overbearing and frightening presence of the lymphoma was not only cut to size but somewhat vanished from every one's  minds as Ranjan grew healthier and better by the day! And more so after we stopped the chemo nightmare and switched to a mix of approaches based on my intuition. So his treatment includes Tibetan medicine, a vegan organic diet, cannabis leaves and seed oil, apricot kernels and soursop tea. I guess that is about it but it could change should I stumble upon some new element. I do think I have become quite an expert at cancer and the treatments offered as I have crawled the web better than any search engine! We also have added coconut oil for the brain and super foods like chia seeds, quinoa, goji berries, hemp milk (home made) and more.

So as I was saying almost everyone seems to have forgotten the bad times, except me who still watches for signs should Sir Hodgkin decide to sneak in any crevice that may have been left unplugged.

You wonder why I entitled this post battle scars. Well first of all if you look at the picture well you will see band aid on Ranjan's face. This has nothing to do with the big C but is the result of being hit by a golf ball in South Carolina. You guessed right. Ranjan is back to his normal activities which include golf jet setting. He is out again in August to Thailand.

The only I have to pick with him is that he has become lazy and hence put on weight and has not got back to a healthy exercise pattern. I have been trying to explain to him that exercise is as much part of the protocol as food. So the big guns are out and the yoga teacher will come from tomorrow and we will have some serious breathing exercises as well as yoga.

There are other battle scars and those are mine, the one who waged her biggest battle against an enemy that had taken away too many loved ones. These scars will never leave as they ensure my constant vigil and my ultimate victory. So help me God!

Bye bye Bapu

Children sometimes have the ability to tug at your heartstrings in the most unexpected ways and before you know it, your throat is constricted, your eyes well up and your vision blurs. This happened to me yesterday night. My son-in-law who has been on a short visit to India interspersed with work visits to Afghanistan was back in Delhi for a day and leaving again for the US last night. So Sunday was to be a long play day for Agastya and his Bapu, a day where Bapu would not switch on his computer - something of a miracle as my son-in-law is a workaholic and his computer is almost an extension of him! But he kept his promise and barring a few phone calls, Agy and Bapu spent the day together. There were motorcycle rides and games of all sorts. My drawing room was rearranged as furniture was needed to make a 'house' with the help of most of my bedcovers! Agy knows where the linen cupboard is. In the afternoon we all went to visit Utpal and Agastya had a ball jumping in all the puddles left by the afternoon rain. He who normally wants to change his clothes should the tiniest spot appear on it, was quite happy romping about in his mud stained track pants. Late in the evening the boys played with cars on all fours and the ground shook so much that I thought there was an earthquake.

But all things have to come to an end. It was past bed time and close to departure time. Bapu read Agy a story and then after brushing the teeth and the last wee wee, it was time to say goodbye.

My brave little Angel hugged his father and said: Bye bye Bapu. It was heart wrenching. You can imagine my state but I lay on the bed stoically watching the scene that was playing in front of my eyes. No camera, however sophisticated, or lensman however proficient, could have captured that moment. There were so many emotions at play that only someone who has mastered the art of seeing with his heart could feel the intensity of the moment and that too second hand. The moment passed and normalcy returned when Agy asked his grandpa to change the channel to his favourite Doraemon. You guessed right. He did without hesitation even though the Wimbledon finals were on.

Agy settled himself and after a moment turned to me and said: I hope he has a nice flight.

I do not have the words to express how I felt. I simply said: Yes he will.

A tribute to my ancestors

I stumbled upon this picture today. It is what one would call the 'memorial' of my ancestors who landed in Mauritius on November 2nd, 1871 as indentured labour.  Their son was my father's paternal grandfather. Though our surname should have been Singh, the officer who noted out the details of their arrival was too lazy yo write the whole name and just wrote my ancestor's first name that became our surname, that to with a strange spelling. I cannot begin to imagine how had life must have been for these 'slaves' but I know it was not easy. I also know that my ancestor chose this to escape the gallows as he was deeply involved in the 1857 rising. Two swords belonging to British officers are witness to this fact.

Leaving your home, however poverty stricken is no easy task, any one who has migrated is an 'exile' of sorts. The longing for the motherland remains generation after generation and manifest itself by an almost irrational attachment for traditions. I wonder how the couple who landed one fine day on an alien land felt. This is the barracks where such labour landed before it was assigned tom a sugar plantation. There they toiled hard for the contracted period that was of five year and many chose to stay, eking out a living from the modest amount they had saved.

It is said that the working conditions of these indentured labourers was repressive and their plight terrible. Corporal punishment was frequent. I wonder how many blows my Baba and his wife received on their third backs, how many tears of rage, of despair and of longing for their homeland they shed. I know that things got get better and their descendants of which I am a proud progeny became one of the leading families of the Island, but do we not owe our freedom and privileges to these two brave hearts; Goburdhunsingh and his wife Kawallee. Every breath we take bears the pain of the blows and misery they suffered. How can I forget that and what can I do to honour their sacrifices and their courage.

In the list of people who made me who I am, these two wonderful souls find their place right above all others. Had they not stepped on a ship and ventured into the unknown, my life would have been that of a simple village girl.

God bless their souls. I want them to know, that even if no one remembers them, I do and always will.

The waddling duck

This is probably the only picture of me in a swimsuit. It was taken, if I am not mistaken circa 1968 in Pamukkale in Turkey. I guess it is the mandatory shower before entering the wonderful hot springs. In those days Turkey was still not a tourist destination and Papa and I were the two lone swimmers in the hot pools. It was a magical and unique experience. No one could have it today. Suffice to Google Pammukkale and you have images of crowds in the once pristine wonders. I feel privileged having known the White Castle or Cotton land as it is known in early times. But this post is not about Pammukkale or Turkey but about swimming! Till the ripe age of 62 my swimming ventures were far and few and across the globe: beaches we visited, hotel we stayed in and unexpected treats like the one mentioned. My swimming talents are basic: I keep afloat and can do an approximation of what is known as breast stroke. When I look back at gone times, I cannot even remember the last time I swam or waddled!

My elder daughter is in India on holidays and though she is a woman of few words, she has a huge caring heart and shows her concern in rather unexpected and sometimes almost infuriating ways. She knows how tense and stressed I am - I guess it shows more than I would like to believe - and she got after my life to go the pool with her. I finally relented and accompanied her and even got into the pool. It was a very soothing and calming experience, and P had guessed right, it was what the doctor would prescribe!

Pammukkale as it looked then

I did not say anything to anyone but decided in my mind to at least learn to swim instead of waddling before I die. So believe it or not I signed up for swimming classes and now go thrice a week to learn how to swim. I would like to be able to swim as gracefully as possible and will give it my best shot. I did 15 laps today. Quite proud of it. But whether I learn to swim like a pro or not, this will still be the only swimsuit shot of mine. When I look at it now, I would say I was fat, but believe me in those days the canons of beauty were different and I found myself confident and even pretty and was never uncomfortable in my skin. I wish girls today understood that beauty comes from within and each one of us is beautiful because God made us unique.

Will the duck turn into an egging swan. Only time will tell.