Hairy Legs, Brussels and ‘I think she likes me’

The hair on my arms is the length of my toes. The hair on my legs has reached my toes. I wouldn’t say it is a completely new experience, but it is certainly most novel to experience it when a country is celebrating, yes celebrating, all 13 degrees of its summers with skin and sunshine. On the cobbled streets of Brussels I am probably the only one wearing stretch denims while the world is sprinting ahead of me in airy, breezy and frivolously delicious summer clothes. The moment I spot a pair of smooth legs enjoying the sunshine, it is as if the jeans grow four sizes smaller to kill me with asphyxiation, or whatever the hell tight jeans can do to your health when the heart burns green. 

But my hands are tied. 

I am thousands of kilometres away from a long-trusted tin of Shabnam Cold Wax (Rs 70) and a packet of disposable white waxing strips (Rs 25). Are there no salons in Brussels, you ask? There’s one in every Rue, but with my level of fluency in French I believe I might as well discuss foreign policy with a plant, and succeed in having a path-breaking dialogue, than explain to la fille successfully that I need a wax. Um, there is another reason why I have been Google translating salon menus but not garnering the courage to enter and ask for a pure and simple wax. 

It seems to me to be a secret kind of … something. It caught me by surprise. And I have been trying to unravel it as much as I have been my overgrown eyebrows from my lashes.

Cousins

‘I’m going to go meet my sister since I’m in Gurgaon. She stays close by, on Sohna Road’, I told a gathering of friends over lunch.

‘Sister? But you said you have a brother?’ asked a doubting Thomas.

‘Oh, my cousin’, said I with a smile.

‘So say cousin, na. Not sister!’ he was quick to correct.

‘But we grew up together, in the same house, so the concept of ‘real’ … but the conversation had moved on. The thought, however, remained stuck. 

~

Most of us trying to grow up since the 80s have lots of cousins. That’s because at that time children did not wait for office promotions or ‘right ages’ to come. They just came, like a logical next step to a formally organized marriage and a year or so of couple time, at best! Single children were as uncommon as a house without a carrom board, and ‘hum do humaarey do’ as common as evening cricket in the lanes. Kid 2 happened right after Kid 1, riding on the wave of left-over nappies, or after the mother had regained her breath and sanity and combed her hair. Economy of time, money and getting done with bodily expectations for the woman remained the drivers for “completing” a family. With romance and drama in it the movie reel went from I’m ready, set, go, boom, aaaa, push, out (times 2). Pack-up!  

As a result of all that mathematically proven conception and delivering, happening in all our extended homes, we in our 30s have a vast network of cousins. If we compare the spoils with how many our parents had, we don’t have the same numbers. So let us not. But, if we compare with how things will be, with the single-kid wave spreading like a chalky patch of hopscotch in rain, we know Cousins, as a role and relationship, will slowly fade away. 

And so will the Superpowers that cousins have had ever since the Big Bang. 

Back then, when the bones were young …

… we did lots together! If you grow up in a joint family, like I did, you’re far above the rest of humanity in the Republic of Fun. Top class, really! But it is not the only way to know what cousins are made of, of course.  Cousins, lived with or met over summer vacations after a day’s train journey with our mothers, were precious wherever they were. Distance no bar! Age no bar! 

An older cousin was a window to our own futures, setting standards for a younger, aspirational demography of children in at least a couple of houses of the family. From getting princesses in Mario Brothers to ones in school; from acting guides on how to pluck mangoes to being buffers against bullies in the lane, older cousins were relied on with wide eyes and mouths agape. Idolising one such was as easy as the swish of hands pulling out a sling from the back pocket, or a billet doux. Looking up was especially easy if your relationship status with the ‘real’ brother or sister was … ahem … complicated, making you wish your parents never got a second ‘from the dustbin’ after they got you from a ‘pretty nurse in the hospital’! 

Older ones put in place standards – of smartness, sportiness, suaveness, sensibility, sense and maths scores, sigh. They did the hard work of setting benchmarks, and the younger ones like me simply had to try to reach them. No marks for guessing the parental dialogue we heard-unheard if we did not. Let’s not go there! 

On the other hand, a younger cousin, with kachhi mitti in all games, was exactly that. Soft clay in the hands of those who had lived slightly longer, and an inspiration for the older ones to act wiser than their milk teeth could ever allow. For all we know, those emulating hands and feet forced them to cut the wisdom teeth in time. In the complete food chain of all cousins put together! A sister who first taught you how to plait your hair may have grown into a confidant to discuss your period pain. A brother who let you in on his school bunking secret did so, so as to sneak you along to the cinemas. Another told you how bees do it because she had a chapter in the biology book. An army of cousins who made your goriest battles their own, and only in exchange for WWF trump cards (everyone wanted The Undertaker, and to see his face).  

Yes. Our cousins were a cross between best friends and siblings, and they were great at being both; like those double-sided tattoos Boomer gum came wrapped in, or audio cassettes where both Side A and Side B were equally exciting! They oscillated from becoming kith to being kin, helped us grow up or grow down, and most importantly left us feeling a part of a big happy family, because they were family.  No matter how infrequently we met them.

   

Now, when the hearts are getting weaker …

…families have undergone a change. We’re not just smaller, we’re also living lives within our own addresses. And our cousins are scattered all over the world. That proximity when we batted not an eye lid to share a bed with three others (tallest near the feet, please!) can no longer be achieved, not even at their weddings or our children’s first birthdays. We’re still close but we’re living apart and our lives are very different from those days when the same jean-pant passed down three pairs of legs, or the same Tobu cycle changed its moulded plastic seat for three toddlers in a row. 

Does that mean we are islands drifting away from who we thought were our ‘real sisters’ and ‘real brothers’? Was what nourished us and shaped us as children and teenagers that impermanent? No. It has to be about scarcity of time and a busy life. Has to be. You can’t make invisible the little bits of our cousins that we have inside each one of us, no matter how you have found your I-for-Individuality in the maddening urban crowd. Nope, you can’t.

As I sit and type this, I realize how there is a very important secret superpower we cousins can tap in each other. The power to keep holding hands even when factions of families feud - over property or businesses or marriages or mere gossip - things that adulthood in our parents often comes furrowed with. What if we kids-of-yore stand up to our respective parents to say ‘You and your brother don’t get along. But my brother and I still do.’ Do you think this insistence to look beyond the temporary ‘now’ will help bind extended families with glue better than the translucent grey one we used to make birthday cards with, popping brushes into a shared blue-and-black bottle?

Isn’t it worth it to ground ourselves in happier memories of climbing trees and playing pitthoo than letting grown-ups fight like the kids we never were, not permanently at least? Isn’t it worth using that superpower, the power of choosing to be brothers and sisters despite all odds and above all else? Totally worth it, then, not growing up enough to let differences seep in. And especially now, at a time when cousins are an endangered species. Endangered, because the family tree is tapering and one day this role and relationship will … 

Fade into nothing? 

No. Not in my lifetime.

A bit about marriage, because we turn 8 soon

It’s a bronze! (Though a diamond would do just as well.)

Yep! We turn 8 together on July 11th, husband and That-which-he-signed-up-for-sans-a-clue-of-what-comes-next (which is me, for now, till our kid turns a teen). Thank you. Thank you very much for your advanced blessings towards our well-being and togetherness and contentment (whatever that be).

Now, I intend no romantic musings here on this day or any day, especially because my husband has been sitting put rather quietly on the opposite side of the Expressive-Lover spectrum all these years. And hence, no pink hearts will fly out of this tiny piece. In fact, I don’t even know what I am doing here, instead of swiping his credit card to indulge my fantasies in shops selling firangi surplus at the price of airplanes. Or, mollycoddling him into flying me away for a 2nd honeymoon (we’re yet to reach 8 on that front). Or prattling my way on the pillow to convince him how a separate car for the wife keeps the mechanic away. Yes, yes, the materialistic wife you must have read about when marriage gets stereotyped. Of course, I am not the kind, and quite kind in being a ‘low maintenance’ object.

But these stereotypes, I tell you. They spare none, and everyone stands naked at the judgment door of shoe-boxing. As “modernity” would have it, marriage has not been spared.

Over 8 years of compulsorily being tied-up with one man, I’ve been hearing a lot of “truths” about marriage and married couples, especially from those who are happily single and not ready to mingle (smart ones!). And listening to that itemized fact file confuses me. Because, as Fate would have it, I can’t match their list to what my marriage has actually been like. Obviously, it must be all thanks to the dashing, super-intelligent personality that my husband got married to.

But whenever I read marriage defined in self-help bullet points, I do sit and wonder if no two people are alike, can two marriages be the same? Is it so simple to define what ‘Being Married’ means, in order to guide humanity a certain way and down the single cliff facing the sea? Yep! I do believe in marriage, and while I may never start my own match-making site, I leave no stone unturned to guide people towards the trusted ones. (Disclaimer – this is not a sponsored post.)

You shouldn’t get me wrong, not today, please. I don’t undermine people who tried it and took the highway anyway. In fact, a part of me admires them for it. I also don’t mean to naively overlook the not-so-pleasant experiences so many of my friends and family members have been through. But, I do feel afraid that people will believe in the stereotyping enough to never have the cake and eat it too. (I enjoy a sweet tooth.) 

It may seem so, but married couples don’t follow set mundane patterns of love-marriage-kids-charm lost-school-college-kid’s love-kid’s marriage-kid’s kids … you get the drift. They’re not drowning in a river of the mundane, certainly not always. It is what they do and how they do it, together, at each phase of life that brings in the uniqueness of experience. (Of course, the same khichdi may taste different on different days depending on the marital mood and likewise different khichdi may taste the same because he always forgets the salt!) But travelling as a family of three is as fun as partying with your girls sans the men. I know a lot of us who are fortunate to not feel ‘restricted’ in our persons and beings just because we are married, so really don’t believe all marriages are corsets around your chests. In fact, if any husband has a super wife like me, he will vouch for the intoxicated free-spiritedness that can be a part and parcel of many knots, up until the kids come to sleep in between you. (Then, you start resembling each other!)

Another thing. We all begin by cherishing the idea of ‘our space’, and elders believe hostels are to blame for us becoming the ‘private type’. Let me tell you something. That slice of your plot on the moon doesn’t always get annexed by the warfare of marriage (though the wardrobe may, much to the chagrin of a tidy wife). In fact, co-habitation gives a different meaning to the word ‘space’, and one which may allow for enough room to not just ‘be’ but also ‘become’ in another’s company (how beautifully I write).

I had broken up with my husband even before I had said ‘yes!’ to him, because I mistook his idea of ‘space’ for zany nothings. I made up (on Gandhi Jayanti, just a digressive detail) because when I shared my misgivings about us changing with time (okay, typical, I get it) he assured me that we will change; change as we go along, and so will our relationship. ‘Wouldn’t that be such a beauty?’ I never heard such poetics again, but that day it had driven me to foot the bill. And say yes to taking our shared cause to my parents, all alone, terrified, foot-in-mouth, heart on sleeve while all the while mister probationer partied up in the Academy in Mussoorie just because he cleared the darned UPSC! On top of that …

Okay. You’re bored. And a matrimonial site has still not contacted me to sponsor this post. But I must end it with a flourish, nonetheless.

How would I have all this gyan if it wasn’t for him, no? Am I thanking him? Somewhat. But all claps need two hands, and I’m giving him one half of the thank you and retaining the ‘better half’ of it for myself. 

8 years soon. 

On Saturday, we plan to be 2 again. You ask why not one? No. That first year was all about throwing rocks and rolling away. More about it in case he doesn’t get me a big gift. I already have got him a present he can wear all the time. I got it for free, so he really should be happy.

Happy Anniversary to my husband, and obviously a very nice one to me also!

When Mister got Mandarin Ducks; A Dialogue

Pavlov was right.

When a human being opens a present her mouth salivates. When she so much as sees the gift-wrapping a second time, she begins salivating. By the time she gets used to the husband’s foreign trips all you have to do is ring a bell to signify the plane is about to land at IGI, and she will salivate and salivate so much that by the time the doorbell rings, with his baggage in tow, he’ll walk in only to slip on a pool of it and be floored by her, for the nth time. She will flutter her lashes and ask in honey-sweet voice – ‘How was your trip, darling? What did you get for your lovely?’

Oo, you’ve got me curious. It’s not precious jewelry, unless it’s a lot of it. And that would not make it very precious.   

It’s not.

It’s not what? Not jewelry or not precious or not both?

Open it. Something typically Seoul.

How would I know? Like I’ve been there before, even though my husband has many times now!

Just open it. 

Oh!

So?

Pretty duckies. For the kid’s bubble bath?

They’re Mandarin ducks, silly. It’s a couple. The red is the female the blue the male. Also called Wedding Ducks.

Oh! 

So? What do you think?

Um, do they open, like, you know, a piggy bank? Or, do they quack when we twist the beak. That sounds like a wedding there. They must have some … use, if you paid your Zen's worth, right? 

They are just decorative pieces. Symbolically given to new couples, and traditionally carved by best friends. Actually, I read this later, the mother-in-law tosses the female duck to the daughter-in-law. If she catches it, the first child will be a boy and ...

Oh dear, you don’t know what my friends will carve to symbolize marriage. As for the rest, how Indian-y crazy! But we’re anyway past the catchum-catch. One boy is here too. 

No but there’s more. You see, they are symbolic …

Don’t say symbolic. The last I heard symbolism is a malaise of hi-funda writers who like to complexify language to befuddle budding writers. 

Huh?

Oh whatever. Back to the duckies …

Ducks! Mandarin Ducks!

Yes. Calm down. I never said they are not. See how you are feeding into those ‘singles’ who love to stereotype marriage? That we have to scream to be heard, bend backwards to please, compromise daily and boy, we can’t even know what travel truly means!

Huh? How would they know?

Exactly! Exactly what I think and on top of that ... 

Right. So, about the ducks, I do feel you don’t like them.

I certainly do, darling. As much as I liked the pink organic cotton Imambari Muffler you got from Japan, with cotton from our own Andhra Pradesh, exported, I’m sure. About the ducks. I’m just somewhere between like and love. I do love the colours though ... 

Love reminds me. These ducks signify ever-lasting marriage and life-long love. Mandarin duck is the only duck which mates for life, with one partner.

Ha ha ha ha!

What? 

Nothing. I like the significance. I would kill for it if it were otherwise. Heh heh!

Hm. So, these ducks stand for fidelity, peace and plentiful offspring.

Great. Shall we go to bed with them and plan a second?

You don’t like them, say so!

I do! I do! Oh come on! And I’m quite happy to see this romantic side in a man after all these years of marital bliss and one foreign family vacation and so many fridge magnets you have got for the fridge after all your official trips and …

You don’t like them.

I most definitely do. So, where do we keep them, these, um, prettily coloured duckies. Ducks, ducks I meant!

Now here comes the interesting part …

Really?

When the couple is in harmony with each other, the ducks are kept bill-to-bill..

Aww. Like kissy-kissy.

 … and when they have a fight they are turned looking in opposite directions. So everyone in the house can see …

Who do you mean?

Traditionally, like in big houses. Big families. Lots of people staying together.

Why? In Seoul couples never scream at each other enough to announce their disharmony across the wooden walls?

Er, those are in Japan.

Whatever. Same thing for me. Like I have seen either!

Fine. How do you want me to keep them right now? 

Bill-to-bill. I don’t want the ‘single’ marriage “stereotypers” to see the bills looking away. I like being married. It’s fun, enriching and makes you grow up as you grow old.

Great! Top shelf of the book rack. What say?

Sure.

You have never agreed so quickly before. You just don’t like them!

Stop saying that. I absolutely adore them. How can you force such assumptions into our relationship, using the ducks as scapegoats? Look at the intricate carving and the lush colours, the neatness and all the symbolism attached. Go now. Do the deed. Wait! What is this thread around the girly duck’s beak? 

Oh, that. It’s just a sign that silence is a virtue and the wife should be quiet and support the husband…

…

Pavlov knew only half the story. What may have ensued you all know. 'Singles' even more than 'doubles'. The duckies Mandarin Ducks are up for sale. They signify peace. Wait, why would you not believe me?

The Uncle’s Secret

Once upon a time there lived an Uncle in a double-storied house, with ornate railings and palm trees, in a small colony of New Delhi. It was a colony where the pride of knowing the property’s worth was much more than the breadth of the lane separating the windows of houses. Not once did the residents mind what others saw as congestion. After all, most Jaguars could well slide into the ground floors, uniformly turned into garages with elevators to carry the owners up one floor, or more. Uncle’s old-but-maintained duplex, enjoying a view of the lush-green Jassa Singh Park, was considered prime property. Plus, he had no tenants, like some others. He didn’t need to. This fact had got him a seat in the RWA Executive.  

At the time of this story, Uncle must have been 50, or something. His dusky cheeks, slightly saggy, were usually clean-shaven except on Sunday mornings. On Sunday mornings a grey stubble was allowed to erupt in holiday mood to make merry with the wet henna in his hair, now receding South-ward. The draw strings of the Puma hosiery shorts he slept in dangled in delight till late afternoon, and in places they waited all week to be walked to – garden, gate and even across the lane. It was an exposure they did not get, thanks to Uncle’s realty business where meetings with parties happened so often, so suddenly and in such secret circumstances sometimes that Aunty stopped caring about waiting to eat her meals with him. That she was usually on a gluten-free diet helped. 

He was a proper Punjabi, this Uncle, as was his wife, the parents tucked away in separate places, the two daughters, one son and one dog he bought instantly on learning from a close family friend that it was imported. Overall, it was a happy family. The women in the house had their lives, the boy his, the Uncle his own. But, it was this routine of Uncle’s that had always carried a secret none knew, except Shaggy. 

Yes, he had named the dog Shaggy, the one he bought from his close family friend, and for reasons unknown to him his children hated that word, or its short form. And so they hated the dog. Uncle loved Shaggy though, so much that not a morning would pass without them both going for a walk to Jassa Singh Park, adjacent to the Press Colony (only a patch of which was an open-defecation ground). There Uncle would talk to Shaggy ever since he was a pup, about his secret. 

His secret love for dancing. 

Yes, Uncle lusted after dance. Anywhere. Any kind. Just watching good dancing was not the point. Being in the middle of it, hands and body and all, was what made his heart beat like the clang of drums. In long dialogues with Shaggy, Uncle would tell him how he always wanted to become a dancer but never spoke another word after his father threw a ghara full of water his way to drown the dream forever, in a small village in Punjab. Uncle had taken two days, and downed three glasses of Lassi just before mustering enough courage to whisper his dream to his father. But the Punjabi expletives deafened his passion out.  Like the five rivers in monsoon had flowed Uncle’s tears. Then one day, they just dried up. As did the sound of some names his father called him, in place of a simple 'dancer'.

Shaggy knew the whole story. Shaggy also knew Uncle secretly danced. After all, he and the mirror alone stood witness to this expression of hidden love, every time Uncle’s wife and children were off to live their happy lives in their own cars with their own friends. Oh, those were the times when Uncle felt so alive! He would tune in to FM Radio and without bothering to select the music just let his arms and legs, belly and thighs, feet and toes, fingers and hands follow his heart. He would pant, he would sweat, stop a second to catch his breath or put the stray orange-and-grey strands back from his forehead, but he would not stop till a party was calling his mobile, or the gate guard was calling him because the gardener had spoilt his wife’s rockery, again. He lived to dance. He loved his secret. He loved Shaggy for being his confidante. He loved his wife and children for seeing the sweat and thinking it was cholesterol’s doing. He didn’t even mind that on such days he was asked to not eat the meat-curry. For health issues, that is.  

That is why, when the doorbell rang and he received an invite for a wedding, he was ecstatic. Of course, there would be a DJ called Melodhika with lights and sounds from another planet for him to dance to. But before that and what’s more, he would be dancing in a baraat! It was a distant cousin’s son’s wedding, and following the mare-with-the-groom would be a glittering mob footloose on the road. That special moment of dance, knowing that one is being watched, yet also knowing that one can dance without being noticed, being judged, being mocked by one’s father, freed his soul. 

He still remembered the wedding from last year, when he had danced from Subhash Nagar all the way to Tagore Garden, crossing markets and a temple, a metro station and even two schools. It was a joy he could recollect with such passion as would make his pulse treble. That day on the road, he had lost two shirt buttons, his watch and the shagan lifafa, which his wife believed he used to stock-up his cousin’s Car-o-Bar but only he knew he had rained the currency all over the orchestra and light wallahs. Happiness made him generous. Plus, he could swear he saw appreciation in their eyes for his dancing moves. 

It was a freedom he hungered for. Oh, he could barely wait!

But not all stories that begin ‘Once upon a time’ end with a ‘happily ever after’. This chapter of Uncle’s story does not. On the evening of the wedding it rained. It rained for hours on end, refusing to let up. In the middle of March, the unexpected downpour refused to stop, spoiling everything from the wedding pandal to the wheat crops. At the auspicious hour, the baraat was reduced to a train of one decorated Merc, four SUVs, and three smaller cars humbly following behind. The mandap has been shifted indoors, and the DJ had fled. In umbrellas and over three rounds he tucked his family into one of the cars, and promised to reach Hotel Privilege Punjab the moment the rain stopped. It was a promise he knew he would not keep. 

He didn’t go, at all. 

His wife called once to ask after him, and then told him over a happy din to warm the pulao with dal and have it for dinner. She thought she heard wrong when he asked about the DJ. She hung up after telling him to instruct the gate guard about their expected time of arrival, to lock the main door since she had a key and just go to sleep. They were going to be very late. So, Uncle did as he was told. He gave Shaggy an extra helping of Pedigree biscuits and switched off the lights of the house, one slow click after another. Shaggy knew his master’s heart was broken. Only Shaggy knew why.

As if in a syrup of sadness, Uncle changed into his shorts in slow-motion and looked at himself in the mirror. Was this his father’s doing, colluding with the weather Gods and pouring a ghara of water on his day’s dream for which he waited three whole weeks? He laughed a quiet laugh at the analogy. It was just the simplest of wishes, of dancing freely as if the world didn’t exist, wasn’t it? When fathers and sons all danced together. Yes, they did. It was just that wish...just that, wasn’t it?

In the quiet of the house, the refrigerator chortled to a halt. The tap in the basin seemed loud, suddenly. The rain made the rest of the music, on the ornate railing, the palm trees and the snoring guard’s hut. The furrows on Uncle’s brow eased and he took a deep breath. And before Shaggy knew it, the walls around him became alive with shadows of arms and legs, belly and thighs, feet and toes, fingers and hands following his master’s heart. He had slipped to the bedroom door and curled up there a moment back. 

The only witness to Uncle’s secret.

On Compassion

I missed writing for a day I had pencilled way in advance. February 20th saw thousands of bloggers the world over write on Compassion – the satin ribbon that binds, should bind, one creature’s comfort to another’s pain, one human’s fortune to the other’s need. I checked the exact meaning before deciding to write this. It was always a big word for me, but it became humongous after looking at what it meant. So much bigger than all the big words I like to keep as friends. Way beyond mere Politeness, surpassing stray acts of Kindness and occupying a pedestal next to felt Humanity, no less. 

Even though I was saddened that the bus full of beautiful posts on compassion had long left, leaving me and my pending work behind, on the desk still, I caught myself wondering aloud if at all I would have had anything to say about Compassion. That unconditional giving of what you have and what the other doesn’t. At all times, under any circumstances and without the slightest hope for reward. The emotion that makes you feel one with the other; human, animal or even an old oak. The ideal definition of compassion. 

And then I think, what about in life?

Every Tuesday the scene outside our neighbourhood temple is like it is on no other day. A mini-fete. There’s a balloon-seller standing alongside the Kwality Walls cart, together and away from the two parallel lines of beggars sitting lining the holy walls. A flute-seller plays devotional tunes, but the hungry stomachs hear no music. They beg for alms. For prasad, orange over-sweetened balls, from those visiting the temple. People walk in and out, and some passers-by dig into the newspaper packet to give some around. Often without looking who they are showing concern on, with measured hands. Three grape-sized pieces per hand. Deed done. Then they scurry on. Away from the house of God to their own homes where piping hot chapattis are being rolled. Leaving behind a question hanging in the air to be plucked by those like me, sitting and typing away their thoughts.

Is this compassion, pure and simple, or an automated ritual? Can the feeling of real concern be fleeting as the blink of an eye, or last the time it takes to brush the dust off the pants where the hungry-dirty hand tugged, in askance for food? Pity is short-lived, for who has tears to spare in such evil times? Or guilt. It vanishes quicker than grass thrown in the wind. But then, does it matter? Someone gave something. Shared. 2 seconds, 2 minutes. The heart opened. So, does it matter – how real how staged how in return for extra blessings?

The idea of giving, material or in thought, to the other has to stem from some degree of compassion. Or so I wonder.

Closer home. 

I don’t have half the number of compassionate bones as, say, my own mother. (I’m still checking dictionaries to see what it means!). My mother. So many times I get bugged at her idea of “doing good” at the cost of her own well-being, time, energy, health and bank balance too. What could have made her ‘adopt’ a student and sponsor his studies through school? What makes her spend her holidays teaching girls and boys from schools we never went to about the natural wonders of planet Earth? What makes her keep bowls of food and water for strays who lose their path into our driveway only to find a home in the verandah till their dying day? I used to think she is in love with the idea of charity but I corrected myself when I realized I’ve never heard her talk about it. It doesn’t make it a better version of being compassionate but it does make it seem more real in a world which we love to consider a stage, and all acts our performance to a gallery.

To feel and do silently is beautiful because compassion sings then in the highest note of the octave. I’ve heard that music through others in my life. The most fortunate ones hear it. See it. Learn to emulate it too, perhaps. 

Have I learnt? I don’t know.

Sure, I feel empathy for feet whose shoes bite, like mine. So many people’s failures are mine and cries of grief emanating as if from my lungs. I don’t hurt with rude words, even less with actions. I do try, at least, unless you hurt me or mine. Those who work for me never leave, those I have worked for are kind enough to call me caring. But what do I do in deed which can confirm to me that I am a compassionate person? No alms giving, no adopting. No routine cause-hankering, no fancy charity fairs. No impulsive gifting, no unaffordable donating. I could almost be the most apparently cold-blooded person on your friend list who moves not a finger till she feels. Gosh! What do I do to prove that I am compassionate? 

‘Mumma, wipe my nose please, or puppy will get a cold from me’ and the thoughts break with a prick. Oh no, not again. Please let it not grow into congestion. He feels so uncomfortable. He even thinks his stuffed toy will get a runny nose.

And then I realize, just like charity begins at home perhaps compassion begins right there too, along with answers and definitions to big words which need have no absolute versions. Just like the thousands of bloggers who wrote so passionately on the 20th of February, I too was looking to get in touch with the compassionate corner of my heart… 

Spent sleepless nights when he slept hot with fever, feeling the heat in my every bone. Spent impatient days when I knew he’s burdened in office, and today he needs a respite, he looked so. In tending to their needs, keeping mine aside or feeling loved when the pain was mine, this time. One feels towards toy animals and dolls, the other towards everyone who touches his life. And as I admire those compassionate acts done by my loved ones, I learn on-the-go to see what compassion really, truly means. I also realise where we discover true compassion breathing silently is what we call home, because real love breathes alongside. And there can be no compassion where there is no love.

Is that a selfish kind of compassion I feel, unable to fully grow beyond the hearth, and embrace all in one unconditional hug? 

I don’t know. 

Do I want to know right now? 

No. His nose is running, and him I need to be with. Or his puppy will get a cold, and he will then be 'hurt in the heart'.

The Winter Sun

I began typing this sitting outside my son’s school, waiting for it to get over for the day. As always, I was the first parent to arrive, because I am yet to get over the look in his eyes when he sees me as the first person at the classroom door. Before any other ma or papa or driver uncle. I like it that way, so I make sure I leave home a little early and catch his face lighting up before the crowd catches up with our special moment.

Today, though, I was exceptionally early. There were 65 minutes to go before I could get up from this plastic chair under the tin shed and walk up to his class to take him home. Who knew the part of the Ring Road that was squeezed by the Metro workers for months would be thrown open to traffic. What a relief really to have a full road, but still … how much can I just sit and look around now? And look around at who? Or what?

But then, have eyes had time and had to look around. 

The recess had just got over. While the bell announcing the end was met with a loud uproar, a sudden silence was descending over all visible parts of the school. Much like how a dry dupatta falls off the clothes line on the first floor and comes gliding down. In no real hurry but getting there. The silence. The breeze felt nippy. I tightened my stole around my shoulders, hid my hands inside, and re-crossed my legs for the 14th time. Some minutes must have gone by, when I heard a screech loud enough to make the bus driver in the far corner of the parking area turn, and make me look up from fidgeting with my phone.

The guard at the main gate had dragged his chair two meters away from the post and was now sitting in the sun; the metallic letters on his shoulders making tiny reflected moons on the nearby tree. And his face? Gloriously snug and warm. Seconds later, as if it was a sign I was waiting for, I did the same. I shifted my own grey chair right on the shadow line where the tin roof’s shade ended and a sea of sunlight began. 

To describe what I felt when I re-crossed my legs for the 15th time, this time in the sunlight, is impossible for me. It did not feel like first love, no, but certainly like the first warm kiss of the season. I knew that the dark blue top would absorb too much too soon and I will have to relocate, but who worries about teething babies on their honeymoon night itself? I still had a lot of time on my hands, but at least my hands were in the sun now. I looked at them. I ran my left thumb over the slightly visible veins on top of the right hand. Like a ship breaking through pieces of ice, tiny brown wrinkles of collected skin formed. Dryness, despite the lotion. That’s when a scene from my childhood scooped me away from the present …

It either used to be petroleum jelly, which one of her NRI sons brought for her, or mustard oil. Most of winters you would find her rubbing either of those on her arms and feet. My grandmother. My dad’s mother who would enjoy the winter sitting on a folding bed in the tree-lined back yard, and always in the sun. More than the gold bangles it was the patterns on her wrinkled skin that held my childish attention. If I think now, I would say they looked like hexagons made from the most delicate glass. They shone so bright. So thick the layer of oil, so thin the skin. Once done, she would call for her sacred book and its exquisite wooden stand and go oblivious to the world around her, a world which was making its own life around the winter sun.

The older children, with their backs towards the brightness because young girls just didn’t want to get tanned, would be busy with their school books. Winter holidays never came without home work! One of us from the middle rung would be seen helping an aunt spread the orange peels and amla slices on newspapers. To dry. In another sunlit patch, empty plastic jars would sit agape, to be ‘dry-cleaned’ to hold this winter's pickles. Pickles too would be basking in their preserved glory a safe distance away from the two youngest imps throwing mud around, digging the flowerbeds and burying broken idols hoping for a temple to grow. At least one pair of just-washed sneakers would lean against a wall, snoozing in the sun, much like the writer of this post would right after lunch and just below her favourite mango tree, with a shawl on her head because some falling leaves can have tiny bugs on them, plus those fruit flies ... 

There was so much happening in the Sun back then, that the Sun just couldn’t have got bored for the day. Today, I sit wondering here in Delhi - where is the time, the space? Where are the people? And where is the full blown winter sun to enjoy? And then I answer myself – I think we bored the winter Sun away. Because even when we have such moments of free time on our hands and a bright sunny sky, we just don’t know what to do with them. 

Maybe, those bright patches of yellow sneaking in from our windows and doors or catching us unaware outside offices and schools are just asking us to see. To look closer, even if at our own hands. For who knows what streams of thoughts, what journeys into the past are waiting to happen. What bonds asking to be re-lived. And what stories knocking up there, hungry to be told. Spontaneous ones … told just as they come to mind, like this one here. Unedited for now, but a polished version of it waiting especially for him, for bedtime tonight. 

Him. My son. The one I was the first to pick, today again, and around whom my life now revolves. My sun for all seasons to come. 

The Perfect Game

‘So boring! There’s nothing coming on TV. Scrabble?’ said he with expectant eyes. She, on the other hand, had something else on her mind. She looked at the soundly sleeping baby, bit her lower lip in thought and then finally acquiesced, for now. How long can a game take? Plus, I’ll still have time for mine. 

He jumped off from the bed, went to the other room and was back in what seemed a second. Like a gladiatorial trophy he carried the green box in his hands and a thick, podgy Scrabble dictionary on top. On top… Uff! Stop it! Concentrate! When was the last time you won? Or even made a 7-letter word? Huh? Gleefully, as if aware already that this game too like most would be his to pocket, he opened the board and smoothed it flat on the bed. With such tenderness he picked the racks and placed them across the board, she just couldn’t watch those fingers any more, without feeling jealous. 

‘Shall we, madam?’ he asked and she wanted to say yes, now, please, right now, on the board, why wait but all she said was ‘Aye aye, Captain!’

Then, it began. The sound of silent thinking or of tiles shuffling in the bag; the click when they were laid as a word on the board, or the click of the tongue at a triple letter poached. His score card soared, like always. Only when by a stroke of chance one consonant and six vowels reared their heads on his rack he strained his neck backwards and she knew it instantly; finally, he’s got tough nuts to crack! 

‘Hey, I forgot our drinks! Be back in a minute. Your turn anyway,’ and off he ran. As if it mattered to her, those few extra seconds, because a Q without a U is like a life without love, unless there’s a free ‘I’ somewhere to couple with it. Qi is a word, isn’t it? I think it is. Should I peep into the dictionary? 

‘With Coke or lemon-soda?’ he called, interrupting, as if he had read her intention. Read my intention. Yeah, right! She said she wanted lemon-soda, for then he’ll take longer and she will plan her attack in the meantime. No. Not just landing the ‘Q’ on double letter or even making two ‘Qi’s. Back-to-back. 

He walked in with a confident swagger of a Scrabble winner despite the bad rack, with the ice jingling in two glasses – one full and grey the other golden and neat. Ah! He’ll need that straight. Wait till he sees what I made. And what I will make, right here, in a little while. Nonchalantly she yawned and stretched letting her strap fall over her shoulder. She let it lie there, the bare shoulder did not go unnoticed by the corner of his eye, but the two ‘Qi’s acted the mistresses demanding full attention. 

‘Oh God! Well played, honey!’ cooed he even before he sat fully, and quickly glanced at the vertical columns of score on the back of an envelope. Those pursed lips and deep-set eyes roving over the numbers told her he was doing the math, mentally. Taking stock of the situation, one slow sip of Bourbon at a time. She smiled wickedly in the lamp light. You fool! You should just have thought of another game then! Today is mine to perfect my way now. She leaned back on the pillow and stretched her legs, letting her toes surpass his knees but not without dropping a caress somewhere along the way. He kept his hand on her foot, rubbed it thoughtfully, still busy thinking of a word-bomb to drop. So him! 

Turn after turn the board filled up, the glasses emptied. Words were now taking longer to make but the edge remained. It could be anyone’s game, he knew that. She didn’t need to care.

Just as he sat down on the bed after getting the third round of drinks, he scrunched up the tile bag to check how many more to go. The bag was empty, except for one tile which would be hers to pick. She noticed that and turned to look at the clock. Aha! Not much longer now. 

‘What the hell is wrong today? I’ve either had all vowels or all consonants, and now I could open up a shop selling ‘Es’, complained he, as he made a puny ‘E.L.’ in a nondescript corner of the board. She was enjoying this moment, not of victory yet but of reaching it. How I love to see you helpless in a game. Of course, she didn’t say that. That would have been mean, and she wanted to be meaner. So she bent forward, crinkled her eyes and shook her head slowly from side to side ‘Tch tch tch’. He just smiled a good-sport smiled, and drained his glass in one gulp. ‘Ahh! Anyway, pick your tile, miss. The final move. How much damage can you do, after all?’

The tile in the bag read ‘X’. What luck! Just what she needed, but she took her time to do it. Slowly, as if she was making love to it, but more because she was three down and the board swung a bit, she placed it on the triple word. That’s all that was needed. A humble ‘E.X.’ in the same nondescript corner of the board, using his 'E' but snatching 27 points when none extra he could afford to give. The game was hers. 

Only one of them knew if all pieces of Scrabble made it back to the box that night. The board had been pushed to a corner of the bed some time ago by her free arm. Finally! As their moving shadows met on the walls, he had quietly pulled the score card from under her and pocketed the evidence of defeat that he wanted to bin. 

And she had, as quietly, stolen it back from his pocket and slipped it under her pillow, where it later slept satisfied with a pile of tiles that were being hidden away by her ever since this perfect game began. 

What damage can I do, you asked, honey?

The baby slept soundly through the night. 

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was  -The perfect game - You’re set to play poker (or Scrabble or something else . . .) with a group of four. Write a story set during this game. Or, describe the ideal match: the players, the relationships — and the hidden rivalries.]

An old fashioned song, on his 100th

The old folks don't talk much

They talk so slowly when they do

They are rich they are poor

Their illusions are gone

They share one heart for two

‘The old folks don’t talk much’? John Denver did not get it right. Or maybe that’s because he never met my grandfather. Old folks can talk a lot, I tell you. Mostly, about things and incidents from the longest time away, as if memory starts ageing backwards and what remains freshest in their mind’s eyes are those choicest of images from younger days, cherry-picked – to be mulled over in free time or to be shared. With grandchildren, first and foremost. What a fortunate relationship!

Two days back, my nana ji turned 100. No, not on Earth. I have no conclusive proof of better places but I do know that wherever the dandy went he must still be wearing his best skin, and not just because it’s his birthday. Some gentlemen are like that. It’s their birthday, everyday.  

You know how it is after a certain age. You start preparing for your exit. Not that you are ready to go, no matter how much you say otherwise, for who knows what reality unknown lands may hold? So, they prepare – in worldly matters and matters spiritual, clinging on to the former and clasping on to the latter for dear life. 

'They are rich they are poor' makes me think. The will is signed with bad eye sight but eyes which have learnt to see people much better. See through them too. That gets done and dusted, signed, rolled up and locked in, before the ageing mind plays tricks of its kind. But that’s serious business, and I am digressing into a mood I don’t want to. This is about him as my grandfather. Why get a will into it? 

Where was I? Ah, rich-poor. Perhaps as a way of acknowledging the big number, my nana ji started a ritual after he turned 80. Every birthday he would give us four cousins money which equalled his age in number. Did not leave him much poorer but made us all so rich. Or was this his way to keep us looking forward to the increasing numbers? Praying for them too? Maybe. He alone knows. I for one enjoyed the pocket money. And still wonder how hard he must have worked to arrange the exact change.

The paan wallah at Astley Hall chowk must have helped.

    

Their homes all smell of time

Of old photographs

And an old fashioned song

Though you may live in town

You live so far away

When you've lived too long

Oh, for sure their homes smell of time. Time has a smell. And by the time it takes its toll on your senses, your nose is the only one which cannot smell it. The young may pucker theirs because odours from balms and favourite woollens, newspaper clippings and boxes with precious little are not something they can take for long. Others who stay around the old get so used to it that a house scented with designer candles would make them want to throw up. 

My nana ji had lived a glorious life, which found innovative ways to be preserved. Why not! A wooden cupboard which went from being an out-of-bounds treasure trove for our children's eyes to one which creaked, always ajar, as if asking desperately to be noticed. Right behind where he lay. In it we believed were things from his past, though no one really ever found out. The finest suit pieces he wore, the diary which documented how he never lost a case in his life, odes to Gandhi when socialism became an obsession, a wrist watch held so dear that it ticked away its life hidden from all eyes. And a radio, the sight of which will make you smile. Silent now. A life and its times preserved, to be rummaged through in the middle of the night. When sleep refused to come, or a nagging ache kept him awake – in the heart or in the mind? No idea! To think of it, I never slept next to him. Never spent the night with him. I wonder why?

But, what’s the point.

Have they laughed too much

Do their dry voices crack

Talking of things gone by

Have they cried too much

A tear or two still always seems

To cloud the eye

Can laughter reach a ‘too much’ point? The teeth may go, the lips wrinkle, but there’s more to laughter than just that. Or so I think. Why else would he guffaw remembering us four tots playing 'Paploo' with playing cards till his dying day? Must be the joy of seeing us kids together. Just for that I would swallow this inherited pride and become Miss Paploo all over again.

His voice was cracked but what could act a dam to the flood of stories he came with? Stories from old folks that make us travel to scenes and situations which no children’s story books contain. A world used to open in front of our hungry eyes. Fergusson College, Lahore to High Court, Allahabad came alive with his voice. Dehradun in all its lost glory, with its clubs and bars, and the Rs. 2 shared-auto experiences when coming to meet his grandchildren. If only words could translate into pictures, real pictures to hold and slide into family albums, what a collection I would have had today to boast about. 

The scene he recalled the most, and with utmost pride, was the one that unfolded between him and a Brit lawyer in a bar. Where he overheard ‘Hamlet’ being discussed at the white table, being quoted incorrectly. Oh sacrilege! He went over to repeat the soliloquy and gained a friend for life, that is once the incredulous look expected on hearing an Indian quote Shakespeare verbatim in those B/W days was washed off his white face. And then down with good whiskey. This friend flew home to England and left behind ‘the house with a 100 rooms’ - the one in Doon, the one especially constructed as if to play hide-and-seek in. With the gate that opened every evening at 5 pm to walk the kids to the dairy. Fresh cow’s milk, and an excuse for the cousins to meet!

Tears? I remember none. None of regret, for sure. He was a proud, proud man. Perhaps, that helped with keeping the back straight till the 92 years of his life. Kept him fit and fine. And he tried, tried his best to make us four as proud of ourselves as the ripest plums are. My cousin was to work towards becoming the finance minister, and I was to do a Ph.D. She’s at it, getting there with her love for numbers and scores of yore which made him go into extreme states of beaming happiness. I quit. I could not complete my Ph.D like he dreamed. Maybe he went too soon. Or maybe, I was just left without any inspiration any more.

They tremble as they watch the old silver clock

When day is through

Tick tock oh so slow

It says yes it says no

It says I wait for you

Then comes a point when their thoughts become their confidants. It happened with him. Slowly, but surely, he was busier with them than with us as if they had replaced all of us. Sometimes walking on a street in Pakistan. The next moment attending Gandhi’s talk in Delhi University’s gardens. When he came out of his reveries, panic would strike. A phone call to my father to come, hurry, something is happening to me. False alarms. Or fear? The tallest, most regal succumb to the fear of the dark valley. The sharpest of minds end up not recognizing their own kith and kin. That's what happened with him. One day he thought I was the nurse, another day another stranger. No longer his granddaughter. It hurt, in his last days. 

But then, what if we were to believe that they reach their new worlds much before they leave ours? Maybe, it is indeed a beautiful homecoming after a glorious journey on Earth is done?

Yes. Just the thought that I was looking for.

The old folks never die

They just put down their heads

And go to sleep one day

It doesn't matter now

The song has died away

And echo's all around.

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Prompt - Take the third line of the last song you heard, make it your post title, and write for a maximum of 15 minutes. GO! – I picked “Old Folks” by John Denver.]

Lessons Learnt from my Body

This post was written thanks to Sumeetha Manikandan, who asked me to contribute to her beautiful space 'Lessons Learned from Indians'.  

An excerpt ...

My body has been talking to me.

Once upon a time a body, to me, meant black circles for heads and sticks for hands and legs. As a child, that is, drawing on paper with crayons and sketch pens, picturesque scenes I had never seen before and bodies so far removed from what they actually looked like, yet real in their sameness of being. Short-lived were those days, because when I was taught to a happy tune how chubby cheeks and dimpled chin and blue eyes and curly hair make one the teacher’s pet, the reflection in the mirror told this child’s head I could never be her. I had held the picture of the cherubic girl in the nursery rhyme book in front of the looking glass. Next to my reflection. To look at dark coffee next to peaches and cream. A horse tail next to luscious curls the colour of sun. Eyes with not even a drop of the blue ocean the teacher’s pet mirthfully looked at me with. In the mirror.

And my body sighed! Loud enough for me to hear its echo for a long time to come. It told me as it thought aloud that I could never be loved enough, because I looked different – from the girl in the book. Even from the doll in my bed who I dressed in pretty clothes. So pretty, my best friend. And so different, from me.
In my first school which was an all-girls convent, Monday mornings were ...

[To read the full post, kindly click here.]

On Gratitude

You know how rain falls. 

Stray drops at first, as if the cloud is still making up its mind. You stare at the cemented courtyard floor waiting to see if the black dots are increasing, wondering if it is indeed rain and not the first floor people hanging their washed linen. You look up at the clouds, and then down again. Seeing the smaller circles dry, already, but almost hoping there’s more where that came from. And then, it does come. Slowly at first, and soon enough much faster, taking over in sight and sound what was once just a dull broken floor with a tulsi plant in the corner thirsting for respite. Finally you breathe, ‘It’s raining!’ Instinctively, you inhale. Expectantly too, for you know the earth will smell good, for you. The leaves shine greener, for you. The breeze blow cooler, yes, for you. 

Why not! If belief can move mountains, just imagine what contentment can flow from believing in a larger loom of goodness making weaves of happiness around you, just for you. And then, just half a breath is all it takes to send a quiet paper plane of ‘thank you’, sometimes with the destination marked, but often simply skywards charting its own path. 

I don’t think I have said as many thank-you's ever in my life as I have in this month of July speeding by. 

My son started formal schooling and best wishes for a boy who loves back as unconditionally as the love he receives came pouring in. My seventh wedding anniversary followed close on the heels of his big school milestone, and over mails and messages we were blessed with many years of togetherness. In walked some extra smiles, as someone’s ‘many happy returns of the day’ made our Facebook friends post birthday wishes on both the husband’s and the wife’s walls. We corrected them, of course, but thanked them too for their wishes, because each came with a ‘happy’ in it. And then, when a short story written by me saw itself in print, with a lovely book cover and a launch date complete, the excited flow of congratulations from those long lost in the play grounds of school or nooks and corners of college life had to be met with a barrage of equally elated  thank-you’s in return. 

Just when I thought it must be over for now … 

Strange are the ways in which small gestures make you feel all warm inside, make you appreciate things as they stand. To have been on these people’s minds made me feel good. It also made me wonder, beyond all the music and noise that we call life, about what I truly am grateful for and to whom.

And when I say ‘Thank God’ it’s not Him alone I mean, or Her…

I also mean People.

Those who I call family and friends and those who like to be called family and my friends. Whether around all the time, or once in an important blue moon, they help me form a chain of support much like bars on a ladder which I climb – sometimes with feet planted firmly on the rungs, other times with my hands and arms taking the weight, with each muscle aching for a push from below. And getting it. A phone call, a text message or just a ‘Hi, long time!’

And even those people who recede from my life. Relationships once forged but only to die a natural death, as if the bond came with an expiry date, and reached it. Those friends of yore who took a few steps back, first, and then many more to go beyond what the naked eye can see (not memory, no) for not always can two different minds be ready to grow together? Those people conspicuous by absence on my most happy days, and on those which broke my back. A natural severing. Meant to be. And so, not a loss but as if making space for others, for how many can we carry as we move ahead in life? 

Strangers too, who make their presence felt where even once is enough. That woman in a maroon and black suit who asked an old man to de-board a bus because he was behaving badly with the girl that I was in college. That guard at the school gate who calls my son ‘sir’, waving a goodbye through his big moustaches. Making me feel my son is safe. That auto driver who dropped me home, sans haggling sans cheating sans over-charging on a day Delhi swept off in the rains. And that lady who I shared the auto and broken Punjabi with, for there was a river on the road and she did not mind taking me along, making her two kids sit in her tiny lap. Thank God! 

When I say ‘Thank God’ it’s not Him alone I mean, or Her…

I also mean Circumstances.

Some call them results of free will some pronounce them pre-destined. Some look for beautiful patterns in life and call them coincidences. I have had my share of each, even as I type. For how can I not say thank you for that moment which got me to write? And write again? And be read and read some more? The circumstances which seemed vile but were blessings in disguise, and those which remained so sweet I never need sugar in my coffee any more. Those situations which may mean nothing today, but may acquire meaning tomorrow. And decisions from days gone by withering away as irrelevant this day. Each, no matter how small, a fitting piece of this jigsaw puzzle we call life. Propelling it forward, or making it reach a break. All for  good reason. For, what other reason can we need to believe in? 

There is just so much to be thankful about today. Say, this auspicious day of Eid, when ‘On Gratitude’ took birth on my blog. And I sit flying that paper plane skywards and saying Thank You!

Orkut and my wedding anniversary

I received a goodbye mail from Orkut yesterday, the first social networking site I had bungee jumped into sans any strings attached to my teenage feet. Having failed to keep itself as popular as other sites, Orkut was shutting shop and with a letter titled ‘Farewell to Orkut’ I was being invited to collect half my virtual lifetime’s worth of archives to store in a Zip folder and preserve, perhaps, for a day when it will seem antiquated enough to be material for personal museums. Or maybe, because some of us have memories all hues attached to our presences, our identities and our relationships on that site, and which deserved space in our present and our future too. 

I do. And to be honest, Orkut’s retirement has saddened me.

Not that I have been there in the past few years. I live on Facebook, where most of us do now. So, much like an infidel, I too have found greener, more fun pastures to work and network through; enough to gradually forget passwords once created by a much younger mind and beyond the memory of this older one. But you know how, so often, certain objects no longer as significant as they were in our past lives get pushed back into drawers only to be found on a spring-cleaning day, or when a serendipitous reminder of it from unseen hands drops into our letter box? That is what happened yesterday, for that farewell Orkut letter in my inbox came like a steam engine roaring me awake to stories I had become too busy to even think back about. 

Of how my friends removed all Capricorn cobwebs from my old-fashioned mind and conspired to open my Orkut account for me. I needed to be where it’s at, according to them. Over guffaws and word-play a password was decided which I noted down, oh fear of forgetting and stupidity combined, on the front page of a diary – like a label we fix on a child’s almanac in bold red. Thankfully, a kid brother is called exactly that for a reason, and my giggly girly life and times on Orkut continued without prying eyes, till the password acquired maturity of thought, and my practices on the site grew away from child-like curiosity to a carefully contained way of expression becoming of a 20-something. Thankfully, by then I had met enough new people to call friends, joined the requisite communities of schools and colleges and bribed enough with cuppas to write glorifying testimonials for me. Thankfully!  

Because somewhere around that time, I met my husband. On Orkut.

A crazy coincidence of a common friend spotting me in our hometown later he sent me a ‘scrap’, one which he refuses to acknowledge even today, putting on me the ‘blame’ for having sent a friend request too, which actually, he did. I swear! But we were in each other’s lists now. All else (and everyone else too, much to their chagrin) lay forgotten as my Orkut time flowed like a river towards him, and him alone. We made up for all the kind of talk we never did when we continued prudes in school together, stealing glances but mostly squabbling over assemblies and toilet duties. Over messages and comments, we discovered each other, and how we had grown away from what we were. Some Suns later phone numbers were exchanged, and a quickly planned cup of coffee too. After four cups of which, during which time we kept falling a little more in love, we got married. So clichéd, but true!

Of course, the wedding ceremony was not on Orkut. Which reminds me, we turn seven in a few days. And the timing of bye-bye Orkut knocking on our marriage anniversary date brought back memories tinted pink, and also, a lump in my throat. So strange, but true! 

There is more brouhaha about social networking sites than genuine ha-ha on them now. Established researches as well as those born out of a day’s mood advice, almost implore us to not be tempted to remain online too long, cut ten hours to five, five to two, or leave, deactivate and never come back to live a longer, wrinkle-free life. Schoolmarms are defining ‘optimum’ usage, mothers of under-age users ‘the right behavior’. And I agree, for there can exist a dark underbelly to updates shared and relationships forged, or forced, in spaces like FB. And it gets tiring. Exhausting, to keep the hellos up and smiles aglow. And hurtful to learn that what seemed real was just fluff for another. For if forged and forced begin with an ‘f’, so does faked. After more than a decade of enjoying my virtual networks, how unfortunate that days preceding this post shows me how true this is. 

And then I wonder to myself how is it that I continue so happily socially networking, never annoyed with another’s over-doses or wary about my own? Meeting people, making friends, tooting my horn and tom-toming like an over-immune-to-censure cheer girl too? Is it because I believe good things become better and dreadful things less dreary when shared? Yes. Or does FB take away the lonely from alone days and thus gives me company? That too, yes! But most of all, as I sit and seek answers to inexplicable behavior patterns in my virtual life which never reared their heads in the days of Orkut, I wonder. 

I wonder if we other our evils as we blame a website like FB for ruining relationships, and not ourselves for never having genuinely meant to forge them. I wonder if nonchalance and intolerance towards another on www is a photocopy of our attitudes outside of it. I wonder too if the excuse of ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ through four albums of a friend's holiday pictures online was relevant in days before the internet when people lived not just like next door neighbours but as family too, crossing over rooftops to borrow dry red chillis or cups of sugar. And I wonder if we want to walk an extra mile to keep, to preserve bonds which do for sure get formed, or lose them all to what fashion asks, lobbies demand, or the queen of a club commands!

Gone are the days of gay abandon and fuss-free minds that Orkut stood for, for me. Of interest in interesting people, or boring boredom itself away. Of a virtual avatar whose behavior no one measured in a petri-dish. Of finding strangers who became permanent friends and translating a foe into a husband. Perhaps, once upon a time we bothered to make amends. To make peace. Talk, hammer, order, order, objection sustained or over-ruled, but sorted! Whereas today, we simply press ‘delete’. And right after that, sign a declaration proclaiming the 101 ways in which FB could be your death.

Just wondering. Anyway.

I remember I dilly-dallied with his proposal seven years back, when Orkut was alive and kicking and not waving goodbye. All ifs and buts that could be born were given birth to, and voiced. My greatest fear remained that our relationship would change with time. And instead of saying ‘Oh! It won’t. Please don’t worry!’ he had said ‘I assure you it would. It would change to exactly what we want it to become!’

He was right. 

I will miss Orkut. Perhaps, this wedding anniversary I will get that O-shaped cake to cut which our friends almost got for us then. For now, time to download a truck-load of the best online memories to pickle and preserve, for even they are changing shades as time goes by. 

Imagine what magic the aroma will create when my son opens the lid, someday!