Some random thoughts

I am almost certain about one thing. There is no such thing called individuality. We are all bundles of preordained qualities, in different proportions may be , but a lot of us are mostly the same.
We still brag about our individuality, things that make us unique, but there is a good possibility that in some other part of the world somebody else is using the exact same words to express the exact same thoughts.

When we are upset we think that it is the end of the world, but many people must be going through the same situations and  feeling the same emotions. They might be making the same mistakes too. So what are our emotions considering that of the billions all around the world. Worse still considering that of the many many millions who were here before us. So are we just insignificant grains of sand in the history of time.

I am not able to get this thought out of my mind. If my feelings have already been felt a million times and my tears have already been wept, why should I waste a single minute over it. There must have been a lot of confused women like me in the history of manhood, sorry womanhood. They must have gone through the same struggles regretting bad decisions and doubting the good ones. They must have gone through the same turmoil choosing between career and family, love and acceptance and social pressure and happiness. They must have been torn between things they love equally and cried in silence and then put on the best brave smiles. If I am in no way different than them what is the harm in trying to break the cycle. Since they have cried a million times already for the exact same things.....

I am now reading Devdas, Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay's epic tragedy which has been made into successful films in all Indian languages and still finds its resonance in contemporary plots (both in films as well as real lives). I don't want to elaborate the story line as everybody knows it. Young Paro is convinced that she would rather drown her sorrows in the river than marrying any other man than her Dev da. Devdas's parents don't give their consent and he tells her in a letter that he cannot marry her as his parents think its not an ideal match. Her family is not rich and its not like he is in in love with her anyway blah blah blah. As soon as he posted the letter it dawns on him that he is madly and irrevocably in love with her. He rushes to the village to meet her and tells her that he will convince his parents somehow. But this what she tells him, " You think only your parents have honor, my parents may not be rich but we have honor too. And in a few days I am marrying this wealthy 40 year old man my parents chose for me and I will be richer than you." And thus she walks into her own doom driving Devdas to his. If only she knew that it was just natural to feel indignant in that situation and many women, may be even cave women have gone through the same before her. But she was only 14 and she didn't know.

Ok enough about Devdas. I have seen 4 of my friends going through bitter breakups and the cycle of emotion is more or less the same. Different variations of 'I want to die', 'Oh no I just want you to suffer',' you don't care ? then I don't care either', 'I can do better than you lets just see how better' etc etc..
There was this one time when I used to call a friend to her college hostel every night ( as this was in late 90's and we didn't have mobiles) just to make sure she hasn't killed herself. ( This might sound crazy but I lost my aunt (who brought me up BTW)  to suicide. Worse still she had written me a letter couple of months before that and I, like most 16 year olds was too busy to reply. So I have boundary issues with my friends and I understand that its quite natural. In my head they might take a whim and kill themselves any day leaving me to feel guilty all my life. )
So if we almost always follow the same pattern of emotions there must be some way to make it all easier?

During the corporate days of my life I have seen people getting into unnecessary arguments just to feel important. Especially in my last job where the workforce mostly was men. They would go on and on debating about the same things in meetings just to see who will have the final word. Business managers think they are important as they see in and out of the software, Delivery managers think this is all unreasonable, Test mangers blame everybody  and System architects think everybody else stupid. Programmers sit and watch all this. Sometimes when the chief architect gets into a grumpy mood my manager used to ask me to go and sit there with him as he was really fond of me. (He was over 50 and called me kiddo , so all safe there). Well its all funny. Why is the male ego so difficult to be satisfied? If its been like this for centuries why nobody came up with a cure?

Since I stared looking around trying to understand life I find it easier to forgive people. At least I am able to think of them as a part of the big universe with their own purposes. But I am not able to forgive myself for the stupid things I have done. My logic fails me there.

So if I've hurt anybody who actually did care about me (or not), unknowingly due to my tactlessness or knowingly due to my ignorance I apologize to them from the bottom of my heart. I was just an immature person with  lot of insecurities.

To a six year old boy I know

I see the world through your eyes,
But choose not to acknowledge it.
I smile and tell you that its going to be alright,
But I know its not, and my smile is fake.

You blame one and defend the other
And then you break down and cry,
When your tears dry up you do it the other way around
And then you cry again

I want you to 'understand'
But how can you, while they cannot?
I tell you that I love you
But I still get up and leave.

I remember the time you held on to me
With you scared little hands, never to let go
I still had taken them off with a smile
I am sorry I am a grown up, just like them.

You try to build your own world
A beautiful one, where nobody leaves,
And when you talk about it nobody listens
As its not real and good boys should not tell lies

Then you sit there with your toys trying to be happy
When you are not, you demand more,
Learning the ways of the world on you own
If not love then let it be toys.

I wish I had the courage to look you in the eye
And tell you that I will always be there
But I am scared as I am not sure
So I just walk away.

I want you to know that I am sorry
Sorry for leaving, sorry for not being there
Sorry that I am just the 'fun aunt',
Though I wish you were mine.

Srikanta! Srikanta!

Another classic by Sharatchandra Chattopadyay. This good Novel entertained me a great deal and I am actually sad that it is over.

To understand Srikanta or any Indian novel of this era we must first understand the political, social and religious aspects. Inequality, Injustice and social evils like caste system were gripping the society to its core and independence was a distant dream. It was customary to reveal your caste before you even serve food to another person as they might 'lose their caste' if you are from a lower caste. If the parents of a 13 year old girl were unable find her a groom they would lose their caste too. It did not matter if she was marrying a 65 year old man, but marry she must. Death was an everyday matter, entire townships were getting shutdown due to epidemics like cholera and plague.

Sharatchadra Chatterjee's  semi autobiographical novel is set in these crazy times. It is usually taken as a triangular love story, but I find it much more than that. Somehow the vivid images of 9 year old brides 11 year old widows haunt me day and night.

Srikanta is a high born brahmin boy. In his childhood he meets a woman who is the living embodiment of sacrifice and stoic idealism. The image of this woman (his Annada didi) stays fresh in his mind as he grows up and he wows that only such a woman would find a place in his heart.

Though he is educated, Srikanta lives the life of an aimless drifter with a talent to entertain princes in their parties and hunting trips. On such a trip he meets Pyari, a mysterious 'singing woman' with ethereal beauty.
Though he is disturbed by Pyari, Srikanta chooses to ignore her.The occupation of a singing woman was considered lowly those days, almost as lowly as a prostitute's.. Later he finds out that Pyari is none other than Rajalakshmi, a girl from his village whom he used to bully as a 13 year old boy. Rajalakshmi had been married off to a 60 year old man and was later believed to dead.

Her story deeply moves him and the fact that she had been in love with him since she was a 9 year old girl gives him a strange thrill. But he moves away from her. Reason : Lowly singing girl, another man's widow, goes way low on the Annada didi scale of stoic idealism.

As fate has its own ways Srikanta finds himself in Patna for reasons unknown to him. This time he joins a group of Sanyasis only to get deserted in a village with small pox outbreak. Rajalakshmi rushes to his help and nurses him back to health. Now he sees her as Rajalashmi and not as Pyari. A strong, independent woman with social responsibilities.
This becomes the pattern of their life. He gets in trouble(mysterious fevers,tricky relatives) and she comes and helps him out. He admits that he is in love with her though he cannot do anything about it. He says he can compromise anything for her but his honor. And to her that is the only thing worth compromising.

Like any two people in love who cannot be together they find ways to torment each other.
 I liked this one in particular. One day Srikanta finds himself in her darbaar where she sings for hooka smoking men. Half of him wants to storm out while the other half wants to throw all of them out. But he regains his composure and joins them with a hooka instead . He lavishly praises her voice and her beauty(every inch of it) knowing that his words would burn her eardrums. He even goes on to say that what admirers like him would do with out her. What a genius!

She on the other hand fasts most of the days and deprives her body of nutrition and blames him for all her sufferings. His physical attraction to her often puts him in agony. he wants to tell her about these turmoils but he just holds her hand and cries! ( This is what I like about old bengali novels. Its almost impossible for them to break any moral code yet they are completely believable. Then again my knowledge of Bengla literature is limited)

While in Gangamati, Rajalakhsmi gets in touch with her religious side and starts a life of sacrifice. She leaves her career as a singing woman and disposes her worldly possessions. And now its time for her to do the ultimate sacrifice before taking the widow's robes. Sacrificing him.

He goes away from her life and becomes the aimless drifter once again. He goes to the village of their childhood and finds himself in a Vaishnava ashram where he meets Kamal Lata. Kamal Lata's first words to him are 'don't you remeber me from Vrindavan?'. He is enchanted by her and finds the happiness he has never known  in helping her in the simple chores of the ashram.
He leaves the ashram convinced that he is healed of all the wounds.

But Rajalakshmi waits at his door, this time not in the widow's robes. She tells him she could not find God anywhere. Srikanta tells her about Kamal Lata and now RajaLashmi wants to meet her too.

Rajalakshmi's initial intentions are to match wits with Kamal Lata. But soon she finds herself charmed by Kamal Lata and the simple ways of her superior soul. Their stay at the ashram cures the couple of their respective ailments. Rajalakshmi is not arrogant anymore and she is convinced that she does not need any religious rites to take Srikanta as her husband ;the memories of the bianchi berries she plucked for him in her childhood is sufficient for her. And Srikanta finally sees that the honor has nothing to do with what society imposes.

So the couple sets out to lead a happy normal life. Only problem now is that Srikanta loves Kamal Lata too, in a totally different way.The beauty of it is that he never resolves this equation. Kamal Lata or Rajalakshmi? As it is not a matter of choice for him.

In their happy home in Gangamati, Rajalashmi starts a school for girls and Srikanta starts writing . He often finds himself thinking about Kamal Lata though he is convinced that he cannot live with out Rajalakshmi.

When Kamal Lata leaves the ashram for her ultimate pilgrimage Srikanta begs of her to take him with her at least half the way. He cannot bear the thought of never seeing her again. "If you love me, surrender me to God" Kamal Lata says to him. .And he replies "I will not insult you by calling you mine again."

I admire the profound honesty of the ending. May be love in its purest form, the kind Srikanta felt for Kamal Lata is not a thing to be ashamed of.

Editing... I cannot believe how many spelling mistakes I make..

Editing again,
Forgot to mention the array of supporting characters which makes this novel even more interesting. Indranath the wanderer , Abhaya the brave, Sukanya the just, Ghahar the poet and my favourite Ananda the young doctor in safron robs. And of course Annada didi the sad, ideal woman.

 This German virus is getting the better of all of us. Its the third week of passing the tissue box back and forth. But I am strangely happy today.

Delirious(A poem or I am just delirious)

Delirious

This familiar pain, old yet unforgotten;

These memories as they burn in my head;

This fever,this madness, this incredible lightness;

This uncanny feeling that someone is standing behind.

This incoherent chatter and distant laughter;

These clouds of thoughts as they float away;

This dizziness, this darkness, this invisible softness;

Ripping apart and Slipping away?

Learning and Fun

Navneeth is enjoying his fall break. We spend most of the afternoons in the park even though its getting cold. He is already dreading the idea of going back to school next Monday. Even I am worried about getting him back to school day routine.

Navneeth is having trouble lining up for the assembly and lunch. The good international school where he goes to emphasize on learning through fun, but unfortunately Navneeth's idea of fun is slightly different. He is hardly an artistic person and doesn't want to do anything with crayons or color pencils. We are told that kids normally learn to write through coloring and drawing.

Its been tough on him trying to be international and multilingual. He can communicate in English now but his German ,just like his mother's is limited to few basic words. To make things complicated we insist on talking purely in Malayalam at home.

Sometimes I wonder if we are being fair to the kids by uprooting them this way. I keep on telling Navneeth that your  'home' is where your parents are , but is that really enough? He is really attached to his grandparents and can we justify ourselves for taking him away from them?
Since we came back from our vacation in August he keeps on asking me when we are going back again.. I tell him we cannot afford to fly every now and then and he has to wait till next year. When we call home he asks his grandparents when they are coming here. "Soon" they tell him , and he believes that.

When we were living in India I used to take him around a lot, to temples , to near by rivers and ponds and small local toy shops. Since his father was away he was entirely my responsibility and I fulfilled it by being at his side all the time. I have not let any so called baby formula pass through his lips and I was there when he first turned, crawled, walked and talked.I used to carry him even when my shoulders were almost coming apart and totally refused the idea of strollers.

 But did I do all that for him? The fact is I was just fighting the ghosts of my own past.
 When I was just 4 months old my mother got a transfer to a distant city and I was left at my mother's eldest sister's care  in Calicut. Not that I had any complaints back then. I was actually quite a happy child and I grew deeply attached to the place, the people, the house and its surroundings. But when I was taken away at 11, it killed a part of my soul.

I always blamed my parents for this turmoil they put me through. I asked them a million times why I attended a local government school when they could afford the best education in the city.And when my exam results didn't meet expectations I blamed it on the fact that I was made to start school a year earlier.

The fact is , as I understand it now , they in their pure optimistic ways didn't anticipate that it would affect me at all. Come to think of it, all that has made me the person I am now, good or bad I let others to decide.
I have nothing against my parents now and in fact I am quite proud of both of them.
And if I hadn't started school a year earlier, would I have met my husband, my batch mate in college?

I know many women who juggle career and family and I never judge them or consider myself superior. I don't go about giving speeches on the 'importance of being a full time mother'. I know very well that a some of them must be even better mothers and home makers.

I have very close friend who is currently going through a  rough phase at work. We have been friends for over 12 years and we talk at least a couple of times a month. I know how difficult it is for her for now and I asked her a few times to take a break from work and stay at home with her daughter. But she is afraid she might turn overbearing and obsessive sitting at home like her own mother.

So this is what we all do? Try to protect the kids from our own issues and drive them to their own?

As for Navneeth's writing handicap, we were worried that it might be disgraphia or something. But then we decided to take it 'home style'. We explained to him how important it is to work on his letters.
"Don't  you want to buy a big blue car when you grow up?" yes he does.
"Don't you want to get a good job like your father to pay for the car" yes he does.
"Will you get a job if you can't write?" no he won't.
That settled it. We also promised to buy him a big lego box if he practices his letters for 15 minutes everyday ( He is quite a lego boy). And he is making good progress.

Right now he is playing with his Disney character dolls.
"Whats Mickey doing?" I ask him.
"Its not Mickey. Its my Achachan and he is plucking tomatoes"
Needless to say that Minnie is his Achamma and the other set of dolls are his Appooppan and Ammamma and they are all having a gallant time with 'Kannan Kutty'.
"I 've got all of them here." He smiles.

He makes me think, this child.