The other day, a kindergarten group, got into the tram that I was in, and a 4 year old sat next to me. He stared at me for a minute, as if puzzled by my appearance. Then he came up with the most logical question, taking into account my unmade-up face and unstylish hair.
'Bist du eine frau?' Are you a woman?

If a grownup had asked this, it would have been an insult. But 4 year olds, generally get away with everything.

He really seemed to be interested in the book I was reading and took it from my hands.

"Look at me, I am reading too." He told me and began to flip through pages.

Since he soon got bored with acting all important reading a 'big book',  he wanted to know what was there in my bag. He opened my bag and looked through it. He announced, the things he found in there. Book, pen, more books...

"You do have a lot of books," He said thoughtfully, "do you have one for me?"

I gave him my pocket dictionary to hold. He was happy that it was small.

How do children do this? How do they make spontaneous conversations with out inhibitions? How do they just ignore, racial, cultural barriers?

Prayers..

We've toned ours ears to brutality and violence. We read about them everyday in newspaper, and we try to forget them.  Will we ever find reasons for such madness?

 I am praying for the angels in heaven. And I'm thinking about the survivors. Children almost beaten to death by their guardians, sexually abused preteens, children who have witnessed extreme violence.. Would time ever heal those wounded torsos and souls? Would those shattered lives ever resurrect, would those scared little faces ever learn to smile ?

 The natural ending I had for 'Unravelled' was that Naveena never finds Sunita, but accepts the grave reality that life doesn't always answer your questions and moves on with it. That perhaps would have been a better ending, but I simply couldn't let myself to write it. I wanted Sunita to survive. I wanted to believe that it was possible for her to have a normal life, I wanted the reader to believe that it was possible.

But is that really possible? How many completely survive childhood trauma?

Back when I was 12 or 13, I did face the stark realization, that I was not a child anymore. someone I really, really trusted had started to make me feel uncomfortable. The fact was, I didn't even know that this person was trying to feel me up. It took me a while to figure it out. I did not know what to do. I never really talked with my parents. I could not tell them. I did try telling 'I do not like that 'person'', but they did not take the hint. Actually I did not have anyone to confide in. I had friends, but I could not tell them as well. I wanted to be normal and happy in front of them. I hated my slowly changing body, I hated everything about my life. In my absolute helplessness I sought refuge in God. I cried and I prayed. I tried to avoid 'that person', I read almost all the books we had at home, I imagined living in those stories and I tried to forget the reality. Those dreams, protected me in a way!

I did not have any focus in life. I did not dream of being good at anything, I did not look into the future and tried to figure out what to do with it. I never really prepared for any exam. I never dreamt of getting married. I just avoided thinking about all prospects of real life. But I laughed and played with my classmates all the time.I guess it is difficult for a child to accept that she is going through something abnormal, children would only try to suppress such things.

Again I was lucky to come off unscathed. But I never thought I could completely move on. I never thought I could just stop blaming everybody. I never knew I could talk about it with out reliving the fear. But the fact is, I moved on, completely.

Though perhaps this could not compare with real acts of horror we read about, I do believe resurrection is not impossible.

Many a time , I've found myself making long phone calls to friends, just so the person on the other side could just cry, and talk, and cry as much as they wanted to. I have heard people saying, how they wanted to kill themselves, how they slashed wrists, swallowed pills etc. I have seen them moving on also. Completely!

Lets pray for resurrection. Let's watch over our children, let's teach them to protect themselves and hold their head high. Lets tell them about the reality and lets hope that they learn to dream as well!


 

Old songs... Old songs..

 

A lot of my memories are linked with old Malayalam poems. I was made to memorize some lines from N.N Kakkad's Saphalamee yatra. I do not exactly remember why. I remember associating 'athira' or 'Thiruvathira' with old age and death, which was weird, because back in the day, in the city I grew up in, it was festival of happiness. Thiruvathira was our take on Halloween and Fasching. Children would dress in costumes go to other houses in the neighbourhood and perform whatever they could. I don't remember fasting, may be I was too young for that.

Today I stumbled upon a musical version of the poem, a bit too musical for my taste, actually.
I remember the festival, I remember the poem and I remember her voice as she sang the line 'Ormmakalundayirikkanam'.

Ormmkalundayirikkatte.. Let's remember, everything.

 

I'm always tired these days. I guess I should just accept my defeat and remain happily bilingual, for the rest of my life. I would stop in April.. and then.. I don't know what I should do then.

Since I'm around people from different parts of the world, I get to hear interesting stories. I wish these people spoke English, just so I could ask and find out more.

Ceca from Serbia thinks she would never have enough girly fun to sacrifice herself to marriage. Still she admits that she occasionally misses her college boyfriend. And in her opinion everybody is entitled to have one big love.

Maria misses her daughter who is in Colombo. She feels the pressure of being a single parent, and hopes to find a job soon so that she could bring her daughter to stay with her.

24 year old Ron misses his girlfriend and twin 4 year old boys. How does a 24 year old manages that kind of a responsibility?

Tini misses her parents in Romania, but she is getting married soon and she is excited to be in Germany with her fiancé.

Of course, all names are fake.
Stories are stories, but even they fail to make me feel better.
 

When friendships die

For most part of my life I thought I owed my life to friends. For most part of my life I went out of my way and did things for them, nursed them through heartbreaks and other blues. For most part of my life, I've kind of been a fool. Well, that's just a side effect of growing up with out a primary care person.

When one of my friends got married while we were still in college, I literally had to fight with my parents to let me attend the wedding. The semester exams had got postponed that year due to some strikes, and unfortunately we had an exam the next day of the wedding. Of course, my friend's parents couldn't change the date of the wedding, she had to get married and then attend the semester exam the next day.

The wedding was in another district and I would lose the entire day if I go. And my parents knew very well that I would only open my books a day or two before the exam. But I pleaded with them and I cried, what would she(the bride) do if her best friends didn't attend her wedding? How could we even let her get married like that? Isn't that sad?

They did give in in the end and I, with two other friends, attended the wedding. We had a very difficult, question paper the next day. I was very lucky that I scraped through pass marks for that paper. My parents would have killed me otherwise!

I hardly even talk to her these days, in fact, its been years, since I talked or sent a personal message to her. We just grew apart.

But back then, I honestly thought that we were going to be friends forever. We were going to be in each other's life always....What happens to friendships when they die?

Some friendships only last for a season. Then they die an unmourned death. May be they are meant to be that way. The world around us just changes every year, and so do we unfortunately, and so do the people we used to know!

I once used to try to keep in touch with everybody I had  good laugh with, everybody who told me their stories. But since the time I lived in my father's village, I realised that I didn't have to do that. I still cherish all the laughter, I still cherish the stories, but may be they are better off as memories. I do not miss the people, they do not miss me..

There is this other lot. People I would always care about, but would be perfectly ok not hearing from for years! I would always keep their phone numbers and emails, just not to lose them, an email once in 6 months, a phone call a year... This boy who worked with me in citi, who had been more of a brother to me than the real ones, this girl who worked with me in Chennai, one or two of my school mates, college mates, two of my cousins..

And then of course, there's this other lot, who knows my struggles, my madness.. I would be completely lost with out them.

Sometimes, even with out us knowing, we make lifetime promises. To be there, always, even if its miles apart, never to change, never to give up, never to be lost in the crowd, and to keep going..
The promise I've made would always make sure that I'm the same person.

















 

Sometimes I feel silly, searching for the voices of my childhood in this foreign land frantically trying to reconstruct days, places and faces, trying to relive memories, holding on to them as they slip away....

Today my mind for no reason went back to the evening I heard this song on the radio, when I was playing just outside the window.

 

Old trees and old songs

When I see old videos, I try to see more than just the actors. Like the trees in bloom with their leaves dancing in the wind. Those flowers withered and leaves fell, all buried and decomposed in the continuous cycle of life. Yet they graced an old video with their passing grace, and the image of a long gone spring or summer is captured forever, with the effect of a long gone breeze and the sunshine from a long gone day.

And the people too, not just the main actors, the passers by, the crowd, common people who got to save the images of their youth for another centaury. They would have lived their untold lives thereafter, but they did make their mark in the history of time, however small. There is something to remind the world of their life.

And the main actors, the dreams in their eyes, the effervescence of youth, yea, we do know their stories.

Take a look at this song from Suhaag raat 1948, a young Bharat Bhushan and very young Geeta Bali in their Himachal outfits (?). This was her very first movie, her only chance to turn the life around and save her family. Did the horror of the past(not just hers, the whole nations, or so to speak), haunt her when she was putting her make up on? As we all know, in her short life, she would  find success and love and ultimately fate would take her away while she was reaching for stars.
Bharat Bhushan on the other hand would live a life, full of up and downs. But in this eternal moment, they are both fresh and hopeful. And the trees, look at those trees..

 

 

 

This is another song from the movie.

 



 

I wonder what she was thinking when she was walking through the fields. Her whole life was ahead of her, a life of promises. And I love that lonely tree in the background. What would have happened of it?

 

Life indeed is capricious, but may be we shouldn't just let it pass by, when we have a shot at finding our dreams. Lets all reach for the stars!

 

 

 

 

 



 

My first German poem

 Ich sehe
Ich verstehe
Ich falle
Ich stehe auf
Ich hoffe
Und, ich vertraue
Immer, Immer, Immer
Du auch?


Since I don't trust those translators, as my German is perhaps untranslatable....

I see
I understand
I fall
I get up
I hope
And I trust
Always, Always, Always
You do too?