Category: Anjali

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Sarina woke early each morning. A few stolen moments of quiet before the world around her imposed the demands of the day. It was still dark, her eyes slowly adjusting in order that she could manoeuvre herself around the kitchen without turning on the lights.

Negotiating the space we live in, with its familiar angles, levels and placements are likely the closest insights into a depth of darkness. A glimpse of what it must mean to be blind. A person of vision using words as insight and glimpse to describe the act of being unable to see is ironically paradoxical. Is everything one knows to be so only a product of not knowing its absence …?

Warming her hands on the coffee cup Sarina walked to the veranda. And there it was the blaring throttle of the engine, diesel fumes and the miserable sight of a mud-caked truck intruding upon the first hints of dawn.
Indeed, there is nothing silent about sunrise – chirping birds, children heading to school, the milk van tooting, and the steady strokes of a broom against the ground.

Morning for some begins with clearing and cleaning the remains of the night, for others it is the rush to stock fresh vegetables, fruits and the hard-earned catch of the day. The fisherman and the baker settling down to a chat and a tea, their day’s work almost complete. The juxtaposition of a clock brings different meaning into each of our lives.

Dusk makes Sarina sad, brings memories of a husband no longer beside her, an empty bed and a listless sleep. But for some inexplicable reason she still rises with a heart filled with hope, a promise of what might be. Possibility.
But now this truck. And that’s all it’s taken. A miscreant truck parked on the street right outside her home, disturbing her deliberately carved out moments of peace, and propelling her into a tizzy of angst and upheaval.

No longer being able to contain her anger, she screamed out aloud, “Hey you. Shut that damn thing off! What right do you have to park in this spot every evening and cause this commotion each morning.” Her tirade remained unacklowledged. The driver happily listening to his favourite tune on the phone sending out waves of tinny music to add to her frustration.

And thus the mornings unfolded. Without control over the external circumstances. And without control over her own unbalanced, almost visceral response to an act she simply has no authority over.
It’s a public road. And any driver can park wherever the hell he likes. That’s the law. Like it or not.
We own our little thousand square feet of space. We call it home. But yet we wish to influence the area around us. In broader terms it’s called civic sense. Keep my yard clean, pick up pet poop, don’t litter and don’t dump your garbage on your neighbors doorstep. That’s simple and easy to comprehend. And apparently easy enough to implement. But what happens when your personal sensitivity clashes with what’s happening in the environment? Where does ownership end and tolerance begin?

Where does passive acceptance become wise against the call to social activism?
When does turning a blind eye become the advise of the hour, rather than sitting in the midst of an annoying start to the long day ahead …?
There is a truck around each corner. That’s the flow of life’s highway. Being stuck in traffic when you’re running late and the continuous ticking of the watch when time is the enemy of a vacant mind.

There is though a strange phenomenon of getting accustomed to that which we would prefer not to bear but realize the choicelessness of the situation. It’s not something as lofty as surrender or acceptance but the ability that human beings have to just get on with life. Children do it with remarkable skill and apparent ease. Parents just download all kinds of unsavory things and wildly inappropriate situations onto these little creatures and their hearts and minds somehow cope. Adapt. That is the word. What is the theory about survival – rings a bell but not quite clearly.
Much like Sarina, I too have a metaphoric truck that disturbs my harmony. Yet, some days, I can look out at the fields and strain my eyes for the peacock, oblivious to a mound of trash piled under the tree.

Seeing, non-seeing, hearing/listening, light/dark. I’m thankful for my share of trucks. To paraphrase an old saying, the universe gives you hurdles each according to your capacity. Long may this be true.

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There’s something I both love and hate about an afternoon nap. Or a mid-morning rest after I’ve been up pretty much most of the night. I do this often. Stay awake through the night, sleeping only a few hours at best. Doing nothing special in the hours I’m awake. Nothing as exotic as meditate or stand on my head or perform some holistic breathing exercise. I just wander about and attend to unfinished chores of the day. Even invent some as I go along.

More often than not, I put clothes into the washing machine. It’s one of my most favourite tasks. I love the fragrance of fabric softener, knowing that I can simply gather up a bucket of soiled sheets and towels and, voilà, in one fell swoop they’re sparkly clean and almost dry. Gone are the days when I squatted on the ledge of a shower cubicle and worked my way through soaked clothes that weighed a ton, giving myself a back ache, and often injuring my wrists as I tried to wring out the excess water. Never was I successful. 

Putting them out to dry was yet another exercise in masochism. And heaven forbid if it were a humid, rainy day, those darn things never dried. Even under a fan running at full speed it took ages for a pair of jeans to dry out and, by the time they finally did, they probably smelt so bad that they needed a wash again.

Ah, for the joys of a washing machine. Yet what about those who still have to handwash their clothes and can never even dream of affording such creature comforts in this lifetime? Yes, in India appliances such as a washing machine are far from common fare. Well, I’m not going to go into the plight of the poor in this country: washing their clothes is often the least of their issues, if they even have access to water at all.

So, what I love about daytime naps is the feeling of being rested. Of a fresh wind beneath my wings. But what could I possibly hate? It’s not that I cannot sleep again at night, or that I walk around groggy the rest of the day. It’s something much more fundamental. I always wake with a deep deep sadness in my heart. A hollow in the pit of my stomach. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember. Tired, longing rest, curling up into a blissful ball of comfort; eyes open, sadness. 

Yes, feeling sorry for myself too. What a tragic trajectory. Indeed, I’ve often wondered why this melancholic malaise. I just don’t know. There’s something seemingly ominous about those first few seconds, minutes actually, as if hidden between the folds of sleep and waking is another state quite contrary to my normal, lived, day-to-day experience. 

While I often feel sad, with and without reason, it’s this particular underlying discomfort which intrigues me as much as it gets my spirits down. It’s as if I’m frozen in the moment. Unable to process the emotion which grips me. Yet somehow understanding that it’s much like a glimpse of sky suddenly revealed on a dense cloudy day.

An interpretation by the mind of what otherwise is something that just happens. Just happens to me. Who catches hold of the sensation. Labels it sadness. Decides it does not like the feeling. Then a story unfolds.

Perhaps one day they’ll invent a washing machine for emotions. Soak, rinse, spin and you’re ready to go. As good as new. Things just happening. Choice less. The lived experience of my life.

This series of blogs has been reviewed by Drishya Warrier, Aditi Iyer, and Pratishtha Bagai, of Symbiosis Centre of media and Mass Communication, Pune. We are students that have completed our first year. Through this NGO Internship Project at MHAT, we explored the field of mental health while pursuing our interest in creative writing.

It’s common in India to have servants and yes, we still refer to them as such.

Socially correct labels – those are reserved for company when the room’s abuzz with guests.

Staff, help, housekeeper we choose our words with care, lest anyone overhears how we dare speak to those who sweep our fallen hair.

They’re human too, our servants, but we act as if nothing’s beneath them, as if their feet never tire nor their hands ever hurt.

We give them money when a relative dies, and pay at times for medicines or schools, a conscience clear now we’re ready to step out and play the fool.

We spend in a night what they earn in year, on our child’s delight we splurge and smile, knowing the toys will be discarded at the morning light.

When I was young, we had a maid. She fed and clothed, bathed and told me stories so I could sleep. She spoke no English, but I understood her lonely broken language.

Her own family, she’d long left behind in the nasty village where she’d bled, tears of sorrow saved for a widow who could barely earn her bread.

To the big city she came, lost and forlorn, and to my parents she begged, to give a roof above her head.

Swiftly they employed her, kind people that they were, now they could leave their baby, and travel wide and far.

And so time passed, and attachment grew, I felt we all loved our servant too. Slowly she grayed, back bent low and painful. Not much use to the house anymore, I wondered what they’d do.

A plan was hatched and off she went, a purse with some money, a bus ticket and a month’s rent. I asked and asked where she’d gone but answers weren’t forthcoming.

A teenage girl I’d turned to be, memories faded with much that was new, interesting and wild, where was the space to think of the past and what was left behind.

One day I sat staring out of the window, and spotted a half naked woman, her sari wrapped just beneath her waist, and her face a bewildered jungle.

Somehow she’d found her way, back to where she belonged, though cast away, and plagued by madness, her eyes looked up at me.

I screamed and yelled – mum, dad there’s our maid she’s gone crazy, hungry, unfed, please bring her up and let’s tuck her into bed.

But my cries landed on deaf ears, no one seemed to hear. Quickly they dragged me from the kitchen and explained to me their fears.

Nothing registered and nothing seemed right, and all I did was fight and fight. But my tears they were in vain, for I did not have the courage to go against their grain.

It’s decades later that I’ve remembered, her short little frame, fat and round she used to be, and I’d call out her name –  Shevanti, Shevanti. Sweet fragrant flower it means, but oh the stench that reeks just now of how we treated her then!

Left to die with dogs and fleas, I know not when she met her end. All I pray is that I never become the meanest coward as my family beheld.

Her name was Shevanti and yes, she was my servant. She slaved and loved and cooked and cared in a world forgone, I hope I meet her someday in my hell.

Forgiveness I ask, and even that’s too much to expect, but the kindness that she was, maybe she’ll shower me with heaven’s spell.

This series of blogs has been reviewed by Drishya Warrier, Aditi Iyer, and Pratishtha Bagai, of Symbiosis Centre of media and Mass Communication, Pune. We are students that have completed our first year. Through this NGO Internship Project at MHAT, we explored the field of mental health while pursuing our interest in creative writing.

I’m feeling fat. Bloated. My fingers are twice their size with water retention and my face too. I look terribly ‘healthy’, to quote a compliment often received from a well-meaning Indian aunt. I could curl up and hide under the dinner table forever. That way I’ll never have to eat. Ahh, wish losing weight was as simple – the cover your face and no one will see you trick.

There is a value though in this God-awful feeling when you can’t seem to put on anything other than a tent and the jeans stay well below the stack relegated to the day when I feel slim again.

I think I’m blessed with a good thermostat, for there’s only that much my mind allows my body to expand before it starts throwing tantrums and refuses to calm down until its message is heard – stop stuffing your face! It isn’t going to make you feel better. Just worse. And a lot worse if it’s a midnight binge. Wait you see until the morning after.

So, to be clear. I’m not fat. I’ve probably put on a pound or two. That too more from a lack of sleep than from indulgence in food.

But what I am is obsessed with my size. I simply cannot bear the thought of a few extra pounds neatly wrapped around my butt. Whew! Makes me dizzy just thinking about it. And to compound my woes I inherited my mother’s curvaceous perfectly round pug behind. Yes, tell me about it?!

What I also suffer from is a distorted sense of bodily image. Sounds pretty cool but trust me it isn’t.

Today is my father’s nineteenth death anniversary. It’s a strange thing for me find myself grumbling on about the size of my toes on a morning I should probably be lighting incense sticks in front of his photo or maintaining a moment of silent prayer. I guess I will get around to that too. Most likely buy a garland of marigold flowers and place it at my altar of statues of multiple Indian Gods. I’m only after realizing that the only image I have of my dad in this Goa home is on my phone. Hmm. So it is.

The thing I recall most about him was his physical beauty. Chilled features, fine almost translucent skin, long limbs and slim as a reed.

I envied his lithe frame all through my childhood. I was jealous of his disciplined eating habits. He was pedantic about what he ate and always wanted his meals prepared just so, but he ate so little that it didn’t really matter if he was slopping on pure Ghee onto every morsel.

Of course, my father never knew how I secretly wished I could be more like him and less like my mother who loved to raid the fridge and unearthly hours of the night. Or day. Cold food was her thing.

Equally she loved to feed me at any opportunity life presented. “Ohh you hurt yourself, poor thing. Open your mouth – gob smack and off to the races.”  “Ohhh you’re first in class in mathematics – shove down a piece of cake.” And so, the story goes.

I discovered the bulimic trick only in my late twenties. A friend’s comment pierced right to my heart – “You’re too fat to flaunt the free-spirited gypsy look”. There were many things faulty with the logic, but I couldn’t see it then. All I heard was ‘I am fat’.

And so today some thirty years later, amongst the things that matter to me most is how I look. To myself. I’m not so concerned with other people’s opinions. You could say I’m self obsessed. Choiceless.

I wish things were different. But they aren’t. I’m sure we all wish we could pick the best of our parents and leave the rest out to dry. But we can’t. I shall not end with saying we can choose what we’d like to imbibe but that’s not what I believe. I am the way I am. Warts and all.

This series of blogs has been reviewed by Drishya Warrier, Aditi Iyer, and Pratishtha Bagai, of Symbiosis Centre of media and Mass Communication, Pune. We are students that have completed our first year. Through this NGO Internship Project at MHAT, we explored the field of mental health while pursuing our interest in creative writing.

Questions. Questions arise in the mind. Often my reaction is to reach out, to speak to a like-minded friend. To discuss, to brainstorm, as one would say.

But some questions have no conclusive answer. They do not appear to be enquiring into facts, and yet they seem to be more significant than all facts put together. The ‘One Fact’ underpinning every other, the single insight knowing which would squelch every other question. A perfect paradox, questions to which there are no answers, and yet an instinctive certainty hinting that unto this unfathomable conundrum is the secret wherein mystery seamlessly unravels.

At the ripe age of fifty-five, I’ve done more than my share of seeking. Searching. Spiritual, philosophical, psychological. I’ve questioned why I never felt content enough, why the wrong things seemed to happen to me, why I wasn’t happy when I should have been, why I continued making erroneous choices. Mistakes. And so on.

Until I reached a turning point. I now questioned the how. How could I get what I wanted? How could I know what I wanted? How could I know what was right for me to want?

And so the wheels kept turning. Wrong and right. Why? Then, how?

When I was a young girl, I thought that I’d have it all figured out by the mature age of thirty. My complicated life would be neatly compartmentalized. I’d have left behind my messy past, moved beyond assigning blame upon my parents for the emotional complexities that regularly made me my own worst enemy, and wrapped up the goals of family, fame, and fortune with my ingenuous skillset. Actually, fortune was never really my thing, but family and fame haunted me.

By the time I was thirty-five, I had successfully failed at family. Two divorces, two children, and a single parent later, my adventures had gained me more the title of being infamous. Perhaps even notorious. I’d turned my world inside out, upside down, over and under, hurt upon hurt and pain upon pain. I’d turned into a tortured soul.

Like a person insane, I hunted for my square inch of solace. But peace eluded me. The wounds and cuts just got deeper. Infected, they bled. Awake or asleep, I scratched and gnawed until the scars became raw and jagged. Often I wished that, like a gangrened limb, I could saw away from my poisoned heart: then only could I be empty, free of anguish.

And so on. Wandering along, I faced the bottomless abyss. I don’t know if it was my journeying or whether the destination came towards me, but there I was encountering none other than the Great Doubt. Teachers without and the Guru within held me still. It was the first time in decades that I stopped running. Running away, running to, running from. In that space of steadiness, I found my feet. Stumbling, falling, standing. In that standing, the questions slowly faded. The answers came, but they were wordless. Every time I tried to articulate my understanding, it seemed like a feeble attempt to name the nameless.

And so on, I continued. Years rolled by. The why and how of bigger questions were erased; other smaller ones raised their heads. How to be a good parent? How to be an unfailing partner? How to be an ever-dependable friend?

As my hair grayed and skin wrinkled, new roles ceaselessly came upon me. From being a mother, I became a mother-in-law. From being a friend, I became a mentor. And from being a daughter, I found that this role too had been reversed. I was now the caretaker of my eighty-six-year-old mother.

The learning never stops, does it? You never really know what the right thing to do is. Often doing the wrong reveals the right. Being flawed reveals the good. The role of a student, unbeknownst to me, seems to be the one constant.

There I’d been a forty-something, thinking that the uphill task of study and knowledge, experience and experimenting, questioning the big things of Being had all distilled into a comforting glass of clear, lukewarm water – pure, satiating, complete. But little had I realized that these smaller questions of life are the true challenges of existence here on earth. God, Consciousness, Nirvana, Paradise; it was all here and now.

How do I tell my child that I think she might do well to slow down? How do I tell my friend that I can no longer lend her any money? How do I tell myself that I must let go of my unhelpful attachments? These, and a million other ordinary – at times, mundane, simple, ‘small’ – questions of life are the ones that no spiritual, philosophical, or psychological teaching answers conclusively. We must each learn our own way. Find our own answers. Grow into new roles. Leave behind others long outgrown. And continue to be human, vulnerable and willing, and wanting to learn. To observe, to listen, to try, and to fail. And, sometimes, to succeed.

Questions. Questions arise in the mind. Often I reach out. Often I reach within. Big, small, right, wrong, why, how. And so on.

This series of blogs has been reviewed by Drishya Warrier, Aditi Iyer, and Pratishtha Bagai, of Symbiosis Centre of media and Mass Communication, Pune. We are students that have completed our first year. Through this NGO Internship Project at MHAT, we explored the field of mental health while pursuing our interest in creative writing.