Swan song...

With a final tremble

the heart settles.

The lonely rhythm

echoes in wanton amble.

Deciduous hope-drops-

shrugged off;

roll away;

and vaporize

in unfathomable mists

Splintered rainbow dust

catches unshed tears.

A hand creeps to the bosom

Begging answers...

...What's wrong?

Misread Laws of Karma all along?

Lived illusions

of lives bygone?

Do souls' symphonies

die birth after birth;

or live as nebulous memories;

kindling to life;

most unexpectedly?

Most unwelcomely.

Most mercilessly.

Trapped soul and
 an emotional maze;

This life's song,

yester-life's melodies

ring somewhere.

Somewhere...

where

only I can listen.

None else can.

The heart must echo

in lonely rhythm.

Soul song

Music (Zentangle art)

Silence sighs

a million words.

Curdled in wait,

they unsaid die.

Cursed to quiet,

life trudges by.

Yesterlife chords

strum a melody;

Yet, unsung words

must hush their rhapsody.

Much unsaid,

hours fled.

A lifetime of silence

In ego bred.

Yet silence speaks

from souls undead!!!

Hold me...

Hold me. Lest

I stray into lonely oblivion

not wanting anyone but you.

Hold me. So tempests

rage quietly, as passions

lull and rise anew.

Hold me, sans adornment.

Hold me, sans attire.

Hold me for my elements.

Hold me, hold me true;

Hold me for my love of you…!

Maya...

What do I love?

You?

Or being in love?

Or being in love with you?

What do I have?

The world?

Or naught?

Or a world in confusion fraught?

Who am I?

The someone?

Or someone

that simply went by?

Do things pass?

Or fester.

To stay,

and die, without an answer?

What do I love?

Love?

Or Life?

Or the life in love?

Altered worlds....

Choppy seas...choppy worlds (Oil on canvas)

Somethings change.

Not unto themselves.

But

from our eyes, get out of range.

Stun a surprise; stay estranged...

Somethings cease to matter.

Not to themselves.

But

in my cosm no longer green;

in my bosom, they halt to mean.

Somethings cease.

Not matter.

The kindle dies

the magic flies

Somethings

were doomed to shatter,

no matter.

In solitude....

Lone

dandelion.

Shorn

of petals,

blown

of ties.

Bared

soul

scorched

dry.

Sinewy.

colour bled,

sparkle fled.

Lone

dandelion

in lone

marathon.

You did not die.....

This was a poem I wrote as a reply to a famous poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye and which is recited at memorial services. I have posted the original poem after mine.

Amaryllis (Chinese brush painting)

YOU DID NOT DIE....

I do not haunt your grave to weep

for salty tears are only eyes-deep.

The fragrances of your eternal breeze,

waft along, soaking fathomless peace.

The teasing rays of your endless sun

kindle darkest corners of an unhappy bosom.

The starlit night, the buds on boughs

flower memories of your undying vows…

Promises lost to oblivion,

orphaned, without an union..

Every single breath, every single beat

when not for you, is one onerous feat!

What awakening at dawn?

For I have never slept night or morn!

Not a single recall remains unwept,

not a lonely second passes unkept...

Yet, I won’t stand by your grave and cry;

For in my memories you can never die!!

And the original:

Do not stand at my grave and weep 

Do not stand at my grave and weep 
I am not there. I do not sleep. 
I am a thousand winds that blow. 
I am the diamond glints on snow. 
I am the sunlight on ripened grain. 
I am the gentle autumn rain. 
When you awaken in the morning's hush 
I am the swift uplifting rush 
Of quiet birds in circled flight. 
I am the soft stars that shine at night. 
Do not stand at my grave and cry; 
I am not there. I did not die. 

-  Mary Elizabeth Frye.

Sandstorm in Dubai

Since the last three days Dubai has experienced sandstorms.

Staying indoors till the late afternoon yesterday, I had no idea what Nature was concocting outside. Only when at five in the evening, when I stepped out for a short stint of household shopping to the nearby supermarket, did I realize what havoc a sand storm can create.

The light was an eerie white and the intense wind, albeit subdued, because of the highrises on either side of the road, concocted insane swirls of breeze. Inside my mind I could only imagine the banshee whistle that such a wind would have made in, in open spaces. Waves of white sand swept across roads in brazen jaywalk. The churned up warm air created a palpable stifling pressure...and I couldn’t help thinking about a porous self raising yeast flour-all warm on the inside and bloated on the out! From their parked cars to the insides of their homes, people rushed along, hairs and dresses flying, tugging and hurrying curious children or lugging shopping-laden plastic covers. Even the vehicles, some with early headlights on, had a sense of urgency about them.

Brewing is the perfect word for a storm in making. And that the word carries with it a threat of serving a surprise shortly is excitement enough! The city was covered by a blanket of haze. Gone were the skyscrapers! Even the Burj Khalifa, that is visible from outside my flats, was nowhere in the horizon! A hint of sun peered from in-between dense white-grey clouds. A fine layer of white dust has gleefully settled over the tops and bonnets of the spanking cars.

And by eight, the first smatter of raindrops lashed on the Earth much to the delight of the residents who stood at their balconies cheering and whistling at the rain and the clap of thunder and dazzle of lightning. The clothes lines went into a tizzy and dresses trapped fine sand into the pockets and folds. We dragged in the clothes stand and before long had fine dust all over inside too! I wondered how much of this fine silt settled in the overhead water tanks…no wonder people of Dubai, without exception, always drink bottled water and not the one provided by the municipality which ensures with all earnestness that water is potable.

Storms have a hangover, apart from the devastation that they leave. This morning was no different. Were it a holiday, the people would have snuggled in bed and kept indoors too. But they all seemed to have dragged themselves reluctantly out only to be welcomed by a smog clothed eerie white dawn. Routines never get disturbed here sandstorm or heavy sandstorm!

The raindrops had pockmarked the dust layer on car tops and had run down in ugly streams that had now dried up. Will take one hell of a time to clean the cars, all the while ensuring to minimize the inevitable thin scratches during the process, I thought as silt on the portico floor made walking slippery. Would women wear stilettos even today, I was curious and kept a lookout today. Yes, they did. Fashion too never underplays here, sandstorm or heavy sandstorm!

The hourly weather forecast on my phone read dreary throughout the day and it only matched my mood of the past few days. As if physical isolation from homeland wasn’t enough, the geographical eccentricities only heighten that isolation.”What would the weather be like in Bangalore ?” I wondered and looked up world weather. Only to find that today, Bangalore was hotter than Dubai!!Dubai’s maximum and minimum is 26/21 versus Bangalore’s 36/23 degrees! Torn between loyalties, I give a mental shrug!

In the afternoon, as I was being driven back on the Sheik Zayed road, where the minimum mandatory speed is 100 kmph, I purposefully looked for any tell-tale signs of yesterday’s storm. None. There were no sand heaps anywhere on the edges of the road, no fallen shrubby trees or hoarders…which again left me wondering-“When do these people do all the maintenance work? The roads are pothole-less, spanking clean even after a sand storm!”

And suddenly it catches my eye. As we pass beneath a giant electronic hoarder sign board, it says: “Reduce speed. Drive carefully. Look out for ponds of water.” I realize it is not just geography that needs orientation, my English needs to acclamatize too!!

Candy floss and middle age...

Age is not even a number for me. It is something that I count and re-count to ensure accuracy, while filling up the ‘age’ column in a form…and then forget till the next form! In between forms, I neither feel younger nor older with every passing event or day of my life! I could never associate age with ‘correctness of responses’ or ‘expected behaviors’. How can there be a blanket expectations from such a finite thing as a life span?

I haven’t felt age, for I have never acknowledged the supposed flip-flops of each time-span of life. The first and the only time I was conscious of aging was when I turned eight and my neighbors said I was now a big girl and was expected to behave so! As an adolescent I concurred with all the beliefs and behavior-patterns my parents suggested and hence there never was a generation gap. It must be that my thoughts simply concurred with the elders!

Or maybe I was a generation behind then and that would make me twice as old today than my actual age. But then this isn’t true too. Because at the other end, I am admonished as “teenager’ by my people at home for certain of my indulgences and enthusiasm over apparently mundane and ‘juvenile’ things! Must age limit not just expressions but also likes and dislikes? I love candy floss and cheeni parantha; dislike outings and am ambivalent about movies. I was so since adolescence. Why should I expect all that to change with growing years?

So then, how old am I really? And what does age and ageing mean?

I count age by experiences and events, numeric definitions be damned. There were or are as many bright teenagers as were idiotic ‘adults’. Growing old in numbers is very basic. I count myself as student-experience old or wife-experience old or doctor-experience old. How does it matter at what numeric age I go through these phases… that I went through them matters and that I added some understanding of life through that experience is what counts as ageing to me. Most phases like motherhood, professional life, relationships are not finite and I merely ‘age’ through them adding on more understanding. There could never be a numeric age for some other abstracts like love, passion, greed, sadness, hurt and such too…They are undying too persisting, evolving or abating through a life time…I could never get ‘old’ at these.

Just as travelling in Space fetches us to a distant place than the initial one, so also travelling through Time gets us to older stages than from where we began. It is an acknowledgement of the inevitability of Time passage and also an appreciation that the eventful journey between the time points is what life is all about…The in between stops can never dictate to me how and how not the responses to Life must be! I could be sagely conservative like my parents about dress codes or marriages and then, be outrageously liberal about religion and human relationships…both at the same ‘age’ and probably both unacceptable as not befitting my age!

As a seven year old, I often stood before the mirror for long minutes, asking of the stranger there -“Who am I?” That ‘I’ is what I have always been, irrespective of the physical and social changes along my time span. That I still stares at me and asks of me the same question-‘Who am I?”Only now I don’t need a mirror and now there are many more such haunting interrogative pronouns to the I question. ”Why am I?” “What am I?” “When (how long) am I?”

I may never find answers to any of them in this Life time-for what are a few decades along a Time span of billions of Earth years? Yet along this finite journey I have discovered ways to travel with less and less baggage. It is easy on the psyche and emotions-two truant mis-guiders along the unknown paths.

At this year-station, I am beginning a new lesson/ “Living with emotions.” I will not disown any of my emotions or feel sorry or even responsible. If nothing lasts forever, emotions can’t be exceptions. Or could be! Some may fizzle out, some get stronger and some may follow me to my grave. But they won’t make me. Harmonious symbiosis is the nearest they can come without each of us ruining the other! That is the gift I gave myself this birthday!

My second sweetheart

(Vase's eight...oil pastels on paper)

The entry of another male into my life, that too within a year of our arranged marriage was absolutely unintentional. Actually-accidental, albeit coercive, if I were to be brutally honest. That my husband and I were residing in different cities, he making a weekend visit once a fortnight, probably fueled our passions and fanned the situation, catalyzing the inevitable. I must confess that initially I was very apprehensive about the trio-tango. I was earnestly concentrating on my post-graduate board exams due to come up in the next few months and as a new bride too; I could ill afford the attention and commitment that this new, evolving relationship was already demanding.

There were weekends when my husband could not make it due to his professional obligations and that left me lonelier than I already was. It forced me to look for solace in this new relationship. The recent association was threatening to eclipse my higher education also, by clamoring for more time and greater attention. I finally made a compromise by promising myself that profession-studies and my personal life would remain exclusive of each other and that my teachers and peers at the hospital would certainly not be privy to this personal information. I however knew that the matter would be out in future but now I preferred to live my life one day at a time, or rather a fortnight at a time!

However, with two flames kindling it, my life was ablaze with tremulous excitement! And certainly off handle!...... I felt sinful and guilty as I could not ignore the second fellow and felt more and more drawn towards him. I chose to ignore the fact that the longing for my husband had imperceptibly faded off just like the henna on my hands. My resolve to concentrate and study seemed to be gradually slipping away too, donating its time to hours of contemplation and scheming, enjoying and hoping to consolidate the growing second relationship. Disaster struck on the first of January 1994, hardly eight months post-marriage. My husband was with me for the weekend when my new sweetheart chose to make his presence felt.

It happened at bedtime, after we had a hearty dinner and were about to retire. The pain was terrible and it scared the hell out of me. Was it signifying the end of a blossoming relationship? I began to cry even as I was rushed to the hospital. I was diagnosed as having pre-term labor, slightly elevated blood pressures and the outcome of the event was guarded. There was nothing more left for me to do except wait. I was under absolute bed rest, medications, laboratory tests, and to make matters worse, my national board exams were due in less than six weeks.

I finally managed to attend my National Board Exams at St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore on the 7th and 8th of February 1994. (First Monday and Tuesday of February, as it is always conventionally held). Eight and half months pregnant, on medications to prevent miscarriage and save the baby, face swollen beyond recognition (a few of my male class mates who were also taking exams had to be told who I was before they recognized me!), only my determination to write my exams and then deliver, kept me going, much to the dissatisfaction and frustration of my obstetrician. I was determined to deliver twins-pass exams and pass out through labor room, in that order, in flying colors and with a cuddly rainbow respectively!

Even as I wrote the punishingly tough exams, I had to keep a tab on the number of fetal movements and any untoward symptom that could crop up. My husband would wait anxiously outside the exam hall with a huge lunch carrier for the break and a car ready to whisk me off to the hospital if necessary! Two days of four papers, three hours each! At the end of the three hours, I would come out of the hall, slippers in hand, as the feet would be so swollen, refusing to slip back into the slippers! Finally...one target had been achieved and the second and most important was yet to be delivered. I handed over myself to my belligerent obstetrician who finally heaved a sigh of relief. A battery of blood tests, scan, NST followed. I was admitted on Saturday, the 12th February and underwent Cesarean Section on the Valentine’s Day-14th February 1994.

So, there you have it. My most memorable Valentine’s Day. When in the true meaning of the word, love’s labor had fructified despite or rather amidst all odds and adversities. I had the most adorable male baby mewing and plucking in my arms-my second sweetheart who was gifted to me by my first one, on our first Valentine’s Day, post-wedding! The most cherished Valentine Day gift any girl can hope to get from a soul mate.

Thus will my most memorable Valentine’s Day be remembered by everyone in the household for at least three generations, as my son celebrates his birthday on that day! (I can envisage the bevy of girls who will wish him on his birthday with actually the Valentine’s significance in their minds. Lucky girls, lucky son!)

If you are wondering whether the date for the delivery was intentionally chosen to be the Valentine’s Day, the answer is a resounding NO! Back in the early 90’s, 14th February was not as pompously celebrated as it is today. Not many knew the significance or the story behind this western custom. The decision was made by my obstetrician, who was anxious to curtail any further complications. For my husband and me, it was THE day when our son was born- overcoming all the horrible travails I had to undergo during pregnancy. Thus we bonded ourselves into a cozy Valentine family! Unwittingly, we had redefined the meaning of Valentine’s Day, promoting it from a routine duet to a delightful anthem of enchantment and celebration for the rest of our lives! 

Dubai Diary 1-First foot forward

Dubai is an overwhelming city. Doubly so, if you have to start work from the first day of setting foot on foreign soil. 

As per employer arrangement, I was entitled to board and lodge at their decent hotel till I found a suitable accommodation for myself. Three weeks after hotel stay, I had not seen any of Dubai as work and rest consumed my days. Little surprise that I liked the idea, when a friend suggested I move into a fully furnished apartment before renting a larger house which needed to be furnished. I put my preference to the HR guys and put them on job. I liked the first fully furnished apartment that was shown to me!

It was rather large to qualify as a studio apartment but that was what they called it. Flat 112 on the first floor of a very decent building; in the popular and well connected Bur Juman area…I agreed to take it though they told me it was tagged high even by Dubai standards. The owner is a stubby, extremely fair skinned Pakistani with yellow teeth and seemed like a rich brat to me. He was relentless at reducing the price though I later discovered that he had charged me a cool 500 dirhams more than the previous occupant who was another young chap-a commerce-business graduate from Jaipur who was in Dubai for a training and was hoping to set up business here too shortly!

“No…”he had said shaking his mop of jet black hair and squinting through thick glasses, “There is TV, wifi, A/C…” I need to cover the maintenance expenses as well,” he said. I stared at him wondering how he planned to use this pocket money that he would be receiving as rent.

“Someone told me subletting was illegal?”

“Yeah. But I will put down the tenants as my guests…Did you find any problem? “He asked of the commerce tenant who shook his head, shuffled his feet and stole a glance at his wrist watch for he had to meet someone if we finished looking up the place quickly.”Two months before there was a girl from Cathay Pacific and she shifted to Abu Dhabi…No problem Doctor…all Indian families around…No one will question,” and looking at my still skeptic face, he added, “I have seventeen apartments all over Dubai and am into this business and I can assure you!” My doubt was cleared. He was a rich brat indeed! He mistook my look of realization for relief and added,”But I need to be paid early… I won’t take off the ad off till I am paid!”

Money exchanged hands the next afternoon in the parking lot before the building. He came to my vehicle where I was sitting and grinned,”I am getting married next month…will drop in for a chat and chai!”

“Oh! Get her too?!”

“Yeah.We are going to France and Versailles for honey moon. Bye,” he was gone. The apartment was mine 2 days later and I moved in-obviously the right foot in first at half past two on the Sunday afternoon, ensuring it was well clear of the Rahukala! Richie Rich had ensured that a man came in to clean the apartment which appeared hardly used, especially and obviously the kitchen, given the antecedents of its previous occupant. 

“What’s the wifi password?” was obviously the first ever communication (as a mobile SMS) that went out of my room within minutes of entering! The young landlord replied promptly. Net in, I attacked the TV next. Etisalat desk top box was most unkind to me. One hour after wrestling with remote, confusing it with various combinations, I managed to keep the frame hung for the next 24 hours!!

So…a quiet room. But not for long. I had a load of clothes that need to be washed and I thrust them into the welcoming washing machine. And oh!! I had never heard a washing machine before, only seen its aftermath clothes! This one whined and whirred like a supersonic jet…Uff so much fanfare for so little work, I thought though inwardly thankful for some noise in a TV-less room! No outside sounds filter in to its closed confines…

True that adversity breeds invention. I began to identify all the other noises that now seem a part of urban life in Dubai. The air conditioners…ever so soft but with a mechanical shudder every once a while…so also the fridge – a soft whirr that gradually grows into a roar and it is only then it becomes apparent…and as you begin to think how you missed such a loud sound, it climaxes and goes silent! (Noticed this fridge sound phenomenon first in Bangalore, though)Then there is that exhaust fan in the bathroom that needs to be kept on. That provides a background constancy to all these other waxing and waning sounds. The microwave is the only one which has a musical lilt to its voice and I have begun to identify it as the only female gadget in here! It gives a loud lilting tling-ling when it is done! And of course the good old tick-tock of the clock keeps company too. 

The TV ‘s frame was still frozen when I came back on Sunday night and so the next morning, I resorted to playing music on the laptop as I grew tired of the mechanical symphony of my surroundings. And then when the laptop ran out of charge, I discovered that the plug points here cannot take the round Indian plugs! They needed squares plugs and that meant an adapter and another afternoon of soundlessness! My laptop went blank with a shrug of helplessness! What an emergency that was to an existence dependant on rechargeable gadgets!

So in all desperation, as I was now aware that work was the only place where I could recharge my laptop and phone, I bought the costliest adapter that evening. And burnt it on plugging it, the loud sound and the aftermath soot scarring me…but egging me on to further foolishness as I believed the fault to be with the plug point and not the plug! I attempted to plug at another point. This time. I kept the main door open, just to ensure someone rushed for help if I got electrocuted in the process.

Another bang and soot stain later, I was stranded! Whom could I call at 11 in the night? Could they be so callous here? (I later realized that the plug was defective or maybe I hadn’t pushed it in sufficiently) They expected Beans like me and had made the place secure with exclusive lighting, heating and all else. The multiple controls and the ELCB panel were at reach and adversity mothering innovation; I flipped the switch at controls! The power was restored and the next blessed moment, after I flipped the switch, the TV came alive in all its glory!!

The adapter was exchanged for a new one the next day. That meant all gadgets would be kicking and booting healthy…audio-video-net behaving well…and I have plenty of time to debate and think to swat or not to swat a lonely fat fly!

That then ensures now that my home is where it was meant to be. In my heart!!