Sunday, June 17, 2012

Death

Death comes knocking
Odd hours, odd places
For some it arrives before birth
While for some its long lonesome paralytic wait
Unpredictable
Death comes knocking at odd Time

It hits young and old
even while crossing road
Its even an internal malignant growth

For dictators and leaders
Its powerful weapon of war
But for plenty its a humble means of livelihood

Sometimes Death wears fierce mask and shakes Earth
Buries, drowns people, animals in sleep
Sometimes it even makes a smart move
It forces mad self to plunge dagger into self

Death, death, death
Stalks Life
Spares no one
Erases all
But leaves us with metaphors for poetry, epitaph
Unavoidable, unpredictable and inevitable death

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Aai - My Mother


It’s been a month, but still my mind is unable to register her tragic death.  I can’t make sense of the sudden fire accident which took her away from me. She had been making early morning tea for decades, how could she err on that fatal morning? Was she becoming forgetful? Questions like these hound me -questions without answers. 

Like her death, I can’t make sense of her life too. There are such extreme dichotomies that it seems surreal. Some people’s life peak at youth or middle age or much later – hers had peaked when she was hardly in her early youth. Thanks to her liberal father, who owned a photo-studio and travel agency she had wide exposure even in a small dusty town like Bijapur. They had an in-house bakery and a museum collection (which was all lost, that is another story for another day). Their household had entertained everyone from foreigners, travellers to political leaders of India’s freedom movement. My grandfather had walked with Mahatma Gandhi during the famed satyagraha movements and there are photographs of all great political stalwarts which bear testimony to this fact. He had even been to Noakhali which is now in Bangladesh. When I try to think of her childhood, I can only imagine a lively household, buzzing with activity and people. She had studied only till school finals but she had gone on to participate in cycle rallies, lawn tennis and other sports activities to represent her town and district at different levels even after that. She was accomplished classical singer who had given solo performance at Mysore Darbar and sung freedom songs at political rallies. She even had Nehru patting her back after one such performance. She was such a free outgoing free bird who was pushed by marriage into a diametrically opposite household. My father came from an orthodox Brahmin family. I think that’s when her decline began. Maybe Mysore performance was her peak, so it had to go downhill from there.

It must have been difficult for her to fit into my father's small mud house full of restrictions and regulations. The house even lacked a toilet. She often talked about humiliation of walking down to common toilet with curious eyes peeping to see the new bride. But she lived through it all and she made her marriage work in spite of restrictions which included a ban on her solo singing performances in public. I really don’t know what made her stick to such a marriage. Maybe she had no choice because soon after her marriage she gave birth to two children in a row. Then I came along unexpectedly years later. Children are a kind of magic glue which make even odd marriages work.

I always saw her as a strict, bitter but fun loving and spirited woman. She had refused to tag along with my father to different cities he was transferred to. She opted to live alone with three children in a suburb near Bombay which had pretty decent English medium school nearby. She was a pretty autocratic mother. She had imposed a ban on playing music in the house, which I guess was a reaction to the ban that was imposed on her.  She was very strict about our studies, so much so that we had nicknamed her as “Hitler”. She believed in the power of formal education, she took private tuitions of my school-mates to add to the family income. She ensured we had freedom and fun once we were done with our studies. We went out often during father’s monthly visits and even otherwise. The fun outings included movie and eating out together. After years of doing this, a kind of fatigue had come over her. She would prefer staying back than commuting by crowded local train and trudging all over downtown Bombay (we couldn’t afford a taxi ride) with three children in tow. But then she didn’t have a choice in that matter too, so she did come along grudgingly.

Later, she gave complete freedom to all three of us during our college days. She would get worried but I remember her waiting at the door for my sister when she would return late from her college. Later, she waited for my brother and then for me. We all enjoyed our extra-curricular involvements and came back with stories for her. My new friends would soon become her friends too. She enjoyed company of people. She was a proud to be an atheist. I remember once being stranded during monsoon at a friend’s house for three days. There was no telephone then, I had panicked and wondered if my parents would report to cops or whether she will pray to God. But when I returned after three days she told me she had faith in me and she knew I would be safe somewhere and would return once water levels had receded. She had not panicked.

There are innumerable memories of her and her spirited ways. I can go on. It is not surprising she opted to live alone at the age of 70. It was like going back to her old ways of running a household on her terms but there was a huge difference, she was 70, scoliosis had bent her back which made her almost immobile and it was an empty nest. Yet, she preferred being by herself to living with her children and grandchildren and adjusting to their modern busy life style. I remember her call after India won Cricket World Cup. She had told me excitedly that she had danced alone in her flat and watched fireworks lit up the sky. Her tragic end did not do justice to her long difficult life. She deserved better. She had dreams and wishes, which will forever remain unfilled…