The Bend On The Road Home

My trip to Shillong, was happening after five years. I was finally going to breathe the fresh mountain air that had given me life and sustained my childhood again. I was also going to see some of my college friends, after a long time. However, the fact that excited me the most, is that, it would be my daughter’s maiden trip to that beautiful land.

The plan was to meet my friends in the picturesque higher altitudes of the hill town known as Upper Shillong, but I was going to try my best to squeeze in a few moments in downtown Shillong and make a round of Ward’s lake, although with the standstill traffic into Shillong, I had to abandon the latter.

We started in the morning, along the singular road from Guwahati to Shillong, crossing the familiar landmarks, some of which stood there forever and some that were newer, but had made their mark. We crossed the Sai Baba temple and the famous Ganesha temple in Jorabat.

With a prayer on my lips and coin in hand, I bowed as the driver reduced the speed, so I could fling it on the temple’s terrace. It had changed a bit since my childhood days with many extensions. I must have crossed it innumerable times, while traveling back and forth, but never had the fortune of stopping and praying inside. It is one of those simple things in life that never gets realized, just because we don’t do it, even if we can, even if we want to.  In the same manner this temple has always been a drive-through shrine for myself and many others. I distantly remember visiting it in dreams. 

In Cherrapunjee, with a local roadside vendor, 'Kong' selling fire roasted corn

Soon after the temple, comes a few deep bends in the road, winding through the edges of the mountains. It is at this point, that you really feel like you are going to Shillong. The air suddenly starts to feel crisper and fresher. When we were younger and lived there, these were the much-awaited turns, that brought respite from the Guwahati heat. They were what we waited for, to cross, to feel like ourselves again.

This time, as I crossed them, completely unexpectedly, my heart froze. I longed for my home. The home into which my parents always welcomed me back with a warm embrace, while  the Shillong floors felt cold under my feet. The home that had all the books in the world, in every direction you could look. The home that had the Kissan orange squash glass bottle, long stripped off its wrapper, filled with chilled soft Shillong water, that could be the most refreshing drink ever, in the kitchen.

It hadn’t hit me until then, that none of that existed in there anymore. I hadn’t realized how much I would miss them. Shillong and home were synonymous and now they were separated. My mom had moved out of the town, after my dad passed away in 2015 and with that the Shillong saga had ended. I wondered how she must have felt coming down the hills, the same slopes, after having spent her entire life there.

I had left Shillong when I was eighteen to pursue college education in Guwahati. But I had always felt a sense of belonging because my parents lived there and now I was stripped of that feeling. I was just a visitor. I was just visiting

When I was a little, we traveled back and forth from Shillong in government transportation run buses. Few years later, fancier private buses, with a higher fare, had started plying. The latter had more comfortable seats and played '90s Bollywood music for much of the trip. Even amidst the noise, those were some of my moments of silence and reflection as an adolescent. At that age, I was somehow deeply convinced, that I would live in those hills and valleys, we crossed along the way, when I grew up. I couldn’t think of it being any other way. I wanted to be of and in Nature. It was only more fired up by movies (and songs that played in the background) which showed the protagonists, the lovers,  running away from their families and living in the woods.

Why were we all in such a rush to leave a land we so loved? I haven’t met people from any other place who reminisce their hometown as much as Shillong’ites do. There is something about it that is blissfully nostalgic, despite the disturbed situation back then.

Even now and with great frequency, I have certain places in Shillong emerge in my memory, out of nowhere at the most unthinkable times of the day. At such times, I am living and breathing in it for that moment.

Why do we get separated from what we love and then long for them for the rest of our lives? Maybe, it's all an illusion, after all!

Bakwaas (Utter Nonsense)

A bee sat on my chest

Bee as no one could be

Charting in a row

Darting like an arrow from Cupid’s bow 

Emerging like a rainbow

Fun in full flight

Godly was its sight

Heavens seemed to be calling 

Iridescent was its twinkling 

Jealousy was its plight

Kissing every vacuum 

Loving every wound

Meditating on its target 

Never turning around 

Opened up the souls gate

Pain was sometimes mighty

Queerness in sobriety 

Rage raveling in the almighty 

Such was its beauty 

Time was bound by sobriety 

Under the spell of the tide

Vanity brushed aside

Wandering in the night 

X-mas lights in sight

Yours truly bee was to keep 

Zindagi slept complete 

Bakwaas written on a sleeplesly sleepy morning before going back to bed using a Writers’ Digest prompt to write a poem of 26 lines with each line starting with consecutive letters of the alphabet 

The Young Man And The Mama Crab !!

Mahika and I were spending our last evening in Montego Bay on the pier, taking in the breeze, singing together and watching a little baby crab, sitting on a tiny water puddle, on the rock below. As we looked at it, it kept batting its eyelids open and shut. “What a cute existence”, I thought.

The two other people on the pier had left and we sang to ourselves in joyful abandon,our voices cresting and falling through the roar of the tidal waves. In that environment, I was semiconscious of  a young man who had stepped on the pier and was prostrated, trying to catch something from the waters below. 

At one point Mahika asked, first to me and then to the man himself, about what he was doing. To which he replied that, he was trying to catch some crabs.He had a short length of line with some bait at the end and a small plastic bucket with a lid, to store the crabs in.

He said that they kept taking his bait, but fell back into the waters, as he tried to get them on the pier. Mahika in her innocence, was prompt to tell him that, there was a crab sitting on the rock. The one that we were watching, a little while ago and he rushed to the spot and exclaimed “Oh, that’s a baby” .

However, by then a bigger crab had also climbed on the rock and he said “ Let me get the Mama” . I was mortified that we would be the cause of its death , yet I couldn’t interfere with the young man’s business. The man was successful in getting the crab on to the pier and was trying to get him closer to his bucket.

My insides were thumping, both with a prayer for and a plea to the crab to run for its life, to not get trapped, not then, to not die. It was only a matter of seconds, but felt much longer. The crab went down the side of the pier and the man held his bucket underneath and my heart sank.

When he raised the bucket, he sighed, “It escaped! I had got it up here on the pier you know” . I said “Yeah, I saw” like I was sorry for his miss while my insides were rejoicing. 

As Mahika and I walked back from the pier soon after, I told her how glad I was that the crab escaped followed by answering several of her “Why’s “ while she tried to understand the ways of the world and life and death. 

The next morning before leaving for the airport, I visited the pier again and saw the crabs darting on the rocks, looking for food and eating what was probably tiny fragments of sea weeds. So I picked a generous helping from the beach where they were plenty and strew them across the rocks. Soon enough a couple of them made way to the weeds and tore them with their claws and ate them. What a bright and sunny day it was!!

The Old Man (Autumn) & The Sea!!

On the beaches of Montego Bay in Jamaica, I have forgotten that it’s December. While I read Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, which is about his early days in Paris, following World War I, the balmy tropical weather, the pitter patter of the waves and the aqua sea, take the mind to a sleepy lull, where nothing else exists,but calmness.

The autumn that I so loved, just a few days back, exists only in traces, in the pumpkin flavored delicacies, that my Caribbean hosts are trying to infuse into their spread, to entertain their American guests. In sharp contrast to their endeavors, I believe nobody visiting from that part, wants to be reminded, that they have to return to winter and harsh weather. Everything else is tropical, from mangoes to star fruit to custard apples to jerk everything.

Why does my heart, that beats with every leaf of autumn, coloring up with them,swirling through the winds with them, not miss it? I wonder?

To people who know me professionally, I am a numbers and percentages, facts and figures kind of girl. But lo behold, my home is filled with books,  that are filled with dry leaves, from every autumn, since I stepped into the beautiful continent. Pull one out and you will have an entire fall of your own. Spring and Summer are great, but it is Autumn that steals your heart. Everyone’s heart, unless one is heartless, I guess. Every fall, as the many colors throb through the veins of the leaves, my heart throbs into variegated colors with them. And it breaks with them, every time each one severes itself from its source of sustenance, the tree. How did the creator make something so beautiful?How could he break it? But only to revive again? I wonder! After all,I guess I miss them!!

Moments

Lamhe nikalte nahin, 

Sadiyaan beet jaati hai,

Aakhen tak ti rehti hai,

Nazaare badal jaate hai.

Moments stand still,

The years fly,

The eyes keep staring,

While the landscape bids goodbye.

#WordsUnwritten 

Trifecta!

The majestic sound of a large dog’s bark, resounding from far, always enchanted her. But things had changed, since she brought Raako home. The enchantment was replaced by frenetic attempts to stop him from barking, as the noise reverberated deafeningly across the household. That day too, it was not too different. As she rushed to see what was going on, she found that Raako was at the back door instead of the front, which surprised her since no one usually came from there. On looking outside, she saw another dog, with its lead hanging from its collar. It was climbing up the paint-stripped wooden steps, moving towards the glass door.

Her normal reaction, in such a circumstance, is to go out and get hold of the dog if possible and check to find any information available to contact the owner. This time though, while her feet moved forward, her mind paused and she picked up her phone instead. Animals enchanted her and she had not learned to fear them, since she was a child, unless of course they were wild. She had once even got stung when she tried to befriend a wasp, after several benign experiences with honey bees. In this case though, the dog appeared to be of a breed of the Rottweiler family and from a few experiences in the dog park, when Raako was a puppy, she had developed a slight hesitation in interacting with them, as freely as she did with other dogs.

As she picked the phone and attempted to message the members of the community she lived in, she had two more visitors dashing out of the sylvan woods, behind her house, arriving right at her stone patio. At that point, she went outside. It was a father-son duo who had trailed behind the dog, through the small patch of woods, before it got too far. They told her that their furry friend bounced into the woods after a hopping rabbit and they followed suit. They introduced her to Nova, who was of course a sweetheart and made her laugh at her initial hesitation. They said that they were glad that Raako was there since that led Nova to the door instead of running away elsewhere. The trio complete with the family dog, walked back through the grass, this time avoiding the woods, their legs scratched by the bushes.

Two days back.

As she woke up from slumber and was getting ready to leave for work, one thing preoccupied her mind. It was her dad’s birthday and she wanted to wish him. Before heading out, she went and wished him a 'Happy Birthday' and as usual he smiled back at her warmly, albeit from a picture. For his last four birthdays, since he was gone forever, that was how it had been.

It was certainly a special day for her, one that was celebrated for as long as she remembered, but otherwise, a very mundane Monday morning. She drove on the Interstate, her `mind oscillating endlessly between memories and her to-do list, while simultaneously her head grooved side-to-side to the beats of her favorite radio channel as her lips hummed the parts of  the lyrics she knew.

The morning drive to her workplace took her about forty minutes and the coffee in her mug was dwindling, when the city skyline appeared. Right then, while crossing an overpass over the river that flowed by the city, her wide eyes sighted something pristine. For a few moments, a large dragon-fly, glided over the bonnet of her car, moving in the same direction as her before flying away into invisibility. The winged gladiator shimmered in the sunshine, showing its magnificent green shine and golden translucence, for those few moments. It was divine and she felt like her dad had sent her a messenger to remind her of his continued presence in her life.

The day went by and she returned home, the shimmer still brightening her eyes, while she refrained from sharing the occurrence with anyone. It was too precious to share, she thought.

The following day, another messenger came. Only this time it was more mesmerizing. This year she had vowed to make her backyard as beautiful as the Swiss chalets and so she did. She hung pots of brightly colored geraniums in the stairs leading to the backyard and filled the entire yard with petunias and marigolds, amidst the perennials that came back every year. While she watered the geraniums, hung on the rails of the staircase ,with a sprinkler, the water droplets rose above her showering the leaves and blossoms. It was then that, very blithely, a hummingbird, as green, pretty and nimble as it could be, came and flew through the water taking a quick shower. She could only let the beauty of the moment absorb into her, like the drops of water were being absorbed into the flower pots, speechlessly.

She was getting used to beautiful messengers and was looking forward to the third day as she believed in a trifecta of beautiful events. However, that day turned out to be pretty humdrum. Other than the hullabaloo of the neighbor’s dog chasing the rabbit into her backyard, nothing striking had happened. By the evening, she had actually even forgotten that she was waiting for a third messenger.

The following night, as she retired to bed and was about to fall asleep, she remembered and wondered about how the third messenger never came. In a split second, her mind lit up. Her third messenger had come, only she never realized it. The not so divine looking, yet adorable mutt that climbed up her stairs right to her was her third messenger. She wondered how she could not recognize it right away, but it made the feeling of it all the more beautiful. A Nova – a bright star had visited her.

Moments - Lamhe

Bollywood superstar Sridevi left this world last Saturday. She was only 54 and recognized as the only female superstar in the industry, acting in several blockbusters which she could carry on her own shoulders without the support of a male lead.It had millions of fans across the Indian sub-continent and the world distraught, because of the sudden and untimely nature of it.

Her death, which was initially ruled as a cardiac arrest, got even sadder with the revealing of further details, which cited accidental drowning in her bath tub as the cause. I have never been a crazy fan of any celebrity, however, a few have left their mark by their performances being a part of my life.

Sridevi's performance influenced many such moments in my life. My mother who belongs to a generation when Bollywoood wasn't as strong an influence and there were no TVs in every home, was stupefied by her performance in Sadma. She was so touched that she often talked to me about the movie, her dog in it - Hari Prasad and how Sri threw a morsel to the male lead Kamal Hasan at the end, not recognizing him and thinking he is a beggar. While he was the one who had rescued her and helped her reverse the retrograde amnesia, that she was suffering from. The movie is a connective basis for me and my mom, through which we understand and empathize with each other by experiencing the actors' performances and the sadness and hurt in it.

Her movie Chandni, was a topic of discussion among friends at school because of the romance and her style and beauty, which was something we twelve-year olds were trying to emulate in some manner, with eyes full of dreams. We also made fun of the Bollywood dance moves :-). At that time, we already considered ourselves grown up enough, although we were still kids and if nothing else, Bollywood had certainly already ignited our quest for the one true and undying love of our lives.

The one movie that made my memories of her most touching was Lamhe. I had watched it with my friend Anindita. She had arranged for a VCR and cassette for the movie ( it was probably when I was in tenth grade - 1993) . The movie based in Rajasthan, was haunting and her performance memorable.Later in college, I had danced to one of the songs from the movie (Morni) in a dance drama, while making a futile attempt to open my eyes as big as her angelic ones.

All of these memories formed a part of my childhood and early teens. With her sudden and cruel death, that part of my childhood seems to be dented. The fond memories can no longer be remembered without a heartache. It's surprising that someone or something can change the effect of past events that far back. I guess it doesn't happen often.

It seems today, the day of her cremation, eerily coincides with the date of her last big release before taking a hiatus from acting, Judaai meaning Separation.

I had been trying to translate a few lines from an old Hindi song Mann Re Tu Kaahe Na Dheer Dhare ( O' Mind, why can't you be patient?) the last week in my mind, not realizing I would be using it in such a post as this, in this manner.

Itna hi upkar samajh koi
Jitna saath nibha de,
Janam maran ka mel hai sapna
Yeh sapna bisra de,
Koi na sang mare

Accept it as a favor,
The time that someone spends with you,
Union in life and death is a dream
Dispel that dream,
Since no one dies together!

Rest in Peace, Beautiful!