Kindness of folks

Kindness is one of those virtues that seem to be 'optional'. Not embedded as deeply as, say, honesty. Or say, faithfulness. So when there is kindness in places it is not expected, the tears do flow. Like while trying to push the wheelchair on the granite floor of the Meenakshi Amman Koil in Madurai, and a devotee hither-thither nonchalantly pulling it over the ramp or across a tricky bump. There was no need for that. There was no expectation. It was just that. A random act of kindness. Or asking someone if they could enquire about a medical equipment, and they going to another store in the maddening heat just to find out if they had it and organised that it be dispatched in time for use. It's just that kindness, especially from strangers, hits different. It kind of makes the world alright again amidst war, violence, pain and grief. It kind of momentarily feels like a balm.  

If

'If' is one of those poems that have stayed with me. It comes back to me in times of pain and grief, offering hope and courage. Leaving cities is like breaking down pieces of a life you built to move elsewhere and start building again. It reminds me of something a friend said after interacting the designers of the Puja Pandals of Calcutta. When asked how they could bear to see their designs pulled down after the week-long festivities, one seemingly told her that unless it is brought down, how will the next year's Puja Pandal take shape. That is courage. 

In small measures, I thought I had that wisdom and courage. When I made a list of which of my friends would get which of my plants when I leave the city - plants I had nurtured lovingly and also with great heartache, as quite a few of them seemed to wither in the heat, I thought it was that wisdom kicking into action. 

Turns out the pain of parting is so much more when it's something you have nurtured for six-odd years with sweat and blood, at great personal loss, through some of the worst periods of my professional and personal life is passed on to someone to take care of. Someone who may do a better job, or may not. 

From my high horse I am being judgmental. My plants, I know, will survive as they are fighters like me. But this thing, I am not sure. And the pain of that uncertainty is physical. The fear real. The guilt palpable. 

And in times like that, the words of Kipling in 'If' is a reminder that there is wisdom in treating Triumph and Disaster both the same. Someone just help my heart understand what my brain knows. 

Lines from books

The prison wasn't the place. It was the perspective. (The Midnight Library, Matt Haig)

Some lines from some books stay with you. This seems to be one of those. 

Mind over matters

A dark cloud often passes

Bringing rain at times 

A heavy presence at others.

The fog lifts from time to time

Revealing blue skies 

For hours at times, days at others. 

 

Mahua Magic

I bit into a ripe Mahua flower (left), goaded on by eager women. It's the 'tribal grape' one said. The other added that it would be sweeter than jaggery. The experience definitely was bitter-sweet. The intoxicating smell of the Mahua flowers carried through the wind to my expectant nose, promising more than it could deliver. The women harvest around 10 quintals of Mahua a season and earn Rs 35,000 to Rs 40,000 by selling the dried Mahua flowers (centre). They save some for their own consumption. They explained how they make sweets with it and how they add it to the vegetables they cook. A man was more forthcoming. "Do you know when there was no food to eat, we would consume the wine made from Mahua and work tirelessly?" he said. The others insisted that they did not make any alcohol with it. This may be because I was accompanied by someone who bit into the Mahua flower and wrinkled her nose saying it tasted of alcohol. It's interesting how narrative and knowledge shapes our senses and our experience of things. Thus Mahua 'tastes' like alcohol even for someone who has probably never consumed alcohol. Because alcohol is commonly made from it and is seen as taboo. Someone whose experience of alcohol is through films, would probably have a whiff of alcohol and start swooning, because that's is the commonly Bollywood-certified response to alcohol. Most tribal communities these days do not openly admit to making alcohol from Mahua. They would rather keep it a cultural secret than talk about it and have it disparaged in public by 'outsiders'. Often civil society projects end up vilifying any consumption of alcohol as a blanket crime. The cultural significance is thus marauded and shamed until even the children of these communities internalise the criminality of drinking and proclaim taking action against alcohol consumption with pride. It goes to add a moral reputation to alcohol consumption, not addressing other dimensions of why alcohol is consumed, why it may lead to violence, why excessive consumption can impact many things, including health and well-being. This is done through a careful juxtaposition of alcohol consumption and domestic violence. Often, going into the root cause of domestic violence can lead to uncomfortable questions, upending status quos and open social wounds that cannot be closed. Is it all the Mahua talking? Or the deep dissatisfaction with the way some questions are repeatedly broached and addressed regardless of geography, community, or custom? One wonders, but for those few minutes, the Mahua magic brought me together with the women of a small tribal hamlet somewhere in Odisha.        

 

Pati. A year on.

Time flies. It's been a year already since pati bid goodbye to us. The one word that comes to mind when I think of her is regal - she had a regal air to her. Even in her most shrivelled, helpless, confused last few days, she was a queen. Exercising control during the moments of clarity between long spells of daze that she was experiencing. Glimpses of the Lady of 312, Thadagam Link Road, who oversaw her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, maybe a grand niece and a grandnephew or two grow up, become persons of their own being, get married, have children, get jobs, move cities, move countries and continents. She was the constant. Over the last few years, we bonded so much more as friends and conspirers. She would take me back in time to go with her neighbour and friend to watch Tamil films in Alankar (I think) Theatre in Mumbai. Through her I would experience the country's Independence, like her, learning from her Post-Master father about the birth of a nation at midnight. I would walk a few paces behind her and her friend as they giggled and chatted on their way to school. I would watch enviously and proudly as she got a rubber stamp declaring the magazines she collected, collated, curated belonged to Annapoorni Swaminathan. I would gape with amazement at a grandmother who could hold her own in conversations about any sport - be it tennis, cricket or even football. I learnt how she started getting interested in cricket - serving as the secret messenger who would listen to the radio commentary of matches played by India to religiously recount the same to her elder brother who was forbidden from listening to the radio because of his exams. The mischief never left my grandmother. We would indulge in some of her guilty pleasures, like an icecream, some sweets (especially badam halwa / badusha from Sri Krishna Sweets), and earlier, a soda (usually Sprite or Limca. As I remember her, the fragments of our conversations come rushing through my memory palace. Especially as I am stranded without access to my Smart Phone which had recordings of many of our ramblings, I rely on memory to relive my dearest pati. As I watched a golden sunset over some hills in Deogarh today, I wondered whether a person who dies lives on in every memory of them that stays behind. Is that what forever means?        

Count your blessings

The last few days: from watching a swarm of bees fly towards us atop Ponnuthi Hills as we tried to get as close as possible to Lambton's Peak to watching a bear with her cubs negotiating the tea gardens in the Nilgiris, from bisons out on an evening walk to peacock twins perform a synchronised number in the morning as I was enjoying breakfast on the thokkarai kallu, it's just a reminder to count the blessings. 

Also witnessed a teacher taking students down archaeological journey at an hour exhibition of excavations in different parts of Tamil Nadu.