Lifestory

I wasn't thinking of anything or anyone particular, when this poem occurred to me, or maybe I was and just didn't know it! Now that I read it, I think I must have been thinking of my Mom & my Granny - both women I love and admire immensely but don't often let it show! Role models in every way. Women of independent spirit - wise, brave, opinionated, strong, kind, elegant and graced with dignity.

Aai & Mamma, this one is for you...

Lifestory

Today, I met a woman,
Her head bowed in grace,
Quiet eyes and gentle sighs,
Solitude lined her face.

I watched her move mountains,
Her back straight and proud,
Her long and restless fingers,
Often caressed my brow.

Marriages and children,
Family and friends,
Shadows on her gentle face,
Alone in the end.

Years of wisdom wrapped in love,
Journeying stormy seas,
Beauty and courage on wings of a dove,
Her spirit forever free.


- Harsha

Mabuhay!

She arrives Monday! My new live-in helper from the Phillipines. I have butterflies in my stomach and I don't mean in a fluttery, delicate way!! Oh no - more like giant moths - beating their wings with frantic energy, looking for a way out of a roomful of darkness and closed windows! I hate moths.

Why am I so nervous? I've never had a live-in helper in ALL of my adult life! The last time I lived with one, was as a college student, when Savita, a girl from our village came home and stayed with us until we married her off! She was family - in the manner in which long-standing helpers become family, irritatingly familiar and familiarly irritating! But that I was a lifetime ago, when I was young college student, immersed in my own world and oblivious to all else - certainly home and hearth were farthest from my mind!

Now however - I have metamorphosed into a rather house-proud home-owner. I like things just so, that's not to say I'm fussy or a 'dragon' in the home, but well, it's my house and I like things a certain way! Surely that's not being unreasonable? But now that she will be here - touching my things, sharing my space & life - I'm beginning to wonder...will I cope? will she like me? will I like her? how will I deal with the loss of privacy? will she learn to cook? will she make my morning cuppa, just so? will she break my stuff? will I manage to be kind and firm at the same time? Scary stuff!!

Don't know the answers yet, only time will tell. It's rather like courtship really -tentative and confusing at first, each on tenterhooks - pondering the right words to say, the right tone to use. For now, I'm hopeful, getting ready to 'do the dance!'

And so I say to her...Welcome,"Mabuhay"!

* After I wrote this, I came to understand that she has not cleared an essential English exam and must go back to the Philippines before she can come back and take the exam again. Though a part of me is relieved, another is sadly confused - despite all my misgivings, I guess I was looking forward to her helping hand!

'Fasting, Feasting'

The title, readers among you might recognize, as the title of an Anita Desai novel, a finalist for the 1999 Booker Prize. I've borrowed it because, having just got back from a magical reading of passages from the same by Anita herself, I'm absolutely 'floored'! Sorry, wanted to be very literary and use elegant language, but 'floored' just best describes how I feel right now, not delighted or fascinated or awestruck - although I feel all that too!

My dear friend (to whom I am eternally grateful!) had an extra invite to the event and since we're both bookworms, she took me along. I haven't read Anita Desai, so I had no expectations. I googled her to get a bit of background and not be the only entirely ignorant reader at the event! (God Bless Google!) That was the extent of my preparation.

The event was held at the Pod on the 16th storey of The Singapore National Library, a venue that was stunningly appropriate for the evening as it turned out. A wide circular room, with glass walls that allowed expansive vistas of the Singapore skyline and river. For once, I was glad for the rain that had thankfully petered to a light misty drizzle and as the evening progressed and the lights came on, contributed to the magical aura of the setting.

There were a few speeches to begin the evening, that I happily pass over and then at last she began to read. As I write, I can still hear her quietly forceful voice in my head. Not particularly loud, yet effectively nuanced and incisive. She transported me and the rest of the attentive audience, straight into Uma's world, minutes into the reading. When she read the passage where the protagonist Uma is on display to a prospective bridegroom - the whole audience was laughing! When she told how the same bridegroom asked for Uma's younger sister Aruna's hand instead of hers, we empathized with Uma's pain and disappointment, felt her mother's anger. Poignantly funny, I think we all recognized the Uma in ourselves, deeply hidden yet strangely familiar. I wanted her never to stop and I could see many around me similarly affected!

I will always remember her in black and white. A striking persona resulting from an elegantly dignified blend of her mixed parentage and wisdom, in a beautiful black and white mekhla, long silver earrings, with her silvery gray hair in a large bun and the glasses perched on her nose. I could gush on and on, about her simple yet emphatic language, her clarity of thought, her dry wit and her general poise and grace - but I think you get the picture!

I was 'floored' by the reading, borrowed my friend's copy of the book instantly and am off to read it right now!

"Happy Reading" fellow bookworms!

'Sanctuary'

Today was another one of those days, when I spent a zillion hours talking on the phone! My head is still spinning from all the talk (not that I didn't enjoy every minute!). Is that why I thought of a quiet space - a retreat, a haven, a sanctuary? I'm not sure - it just kind of came to me. I guess my 'self' knows what I need and when, better than I ever will!

So here goes...

Deep within my quiet heart,
Is a safe and gentle place,
Where I retreat to hurt and heal,
In my secret, personal space.

Here I am nurtured when I break,
Cherished, harboured from disgrace,
Here I find my missing sparkle,
In Love's warm, tender embrace.

Here my spirit comes to be tended,
Lovingly made strong and whole,
Here my soul comes to be mended,
Blessed, nourished and extolled.

In this blissful peace of mind,
I find my heaven, haven I find,
Solitude and benediction,
My sanctuary, My conviction.

- Harsha

Lightning Strikes Twice!!

Yesterday I watched in complete awe and disbelief as Usain Bolt smashed Michael Johnson's long-standing world record in the 200 metres. When asked before the race, whether he thought Bolt would break his record, CNN reported that Michael Johnson 'didn't think Bolt was ready yet.' And yet there he was - Mr. Lightning, making it look ridiculously easy, effortlessly relaxed - a Michael Phelps of the Athletics world!

What an ATHLETE!! And funny too - after winning, he pulled off his glittering gold sneakers (never seen anything like them before!), draped the Jamaican flag around that tall, sinewy frame and did his funky chicken dance - almost as good as the actual run if not better ;-) The crowd adored him and he obviously enjoys being in the spotlight! A born performer!

I had watched him set the track ablaze when he set a new world record in the 100 metres to become the 'fastest man on the planet' but then to do the double, let me channel Mr. Reshamiyya here, SUPERB!! AMAZING!! FANTASTIC!! MIND BLOWING!!

He ran the 100 metres in 9.69 seconds and the 200 metres in 19.30 seconds!! I mean what is 10 sec for Pete's sake? I get up in the morning and stretch for a whole minute before I can even contemplate moving, forget run anywhere! It got me to thinking - what CAN I do in 10 sec? Hmm....let me think...yawn - yup can do a 10 sec and a 20 sec yawn comfortably - in fact am pretty good at that! Wonder if they have an Olympic medal for yawning! Surf 20 TV channels -such a useful skill, believe me! Blink rapidly about 15 times (yes I really did time myself!) - very easy, entirely useless and utterly boring! Click my fingers 8 times, get the treadmill started - yeah, I think I can manage to do that in 10 sec...

Today he turns 22 - and what a way to celebrate! World and Olympic record holder in the double, the first man in history to break both world records at one Olympics, and the first man to win both the 100 and 200 metres events at the same Olympics since Carl Lewis in 1984!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR.BOLT - MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!!

Confessions of an amateur gardener...

Let me confess straight up front that I do NOT have a green thumb. I've lost count of the many hapless plants I've killed over the years! Don't get me wrong - I don't set out with murderous intentions, but old habits die hard and after the first few weeks of enthusiastic watering, fertilizing and protecting with insecticides...laziness takes over with a vengeance! Everyday, I think to myself, 'I'll water them tomorrow. Plants don't need to be watered everyday anyways, they might die from water logging.' And 'Tomorrow' being what it is, never comes! I move on to more pressing matters, like watching TV, eating, sleeping etc...and by the time I remember to water them again, there they are poor souls ('coz really, how do we know they don't have souls!) starved to death, leaves burnt to a crisp, soil dry, all imaginary hopes of recovery on my part cruelly dashed!!

So there it is - I confess - I suck at gardening and now I have nowhere to hide! And yet, since I possess an abundantly optimistic spirit (friends and family have accused me of this over the years!!) I don't give up easily. This is not a bad quality to possess unless coupled with a slowness to recognize and accept one's faults. Together however, they can spell disaster! Since I suffer from this tragic coupling, it means I have to repeat my mistakes many times over, before I let go - and so the murders continue!! Did I mention I used to be a doctor??!

Well, in my spirit of never giving up - I went to a class on orchid-growing a year ago, all enthused and as always determined that 'This time will be different!' The class was great, actually fantastic, because I found a plant that was tailor-made for enthusiastically lazy gardeners like moi - the Orchid! Singapore's national flower needs very little watering, in fact it needs very little care of any kind :) I remember feeling hope bloom, when we were informed, 'This plant is one of the few plants that actually thrives if not watered regularly, once a week or even once in 10 days is fine.' 'Aha!' I thought, 'What could be better?'

And so I went on an orchid-buying spree - red, white, purple, the works!! A year of happy neglect later, I had managed to kill all but one tiny little orchid plant, which I assumed would never grow let alone flower. And yet, one fine day, there it was! A beautiful single orchid bloom on that tiny plant!! I was I must confess rather embarrassingly ecstatic and rushed to get the camera and take a few dozen pictures of the poor flower! Orchid blooms last a long time - a few weeks at least - and I gaze at it every day like a proud parent!

And now, I need to go buy some more plants! After all, my little flower could do with some company and I am nothing if not persistent.

This time Will be different!!

The New Big B! Really?

Thanks to Kaustubh for letting me know that 25 yr old Abhinav Bindra had won the first EVER individual Olympic Gold for India!! It came as a wonderfully unexpected bolt from the blue! I was ecstatic!

I wasn't watching his event - didn't even know it existed! Frankly, I didn't think India had any medal hopes, was really pissed off at the Hockey team for failing to qualify and so was caught off-guard! But now let me say, CONGRATULATIONS ABHINAV - YOU DID US PROUD!!

I like this young man - all of 25, he impressed me with his calm and self-assurance. It was as if his victory had been a forgone conclusion and not the result of a hard, well fought battle! His rather stoic appearance, brightened only by the broad grin on the podium! His sister later said in an interview, that he had always been a dedicated, focused, reserved sort of child, not given to open displays of emotion but determined to do his country proud in his chosen area of expertise. Well he certainly did! Here's to many more Days of Glory!

In true Bollywood style, the media was all over his house, his family, his friends, his hometown...interviewing all and sundry. As I watched Indians all over the country send in their Congratulations, I couldn't help wondering how long it would last - this euphoria of an Olympic Gold. Would it really make any dent in India's long-standing apathy toward a sport other than cricket? Truth be told - I don't think so. I did a little research on Mr.Bindra and he is not representative of the average Indian. He comes from an affluent family with the luxury of a rifle range in his backyard! Unlike most talented sports persons in India, he was not at the mercy of the sports bureaucracy that I often feel exists, only to confer awards on sportsmen and women who triumph despite them rather than because of them!

I remember a time when Paes and Bhupati were doing well in tennis, when Rathore won silver at Athens or when Narayan Kartikeyan and Sania Mirza first erupted onto the scene, there was much hope then that these sportsmen and their successes would spur the development of non-cricket sports in India, but I haven't seen that happen! Sadly, Hockey once a source of much pride and joy (still our national game for reasons unknown!) continues its abysmal decline in the face of much political scheming and in-fighting.

Why is it that in a country of 1.1 billion, only one sport is revered beyond every other, even when India is at best, mediocre at it? I guess - that is the million or shall I say billion dollar question! Why is it that India - once Olympic hockey champions are now unable even to qualify? Sport demands high levels of dedication and fitness from players but they also need modern infrastructure and sponsor support to train effectively and earn a living while doing so, since most athletes have short careers and are at a high risk of injury. I think China has shown the world, how it should be done over the last few decades and as a result been increasingly rewarded for their hard work and commitment to excellence in recent years.

While I hope that this latest Olympic Gold will indeed make a difference in the Indian sporting scene - my gut tells me that is unlikely. Public memory is fickle. This will most likely be another one of those 'flash-in-the-pan' events, much loved but soon forgotten and eventually relegated to dinner table chit-chat among sports enthusiasts.

This time, as before, I look forward to being wrong.


* Title inspired by Dr.U.N Gaitonde urf Mamaji!