Oct 29, 2015 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

Today, Washed Clean

©October 29th, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

The backyard patio is swept clean of leaves, the steep flight of front stairs leading up to the house are swept, the bulbs are in (maybe I’ll plant more today, since I have more — I’m turning into a bulb-freak!), and the rain has wiped the world clean.

I’m sitting with a cup of coffee here, at my favorite spot — the cluttered, unfashionable kitchen table, and contemplating life.

The dog sleeps, nose to toes, curled in a C, on the white, cushiony single-sofa-seat, which I had originally intended for my/our use when we got it.  The dog simply decided that that was HER chair, and, without preamble, appropriated it.

Now that I see her in it, I see her logic.  I fits her form perfectly.  It’s C-dog-shaped.  It’s cozy.  Well-done, Holly!  (Call me a fond and foolish person for letting my dog rule me.  You are right.  I am fond and foolish.)

Today, my husband is heading out to his mother’s retirement community home, which is two and a half hours away from here.  He is preparing to move her to an “assisted living” facility.  This is going to be fraught with a tumbling mix of emotions.  We all knew the time would come, but hoped that it would not.  For, you see, my mother-in-law is a strange blend of a cognitively high-functioning, highly intelligent, intellectual person and someone who is losing her memory.  Add to this the fact that she is good at creating perfectly reasonable-sounding rationalizations for her lapses, and we have a very painful situation.  She does not want to go.  She called up my husband this morning and said that she would plead (plead!) with the administrators of the place where she lives to let her stay.

My heart breaks for her.  She’s my esteemed mother-in-law.  She loves me, and I love her.  She’s been very kind to me since I arrived in the US in December 1988, and she’s been very generous to both her sons and daughters-in-law.  And she’s no ordinary mom-in-law.  She’s been a scientist, psychologist, professor and artist in her earlier life.  She’s been a Witness for Peace in Nicaragua, been arrested in front of the White House, while protesting wars and inequities, been among the earliest to visit China, when the US and China reached a rapprochement in the 1970s.  She was the founder of the Minnesota Plan for the Continuing Education of Women in the late 50s.  She has a deep sense of integrity.  Yes, she has her negative points, but then, who doesn’t?  This is not the time for anyone to remember them.  Right now, she’s the best of herself (except that she does not want to leave — the place where she lives currently is lovely, and she loves it with all her heart).

It’s going to be the most painful wrench, both for her, and for my husband, who has to be the one to take her to the new place.  He’s not looking forward to it.  I can only imagine his mix of emotions — for, who can really tell what someone else’s relationship is to his or her parents?  Only we ourselves know who we are vis-à-vis our parents.  All other conjectures are just that — conjectures.  For him, as it is for many of us, a lifetime of interaction with our parents must follow some sort of pattern: Adoration followed by love, followed by admiration, followed by impatience, followed by strife, followed by more admiration, love, impatience and irritation.  For others, it’s much more, probably worse.  And, permeating through all this, must be a longing to be accepted, validated, admired and praised for one’s actions, choices, life, because ALL children want this.

I think about what it was like for my grandfather, who declined and died after six months following his fall from the stairs in my family home in India over eleven years ago.  I remember that it was my mother who tended to him, and cared for him, even more than my grandmother.  My husband was visiting India at the time, and he remembers holding his hand and singing softly to him at his bedside.  It made my grandfather very happy.  I wish I could have been there.  When my own father was diagnosed with liver cancer, his condition did not land him in a nursing home — mostly, in India, that does not happen.  He was at home, cared for, coddled and loved by my mother, and my close relatives (my Grandmother and Aunt).  My brother was there towards the last few weeks to help, and bore the pain of seeing our father in terrible agony.  My sister came over from California a week before his death to do the same.  I could not make until three days before he died, but at least I saw him, and talked to him, and all of us held his hands till the moment of his death.  In India, it’s a different kind of society from Western society, as far as I can see.  Old age, disease and decline are accepted philosophically.  It’s not easier, but it’s much more common to say, “What to do?  Such is life!”  Emotions are still emotions, and complex emotions remain so through the course of experiencing a parent’s life and decline.

When my father died of cancer, he was in the hospital for only three or four days, and ALL of us were there with him at his moment of passing away.   And when my mother-in-law passes away, I hope we will be there for her, as well (fortunately, she is in the best of health, at age 92).

At the moment of death, all complex emotions will be swept aside.  Only love will prevail.  The pure and simple will remain.  At the moment of death, all can be wiped clean, if we let it.

Much like the rain on the patio this morning.

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Tags: #cognitive decline of a parent, #Death, acceptance, Indian society, nursing home, old age, parents and children, Western society

Oct 6, 2015 Original Poetry, Writing 201

Paean to My Brown Skin

©October 6th, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

Brown, like the ground, like the earth at birth, full of mystery and fragrance, lines and marks, a history of my life and vagrant self, showing arcs of flight and fall, this skin of mine holds light and sound, heft and air, and bones and flesh and I thank it for holding me, for carrying me through life with grace and kindness, letting me know of right and wrong, and sight and song, this skin I’m in takes me in my dreams to the skies,  warms as I fly up high, and look around, and see the ground, like my skin, so brown, so lined, so full of dark places and lit ones, and before I alight on earth, I face sunward, and onward I go, with the brown of the ground in the skin I’m in.

And once I hated it, the brown, the dark of it, the stark of it, the looks I took, the cutting remarks of aunts and uncles butting into my dream-space, “So dark, who will marry you?” and I laughed, and scoffed at them, but their words burned within, and my skin wished to be fair, not burnt brown umber, I remember this and all else, and I remember thinking, “I wish I were fair, and I wish I were pretty, and I wish I didn’t care, and damn this self-pity, and so I stopped, and it stopped, and I was free.  And the skin I’m in took the slaps and the hits, the rulers on brown knuckles from teachers who couldn’t reach me, and scathed from fights with sibling, and the scolding (much deserved) from parents much loved, and I was free, so free.

And I formed the words within, the worlds within, and my skin took on its radiance, its joyous love of itself, for this is the skin of one who loves, who lives in peace, who wants to be good, do good, find good, and I do, I will and I would.  No shoulds, just wills, for the one in this skin, and I know what it means to be seen one way, or perceived in another, and so, my skin helps me choose the friends whose love I cherish, and whom I’ll hold in my heart until I perish.

This skin I’m in rejoices in the air on it, the kiss of rain, the bliss of love, the thrill of guitar and sitar, and songs from afar, brushing past so lightly, I feel them on me, all those songs, that music, the love of my beloved, the love of my child, and the furry brushing past of my sweet canine friend.

And the scent of flowers from a whiff of after-shower spray, and the scent of cardamom and clove, and ginger and geranium, all so fine, so divine, all sit on the brown of the skin I’m in.

And this skin I bless, I touch with love, this skin which went from satin to rougher cloth, this skin with dark marks that appear, this skin which sags in some places, this skin which protects and gives such delight, I will miss this skin when I die, for I will not fly with it, to the places in the sun.  I will shed this skin, and I’ll mourn.

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Tags: #Love, #Writing 201, acceptance, Paean, Prose Poem, Rejoicing in the Skin I'm In, Skin

Sep 22, 2015 Original Short Story, Writing 101

Bidi, Bibi

©September 22nd, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

Suresh sat on a little box under the makeshift shade of his fruit stand-shack.  The sun burned high overhead, and the air was thick with yellow dust and smoke.  Fumes from the diesel trucks and rickshaws plunged his senses into a nightmare of asthmatic cloudedness.  From his greying blue cloth bag, he dug out the inhaler the doctor had prescribed, and took two puffs.

After replacing the inhaler in the bag, he reached under his shirt, and pulled out a small bidi, which was in a little pack he had wrapped in a grungy handkerchief.  This would soothe him, he thought.  Then, remembering how his wife, Meena, berated him when he smoked it (it stank to high heaven, and burned a hole in his earnings), he paused, then shrugged.  A man had to have something to ease the mindless monotony of the day.  He took out a stick of agarbatti from a wooden box, where he kept his money, and lit it in front of a small Ganesha he always had in his store for good luck.  Immediately, the fragrance of sandalwood and amber filled the air, and made his spirits rise a little.  Ah, that would make things better!  Then, he lit his bidi, and took a deep, satisfying whiff.

Who cared if his asthma would overpower him again shortly?  Who cared if the diesel fumes killed him?  He had his bidi, and was at peace with the world for the nonce.

He forgot his mother, who had coughed all day and all night long, and then given up the struggle a month ago — he was too beaten by her struggle towards the end to grieve.  He forgot his twelve-year old son who had been getting into trouble at school.  He didn’t care if the rich housewives, from the fancy apartments nearby, haggled with him over the price of mangoes or apples, or custard apples or bananas.  He didn’t care if any dreams he had once had, had disappeared in a puff of smoke.  He could ignore the nagging pain in his gut.  He could focus on the here and now of the world before him.

With interest, he watched the pretty teenaged girls go by in their churidar-kurtas, chattering like parrots, and as gaily bedecked in beautiful colors.  He shook his head when he saw them holding hands surreptitiously with their boyfriends, but a part of him envied them their freedom.  He had had no such luck.  Married at twenty-one to a village girl, he had no idea what romance was — sex, yes, but romance?  He saw it in movies, and wondered at it.  Would he ever weep over a lost love?  Would he care?  He was numb within.  The bidis helped.  The agarbatti helped too.

He stuck the bidi in a pot of earth near him, and turned to adjust the beautifully arranged towers of fruit arrayed in pyramids behind him.  He liked doing this.  To him, this was a sort of meditation, an art.

Suddenly, he heard a footstep in front of him, and turned back.  His heart did a double-take.  In front of him stood a golden apparition.  It took him a minute to recognize her — Meena, his wife.  Her hair shone like a raven’s wing, and her large, limpid black eyes, always expressive, but usually only registering tiredness, irritation or worry, were shining.  She was wearing her wedding sari, a gold-edged red sari, with shiny spangles of gold.  She looked happy (when was the last time she’d looked happy?  Oh yes, at the birth of their son.).

She didn’t even notice the bidi stuck in the pot of earth (thank Ganesha, he’d stuck it in there).

“What are you doing here?” Suresh asked stupidly.  A strange feeling was flooding him.  He had no idea what it was.  It could have been love.  He was happy to see her — something he didn’t often feel, because of her constant tiredness and lack of interest in him.

Meena opened her fist and showed him the paper she was holding.

Suresh took a look at it, and the fruit-stand shack revolved around him.

A real-estate developer was willing to pay them fifty lakhs for their little plot of ancestral land on the outskirts of town — the land of his fathers, his forefathers, not much to boast of, but something that was theirs.  He stared unseeingly into the crowds of people passing by, not saying anything for a minute.

Meena looked anxiously at him.  “Aren’t you happy?  Why don’t you speak?  We’ll be rich.  You won’t have to be here all day, and smoke that nasty stuff.  Our son can go to a better school than the municipal school.  You won’t have to haggle with those fat housewives who think they’re better than you and I are.”

He looked at her then, saw her shining eyes, and the strange feeling swelled inside him.  And yet … the land, his land!

“Let me think,” he said.

With exquisite instinct, she knew not to press him.  Together, they sat and watched the crowds go by.  No one bought any fruits from him that afternoon.  The sun beat down ruthlessly upon his little shack-stand.  The agarbatti died, and was replaced by another.  They ate the roti, dal and sabji that she’d brought for him and for herself.  He drank some coconut water, which he bought from a nearby vendor, and offered her half of it.

And through all this, he was silent.  Then, he pulled out the bidi he had stuck in the pot of earth, lit it, and smoked.  Meena said nothing, nothing at all.  She just looked at him.  He made up his mind.  He had fallen in love.

“Okay,” he said.

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Glossary:

Bidi:  A thin, Indian cigarette filled with tobacco, and wrapped in a leaf.  There is much more nicotine and risk of oral cancer in bidis than in cigarettes.

Bibi / Biwi:  Wife in Hindi

Agarbatti:  Incense sticks.

Churidar-Kurta:  Leggings and long tunic worn by girls in Northern India.

Roti: Whole-ground wheat-flour flatbread (resembles a tortilla)

Dal:  In this case, cooked lentils, usually moong dal.

Sabji:  Curried vegetables

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(Note:  The photograph featured here is from The Deccan Chronicle article:  http://archives.deccanchronicle.com/130716/news-current-affairs/gallery/ap-and-south-india-pictures-16th-july-2013)

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Tags: #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, acceptance, Bidis, Fruit vendors in India, love story, poverty

Feb 22, 2013 Original Short Stories

Ebb Tide – A Short Story
©By Vijaya Sundaram
Nov. 4th, 2009

They looked at him in the darkness – he could see their dim shapes by the faraway streetlights. A truck rumbled by, and he could hear his heart beating.

“Well? Are you coming with us, or are you going to rat on us?” asked the one with the ski-mask.

Jack looked at them…and his mind went into a tailspin. He had worked hard to be a part of this group of boys, only because his friend, whom he had always looked up to, had joined it. Jack did not like what they stood for, nor what his friend appeared to have become, and yet …

Somewhere in the corner of his vision, he was aware that the moon shone, a slim sliver of a crescent, shedding more darkness than light onto the group.

He could feel their eyes boring into him. His mother would be working at the hospital all night – she was a nurse. His father was sleeping off a drunken stupor, but before that, Jack had been the target of his father’s inchoate rage. He could feel bruises swelling and turning purple under his shirt.

Nobody would miss him. He had been hoping for acceptance all his life. Here was his chance. Should he take it?

“Yes,” he mumbled, looking down at his sneakers.

“Let’s go, then!” said the leader of the group, and they moved with determination towards the abandoned building, spray cans in hand. Jack’s friend gave him a friendly shove. He didn’t respond.

And then, the wild rumpus began.

They sprayed the walls with graffiti, drew obscene images, and gang slogans that he didn’t even know about. Occasionally they sprayed each other’s jackets, and laughed in uproarious glee at their foolishness. Innocently criminal behavior, that’s all it was. Just a bunch of graffiti artists, he said to himself.

They didn’t notice the police car pull up behind them. They didn’t see the cop get out, didn’t see the other detective step out from the passenger seat.

It was only when the lights went on, that they turned in fright. Spinning blue and red lights, whirling like dancers in a dream, flashed rhythmically on the walls they had just sprayed.

Jack froze. So did the others. Then, chaos erupted. The boys ran in different directions. A shot rang out.

Jack felt his consciousness recede, waves ebbing away from the shore. Hold on, he thought, hold on. The waves pulled him farther out. Mom, he thought. I never told Mom that I was going out …

Then, the darkness closed in, and silence welcomed him into her arms forever.

And into that silence, the moon continued to shine dimly, shedding more darkness than light.

Ebb tide.

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Tags: #Original Short Story, acceptance, bad choices, Juvenile delinquent, parental neglect, tragedy