Feathers on the winter wind

                  Bubbles and Sand. Two things that were on my mind, and around me, for the past two days, the last of my longest ever, unbroken stay at Munnurcode, my village near Ottappalam. They were spent with Roshan and Abin, Achu and Kichu. Roshan is four years old, Abin nine, Achu eleven (not sure) and Kichu fourteen. And I’m twenty five. So a diverse group of friends, you see. Roshan loves to make soap bubbles and play in the sand. It’s a wonder how something so simple can hold a child’s heart for so long. It felt inspiring. He could make bubbles and watch them float about, if allowed, for maybe two or three days at a stretch, without food or sleep. And I could watch him play the master of a universe, his universe, inside a soap bubble, for maybe an hour or two, after which I would probably drift off into some other mysteries of the universe, and life, and all that philosophical rubbish that you wouldn’t be interested in.

I am not sure what I must write, but write I must tonight, for something lies hidden in the last word which only when written would reveal itself. A kind of pleasure, a sort of satisfaction, something which cannot be described by words, a kind of a message from another world, that everything is going to be fine, in this life and the one that comes after. You just have to learn to enjoy the ride, every turn, every climb and every fall. Every moment is precious and once it leaves, you cannot have it back.  But every moment can be caught and held in words, memories and images can be framed in letters.

There is something about writing and reading that is secretive. It’s not like the other arts, because even though it’s out there for everyone to see, not everyone reads what is written. It takes a lot of effort to find the words that describe what you feel, and even more to imagine the description that you read. It’s almost like a secret between two people, the reader and the writer. I like the feeling of talking to you alone. I’m not sure who you are, but at this moment, the very existence of these words is acknowledged by only two people in the world, me and you. In case you are a man, this must truly be weird and awkward for you. But I don’t mind. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s because, I just see you as a reader. Not a man, or a woman, just a person whose mind I’m allowed to manoeuvre for a brief part of its journey.

There used to be a time when I would walk into a place and be aware of everyone around, who were pretty, who were watching me, who were threatening, who were friendly and all. But now, I just shut everyone out. I’m alone in my world. It feels safer here, not being judged for my appearance. I can smile when I’m alone. I’m with the only person who understands what I’m going through. The others, they just stare at my face. Sometimes even my mother stares. Even though it’s out of sympathy, trying to comprehend what possible sins she may have committed to avail me this curse of escalating ugliness, I only wish she’d stop staring. Sometimes I forget that I’m ugly. There are people that can make you forget such irrelevant things. But they are rare. I don’t blame anyone though. We recognise people by the face, more precisely, by the eyes. I realised that eyes are the most important part of a person’s face. It’s where people focus during conversations. But my face is different. It’s almost like I’m a new species. People can’t focus on my eyes. I’m not talking about my friends, who accept me accept me for whatever I become, I’m talking about the strangers whom I’ve to meet every day, the bus conductor, the auto driver, the shopkeeper and so on. These white patches that grow everyday bordered by the darker than normal skin, outside of which lies my actual skin reveals a battlefield, and people are left to wander through it without any idea of where to focus. I can see it in their eyes you know. When their eyes wander away from mine, I can see them tracing the borders which I very much wish would disappear, but which adamantly remain unaffected. I understand them, but I cannot accept them. I’m only human. But I’m learning. Everyday I’m learning something new, to counter the pitfalls. I have gotten out of worst things than this. That’s only what I’m good at, finding silver linings to progressively darker clouds that come along, in my life. I’m not sure if that’s a skill but, I do have it, just so you know. There are days when I feel down, but those are there for the best of us, right? Going through those days, knowing they’ll pass, and come back again, and pass and come back again, and so on, and on and on, until one day the curtains fall before our eyes, and we find out what it really meant to have been alive.

Today at the super market, a random guy came up to me and asked if I was in a fire accident. My, what an age this is. Everyone is so concerned, curious and imaginative. Until yesterday everyone asked if I was in a bike accident, which I thought was cool since I have no idea how to ride a bike, but wished I had (Thank you Mom and Dad for manipulating me away from that). I found it hard to explain to him, at such short notice, what the disease was, sorry, technically, as per the medical text books, it’s a disorder, not a disease, my mistake. Whatever it is, asking about it like that was like being asked to derive the Einstein’s mass energy equivalence theorem in the midst of a game with Magnus Carlsen, and that too by Justin Beiber. Let me explain the analogy. Or maybe I shouldn’t, I’ll let you figure that out, being so intelligent, as you are.

There is so much to learn about my disorder, not just the breakthroughs of the ongoing scientific research, but also the psychological impact that it has on myself, and others around me. I have found out that the word that best describes what I feel nowadays when I go out alone, is ‘Claustrophobic’. My way out is to watch people and study the nuances in their facial expressions, which mirror their thoughts. It will help me tackle most of the frustrating situations that would come my way.  I am excited. Of all the people in the world, I’m the one chosen for this task.

We are always allowed escape routes. Art, literature, music, dance and many more creative things, we can fill our lives with, they all take us into a world ruled by passion, bereft of hassles. It’s only when I told Roshan a story by Neil Gaiman, called “Fortunately the Milk”, that I realized the power that stories have over people, especially children. This young guy with the attention span of a humming bird was watching me tell the story, with his mouth open and bubble maker hanging from his hand, forgotten so much, that, neither was it left to fall to the ground, nor was it held tighter by his fingers. Telling stories to children is an entirely different experience. You can allow yourself to believe what you speak of, no matter how insanely far away from reality you are. And I just caught fire, explaining space ships and time machines and dinosaurs to this little one, with my hands and my feet and what not. I think stories are important for children. They have messages in them to help the child decide what he’ll become in his life. Reading is an important habit which must be inculcated.

I told him about the stars. I asked him if he’d ever watched the night sky. He said he hadn’t. He doesn’t know how lucky he is to be here in the village. There are no street lights, and the houses are far apart. The darkness of the land enhances the brightness of the stars. And you can see the tiniest of them from here, those that are invisible to the city dwellers. You can see satellites gliding smoothly past the stars. I asked mother once, if she could see one. She said no. It was a tiny speck that I could barely see. It’s sad that she can’t see what I can. But sometimes we don’t have that many choices. We have to live with what we are given. As my train of thought reached this point I saw something bigger moving in the sky, brighter and larger. I asked her if she could see that. And she said yes. My thought went on. There are choices that are taken away from us and there are new ones that are given instead.

Roshan likes ghost stories too, though afterwards I would feel guilty because he was getting scared and all. I tried telling him that ghosts aren’t real, but that’s like telling him candies aren’t sweet. So I just told him that ghosts are wise creatures who do not harm children no matter how naughty they are. I’d like to believe that he believed that. No questions asked.  But when a huge raven swooped down from a nearby tree, noisily, and barely missed our faces, he almost ran out of the compound. I never told him ghost stories after that. I hadn’t told him any stories about ravens, so this one was probably not on me. But no one needs to tell ghost stories of ravens here, I guess, it’s already a well established common knowledge in the village.

This raven, he was a majestic creature, huge, black and fearless. We, at our home, had befriended him about a year back. We gave him food, as is the custom in many south Indian homes, believing them to be our ancestors. Though in my case, I just liked the idea of having an influence over a wild creature. Soon he found a mate, a smaller but equally majestic creature. But as the winter progressed the true natures of these ravens were revealed. At first it was only eggs. The ravens carried eggs in their beaks, some white and some brown. Then they carried chicken bones, leftovers from nearby, presumably. Then actual chicks, some barely feathered, some nearly dead. Then squirrels and then I lost track.

One day, I heard a horrific noise, which could have been a puppy in terrible pain or something else entirely. I ran out and saw, a few (maybe thirty) metres away, the raven pecking at some dark creature, held firmly under its claw against the ground, with its curved, pointed beak. A tiny bat! Poor thing! I jumped down the ledge started towards it, to scare it away. The crow was startled and was about to fly off, leaving the bat, when I heard a voice from behind, ordering me to stop. Father’s voice. Even though I no longer listen to him on most things, the habit of so many years is hard to shake off. The first impulse is that father’s always right. I stopped. Just for a second to re-analyse my action. It was the right one. I turned again towards the raven, only to see it fly off with the whimpering creature. Sh*t! That was stupid of me. Later father justified his action by saying that the creature was already gravely wounded and there was no point in saving it, only to prolong its painful death. The raven’s beak would be much swifter. Maybe he was right, maybe not. I did not say anything to defend my action nor to argue he was wrong. Neither will I say it here. But I was stupid to have stopped. That is as clear to me as is the sun rising in the east.

Why do parents have to constantly manipulate their children into images of their own selves, the same morals, the same behaviours, the same ideas? Why can’t they understand that children are like birds? You teach them to fly and then you let them go. Where they wish to fly, how high, how fast, and how dangerously are all up to them to decide. Are they not? Each of our children will keep something which we give them and other things which were never ours to give. After a point, we can only watch them fly as we lie on the ground waiting for the last breath to leave our lungs. Peacefully we’ll close our eyes knowing that our children are high above us, and for a long time they’ll remain there in the sky, until the time comes for them to rest. And then they shall lie where we were and breathe their last watching their children flying in the sky. And so the generations will pass as leaves of a tree, one by one falling and pushing the next branch higher into the sky. One day a flower will bloom among the stars and although we’ll be forgotten, a part of us will be there waiting for the last of our blood to accomplish the final act of god’s will. And then we can all rest in an eternal state of bliss.

Parents are the best friends you can have in your life. You fight very often, there’s no doubt about that. But for me, I think they are friends, with all their flaws. Everything I admired in them, I have imbibed and improved, and so nothing in them seems appealing to me any longer. All that remains in them are things that I do not admire, ideas different from mine, and demeanours I despise. These are all that I can see now. These flaws, which I do not wish to have in my persona, are not meant to be hated or criticised. They are just attributes that define our parents. We only have to learn to accept them. I believe that if I were the parent in question, that, would be all that I would ask of my children. And that is what I have for my parents, love and acceptance.

We must be careful in defining children with words, because when they hear the definition, two things are possible, either the child accepts it and moulds a personality around it or she rejects it completely and erases any sign linking her to that definition. That said, I must say, Achu loves babies. We have two lovely new babies in our family, Rini and Mithra. Achu was running between babies trying to find enough time for both. She’s scared of many things. It’s a long list, starting with spiders, but one in which babies are not there. I’m not scared of babies, but I am scared of making them cry. That’s the only thing that I’m afraid of. My personal record is two. I have made two children cry just by looking at them, one long ago and one very recently, both traumatic experiences for me. I’m studying the psychology of babies, especially the patterns of their facial expressions in the seconds leading to a crying session, and the immediate remedial measures to prevent the imminent catastrophe, or at least mitigate it, an extremely difficult task, especially for someone like me. Sure, you find it so easy, all you have to do is smile and the problem’s solved. I wish it was that easy for me. It’s not.

Kichu loves adventures as much as any fourteen year old boy does. He likes to go off the well trodden path to explore and find new ways. We (Achu, Kichu and me) climbed up a huge hill of rock. Ok, I confess I don’t know what such a structure is called. It’s a huge round rock whose, only a little part is visible, like an iceberg. Though unlike an iceberg, the visible part doesn’t have sharp edges. Needless to say it has no ice either, right? It’s smooth and lovely. I told them that there are not many places in the city where we can see so much of the land without being seen ourselves. It’s a beautiful feeling, to be so high up over the trees and the birds, swaying in the wind, nearly strong enough to carry you away. They wrote their names at the top of the rock “Midhin Kalidas” and “Devi Archana”, two of the coolest names I have ever come across.

I want my home to be an abode for lesser creatures like squirrels and sunbirds. It is not possible to have such a place with the predatory eyes of the ravens scouring my compound. So, reluctantly at first, I started throwing sticks and stones at the ravens, gradually relishing the act. As they became aware of my presence, so did the other birds. I made sure the other birds didn’t consider me a threat by slowly walking near them and not making sudden movements. Only when the ravens came, I would run and make a creaking sound and make throwing actions. You must think I’m mad, right? No matter, a group of Rufous Bablers (Koothankeeri) realised that I was a threat only to the raven and not to them. I realised that they had realised this when I realised that they were flying from trees and following me around foraging in the dry leaves in my vicinity. They felt safe there, as if I was a guardian that they could trust to keep watch. I love the feeling of having an influence on wild creatures, especially the harmless ones. I have learnt that the alarms calls of squirrels can be turned off by making the same number of clicks as they make and opening and closing the palm of my hand held in the deer head posture (as if it were the mouth from which the voice came) to tell them that I’ve got the message. They’d stop the yapping and go about their business. Unless I did this, yapping would go on for an hour or maybe even longer. If I don’t do the thing with my hand, and make eye contact, the squirrel would think that there’s some other squirrel in distress and things would get a lot worse. Cute, right?

Of relating trees, as the carpenters in front of our old house were making the doors and windows for our new one, I discovered that there are shapes that sleep inside the wood. Doors and windows aside, there can be flowers and birds, dragons and abstract images, even the most beautiful woman you have ever seen, may lay asleep in the wood. There are crashing waves and flowing rivers, and many more things imaginable and unimaginable in the patterns of the wood. A carpenter’s hands can awaken them. A good carpenter can gently wake them and present them to you, a life frozen in time, but a great one can catch them without letting them know that they were caught, a life being lived, unaware of being watched.

Mahagony is a beautiful tree. The leaves start off as red and tiny, become green and huge, and as they get ready to fall off, they return to the red they began as, only bigger. The tree can grow at two centimetres a day if watered every day. I measured. There are ten leaves in a branch. Yes, I counted. But if watered properly, two more leaves appear, almost like a gracious smile. They grow in bursts. Each wet season they grow, and when the rain stops, so does their growth. I believe if they are watered continuously, they’ll grow forever. I saw a tree shorter than me grow farther than my arms could reach, in the past one month. It gives a sort of pleasure watching them grow so fast. I wonder what shapes lie asleep in its trunk. Only time will tell. I will never know though, for, as long as I’m alive, I won’t allow that tree to be cut.

In the evening, father called from the nearby school, to tell that water had been released in the canal. In twenty five years of my life, I had seen water flowing in the canal only seven or eight times. This was exciting, last day of my stay and the news that I can see water in the canal. I waited for the water to reach, accompanied by Abin. He has lot of friends here. On the other side of the canal, foraging along the slopes, were goats, and tending to them were tiny girls. They were completely at home on the slope. I had to take much care not to slip and tumble down, and here they were, running and jumping about on the canal slope.

Abin is in fourth, but he finds reading difficult. I’m neither criticising him nor mocking him. It’s not his fault. I would have been the same if I went to school here, more likely worse. The nearby school, where father had studied, no longer has teachers who inspire. Sometimes I try teaching him English. He is interested in studying. I gave him a small dictionary. Dictionaries are very important. Mother had bought me two dictionaries by the time I was four years old. I loved finding new words. Just finding them, and then leaving them. I did not learn them, of course. Just read them for pleasure. But later, as I began to write, I realised that the words I read had slept inside me all along. Sometimes I would get a feeling to use a certain word in certain context, but the meaning of the word would be completely absent in my memory. I would look in the dictionary and find the word to be exactly what I had intended it to mean. And I would be left feeling like an idiot and a genius at the same time. It’s weird.

The sun went away and the moon came to stay, and we, Abin and I, stood there waiting for the water. I can see myself in him. I would have grown up here, playing among these children, football, cricket, hide-n-seek and what not, if it hadn’t been for my father. He’s the only reason that I got out from this place. Don’t get me wrong, this place is good. But I would have been a much different person than I am now. I would have been just as happy as you all, maybe even more. But my ambitions would have been different. I would never have known that I could write. Maybe I would have discovered some other gift from that life as well. But I would not have been able to appreciate it as much as I do now. You have to lose something to know its true value. Maybe in death we’ll know the true value of life, no matter how miserable it may have seemed during the process, or maybe we’ll never know. The water never came. It had been diverted somewhere between the school and the place where we stood.

I am leaving it all behind now. It will be a long time before I come back to this place. A stay like this might be almost thirty years away, depending on what I chose to do with my life. This will be the last of the blogs in this series. I may not write for years to come, I may not write at all, if I do not find something that inspires. There are so many things to be done. It’s time. There are three kinds of dreams in every one of our hearts. There are those that we leave behind, to wither and die in the darkest corners, there are those that we follow with passion, and then there are those that we keep polished, ready to be lived at the first hint of an opportunity. Hope you find what you wish to do with your life. Life is too short to be spent chasing notes, chase your dreams. Let the notes chase after you. Good luck and god bless.

Leaves of a Bengali tree

                  Despite the harshness of the cold, waterless, windy winter, the old well by the side of the house is teeming with life. The red stone blocks lining the well have disappeared behind the foliage of Ferns, Tulsi plants and miniature fig trees adorning the wall of the ancient kingdom. The water in the darkness below has shadows, big and small, some moving about in circles, and some others standing still. The nest of a humming bird hangs by the longest branch of a communist-pacha plant, reaching down menacingly to the darkness below with the hungry monsters circling in the shadows of the watery grave, waiting for the flesh of the young birds if they dare so venture out of their home of dead leaves and twigs. The tiny dark green bird flying in and out of the well would have been invisible, if not for its shiny feathers, which caught the sunlight and shimmered apologetically. Alas, the eyes of a mate are not the only ones it catches.

               

                 From a distance, the sound of people talking, in a language unknown, yet somehow familiar, approaches. It is the second time in half a century that a house is being built on this soil. The last one opened the doors to our family in 1977. And these people here, now, are a few of the many, whose hands have sculpted this near-complete structure with rocks, sand, steel and cement. They are from another land, the land of a majestic beast, the Bengal Tiger.

                  The first time we saw them, no one in our family trusted them. To us, and the people in our village, they were foreigners, leaves of a distant tree that had flown into our esoteric garden. Only a few of them knew Hindi, the rest were all well versed Bengalis. None of them knew English. In our village all of us spoke Malayalam, some of us knew English, fewer knew Hindi, and none knew Bengali. So we stood there speaking in a broken language, which if someone had tried, would have probably been traced back to the time of Aryan invasion. But somehow, everyone involved understood everything required. There were no pleasantries. We were barely able to communicate the matter, which in itself, was a miracle.

                  

                  Soon they began their work. Sometimes, people gathered nearby, watching them work, whispering amongst themselves. This was probably the first time that Northern workers were engaged in the village. Nobody knew what to make of them. Their dedication to work was exceedingly evident. By the time I woke up, and the first of the squirrels raised the alarms, they had finished the first instalment of the day’s work. They barely rested, all they wanted was to finish the work quickly, get the money and move on to the next project, which was quite alright with us. As the onlookers stood whispering, they too had their private jokes, which they needn’t whisper, for they realised that Bengali was encoded enough for this village. All of them had peculiar names. Nimay, was one that caught my attention. Absolutely no idea what it means. Gradually, everyone learned to accept their presence. A few of the more curious ones among us, used signs to converse with them, and both parties laughed about this unusual experience. Some like my father, began speaking reasonable Hindi, which being the national language, I believe sleeps in every one of us, somewhere, somehow.

                 What I don’t like about them is that they chase away dogs and throw stones at them. Maybe they got that habit from watching my father. But what’s different is that, my father has a lousy aim while they have anything but. Everyone is, in some ways similar to their father, and in other ways, completely different. This is one of those ways in which I’m completely different. I cannot hurt animals. Maybe it’s because as a child, a teacher had told us once, that there were monks who would watch every step ahead of them as they walked, for insects, so that they may not take their lives. Or maybe it was because I had grown up mostly alone, watching earthworms in the rainwater, playing with cats in the garden, talking to crows on the rooftops, the list goes on, leaving me strangely thinking of them as my friends. I have taken lives of animals before. Once I dissected a small frog alive. I’ve killed butterflies, grasshoppers and ants. A few times I killed mice with a stick, one of which was a gruesome murder which I’m sure I’ll pay for (I don’t mind paying for mistakes). I still have the image of the mouse rolling over after a second hit to the head, with a frail scream that went mostly unheard. It’s a very disturbing image that I have, to think that I was a seven year old killer. I do kill mosquitoes, which I justify by the fact that they kill the RBC’s that so loyally transport my oxygen molecules. So even though I’m conflicted about it, I don’t have much regret. If they stopped biting me and drinking my blood, I would gladly stop killing them. Maybe in a way I’m helping them achieve that. If enough mosquitoes are killed off, probably, mosquitoes that don’t need blood will arise through natural (or as in this case, artificial) selection. A happy outcome for the race of mosquitoes, don’t you think?

                 Every action that any person does has its reasons. As much as I want it to be real, I don’t think there’s a right and wrong. If someone like me, with my below average, in fact mostly stupid understanding, can forgive people who act against my ideals, think of what the creator with his vast, but definitely finite understanding of the universe might make of our meagre sins. Think of ants. When we watch one ant kill another, what do we feel? A trace of sadness, so close to nothing, that it’s barely perceptible. When the same ant carries a wounded comrade back to the ant hill, what do you feel? A trace of happiness? Don’t you think that when we understand the workings of a concept completely, it ceases to appeal to our senses? And then, we are given a chance to perceive it in a detached light. Why does love and hate fade away? In both instances, we learn the object in question with vigour at first and then slowly, as the object reveals itself to us, we find ourselves observing it in a new light, without judging. There are many things I don’t understand. I want thinkers to arise, people who would break down everything our ancestors told us, scrutinize them in the newest light of science or philosophy, and discard without second thoughts, those ideas that proved useless and wrong, and reinforced the ones, that were without doubt, truths. But it’s good that people have a sense of right and wrong. Think of how much chaos would prevail in our world if they thought otherwise? We are not ready for such radical thoughts. But I trust in the existence of everything. There is a purpose for it all. Government laws, moral values, religious teachings, even parents, everything that keeps us from exploring the darkness of the unknown will keep us safe until a time comes, when we no longer need them, to be safe, to explore. A stable civilisation will arise, a great chapter in the story of time which had an unsure beginning and if allowed, a triumphant end. Everything that has a beginning must have an end. But we mustn’t end before our purpose is fulfilled and for that we must use everything at hand to keep our fellow beings safe.

                  Father had once described me the monsoons of his childhood. Everything about it was green, the wavy paddy fields, the tree covered mountains, the moss coated rocks, the flowing water plants, everything. When it rained in those days, the wells would overflow and water would be everywhere. Plots became rivers and later, ponds, with fishes, some huge enough to be a decent dinner, by itself. Songs of peacocks began the morning rains and howls of foxes ended those of the night. It must have been extraordinarily gratifying to have lived in such a time as that. Sometimes I envy time. To be able to witness everything that happens from the beginning to the end, what I would not give to have that.

                People, who lived much of their lives in the lap of nature, don’t seem to truly appreciate such things, the beautiful creatures of the wild, untamed, and how lucky we are to be human, to be able to dream, and then to wander in the confines of those dreams for hours, and then beyond, might be as rare a gift, as life itself is in the universe. As I cross the boundary back and forth between city and village, I feel like I’ve been given a chance to live two lives, one, in each of these worlds.

                 I remember feeding biscuits to a tiny puppy at midnight in Kesavadasapram (Don’t ask me how I got there, that’s another long story). It had huge, grieving eyes, protruding ribs and a broken leg. He followed me back to Plamoodu, a 45 min walk through the deserted roads. I tried to make him stay at the place where he belonged, but he just kept following me. It was only when the resident dogs of Plamoodu came to view, that he backed away. Dogs are loyal creatures. They are hard wired for it, rendering them incapable of anything else. Every dog is capable of loving, if given a chance. It’s the same with every living thing. Understanding the creature is the first thing. You can’t expect a lizard or a butterfly to love you back no matter how much you wished for it. But that mustn’t stop you from caring for those creatures. Love is about giving and hoping something comes back, right?

                  Everyone the Bengalis loved, were left behind in their villages. How agonizingly painful their lives must be, to be so far away from their mothers, sisters, wives, lovers and daughters, working relentlessly without any hope of seeing them in the near future. But maybe in a way, that gives them the strength to push themselves beyond the normal bounds of human potential. To have the thing that you love the most beyond your reach, gives you this undying passion, this unquenchable thirst, which drives you mad and leaves you with no choice but to dedicate everything you have, to the one thing that you are good at, just so, that you can feel a slight breeze of satisfaction, even if it means nothing, unless you have that person in your arms, and then maybe, you could fade away without complaining.

                 Their work is almost complete. As I set off for the city, leaving my home behind, two of them come out to send me off. Maybe this island that they are on, has brought them close to our family. Father is always with them, talking and laughing. At this moment they have a place in my life. But when I drive away from them, what I know for sure is that I may never see them again. They know it as well. And so, we share this moment, a moment to relish a lifetime, a moment in silence to settle this memory into the archives of our lives. May the fishes from the overflowing wells, find their way to the rivers.