Connections of the heart

I have a tendency to stop and talk to anyone I bump into- shopkeepers, the corner farmer, the Starbucks Barista, the little kid in the park, the teen walking her dog and those who I don't talk to somehow just make eye contact and start talking. so last week on a farming stretch of the road I as usual stopped at a farm Stand. There, a really old gentleman with a long hennaed beard literally came running up to me and grabbed my wrist and held his and said "same same". His speech was garbled and I couldn't understand what he said so he took his pen and on his palm wrote "Karachi- Agra" and "Hindi", I smiled and said I'm from Delhi. I spoke with him as much as I could understand and then his beautiful wife called me to the car and said "I'm from Karachi and he is from Agra. He loves India so much that even after 36 years in SFO he still rushes to anyone he thinks is of Indian origin and embraces them, he's had a stroke so he can’t speak much but I must thank you because most people don’t have time to listen to him”. It brought a lump to my throat to think how much regardless of who and where we are, our countries and place of birth unite and connect us.
This is a feeling which I see very strongly in my dad. In summer on a trip to the market my dad suddenly made a dash for a fruit cart on which sat an aged man in a long beard, checked lungi and a skull cap. In our native tongue which is Bhojpuri, my dad asked me “ Please say namastey to Rehmat Chacha, he is from our surrounding village”. And introduced me to him as his daughter who has been to Bihar very rarely but knows Bihar very well. The old man in turn gave the best watermelon to him for me and said “please pay only Rs. 50 instead of 70, our homes are the same”. The 20 was nothing for my dad but it meant a meal for the old man and he parted with it just because of the connections of the heart. The watermelon was that much sweeter and I’ve carried the sweetness 15000 miles over the seas. So when I see and hear of all the religious divide happening in my country and the world I often ponder that we really are “same same” so why the divide?

Latika Ratnam

I don't know much about her but I grew up listening to her every night sharp at 9 pm. Her wonderful melliflous voice at 9 sharp announcing "This is All India Radio, the new read by Latika Ratnam" was my catch up with the world news and an opportunity to learn diction, pronunciation and voice modulation. Hard for today's generation to understand the power of radio and learning associated with it. our Heroes were not the likes of Kim Kardashians and Lindsay Lohans but people with real talent, passion for what they did and who led exemplery lives worth emulating. I knew nothing of what Latika did other than reading the news and as per my dad if I wanted to learn how to speak good English i had to listen to Latika's news, Melville D'Mello's sports broadcast even if I did not understand terminology like silly point and midwicket. And Learn I did. I practiced every day in front of the mirror learning to speak like Latika and Melville, of rolling my R's and throwing my voice. And every time a debate was around the corner I would pretend I was Latika and I'm proud to say I won many. And then Tejeshwar Singh happened! I really don't remember what he read and what calamity was he announcing, all i remembered was his crisp white shirt, his baritone voice and dreamy eyes. He was one of a kind, they don't make newsreaders like him anymore. The shrill, hysterical, uncouth, unrepresentable men and women are what passes off for TV journalists these days, especially in India. Their reading is always colored by their views and prejudices and they often pass judgement on the issue they are covering. Whatever happened to impartial reporting and communicating the news as it unfolds? And there is nothing to learn from them. Some do not even understand or speak the language they are reporting in. I miss the rose and grace of Salma Sultan, The bright bordered sari with impeccable Hindi diction of Sarla Maheshwari, the cool sophistication of Neethi Ravindran and the grave elegance of Tejeshwar Singh. May their tribe come back and teach our kids the importance of the spoken word.

My Perfect number 10

This year promises to be a watershed year in our lives. Husband celebrates his 50th, we celebrate 25 years of marriage that has been mostly blissfull and our youngest goes of to college. All very exciting but somewhere there is a yearning for the happy, young carefree days, of holding newborns and watching them take their first steps. Children keep you young but also age you prematurely. Many a night has been spent in wonderment over the first tooth and so many more waiting for them to come home from wherever their adventures with the car keys lead them. Today my daughter plays her last game of Varsity basketball for her school. What an amazing journey it has been from the first day she picked up a basketball at 12 to tonight when she closes out her last game as a senior. Basketball has just not been about ball handling and making shots, for us it has taught her the most important life skill of all- how to be one with a team. Many of our Indian friends back home and some here too wonder why is it that we are so crazy about our daughter playing a sport- afterall we live in the silicon valley and her time would have been better spent interning at the many tech companies which dot our area. To them I say come watch our daughter: see her play, interact with her peers, her team mates, her coach, her amazing sense of self-worth and confidence. I think it is Basketball which has provided it all. We cannot believe this is the same little 5 year old who had to be literrally dragged across the soccer field kicking and screaming for her first soccer practice. The first few days were an excercise in patience not just from us but from her amazing first coach, Tom. He dealt with a painfully shy,sobbing little girl suffering with separation anxiety and converted her into one of his star players who contributed to winning many a championship. He will be ther tonight to see the transformation he helped start. In time Kobe Bryant took over and her life was one basketball obsessed moment after another. If not practicing , she would be playing or flopped over on the couch watching one rerun of old games after another. The road has not been easy- Being cut, benched, not played enough, injuries but she has learned to take them in her stride, showing far more composure than her parents. Her coach has been her mentor, friend and guide. His mantra- Student-Athlete has stood her and her team mates well for all us senior parents can proudly claim that not only our daughters have excelled in the sports field but multiple colleges have come calling. Thank you Keith Ramee. But really, its not all about her. I will miss all the cool baadass moms who have screamed, cheered and clapped along with me and I can attest that there can be no better cheerleaders than us. Sure we don't do all the gymnastics but we do put up a show. I like to think the cops are there for us- to keep us in line and many a time all of us nurturing types have been nearly booted out. Remember the movie, Brave? Never mess with a Mama Bear or in our case Mama Eagle! So go out there Number 10 and play your perfect game! You've made us proud beyond imagination and we cannot wait to see where you go from here.

Carmen

Today is a day dedicated to lovers and all things romantic but for some reason Its my Naani I remember. What jogged my memory and I remembered my Naani was the smooth skating on Carmen by an Olympic Skater in Sochi this morning. I'm not an opera fan and have no knowlegde of classical compositions but as soon as the event was on I was glued and I mentioned to my husband that this was my Naani's favorite piece of music. Surprised by this. Because my naani came from a small town in Bihar- Chappra famous for giving India its first Indian President Dr. Rajendra Prasad and notorious for Lalu Yadavs. But more surprising is that my Naani - Dr. Sushila Devi was a teenage widow in the 1940s when becoming a widow meant a fate worse than death- you were a persona-non-grata, an evil shadow to be shunned and a social outcast. Its a testemony to her father and her father-in-law's Arya Samaj antecendents that she escaped her head being shaved and being sent off to Kashi or Mathura to face a fate very much like the one faced by Chuiya from the movie Water. Instead she went on to Medical school and became one of the first women doctors of post-independent India and the only woman doctor in an entire region. The lines outside her clinic were legendary and I'm sure not vastly exaggerated because as a Child I have witnessed patients lining up at 4 am to be seen by her. As was the situation in those days and probably it holds true till today, she could never remarry and to satisfy her yearning for motherhood, adopted my mom when she was an infant. Amidst great social prejudice she set up her practice and developed a a taste for the finer things in life. She taught herself many languages, Music, played the Taanpura, Harmonium, was an avid reader and I like to think that she transferred her love for reading to me and onto my daughter. For many a lazy summer was spent in her book lined library devouring Pearl S Buck, Shaw, Wordsworth, Jane Austen, first edition Readers Digests and Illustrated weekly of India. I think that's where my mom got her taste of and for literature and went on to do her PhD in English Literature. Every evening we would all change, look smart, and sit around her tea table waiting to be served Tea and Marie biscuits and listen to Carmen in the orignal form on a gramophone from HMV. Now how many women in India would have done that in the 60s, 70s and 80s let alone a child widow? She passed away 5 years ago but I know she lives on in my mother's fierce independence, my rebel soul and my daughter's quiet determination and steely core. So in my world I have already witnessed one in a Billion Rising and now I ache to see One Billion Rising. Rising for the hopes, lives and futures of our mothers, sisters, daughters and grand-daughters.

Having it all

Being the eldest girl in the family meant that there was no trail or path set by anyone which I had to follow or any tradition i had to confine myself too. It also meant that everytime I did something unconventional a lot of my extended family would tell me that "good girls don't do that". It could be as trivial as wearing a skirt at 15 or wanting to become a classical dancer. Which meant my parents especially my dad had to fight with a ton of prejudice and listen to a lot many lectures just to make sure that I could be free to do it all, have it all, dream big and be what I wanted to be. And for that I'm eternally grateful. Of course it helped that I come from a very strong line of women- My Maternal Grandma, a teenage widow who was one of the first woman doctors in her region and then my mom who was a mother at 17 and went on to do a PHD in English Literature, so I knew how to fight and get what I wanted and I sure did. So my dad just doesn't understand how so many of my younger cousins who have never had to fight for their freedom can just give up their ambitions and stay home as soon as motherhood arrives. I wonder too. But then doesn't freedom mean the liberty to choose? Should they be lectured just because ten tiny toes, an upturned nose and tiny fists rearranges their priorities? Isn't motherhood one of the most rewarding and meaningful jobs in the world? why can't it be a career? Eariler i saw this beautiful advertisement dedicated to the Olympic moms and it moves me beyond tears. for it expresses what we all feel- for our childern and for our mothers. Now which boss can rival that emotion? ad_n_4548505.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/01/06/thank-you-mom-sochi-ad_n_4548505.html I remember all the days spent in the cold mornings watching my son playing baseball. All the evenings where dinner had to be through a drive-through, Breakfast on the field, weekends spent on the road going from one tournament to another. Driving him from a game and consoling a tearful boy on not being played enough or exulting with him on a ball hit out of the ballpark. Of dragging a reluctant little 5 year old to play soccer, of rushing from work to watch her play basketball, all vacations being around their schedule and missing movies and office meetings to watch one more game. This was no sacrifice at all. It was an investment in their future so the worlld could have these wonderful citizens of tomorrow. It surely is worth it all. I realise this today after so many years, maybe the younger generation is smarter than us and have decided that being the "The Chief Cheerleader" is the best role of all. So who am I to disagree?

Travel Travails

Travelling for work is no fun at all. Especially with the Polar Vortex on the move across much of America. But sometimes just sometimes these travails takes you beyond the crowded airports, obnoxious co-passengers and taxi-cab woes. On my way to San Francisco from Dallas I got a chance to spend time with my boss who is usually a taciturn and mostly unavailable man. But then delayed flights, APPs exchanged, Starbucks and the ice was broken and me being me had to ask where was his accent from- didn't sound English or South African. And thus began a wonderful, exciting narrative going back to 1800s. So his aunt- his great-grandfather's younger sister was Mary Gaunt. She was the first "white" woman who travelled accross Africa and China. No mean feat in the days of Victorian Australia when women were meant to be kept barefoot and pregnant- of course it still happens in many parts of the world but I'm digressing. She was a published author and a woman of conviction. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gaunt-mary-eliza-bakewell-6290 So now i have found my next read- "Alone in Africa" by Mary Gaunt. Not to be outdone by her grand Aunt, her neice who was a social butterfly met and married her husband solely on the strength of letters sent from Italy to North Africa where he was fighting Mussolini's war. In those Skypeless days she married her husband in-absentia in a little church in Italy and set sail for North Africa on an adventure which took her from the shores of Egypt to Ethiopia, Rhodesia before finnaly setting roots in South Africa! Women of substance and extra ordinary sense of adventure who did not have the comfort of airport lounges, heated cabs or Business class cabins and here I was bitching and moaning about a little dusting on my plane!

weights and measures

January is a time of new beginings and resolutions for most around the world and I'm no exception to this yearly ritual of a promise-to-turn-over-newleaf syndrome. As far as i can remember most of my resolutions revolve around food- I swear I'll measure what I eat and will for sure reduce my ever increasing reading on the scale. This year has been no different but has been exacerbated by the much anticipated 25 year college reunion which i just came back from. Fair or Foul the pressure is on us women to still look like the dewy selves we were at 20,keep the shame(!) waistlines and have black tresses cascade down our backs. so imagine what happens after 25 years- many batchmates I did not recognise but a greater many refused to recognise me. Back handed compliments flowed fast and furios accompanied by wonderment to "what happened to you"? Err..2 kids, surviving in a man's workplace, a dog and a husband all necessarily not in that order but pray do tell- "what is your excuse Mr. Pot Belly" ? Every meal and every drink was looked at with a jaundiced eye and yes many an admonition of "you don't need it". Excuse me, but who died and made you my dad? So I came back all chastened and determined to show em all that there might still be the the old girl of yore lurking under all those love handles. And the next reunion is 5 years away so I have plenty of time to get back. I've heard that 50 is now the new 35, so as I still have a few years to be 35 lookout all you gorgeous yummy mummies I'm hitting the trail with a vengence. After tomorrow and then Friday and maybe after Saturday's parties are done with. For tomorow is another day!

an equal place

It’s a fact that everyday when I get up the first thing I do is open my Facebook page and try to catch up with the 7 hours I missed while sleeping. Why do I do that? Is it an addiction? Yes, I am addicted. I’m addicted to knowing what has transpired in the lives of my friends in the other part of the world which was awake while I slept. For all my “friends” on FB are indeed my close friends. They are a reflection of my past, present and the times to come. Every day I look for something to move me, an uprising I can participate in and sometimes just an axe to grind J this morning a very simple article on Suchitra Sen’s resonated with me and I started to think on how a very small natural gesture has the power to change the world. It is a fact that in our society boys/men are valued over girls and this stems not just from the adage that “Boys will carry on the family name” but also from our scriptures which stress on how a person can attain salvation only if their last rites are performed by their male child. Millenniums of this belief cannot be erased by mere talk shows or panel discussions. It’s now embedded in ur DNA and I have seen many an enlightened parents of girls who in their last moments give in to societal norms and  their own insecurities and look for some male, however distantly related to give them the last farewell on their last journey. In that one instance the girl who was more than equal for her entire life gets relegated to being second. The only way to change is to be the change you want to see. Moon Moon Sen performed her mother’s last rites and it sent a very powerful signal that its ok to have your daughter bid you farewell and yes that you will go to heaven and attain Mokshya. Hopefully the gesture by a very revered and public figure will go a long way to chip away at this not-so-fair belief and girls will get the same honor and place as the sons. And I hope when the time comes my parents will accord me the same honor as I know for sure I will accord to my daughter.