May 5, 2009

Dear all,

I'm back in Mumbai after a long haul in the Punjab. After getting that close to making 205, Gulmor, Ferozepur Road, my new postal address, I think I am already beginning to suffer withdrawal and this morning I already feel like 'a bote without a rubber'.

I had a great time. I made many new friends and strengthened several of my existing friendships. I must thank many of you for helping me build more "mammaries" and making my life richer in the bargain.

I also must thank my job for bringing me in contact with the many "brighties of blazers" or what would have been "barieties of billagers", if they wouldn't contract their words so much. But then again if they didn't speak like that, how would my work be such a fun experience! Where else would you hear about the "virgins" of cricket: the 20/20, one day matches and the test match versions, especially those played in "Safrica and Pasthan"? Actually it's not really cricket that they see anyway but "crickt", where they buy a "tickt" and see Sachin take a "wickt". Where else would these "chraacters" be able to study the "himmunities" and the Arts? Where else would you be provided with "hymens" at the temples? Where else would people help someone who was "beeping" in the hospital and swimming in the "blood"?

Only in the Punjab will people tell you about the several "hysterical" places that they have visited. I think we tried to write history too, when as the first ever all-woman contingent, we walked into a pub in the traditionally male bastion of Ludhiana. Another adventure was when a friend and I actually made our way to watch a Punjabi movie. We saw "Tera Mera ki Rishtaa" in the Westend Mall and couldn't have chosen a better way to figure out what Punjab was all about. Colourful, vibrant, replete with energy (both the actors on the "sacreen" and the audiences, who wouldn't stop talking through the movie),  full of patriotic fervour and love for the Indian culture but which was best appreciated by the audiences, when the "chraacters" in the movie finally returned to "kaneyda"! I guess we heaved a sigh of relief as well, don't want to lose our 'rozi roti 'because of movies that tell people to stay in India! 

Speaking of markets, we did plenty of shopping as well. From the mandis and the malls, from buying crocs to pigging on 'chaat' at roadside eateries, from buying dress materials, Phulkari work, to readymade tops at a place called Baba Papa, and all this between days crammed with meetings and evenings spent assessing answer sheets which start with "therefore" and go on to state their "virile, potent and mighty assertions".

The whole Punjab experience is like that; one large Patiala peg!

Love

Latha

18th April 2004

The first time I saw Tina was through Paul's eyes. I was sitting across the table in Paul's cabin at ABN AMRO, my back to the door and we were waiting for Tina. Paul and I were talking, when all of a sudden, Paul brightened up, his eyes and face aglow with a mixture of pride and pure joy as he announced Tina's arrival. I remember laughing and kidding him about how it was rare to find a much married man who would genuinely react like that to his wife's presence and I remember thinking of just what an amazing woman Tina must be to generate the kind of reaction I had witnessed. I was right.

Tina was indeed an amazing woman as I was to learn in the ten years that followed our first meeting. She had an uncanny capacity to connect directly with the real me. Within minutes we were friends and the friendship had no formalities, no frills. She let me be me... I remained through that time a vagabond of sorts, with little or no social graces that one expects to find in the kind of society Tina lived and moved in. Not once did she try to change anything or to try and make me fit in, not once was I given to feel that I didn't fit in... When she did take me under her wing it was to take care of me in times of bad health, to try and get me to buy myself a house or even to nudge me in the direction that we both saw as evolving spiritually.

I spoke to Tina about everything – the ordinary, the ludicruous and the profound with the same excitement and the same joy. I loved spending lazy afternoons with her, usually lying down and talking nineteen to the dozen. Words kept us connected but it was rarely the words that were important. There was so much more. Just being in the same physical space, on the same mental wavelength, in a shared emotional state and with both of us believing in a spiritual reality that went beyond just God and religion.

I have a lot to thank Tina for. Firstly for the time she nursed me back to health when I was ill and virtually alone. I couldn't have got through that period without her help. Actually each time I needed medical help, it was Tina who would ensure that I got to the right doctor in time. Then for constantly reminding me that no matter how footloose and fancy free I claimed to be that I had a home with her and that she was going to be a constant in my otherwise changing gypsy life. She lent my life a degree of stability that my lifestyle would not otherwise allow me to have. For the performances she took me too, which enriched my life immensely. For the gifts she sent my nieces each time I went to visit them, long before she had even met my sister or her family. For showering love on the people I love just because I loved them.

Tina was a woman at peace with herself. After her return from her prolonged stay in the US, only once did she mention dying to me and that she wasn't any longer afraid of that eventuality. She said she knew that Paul and boys would be able to cope without her. I didn't of course want to accept that there was such a possibility despite her illness and wouldn't let us dwell on that thought but I knew that she really wasn't afraid or anxious and that she would embrace death one day as graciously as she had lived her life.

Tina's passing away has left a void in my life. A void that will remain through this lifetime and yet one that I have no desire to fill. I know that the predominant thoughts I will have when I think of Tina will not be those of sadness or loss but of all the positive things she brought into and filled my life with. The laughter, the joy, the concern, the warmth and the love. I will always be grateful that I was given the opportunity in this lifetime to know and love one like her.

 21st  August 2019 

I’m talking to the surgeon over the phone. Raj sees my face go white and laughs, “Okay, you can be my official epitaph writer” he says. I freeze. I no longer know what to say to him. My horror-struck eyes and ashen face has said it all.  The doctor has given him about a month to live.

Two months later and he’s still alive and fighting. Four times in between, the doctors say he won’t make it and we mentally bid him farewell. All four times, he proves them wrong. The doctors, time and again, admit that they don’t know how he is alive. They know they have little to do with it. He knows that he will not run away from the battle, he just won’t give up the fight.

I was in the 7th standard, when Raj introduced me to Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. His impassioned “Half a league, half a league” imprinted itself on my subconscious, and justifiably so for I studied him, recite the poem with the copious intent to imitate his every expression, his articulation, his inimitable style. I learnt it well and quickly as was wont to happen when one sees the world from eyes filled with raw, unabashed admiration and with the tender and complete adoration of a little sister who believed that her Big Brother was this hero, who simply by his powerful rendition was riding “into the valley of death” along with the six hundred.

Raj was my hero quite literally for a long time. When I was 4, he fought the school bully who dared trouble his little sister; when I was 14, I got him with equal ease to fight the young men who sent any unwanted attention my way. He wrote my speeches and trained me to talk on stage. As a child I wrote verse, and my proud brother, would transcribe them in his beautiful hand into my official “poetry” book. He bought me one of the few ‘real’ dolls that I owned as a child, from his pocket money that rightly should have been spent on himself in the hard, long months that he was away from the family at boarding school. As I grew older, he instilled in me his love of reading and ensured that I always had enough books to read. It was from him that I learnt to appreciate Wodehouse and to register the subtle nuances in Asterix Comics. He took me on my first, long vacation away from home and took the pains to make it memorable in every way.  A natural behind the wheel, he taught me the finer aspects of driving. He was my big brother and big brother to a bevy of cousins in Mumbai, where boys in the family were hard to find and so he would be the one to chaperone us on picnics, take us for movies and in general look out for his sisters.

Now, it was my turn to look out for him.  I got lucky. The eternal gypsy, or vagabond as my friends seem to think of, as a title that suits me better, I had the time and space to stay by his side. I promise him, with a line from Macaulay’s Horatio at the bridge,  “Lo, I will stay at thy right hand and keep the bridge with thee.” We prepare ourselves for the long battle ahead. The first step of course, is to don a new name. Invictus, it has to be, for “I’m the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” These lines will become our mantra over the next 20 months. Scarbelly, partly as an incantation to the Gods, partly because of the war wounds that he will carry with him during this battle. I look at him in the middle of September, having beaten death yet again and think to myself – Invictus Scarbelly, Diehard Warrior – there if ever, was a man who had learnt not to give up. “I am proud to be your sister.” I reaffirm to him at every single opportunity.

A sister’s luck! It’s Bhai Dooj and I’m back from a short Diwali break that I have taken. I walk into the ICU and he lights up as he sees me.  He’s visibly happy. We exchange a few words. I promise him I’ll be just outside and that he can ask for me if he needs me to be around. He acknowledges and then slips into a state where he’s not fully conscious anymore. Little do I know that he won’t regain consciousness ever.  I sit outside the ICU for most of that day, thinking of how much it means to have brothers and of how blessed I have been. I try to stay in a meditative state, I try to send him some positive energy from the other side of the wall. The doctor tells me, it’s all downhill from here and I have stopped believing now that anything can actually go wrong. He’s going to prove the doctor wrong yet again. I know it so surely, that the next day, when the doctor tells me it’ll be soon now, I nod a simple “okay”. My eyes tell him “I don’t believe you still.”

It’s with the same disbelief that I find myself staring at his lifeless body. “Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead.” Yet another poem by Lord Tennyson rings through my mind. I remember my dad reciting a few lines from the poem to me when I was very tiny. It is my dad who I can see now though I’m looking at my brother lying still on the bed in the ICU, now clad in a new, white shirt and mundu. He’s not breathing anymore. I had held his hand till the end and prayed. He died peacefully, that much I am grateful for. When they remove his oxygen mask, his face has this big smile as if to say “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee, Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow”.

31st of October 2019 - Enjoy your sleep Raj. You deserve the rest. You fought bravely and well. You gave it your all and though you lost the battle, you have left behind a legacy that we may, like you, grab life by the horns and live as fully and completely as possible.  And once you are well rested, may you continue to drive the best cars on the Highways of Heaven. May you continue to smile and touch the lives of the people who love you.  

Fare thee well brother. I love you and I miss you.

9th April 2024

 My work mailbox has only two new mails. One is a message from the Organization to whom I provide freelance services, wishing us all a Happy Gudi Padwa. The other is from them wishing one of my co-workers a Happy birthday. I look at them and sigh! They would have us live on love and thin air, I guess. I’d much rather have work than have these wishes. For after all I am a freelancer, a daily wage earner if you will. I get paid not just by the day but by the number of units of work that I do. If I don’t work, there’s no money coming my way.

We used to earn well once upon a time and that’s why I was happy to be a freelance service provider for over 2 decades. Then one day the Organisation decided to go completely corporate. The very efficient lady who was in-charge of us, and who kept us working efficiently almost round-the-clock, thus generating huge profits for the Organisation was replaced overnight by a whole Support Network Team. The beauty of having a team to support you is that the team is faceless. Responsibility is spread over the many members, no one person needs to be solely accountable and you have no single place to go if you need help. What I learned first and fast in the new corporate setup is “don’t ask for help”. 

Why did we need the Support Network Team? Well, the honest answer is we got them gifted to us in what we thought was a brilliant take-over. The Organisation bought over the competition, a sinking ship. This was the only competition that we had. Nobody up there thought of asking why they were sinking. It was so evident that they were on their last legs, for their team of freelance workers were leaving them and flooding our workspace. We learnt from them that they were not being handled well. They were not being paid on time, nobody knew who to go to for help when they needed it and that they had been mishandled over the years, by their very own Support Network Team causing them to flee and join us. They were the cancer that had infected the competition and were taking them down and when we bought the competition over, we bought them lock, stock and barrel, complete with their stationery, their official templates and their disease-bearing cells. It was as if India had taken over Pakistan and very soon, we had become Pakistan!

What’s more now that we had taken over the competition, the Organisation decided it didn’t need to spend time and effort and money on marketing. We sat on our laurels and very soon our numbers started to dwindle, profits started to go South and everyone was so busy gloating about how we were now the only service provider in our field, that we didn’t even know when we had ourselves started sinking!

As a young child I remember being completely obsessed with dolls. They were my greatest passion. I cherished each and every doll that I owned and cared for them long after their newness had worn off. Perhaps part of the reason for this was that I owned very few real dolls. Apart from a rubber duckling, I remember having all of three dolls in my whole childhood.

The prettiest of these was a large size baby doll whose eyes would close when the doll rested and they would open when the doll was held upright. That remained my baby for several years. I already had this doll while we were still in London and at five years of age when my family and I returned to India for good, the doll came with us. Needless to say, as an imported toy, it attracted a lot of attention and I was very proud of my beautiful blue-eyed, golden-haired little companion.

About a year after we had settled in Mumbai, my parents took us to visit cousins in a nearby suburb. I insisted not just on taking the doll along but on carrying it on my person, as if I was carrying a real baby.  I was meeting my cousins for the first time and both sisters were as, if not more, excited at the toy that I had carried as they were about meeting me.

My cousins and I must have had such a great day that when my parents asked me if I wanted to stay back for a few days on my own, I happily agreed. They left for our home that evening while my doll and I settled in to enjoy our vacation.

My uncle and aunt had government jobs and left for work the next day. I was the youngest of the three girls spending the day together and my elder sisters babied me. I happily did what I was told. Once we were all bathed and dressed for the day, the older of my two cousins figured it would be fun to give my doll a bath too. Excitedly we watched as she washed and dried the doll and laid her down to sleep in the small space we had created as a bed. From her resting place my doll stared back at us wide eyed and accusing. Something was wrong, her eyes wouldn’t shut. I was aghast and I must have started to cry.

I know I must have started crying. I was a regular cry-baby back then and it took just about nothing to set off my tears. I can’t remember crying though. All I remember was that we knew that something was wrong and that we needed to do something about it. My older cousin, still a child herself, tried to physically shut the dolls eyes and I’ll never forget what happened next. The eyes detached themselves and fell into the hollow mould of the doll’s body. My doll has lost her eyes. Two holes remained in their place in the once beautiful face.

The beauty of childhood is how easily we recover from tragedies. I hadn’t learned then that we needed to show and carry our grief for all time. In fact, I can’t even remember what happened next except that we continued to enjoy the rest of my stay there. My doll came back home with me at the end of the trip, blind but not beaten and my cousins’ home continued to be my go-to place for the vacations for several years after that. It was on one such trip to their home, that I met a pair of sisters called Latha and Lekha and so when I was 11 and was gifted with a little sister it seemed to me like the natural choice for her name. I asked my dad if we could name my baby sister Lekha and the whole family approved.

My doll went on to die a tragic death when I was around eight. I was dancing in my front room to the beat of some music and remember twirling myself round and round. In the midst of my utter abandonment, I asked my five-year-old hyperactive brother to fetch my doll for me. I had wanted her to join me in this dance of glee. My brother Venu of course for once, decided to oblige me. He picked up my doll and flung her to me. I wasn’t expecting this and was in the middle of a turn and was in no position to make the catch. She missed my arms and crashed onto the cement mosaic tiles on the floor and broke into what looked like a hundred pieces. I remember seeing her eyes on the floor staring at me and reviving the memory of the last time I had seen them. This time I really cried and was inconsolable for a long time. Finally, I think it was Raj, my older brother who came up with the idea of burying the doll properly. That’s when I stopped crying and started getting ready for the funeral. We lived in a largely catholic colony and burials were part of the local culture. I remember my catholic friends helping me to plan the funeral. We found a box for the remains of the doll and gathered some flowers and later that day, my brothers and friends gathered outside the watchman’s cabin in our apartment building. We dug up the earth and placed the coffin in the ground and solemnly said goodbye to my little baby. Thankfully we didn’t mark the ground because I know I did go back to retrieve the doll the next day and couldn’t find anything where I looked. That was the first time I learned what it was to have a sense of finality that comes with loss.