Sometimes the toughest battle is the fight to be grateful when one receives less and less from life.
…..
Not the best way to acknowledge post # 100, but when you have 3 years and 550 posts behind you, one tends to grab the moment and spread one’s insides all over it. Like grape jelly on multigrain bread.
[Note: Link to actual events here.]
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Love made me do it. Love made him do it.
My love for the city. His love for me.
“For you, my love, I walk today,” one sore foot sighed to the other.
And the objects of adoration glowed gently in the January sun.
Another year, another marathon, and love that’s a long walk home.
Hah. Knew the title would get the stampeding hordes here. The hit rate on this post went up even before I clicked publish. But now that you’ve made it, stay. And listen to this:
The marathon this Sunday? I’m going to be there. A speck among a million Mumbaikars, resembling the mango that is the color of my tee. Walking for Ummeed and India Helps. I’m no different in my intentions. I feel the same way as the rest of my team. So I’ll leave clearer voices to speak for me while I limber up and flex my fingers to sign the slew of autographs you’re going to beg of me.
Only on one condition, of course. Read about the two causes close to my heart. One an old faithful bond, the other a deeply cherished newborn association. Come Sunday, the legs will pitch in. And hopefully, bring us helping hands in their wake.
And Bombay, my beloved Bombay, she’ll shine, shine, shine.
So you thought I was done expounding on the issue of resentment toward the privileged?
You’re right. I was.
But some very articulate folks aren’t, the Lord be praised, and here’s what they have to say:
Any and every attack on one’s country and fellow citizens is shocking and upsetting, no matter who the perpetrators or what the cause might be. There is no part of the country that is “okay” to be attacked. And yet the scale of our reaction to these attacks is very different. As a lot of people have pointed out, some of them on this very blog, the Mumbai attacks, while shocking, are not unprecedented in terms of style. They’re been all the rage in Kashmir for quite a while now, for instance.
So why haven’t I ever felt quite as strongly about those attacks? They too were outrages perpetrated against Indian citizens on Indian soil and dealt with by the Indian army.
Short answer? Because I don’t feel about Kashmir the way I do about Mumbai.
If you do, then good for you, but I don’t. I’m very sorry, but there’re certain parts of India of which I’m more fond than others. These tend to be places that I have visited or places that I intend to visit someday. Kashmir, thus far, is not on that list. I feel like a traitor for saying that because it’s Kashmir, you know, and I grew up in an age where you had to be rabidly invested in Kashmir’s status in the Indian union, but that’s precisely why I have such different feelings for Mumbai vs. Kashmir.
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But last month as I watched the Taj burn on TV, my world fell apart. My blood is intrinsically connected to Colaba. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I get to gawk at a lot of rich people, everybody speaks Hindi with an accent and it’s the only place in the world I get confectionery which I can multiple orgasm over and then dance a Mexican Hat Dance while waving a glass of cold coffee over my head while shouting “I’MMA GONNA MARRY THISA PLACA.” A lot of it has to do with the fact that when my mother was busy treating me like the illegitimate child that my dad went and had on their honeymoon while she had to clean up cat poo for three weeks, Colaba was the fat lady next door who baked me cookies and showed me glittery things and kept me distracted. Colaba was the best friend who stayed up all night to hear me sob, Colaba was the boyfriend who hid me in his room till I could sneak out early in the morning.
Colaba took away my home and with it my three days of a childhood spiralled up like coloured bits of paper in the billowing smoke. I guess we have strange ways of growing up.
………….
Salman Rushdie on Arundhati Roy’s disparaging remarks about the iconic status of the Taj:
I thought that particular remark in her piece was disgusting. The idea that the deaths of the rich don’t matter because they are rich is disgusting. The idea that 12 members of the Taj staff who heroically gave their lives to save many of the guests are to be discounted because they are, presumably, lackeys of the rich—this is nauseating. This is amoral. She should be ashamed of herself.
Okay? Okay. NOW I’m done.
Take an extra pair of arms,
to wind ’round yourself,
on warm sea-smell nights
when life chills your bones.
Fortitude is a must.
3 packets, easily accessible,
right next to the cup
you’ll stir faith and cocoa in.
Strength, to haul up the skin and bones,
that carried you through babyhood,
brushed your teeth as you fell asleep
in a time when cavities appeared only in teeth.
Steel to solder the wavering will,
Anger at life’s brittleness,
Cream to soothe anguished spirits,
a broom to scoop up heartbreak,
love to pour into the sad, sore hollows,
and napkins to soak the role reversal in.
Before you run out of space,
you’ll run out of words,
and lurk in your own life
prayingly.
Poetry is not optional.
It is what warms your innermost throat when your breath has been snagging.
The one where I sound hopeful and cheery and mouth lines like “May the new year usher in many joys to heal and hold us in its blessed days” which I promptly trotted out in response to the Boy’s “What shall we text our friends this year?”
The one where I wish upon you the happiness you could just as well receive on September 15th. July 24th. February 2nd. May 9th.
The one where I look back on the days that were and sum up my life in neat little Tupperware containers. Health: C -, Work: B +, Love: A ++
Done. Put a lid on and pack it away. Next, please!
But I’m still here. As are the days and the hours. That layer of dust on the turntable remains unmoved. As does the home I came back to this afternoon. The precise look on Ma’s face when I’ve been gone a while. The way the cabbie spat out his tobacco. The lilt of ‘La Bamba’ each time my phone buzzed. And the firm, warm love that the Boy held out, from one day to the next.
There are still no dustbins in the Borivali National Park. And praline in vanilla fudge ice cream tastes just as good. I’m still struggling to find domestic help for the evening hours. The Bolshoi ballet continues to be sold out. The winter is as unshivering as always. My kiddos are as bouncy as ever. The fan creaks its ancient presence. People live with a rent in their hearts. I still haven’t found the perfect black kurta. The boys at traffic lights keep pimping pirated Adigas. Our arms are wound around ourselves, and sometimes each other, but we must unwrap them post haste, to be thrown up in predetermined celebration as the rapidly appearing milestones shimmer in the smoggy haze. Click a clock. Flick a page. And magically, we’re in Year Next.
But I’m still here. As are the days and the hours. And that layer of dust on the turntable remains unmoved.
Where do lurkers go to die?
When they’re done scanning surreptitiously,
Flitting behind translucent screens,
Consuming voicelessly the offerings of another,
Nodding in mute agreement,
Dissenting distantly,
They scuttle back into the black hole
From whence they came.
…
Rise and shine the next morning,
Train those eyeglasses again,
Voyeurism can’t be bad if we’re all snoops (right?)
And saying hello might just kill us.
So this army of lipzipped bystanders
Scuttles back into the black hole
From whence it came,
Shut the lid for good measure,
There, now we’re follow-proof!
…
Maybe that’s where lurkers go
to die.
Ultra Violet
Vox populi