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[warpandwander]

Mom

Hi Mom.

You died on Sunday.

I stood there in the ICU, by the foot of your bed, watching your chest rise and fall. You looked asleep like it was just another day, just another bed. If I leaned into your ears and whispered my name, would you wake up and smile at me? I tried, a few times; you were too soundly asleep. It was confusing in this place, to tell the difference between life and death, because the machines were doing an exceptional task of preserving the illusion of breathing. They even sounded like a low snore. Lies.

In a few minutes, they closed the curtains so we had some privacy, and asked me if I was ready. Would I ever be? I nodded. And they switched off the ventilator and pulled the breathing tube away. I was the only one there to witness it; I had adamantly asked for it. Dad and Sis had spent too much time in here already to bring themselves to see this. I held your hand, kissed your cheek, and told you I loved you and that you had been amazing. I cried the brief halting cry of a man who hadn't wept in a dozen years. You deserved more.

The nurse told me it could be an hour before your vitals flatlined. Maybe in the meantime, you are still in there, waiting to be spoken to. Maybe if I used the right words, spoke them loud enough, or said them often enough? Maybe if I had come sooner, prayed harder, had made more phone calls or visited more often, or hugged you more when I had all those chances?

And with one flick of a switch, you were gone.

We decided we will take you home for the evening. Back to that house that you loved, for one more night. You rested in a glass case, looking gorgeous in your beloved pink sari which your sisters had dressed you up in, adorned with flowers. You didn't seem to mind the raft of visitors, friends, family, relatives that leaned over and spoke to you or cried or eulogized, which was ironic because you were such a light sleeper.

All night the lights stayed on, and someone or the other pulled up a chair next to you and chatted away. I liked watching them and imagining how you would respond to this or that, knowing how your face could never quite hide what you really thought of something. No points for subtlety Mom!

Monday morning, the religious ceremony started, that final one that you shall be bothered with. I wore traditional Tamil white, was given a bath by the priest, chanted at and smeared with ash and vermilion. Downstairs, with the entire clan of your loved ones in attendance, you were given a full Hindu ritual service. You weren't fond of the spotlight but you have no choice in this one.

In the open hearse, I stood by you, intermittently welling up and smiling at some random memory while we rolled through traffic to the crematorium. Someone sat at the edge of the vehicle spraying flowers over the side, while everyone else followed in another van. I spoke to you all the way; I hope you heard it all in the din of that atrocious traffic - apologies, thankyous, iloveyous, promises.

And when after an elaborate cremation ceremony, I was handed the deep earthen pot with your ashes, my week of silent agony, mostly made of calm rational surrender, interrupted by short uncontrollable urges to fold and cry, converged. I felt utter loss. The pot. The woman that had created me was now in it, in a form that weighed nothing. Pure, truly irrecoverable.

Along with Dad and a few others, the pot balanced on my left shoulder, I walked the few minutes to the banks of the Kaveri. That big beautiful river. A calm steady current. Banks crowded with coconut trees. Grey skies, and cool breeze. A few other people around, a few children splashing. I walked in into the water, feet on sandy floor, until I was waist deep. I faced the direction of flowing waters, and gently let go of the pot behind me, and was asked not to look back.

The emotional catharsis I had been fervently hoping for, arrived when the pot sank. From every cell in my body, I felt the anguish drain out into the river, drawing with it all the pain, the loss, the scent of hospitals and funerals, leaving behind only your memories, and an overpowering relief. As if you had held my hands and led me into the waters yourself like an ancient goddess, cured your beloved son of desolation, bid goodbye by kissing my forehead, and dissolved away smiling into the waters.

Dad and everyone else watched but left my solitude undisturbed. Thank you. I looked around - currents, trees, bridge, rainclouds, splashes, sand - and tried to memorize that setting in detail. I sensed the beginnings of as beautiful peace.

I waded back to the sand, and hugged Dad. While the rest of the party walked on, Dad and I stood back on the sand banks, facing the quiet river one last time, arms on each other's shoulders.

I waved, 'Bye Mummy, I love you'.

Dad waved at you and said, 'Bye Bye Mummy kutty. I'll see you in my next life'.

And together, Dad and I walked out of that chapter of our stories where we still had you.

You were born here in this town, this little insignificant corner of the universe, and you traveled to the ends of the great Indian subcontinent, lived in mega cities, spoiled and were spoilt by a lovely husband, raised two grateful children, doted on two grandchildren, and imprinted on the hearts of so many. And then you returned to this same place for the final crossing.

You loved us. You were adored in return. You will be cherished forever.

Bye Mummy.

I miss you.

I hope I see you again someday in that other place.

[Aug 2019]

[warpandwander]

I need to start writing here again. I love this collection of writings. No form or structure. No aims or themes or word counts to hit. Just me.

[warpandwander]

A Child

I look at him. He is a child, my son, beautiful, reckless. I brush my hand over his head, sliding over silk smooth hair. He looks at me, like unbridled joy wrapped in innocence. I whisper to him: where did you come from? Where were you, before you were born to us? Perhaps floating in pristine skies, shedding twinkling stars, tiptoeing on rainbows, and spilling raindrops, in a magical neverland on the other side of nature. Be this forever...

[warpandwander]

Time

I realize I can do far more in a day than I give myself credit for. Same goes for everyone else as well. A day being 24 hours long is an arbitrary confinement imposed by our need to make sense of an infinitely extending time. If time flowed both forwards into the future to the end of all things and backwards into the past to the beginning of the universe, as a stream of moments uncountable but not endless, then we need some handle on every passing instant, a grasp on our reality.

Why did we choose a round clock face? Why not a linear one, like a ruler, that you would flip once the scale’s end is reached? Does my mind appreciate the cyclical nature of time and the phases of life, and life itself, better by witnessing the hands of a clock traverse the circularity of the clock face in endless repetition? Would my sense of achievement and progress as I grow older, be diminished if the dictionary never had words like “clockwise” and “minute”?

Perhaps watching the second hands and minute hands and hour hands trudge inexorably to the reset point and then do it again and again and again in relentless monotony affects me somehow. Somehow deeply. Maybe it’s reminiscent of a more ancient time, of bits of souls and stardust moulded into me from other distant ages. A reminder that it’s all cyclical, that what comes around… That it’s all slipping away ever so surely, one tick at a time.

Or perhaps it gives some comfort to our wee specks of lives on an insignificant pale blue dot, a semblance of relevance. Something to measure ourselves by; to grow, change, learn, connect, love, live.

And repeat.

[warpandwander]

"The guilty fleeth when no man pursueth." An old Biblical saying, slightly reworded by Asimov in the End of Eternity.

[warpandwander]

The Land of Might Have Been - Gosford Park

Jeremy Northam Singing The Land of Might-Have-Been from the movie Gosford Park

Somewhere there’s another land different from this world below, far more mercifully planned than the cruel place we know. Innocence and peace are there— all is good that is desired. Faces there are always fair; love grows never old nor tired.

We shall never find that lovely land of might-have-been. I can never be your king nor you can be my queen. Days may pass and years may pass and seas may lie between— We shall never find that lovely land of might-have-been.

Sometimes on the rarest nights comes the vision calm and clear, gleaming with unearthly lights on our path of doubt and fear. Winds from that far land are blown, whispering with secret breath— hope that plays a tune alone, love that conquers pain and death.

Shall we ever find that lovely land of might-have-been? Will I ever be your king or you at last my queen? Days may pass and years may pass and seas may lie between— Shall we ever find that lovely land of might-have-been?

[warpandwander]

Woods are Lovely

Among the great poems, I have always admired "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost - its unusual meter, its evocative imagery of pristine snow. Years ago, back in university, I wrote a "sequel" to the poem.

Here it is:

My fickle pickaxe will not go Any deeper into the snow I know not how I ended here All but footprints left to show.

I must have lived around that pier now that the mist starts to clear I must have left with nothing to take Or wagered all that I held dear

The mountain holds me in snowy wake So I could see the morning break And see them herd the cows and sheep And kill the demons of my own make

Surrounded by their sublime sweep, I remember the promises to keep Miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go before I sleep.

[warpandwander]

Swimming Pool

(As a teenager, my first day ever at the swimming pool, from another lifetime)

The First Day

As I stared into the rocking pool of water, the brilliant shine on the surface seemed like an enormous mirror. Someone dived in, sending tiny ripples crashing on to the walls of the swimming pool. The entire volume oscillated in a confused rhythm, awe-inspiring and terrifying at once. So much water. A chill sped down my back but my fingers trembled in delight. “If you just stood there, you’re never going to learn.” I nodded at one of the heads that popped out over the surface. In a final sweep, my eyes surveyed the far end of the pool, glowing in the bright evening. Well, that end was ten feet, four feet over my head. The diving board looked like a contraption from a steam-punk novel at the center of the far wall. On the left a series of metal grills, rusted and brown, peeped up lazily - I’d be clutching onto these till I learn how not to drown. “Come on!!” I rubbed my hands and whistled. My two companions smiled sheepishly as we made our way round the pool. The three of us were in the same league, the first-timers. As we lowered ourselves into the water, gentle waves climbed up my legs. It felt warm. I waded through chest-high water to the “beginners’ end”, each step heavier and more buoyant. The body merges with water as if the supreme goal of evolution was to bring its supreme creation back to his roots in the waves. I let myself fall, feeling the gentle upward push growing, moving with the myriad motions. The small pool made a terrifying expanse but its warm touch is at once soothing and lifting, caressing my skin into excitement. I instantly knew I always wanted to do this. I waver and tremble with the water as one among the countless points in a great pulse, letting myself be driven for once by a force other than my own. I take special pleasure in attempting to launch myself off of the floor, creating a noisy splash. Ducking under the surface, I discovered a new world, so effortlessly hidden and enigmatic. Sharks, corals and bizarre lifeforms in colourful make-up surge in my imagination, even as I manage to open eyes underwater for sometime now. The floor is nearer then it feels, just as the law of refraction would predict, distorting views of many legs and grinning faces. As I struggled out, gasping, it’s the same protracted view I see. Immensity, I realise, always draws the soul. For the next hour we splashed our legs in rapid motions, firmly holding the rods. Each thirty seconds of pedalling wears me out for several minutes, straining every inch of my back. But we carried on, eager, energetic and giggling. When the whistle blew, I was more than sad to leave the pool, my new playground. Could be the beginning of a life-long romance.

[warpandwander]

Sunshine

(Written sometime in the summer of 2003, India)

I'm not a very religious person in the true sense of the word. It appears though that the elements have combined in a heavenly conspiracy to drive in a few lessons into me. One of those is the great Indian prayer of the Sun, the Surya Namaskar.

Every morning at 6 or even earlier than my mortal waking hours, daylight pours in through my window, falling gushing on my face. The other window, being a little withdrawn, doesn't do the same to my roommate.

Each day in my deep slumber, my dawn dreams (the ones they say come true) are interrupted by an incessant deluge of light. It begins with a gentle sprinkle, a diffused version that gets past in and around a thousand hexagonal apertures of the mosquito net mounted on the windows. Mosquitoes it nets, along with a variety of other, more despicable winged creatures; but light..

Within minutes, the gentleness is replaced by a more thorough embrace that ripples through my limp form. By now even my dreams are aglow with light of all colours, recklessly splashed around on the walls of the mind. The sunbeams go about systematically knocking every cell, administering the wake-up jolt, a pressure, a firm soothing pressure. And being in the field, I'm only reminded of a computer performing a systems check prior to booting up for full service.

As it soaks in deeper, I begin to feel engulfed in an ocean of sunlight, warm and overpowering. I am waging a losing battle for sleep, until my eyelids are caressed apart to let heaven's own light reach the mind through the eye.

The first thing I do sitting up, quite involuntarily, is blink at the windows and smile. They're now ablaze, overawed by gushing light. Sometimes it dawns on me that those rays travelled millions of miles to arrive at my bedside. Beyond the meshed window, even the heavy weeds look like a garden. Tips of grass and shrubs gleam with glistening dew. Rising behind the trees, the golden disc twinkles majestically.

Heat and light never combined to produce a more tranquil association. My humble response is a mere thank-you, uttered by a voice I've come to know well, in a plane I'm not aware of. The feeling is the same one that grips you atop a cloud-crowned mountain, setting off some perfect day. One of splendour and unrestricted awe, giving me a glimpse once every day of the mystic. Before I jump off bed, I silently wonder how these miracles happen, unfailingly day after day.. Of course, the simplest explanation would be the scientific - my room faces east.

[warpandwander]

Morning

One of those mornings. I sit up in bed, freshly awake, thinking I could do so many things today, or nothing at all. Not a simple choice.

[warpandwander]

Awake?

Waking up at random at night. That strange feeling of loss, at the edge of memory and on the cusp of sleep. A half asleep half jolted mind wonders if someone woke it up. Or some thing. Looking at the faint stripes of street lights etched on the roof, while the eyelids forcibly slide their way back to wonderful dreams, I wonder - would these be new dreams.. Will I leave some dream from before unfinished undreamed and lost forever to the mists beyond remembrance.. Perhaps resume some other night’s forgotten story..

Oh what incredible bedfellows are fickle memory and fertile imagination.

[warpandwander]

dream work in progress

I sighed, and let the weapon drop to the ground silently, watching it gently settle on the wet artificial grass. In less than a few moments, rapid response minotaur units will arrive, evidence will be swiftly gathered, and scouts will be dispatched along every trajectory that bore a pheromone trail. There would be no stopping, evading or outrunning the nifty little bastards.

I glanced at my arm - single red line. Shit. Blood was thinning down, life was running out. I blinked twice to dismiss the guidance maps, no point in those anymore. My adrenaline would have already been detected and flagged, so no point in camouflage either.  I commanded the suit back into auto condition, and instantly felt the temperature along my back rise. This would be a good time for wisecracks, and I can't think of any.

Run?

[warpandwander]

Not all who wander are lost. Some are just dreaming.