Closure: A short story.

Closure: A short story!

It is day three of my unplanned visit to my inlaws place in Kerala. After the passing away of both my inlaws, living in the house built by them is now  a little different. My husband and his  siblings had decided not to partition the property which consists mostly  of the house they grew up in.( At one time the house had been  renovated  to increase  the rooms to accommodate more and more extended family ie spouses, grandchildren under the same.roof.)  

Though a comendable decision, it brings about its own peculiar problems. Like who will maintain the place?. What about finances?  And the labour involved.and so on and so forth.

Just three years of no proper human habitation, the sprawling house has already started threatening to fall apart.  Rats and then therefore  a snake  became a not so uncommon guest.

Not all the extended rooms are now needed,  but the expenses for the upkeep of  rooms, including restrooms, continue.

 But i am digressing!

  The story I want to share today  is about this  man who  came in the morning  to chop the    branches   of the  mango  tree,  cut yesterday,  into smaller pieces 'vergas'  which is then meant  to be used as fuel  for the 'adpa' hearth. 

As I hear the regular thud of  him chopping  the logs, I ask my  BIL about his wages.. about a 1000 bucks a day! Seems high to me! Can we afford it? I ask. 

After paying wages for the cutting the branches,  and then further paying for chopping them, it works out to around the same amount, if we chose  to buy the 'vergas',  or opt for the gas cylinders, without the unnecessary  efforts too, my brother in law offers.

So then why do we call him? I wonder!  And  why does he come? I further wonder. A very highly politically aware Kerala has made it difficult for the very  small farmers, due to minimum wages, to make enough for his own sustainance, and the trickle down policy of reservations has done nothing much for the 'poorest of poor' either.

The only upside to this depressing scene  is the seeming unbroken continuation of old traditions.

When I  see the man as I go out to check the friendly cat,  somehow plots for many short stories, spontaneously make home in my head.  There is a semi tragic air about the stoic way in which the man  is single mindedly steadfastedly chopping the logs. 

My fertile  brain immediately  weaves various plots of inter caste one sided / two sided  unrequited love between the daughter of the house and him, and then it adds another angle of perhaps  two daughters,  love triangles etc and then I remember Satyajit Ray's Satgati and I wonder should I make my story about unintended labour's exploitation and so on and so forth.

 However to start my story I need to know his age.  For that I  ask my SIl how old he is! She not only tells me about his age, he is around 60,  she also  gives his life story!

And as stated before,  by writers of yester years, life is always more deeper than fiction.  His own life story has much much more, than anything I could have spun. 

He was married, had a daughter  and was settled in Chennai, working in a small teashop. His wife one day killed herself, and till date he has no clue as to why.  He chose to came back  to  Kerala, leaving his daughter with her grandparents. Even today, years after his wife's death,  he works like a bull and drinks like a fish. His now grown up married daughter visits him once a year. 

  I think he is a  person awaiting closure.

Just be

It had to happen
  some day
and it did now,
I love you,
the way I loved no other,
(I sometimes wonder how)

Knowing your love for me
does not, may not,
be long lasting,
Easily breakable
by the fancies
Of the world you live in.

This time
I don't want commitments,
I don't want permanances
I don't want honesty either,
Nor do I greedily
want all the glances.

I don't want
shared meetings,
Nor do i want shared time,
I do not want
to play the games
Mind games
that were previously so mine.

You are a natural,
and perhaps
that has rubbed on me,
If at all, I want something,
It's this, I want us to just be.

A letter posted

This time,
I have put the right address
on the  letter written long ago
and posted it too,
I have  put the ball in your esteemed court now,
handed you the power to hurt me,
advertently or inadvertently,
for I have decided
to take my life in my hands
to finally face the
the fear of a long uncertain wait
or no reply at all..

I have decided to grow!

When Harry met Sejal

So how do you manage to create a love story with a heavy duty self professed womaniser boy, and a wet behind ears about sex, and engaged and about to be married girl?

Answer is When Harry met Sally, sorry  gijjuben Sejal.

Bollywood had moved forward somewhat, in the sense, that if Mere jeevan sathi of the ever popular 'o mere dil ke chain' showed the hero as a womaniser but also secretly had to do  loads of charity by the side, in order to come across as eligible in order  to win the heroine's heart,  our current Harry hero no  longer requires such cheap props.

He is clear about his sex addict status, (though may not be too happy about it and that too, only because the image hurts his career prospects badly).

It's not clear why Sejal opted to tour the whole of Europe with the self proclaimed 'pervert', except for some vague last liners from Sharukh 'you were not searching for your ring, you were searching for me' mush crap,

And it is also not clear why the movie tries to sell monogamy, when the hero  so clearly  is not!

Imtihaz Ali, as usual, creates interesting characterisations, but the stories end up in typical lame tame Bollywood territory.

It does however raise  the still interesting (has been first raised in DDLJ) question as to why would anybody in his right mind opt for an 'untried untested sexual arena' marriage, when everybody knows it is an important component of any long term relationship.

Anushka plays  the girl who plays the curious girl who wants to know the exact price of womanhood,  and it must be admitted, that  after all these years still manages to retain most of her freshness

while

SRK seems to be heavily stuck in middle age angst, because he can no longer play the head in clouds optmistic about love  teenager, and has to undertake  the heavy task of a polyamoriser selling monogamy, which he has not been able to do too well.

The ending between the loverboy and sweet gal seems contrived.

Finally the initial song tells it all..

I am stuck in a forever  journey,

which is how the movie should have  ended in my humble opinion.

Memories

One of my most cherished memory has to be the one month vacation we had when I was about nine, in May, 1975, to my native place in a small village in Kerala.

We are are Mumbai based and for some reason, we siblings had never been to Kerala or to my grandparents place before that. So it was my very first visit to a village.

As far as I was concerned i was reluctant to go initially, because it would mean losing out on play time with regular city friends.

But once I got into the train to Kerala, the magic began to play!

What more could a child of eight, with an over active imagination ask for, than a tiny house on chugging wheels, for 36 hours almost non stop, how so ever meagre it was. A house that gently rocked you while you ate and slept!

My dad was a strict person, so normally we were these ever obedient children, never upto any intentional mischief, and this journey was sans dad, so we suddenly learned the wonders of instant freedom from his brand of hard discipline.

Once we reached quaint not so symetrical home, I was blown at the huge size of the house my grandparents lived in, compared to our small apartment in ever crowded Mumbai. The highlight was a particular room which had walls on all four sides.

Then, one by one, further magic began to unfold!

The grandparents had hens, along with a tiny but proper hen house, perched high up out of reach of wolves, which laid eggs daily, and it was with a huge sense of wonder that I handled those tiny things when granny let me help her collect them each day.

They had a goat, who simply loved greedily eating the hibiscous flowers in the courtyard, they had cows which gave milk, and who I tried to milk, and which lived in a quaint shed close by, and one day one of them gave birth to a calf, right there in front of my wonderous eyes! Trying to milk then was fun.

The coconut trees which gave tender coconuts, the mango trees which gave mangoes, like wise the jackfruit trees, and the cashewnut trees, and the chilly shrubs and and colourful flowers so on and so forth. And best of all, the whole thing was free! No buying anything.

The first day, evening time, it was getting dark and I ask granny, where are switches to the light? And Grandma grinned. Come I'll show you, and she began lighting one lamp after another! It was playing with fire..rather the flame! another no no in dad's Mumbai!

Same with taps. No water taps. All water came from the well outside the house. Trying my hand at drawing water was one interesting routine.

Their toothpaste was charcoal, their tongue cleaner was the stick part of the coconut leaf. They used jackfruit leaf neatly folded in a particular fashion to drink their rice gruel.

And imagine my secret delight, when I knew my feet needn't use sandals to walk around even to distances fairly far enough to be covered by local buses, because people didn't usually wear footwear in those days, except for very special occasions.

In those days they did not have a bathroom and instead bathed in the house pond, and deficated in the near open. Even this to my childish mind was nothing less than pure freedom!

Then there was the village temple festival, where we saw elephants and elephants all decked up granderously.

And last but not the least, of how they would not keep stuff Indoors or strictly lock the doors before settling for the day. And that too it was more to avoid animals like snakes, than any fear of theives and robbers.

For me it was all about unadulterated freedom from all kinds of disciplined tyranny, including parental, mental, physical, school teachers, tirany of a city life, and when villages in Kerala had still not lost the art of being close to nature, and simple living!

It was my very own Alice in Wonderland month!

Exuberance

Today as i take my daily walk to the station,  and reach a  short cut, consisting of a narrow lane, so narrow, that only one person can comfortably pass through, I see  this young pre primary school girl, yellow blazer, smart light blue denim knee length skirt, hair neatly pony tied, both sides, and an umbrella doubling like a walking stick, with her grandfather.

She is a bit ahead of her grandfather, I cut cross her grandfather, and want to pass her too, but she quickly quickens her steps.

She is tapping the umbrella, and humming a tune, even as she is doggedly keeping ahead.

I love it that she is totally awake, ( unlike some sleepy weepy kids I've seen, other times), and somewhere where the lane ends, she turns back to her grandfather..dadduu, you are slow.

I am old, he mutters.

I am grown up now, she says!.

Reminds me of me at her age, a person raring to go!

I wonder how long will they let her be this wonderful person.

Before they try and  eventually manage to pull down her natural exuberance with those million rules. As though no person has a right to be happy going to school.

Or like my bosses reaction at my exuberance on my first job..office is not a picnic, just get that! He had exasperatedly said. (You are not supposed to be happy working, dammit..).

Marriage should  mean responsibilities, not fun, running to and fro to Kerala, every two months...... This my mom.

Though I would have loved to walk three steps behind the girl, till she reached her school, I have a deadline to keep, so edge past her ahead, after mentally saluting her spiritedness.

On giving birth

It really started on 17th, at about 11.30, after all around had settled for the night .

But inexperience made me think it was indigestion, By 3 am, I was worried it was the thing..

My sister who woke up , to see me agonising says..., oh poor you, didn't you sleep? .Wait, il call mom.

Mom had an anticipatory smile, yeah..It's time she says.

My fast asleep bro, irritated, to be awakened so early, cries, of course not, it can't be time, don't be silly ..Let a guy sleep for God's sake.

Dad's away on work,  hubby at his place, so neighbouring uncle steps in, and off we all go, to the hospital, as precision planned.

A small hitch....  my regular doctor is on vacation.
Oooops, its a  male doctor who walks in.

But at least, he looks nice and comforting..I'm shivering with cold,( the huge matron scared me into keeping the fan on, after I had switched it off twice..Who is switching off the fan, she had roared, while I had pretended not to hear).
Right now all I  want is it off..Badly ..Very badly...If only somebody stood up for me and switched it off, right into the matrons face, I would be fine,  I think..

My new doc, asks me what's wrong..I'm cold, I whimper,  and she won't let me switch off the fan.

She is stupid, don't mind her, he says brightly, switching off the fan for me.

I am glad..I have my saviour..Now nothing can go wrong, I decide.

Three or maybe five hours later I'm not so sure..The struggle is just not ending..I remember the pact me and hubby had...If it's a boy, we opt for another, or we stop at one.

To hell, I  decide unilaterally, boy or girl, this is the last!......I'm through with making babies for a life time.

As if on cue, the imp  pops out, victorious!