...

I met Dee online... Dee was a good friend back in Bombay.... Ok, IS a good friend still but we chat like once in 3 months. She has migrated to Canada and is busy with studies and a baby.

Chatting with her has brought back so many memories….she told me that Uncle-ji has passed away. I still remember him... with his orange hair peeking out in tufts from beneath his white cap.

I don’t think he ever figured out how to use henna. Or maybe, that’s just the effect of henna on white hair? I thought sometimes that he just needed a dash of green somewhere...I often tended to romaticise him cos I was scripting for a movie on how there was so much prejudice against the Muslims and how the Muslims were not 'foreigners' as the textbooks alleged but were as much a part of India as any other Indian. And Uncle-ji for me was the protagonist.

When I was in Bombay, I fell terribly ill after 5 months of hostel food. Lost a whole month of college and then when I went back, Dee told me that I could stay with her granparents--Uncle-ji and Aunty-ji. So one day, we took a half-day off and went to Mahim.

It was a wholly different side of Mumbai…and I was in a daze through that entire visit. It was a totally different culture. I didn’t understand a word of what they were saying cos they didn’t speak Mumbaiya Hindi but “shudh Hindi” with a lot of Urdu thrown in.

To this day, I don’t know their real names….but somewhere deep down in my heart, I remember my days there with fondness…with a tight feeling in my chest….cos they were so good to me…

Uncle-ji would tell me all about Allah and aunty-ji would teach me how to make tea and mutton biriyani. I didn’t understand their version of Hindi very well cos it was liberally mixed with Urdu…but somehow, after I moved there, I kinda alienated myself from my classmates.

Somehow, there was something strangely soothing about being with two old people…some of their stillness of being seeped into me…it was just comforting being with them….and somehow, I sensed that having me around gave them a sense of purpose.

“Before you came, we never bothered much with the cooking,” Aunti-ji would say.
“Before you came, we were so bored.”
“Before you came, we never went shopping.”
“Before you came, the phone never rang.”

I was supposed to be their paying guest but that was just a formality. For 3.5 k, I had a room all to myself, good food and so MUCH of love. They ordered their day to suit mine. Though I had a spare key, they’d stay awake until I came back…

Often, after the scripting and shootings sessions, it was 2 or 3 a.m when I reached. It was scary walking the deserted streets alone but then, knowing that Aunti-ji’s prayers were surrounding me…was a strangely comforting thought.

I admit I was kinda prejudiced when I went to stay at Mahim. The sight of so many flowing beards and little caps was discomforting simply because I wasn’t used to it. But soon, I began to feel like I had always belonged there. Everybody came to know me. I was the “woh choti ladki” who stayed with Uncle-ji and Aunti-ji.

There was something calming about all of it. The masjid nearby. The sight of Uncle-ji on his knees before God, the sight of Aunty-ji in the kitchen…how they explained to me that we Christians and them Muslims actually shared history. How Jesus was their prophet too.

Those days I was a self-proclaimed agnostic…the only times I prayed was when I had my exams…but I think, somehow during those few months with Aunti-ji and Uncle-ji, I started believing in God. The Lord God Almighty. Jehovah Jireh for us. Allah for them.

And now…he’s gone. I know death is temporary…and I know I wasn’t in touch with them except for an occasional phone call and a visit last year. but somehow thinking of them, always gave me such an “All’s well with the world” feeling.

I am feeling…heavy.

All Set for Christmas!

Sometimes, I like to go around the mulberry bush. Wonder about things that obviously have no answer ‘cos the question didn’t even qualify as a question in the first place.

Sometimes, I like to think about my soul. Wonder what it looks like. I know it’s a really old-fashioned, uncool word, but it’s my soul, and therefore, matters to me.

I am not one to quote poetry. But totally agree with Tracy Chapman here:
Don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth'
Cause all that you have is your soul

Let me confess that these days I think a lot about my soul. Yesterday, I spent a while trying to conjure up an image.

A beaten road? That was three months back.
A squashed tomato? That was six months ago.
And now? It’s laughable really cos its so totally unromantic.It’s an old shirt. An old white shirt…and you can tell from the collar the amount of scrubbing and whitening that’s gone into it.

It’s been used, yes. And used badly and carelessly by the wearer. But what do you expect? It’s a shirt. It’s meant to be worn, with all puns intended.But the point is, it has been washed clean and is all ready to be used again. Used and usable.(I guess, what I am really trying to say is that I will survive. That I have survived, and that I am bloody proud of myself for it.)

But, then again, yet another question- why be torn and mended at will??

Waiting for sleep, I think about my soul. Plumb the depths. Wonder if in my anxiety to defend myself from potentially hurting encounters, I over reacted. If I took offense where none was intended.

Then your words come back to me, bringing in its wake, fresh hurt. I was never this sensitive. I swear I never was. Try as I might, I can never find the tears to cry anymore these days.

It’s just a pain that stretches on and on. A noiseless yelp that dies with the morning light. A long drawn howl that dies in my throat, lost in the night wind.

Deep down, this old shirt knows that this was how ‘it’ was always meant to be, that ‘this’ was its ‘destiny’. This ancient soul carries the wisdom of the hills. A wisdom that needs no words to validate it. An endurance and strength that it didn’t possess an eon earlier.

Of course I will survive. I’ve lived through an earthquake…you think, I can’t get through this tremor? But just one question before I am done, dear ‘you’, tell me…when all the stars have fallen out of your eyes, do you figure it will rob you of your sight?

Sometimes, what seems to be the problem isn’t the problem at all. The human heart is so complicated sometimes…first it tells you one thing, then another. I’ve learnt to let my heart talk on endlessly while I go about my daily tasks.

There’s this constant murmur beneath all the activities that make up daily living. At one time, I used to stop to explore. I couldn’t stop looking at my ‘self’. Paying attention to every nuance, every turn of the tide, every ebb, every flow.

And then would come the painful task of trying to figure out why I felt the way I did. Sometimes, the change of mood would be wrought by something as simple as a closed window!!

Or the fact that someone I’d smiled at hadn’t smiled back at me! It would send my spirits plummeting down and suddenly I’d feel like I had hit rock bottom and couldn’t rise up cos of the heaviness. A rock in my heart…that’s what it felt like... Those days, life was so complicated.

And now…can I really claim to have changed all that much…? I guess in essence I am the same…but there are changes that I cannot deny. A change that has come so gradually…. crept up on me as I knelt down on my knees…so imperceptibly….a gradual change of…. attitude.

My days have been ordered, my circumstances fashioned, my encounters with people brought about to foster the right kind of attitude. And it’s been so slow, so slow that if I were to compare my ‘yesterday self’ with my ‘today self’, they’d be pretty much the same. But add the cumulative effect of all those todays that have faded into yesterdays…. and I can hardly recognize myself.

Cos today, I’ve learnt not to focus quite so much on my feelings. To do what ought to be done, irrespective of whether I FEEL it or not. Those days, I never prayed cos I never FELT like God was listening or FELT that he existed. But today, I know that whether I FEEL it or not, God IS listening!

I’m also learning to not let people get to me. No more headlong jumps. I am in control. I will let people in so much and not an inch more. Sometimes, I still go wrong there though…before I know it, I just might realize that I care more than I should. So, I’m still cautious, still on my guard.

K says I’ve become hard. She said it rather disapprovingly. She says I don’t look either naïve or vulnerable anymore, that I’ve lost my ‘innocent charm.’ Yeah well… that’s cos I am neither naïve nor innocent. About the vulnerable bit am not so sure, I still tend to be a softie sometimes, but I guess it’s just a matter of time before I harden up some more.

But then again, I don’t want to get too hard either. I want to be able to give unconditionally but expect nothing in return… Cos that’s where I always go wrong…expectations. I end up expecting too much cos I feel I’ve given enough to expect what I do expect. But it ought not to be like that, huh? Go the extra mile…but expect nothing in return….

S says that’s being a doormat…but I am not so sure about that. I’ve been practicing it and I find that when I expect nothing from people and yet people give me something…I am pleasantly surprised and touched, which I would not have been if I’d been expecting it to begin with.

But I admit I need some more training there. Ok, make that lots more training. A life-long training process but I will get better day-by-day.

So…the reason I am talking about all of this today is cos…I donno….I guess I just needed to remind myself all over again. Just remind myself so that when the moment comes, as I am scared it will…I will remember… and take my ‘decision’ remembering and aware.

P.S. Does ANYBODY here know what actually brings two people together? Sometimes, two people who are so totally unlike each other? Is it circumstances? Or is it that moment in time? When does liking turn to love? And once that happens, is it ever possible to turn back time??

I guess it is. I guess it’s eventually about priorities. Like everything else in the world is. Eventually, it’s about what you want from life. Or rather, what you THINK you want from life. Eventually, I guess it boils down to choice.