Diwali.

Private room number 1.

The heart monitor drawing and re-drawing the valleys of the heartbeat.
Every beep resonates inside my blood.
Making it cold. Colder.
The smell of disinfectant. The bird outside the window is quiet now.
Papa is weak.
His moans are tangled with Ma's knitting needles. Red, green, orange, yellow.
The colored stripes are getting broader. The evening is getting darker.
Mom is knitting a throw.
Her touch is weaving itself in every loop of wool.
She's weaving a throw of strength.
It is wrapping my heart in its folds.
Making it warm. Warmer.

It is the night before Diwali.

The guava trees.

At the bazaar, I saw a grandfather dangling a guava over the head of a fascinated 3 year old, who was trying to catch the fruit with his tiny hands. And before I could stop or breathe, memories of a summer long gone crashed into me.

Nana and his guavas.

Just across the roof at my Maternal Grandfather's rambling house, were four guava trees. Me and my elder sisters would be around them like wild weeds on our visits. I loved Guavas. Or maybe now I love them because of the seeds of memories.


And on one such trips, the guava trees didn't bear any fruit. Because we were coming and would race straight to the trees, my Nana and Nani bought baskets of guavas and tied them with threads to the branches. I don't know if they really thought they might just be able to fool me - a 4 year old, but surely not my elder sisters. Nevertheless, every branch had guavas dangling from them.

"Nana, look this one is pink, this is one is white."

"Karishma!" He said. A miracle.

If I really think hard I can still almost feel a gnarled finger flicking my nose.

*****


My Nana had a tall table of thick wood in the first floor of the house. I have vague memories of being airless for a minute before I'd be perched up on the table beside his work. I would just dangle my legs and watch him. I used to think, this is my Mamma's Papa. He sure looks like it from the eyes.


I remember him taking me to the fruit market. I remember it with my senses. The colors filling my eyes. The touch. His huge rough hand gobbling mine. And the fragrances. Tangy grapes. Musk melons. Guavas. Heady sweet guava smells. I used to crane my neck to see him. Either he was tall or I was tiny. Or both. But by holding my hand, he used to make me feel as if I was nestled on his open fist.



*****

He died before we could get to the stories and I could grasp more of this man's mind and soul.

My Mother has splashed colors in the images sketched by the stories she has told me of him.

He asked my Mother to shed the purdah after she bumped into a bull! He woke her up in the middle of the night to go and watch the monumental moment as the statue of Mahatma Gandhi was raised on to its stand in the town library's garden. He made fun of Ma to calm her down when she told him she heard the voice of a "bhishti" calling her. (That was a ghost. And another long story.) He got my Mother's clothes designed and fabrics imported from various parts of the country. He was very fond of his radio. He was in love with this country. And horses. He counted his kids before sleeping. Teased and adored his daughters. Was strict to his sons. He could handle anything that came his way. Riots. Death of a child. But one day his heart just failed his will to live.

*****


I have only heard his stories.

But I remember the guavas.

Like the way I remember a few dangling threads without guavas the summer he died.

I hugged the trees.

******

I love guavas.

If

If I believe in memories ingrained in my soul, I will believe in a thread that binds me to the smell of faraway lands.

If I believe in my dreams, I will accept that I have already seen a place I have not  been to yet.

If only I will let myself believe, I will hear myself sigh and accept the only time I inhaled life was when I heard a voice that I realized, after a while, was mine.

"There you are." I said to the land, the mountains, like it was a person. And home.

"Finally." The land said, like it knew I could hear.

Like it knew me.

Knew more.

Remembered more.

Of course, it remembers more.

If I believed the sneers of those who like noises and lights and politics, I will not believe in most things that matter. And bring small joys.

If I believed in their beliefs, their steady and stubborn flow of hatred, I will lose me.

If I would let it, the blur of images will separate itself from the ordinary thought, that what haunts my sleeping hours is not something I have seen in books or elsewhere.

But I disappoint the legacy of what is etched on my being. And the dreams never become vivid memories. Always running colors. Always just an inch away from my fingertips.

When for a second I believe in the tiny impossible whisper, I realize I am constantly searching. What and who? Where and when?

Why am I always open to leftover energies of long gone spirits and times? Did I hear noises in the doorways of several structures standing old and timeless? Why was it more soothing than spooky? Of course I didn't hear anything.

But of course I did.

Did I feel something in the Mughal Gardens? One wisp of sad wind. Of course, it was humidity. Then why did my smile fade from the thick sadness that washed over me, in a gush of breeze?

I am waiting for myself first, To stop denying.

If I believe in the rhythm of my heartbeat maybe I will remember clearly what the contours of a face mean to me.

Maybe I will stop searching.

Maybe. 

That song, again.

I have been listening to this song since I was a child.

My mother never liked this song. So it wasn't played in my house. We didn't know the tune, nor the lyrics.

We didn't like this genre of music.

And suddenly in 1992, the song was playing everywhere.

It played in the middle of the night, and grew louder and louder like a mob was stalking near.

It played and played for nearly 2 months. And started seeping inside my head.

When I wasn't scared, I hoped it would play on so the schools will remained closed.

When the schools re-opened, my teachers asked all of us our opinions on what should be made on a far away land that was sending waves of tremors all across the country.

I said - A school would be good. Like mine. Where all of us play in the tall grass and chase yellow butterflies in rains and blow smoke in the winter winds.

My opinion was published. I read my name, my age with my religion beside it in the newspaper for the first time.

And I heard the same song, as if chanted in crazy murmurs. It sent shivers down my spine.

I started hating this song.

I grew up and the hatred grew.

I went into a phase of denial. The song doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. It must not exist. It doesn't matter.

It died down. Or I had hoped.

Then, suddenly, it infested my ears in 2002.

I started hearing it behind my back. Faint wafts of it. The stink in it. It was old and rotten.

But never did it die. the sound of it.

What do you eat, what do you wear, which is your favorite cricket team, what are your political views on issues. The lyrics changed. But the song was the same.

The song has never stopped playing.

"Hindu - Muslim - Hindu - Muslim - Hindu - Muslim - Hindu - Muslim."

I see Kashmir in my rear-view mirror.

They walk very fast. With their breath wheezing out in a puff of gray smoke. The steps match their purpose. They have somewhere to go. Something to do. With every hurried step, perhaps, they leave the scars behind. Or try to run away

Their hands forever hidden in 'pherans,' much like their wounds. The young boys whiz past on bikes laughing as they stop on the shores of Dal. Thumping backs, punching and chasing each other.

Running away from anger with every smile.

******

They play cricket on the roads to Hazrat bal. The pitch lay across two concrete paths. The high shots seem dangerous to chase. But it isn't dangerous for them. They have seen death in the eyes. With only stones in their hands.

The eyes are sad. Or maybe their color is. Just like the winter. Beautiful and gray. Or maybe the land's quiet grief has entered their pupils.

******

Squirrels. Pretty and wary. But when they trust you, they come near.

******

The car is moving fast towards the end of the visit. The mothers are at the bus stops with cheeks red from the morning breeze and cherubs clinging to their limbs for that last waft of scent & warmth before they board the yellow bus.

The women, perfectly beautiful women, clicking away on high heels, smart coats over the traditional salwar-kamiz and stylishly worn head scarfs. Most always, a phone attached to their ears.

The car stops at the signal near Jhelum, a man hugs another in a police uniform, shakes his hands, keeps his palm on his heart.

******

The car is speeding up now and I am looking at the houses with triangle tops, chimneys and red bricks.

And I am suddenly a six year old, wildly moving a red crayon over a house with a triangle top, chimney and red bricks. Always the triangle top, chimney and red bricks.

I hear my Aunt teasing me,"Again a house? Always the same shape? There are no houses with such shapes!"

"There are,"I hear a six year old self muttering stubbornly.

"Where?"

The crayon is fast reducing to a stub and the chimney is coming alive on the paper. I pick a gray crayon for the smoke.

"Where are such houses?" My Aunt asks.

"Somewhere," I said at six. "I will find them."

******

I did.

Unwritten.

"Aankhon ko visa nahi lagta, sapnon ki sarhad hoti nahi, bandd aankhon sey roz main sarhad paar chala jata hoon" ~ Gulzar

Time is a frontier too.

*****

While I was attending "Raavi paar: The readings from Punjab" session in Jaipur Literature Festival, I realized the attendees ranged from the age of 3 months to 65 years and above. Emotionally charged words and audiences from both sides of the border. The whole tent felt like one raw open throbbing wound, coming alive with every breeze of wit and every hint of tears.

I was sitting there with Punjabi verses -- old and new flying around me, only half getting what was being said. Feeling bewildered and partly sidelined. I drifted away into memories. Suddenly, I found myself back in time, inside one cool, steely wintery holiday that I spend with Badi Ma and Badey Papa in Ludhiana.

*****

I could almost see Badey papa there with me. Sitting with his white pajama Kurta and black half jacket, wrinkled hands resting on his sheesham walking stick, wise experienced eyes twinkling with humor and understanding. He would have filled up the blanks. He would have told me more than what was being said. The prologues and the epilogues.

*****

Badey Papa and Badi Ma were to us JUST what we called them. Father and Mother. Honorary grandparents. Guiding hands of Father and two Aunts. All I know is, they took in , a trio of steel spined youngsters, whose freedom fighter father left the world too soon, and whose mother who was to this world what fish is without water. The trio dint want any help but they took the love with a hunger that was never appeased. They carved their future and a name for themselves and led a comfortable life.

*****

Badey Papa would force me to write him letters. I squirmed and sulked but filled the pages with tales of a co-ed secondary school and the neighborhood. How I fell down from my Nth attempt to ride a cycle, How Rohan called another "Mota Gorilla" and spent the day perched up on the bench looking like one! How cruel this world is to an 11 year old, with social studies dividing itself like amoeba into Civics, History & Geography and Science into Physics, Chemistry and Biology. SIX extra subjects Badey Papa?! Why dint anyone warn me?! Do you know what this mean?! TENSION. I am very tensed Badey Papa of losing my only childhood. And Math is still haunting like the last tale of the peepal ghost.

And so I carried on

Dear Badey Papa,

The report card came today. With the same effects of an earthquake.

***

Dear Badey Papa,

Is there a Grade better than A+++ ? Papa wants me to earn that grade :-/

***

Dear Badey Papa,

Why don't you adopt me? And Mamma too! Then I will write letters to you from your own desk.

***

Dear Badey Papa....

***

I wrote till I realized I liked writing all those seemingly mundane things in school, the injustice, the pressures, the confusions, the problems -- real & imaginary, down on a piece of paper, because then I saw them from Badey papa's eyes. And they seem small if not insignificant.

He replied to each of the, I could almost see him on his writing desk at 7:00 AM every morning. Face concentrating to find the right words for all those who write to him. But I knew he would smile at this, purse his lips at that and then laugh out aloud at this sentence. I played with him.

He played right back.

*****

Dear Badey Papa,

You would have loved this. You would have told me the meaning of all these words that are reminding me so much of you. I know what you were doing when you asked me to write to you.

***

The crowd's collective laughter brought me back to the tent from my reverie.

***

Dear Badey Papa,

I miss you.

In the rain puddle

As I felt my feet sinking in the rain puddles, a distant and vague memory flooded in.

Narayanan Uncle in E.N 1.

We lived in E.N.5.

I would have been not more than 4 years of age.

He'd sit on his flat-slabbed swing in his spotless white lungi with golden border and a kurta and all the children of the colony would sit down for the tales. I would stare at the golden border catching the sunlight, when my neck hurt looking up at him.

His wife would smile at us, while puttering around in the long hall. Her white bindi fascinating me. Bindis were always red, weren't they?

*****

I don't remember the tales he told. But I remember that he told them often. Most of the times the words would blur away and I would only hear his face..

Then one day he died. I was too young to comprehend what death was. Did I see a group of moist-eyed white clothed people? Or did I imagine it? Was that Narayanan Uncle with cotton in his nose, perched up on people's shoulder and not on his swing?

I only clearly remember that it poured on his funeral and I lost a shoe in the flood at his gate.

*****

There were no stories after he died.

Confused, I went to his home one day. The door, as usual, was open.

As I creeped into the hall, I saw his wife. Without the smile I knew, her face looked pale and sad.

She should have been surprised to see me, the youngest and quietest child who'd come there. Except that she wasn't.

She tried to smile. And failed miserably. My eyes must have asked the question.

She only shook her head as if saying,"No story today."

The swing was creaking alone. And empty.

*****

Strange, what a rain water puddle can bring you.

Behind JLF.

"Medumm, auto?"

I looked up from the top of my throbbing heels. Right beside the security check, outside Diggi Palace hotel grounds, there stood a couple of grubby looking young men.

"Bazaar le chalogey?"

A green eyed boy came forward.

"Chaliye medumm."

"Kahan sey?"

"Peeche sey."

"Peeche sey?!" I looked at the narrow lane leading it's way to a slum-like area just behind the palace grounds.

"The police-walas wont let us go from the front entrance Medumm." He said in English.

I wanted to get off my aching feet and heels so I followed the green-eyed boy.

And thus began a strange experience.

His name is Rishi he told me.

He told me he had married a woman called Whitney from Milwaukee, USA. He said they fell in love in 3 days , married on the 4th.

"You can check it on the youtube, Medumm!"

"But we divorced, because she wanted me to move to America. I am an only son Medumm. I have two sisters, I work in a call center at night. I want to be a certified Guide Medumm."

I nodded. Fascinated by the narrow dusty dirty lanes and getting to know the secrets of where insane amounts of food leftovers of the rich are dumped.

"Tell me Medumm, is it a literature festival or a drinking festival?" He asked, gesturing a peg with his thumb.

I laughed. "Why do you say that?"

"Because Medumm all these Indians come out not with books but with pegs and funny thing Medumm, the goras wear salwar suit."

"Yes, Rishi I agree, I saw that myself."

"Do you know what happened last night Medumm? A girl was so drunk she couldn't even make a call to her family. I called her Papa. It was 1 at night Medumm. She couldn't even walk."

"I earned Rs 5000 today because they come out drunk and don't care how much fare I ask!"

I nodded in silence. What could I say?

"I want to read books Medumm. I want to be a guide."

I promised to myself I will send him books. I promised I will read them myself and always remember the dusty dirty road that led me straight to the security gates of Diggi palace. And the one that led back to the garbage-filled slum of the rickshaw boys who fed tea and somose to police officers doing extra time.

The rickshaw boys who all had the JLF entry passes around their necks. Customers of 3 years on their phone list and email ids on yahoo.

Not a walk away from perfumed Ritu Kumar and Gucci bags, a few dreams are blooming.

A rickshaw boy is paving his way to a better future without any complaints.

Rishi Hotla. 2 sisters, one an aspiring IPS officer he says, another an aspiring doctor.

He lived right by the droopy roof of a hut and flowing hand-pump where 3 girls were smiling and washing their clothes.

I was humbled.

"Why are you silent Rishi?"

"You were silent Medumm."

No one has ever really respected my silence before, not in that perfect manner he did.

He talked when I wanted him to talk, told me tales.

He slid into easy silence when I got lost in thoughts.

He got me a good bargain at the Jaipuri jutti shop.

He saved me a long walk from the entrance of the Diggi palace.

He saved me from snobbery.

"I am no ordinary rickshaw driver Medumm." His voice rose above the traffic.

No, you aren't Rishi.

My holy cows.

Growing up we had two cows. Kappu and Sawitri.

My shocked mother once opened our door to find my "all creatures big and small" loving father standing there with a beautiful, black-coated jersey cow of about 6 months rubbing her big head on Papa's trousers.

"What is this?"

"Jersey cow."

"What are you planning to do with it?"

"Paaleinge."

"Cow?!"

Father nodded with a humor-me smile.

So trotted into the house, our new pet, not a dog (we already had three) but a cow.

Big beautiful eyes, shining black coat and the spirit of a stallion.

She would chew out the rope that kept her inside her cabin that Papa built in the backyard then ran around, with our school shirts and tunics blinding her vision, tangled in her thorns and getting all mangled up.

We'd close the doors tight and hang on to the windows watching her go "takbak takbak" till Papa came home. The mending of the tunics and shirts increased exponentially when we had her.

She even spoke to my father. Once a snake made her way to her cabin. She was scared. My father was asleep but she called out to him. And he heard her.

He spent half the night cooing to her.

*****

Do we love cows? We eventually had two. One was a brat. Another a lady.

One wreaked havoc in our sophisticated neighbourhood. Another wouldn't look at me if my hands were dirty.

Before I hit 12, I could make a meal for 2 cows and serve them expertly, dodging their enthusiastic teeth.

My family has roots in Madhya Pradesh. So, the news of the beef ban there made us raise our eyebrows.

Beef eating is not exactly rampant in the state. Damoh is the only place which is known for the availability of beef. So, to get a Presidential signature to ban beef seems more a provocation than any real concern for cows.

A state where "shikaar" (Hunting/poaching) of the national bird, deer and neel gaaye by the very people who govern or have influence with them is normal, has now banned beef. Violators will be given the same punishment rapists gets.

A state that built a gaudy eyesore worth Rs 27 lac on the waters of its capital, is now debating changing the name of Bhopal to Bhojpal. That Madhya Pradesh leads the nation in child mortality and malnutrition are lesser priorities.

*****

A vet once left my Father shocked by describing the plight of street cows.

The 'Go-shaala" where they are dragged to and chained are merciless places. They frequently dont get food or water, trembling on weak hungry legs.

They are bought and sold like slaves by those who are charged with looking after them.

This is the horrid reality that no one dares change, because the provocateurs are the one's who profit from it.

This is not about which party rules the state. It's not even a religious thing, Or a freedom thing.

This is the acid of ugly politics. It seeps in and rots our lives.

What did the unnecessary provocation get Madhya Pradesh ? Not much concrete beyond temporarily trending on Twitter.

I see outrageous headlines in newspapers. I see arguments from both the sides. I see them turning into a Hindu-Muslim thing.

And all I remember is my Father cooing to Kappu all night.