The miracle of Easter

How long had it been since his last good night of sleep? He’s the worrying kind, the fussing kind. The first born of four, #1. It was many days before things actually went wrong, before the really bad part came. Worriers stress over all the things that could go wrong, long before they actually do. Emotionally high strung. Borderline hysteria. Prone to extreme hyperbole, extreme protection, and extreme caring.

Life happens. Differences arise. They grow, they ebb. As adults, you leave each other alone. Mostly. Not in indifference. Distanced perhaps. Being that each got located in different corners of the world, each battling their own struggles and victories. 

#1 bore the responsibility for the parent folk, while the rest got on with life. He did it with dedication and pride. He did it like no other could. He did it, like no other.  
By the time #4 had arrived, #1 was a train wreck. Tripping over himself from exhaustion. How many nights had it been? Blood shot eyes and 10 years older. But the fort was held. Strong and steadfast. Witnessing the leader of the pack suddenly collapse - talking and joking one moment, unresponsive motionless the next, had ripped him to bits. Lost. Lost, was the summary of the bulk of messages to #4, popping-up in patches of mid-flight Wifi. She was on her way as soon as the news was out. On the next viable flight. She was too late.

#2 is a tricky one. Easily misread. Explosively volatile. A ticking time bomb, at any given time. The pin is pulled. Ready to go off. It’s complicated beneath the hostile exterior. A perfect bluff. Gentle, yet strong. Aggressive, yet affectionate. Evil, yet kind. The 666. A believer. The Bible reader. 
He was there on time to form a formidable team.

#3 is chaotic confusion. Tends not to overrate emotions. Perhaps it’s an aversion. Stacked neatly under the carpet is a nice little heap of complexities of human relationships. It never gets too hot or too cold his side of the world. Storms blow over, differences forgotten, conflicts forgiven. 
Against all chaotic visa confusions, compounded by COVID, he made it, and made it count. 

#4 is the dependable tempest. ‘Jhansi ki Rani’ he often playfully chided (child queen that fought the British). With no army and no cause. She stays on the warpath just in case. Her hidden reserves of energy make for pedantic and exhausting encounters. Caution: bring patience along.

Crises build self-organising teams. An action plan borne out of need and experimentation. #1 had the night shift. Six-footer folded up across two waiting chairs. His bed every night. #2 covered the early morning shift, leveraging his US-India jetlag relieving #1 from the night-shift. #4 took the mid-morning shift, it gave #2 a late breakfast-break before day-care continued. As COVID began to surge in Mumbai, access to the ICU became more and more restrictive - slinking past the guards a skill unto itself. The work must go on – saying the rosary, messages read and played back of memories and moments with children, grandchildren, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, cousins, friends…. interspersed with his fav music collection. All the love from across the world pouring in. He cried at Unchained Melody. Every time. Twitched every time he heard his wife’s voice. #3 had his eye on her, his wife. Her perfect distraction. “Never a harsh word” was how she described him. A political diplomat - the need of the hour. Her comfort and consolation.

There couldn’t have been a better team. It couldn’t have been a tougher time. 
"It doesn’t matter what happens to you" he said. "It’s how you take what happens to you, that matters". Their world flipped and then the whole world flipped, and they held it together. He is proud of #1, #2, #3 and #4. Of that, there is no doubt.

Easter will make it a year. What he started a year ago has grown. He left back 4 satellites, now re-aligned in the same plane of orbit around the sun - his wife and partner of 50 years, and point at which all of them originated. 

A celestial wonder. An Easter miracle. 

The little things.

It’s the little things you end up missing most. Of course you expect to miss the bunny like toothy grin, his impish look, the endearing chatter with his beloved dogs. But you can’t ever know that you will miss that familiar congested cough, signs of him being around. The WhatsApp forwards, the same joke on every chat group. Those nights spent staring at the ceiling girders while the whole house, with the open roof structure, echoed his gorilla snoring - even his snoring was imposing. The house with its open roof structure was among his most favourite places in the world. Where you’d hear his hissing laughter most. He wasn’t terribly merry. A planner, a worrier, a provider. In that house he was the merriest you’d find him. His humblest. 

There was always a list of things to do, things someone else could do for him. Some are born to lead and some are born to follow, he’d say. Despite his impoverished childhood and humble beginnings, he paved his own way to success. He got used to commanding eager followers to fill out his lists. Once worked down, the list would exasperatingly fill itself back up with new things to do. He had Pandoras list, and you just couldn’t tell that you were going to miss them too. The way he rubbed his palms and threw his head back when he laughed, sure. But the lists? Turns out, them too. 

Being a handyman was probably a skill he’d have loved to have, but really didn’t. Mostly he made up for it with a sticking fetish. He stuck everything back together. It was his dearest hobby, the hardened drip tracks of glue formed a kind of art. We're sure Araldite’s shares went up because of his craze for their epoxy resin and hardener mix. It was the only thing he splurged on. He stuck back the soles on 8 year old sneakers, stretching them on for another 2 with yellow Araldite streaks making for a new look. An originally ugly, and now smashed ceramic vase got a complete artistic makeover. My uncle even joked that he could fix broken marriages with his faith in Araldite.

Sometimes he was a good listener, surprisingly. Especially when it really mattered. And he somehow knew when it really mattered. He always surprised me when he listened. An old school authoritarian and a quiet listener. Freely offering sound reason and logical advice. Resist the advice, only to know with time that he was right. The principles he followed were simple. “There is no easy money”, “Hard work has never killed anyone”. “It doesn’t matter what happens to you, it’s how you take what happens to you that matters”. His beliefs were annoyingly repetitive and consistent. “Run with race horses,” he’d say. 

The thing he said least and always lived, was that a family sticks together. Like in a pack, the stronger look out for the weaker. No one gets left back. You never, never give up on anyone in the pack. And he never did. 

It's the little things you miss most, that you can no longer touch and hear. What lives on, strong and everlasting, is the legend we're left with. 

Run with race horses our dear Dada, until we join your herd, your pack again.

Up in smoke - a Eulogy

Smokie was a small, cunningly calculating dog, with a special skill to stay clean for no longer than 10 minutes after her weekly shower. Not very much larger than a rodent, with long ragged fur hanging to the ground that swabbed everything in it’s path, she existed happily somewhere between rat and mop. There was a clear purpose and focus to her life like few of us have. Why she was on this planet was clearly to gain and maintain favour with her master over the other dog she shared the roof with, a great dane - incidentally just 5 times her size. She used her shrill screechy bark to full capacity to make a point. Pitch snarling battles ensued in the frequent fights over territory. Fewer teeth, shredded ears, bald patches, none of that was a deterrent. Size didn't matter. Her vision was to share her masters lap with no-one. She was convinced that she was built by her maker to fit perfectly into it. The lap was her rightful place that she intended enjoying without interruptions. When he moved, the tap of toenails followed. A man and his tapping mop. 

It’s easy for dogs to grow on you with their unreasonable loyalty and dedication. The easiest source of companionship in a family. No questions asked, no grudges held, no expectations set. Every time you return home, however many times even in the same day, you’re always smothered with the same bounding tail thumping joy, wet kisses and flying jumps. If because of short term memory loss, or out of unquestioning love, it’s a relationship of endless chances. Dogs rely on rather simplistic primitive ways of knowing they are cared for and they simply care back. A good feed, a nice tickle under the belly, a bone on the weekends. That’s how the basic equation plays out in dog terms, of being cared for and caring back. 

Over the course of life whatever we start regarding as family can go beyond blood, or race or even species. The basic equation remains the same, being cared for and caring back. Only, this equation has to balance between every member of the family and yourself and then between those members and so on and so forth. Especially because a family consists of human members too, who don’t afford endless chances or suffer from short term memory loss, it becomes a fragile and complex equation.

Yet at it’s core it remains basic - being cared for and caring back. 

When those basics don’t work both ways, what results is a great family divide. Creating sides that members having to choose between, making what’s left look less and less like a family with each subsequently failed equation. One lifetime seems hopelessly short to build bridges across the chasm. 

Little Smokie contracted cancer. The many happy years spent jumping on and off window sills, knocking down ceramics, generally dedicated to annoying everyone over her quest for attention were coming to an end. At first she seemed to respond to the treatment, most of her old bad habits were back. She was swabbing the floor again, fighting down the great dane again. And then things took a turn for the worse, right when her beloved master was on a long trip out of town. Visibly in a lot of pain, sinking further every day, she still mustered the strength to limp to the usual places, checking if he had returned. The ever slowly tapping mop, and no man. 

Doctors had said she would go any day, that was 5 days ago. There was no letting go for her, until he was home. For a man of status and image who had defined his life by calculated decisions based on economic sense, a dog that wouldn’t die without seeing him again was out of the usual frame of operation. Sound logical rationale based on profit margins and opportunity that saw him through many professional successes found no application here. What if the trip was disrupted to enable his return and he would still not make it in time to see her? Well then we would have tried. 

So for no other reason, than the persistence of this cheeky little rag dog, did the most touchingly human side of a man emerge. Too weak at this point for any part of her smothering gig, she knew nevertheless that he had flown home. He was by her side. One last time, to balance the equation. To care back. 

And so it was that years of divisions beset with indifference and disappointment went up in smoke. Being cared for and caring back still existed. 

Cool parents.

Is parenting cool? What makes a cool parent? One of those I can’t wrap my head around. Young teens are at the cusp of adulthood and tend to stay there for many exasperating years to come. Not quite children anymore and a long way from adulthood. Lobbying for their rights, their freedom, their independence. Stepping back and realising that for them, the goal of this period is to become successful adults, feeling competent and independent on their own. Now that might never include getting out of bed on their own or making it to school on time, yet whatever is in the scope of that goal warrants support. These elongated humans, stretching past your own height, looking down on us at every argument still need reminding to brush their teeth.

At 13 kids start navigating the outside world on their own, literally. Independent mobility without a hand-holding parent is one little way of asserting their autonomy. Figuring out the city metro network, following a road map themselves to get to the many activities their busy days are packed with. There are parents who don’t have a heart attack every morning their kids mount their bicycles, snaking through traffic to school and back, or disappear into an underground tube and resurface from the bowels of the city, having simply commuted and returning intact. There are parents that are not hesitant to hand over taxiing around their children, appreciating the little space and time won back for themselves without turning into giant worrywarts through the exercise of trusting and letting go. There really are such cool parents.

My mum had this silly little thing she used to do. She’d stand under the porch light staring out into the road, eyes peeling for the child that wasn’t home yet. She’d park herself there 5 minutes past expected return of said child, gradually inching her way forward towards the road, praying harder as the delay progressed until said child returned home. With a total of 4 children that were constantly on the run and constantly delayed, she spent a lot of time on the front porch, praying. It was such a spectacularly ineffective tactic, I couldn’t understand for the love of God if waiting was the only plan, why she wouldn’t just wait in the comfort of the indoors. No amount of pointing this out would move her back in. I mean, worrying is one thing, and then there’s just plain ridiculous.

At another time, in another place. Turning the tables.

08:00 PM
It’s so good to have mum with us and these fabulous meals she conjures up. With autumn giving way to winter, it’s pitch dark by 7 in the evening, barely anyone on the streets outside.Just the kind of soul food to cheer up this time of year.
I’m starving. Serving the food might take my mind off eating the food. My young lady should be home too, in a few minutes. Yes, let’s go ahead and serve dinner.

08:10 PM
It’s just her second time at handball, a whole new sport and new mates. I bet she’s hanging out with the other girls. The food’s getting cold.

08:15 PM
As usual she doesn’t answer her phone. Ok, let’s just start. The class is around the corner. Surely, she’ll be here any moment and I am positively starving. I check her location on the tracking app, which really confuses me. That’s not the street the handball class is at? Must be an inaccuracy. Why can’t she message me??? We settle down for dinner - my mum, my son and I. ‘How much longer do you think she will be’, asks my mum in the calmest voice she can fake. I know she’s going to freak out soon. She has probably already started praying. My mum will just never change! My son leans over to peer into the tracking app on my phone and startles a little. ‘It’s says there that she’s somewhere completely different. That's an office complex, isn't it?’ he asks with grandfatherly concern. He sure takes after his grandma!
A few weeks earlier the kids finally got equipped with fully functional smart phones with data packages et all. We set up the family tracking app, between our phones, which was quite fun at first. Following their tracks on their way to school while I was on the tube to work. Knowing when they cross the big junctions, where they hang out with friends. The marvel and wonders of technology! We even came to enjoy a phony sense of control. The novelty wore off soon enough, some vestige of trust taking its place, and we checked less and less frequently.

08:17 PM
It’s so easy to lose your grip. With resolute calm I refresh the tracking app again. She’s a blue pulsating spot on the map, above it her smiling face in a speech bubble looking back to me. “This is where I am Mummy”. That is weird. It really is nowhere close to her class. Still not picking up her phone. I check what the app says about my son’s location - sitting right beside me at the dinner table and getting increasingly suspicious (he’s more 13 going on 80). His location is perfectly accurate, showing up on the map right where he actually is. ‘Why would she be in that building?’ my son keeps prodding. ‘Don’t you want to check that?’ unmistakably accusatorially. I’m starting to lose my appetite.

08:20 PM
Manic app refreshing, alongside continuous re-dial is now full-on. 10 dozen WhatsApp messages later the little blue pulsating spot remains firmly nestled in what seems to be the depths of an industrial office complex block. Going a little cold, I realise this might be real and precious time has been lost pretending to be cool. She’s been gone for 1.5 hours. If she’s really in that building, how long has she been there? ‘This is where I am Mummy. Come get me’.

From here onwards things get completely out of hand.

08:25 – 09:00 PM
I’m running down the road in felt home slippers now, reeking of garlic and spices, chasing a blue pulsating spot on my phone, mad with worry and fear. The marvels and wonders of technology. Every horror was playing out in my mind. Flashes of scenes from movies, images construed by a fertile imagination. Captivity. A wide dark office space. Abductors. A young girl scrambling between tables. It’s so easy to lose your grip. “Hold it together!” I ordered myself. Almost there.

Panting and out of breath, the promised office block of glass concrete buildings appears, stretching out on either side. Dark and deserted, it’s day occupants probably happy at the family dinner by now. A round faced security guard sat manning the cabin at the entrance.
Barging through the cabin window, I yell ‘I need help!’. Simultaneously stuffing my head and arm through the small opening, I wave my phone in his face vigorously. ‘You see my daughter is in there. Take a look! She’s the blue spot. It’s showing she’s in that building over there and I have to get in”. Without waiting for an answer or giving him a chance to process what I said, I look around quickly for an opening to let my whole self into his stupid cabin. In my head a plan is forming to terrorise the round-faced guard with the might of my anxiety. ‘I’m going to call the police’, I said. ‘No, you! You call the police. I have to get in there. DO IT NOW!!’. It could have just as well been underwater, this moment with him. An arresting resistance surrounded him, every molecule of space around him preventing motion. Like the sloths in Zootopia, s-l-o-w to move, s-l-o-w to speak, agonisingly s-l-o-w..!
‘That building is not part of my responsibilities’, he says finally. I might have climbed in and shaken him up had I not spotted a team of cleaners leaving one of the buildings. Darting over to them I ask frantically from one to another, ‘Is there anyone in there? Have you seen a young girl inside?’.  ‘Come tomorrow, today closed’ they reply in pigeon, shooing me off, ‘Everyone work finish, today go home’.
Now I was really losing it. I run back over to my friend the security guard sloth, resolving mentally to be a changed person. ‘You see’, I say with measured control, ‘my daughter has been gone for 1.5 hours. I can’t reach her, she’s not picking up her phone. She should have been home about 45 mins ago, but she’s not. She should be at sports class which is in a completely different place. Apparently, she’s in there, since the last 45 mins, probably longer. I’ve lost so much time. You really have to let me in there’. Not threatening this time, pleading. These must be the different stages of desperation.
Just then my WhatsApp buzzes. “Just landed”. My husband, Oh thank God, thank God!! I call him back instantly “You have to call the police” I’m hollering and sobbing into the phone. 'Our daughter hasn’t come home, she’s in this office building. I have to get in. GET THE POLICE!!'. 'Huh, what??'  No time to catch him up. They’re all dragging me under water with them. Zootopia sloth #2. ‘Calm down’ he’s saying, ‘What’s going on?’

Meanwhile, the security guard is speaking to someone on the phone. Half suspecting he’s setting the police on me, I abruptly hang up mid-sentence on my ‘just landed’ husband.
‘You can go in there and look for your daughter’ the guard says to me, hanging up. ‘My boss says it’s ok to let you in’. I almost laughed in disbelief through my tear streaked face. I would have hugged him if I had the time, and then he would have really called the police! Instead I start running ahead of him to the building entrance, watching for the blue spot all the time. Suddenly the spot starts to move. Just a nudge at first, and then a slow steady motion away from the building, right out across the street. While the guard was still fumbling at the door, I’d already taken off in pursuit of the elusive blue spot, now moving faster away from me. ‘She’s somewhere else now. I have to go’, I call back mid-flight to the blank faced guard. Random running is the plan now, calling out her name. Louder and louder. No, there is no plan, there are no clues. My phone starts to ring. But it’s just my husband trying to call back, for the gazillion-th time. It’s not her.
I’ve spotted an abandoned park across the road, a hideous hangout even in the bright of day. Scoring it with the torch light on my phone I call her name till my throat goes horse. The stray pedestrian walks in a wide arch around me, in safe avoidance of the lunatic. Still within sight of the guard who’s come all the way out on the road, following my frenzied behaviour pitifully. Crazy lady and her blue spot.

Think! Think! I know the police only act on a missing person when enough time has elapsed, when too much time has elapsed! I hope my mother is praying. All the time I’m staring at my phone. There’s a bicycle approaching. A young girl with a sports bag. I jump at her from the darkness. She startles and stops. I’m holding her handle bar, not wondering how deranged and scary I must seem to her.

‘Where are you coming from, what sports were you at?’

‘Huh? Handball?’ she answers suspiciously.

Hallelujah!!! ‘Do you know my daughter? New to the team? Tall, slim, straight black hair?’ I want to say the most beautiful young girl I know. ‘Have you seen her?’

‘You mean (she mentions her name)?’ ‘..yes..she was in the changing room before me I think. I guess she has left by now.’

‘Now? Left now???’

That’s when my phone rings. My daughter’s calling.

Groundhog day disrupted.

Business as usual
The proverbial 06:00 am wake-up up to ‘I got you babe..’, breakfast at the diner, looking out for the groundhog’s shadow to forecast the arrival of spring...you know the drill. Everyone likes their little Punxsutawney.
Our brains are super-efficient in following pre-existing pathways. Routes that are fast, familiar and safe, providing confidence and mastery through repetition. We know where they start, how they will progress, and where they will end. How are we to escape the gravity of the predictable path while everything is conspiring to keep us in the beloved ‘comfort zone’ of warm predictability and soothing control. Giving it all a degree of validity, it doesn’t necessarily merit.

For us, 2018 has been a year of change, for the young and the old. Old dogs are learning new tricks, the young ones are fearfully following. It’s been analysis paralysis for an agonizing few months, wrecked with sleepless nights. The usual pressure that comes with decision making. Will it be the right decision? The truth is, there is no knowing. The only wrong thing to do, is not doing.

Acts of omission
We will all suffer one of two things: the pain of indiscipline or the pain of regret or disappointment. Improving yourself, your relationships, writing a book, building a business - Achieving goals is just bloody painful. It takes a lot of discipline, time, blood, sweat, tears and immense sacrifice to accomplish things that are worthwhile in life.
The regret of inaction is just as painful. Paths not taken will come to haunt us. Not going in for that kiss only to watch her marry someone else. Not striding across the room and leaving when you could, not clicking send on the mail, not signing on the dotted line. Endless evaluation takes 3 seconds of courage to execute – 3 seconds of dizzying bravery to change your life. If it fails, even at 80 when you look back, you will still be proud that you tried. There is a 100% chance of regret if you never try and a 0% if you try and fail. As Jeff Bezos says, that’s a useful metric for any important life decision.

‘Spot the difference’
Everything seems stupid when it fails, in hindsight anyone can look at mistakes and say it was imminent. A good decision is when the outcome is successful – which broadly means, having more than before. Conversely, the biggest fear is ending up with the opposite – less than before. When in comparison mode, quantitative differences - those involving numbers, always win. Earning $80K is better than $60K a year. A 150 sqm home is better than a 120 sqm. The brain equates better to happier, more satisfied, fulfilled lives. A constant battle rages between the brain and the heart, to pursue safe decisions that are conducive to more numbers. Omitting all else. And then comes the living out of those decisions, going from comparison mode to experience mode. How has the $20K changed you, how has the additional room in your house transformed you? And how long till that happiness adjusts back to the new stable and starts to fade?
Focusing too much on inconsequential stuff gets us into trouble. So rather than playing 'spot the difference' of two options side by side, what if we reviewed our own cyclical patterns that repeat in our lives to optimise the things we can’t get used to. 

What if we are bold enough to hop-off the predictive path and take the risk. What if we found a new tune to wake up to. Would it work out, would it fail? Who knows. Like Phil Connors (played by the famous Bill Murray in Groundhog day), you might just learn the piano and ice sculpting along the way.

Silver threads among the black

I stepped back to take a better look at her, interrupting our usual reunification hug which generally leaves the poor thing gasping for air and my arms aching. I untangled hastily to observe her more closely. Regal and beautiful as ever, this woman - my dearest mum, has a timeless essence. Her mischievous eyes and zestful smile have thus far belied her age. Looking at her now, I notice curiously she's gracefully giving it away. Framing her lovely face, in place of her usual hazel nut tinted black shock of curls, are unmistakably natural silver and black, spirals springing out defiantly! 'I've stopped colouring them' she said, beaming proudly, 'I've decided to go gray'. Almost 70, always a stunner, she stands confident and ever dignified. 'I can't keep colouring my hair while my daughter goes gray’, she chuckled.

Racing into mid life myself, I figured it might be an opportunity to experiment - experimental because I can’t know as yet what the outcome will be or how I will fare. The perpetual movement against age - the anti-age - I find to be frankly quite tiresome. The first time my mum attempted to grow her hair back into it’s natural colour, I recall the alarming concern from my brothers and father, interpreting it as letting herself go by looking closer to her actual age. The Whispering conspiracy concluded only when she was safely seen to the doors of the hair dressers’ to get it ‘fixed’. This while at the same time, graying Hollywood stars like Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, Richard Gere, the dashing George Clooney were all the rave for breaking the internet with their all natural, all sexy Silver foxes look. Aging to be more handsome than ever before, hailing other men to embrace the change with stylish confidence. Amongst women Hollywood celebrities, the Silver Vexin are indeed meant more to hide meekly in the woods. 

It’s almost mechanical, at the first sight of grays, the tedious process of dyeing and colouring commences - almost 75% of women start dyeing their hair within a year of seeing the first gray, the rest are just not taking care of themselves. I guess I belong to the latter. Initially put-off just by the overhead of the repetitive nature of the task, I shared my position with my girl friends who were absolutely aghast at first. Even my mum’s friends from thousands of miles away worried I should be doing something about it, reporting to her of pictures of me sighted on social media sporting visible gray’s! I am actually vain, very vain in fact, as my mum will be quick to confirm. If I wouldn’t be vain, I’d probably grow a beard and have bushy branched trees for eyebrows, which is more pronounced than ever at this age. A scary 12X magnification mirror in my bathroom is in place for closely monitoring facial deforestation and timely grooming. It’s the ridiculous promises of wiping away years that infuriates me, the sub-text being we should feel ashamed of getting older. How awful if someone would guess our real age!

I do like youth, youth is beautiful. It's beauty and It’s clueless disorientation - not knowing who you are or where you’re headed. I’m also glad to be past that headiness. The way our hair fades, the lines on our faces, they are the map of where we’ve been - as Julia Robert says in Auggie. Making mistakes and learning from them, of experiences that have taught and toughened us, of big life moves and loss and joy, with ever growing responsibilities for other people. They are maps of worry, love and sacrifice. These maps can’t form in youth. I suspect, how clearly your skin displays them and how soon, is a matter of genetics - not the tons of time and money spent on anti-aging creams. However fortunate you might be with the genetics of it, age in-itself is an interesting look - not only for men. 

Into mid-life, I find that I want to feel energetic like my mum at 70. When I look in 12X magnified scary mirror in the morning, no amount of hair dye will do that for me. Exercise and good food maybe. My snake-like scaly dry skin will literally shed, if I don’t lather it with cream. I am having to step that up as the years pile on. I will always love my eyeliner, even when I'm 120, even if it means painting the entire eyelid to work the folds! 

And yes, I might look more my age as my hair continues to fade, and I know my mum’s with me on this now :-).

Now get out there, the rest of you Silver Vexin!

I wish Christmas would never come

They’re sitting around in a mock-meeting. Mr. stuffy faced egg-headed rooster, all prudish with his seriously disapproving pursed lips. Hard to take him seriously with the big red tuft on his head. There is the giddy headed frog, silly fellow’s constantly falling over himself in giggles. I want what he’s on! Five eagerly waving reindeer popped out the other day. They bore a general conviviality that had me on the lookout for exciting company. Every day of Advent brings with it another little surprise, another delightful creation with thoughtful little details.

As wonderful as the tradition of Advent calendars is, it is a tonne of work thinking up and collecting meaningful things to fill 24 little pouches for the 24 days before Christmas. I’ve been shirking my way through this task, cutting corners turning to ready-made ones. Hiding behind the stress of the chores of preparations that lead up to the perfect Christmas celebration.

The tradition has caught on in this house despite us lazy adults, with the children filling in where the adults left off. We, spoilt parents, have got a special spread of Advent Calendars this year – a high-tech variety of Python programmed, love-filled messages that pop up every day, building up into a cleverly crafted Christmas poem. 

On the first day of Christmas, the computer lit up with Once upon a time there lived a dad. 

Day 2, he was never mad. 

Day 3 it said, he had a lot of patience. 

On day 4 ..and never missed any of our occasions.

My calendar, was more the good old fashioned, low-tech hand crafted kind. Collecting used cases from Kinder surprise eggs to craft prudish roosters from. Pouches were interspersed with earrings in my fav colour, necklaces beaded and fitted to size. The occasional poem or hand-made card for variety, a stout wooden star that promised to love me to the moon and back.

My children’s weekly schedule is just as challenging as mine. Yet my daughter makes quiet observations and executes on them, noting attentively that I could do with a new hair clip, or a custom made armband with manually twisted patterns. And as she’s squirrelling away each ready item, toiling at the wrapping and numbering, my son’s honing his programming skills to have the automated calendar running and bug free in time for the beginning of Advent. And me…I’m just making my excuses to myself. In the days when I did take the effort, I recall the joy there was in lighting up faces every day with another door opening, another pouch revealing precious treats. As much pleasure as there is in giving, so also are there gentle pangs of disappointment sometimes. A secret in the trade of giving is to be rewarded by appreciation. Some days all calendars get overlooked in the grind of routine, pouches get forgotten, doors go unopened. I know from experience how that feels. When days like those come, as they always do, the children hide their hurt much better than I ever could, with a benevolent resolve to give happiness.

I love my giddy headed frog from day 10 most of all. In a cross legged precarious perch, he’s sculpted from clay with ears pinched into place and big beady eyes. He followed our escalation with the same comical amusement that he observes everything. We were having a row over her behaviour in a certain situation - I said I disapproved, finally un-muting my internal dialogue over an issue that had been nagging for some days. She made clear her indifference. Sparks flew. We raged at each other about the usual things of respect and value that adolescents and adults seem to define and interpret ever differently. The words came out strong, giving my anger a degree of validity it could never merit. And then I said it. I said ‘I don’t want your damn presents. I want you to care about what really matters to me’.

The night passed, wrought with actions than couldn’t get undone, words that couldn’t get unspoken. There were 3 more days to Christmas and the spirit of the season had right well been butchered. After  every miserable night and every glorious night - after every single night dawns a whole new day. The computer screen had already lit up - it read He helps us stay strong, and tells us when we are wrong. Tip toeing into her room the next morning, I tried not to wake her, lest she order me out again. There was nothing more to offer this morning than the feeble apology from the night before. She stirred and awoke nevertheless, realising I was there. Half asleep she reached out for my hand and smiled. Comfortingly unhesitant.

Later that day while Mr. Frog grinned on, she handed me the pouch for day 21 all ripped up and mended, the little treasure safe inside. It was the same for each subsequent day, pouches ripped and mended. Treasure safe inside. The spirit of Christmas had been ripped and mended. Love, forgiveness, generosity, they were all safe inside.

Let the pouches go on forever. Let it not stop when Christmas comes.

I'm a bitch

“I wish you were never born into this family". Her words hung in the air, dense and stinging.

Little girls, daughters are positively delightful little things. They run about gaily, brightening up everything with their pretty little dresses and bunches in their hair. Riding on your knees and making up cute little sentences you can repeat to your friends. All of that is just as jolly as it should be. But a little daughter is one thing and a daughter is quite another thing.

When they were as little as 4, in Kindergarten, he’d sit himself down on the bench with the usual helpless lethargy while she would undo his shoes and help him un-suit from the coat and scarf paraphernalia. Nobody had taught her to do these things, or asked her to. These reserves of intuitive caring came entirely naturally and with complete commitment. Any amount of equal-gender upbringing was no match for natures hard wiring. Whoever said male and female ability differences boiled down to socialisation, not genetics, never observed it from the vantage point of bringing up girl and boy twins. The KG staff remained most amused at how one 4 year old little girl fussed around her twin brother.  

That same little girl, the adorable daughter, is now a 12 year old directing her scorn at that same brother she continues mothering. Growing into her life, one oestrogen loaded, high self-expectation at a time. Which also means it’s an on-going imbalance of boy and woman through their growing up. Well, despite his persistently lethargic disposition, he had had the audacity of brilliantly outdoing her at a Math test. Whilst surprised by his own achievement and scathing from her words, he is nevertheless a man in the making - enjoying his 5 minutes of fame like it were a lifetime of successes back to back.

Whereas for her, she’s on a roll. Perfect is her baseline, success is the norm. Anything right below that is looser-level failure. She’s accustomed to excelling in everything she embarks upon, by sheer grit and perseverance. Of course she was not angry at him, but at herself. It is how women are sometimes. Unfair and irrational. Angry at their own standards. At disappointing themselves, eternally envious of the infuriatingly chilled-out composure of their male company.
Some time will pass but she will come around, as she always does, inundated with shame for her behaviour and an even firmer resolve to work harder, apologising effusively for letting her frustrations get the better of her. He’ll graciously accept the apology, not quite recollecting what she's going on about, forgiving quickly and generously. She will be curiously surprised again, and relieved that he got over it so easily.

It’s endlessly entertaining and frustratingly inefficient that people straddled with the same genetic coding continue to repeat the same mistakes, re-learning the same lessons, generation upon generation (no wonder evolution runs at snail-pace). It’s similarly frustrating and also somewhat funny that whatever the year civilisation is in, boys and girls, men and women simply have different roles to play in life according to the different contributions they make to a shared reproductive system. This little girl, like many of her kind, will be the nurturer and the listener. She will, like her mother and grandmother before her, also be the one to tell the man to intuitively go to the doctor and nurturingly sort out the laundry. She will multi-task, so as to do both to perfection at the same time, not losing sight of her own personal ambitions, as well as booking her kids dental appointments and making a lasagne. All of this will, ever so often, churn up a storm in her.

Until recently, US meteorologists gave traditionally female names to storms, and hurricanes for the shared characteristics of being unpredictable and destructive. When the ‘Women’s Movement’ finally had their say and male names started being introduced, another bias took shape - people became less likely to prepare for hurricanes with women’s names, not taking them seriously because they don’t sound threatening in comparison to their male counterparts. This ironically made those storms more deadly.  

There is a subdued appreciation of the singular advantage of experience this 12 year old boy is being provided with, by living beside and loving strong women. Yes, he would be better equipped to understand them into adulthood, probably ahead of his peers. But excitement for such great fortune is limited while the scrapes still burned. He knows already of the perfect super human powers of emotional intelligence she is capable, of the heightened sense of self-awareness and punitive self-criticism. For reasons seemingly unfathomable, she will also rage with fury causing unpredictable destruction like the hurricanes she defamed. Discount her, and it could be similarly deadly. There will also always, always be those reserves of intuitive compassion. 

Borrowing from some of Shania Twain’s wisdom, she is a bitch and a child, and a mother. She is a sinner, a saint. Take her as she is, it might mean you will have to be stronger. Don’t be afraid, you know you wouldn’t want it any other way.

Dreams and dogs

Dreams don’t come floating on fluffy white clouds. 

Nor do they have star popping centers with tinsel trimmed edges. No, there is none of that mystical magic in making dreams come true. For those times when dreams are to sail out of the stupefied subconscious into reality, it is only grit, ambition and hard work that will lead the way. And never giving up. It’s so easy to get sold on the romance of living out a dream, misled by the marketing and packaging of ‘making dreams come true’. Fatally underestimating how thin you have to be willing to be stretched, how little sleep you will have to sustain on, how much you have to continually believe in it. Blood, sweat and tears. Thats what dreams comprise of. 

Would you take on someone else’s dream though? Strange things happen, stranger than they seem. All of a sudden you could be straddled with an abandoned dream you never dreamt, to realise or let perish. Like that puppy the kids wanted so bad, their biggest dream. They beg and plead, it’s their only Christmas wish. There’s nothing else in the world they’d rather have. Until you get the dog and it doesn’t walk itself, chews up all the new furniture, reduces exotic family holiday destinations to places only reachable in dog-ride km’s. Dreams have that very inconvenient thing about them, they demand sacrifice and commitment and even a complete change in life-style. A permanent departure from the plush comfort-zone. They make you forfeit luxury treats of laziness and relaxation. Or else those cherished aspirations become an irresponsible recklessness, ending up like the Christmas pup, in the orphanage of abandoned dreams. 

Two days ago, 5 otherwise completely disconnected people become a team of focused foster-parents to one such abandoned dream from that orphanage of dreams. Once loved and cherished too, by someone. Overnight they had not 1, but 2 full-time jobs. Dreams want to know nothing of all the misfortunes life has slung at you. They were dreamt into existence, so you rise to the challenges of rough times. What good is it hiding behind self-pity if it comes at the cost of giving up on dreams? Giving up, even on adopted dreams.

Is that even a thing, an adopted dream? Whom are we kidding, dreams are not dogs. 

Dreams come floating on fluffy white clouds.

PWC, the Oscar stars!

Martha L Ruiz and Brian Culinan became the most known, non-celebrity faces at the Oscars this year. As auditors, this is probably the 5 minutes of fame they wish they'd never had. The Pricewatercoopers accountants are probably experiencing that 'may the earth rip open and swallow me' moment.

Everyone had something to talk about on a dull winter Monday morning. For once, we here in Europe woke up to news that wasn't hogged by Donald Trump's depressingly ridiculous imbecility. Entertained instead by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway's comical expressions of the night before. How Warren fumblingly passed on a burning ball of uncertainty at the 'best movie' announcement, to Faye, rather than scorch his own fingers. How the over-eager Faye impatiently grabbed the envelope to blurt out the movie name she recognised on it (happily blanking out the rest), only to realise later how badly her fingers were scorched. Warren himself got off 'scot-free', sheepishly taking the mike back grinningly at a shock-faced, applauding audience. True to the spirit of Hollywood, the applauding remained stable through the entire fiasco! Only later did we learn, that the whole goof-up was attributed to two selfie-taking distracted PWC auditors who's responsibility was handing over the right envelopes to the right people at the right time. 

The infallible PWC who had previously boasted that their 83 year old contract had never come up for tender because they do such a 'good job', was also capable of human error. Precisely because, surprise surprise, even companies as big as PWC are comprised of mere mortals. So even fat pay-cheque drawing Partners at PWC aren't exempt of human error.

And let's put things into perspective, what were the real consequences of the blunder? Did Jordan Horowitz go home with the wrong award? No, the goof-up was corrected immediately, amidst a lot of awkwardness. Did it surface a systemic rot at the core of PWC competencies like with the Volkswagen crisis? No, it was a localised human moment of inattentiveness. Was anyone hurt, did a bad drug have to be recalled? Did anyone die, like in the recent Yemen attack that went 'dreadfully wrong' killing 25 people amongst which 9 were children under the age of 13, one a 3 moth old baby and a US soldier. 

This was a show-biz, black-tie event of some brilliant entertainers thrown into an off-the-script scene of embarrassing awkwardness which gave everyone something hilarious to talk about at work, and more fodder for the ever hungry Trump-inspired political satire. 

There is talk of how many heads will roll, how PWC will salvage face. Will PWC be able to claw it's way out of this crisis? The Oscars have barred Martha and Brian from future ceremonies. Crucial work of repairing the cracks that led to this mammoth mistake are being mended. 

I think it's also a huge opportunity for PWC to rise above all the melodrama and parade its humanity. To laugh at itself and it's Oscar winning blunder. To hold back on rushing to internal decapitations. To acknowledge the damage sloppy carelessness can cause. And forgive. Forgive and appreciate being able to quickly and confidently eliminate a deep-rooted, festering flaw in the company. For a blunder is what it is. Nothing more and nothing less.

Wouldn't that come as a pleasant, unexpected surprise? It's a rare ability, in business, for a company to use the opportunity of a crisis, into a showcase and proof of it's empathetic human side.

Be the star of the extended Oscar's, PWC!

Gone girl.

Now that we're all grown up, our mentors must be hugely relieved. The pathologically troublesome duo, magnets to everything that was frowned upon and forbidden, doing precisely what we were told not to. Born one street and two days apart from each other, we were joined at the hip by crime, transgressions and loads and loads of laughter.

School was a game of dodge. Dodging the headmistress who'd stand watch at the entrance gates to greet us, the invariable late-comers. Dodging uniform checks, there was always something out of place, the hair wasn't tied right or the shoes, or socks or..we couldn't keep up, or didn't want to. Dodging homework collection, dodging something or the other. Notoriously infamous, every teacher had an eye on us. 

We couldn't even take the straight road back home, meandering between snack kiosks, food carts, and Popsicle stores. Finally falling into an endlessly looping drop-off routine. First you drop me off to the door, then I to yours and then, because we still couldn't bear to part ways, you at my door, and on it went... Until we were caught out by either your father, the die-hard disciplinarian, or my meddling brothers, the die-hard meddlers. The only one that sped up this ritual was a donkey. India, being India we faced-off rather unexpectedly one time with a charging donkey. Chatting as we always did about the world, teachers and boys, we had startled to see a large donkey galloping purposefully in our direction. A screaming, crying hysterical race ensued - us against the donkey! Only when it caught up, hearts pounding, pulse racing and...ran right past us, did the warm sweat of foolishness flood over. We went from screechy screams to belly aching laughter so quickly, it sounded all the same!

Neither of us ever had two coins to rub together. Luckily for us, we both came from parents that believed in earning money first, to have any to spend. So whenever we got really desperate for a midway snack of those spicy hot, deliciously savoury potato dumplings in bread (vada pav), we resorted to devious tactics. One that was repeatedly pulled off with consistent success, was the 'we are foreigners' trick. Hovering around the vendors’ kiosk, putting on fake American accents to play the 'foreigners', we would enquire most affectedly after the 'vada pav'. Explaining we were from out of town and would like to try the local food. Asking him for a taste in our practiced 'posh' manner. And when we'd had our fill, the panic search for money - our last act - played out. Why he humoured us every week for years, I'll never know. At some point we dropped the foreign accents and claimed to have settled down permanently. We still have a long standing debt with this dear, if poor, migrant vendor who never did let us settle our debts but remained our friend, always. How many such relationships we struck along the way, I don't know. Often people were appalled at first at the obnoxious audacity of our antics and then somehow won over by the ingenuity and gall of it all.

Either out of intrigue or excitement, over the years other little girls joined our alliance, struck easily and innocently, as is the case with children. Some recruits were as crazy as we were, gladly getting into all the trouble we did. Some others were just in it for the ride. Not her though, she was different. I can't recall exactly when or how we became so close. She wanted in and yet was careful to eschew our embarrassing ways, withstanding any peer-pressure. Mostly, she watched disapprovingly as we, her ever closer cronies, found new, more deliciously ridiculous ways to make public spectacles of ourselves in a constant quest to rise from the inconsequence of early teenage girlhood. To be seen, to matter and entertain. It was a total clash of personalities. Her distinctly feminine, shy, soft, sweet ways. We stomping around, loud, pushy and fearless. Keeping our awkwardness all the way from little girls to gwaky teenagers. Unmoved by any dignity lent through her presence. Occupied more by the insignificance of our existence. Constantly devising means to counter it.

To rebels like us, she was little miss goody two shoes with the fetching smile, and effortless kindness even to the less fortunate children in class. Deeply empathetic people are often as deeply sensitive and easy to hurt. There was no telling what or who would yank her into a river of tears. 'Water tanker' is what the girls in their cattiness called her. Perhaps it was that vulnerability that tugged at very boy's early protectionist instincts, enchanting them into a hopeless infatuation. Or perhaps it was simply the fact that she was so exquisitely, obviously, naturally pretty. Either way, every boy we ever knew fell for her, lock, stock and barrel. While the rest of us tom-boys brooded over one-sided crushes, doomed to single-hood forever. She didn’t even seem to notice the string of broken young boy hearts trailing behind her. We grew up alongside her, learning little. It's funny though, how some impressions from eons ago stay indelible. Carved into the deepest recesses of memory. To stay, whatever else transpires. To date I recall vividly how her head bobbed when she spoke. Her eyes twinkling, trimmed by long glorious eyelashes. I daresay if I was a boy, I'd have gladly joined the trail of broken hearts.

In one of the more constructive moments, our masterminds of nonsense founded a girl group of 11 year old's - 'The Dynamite Girl's'. Without resistance or participation she had included herself in our schemes, indulging us. Top on the agenda for 'The dynamite girls’ was saving the world. From what and whom could be determined later. The most action we ever saw was scaring each other off at the local grave yard. Undeterred, secret girl group meetings convened after school, in the scorching heat, on the roof top of an old gate. Admittance was only permitted to those that knew the secret password. The group was serious business. Serious about making someone, anyone, curious about our activities. A secret code language was devised to communicate with. Letters were written diligently every Wednesday to practice and learn the code, and most of all, to keep up the illusion of relevance. We were all sold to the idea of the group, which we stubbornly held on to for quite a while. Everybody but her. I think now, that she might have actually hated it. Nevertheless, she played along. Without resistance or participation. Mindful not to hurt our feelings. Always mindful not to hurt anyone’s feelings. Even providing our sorry ambitions with not only her company but also lunch box provisions. Generally opposed to our behaviour, she played along to please us. Maybe she stopped practicing the code language sooner than others, but other than that, she never protested. Never told us off. Never broke away. I’d like to think that despite our differences we enjoyed each other. Opposing and attracting, that's how it goes, right? We, the audaciously brazen balanced off by her graceful gentleness. In transition, at the edge of childhood, preparing each other for everything that comes after.

It didn’t work out both ways, I don’t think. Perhaps those wonderful childhood memories are not equally wonderfully shared. I recall her as the most pleasant person from my growing years. Of hatters, craziness, bravado and brilliance there were many. The ones that painted the town red, and delighted in it. She stood out with plain and simple pleasantness. Kind, smiling, soft, pleasant. Pleasant, also meaning pleasing. Pleasing her friends, pleasing her teachers, her family. Pleasing her siblings, the baby brother. A polite, God fearing, ardent catholic. Conforming to everything people expected.

Until she finally rebelled. Disappearing into the oblivion. Tired of all the nice pleasantness. For years now nobody’s heard of her. She’s left us no trace, nothing that would lead us back to her. Gone. No one more to please.

Caught in the busyness of mid-life, we're attending to Instagram-ed projections of our perfect lives. How to get thinner thighs and thicker hair. Where to live next, what our kids will become. Remembering to forget. Afraid to face the effects of all the mistakes we made with her. It's easier to add to them, now than mend any. Too far gone, too weak to take responsibility. Easy is the popular choice. 
So, no one knows what became of her. Does she still smile that fetching smile? Do her eyes still twinkle under those glorious lashes?

You are missed, gone girl. And we are sorry. We have failed you. 

St. Johns School - Thane

Eat your greens. Say please.

A bunch of young teens hanging out at McDonald’s on a Friday evening. Some others strolling, chatting, shopping.. It was a warm summer’s day in the city mall. Kids letting off the weeks’ steam. Probably giggling over boys, taking the millionth selfie, impressing girls, gelling down hair, eating too many fries. Doing what teens do. Being kids.

At home dinner’s being fixed. The usual drill - rounding up the family, getting 11 year olds to do their bit - tidy up their little piles, set dinner. They are at that exasperating age – not quite little enough to be babied, not old enough to really be responsible. The struggle is always striking the perfect balance between protecting them and preparing them. We’re guilty of overprotecting and expecting more independence of them, all at once. 

The whole point being to deliver them into the world as good, conscionable, compassionate, educated adults. Getting all the tiresome details right along the way. Clean your teeth – 3 whole minutes, circular movements. Floss. 

Deal with frustrations. The world won’t revolve around you. Learn that rejection is part of life. Always pick yourself up, always try again. Find a passion. Find something you burn for. Practice, practice, practise - for anything you want to be good at. Talent is overrated. Go hunt down your good fortune, don’t wait for it to find you. 

Take a bow when you’re on stage, smile at the crowd. The butterflies in your tummy will settle. 

Don’t snatch, ask nicely. Don’t be a bully. Care about children and people less fortunate than you are.

Appreciate your life, be grateful for your blessings. Welcome children fleeing from war torn countries that have been robbed of their own childhood.

Treat people with respect. The way you want to be treated yourself. 

Mind your language, only use the bad words we use. Don’t think up new ones, we can’t keep up. 

Get off your phones. No really, get off your phones! Read. Write.

Go outdoors, move. Exercise. Eat your greens. Say please.

Most of those slain on Friday were children. An angry deranged young man shot out at point blank rage at children between the ages of 14-17. Children, I am sure, that were taught every tiresome detail with love. Eat your greens. Say please.

How is the world of today changing his life, my son was asked by someone. Not in a big way, he says. There is something new that’s got inside his head, to stay. I think it's called fear. He told me about his school friend whose family is moving to China. She says she’s happy to soon be living in a high walled community flanked by security. She will feel safer there than she does in Europe. She was one of the lucky ones that left the mall 10 minutes before the shoot-out began.

My daughter, on the other hand, says it takes more to change her life. It has changed the way she thinks about things. Munich is a place of clean air where people are happy and safe, she thought. If the young man was such a good shooter, why didn’t he become a policeman? Why did he shoot innocent people? 

When will this pass? Where is 'safe'?

Eat your greens. Say please. 

Terrorism, a matter of perspective?

When darkness falls, we go for the kill. Like the Bonnie and Clyde of murderers. Watchfully patrolling the small expanse, prepared and seasoned. This far gone there is no more guilt, no hesitation and no remorse. When the blade slices through soft flesh, there is no doubt left. Just satisfaction. Peace.

The first few times were traumatic and disturbing. Haunting nightmares followed. Confusion, disorientation. But like with everything else, so it is also with murder. You get better with practice. Just gotta keep at it. After all these years, some nights the nightmares recur. Questionly, judgingly. The dead come to haunt you in your sleep. Hordes of them, angry swarms of them. Looking for revenge and answers: How can some decide on the fate of others? Remind yourself why you're doing it, how there is no other way.

We continue with conviction. Clear about who the enemy is and why he is the enemy. The whole family, including the children, have now been inducted into the same cause - which seems big enough to contain any doubt anyone could ever feel. To be effective they have been injected with enough hate, expanding the killing machine. We have to work together to preserve and protect what's precious to us. Instilling our views in our children early on. Good, now they are angry too!

Razed to a stubble in the ground are the sad remains of what used to be a lush green, fragrant patch of Basil. Vengeance for the invaders is reinforced. We can't stand around and watch until our beautiful blossoms are also devoured. Their insatiable appetites destroy everything! Hours of gentle caretaking and the joy of sprouting saplings, gone in one moment of inattentiveness. Our approach in tracking down the terrorists of our garden, is selectively scientific. Of the 244 different varieties of molluscs in this part of the world, there are apparently many 'good' types, beneficial to foliage. We couldn't care to understand how they differ, if they differ. We know just enough as is necessary to categorise them as collectively evil. Understanding how they operate, where their hideouts are and where they get their food from. Studying their behaviour in order to conquer and destroy them all.
Slugs have been cursed with desperate ugliness and disgustingly slimy trails, triggering not a trace of sympathy or empathy. Making it even easier to kill them. It is, however, a lost cause. Their invincibility is laid down by nature. As if anticipating what was in store, nature has programed each one of these slimy trailers to lay 400 eggs in 2 cycles every year, producing thousands and thousands more slugs in turn! Our counter-measure massacre will have to forge on...

Not quite so sure anymore, a nagging conflict with my conscience ensues. Who here, is the enemy? Who's the terrorised and who's the terrorist?

The perfect Christmas night. (- by Aurelia D. M.)

Every cold white winter eve
Santa comes and says 'Good Steve!
'I've got a present for you!
And for your sisters of course too!'

Steve wakes up in the morning
rubbing his eyes and yawning.
'what a nice warm winter night,
and Santa gave me a brand new kite!'

Good old Santa lovely man
Every night he comes eating ham.

Home (Part III)

The years in Athens, living by the sea. Problems are the same all over the world, but with the sun on your back and the smell of the ocean they seem lighter. The money just wouldn't stretch in Greece, so they moved to Munich. Back in Munich the smiles didn't stretch as far as the money did. The problems are the same wherever you go. In the grey and cold of the central European winter, they seemed different.

The sun kept bobbing in and out as they travelled and lived in Turin, Rome, Berlin, Munich, Vienna and somewhere along the way, seven years on, their second son was born. To him they were both his - the son that Lilly brought into the marriage and the son they gave birth to. So clear was his responsibility and love towards them both, that his step-son never felt the need to look for or know his biological father. As a child and into adulthood, to this day that remains. How perfectly must that role be played if a child could never tell the difference! They were father and son. Of that, neither ever had any doubts.

While the younger one was just a toddler, there were patches when they had to live apart until job stability and the child's schooling could be brought back into sync. That's the drawback of moving often with a school going child. A drawback, and one of the biggest regrets. To have uprooted a school going child every two years, just when he'd settled into his new environment, made new friends and felt secure - to make him do it all over again. It wasn't right. In the end, it wasn't worth the stress on a child, to have a few hundred more on your pay check at the end of the month. He could have been more sensitive, more mindful of the effects of his decisions. Something that weighs down on him to this day. They were father and son, he should have done better. Enough years have gone by to let it go. He still hasn't forgiven himself.

Both the boys are absorbed in their lives. They rarely call to find out how he is. Lots of parents have that problem when the kids leave home. That's ok. That's how it is now. There is no bitterness, no anger. There is no self-pity in solitude.
Sadness. There is sadness. A sadness that is exceeded only by an acceptance and understanding. Not burdened on any other. A naturally cheerful disposition transforms insistent melancholy and grief into self-reflection.

For self-reflection there is ample time. Endless time. Homesickness was something he never knew. Since being called up for military service at the age of 18 he's been away from home, and never been homesick. Some say home is where the 'heat' is, to recharge the solar-cells. Still others say home is where you hang the hat.
Home was where Lilly was. Never mind, she was still in Rome while he had to move to Turin or he was in Munich while she had to stay back in Vienna. She was on this planet. She was home.

Ever since she's passed, the sun is setting in the twilight years. Homeless.

Home (Part II)

His shakes are more violent today than the last time. The Parkinsons' acting up he says, brushing it off. It's been a while since the last time we met. Every time I promise to come back soon, I never do. Life gets in the way.
My kids keep digging at my conscience, asking when was the last time I saw my old friend. As I've said before, we raise them. They teach us.

Trevor is a jolly kind, he always was. You can see that. Jolly and adventurous. To him getting called out to join the army at 18 was more of a break than a dread. Although an only child, from a loving home in Leicester, he couldn't help but cease the opportunity to explore new horizons. That was around the early 1950's and the chances that came by for such things were limited. He travelled to Germany, went on to Austria and was on his way ahead when he met Lilly.

Nights are often the best part of the day, he says to me. In his dreams she seems so real, he can almost smell her. When he wakes up, she's gone and he's alone again. Her last few years were ones of intense care. She was wheel chair bound, almost invalid. Years of anxiety medication and high blood pressure had got the better of her. Giving her care, had filled his days. She had been the homemaker through their 5 decades together. Caring for and loving him and the two boys. When it was she who was the baby, he had applied himself with dedication and tenderness. Having learnt well from her example.
On some unkinder nights he wakes up in a cold sweat with a pounding in his chest. In his dream he's wheeling her, chatting and laughing along the way, only to bend down and find no Lilly. The wheel chair empty.
Still, he likes the nights. For the times he's with her and life is complete again.

Complete, like he had felt in Vienna with her toddler on his shoulders and Lilly by his side. Only just into adulthood himself, there was a lot of cautioning about a woman eight years his senior, with a child of her own. It didn't deter him. He had wandered off far from where he belonged. With her he was home.

His face lights up as he tells me this, just like it does when I walk into the restaurant - his dining room for the past six year. The same time, every day of every month of every year, he's here. Right at this very table by the window, on his own. Just where I first met him. The way it's squared off with an old broken piano against one wall and his wheel chair by the other, you even play into his imagination of this being his home. Since Lilly has gone, he uses her wheel chair as a walker for himself. It doubles as a ready respite when asthma leaves him heaving for air on the short walk over. 'You know where to find me if you're looking for me', he jokes in his mails as he gently prods for a visit, saying his fingers are too old for typing - they just won't tap dance the way they used to! Trevor has clearly always been the people's person. He has a timeless charm about him, and a stunningly graphic memory that shames me. I have lists for everything. I have lists for the lists I have everything for. All my memories are replaced by tasks, jobs on the lists of lists. 'Visit Trevor' is the one I'll be checking off today. Between the mechanics of life, we lose sight of living it. What's your strongest memory I asked him. The answer took about twenty seconds in the coming. One pouring autumn evening in the early phase of their dating, Trevor was miserably late to meet Lilly. He played the Clarinet at a band. That night they were held back for a few extra pieces. When his Taxi finally pulled over by her building, she was waiting in the rain. As he got off, she ran out to hug him. 'You came' she had said in joyful disbelief, 'You came!'

We stay in that moment for a bit, smiling to ourselves. What's your strongest memory, he asks me. What moment in your life left a most striking impression?...I look at him and think. I'm still thinking.

Home (Part I)

In the twilight years. That's how my father, who turned 75 this year, refers to the present phase of his life. I always thought it sounded too dreary, but what would I know, I'm not there yet.

It was just about midday at work and I was already knackered. There was no point, I felt like a heap of crap. I could tell I was burning up with a steadily rising fever, so I put my stuff together and called it a day. All I wanted to do was to stretch out under cozy warm covers and sleep forever!! So, I got off the tram on my way back home, picked up a pack of paracetamols and walked into the next restaurant to grab a bite before I downed a bunch. The place was peculiarly dull with faded gilded decor of better days gone by. In it's twilight years too, I suppose. Obviously not a hotspot for lunch, it was almost empty. Which suited me just fine. I was happy for the solitude and the hot food before the fever med's. Whatever bug I had caught was causing a full-fledged skeletally intricate joint ache. Child care for the rest of the day was handed over to my husband. As I was getting off the phone with him, almost ready to continue the commute back home and to my bed, I became aware of a very elderly gentlemen at a table by the window across me. He was waving a dessert cup and yelling out something at me. I hadn't noticed there was anyone else on this side of the restaurant, had completely overlooked him. Looked right through him.
"Want some vanilla cream with fruits" he called out energetically. "It's very good, you really should try it" he continued, as he spooned in some to prove his point. Surprised as I was to hear English in this German city, I was even more taken aback at the offer to share his dessert. His hair was soft snow white tufts and he wore white scrubs like a nurse. His almost Santa-like appearance was belied only by a pronounced stoop that straightened out each time he repeated the offer. Confused, I noticed a wheel chair beside him, as he kept bobbing up and down in his seat insistently. I tried feebly to indicate I didn't want any desert, that I didn't want to share his, that I wasn't feeling very well. He wouldn't have any of it. Before I knew it, I was sitting at his table and we were both spooning in vanilla cream topped with red berries, from one cup. His skin glistened with the folds of age, but his wisened old eyes sparkled with delight and mischief! I don't know how long we talked, I only remember how much I laughed. And by the time I left, I wasn't feeling quite as beat.

That was 5 years ago. Next year my friend will turn 80.

(........to be continued)

Not just another brick in the wall.

The times I remember most clearly were those soggy monsoon afternoons when we'd pour in with with our drippy plastic raincoats and our slushy squishy 'rainy shoes' trailing in the dirt of the world. The rain often whipped down in lashes, reaching through even the most well thought through raincoat. I remember shivering half soaked under the whirring ceiling fans while we got into position, bells strapped on our feet, ready in the half-sitting Aramandi position. The first round of Adavu steps, which were sure to warm us all up, were always the hardest. I adored our dance teacher though, I'd go through a lot of pain to impress her! She was like this Deity. Her alabaster skin, her silken hair, her long elegant fingers striking the Tabla, her incredibly sleight and graceful movements when she danced...she was just divine! I was always in such awe. Being a Parsi, she's quite an exception among dance teachers of the Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam. Originally Parsis were Iranians of the Zorastrian faith which is one of the world's oldest religions. They fled to India sometime between the 8th to 10th century to avoid persecution by muslim invaders. Bharatanatyam, described in the Natya Shastra treatise that date as far back as 200 BCE, originated in the temples of Tamil Nadu. I guess one could say it's the Indian 'ballet' without sounding too silly. It also encompasses theatre, dance and music in its own graceful fluidity. So, there we were, this meeting of Bharatanatyam, Parsis, and a bunch of little girl students, amongst which were - Hindus, Christians (like me) and basically anyone else who wanted to learn. But that was the India of then. An India long gone.

I was a terribly eager, terribly bad student. Seriously, Bharatanatyam is a horribly painful, bloody hard art form to master, and I just loved it. Talent is often overrated, at least that's what I believed because it worked well for me. Our teacher saw things in me I didn't, like invisible things. She'd say something encouraging and set me up to practice twice as long as every other kid. So whilst clearly there were better dancers in our group of giggly girls, including her own daughters, I often got special attention. Much like one tends to be overprotective of the weakest in the pack. She was firm and kind and always pushing me beyond my limits. I don't know if it was because I worshipped her or because she believed in me, but I always let her push. With one sure flick of her trowel, she fixed a shaky brick. It's people like these that mould us.
It was no big surprise that no great dancer was born out of me. I suspect she knew that all along. But I had a lot of fun dancing while I did, and then when I was about 13, I dropped out. In all the hustle-bustle of growing up, university and generally sorting out life and what I want to do with mine, I might have forgotten about dance altogether.

The next time I thought about Bharatanatyam, I was at the tail end of my 30's, had two kids, was living and working in central Europe and yearning for it to be part of my life again. To be clear, I did try other forms of dance more native to Europe, which were fun enough for a while. But it just wasn't the same. Having made some failed attempts at digging up a good teacher, I was starting to think maybe it's a sign to let it go. A 25 year break would have surely done nothing good to my 'skills'. Why I still continued searching, I can't explain. At almost 40 I was able to continue where I left off at 13. That shaky brick she fixed is kind of jammed!

It's often rainy outside and cold. There is no drama scene here, like in the monsoon rains of Mumbai though. Somethings have changed, some others remain the same. Drama in India has taken on a whole new face. I'm heart broken about the direction my beloved India is headed in. Whilst India was never the epitome of tolerance and harmony, now extremism is brazenly legitimised, even legalised by powerful sections of society. I'm ashamed to call myself Indian. Although I won't be as quick to turn in my nationality for another, I still don't want to be a part of a mindset that would lynch someone over his diet. My happily mixed dance class as I knew it, is a thing of India's past.

The first round of Adavu's are still the hardest. Again, I adore my dance teacher, who this time is a good 10 years younger than I. And my body is 27 years older than when I last struggled with Bharatanatyam! Our giggly group is a bunch of women from varied backgrounds, shaving off time from domestic and professional obligations to spend it on dance. Some are even quite new to the country, still struggling with home sickness and learning the ropes of a foreign culture and language. We dare to leave all our 'baggage' with our shoes at the door so that on Saturday morning at class, we're all the same. It is still with childlike joy that we all learn from our dearest teacher and each other. Little girls again. The moulding continues, even for 40 year old bricks. She's created an addictive atmosphere that encouragingly includes varying levels of talent and expertise. Underlining strengths, supporting weaknesses. There are no egos here, no pride and no politics. Instead there are tears of frustration and moments of delight as we nervously prepare for our first stage performance in, what for many of us, will be decades. She places her trust and professional reputation in our hands, in return we have to believe in ourselves. You can't help but be inspired by the energy and focus. Again, it's just all about dance, about the painful torture of body control and limit-pushing. And so, it turns out, in this often cruel hateful world, my happy dance class does continue. For that, I have you all to thank.

Happy friendship day, O golden one!

Learning is done best by examples. Children learn best through examples set by adults. Education is structured on strengthening theoretical foundations by practical examples. Even the animal world, from what has been observed, picks up quickly on good practice.
It seems, with a certain amount of intelligence, it is easy to pick up on beneficial behaviour from your immediate environment and imitate it. The trick often lies in having the intellect to identify what is beneficial and what is not. It seems in an immature or insecure mind this ability is diminished, resulting in overrating and emulating behaviour that is actually detrimental.

In a nut-shell, my two pence on Friendship day is that with a bit of luck, a healthy frame of mind and the right priorities, we surround ourselves with people that are good for us. Whose examples we can learn from to become better people ourselves. And we do this naturally, to survive and evolve. Of course there is the matter of emotions and circumstances that finally deicide which relationships last and which must go. But by and large, in our lives - excluding the disorienting years of adolescence  - the basic premise for finding and maintaining good meaningful friendships lies within ourselves.
Despite my trampling directness and tardy emotions, I have the great fortune today of celebrating a few meaningful friendships that I am perpetually learning from.

Of these, there is one golden girl, I want to pay a special tribute to today. We, your world, are your audience. This is your stage.

I'm always intrigued by people with infectious positivity. Being a die hard realist, I find it fascinating to be around people that always see the silver lining. Although I find all the optimism sometimes mildly irritating, I have learnt to squint for the silver lining.
Only since I've known you, have I realised it takes a lot more than squinting. In knowing you, I have learnt that happiness takes energy, generosity and discipline to be stubbornly, unfailingly light hearted in the face of reality and the hand that life has dealt you. You take it, you make it.
When you finally wrote off a marriage you trustingly whole-heartedly entered into, to a self absorbed, promiscuous narcissist, you did it with peace. Knowing you had left no stone unturned. You promised yourself you'd make up for the hole he ripped open, so your son would come out of it unscathed. Every day for the past 7 years, you have reinforced that resolve, swallowing your dignity, paying the price it takes every single day to keep his world intact. You son is a bubbly, curious delight of a 9 year, safely exploring and unfolding to adulthood.
When you buried your daughter and mourned her demise, again you found your peace in letting her go. The greatest tribute of love was in placing her liberation above your need to hurt and heal.
Have you realised, you're always smiling? And yes, people take the happy one for granted. You are a single working mum, in a foreign country, handling all the annoying bureaucratic details in a foreign language. And you're always smiling. Why is it you're always smiling?? When I'm angry or stressed at work, I'm grumpy at home. I take a free snap or two at some some poor victim in my trusted circle. Everyone is alerted and careful not to trigger the 'bad mood' lurking. That is how most mortals are. We use our unhappiness as control over others. With you, we don't have to be careful of your feelings or try and keep your spirits high. We playfully call you our 'sunshine'. Gold and radiant like your name implies. You're self sufficient. A cushion for others. You seem most content when there is someone you can reach out to and help. When meted with envy and catty jealousy, you explain it and forgive it and go on to look for the next person you can be there for. As always, you will get no credit for it, for your unnaturally sunny-tempered, unforced kindness.
And you are no angel, no spiritual superior being. You are just a mere mortal like the rest of us. Only, you have more love to give than there are people in this world.

I will stay close and observe with rapt attention. I want to be smart enough to learn a thing or two from your many examples, O golden one!

50 shades of hogwash.

Seriously, free women of the 21st century, make up your minds!!! Do you want to be treated as respectful equals in society and the work force?  Do you really want to take control of your life and sex, and all of that great sounding 'Women's group' stuff? Do you honestly even mind being sexually objectified?

What you do you really think of womanisers like Dominique Strauss-Kahn or the sleazy Berlusconi? Is their demeaning behaviour towards women and misuse of power to live out their sick sexual fantasies really abhorring to you? Because it didn't seem much like that with the cooing and giggling hordes of women flocking to read and watch the 'Shades of Grey'. The picture of an innocent virgin college girl being sexually dominated to submission and violence by the success and wealth of a cocky young disturbed man is a massive success, and it's because the WOMEN love it!! So basically, if the despicable conduct of old, wrinkly men came instead in the package of a well built, dashing man with power and success to boot, it would be completely different.

Let's pretend for a moment that the story line wasn't the flat cliché it is, that the book, which sold over 100 million copies, wasn't just smut and poor writing which probably took all of 10 minutes worth of work. An introverted college girl of low self-esteem, with obvious abandonment issues from her father and a bully of a friend is literally swept off her naive feet with simple minded gullibility in helicopters and planes, by the protagonist. Falling prey to the flashy wealth and success, her sexual identity only starts to exist when she becomes his subjugate sex-slave. But of course it's all consensual - as if consent even counts between two people in social classes so far apart. As we recall, it didn't do much for Clinton? Even so, how much better is violence if you ask first and then hit?
At the very least, it's about love! Still suckers to riding into the sunset with the fairytale prince. Still not ready to find that sunset on the merit of your own smarts. Well, then at least loose the act. His possession and control of her reflect not his love but his need to 'own her', for her to obey him. Which, infuriatingly, is exactly what she does. None of what she eventually is, comes from within her. Her job, her home, her way of life or self-esteem - all rewards for pleasing him or demonstrating her love for him. Among the most disturbing scenes in the movie, was the supposed pleasure on her face as she get's spanked and another time she gets struck by a cane, stripped nude and kneeling. Popular opinion is going on the barricades protesting against the blatant condoning of matter-of-fact violence, but in the mainstreaming of pornography it's glorified.

The most dangerous of messages is that to the real perverts. Lurking in the shadows of society, they now get a clear thumbs up to go for their kill, women love it - just bring along enough bling. But the world is not hollywood. Perverts won't be converted for love. Teenagers and adults will go home with this glossy image of violence and sex, encouraged to try the forbidden. It will cause real physical pain, and it won't be stopped by calls of 'Red' and 'Yellow'.
The commodity that women have publicly approved and popularised is no better than regular porn that reduces women to sexual objects, portraying them as passive recipients of degrading and/or violent acts which pressure them to 'consent' to things they find demeaning, taking away the intimacy of the experience. Men will be further empowered and encouraged to believe such control can be easily gained over a woman, for her own pleasure.

Why this abuse masquerading as romance with such unfortunate societal implications is so popular amongst the women folk is just absolutely baffling. For the moment, forget the '1 Billion Rising' hogwash of double standards. True comfort and identity for women still seems to come through submission.

The final idiot check should be, is this a message I want my daughter to take away? She might just be better off watching 'Frozen' for the umpteenth time.