Eyes

Eyes

Friday 25 December 2015

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.


Wednesday 23 December 2015

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.


Sunday 20 December 2015

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.

Friday 27 November 2015

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)


Friday 16 October 2015

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 stepswhich 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. Bharatanatyamdescribed 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.

Sunday 2 August 2015

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!










Saturday 21 February 2015

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.

Let them live! (Part III)

I didn't think there would be a part III either, I'm just as surprised as you are. It happens rarely, and most unexpectedly. People surprise you, become twice the person you take them to be, twice the person you will ever be.

Something else unexpected happened while we weren't paying attention. Turns out, our daughter is 9 going on 19. Her mind is developing faster than we or her body can keep up with. Trading in all her baby pinks for the darkest blacks. She's sensitive and gentle one moment and breathing fire, striking down all that moves the other. In equal parts infuriating and bewitching. Arrogant and surly as often as she's crushed by insecurity. Just when we think we're raising mean, self focused little people, she goes and surprises you with empathy - even for a cake of soap.
She took suspiciously long in the bathroom one evening while the rest of us were haggling her to hurry, in a rush to get to someplace, running late as ever before. While we waited impatiently, she was busy flooding the soap tray in the bathroom, taking her time doing it. Hours later when we got back and some poor soul (that would be me) reached for the soap to wash my hands, I pick up a gooey slimy mass well into disintegration. As is expected of a mature adult I first went off on a rant before I finally asked the sensible 'WHY???'.
'I imagined the Soap was alive Mummy, and it would die outside water. I was saving it'.
Great! Now I had killed it, fished out and flushed down that struggling-for-life-soap that had only just been saved. This might be the most adorable explanation for soaking soap, while I end up being the cold hearted ogre. As it goes, and as is just, I was indicted and she was the angel. Tossing her halo for fury, as though a fresh coat of confidence had just been applied to her, she retorts 'You don't care about my feelings, all you care about is keeping order!'

And so it is on the the roller coaster of an adolescent girls emotions. Everything you've heard is true and not true. With all the vitality and authenticity that adolescence is fuelled with, she's sharp and quick as a cricket to hop on the thicket of hypocrisies that is parenting. Holding us to task, questioning every contradiction. We're poorly prepared with neither rhetoric or strategy. Nature has sprung this upon us, and I scramble for literature on 'The purpose of the Teenage brain' - there is a book for everything. Unfortunately there are also opportunities that pass while one gets caught up in the distraction that books provide.

Now in the meantime our pet crickets, a whole swarm of them to be sure, are systematically being treated like lesser beings so as to buffer the guilt when we finally decide it's time to discard of them. As this process advances - in ways of forgetting feeds, neglecting to change their dried up water sponges, leaving the blinds down thereby cutting off their only source of sunlight - a few of them perish, successfully reducing them to the nothing that they rightfully are. At the same time, there is amongst us a parallel crusade. An equally determined one-girl soap-saving faction, as passionate about the crickets as we are indifferent. Protesting our definitions of right and wrong, she demands with the same soul searching depth 'What is to become of my crickets daddy?' It takes a special kind of person to have the integrity to do what is right, not what is easy. To apply that philosophy to the lives of pet crickets takes an extraordinarily special kind of person. 'I don't know honey' he spares her the proverbial smarmy insincerity. Satisfied only when a trace of shame slid into his voice, she asked as many times as it took to pull it out of him.

We throw a spoke in the hamster wheel frequently and run away from it all. Our destination of choice to beat a bit of winter was Dubai this time - which turned out to be more like running towards than away from it all. Anyway, with holiday plans looming, resolving the cricket business was becoming more and more pressing. There was a curious transition in the father-daughter cricket conflict. Frequently disarming her with the deferential manner in which he addressed her concerns, slowly resurrecting trust. With that came the responsibility of keeping it. The true strength of a man can be measured in the most unusual of ways.

When we were all packed and ready to go, father and daughter duly emptied the cricket boxes. Cricket baby, after cricket baby had to be sifted out by the dozen from between the white grains of sand. As did the doubts in our little girls mind. The swarm of crickets were smuggled in a small plastic box puckered with holes for air, in the cabin luggage of this inter-continental flight. We hoped they wouldn't reach chirping maturity whilst in flight. All the security scans let the timorous swarm pass through undetected, much to the relief of the Father-daughter taut pack of nerves!
Dubai, you might know is a city on a stage. It's artificial perfection brings together Ski-slopes beside groves of marigolds and petunias in bloom, right past a 160ft giant aquarium in the middle of the desert. All within the cultivated, air-conditioned confines of shopping Malls. Everything seems to be in some way or the other either the 'largest, biggest' something in the world, or in competition to get there. Built by the hands of voiceless exploited labour from developing countries. Transported everyday to the city in small white non-air-conditioned busses from their sardine-packed bunkers in obscure parts of the dessert, conveniently far from everyone's conscience . Their sweltry busses and lives are the only semblance of natural existence. In many ways, Dubai is a show-case of our transgressions towards each other and the planet.
It is to this world, that we transported the crickets. From their constrained modest plastic home in Munich, to the shores of Arabia. Trimmed with imported Australian beach quality sand followed by acres of lush green palm dotted lawns of a posh 5 Star accommodation. My little girl and her daddy took out the box with the jet lagged crickets to a well sprinkled spot of luscious green, under the protective shade of a dense palm frond. I can't read cricket minds, but if mirror neurons really work to experience grief and joy of others, I'd say going by the release of sheer happiness on our little girl's face that the crickets must feel some of that joy too. It is here that they will frolic and multiply to their little cricket heart's content. Daddy has brought the lesson of attachment to a responsible end and Dubai fauna has been enriched. Daddy is a hero.

There might be a few corrupt contradictions here, she might see through them one day. For now her crickets will live, and she's back in sync with us. For now she's 9 again.