Tragic Leaps

On my evening walk, I spied a dog suckling her newborn pups. She looked so contented and indulgent, just like any new mother would. The beautiful pups, now playful, now hungry were frisky creatures with absolutely no care in the world. I wanted to pick up each one of them, cuddle them and even take a couple home. But the painful memories from my past stopped me.

  My father, a great lover of dogs and cats, used to pick up strays, put them in his cycle basket and bring them home, much to my mother's consternation. She too loved animals, but did not relish the idea of such unplanned addition to our family.

 Around that time, we had about 5 to 6 pups and equal number of kittens. The senior - most of the tribe was a majestic looking cat aptly named Rani, who had just wandered in, elected to stay, and delivered a litter of kittens.

 Our third floor flat in Lucknow was now overrun by yelping pups and mewing kittens scurrying all over the place. There was complete harmony in the household, however, as pups and kittens shared their meals from common bowls, never was there a fight requiring human intervention.

  Our four- legged friends had cute names: Balu was a rolly- polly fellow, with a very short tail. We all adored him and his antics. The fat one was Cheenu, with his tummy barely clearing the ground. He was always hungry, always eating. During short breaks from his meals he would condescend to play with us . Honey was the quiet type with a strong sense of loyalty. The pup with the Naamam ( the Vishnavite caste mark ) on his forehead was promptly named Namu.

   Behind our building was another block of flats, separated by a few feet. A long corridor running the length of our floor ended at a steel grilled shutter. The building opposite also had a corridor with a grilled shutter. The tenants there were from Kerala and often cooked fish. Rani the cat was in the habit of leaping across from our grilled corridor to theirs to have her fill of choice titbits.

   On a few occasions, we had even seen her clutch one kitten at a time in her mouth and leap across to the other side to introduce her off springs to coastal Malabar cuisine.

 The innocent pups and kittens who had watched this performance of Rani, tried one day to emulate her acrobatics when tragedy struck.

  My mother, after a tiring day, had dozed off one afternoon while reading a magazine. We were at school and my father had gone to the office. My mother woke up with a start to a great commotion from the lane separating the two buildings. She went around the flat, but could not find any of the pups and kittens. With her heart in her mouth, she rushed to the corridor, only to see our favorite Balu take the deadly leap, but instead of landing on the opposite corridor, he missed and plunged down three floors to his death - as had all his companions, minutes earlier.

   Our minds refused to believe this bizarre happening. We hated Rani for setting such a dangerous example for the innocents to follow. We hated ourselves even more for having failed to foresee such a possibility. This picture from 30 years ago of these tiny creatures falling to their death, lying battered and bloody, is vividly etched in my mind. It seems like only yesterday that I was fondling Balu, Honey and Namu

 My father still loves pups and kittens and I was really touched to see him revive a weak pup (separated from its mother) trying to feed milk with an ink filler. One can learn a lot from animals – especially to love unconditionally.

This is Toffee our dog who is almost 5 years old :  a really cute dog, loves to play football

Footprints

One night a man had a dream. He dreamt he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene he noticed two sets of footprints on the sand -- one belonging to him and the other to the Lord. When the last scene had flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints and noticed only one set. He noticed it happened in the lowest and saddest times of his life.

This bothered him and he questioned the Lord. " Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you would walk all the way with me, but during the most troublesome times of my life there was only one set of footprints. I don't understand why, when I needed you most, you deserted me."

The Lord replied, " My precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, those were the times when I carried you in my arms."

I came across this story many years ago, when I had a similar question to ask the Lord.

Clouds

                                        

                                                 Just as a huge cloud formation changes gradually, almost imperceptibly into another formation, that's how gradual the process of human transformation is.  For awhile you may not be able to detect anything different.  The changes are so small that the overall formation looks the same.  But gradually the shift will happen, until suddenly, the cloud is entirely different--- the person is entirely different.


The patterns of the clouds always fascinates me. These are some pictures taken during our recent trip. We did not take the pictures with the clouds in our minds, but they have come all by themselves to adorn  these pictures. I just love them, and I thought they looked quite good with this blog. 

Guest story – I find my inspiration in myself

Guest story – I find my inspiration in myself
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Sridhar - My Brother

This is about my brother Sridhar whom I have never met.  Yet I don't know why I am so fond of him.  I have only seen his photographs, and heard so much about him from my father and my mother.  No matter how many times I hear about him, it never fails to move me to tears.

 This is the story of my brother, Sridhar.  He was the third child born to my parents.  He was beautiful as a child, dearly loved by my parents and his elder siblings.  One cannot blame my parents for loving  him so much, more than they loved their other children. But nobody complained for he was loved by the whole family.
  He was very happy, till came the time for his separation from his beloved family.  My parents were constantly troubled by the frequent transfers that my father's army job entailed.  So my father decided to leave the children in one place, so that their schooling would not be disrupted constantly.  My matrenal grandmother was living in Madras with her other children.  It was decided that  my elder sister would be left under her care, and was admitted in a good school there.  My father also felt that by sending money for the education and the upkeep of his daughter, he would also in a way lighten the strain on my grandmother's financial position at that time.  He wanted to help her in some way, without making it look obivious. (that granny being his own aunt - my father had married his own cousin)

 Now the two boys , that is my my elder brother Patcha and the younger Sridhar were sent to live with my father's elder sister, who was also struggling to make ends meet, having lost her husband at a young age.  She was also living alone in Madras at that time.  So the boys were entrusted to her care.
 My father now thought he had done a fine job by leaving his kids in responsible hands, and that, at the same time,  the money sent for their upkeep would also indirectly help his needy kin.  My mother, as usual was not happy, and she criticised my father, saying that, he always did things with ulterior motives.  But she could also appreciate and understand the difficulties the children were having to face, with their constant moving.  But a mother's love for her kids cannot be felt in equal measure by the man.  Therefore, for all practical reasons my mother had to give in.

  Things were going well for the first 2 years : the children had settled in their respective homes.  My mother had another baby girl, who was now about a year old.  My parents would visit my sister and my brothers during the summer.  Everytime they came visiting, my brother Sridhar would beg them to take him away with them, promising he would never trouble them in any way. With a heavy heart , they had to leave him behind after every visit.  The little baby girl was so cute with curly hair and beautiful eyes, that my brother was totally in love with that baby doll.  He would play with her, look at her with amazement, and would keep asking my mother how come she looked so beautiful and adorable. Again he would start begging them to take him along with them, now that he had such a lovely fairy like sister to play with.

 However his pleadings and entreaties had to be refused gently yet firmly.  My father was really moved by the compulsions that life had put him through, but also mindful of his childrens' future and welfare, he had to turn his heart to stone.  The time had finally come for my parents to say good bye, but before leaving, my father took both my brothers to a toy shop and asked them to take whatever they wanted. My elder brother said he wanted the whole shop, for he liked everything in it.   Sridhar, on the other hand held my father's hand tightly saying, he did not want any toys, he wanted only his appa, amma and his baby sister, and he wanted to go home with them. "Take me with you, take me with you", he started crying miserably.  After pacifying him with great difficulty, promising to take all of them back with him on his next visit, my father left for Bombay with my mother and my sister.  He could not bear the idea of his children living away from him any longer---- he could not see the pain in his wife's eyes anymore, he would soon make arrangements to take them back with him.

 A month later, my parents got the news that Sridhar was seriously ill, with high fever, and had been admitted in the hospital.  My aunt sent word to my father to come to Madras immediately.  Before they could even board the plane there was another telegram saying that Sridhar was sinking rapidly. By the time they reached Madras, their beloved son had already left this world. Sridhar was diagonised as having meningitis, and since he was so young, just 9 years old, he could not survive the severe attack.

 It is totally unthinkable, the kind of pain the child must have gone through, both physical as well as mental, in not having his mother and father beside him, comforting him, with their tender touch, and showering him with the love he constantly yearned for.  My father had tears in his eyes as he described the softness of his child's hand .....as if he was not dead, but just sleeping soundly....and  any time now he would wake up from his slumber, jumping and cry with joy " appa you have come to take me home with you."  It was the most unforgetable event in my parents life, and the most unforgiveable, an event that must have haunted my mother till her death and is still haunting my father.

 What he did was probably right at that time. Still, one cannot stop thinking and wondering perhaps if Sridhar had not been left in the care of others, maybe, my brother would still be alive this day.  Or even if he were to die he would have died under our care. It must have had such an impact on all of us in some sub-conscious level, I literally shudder thinking about it. Though we all move on in life, somewhere the impact has left a  deep scar in us, and every once in a while it bleeds.

 This story has been told by parents to me so many times, that it almost makes me feel as if I know this brother of mine very closely. I was born three years after his death, and when I was conceived, my mother had great hopes that, Sridhar would be born again, and this time nobody would ever be able to separate him from her. But alas, my parents were disappointed- they were not to have their son reborn, and I came into this world instead.  In this life time they were not destined to see their lost son again.  This time when my father had come home to stay with us, he once again related this story of my brother and as usual, we both had unshed tears in our eyes.

I thought, I must write about my dear sweet brother who may have left this world years ago, but is still living in our hearts.

A Family Entertainer

Emerging tired from the examination hall, I trudged towards the Jayanagar bus stand to catch a bus for Indira nagar. I thought if I take the packed Bangalore city bus now approaching, I can avoid waiting in the equally crowded stand. I then bulldozed my way into the bus, soon to realise that it was filled with long-distance commuters, I cursed my luck. Inside the bus, my attention was drawn to a Tamil family that consisted of a woman in her mid-30s,her elderly mother, a 10- year old daughter and a seven - year old son. Except for the little boy in somebody else's lap, they were all just hanging on to straps, bars, other people's shirt-tails and shoulders.

          The lady looked quite attractive and charming in a white salwar-kurta set, with a purple flowered dupatta  She was wearing shiny gold bangles; a pair of diamond studs adorned her earlobes. Around her neck was the typical (kodi) that married Tamilians wear.

The glittering accouterments led me to believe that they maybe NRIs. I was soon undecieved,  for I heard them conversing in a fluent mixture of Tamil, Hindi and English. They must be from the North,  I thought.  For I had myself lived for a considerable length of time in UP,  and this was the precise mixture of languages we then used.  It brought back pleasant memories of my girlhood days,  before we moved to the South, and I got married,  erasing  this delightful form of communication from my repertoire.

         The lady looked smart and efficient----probably a housewife,  a working journalist,  a computer programmer all rolled into one. She certainly had the look of a well- organised person ---- a good home-maker,  a loving mother and a perfect wife (none of which I am).

                          By now,  the bus had reached M.G.Road and the rush of humanity seeking the exit pushed me closer to the Tamil family. Near Ulsoor, the lady and her little daughter got to sit.  It was going to be a long halt to allow  the innumerable people to get  in and get out of the bus.

            Sitting down, she spotted an elderly woman known to her,  apparently waiting for another bus, just a little distance away from the active melee near our bus. The lady exclaimed excitedly, " Look, there is Juju patti;  children say hello to Juju patti."  Equally excited , the children, on seeing the patti shouted  " Hello Juju patti, how are you?

         The patti ( grandmother) was thrilled by this unexpected meeting . She dared not to come close to the bus and the seething crowd, but  started gesticulating in a highly animated  fashion,  inisisting that they must visit  her house; she would not forgive them if they didn't. This was followed  by nodding of heads and waving hands.

         Meanwhile, the children's grandmother joined in the pantomime, complementing patti on the beautiful sari she wore . In turn,  the patti with her excelllant miming,  conveyed where the sari was bought, for what   occasion, and who presented  it to her.

         Not a word had passed the lips of the actors in this delightful little drama.  I thoroughly enjoyed the entertaining tableau before me.

            My journey was nearing its end. Within less than an hour of our shared bus travel, I had come to know and like the family. I stepped off the footboard, disappointed to see that they were not getting down too. To this day, I least regret having caught that crowded bus.

Chapel Of Bones : Portugal

Facade of the Chapel of Bones

Rama, Ananth and our daughter Puja
waiting outside the chapel.

 In many bone chapels, or catacombs, the bones are just strewn arounnd, hardly serving any purpose. However at the Capela dos Ossos, the purpose of the bones is carved into the entry way, "Nos ossos que aqui estamos pelos vossos esperamos", meaning "Our bones that are here awaits yours!". Seems so scary yet so profound, the meaning : literally dripping from the bones. The 16th century monks who built the Chapel of Bones wanted visiters to contemplate the rather transient nature of life, and they used a rather macabre sense of humour in bringing the point home.

A soft featured Madonna statue provides some comfort in the stark surroundings of this Chapel

Even the beautiful paintings in the ceiling are paintings of skulls

 This Chapel is inside the Igreja de Sao Francisco in Evora Portugal. The walls and the central piers are lined with human skulls and bones bedded in cement. Inside the dimly lit chapel, it takes a moment to realise that the interior walls amd pillars supporting the arched ceiling are composed entirely of neatly stacked leg bones, arm bones and skulls. Once the shock of this realisation subsides, we begin to appriciate the almost comical sights of hundreds of skulls lined up jaw to cranium, to make borders  around the sections of vaulted ceiling.

 A statue of Jesus and an ornate gilded altar are overshadowed by the Chapel's most gruesome decoration: two desiccated  corpses  hanging bizarrely on a side wall. They are the bodies of a man and a small child which are several centuries old, but there are still skin and shreds of clothing clinging to their pathetic frames. The story goes, that the man was a wife abuser and his little son was just as disrespectful to his mother. The man finally beat his wife to death, but before she succumbed, she put a curse on her husband and her child. She declared that they would soon follow her in death, but, since they were so evil, even Hell would not accept them. As predicted, the evil pair died. When they were to be buried, the ground mysteriously turned hard as rock, and their graves could not be dug. So, the monks took their bodies and put them on permanent display in the Chapel, as warning to other wife abusers and bad children. The legends shows the Franciscan monks to have been feminists way ahead of their time. In recognition of this, local women engaged to be married cut off their hair and place the braids at the Chapel entrance, making a symbolic sacrifice of their girlhood in suppplication of a happy marriage. This custom continues today, with several fresh braids on display.

An art to be admired

 Now all this may just be rumours, for the truth is far less romantic; They were denizens of local cemetries facing eviction. Eveora went through a building boom in the late 1400s. Noblemen from Lisbon, less than 100 miles away, found that the area was good for hunting. They invited their friends to vaccation in their hunting lodges, and before long all the glitterati from the capital were buying up huge tracts of land, on which they built, large country estates. The local monks worried about the rampant construction encroaching on the area's burial grounds. They dug up the remains as a protective measure, and decided they would not only keep the bones safe within the church, but use them to glorify God as well. And so the chapel was built, as a place of meditation and prayer for the Franciscans. This Chapel is indeed a chilling display of imagination that no words can describe.

It is not as scary as it looks. The  corpse of the evil man and the evil boy

 Just opposite the evil man the evil child you would find a poem which reads:

   Where are you going in such a hurry traveller?

     So little do you reflect on death:

   If by chance you glance at this place,

    Stop..... for the sake of your journey,

 The more you pause, the further on your journey you will be.

The greatest gift I ever had, Came from God; I call him Dad!

A  wedding in the family--- I am excited for I hear my dad is coming to attend it. He is staying with me for a whole week--- I can't believe it!

  The minute he enters the house he starts chatting with us non- stop..... for there are so many things to ask , so many things to share etc. etc. He is a real store - house of knowledge .... we have to just ask him something, and he would give a detailed explanation, amazing us with his intelligence, sharp memory, and great sense of humour. He would go back to his younger days and relate all the stories of how he met and married my mother.

 Those days marriage was not a matter of choice .... it involved marrying for various reasons. Marrying within the family was considered to be best option for everybody. For example if your father's sister had 5 or 6 daughters to be married it is the duty of the father to bring home atleast one of his sister's daughter as his daughter- in- law, this way he was helping in reducing the burden from his sister's shouders. Similarly an uncle could marry his own neice. This was the custom followed for ages all over south, though now it is not so much in vogue, but still some people follow it . As long as it is not direct blood relation everything is ok. One can't even think of such things these days.

Well my father married his mother's brother's daughter, ( which is my mother). According to him he was given the choice of marrying any 1 of the 2 daughters, who were suitable for his age. But he was in a dilemma, for both were good looking, and it was upto him to choose. So he changed the names of the girls in their horoscopes and also  changed his name in his horoscope, ( because everybody knew everybody, the astrologer would not even bother to match horoscopes when it is in the family), so my father cheated a little and made him match the horoscope saying it was for a friend. Of the two only one matched, which happened to be my mother's horoscope, and thus the choice was made. Another distant cousin married the elder daughter, infact both my father and his cousin married the respective girls on the same day to save money. That was the way things were done in those days , one had to keep everything in the mind.

 But, although my parents remained happily married for 49 years, they were the sort of couple who could never see eye to eye on any issue, and since my father had the dominating streak, what he said only prevailed. My mother although loved him deeply, she hated this attitude. He had jokingly revealed to her, how he made the choice of marrying her, and whenever my mother happened to meet that astrologer, she would tell him that she felt like tying him to pole and give him 100 whip lashes.

 My parents life was full of ups and downs. Whenever my parents did get along, my mother would ask my father, to tell her the truth ..... that he married her because he fell for her,  and he would always tell her it was not love. Now he is all alone, and he feels bad that he never told her how much he loved her.  He said he could have told her that atleast once, but he was too proud to admit that to her.

But I am sure she must have guessed it long time ago, but simply wanted to know right from the horse's mouth.  Now he feels her loss so much, that he would keep going back to the days when they were really happy, and he says they were made for each other despite their differences, that  the universe works in mysterious ways, though he thought at that time he could choose between the 2 sisters, and tried to hoodwink the astrologer, he must have known deep in his heart that it was my mother he always wanted to marry.

 This, coming from my father, now when my mother is no longer here to feel happy to hear it, was really moving.  However this is not the first time I am hearing him say this, for I have heard this story many times from him, but only after my mother passed away, which was 15 years ago.

I simply love my dad ( he is 89 years). He is very active and healthy even now.

 Well, this is just one interesting story about my father and mother, there are many, many more, but it would take volumes to write about each every interesting facets of their turbulent lives together.  I can only say that, I am proud to have had such a loving and patient mother, and I am equally proud to have a such a wonderful father, who, may have been very proud at one time,  but is definitely a man with very good heart and a great smile.



If you love someone, tell them don't be afraid or too proud to admit your love to them.