Blessings, Magic and Beauty

 As I lay here in a darkened bedroom with my little fairy sleeping on me, my mind wanders to this time last year and the months that followed.

I found out I was six weeks pregnant in mid July but really found out I was pregnant on a warm July 6th morning.

Having a baby was never something I yearned for. In fact, I was quite sure I never wanted one. 

Decisions that you think you’ve laid in stone can sometimes become those etched on a seashore that wash away with a big wave and leave a clean slate.

Visions of a brighter marital future made me overturn my own decision. It seemed like the exciting next step - establishing a family.

Oh! The pregnancy was exciting and more. I’m so very grateful to have had a beautiful experience in pregnancy in this one life that I have. All the way up until the end. The end, a placental abruption, took some of the initial smooth journey out - took a lot of it out.

Of course, I got lucky with it by not having to deal with morning sickness and back aches. The restless leg got me though. 

Beyond all of this, those eight months will always be emblematic of a time of hope and happiness. I call my baby my saviour. She saved me and brought me boundless joy.

A raging pandemic and a baby on the way made me celebrate every little moment. Walks on the nearby trail, food pickups, festival celebrations in my own small way to start new traditions with this new family member, all with the common goal of having a healthy little one in mind form cherished memories now.

The baby project is the biggest project I’ve embarked on in my life. It demands every minute of your attention and unwavering commitment. Yet, in all of that work it extracts from you, it brings you joy, optimism and hope ten-fold.

All I did during my pregnancy was eat nutritious food for the baby and then some junk food for me, rest every time felt I like it, kept myself entertained with television shows and kept myself happy.

As my little princess wriggles and adjusts herself on my lap, I send another prayer of thanks for all the blessings come our way and settle back in the pillows behind me with a thought that I will forever hold these memories dear. 

A Life Lived in a Decade

It’s all ‘start-of-decade’ to ‘end-of-decade’ comparisons, huh?

At the start of the decade, I had just set foot on foreign shores with shaky yet determined steps. I had a hopeful heart and a head full of lofty dreams. Dreams of settling down on these foreign shores, dreams of finding love, dreams of providing a good life for my family. I had a long road ahead of me that I knew I had to tread to transform me into an adult. I was just about leaving the threshold of adolescence, very reluctantly, ten years ago.

I had my Dad with me. I had my grandmother with me. I had with me the world I knew and loved so well, the world I grew up in. All my dreams were set and envisioned in that world.

Looking back, it almost seems like this decade took as much from me as it gave me. This decade took away a piece of my heart and a piece of me - forever. It took away my Dad and my grandmother, the world as I knew it and all my naïveté.

And yet, it gave me everything I yearned for, worked towards, dreamed about. I experienced the best college days of my life at graduate school. I gained not one but two degrees, a whole lot of knowledge and broadening of thought-horizons. I achieved every dream I had in mind when I set foot here, all those years ago - almost every dream. I made something of myself, I’m learning to grow and mature every day - becoming an adult I’ve found is always a work in progress.

The best of all, the love of my life found me. And poetically so, we married in the final year of the decade, rounding up this chapter of life - at least for me to fit neatly into these ten years.

Thoughts on a December Night

You step out of the comfort of your modern well-heated vehicle into a cold December night. 

The evening is young but the sky is overcast with thick grey-brown clouds and the sun’s been long gone. That combination seems to erase the distinction between normally light-seeming early evenings and darker late nights. 

As you gaze up at the brown leaves of the majestic American Sycamore silhouetted in shades of grey and brown against the cloudy sky, a cool wind blows right against your face.  

The chilly feeling of the season imparts a slight menacing quality to the atmosphere. The darkness of the sky makes it seem mysterious. But it’s also enchanting. And strangely familiar and very strangely comforting. 

The evening inspires you - you find yourself resolving to enjoy this turn of season and make the most of its dark, mysterious beauty.

The It’s-Ok-If-It’s-A-Facebook-Post #3

My pen is mightier than the sword. 

Sometimes life brings you to bends in the road that you feel you can’t get past because your support system, your family, is no longer around to guide you.

But then you remember, that you are strong and capable.

What am I going to do, without my Mom and Dad around to help guide me through life’s bends in the road? But, oh wait, I am a product of my Mom and Dad’s teachings. I already have it in me to meet any storm in the eye. It’s ok to feel scared and alone. It matters to muster courage despite feeling so, and carry on.

My pen is mightier than your opinions. 

Life - Loss, Change, Et Al

My grandma used to remark sometimes, while sitting at her usual spot on the bed, looking out the window lost in reflection, “ab woh log nai rahe” - the people of my time no longer remain. The older I grow, the farther I traverse in life, the more the meaning of her saying seems to sink in.

My family doctor, whose treatment I grew up with, passed away. 

The hope, healing, positivity and power he brought to my family and several others…I am faced with a sudden scarcity of words to  describe the value his life and profession brought to countless patients and friends. 

Loss of people dear to you is as natural as the cyclic reoccurrence of night and day, one of the most natural processes of our lives. Change is too. My flight to foreign shores marks the beginning of etchings of loss and change on my mind. Leaving the nest was metamorphosing.  It brought with it a lot of change, a lot of shaking up of the world I had known and loss of life. Sure, some of the change was good, required and welcome. The unpleasant changes have been my Achilles heel and dealing with them seems to be a perpetual work in progress. 

You grow up with a sense of your world - the world that you’re acquainted with from the time your infant brain begins making sense of its surroundings, and the people who make up that world. For me, the hardest part about growing up has been learning how to come to terms with my ever-changing world.  

The It's-Ok-If-It's-A-Facebook-Post #2

I love Hyderabad.

And, I miss Hyderabad this evening all of a sudden. Unlike sad nostalgia for home that I’ve experienced in the past, this time ‘round the reminiscing is happy.

Yes, a happy recollection of place!

As my mind wanders through a field of thoughts, one thought that’s surprised me today is: would I still have loved Hyderabad as much had I not developed a natural affection for it having been born and raised there?

Yes! A resounding yes.

           What do you make, O ye goldsmiths?

Wristlet and anklet and ring,

Bells for the feet of blue pigeons,

Frail as a dragon-fly's wing,

Girdles of gold for the dancers,

Scabbards of gold for the kings.

Hyderabad is everything Sarojini Naidu encapsulated in “In The Bazaars of Hyderabad” and more. The city’s attributes and my tastes line up perfectly. That’s what makes me love the place. I love its absolutely captivating history in the old stone buildings and narrow gallies of purana sheher, the genius loci of its rocks, the royalty of the khada-dupatta, rumi-topi pehnawa and this-is-what-heaven-tastes-like cuisine.

I love Hyderabad! And how a casual calling to mind its memories makes me happy.

In The Bazaars of Hyderabad by Sarojini Naidu

What do you sell, O merchants?
Richly your wares are displayed.
Turbans of crimson and silver,
Tunics of purple brocade,
Mirrors with panels of amber,
Daggers with handles of jade.

What do you weigh, O ye vendors?
Saffron, lentil and rice.
What do you grind, O ye maidens?
Sandalwood, henna and spice.
What do you call, O ye pedlars?
Chessmen and ivory dice.

What do you make, O ye goldsmiths?
Wristlet and anklet and ring,
Bells for the feet of blue pigeons,
Frail as a dragon-fly's wing,
Girdles of gold for the dancers,
Scabbards of gold for the kings.

What do you cry, O fruitmen?
Citron, pomegranate and plum.
What do you play, O ye musicians?
Sitar, Sarangi and drum.
What do you chant, O magicians?
Spells for the aeons to come.

What do you weave, O ye flower-girls?
With tassels of azure and red?
Crowns for the brow of a bridegroom,
Chaplets to garland his bed,
Sheets of white blossoms new-garnered
To perfume the sleep of the dead.

The It's-Ok-If-It's-A-Facebook-Post #1

This post is an exercise in experimenting with how long and in what form thoughts stay alive in your head unexpressed. Do they lose some of that zing and excitement when they first came to you or, having gotten a chance to percolate in your brain for a few days, become better?

It's like the example about American poet Ruth Stone that Elizabeth Gilbert shared in her talk on creative genius. Stone would 'feel' a poem charging towards her as she worked in the fields and in turn feel the need to instantly turn around and run to the house to be able to jot down the poem, or thoughts, on paper.

I've had several such 'writing emergencies', some of which I alluded to on this blog. I have acted on these writing emergencies fairly instantaneously. However, this time around, I wanted to experiment with what form my thoughts would take, sitting there in my head waiting to be let out. 

So, here goes. My clutch of thoughts from this past week.

1. The year began anew, and the work year also began anew in the middle of the week. The ride to work that morning was an exclamation-filled effort in trying to get to my destination safely. After nearly two weeks of quiet roads and lulled traffic, the after-new-year's-eve driving seemed to be an unleashing of rookie drivers on the road all desperately trying to make up for rolling out of bed late by driving like the devil himself! Yeah, it was a video game-esque experience escaping sudden jerky vehicular moves as I tried to arrive at my workplace with myself and my sanity in one piece.
2. Of late, I've been focussing on deep and intent-filled breathing any time during the day when I feel calm eluding me. On a call with a customer service representative, I was asked to stand by as the person at the other end of the line tried to find the information I needed. After being on hold for more than a couple minutes, I instinctively breathed in and out with a deep, long and satisfying sigh to release all the stress I could feel building up. From the other side of the phone I heard a, "I'm sorry; it will take just a few moments longer." And my inner monologue to myself was instantly, "dang woman, don't breathe!" I realized that she didn't mute the line, and neither did I. All that my brain could now tell me was, "don't breathe!" And I did just that! After what seemed like an eternity, the representative came alive on the phone again and began relaying the information I wanted. My slightly-starved-of-oxygen brain now started pounding, "breathe now, woman, breathe!"
3. The first week of the year is also a reminder of loss for me. I lost my grandmother at the start of the year, three years ago. It's always a conscious effort by me to fight off thoughts and memories related to her that naturally begin cropping up around that time. It's a coping mechanism because the pain is still too intense to feel and to have to go through. It's much easier to block off the thoughts and memories. Some memories do sneak their way into my consciousness. Some of those memories seem like they are so far away in my mind now that it almost feels like they were a part of a previous life. Some memories are bitingly fresh and seem like it was just yesterday the the thing they're reminding me of occurred. There was one such memory that came to me this week - the memory of adversity growing up but my grandmother's tenacity in the face of it all; those meals that were nothing more than the proverbial 'sukhi', dry roti and pyaaz; the symbolism in those meals of persisting, trudging on through hard times; the teaching that my grandmother was implicitly imparting to field life's highs and lows with grace... The teaching remains, the memory - painful and sad. 
4. Writing is meditative. Writing requires patience. It can't be hurried. It needs sukoon.

There! That's my coterie of thoughts, all neatly laid out. How do they fare though? Better or worse than when they first came to me. That's an analysis for another blog post.