Love without a price tag...

The best thing about getting married to Sree was ‘the package’ I got along with it…my mom in law. Our marriage was a normal one, but she was extraordinary… I had never been very close to my relatives and she made up for anybody I dint have..and for any affection I dint get.

On Sep 7^th she passed away…all of a sudden, leaving a painful void. I have never experienced the pain of losing a dear one till then. Death was regarded as something that happened to others and not us. It used to be so easy to offer condolences to others but when I experienced it, nothing anyone said could comfort me and all I felt was they don’t understand…

Her's was also the first lifeless body I saw… And till the moment she was taken to be cremated, I had a secret hope of her moving her toes or fluttering eyes, like the many news I had read in the past of wrong death declaration by doctors…maybe she was just unconscious … or in a coma… I went through a series of emotions from severe panic attacks to plain numbness and I salute her 3 kids for exhibiting such strength and practicality despite the sorrow . As for father, he lost his companion of 35 years and no words can express his grief.

I have come across many women… be it teachers, relatives, friends, colleagues, superiors…But none as remarkable as my mom in law who has influenced me at different phases of my life. She owned a very strong character - a contrasting blend of immense will power and sensitivity. But unmatchable was her unconditional love. A mother loving her kids is a natural instinct, but she had broken all the clichés associated with a mother in law and had loved her daughter in law just the same. A love I dint really deserve, but happily took for granted. She had no demands at all…I woke up late everyday when I was with her and she never let me do any work. I simply tagged behind her …blabbering all day and gossiping while she worked. She enjoyed my expressive love for her… my hugs and kisses and my possessiveness towards her and all the jealousy I showed when she pampered anybody but me. That was all she ever wanted from me.

A constant argument she and I had was about my eating habits where she felt I dint eat enough. She would go to any extend to make me eat, let it be feed me with her own hands, cook all my favourite dishes and make sure I had the bigger portion, or make rotis for me despite the constant pain in her arms. Few months back when she got a special payasam from temple which happened to be my favourite, she made sure to freeze my share so that she could give it to me when I went to India. I can never account for the care she took in looking after me and my baby all throughout my delivery and afterwards, just like a real mother. Many a time I would even complain to her about Sree and she would speak to him on my behalf, and even scold him at times . She had made me feel special at every instance. I never had to be my best with her. I just had to be myself with her and I knew I mattered to her a lot. I knew it every time she hugged me and cried when we returned after the vacation… and it was mutual.

Now that she is gone all this memories play in my mind one after another…making me realize that its all over. I desperately wonder if I can somehow communicate with her. If myths and religious beliefs are right and if she can really see us? What she would be feeling…When people tell me she is happy there I wonder how can she be happy being away from us…

The bond I had shared with her is what many couldn’t relate…and what I go through at her loss is also what even my closest people can’t comprehend. The fact is she had been nothing less than a mother and a perfect one at that…

My Desperate Passion!

My ‘Desperate’ passion is inspired by my friend Anu’s post ‘My undying passion’ (http://ahn-myvoice.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-undying-passion.html) !! Though hers was 'Undying' and mine 'Desperate', our passion was one and the same and that is ‘Driving’

The unsaid protocol usually followed here is as follows :- Schooling in Dubai- Higher studies in India- Return to UAE after college - Get a license- The job hunt- Then Marriage. I was no different! My dad got me registered with Sharjah police driving institute, which is no doubt the best in the emirate and strictest.

My driving classes started. My instructor was a nice Pakistani lady who conversed with me in Urdu. I made quite a number of friends in the institute as batches of students came and went... while I stayed there like a steady milestone. The silver lining was that no matter my driving improved or not, my Urdu did. So did my instructor’s English grammar.

All my tests were quite adventurous. During one of the test, the police who was taking my test took me to a junction and asked me to take a right. I smartly gave the right indicator, checked the mirrors and took a neat right turn in the ‘wrong’ entry! And they failed me for being obedient.

The test that followed was the most memorable one. I drove fantastically. When I was asked to take the wrong turn, I haughtily told him its not possible. I had checked my mirrors dramatically, literally turned my necks 90 degrees for the shoulder checks! It was just perfect! As I was parking my car after my flawless driving, the Police remarked ‘very good Habeebi’..I was bubbling with excitement that I forgot to put the gear in parking mode and as I lifted my feet off the brake, the car hit the pavement with a ‘thud’ !! While the poor guy slapped his forehead , and the others in the car gave gasps, I simply sat there with a dumb grin. And there again I lost the test.

My next and last driving test was eventless and I got my license in flying colours or rather ‘crawling’ colours. I guess the people there were so tired of seeing me around that they decided to give me my dream card.

Post-License Period

Most people pass in their first or second test. I claim I am a better driver than them because I learned much more thoroughly than them. But that doesn’t seem to convince my dad who would not even let me touch the steering wheel. If at all after hours of pleading and begging he would let me drive around our building,it would be with him sitting beside me…..holding his breath. When I realised that his BP was shooting up, I stopped driving for the sake of my love for him. And it did wonders to my confidence.

I was soon getting married and I thought he would be a better sport. How pathetically can anyone be mistaken? Driving with my husband was a wide awake nightmare. He was so arrogantly proud of his first-attempt-passed-license that he would even dare to tell me when to apply brakes and when to accelerate. The biggest challenge I faced while driving with him was to manage the steering with one hand, while trying to strangle him with the other. Anyhow that episode too came to a quick end as that was easier than getting divorced.

More than a year had passed and the license card shone in my wallet. Don’t tell me I did not make use of my license. It was my most prized identification proof that I flashed at anyone who even asked what my name was!!

Gradually…very very gradually seeing my sad puppy face, I was permitted to drive within a given radius whenever the car was not being used and I would almost look forward to my husband being out of town so that I could drive his car. This endeavor too was short lived; Thanks to my pregnancy and post pregnancy season of almost one and a half years, I lost touch of my already deprived driving skills.

Coincidentally, this April for our wedding anniversary, as a mark of respect for bearing me, my parents gifted my husband with a new Toyota Fortuner. (My husband does feel that to put up with me ideally he should have been gifted a Benz or BMW) Nevertheless, he was happy ...but I was the happiest as I could get the old car all to myself.

Since then I have been refreshing myself on which is the brake and which is the accelerator.. Trying out new roads, losing my way and somehow getting back home. But that was not enough to persuade my family to let me drive till Knowldege Village where I had began my classes. For months I was fighting as a single brave soldier against a battalion of ‘well-wishers' who were as enthusiastic as wet bread about me driving all the way. But at the end the victory was mine and now I drive the 45-50 kilometers from home and I am overjoyed. I did lose my way, met with dead ends and came face to face with camels, but I do manage to reach my destination ...in a single piece...safely..… as long as there is petrol in my car!

For most people driving is not a big deal. But for me it is as I had wished for it from a very young age. It doesnt come naturally to me and had to put in a lot of effort and even fight against odds, making it a very desperately fulfilled passion of mine.

The Silence Within

Some things find its way into mind… and some of them form words.. and some of those words form a story such as this one.... Thought would share with you this little piece of writing I had penned 5 years ago or more...

************************
THE SILENCE WITHIN

Heavy footsteps… the dark narrow alley….the raw scream… It was the same dream again…I woke up with a start panting heavily. The very dream, in which I fall down….down into some depths that seemed endless. Through the faint street light through the lacy curtains I strained to see the time. The clock showed 4.20 am.

The dream had the usual effect on me… I was scared and drained but very much awake. I looked to my side where he snored softly, sleeping peacefully. I was tempted to wake him up to tell him about the dream that has been troubling me for quite some time. But I changed my mind .

I had once woken him up to tell him about the dream I had, and it had left him irritated, calling me silly. He felt that, I, doing nothing productive all day at home cannot understand the hardships he has to go through in his daily routine. And my very act of waking him up in the middle of the night shows how insensitive I was.

I do understand that he is given a hard time in his office by his manager. In one of the rare occasions, when he was in good spirits he had joked about the manager’s plight. He said that the ‘poor man’s’ wife was a very imposing lady, who made a hell out of his life. “woh style maharani us bichare ko jeene hi nahi dhethe… aur saala subah subah aakar hamare khopade kha lethe hain.” Maybe it was a cyclic process. The frustration that the manager takes on them, the employees must be happily letting out on their “unproductive” wives.

In the initial days, I used to feel that his comments were very healthy criticisms and took them sportingly. Gradually they began to sound like nagging complaints and tried to be indifferent to them. And now they have become painful humiliations which I started retorting. I do not put the full blame on him. I too am at fault. My inflating ego doesn’t let me endure his insults anymore. My patience level was marked. Today we continue to share the same bed, but not the same mind.

During those first days of our life together, after a whole day’s wait , not even a soul to speak in this alien place, his return after work was anticipated with dinner of his choice and bubbling excitement. My happy grin reduced to a pleasant smile when he ignored me at the door, understanding how tired he must be being at work from morning 8.30 to night 10.When he complained about the food not being good, I forced a smile, the pleasant one having left me some time back and broke into tears when he went off to sleep without even a word of love.

It was an unsaid rule, but never broken by the subordinate staff, to invite the manager and his family every now and then, to please him ofcourse and to make the staffs’ existence in the workplace 'survivable'. On the day the manager and his family came home for dinner, my husband complained that I looked too plain as if I came right away from the village. The next time his friends visited us, I dressed up well, to which he said that he didn’t want a cabaret dancer for a wife. In time I became stubborn and rebellious. I thought he would understand that I was hurt by the way he treats me. Instead he cursed Dhaya Lal Chacha who took my alliance to him.

I could hear the morning prayers from the distant mosque. It must be 5 now. Looking out of the window I saw concrete buildings and a few vehicles moving at this odd hour. My eyes sought for something that held life. But then, my eyes have been seeking for the same for a year and found none. The fabulous architecture, high-rise buildings, perfect roads and the artificially made greenery did change this desert to a metropolis, but it could do nothing about the ache that was deeply etched in my heart… my heart that yearned for the soft breeze of my village.

A green piece of bliss, that’s what my village was. My box of memories was filled with my cherished childhood days-days when I flew my kites with my little friends. Once when Chinky started crying when she lost her kite into the vast blue sky, Ramu Khaka consoled her saying that the broken kites go to heaven to our lost dear ones. Since then, we would write little messages of love addressed to our grand pa, or great grand aunt, or sometime to our ‘late’ kitten, and made a little cut on the string to make sure that the kite breaks.

Stepping into teenage did not change my circle of friends. I liked Munna more than my other friends. I felt bad when he did not come that day with us to stroll along the paddy fields in the evening. When he complimented that I looked lovely in my new red skirt, I remember blushing furiously.

Sathy Mousi lived in the city. Her children always felt suffocated in our little village. They would be restless till they could go back to the city. Since I was a little kid, Mousi used to be exceptionally fond of me. When I was in my 10th class, she asked my father for my hand in marriage for her second son. I was pleased and dreamt all day of the big buildings and motor cars in the city. Yet there was some strange emotion of loss that I could not figure. When SanthaRam, our village astrologer announced that our horoscopes did not match, I did not know if I was to feel happy or sad.

Not a week had passed when DhayaLal Chacha brought an alliance from Gulf. My parents were skeptical about the proposal at once. How can they raise enough money for dowry for this Pardesi Babu? My parents could not believe their ears when DhayaLal Chacha told them that the Babu was not at all particular about the dowry, and all he wanted was a nice ‘Gaw ki ladki.’

The marriage took place a week after the Babu’s parents came and approved of me. The whole village spoke of my good luck. I was told that he would take me in a plane to Gulf in a month’s time. It was during the marriage that I stole a peek at him. I smiled to myself and thought, "Mere naseeeb pe kisi ke nazar na lage.” I glanced at my dear friends who had crowded on to my left … and I saw tears tricking down Munna’s cheeks... and the familiar sense of loss returned at once.

Its 6.20…. I would just lie down for a few minutes… till he wakes up…maybe that would get rid of the throbbing pain in my head….And as sleep washed over me, briskly I ran through an unknown dark alley….I closed my ears to shut the deafening screams… and all of a sudden I was falling down and down…..

Goodbye… Chicken…

Hostel life was tough in the first year; No AC to fight the ‘Chennai heat’ and the mosquitoes seemed to love me; I did not know how to use an Asian closet and going to toilet became a herculean task; Above all I missed home…. And KFC.

Our college hostel , The SRM college hostel was rightly called the Sambar- Rasam- Moru Hostel. Be it lunch or dinner, you could relish in an unlimited supply of these three. The two days they serve chicken for dinner was well awaited by me. Those days I start feeling hungry from 5pm. Though it tasted sad and had more bones than meat in tons of gravy, I still enjoyed it till I started hearing ‘rumours’ that every time we were served chicken, a stray dog in the neighborhood went missing, Then, my only hope was on the weekend trip to city with friends….they for shopping and I to eat chicken.

By now you must have got an idea what an ardent lover of chicken I am, and was even nick-named 'chikku' by friends. But my sister on the other hand can eat literally any crap, be of any colour, size, shape and taste. Ofcourse she is very particular that the thing she eats shouldn’t be alive and I respect that. As for my husband, he claims that he has eaten a good fleshy piece of snake, Thanks to his ex-roommate, a Filipino guy. For record sake: If I had known this before we got married, I would have had second and third thoughts on our marriage.

Now when I think back I feel sorry for my mom, almost! From childhood I was so fussy about food. I wanted chicken for every meal, be it breakfast, lunch or dinner and if not I wouldn’t grumble… nor frown…just that my hunger would disappear! And my poor mom makes it a point to get me chicken in some form or the other just to make sure I eat. One yummy item she made us often when we were kids were beef cutlets. I used to love it thinking it was a chicken snack by the name ‘beef’. The day I had the revelation that beef is not a snack, but the meat of cow, I stopped it and decided never to eat mammals. This decision was made after proper research that chicken was not a mammal but laid eggs…yeyeye! Smart me!

I had my baby after an unexpected delay which scared me. During the time I was undergoing the treatment I promised myself to quit something that means a lot to me when I have my baby or rather if I have a baby. What to give up, I had a few choices before me that was quite dear to me. They were My Dad, My Mom, My Sister, My Hubby and My Chicken. It was a difficult decision to make and after a great deal of thinking, I decided to give up my beloved chicken and keep the others! My family was very upset by my decision, mainly because they feared if I would die of starvation.

It has been more than six months since I had chicken and it is not very difficult not to have it but it is an ultimate test when someone hogs it in front of me. WARNING: if you decide to gulp down a piece of chicken before me, please be prepared for tummy aches and very loose motion!

And considering my daughter is indeed a darling, it doesn’t feel like a big deal now… though my appetite has reduced considerably. As for my daughter, I have warned her that if she ever thinks of eloping with any moron, that day I would order myself a huge plate of chicken tikka and munch on it to my hearts content!!

My Guardian Angel...without wings...

It is interesting how my sister and I became close. Interesting because it was not a natural phenomenon in our case… instead I was so scared of her when I was a little girl that my mother used her as a weapon to reform my ways. She was so matured beyond her age and such a taskmaster that she was a easily hatable target from a little sister's point of view.

Now to the part that ‘catalysed’ our relation… I am not boasting when I say that I have high investigative skills, which is how I found out about her 'big secret'… I was pleased to see miss perfect sweating. She had no choice but take me into her confidence lest I open my not-so-small mouth to our parents. And thus at the age of 11, I became her right hand, almost literally for since then we were always together.

It was a very pleasing feeling to share such a deep intimacy with a person as her who drew an invisible line around her, a line which she did not allow many to cross. I was secretly thrilled when people commented that to know whats running in checha’s mind, all they have to do is get hold of me. And it did bring along bad luck to me, when my sister dear did something taboo, dad and mom literally chased me around the house for all the ‘why, what, where and how’… but mind you, despite all the mental torture I had to endure, I never spilled any of 'her' beans…and this continues till date!

She, whom I adoringly call checha is the one who prepared me for puberty, she is the one who taught me how to handwash clothes without overusing soap, she is the one who blantly told me, ‘NO he is not the one for you’, she is the one who kept reminding me that labour pain is not as bad as they show in movies!The ones who has seen my checha would agree with me when I say that she is absolutely beautiful and was quite popular in school and had all qualities that could easily spark jealousy in me but that never happenned between us. On the contrary, I was so proud of her that she became the feather in my otherwise plain hat.

I was very meek and a nervous kid when in school, probably what they describe as a ‘nerd’. Many of my old schoolmates whom I met recently were amused and some where shocked at the ‘so-called-change’ in my attitude. Bolder? Stronger? Interesting adjectives. To a large degree they are true… and to a larger degree I am sure that I was inspired….motivated….influenced by words spoken by her, my Godmother.

I jokingly call her my pheonix bird... that is because at one point I saw my checha weakening. But she fought that passing phase ...and rose from those dull, grey ashes to live her life. I wanted to begin this blog with something not materialistic... something thats not short-lived, but about something that is priceless and so very important to my very existence .. and what better can i write about but my checha?

However stressed out I am, or whatever dilemmas I may have, just a few words with her, and I am a much happier person.. and that is mutual I am sure. From the day I ‘caught’ her 15 years back to till date when we both have our busy lives and responsibilities, our bond just grows stronger day by day.