Passage through Time

Reservations

2006-04-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

The reservation system in India is like a two-headed snake that spits out venom on itself and hurts the very people it is intended to protect. Arjun Singh, Union HRD minister's proposal (temporarily on hold because of the EC) of reserving 27% seats for OBC, in addition the the existing 22.5% would mean a total reservation for ST/SC and OBC, of 49.5% in centrally funded premier institutions of education. Even though the new law will apply to centrally managed institutions, state and local governments have been requested to follow suite.

Reservations in India, far from serving the purpose of national integration, create yet another caste, that of the academically disabled. The proponents of reservations state the obvious. The list of injustices inflicted on certain sections of society on account of their caste. There is no refuting this unholy truth in our society. Whole sections of society have been disadvantaged economically, socially and politically because of the caste system but the injustices suffered by one section of society cannot be perpetrated onto another section, in the form of reverse discrimination. There are middle class students who cannot afford exorbitant capitation fees or "donations" required by private colleges. They depend on government-funded institutions and the privilege of studying in a premier institute such as IIT is the right of every meritorious student, regardless of their background.

Fostering an atmosphere of entitlement rather than merit does not serve the purpose of a country trying to compete globally. India earns a vital part of its GDP from outsourcing and invisible exports of technical staff. It order to remain competitive with China and other South East Asian countries, it has to constantly foster an education system and work ethic that rewards effort, ingenuity and merit. Reservations, quota and other forms of so called affirmative action towards equality, applied inappropriately dampen the spirit of our youth. Students scoring as high as 90% are forced to take on streams of education they have no interest it while someone who scores a mere 50% can get into a premier institute. Social justice cannot be perverted and then justified. It makes a mockery out of the word justice.

So does this mean that the inequity that exists in our society, especially in the field of education and employment, should not be addressed? Not at all. Solutions when we seek them, should not be in the form of band-aids that conceal rather than heal the ailment. If we truly want to add value to our education system, it is primary education that has to be strengthened. Better teachers, access to public libraries, subsidised private tutoring, introduction of English medium even in government-funded primary schools, scholarships, mentoring, these are the steps that will get the underprivileged students to compete on an equal footing. Tertiary level of academics depends on the groundwork that has been laid by primary and secondary schools. IITs and other such institutions, comprise of peers who are highly competitive and intelligent with a body of knowledge which is a given. Someone who hasn't had the same opportunity to acquire this body of knowledge is disadvantaged much like a mackerel competing with a shark.

We have to admit that a certain inequity exists in life and that economic inequity influences all parameters of life. It is true that wealth brings with it access and exposure to education, information and influences that take place outside the classroom. Unless, we address the vast economic disparity that exist in India, we cannot solve the problem by diluting the quality of our educational standards. The old social concepts of "redistrubution of wealth" do not work in our new world model. We have to engage in "creation of wealth". The same applies for education and employment. We cannot redistribute inequities. We have to create more opportunities.

OH MY GOD!

2006-03-27T20:30:00.000-08:00

Has it really been five long months since I have blogged? Well not quite. There is the other blog. The secret blog. The blog even I don't want to visit on good days. And there are quite a few of them now. Like summer days, they keep getting longer and there is a tiny hope. Who knows?

This blog however is about my daughter. My beautiful daughter who takes my breath away. I still wake up in the dead of night just to hear her breathe. Just grateful that she's here. My love. My soul. My very existence.

I try not to think of my life before here. I barely remember it. And I try desperately not to think of my life without her. The latter thought is like a heavy albatross around my infertile mind. It hangs there permanently to remind me that barreness is a state of mind more than a state of reproductive incompetence.

Still. She is here. My love. My soul. My very existence.

The silent post

2005-10-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

Le silence de blanc

This moment is your life

2005-08-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

I don't know who said these words but they contain an existential truth, "enjoy this moment, this moment is your life". A truth that becomes all the more poignant when you embrace motherhood. Motherhood is a daunting task. One that requires tremendous courage. A tiny life afloat in a world of unpredictable storms is a vulnerable creature that clings to your mast for safety. And although every bone in your body and every pore of your being wants to protect her, you cannot always anchor her to safety.

If there is a synonym for the word mother, it must be "courage". Not the courage to weather emotional storms or the courage to endure physical hardship, or even the type of courage that enables a lioness to attack a herd of elephants to save her cubs. No, this courage we human mothers require is much more sublime. It is the courage to love in the face of defeat and the possibility of total despair. It is the courage to risk when you know you can lose your very soul, your every reason for existence, your fibre of being.

And so it is that I've learnt to "enjoy this moment because this moment is my life". This moment holds a smile from Lollie that shall never again return, this moment encapsulates a tear that shall never again be shed, a sigh that shall never again escape her lips..this moment shall never again return, and let me not live another moment without having lived this one.

Je n'ai pas le dernier mot

2005-08-03T19:50:00.000-07:00

I'd like to say I haven't visited my blog in days because dirty diapers, 2am feeds and milky burps have kept me away. The truth is, I could have sneaked in a post between naps but I didn't feel the need too. What is there to say about motherhood, that hasn't been said by far more eloquent writers than me. I have no insightful revelations to make about motherhood, no toasts to raise, no hymns to sing and I certainly don't have the last word. It is every bit as uplifting as it is promised to be, every bit as soulful as anticipated.

Yet, there is something I want to write about. My daughter's eyes. They are the colour of coal as yet unmined. Pitch black. Quite contrary to mine which are hazel brown. When I look into her eyes, she is as alien to me as another universe. A constant reminder that she is a human being in her own right, not an extension of my own dreams and aspirations. And yet, yet, when she looks at me, I know she's known me for a million years. She's held the soft cup of my soul, in the cusp of her hand for eternity and she's known every creased fear that has ever lined my heart. She is not the love of my life, she is the life from my love. She is the deepest part of my soul, she is the darkest part of my fear and my most luminous ray of my hope.

Motherhood

2005-07-21T13:05:00.000-07:00

Motherhood came calling on 16th July, 2005. Actually she came screaming with gusto and suddenly my world changed in the blink of a very black eyelash batting at me.

How do I describe motherhood.
It is strangers walking upto me and telling me my baby is gorgeous.
It is women nodding in a secret sisterhood of knowing and understanding.
It is learning new words like latch-on, biliburin count and even strangers phrases like periodic breathing.
It is having conversations with people called pediatricians and men with Billi lights.
It is seeing your husband as a father, totally in control of every situation as if he was born to do nothing else and nothing else before this ever mattered.
It is catching your husband secretly kissing another girl with the kind of love that would burn a hole in your heart.
It's not knowing who the Presidential nominee for supreme court is and not really caring either.
It is gazing for hours at another human being who weighs under 7 pounds and for the first time in your life thinking, perhaps I'm not quite the agnostic I always believed I was.

In the words of Shakespeare's Romeo, "has my heart ever loved before".

Les jours de espoir

2005-07-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

The longer I keep away from my blog, the less I seem to have to say.

Are there simply no thoughts crossing my mind as the time draws nearer for me to have my baby. Yes, that's right, the last few days are upon me and they tell me that anytime now I could actually be a mother. This feeling is still surreal to me. Surely, it doesn't mean I am going to endure 16 hours of labour to push out the equivalent of a melon from my vagina. Surely, I'm not going to be responsible for the well being of another living individual when upto now all I've been responsible for and felt any emotional attachment towards is a bookcase full of books.

My feelings undulate between extreme anxiety and perhaps experiencing pure joy by stepping inadvertently onto a magic circle of possibilities. Both are frightening concepts. I can't remember the last time I felt pure joy. Years of infertility robbed me of the ability to feel pure joy.

I don't know how to end this post. There is no moral to it, no enlightened message at the end of it, no little humourous by-line. There is only the waiting...

Happiness - codependent or stand alone?

2005-06-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

I was musing over the concept of happiness today. What constitutes happiness in a human being. Is it totally dependent on external factors and/or stimuli or is happiness intrinsic. Sometime back I read of a survey that stated people predisposed to happiness got over tragic news within a short span of it happening. Similarly people predisposed to unhappiness got over good news within a few short months of it happening and tended to return to their state of unhappiness fairly quickly. This survey is suggestive that happiness is indeed intrinsic and within our control.

And yet what if nothing good ever happened in your life? Could you still be prone to happiness. If I reflect on my own life, I would think that I am a person prone to happiness because I love to laugh and enjoy life. And yet, my great moments of happiness have been dependent on external factors and stimuli. I cannot truly say I would be happy regardless of those moments happening. So what comes first in life? The predisposition to happiness or happiness itself that predisposes to a life of positive thinking?

Death Be Not Proud

2005-06-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

My uncle died. Just like that in the middle of a road, on his way home, surrounded by paddy fields, his heart gave out and his life came to a screeching halt. My father, his brother, had not spoken to him in over ten years and what life could not bring together, death did not either.

My father never made peace with his brother. Misunderstandings over ancestral land, hurt egos and words spoken in the heat of the moment divided them, in the end, forever. My mother went and paid her last respects. Our ancestral house, which was for the most part the bone of contention, must have stood silent carrying with it decades of memories lurking in its mud-walled corridors.

I want to phone up my cousins. Say something. Anything. Yet, what can I possibly say? Sorry we missed each other's lives. Sorry we missed each other's birthdays and weddings and christenings. Most of us are all grown up now. The sons working abroad, the daughters married. The ancestral house lies vacant, technically a mudkar's property with no rights to sell. Standing forlorn in the midst of some acres of barren land, where the coconut tress once planted by my grandfather have long died with neglect. Somewhere along the line, we all lost sight of what the fight was all about. A old house and a few barren acres? Surely there must have been more at stake.

Why do we human beings never learn that this world is all we have. That the afterlife is just a concept at this point in time. That it is in our best interest to make the most of our relationships here on earth, to enjoy them, to treat them with dignity, to enhance our lives with them. Instead we fritter them away in some useless tussle, some long held grudge, some unworthy fight until it is too late.

The Birthday

2005-06-12T12:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, invariably, once a year it rolls around. Much too frequently as you age. Oh God, I am 39 years old today. My thirties are all but over. No longer will I be able to wear my T-shirt dress and look hot, no longer will men describe me as cute or sexy. No, I shall now become an aging diva or a Mrs Robinson at best. Youth you are not my companion anymore.

Ah I wish I had some wise and profound thing to write on my birthday. Something that assuages the passage of time, the ritual of living and growing old. Is there really such a thing as growing old gracefully? Can varicose veins, high blood pressure, cellulite and wrinkles ever be described as graceful. And yet, if one looks for it, there is a serenity in growing old. You no longer have grandiose ambitions. Most of them are scaled down to size in keeping with realistic assessments of one's own competencies and the time left to achieve them. You have fewer expectations from the cosmos or the universe or the force we call God. And so life becomes more sedentary and yet strangely peaceful.

But perhaps the best thing that possibly happens is you meet your very own Robert Browning, who says "come grow old with me, the best is yet to come" and perhaps no one will calling me a "hotmama" ever again but someone just might be calling me "mama".

The Attachment

2005-05-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

This week brought home a reality I've only theorised about for a very long time. That attachments of any sort in life are futile. That in the blink of an eyelash you can lose everything. You can lose your life's savings, your loved ones or even your principles. There can never be a time in life where bank balances afford you security because a single calamity can wipe you out. There can never be a time when you take for granted the love of a spouse or child or parent because a single untoward incident can take them away. Such is life, that anchoring yourself to anything is an illusion. The only things to take with you are your self, your education, the memories of your life and loved ones and the joys of past joys. Live each day as if it was a prelude to the last one. Spend money on the frivolous because you never know when you might lose it all. Love each person in your life as if they were waving their final goodbyes. Then life becomes what it was always meant to be. Strangely animalistic but intensely alive.

The hiatus

2005-05-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've updated my blog. Not from lack of profound thoughts to share with my own consciousness but simply from lack of will in wanting to share them. It's been a rough couple of weeks for my husband and me. We've had to shoulder the anxiety of not knowing what the day would bring. Each day seemed like a fragment of time wrapped in dynamite that could go off any moment. Having an incompetent cervix is like living on the edge of a precipice while some unknown entity or circumstance decides what will happen next.

Despite this torturous interval in my life, I've decided that life is for the living. Yes, every time we decide this, we make ourselves vulnerable to the intense tragedy life can bring. But we also leave ourselves open to the joy it can sometimes gratuitously hand out. Life itself is tenuous. Everytime we decide to create it or accept it, we have to accept the fact that at any moment it could perish. Life's exquisite tenuousness should not stop us for enjoying it. It is in its very fragility that its most tender essence is found.

Entwined destinies

2005-05-05T10:31:00.000-07:00

You are 27 weeks old in my womb today. According to statistics, if you are born today you have a 90% chance of survival, which is about as good a chance as any of us gets out here in the world. From this day forward, your survival in this world depends as much on your will to live as my desire to protect you. There will be times when my desire to protect you will overwhelm you. It is at those times that you must fight against this stifling of your being. There will be other times when my desire to protect you will fail, and it is at those times that your own resilience and courage must prevail.

Whatever the road brings us, however long or short it is, our destinies are entwined, our paths crossed and hearts melded to each other.

The Terrorists have won

2005-04-26T06:55:00.000-07:00

If you change the way you live, if you change the principles and values you believe in, if you fear fear itself, if you've learnt to believe that the odds are generally not in your favour then the terrorists have won. I'm not talking about terrorists who take hostages and behead them to make a point, I'm talking about life as a terrorist.

You see over the years I've been defeated by life. There once was a girl who believed. Who believed if you waited by the phone, the odds were it would ring, that if you lost a job you'd find another one, that if relationships failed there would be another one. Tomorrow was always full of hope. But over the course of the years, I learnt failure. I've learnt that things don't always pan out as you expect them to, that affairs you believed to be rock solid turned out to be dulled objects made shinny by your own make-believe sun; that careers can come to an end, that babies conceived can die in your arms, that sickness can visit you, that tragedy can be your companion. And all this has left me defeated. Not because I have given up hope but because I can no longer feel the joy of living.

At times like this Paulo Coelho brings comfort when he surmises that at every point in your life you have to risk losing all that you have to gain more. I have to learn again to risk losing.

God of Interior Design

2005-04-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

Infertility, miscarriage and pregnancy have led me to lose my religion and acquire an anxiety disorder. Nature abhors a vacuum and so has rushed in to create another dependence of sorts. I've truly begun to believe that changing the layout of my room may impact its Vastu, telling the gender of my baby to friends may jinx it, if the paperclip perched at the end of table falls down, that signifies the end.....This God of Interior Design as I like to call him, will soon have me formulating personal prayers to propitiate his goodwill in maintaining the cosmic order of paper clips, and lighting candles to the power of unjinxing.

What is it in us human beings that so wants to fortell the future. It's not just dependence that creates a need in us to believe in God, there is also a real impatience in us to know outcomes or better still to control outcomes. If we could control outcomes, would our need for God disapear entirely.

Sad movies make me cry

2005-04-10T11:59:00.000-07:00

After much cajoling from my husband I finally agreed to watch a Bollywood movie, called Swades. The movie itself opened to poor reviews in India, which didn't surprise me. The director was unable to flesh out neither the characters nor the plot and the script writer must have been sleeping on the job because the lines were more reminiscent of somnambulism than realism.

What appalled me however was Shah Rukh Khan. Shah Rukh is a leading actor in India, and as such you would expect him to nuance the subtleties of the character, to carefully bring out the timbre of the story and evoke some amount of empathy for the noble deeds of the protagonist. Unfortunately Shah Rukh's repertoire comprised only of the comedic and the melodramatic, neither of which did anything for the character.

When I compare this to the acting talents of a relatively unknown actor in the US, namely Jamie Foxx in the role of Ray Charles, I am left befuddled as to why a country of one billion plus cannot produce better talent. Our heroines are lack-lustre, dolled up mannequins, our heroes are buffoons who think stripping off your shirt a la Salman Khan, in every scene should suffice to pacify the movie-goer, our writers are hackneyed hacks, churning out formulaic trash and as for what constitutes as music in Bollywood is tragic. Why has a country that was once at the forefront of culture and art been relegated to the dustbins of history. Is it the same reason why we don't win Olympic medals, is it the same reason why we have one M F Hussain, why our last architectural wonder was the Taj Mahal. Because over the years we've come to accept mediocrity, we've failed to nourish talent, we've come to pander to the lowest common denominator and then pat ourselves on the back.

Art, literature, architecture, fine cuisine, these are composites of the soul of a society. When we let these die, we kill a little of ourselves, we lose a little of our identity. Our songs are then sung in monotone, losing their richness, and are stories are woven on the polyester of the mundane rather than on the rich fabric of our ambitions, aspirations, triumphs and defeats.

My angel Twins

2005-04-06T18:56:00.000-07:00

May your wings be light as you fly towards heaven.

I remember you.
They told me when I woke up
You were dead
And how I wished and wished
I was dead instead.

How can I go on breathing
Without you in my arms
I'd dreamed of you for so long
Yet, here I was medicated and strangely calm.

Some well-wisher has left flowers
In the corner of the room
Those damn bouquet of lillies
Would look good on my tomb.

I saw you on the ultrasound just hours before
You didn't know you were going to die
But your grandmother swears
She saw you wave goodbye.
__________________

Born-Again Agnostic

2005-04-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

My friend's baby died. I can't imagine anything more unbearable than hearing your child's last breath. Holding his hand knowning that cherubic face will never again grace you with a smile.

At times like this people say things, that have never made sense to me. "God has a plan", "God doesn't give you more than you can handle", "I'll pray for you". The death of an innocent child is overwhelming evidence that:

a) God doesn't have a plan.

b) He obviously does dole out more than you can handle.

c) Prayers are an inefficient medium of communication with the Almighty.

How can you find meaning in chaos? How can you find acceptance in the midst of such injustice? All our concepts of life have to be reinvented. If there is one thing we know, effort does not result in reward. Rewards, gains, opportunities are a random role of the dice, as likely to be enjoyed by the unworthy as the worthy.

This sad event coincided with the death of the Pope. Although I'm very much a lapsed Catholic, who has serious conflicts with the Christian dogma, I much admired the Pope. He was a luminous man. He grew up in Communist Poland and no doubt has seen more anguish and suffering than I can imagine. Yet, this Great Man, found it within himself to place his hope in God. And that is really what "faith" is, pure unadulterated human hope. If this man, found a purpose in his life, and placed that purpose in the service of the Divine, then surely there must be some answers to be had in that trust.

Life as an IKEA AD

2005-04-02T13:07:00.000-08:00

Yes, I want my life to be an IKEA ad. You know the one. The camera pans softly on velvety white, Swedish designed sofas, then combs the patio, pans back into the living room where the woman of the house sits thumbing through a magazine while the husband swings the daughter onto his lap and nuzzles her downy neck. Ah, yes, this is what heaven must feel like, draped in IKEA white and airbrushed to perfection. Expect life isn't like that at all, is it?

The couple in the picture isn't living in a Nirvana bubble of soft-lighting compatability. At best they are sharing an emotionally cramped apartment, where both strive to garner every inch of power they can. The child in the picture was probably born after years of infertility and in some stills is totally missing altogether or has to be edited out because she or he wasn't picture perfect. That is real life.

The child of a close family friend is suffering from meningities and is in a coma. This seems like cruel and unusual punishment for a parent to go through. How does one become a parent? How does one come to terms with the fact that greedy life can reclaim their child at anytime and that they infact are nothing but hostages to life's vagaries. Life has no meaning. It never did and it never will. And yet I, as a human being want so desperately to believe that it does.

Religious discrimination

2005-03-31T06:38:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make. I hate Potta. For those of you unware of what Potta is, it's a religious place of worship in India where miracles are purported to take place. Now, the reason I hate Potta is not for Potta's sake. Anyone is entittled to their own religious views, however distorted, facetious and fabricated they may seem to me. If one wishes to explore spirituality in the context of magic potions and "bought and paid" for miracles, so be it. What I hate about Potta is the religious discrimination it encourages amongst its devotees.

These devotees make it their life's mission to infer religious inferiority onto the rest of the secular world, who may have chosen their own path to God. If you're not leafing through a bible, invoking the name of Jesus interspersed with "Praise the Lord", "Have mercy on me" and "Thanks be to God", then you are somehow akin to an athiest, doomed to hell and damnation and you might as well start getting used to some pretty hot temperatures.

Believing in a God that expects you to read his "Book", pay him "protection money" in the form of donations to his churches and charities, invoke his name at the hint of any trouble in your life, totally depend on his munificence, and deny all other possible alternatives, is much like a Mafia Don trying to muscle his territory into strict and passive obedience. What does this have to do with discovering one's own spirituality, which is a process of life-long self examination, courage and hope?

Dependence on religion is a cruel and dangerous thing. It cripples the very soul it is supposed to liberate, with fear. It takes a lot of effort to recite pre-programmed prayers to a pre-conceived God, but it doesn't take courage. Courage belongs to the devotee that denies him and yet sets out to discover him. Which of us is the true devotee?

Life Sucks

2005-03-29T20:59:00.000-08:00

Alright, I don't quite know why I feel life sucks but it just does. I sound like a petulant child when I write this but I feel as an adult, one is totally unable to enjoy life in any capacity. Happiness has a tenuousness to it that doesn't even warrant the nano-glow it brings. A high is just a lead into a low. A plan has no direction to it, because too many variables make it impossible to determine a concrete outcome. The randomness of life makes it unbearable to live on one hand and yet the monotony of a structured existence would make it suicidal. So how does a balance occur? I am much to old, much too disheartened, much too past the point of having faith in life's equitable distribution of highs and lows. And so today, life sucks. But Tomorrow in the immortal words of Scarlett O'Hara, Tomorrow is another day.

Gradations of the Soul

2005-03-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

How does one define the soul? Does the concept of a soul exist outside the parameters of a conscious mind? When we talk of a "gentle soul" or a "merry soul", what we often refer to is a person who is generally good natured or kind. When we think of the Dalai Lama for instance, we think of a "pure soul" devoid of all the grim and grit that accumulates is lesser mortals like us. But are we really talking about anything more than an enlightened mind, who by virtue of reason decides to engage in good rather than evil.

If a soul is a stand-alone entity? Then how is it born, how is it nourished and what does it survive? Is a soul present in the single-celled embryo that attaches to the uterus? Is a soul present when the single-celled embryo turns into a frog-like entity? Is a soul present when the medical term for embryo turns to fetus and a fully formed being makes itself known to the mother through its rhythmic sleep patterns and gentle kicks? But we know that the brain does not fully develop, well into puberty. So what thought process could be going on inside the mind of a tiny fetus, oblivious to what we call reality? What if no thought process were going on? Can we conclude that a soul does not exist in a fetus?

And what about the mentally handicapped or even dysfunctional? They are unable to form proper thought process by virtue of a physical or emotional handicap. Do these individuals have a compromised soul or a less enlightened soul? Are there different grades of souls? What about Terri Schiavo's soul? Does it exist in the state that she is in or did it depart the day she collapsed on the floor. Does the soul survive the body?

Perhaps what we call the soul is nothing more than our brain. The heart was at one time considered an organ responsible for all emotion in a human being. We now know, that this concept is nothing more than a lyric in a song or a stanza in a poem. The mind is responsible for all thought whether rational or emotional. Without the mind, we are incapable of feeling even physical pain.

Will we, in time, realise that the soul was nothing more than a line in one of Paulo's Coelho's novels? A figment of our need to believe in something greater than our physical self.

Existentially Alone

2005-03-24T06:46:00.000-08:00

I was watching "Lost in Translation" a few days back, Sofia Ford Coppola's movie which received quite a few Oscar nods, last year. The subject matter of the movie I found, quite hackneyed. Man undergoing mid-life crisis meets young girl undergoing identity crisis. But Coppola tells an old tale with fresh, young eyes set against the backdrop of Japan, and in that it is like a fizzy drink of champagne, delicately garnished with Bill Murray's rueful sense of humour.

What struck me was Bill Murray's character. Doubtless, young women and men will undergo a search for their identities and Scarlett Johansson does a good job of nuancing her character in this role. But are all middle-aged men/women doomed to undergo mid-life crisis? And are we all doomed to discover fresh perspectives only in the eyes of new romance? Why can't we find ourselves, rediscover ourselves or delve deeper into our core being, within the context of our existing relationships? Why can't our respective spouses or children or family or jobs yield us that zing in life? And why does mid-life so often have to be about deconstructing the body of our lives, rather than adding on new extensions? Are we all existentially alone in our lives, living apart from everything else? Trying to connect only momentarily and then moving on trying to find other connections, because at the core of our being there is a void that is impossible to placate.

2005-03-23T20:19:00.000-08:00

Holiday in Goa - 2004

Hubby and I spent a delightful weekend at the Sun Village in Goa. Weekend included, a lesson in scuba diving, buffet breakfast, lunch, snacks, buffet dinner, the pool, a massage and a whizz round the Go-kart racecourse. Definitely one to remember.

Yet No Muse

2005-03-23T06:39:00.000-08:00

Yes, my Blog Muse definitely seems to have deserted me. I've been absent for more than a week with no compulsion to write whatsoever. Was this a short-lived affair with my Blog. I wish there were interesting things happening in my life or profound thoughts whirling past in my brain faster than the speed of light. Maybe pregnancy has dulled my sense of melodrama and hysterics.

The Terri Schiavo case has certainly made me ponder about life though. I for one would not want to live a single day of my life in a "persistent vegetative state" (that is assuming I'm not already in one in the broader sense of the word). I can certainly understand how her parents feel. A desperate desire to cling to the life of someone they've created. But loss is part of life and so is mourning for it. To those "Right to Life" activists, outside the hospital with their cardboard-cut out sentiments displayed for the media cameras, I have this to say: there is more to life than just breathing. There is more to living that being fed by a tube for 15 years of your life. Life is not precious above all else and it is certainly not more precious than human dignity. Let Terri have her last shreds of dignity preserved and respected. When the Ferryman comes to take her across the river, let her pay him, not with weight of all your self-imposed moral certitudes but with the lightness of her having lived her life well, and had the courage to wave it goodbye.

The No Muse blog

2005-03-16T16:39:00.000-08:00

Yes, it seems like my Blog muse has deserted me and I can't seem to find anything to write about remotely humourous or inspirational. Not that blogging has to be either, it's just that I feel it has to.

Had a terrible cold yesterday and agonised for hours over whether to take a tylenol or not. Finally threw caution to the winds and gulped it down. I think motherhood is too much of a responsibility. The housing of another living creature inside your body for nine months was not one of nature's better ideas. I mean, almost anything you do or not do can have reprecussions on this tiny budding life. I'm sure nature thought it a fine way to bond mother and child but I could have done that by buying a nice sling at Motherhood and strapping the baby on the back for nine months.

Well that's about the extent of my profundity today.

Happiness is never Now

2005-03-10T15:03:00.000-08:00

A highway is a good place to discover how very insignificant we all are. One wrong move in this perfectly orchestrated hell, we call rush-hour traffic and you can perish into nothingness. Just like that. And yet, given this precariousness of life, we still refuse to enjoy it moment by moment, frame by frame and prefer to put happiness on stand-by.

It's because the nature of happiness is such that it is parasitically dependent on its continuance. Hence, a love affair is only happy in anticipation of marriage, a good job is only rewarding in anticipation of it lasting well into the future, a pregnant woman is only happy in anticipation of a child, a mother of a young child is only happy in anticipation of rearing a successful adult. If one is forced with the possibility that this anticipation will have a negative outcome, then all "happiness" will cease instantly. Happiness in the moment is a myth that needs to be debunked because it simply does not exist.

Can yoga, therapy, paradigm shifts or self-help gurus change any of this? No, not really. It is encoded into our genes, probably encrusted through years of evolution that put self-preservation before anything else. Enjoying a moment purely for itself would mean letting our guard down, decreasing our fear quotient, and inviting the possibility of unhappiness to seep through while we're enjoying happiness.

Human beings are destined not to be happy "in the moment". We are however programmed by nature to live in anticipation of happiness, to run after its alluring rainbows beckoning us, to live in hope of finding leprechauns and magic fairies. And this in the end is our only true happiness. To live in hope of happiness.

Of writers

2005-03-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

That summer, the air was heavy with the smell of ripe mangoes and jackfruit.

A line from one of my many unfinished essays. What makes a writer? Is it the ability to write a sentence that paints your mind with colour? Is it the ability convey an original thought? I think, essentially all writers are excavators of truth. They delve into the human mind and spirit and shine a torch onto the kernel of truth that exists there. This is what makes an artiste, great; whether his medium is art, acting, writing or even comedy. Take Chris Rock for instance. Just a black kid on the block. What makes Chris Rock, as the French would say "a la fois", funny and controversial, is his ability to be tragically truthfully about Africa-Americans.

I think there is a writer in all of us. That's why the lure of the blog, the bulletin board, the email is so enticing. It lets the writer in us out if only to a small audience and if only for a while. It's a terrible blow to one's ego to discover that there are hundreds of bloggers and part-time writers that are much more talented that oneself and that remain obscure despite thier talent. Any notions of quitting your day-job are quickly quelled. Nevertheless, I think all of us should continue to nourish the writer in us, because even if we fail to shine a torch on humanity, we can get to the kernel of truth in our own lives through our writing.

Pro-choice v/s Pro-choice

2005-03-06T21:32:00.000-08:00

Every pregnant woman faces that inevitable question. To test or not to test? I'd always thought for a pro-choicer (if such a word exists) like me, the decision would be as easy as slicing bread with a sharp, serated knife. That yes, ofcourse, I would test. For me there is no such stance as "pro-life", there is only choice. We chose to act or not act.

So when the doctor sat across me and explained the tests available, I looked anxiously at my husband and the words, "no" came out of my mouth leading me to believe a certain disconnect had just occured between my mind, heart and mouth. A disconnect triggered by nightly kicks in my uterus by a growing entity known to my doctor as "the fetus" and known to me as "my baby".

Yes, my baby at 16 weeks was as real to me as any newborn that marks its entry into the world with a cry. Infact it was real to me that first day he made me puke, he pressed on my bladder, gave me a headache and lead me to a new world of cravings. I couldn't cope with finding out he was not 100% alright, and worse still I couldn't cope with contemplating severing his tiny budding life. Not when I'd seen him wriggle his bottom at me on the ultrasound screen.

Which lead me to the question of what is 100% alright. What if, instead of just having the ability to detect whether he had spinabifidia or Down's Syndrome, I also had the ability to detect that he would have a "criminal gene", or a predisposition to intense jealously or separation anxiety and hence would not be able to lead a "normal life". What if I discoverd that he would not be blessed with "good looks" and would suffer terrible complexes throughout his adult life, that he would never be able to finish High School because he lacked aptitude or the ability to concentrate on any single thing for any length of time. What if I discovered that my child would grow up to be an utter disapointment to me? Would I also then think of terminating his tender life, just because I could? And would I justify my decision, only because it was a "terribly hard" decision for me and I need to be awarded a medal for bravely taking it.

Or am I just kidding myself. Am I the coward who if blessed with a "special needs" child will not be able to cope and the only reason I can't bring myself to test is because I am willing to play the odds and if I knew 100% that the odds were not going to pan out, I wouldn't be having this moral dilema.

In the end, there is no "pro-life", there is only a "choice", to be exercised.

I'm afraid to love you

2005-03-03T17:10:00.000-08:00

My little brother, who is eleven years younger than me, is getting married. He's all grown up now but I remember the day we all went to the hospital to see him. He took my breath away. Was there ever a sight so lovely as the one lying there? He didn't know then but I loved him. Not in a quiet, reasonable, rational, sisterly way but in a mad, intoxicating, I love you more than myself way. I don't quiet know what forces awaked within me to feel the passion I felt but I knew that they had been lying dormant all those years waiting for him to come and kiss them to life.

I'm at that stage of my pregnancy when the baby starts to exert himself or herself. Let's just call him a him for now. Ever so secretly, he'll steal a kick here and there, and I can almost imagine him smile as he aims for my bladder or some other tender place in my ever-growing heart. And I know if I let myself go, I'm going to fall madly in love. Not in the self-contained, self-sacrificing, motherly way mothers are supposed to love but in a banshee howling, crazy dancing, I love you more than life itself way.

And so my dearest, I'm afraid to love you because you may not survive this journey and I couldn't live with your departure. I would pine for you for the rest of my life, look for you in the rivers that pass by, read every book on death to know where you are and read every book on life to try to understand why you left and none of it would make any sense to me. I would lose my self forever and I would cease to exist. And yet, and yet, I know that the banshee in me loves you already.

At the mercy of Fate

2005-03-01T16:01:00.000-08:00

There is nothing like pregnancy to drive home the point that your life is totally at the whim and fancy of Fate. If one can call the vagaries of life, fate. There is nothing you can do to stop, say instance contractions if they start, delay labour or save the life of a child. You are but a helpless spectator in this cosmic dance that ensues between life and fate. And so in a desperate bid to control the uncontrollable, to bring order into the chaotic and to hold on to that which cannot be tethered, one turns to an entity called God.

Except, if you've had a miscarriage also as part of your life's experience then you realise that, that belief is moored only on something as fragile as hope and not proof of God's invincibility or his desire to alter circumstance. If there is nothing in life like pregnancy to make you want to believe in God, there is nothing like miscarriage to make you doubt his very existence.

Week 18 of my pregnancy. Met with my doctor who seemed pleased with my progress. And yet, both of us know that my cervix could give way any moment without warning and definitely without hesitation. And there is nothing either of us can do to stop it, except believe in the kindness of a stranger called God.

Life's little infidelities

2005-02-27T14:06:00.000-08:00

I just discovered, quite by accident, that a childhood friend of mine, who had gone on to become a major success in his life, is now being investigated by the SEC for securities fraud. Life for Mr X, seemed almost idyllic with a beautiful wife, two children, a mansion and a hugely successful company to manage. Except life has a way of letting you down at the best or even at the worst of times. When the rest of us were struggling through rent payments and love triangles, Mr X had it all. Not in an arrogant way either, just in the easy way that success shines on those it was destined to do so in the first place.

Except life never fails to astonish me with its vagaries. There are no set patterns to life's unending twists and turns. There are no last curtain calls that fade into blissful oblivion. There are only several Acts to be played out, some tragic, some comic, some dramatic and some downright soul crushing. Whatever one's place in the play maybe, one can be sure of only this, that a storm can easily follow a lull or a lull can be followed by an even longer lull. Life is an unending series of random events that happen. There is no pattern, there is no logic, there is no Divine plan, guiding us to finding fulfilment or enlightment. There is only one purpose embedded in us either by nature or by a higher power that be. That we must survive. That we must find ever more creative ways of surviving. That succeeding generations of us must survive because of this more creative way found by preceding generations. And so, perhaps our only purpose in life is to add to the collective genius of creativity.

A wonderful new world

2005-02-26T23:11:00.000-08:00

Pregnancy and ensuing bedrest has vacated the inner sanctum of reason and embarked me on a new and dangerous journey. A journey into the world of blogging. The closet exhibitionist in me wishes to have an attentive audience as I expose myself to the world. I could just as easily have kept a private journal, but somehow this allows me the delicious pleasure of knowing, somehow, somewhere a poor soul is riveted by the not-so-secret life of an unknown Elisabeth.

My pregnancy now in its fourth month, plods along much like a wounded horse. Having achieved this small miracle after four years of infertility at the pulpy-ripe age of 38, I would have thought I would spend each day in devoted gratitude to the powers that be, that decree or ordain such events in one's life. Instead I find myself complaining bitterly about the discomforts it entails. If fear, anxiety and anticipation could all cross-pollinate into a hybrid flower, I wonder what they would look like. Very much like the look in my eyes these days, I suspect.

The thrill of the first is never forgotten. I shall now submit my entry and wait with bated breath to see what it looks like.