Dad's Diary 3 - 'Joyee is an Enigma'

Joyee is an enigma. A riddle in which the pieces never fell into their assigned places till she started to knock on the teens-door. But she has yet remained to be an unsolved puzzle in her totality.

Joyee with her pet Rushtu when she
was much younger

We had all crowded the nursing home lobby the day she was born, the first of our three grandchildren. An hour or so after her eagerly awaited arrival, a smiling nurse raised her before a see-through glass panel. I remarked almost involuntarily, “A bundle of divinity.” Indrani, my wife, agreed with an ear to ear smile, but pointed out that she had furrowed her forehead and had been crying non-stop noisily, not happy at all to be out in the world.

She plainly had a grouse against the world right up to age 3. But that's when I had a different glimpse of her own tiny world. Fatema, a household-help, a divorcee with two kids, one Joyees's age, and one a few months old, was instrumental in opening that special door. This was in Bangalore. 

On that morning of revelation Fatema came to work in a foul mood. Her former husband was still giving her trouble. On top of that Joyee's contemporary kid was proving too much troublesome. Fatema took the child out in the veranda, and started giving vent to her own frustration on the child. The muffled wailing warned Joyee who jumped down from her bed and scurried out.

Joyee in one of her moods 

What attracted my attention was the coincidence of disappearance of Joyee's legs into the veranda and total silence outside. I hurried out. Joyee's tiny world appeared to be going round and round the only conceivable sun in it, Fatema's 3-year old, on which a silent Goddess spread her body, face down, creating a veritable shield between the sobbing child and her tormenting mother. Fatema stood there awestruck.

When her mother had brought home her brother a year earlier she had shrieked, “Where have you brought him from? Throw him away.” But when she was barely 6, she once locked her eyes into mine with fury oozing out of hers, raised her pointer, and warned me, “Slow down, he is only a baby.” All I

did was to rebuke her brother for nagging, and brought my arm down on the wooden table with some force. I still remember that look, and of course I was the one to blink first.

Joyee was fond of going to the Gul Mohar Club, Delhi, to play with other children. Before coming  home at dusk she routinely visited the library where she read the newspapers amidst the fathers and grandfathers of the area. “Reading newspapers at home is not much fun,” was her view. That must have prepared her for taking to writing seriously when the residence changed from Gul Mohar colony to Sheikh Sarai which had no club of her liking. Today, at age-13, she boasts of a blog spot of her own (joyee-bhattacharya.blogspot.com) where she  has plunged into airing her rather radical views about life and living.

Miss Beautiful

She got herself equipped with a harmonium, tabla (drum), and a music teacher to learn singing, classical ones, and gave up her efforts nearly a year and half  later presumably because it drastically eroded into her time for reading and writing. Two years earlier her school teacher assigned the class to assume any character from 'Cinderella' and write that character's feelings at midnight at the prince's dancing party. Joyee sprang a surprise by choosing to be the wall clock pouring out its heart for Cinderella.

Like her wildly swinging mood between positive and negative poles, Joyee's love for literature does evenly match her hatred for mathematics. To quote from her blog, “I hate it more than smelly socks, lizards, cockroaches, or puke.” When she is seized of math homework problem, any reference to her brother's prowess in it could land anyone in deep enough misery.

She has even gone public about her relations with her parents : “We fight, I scream, you ground me, I disobey you, and at times even raise my voice against yours which always lands me into deep deep trouble. But whatever I am today is because I had you with me. I love you.”

Her father now-a-days is acutely conscious of her presence anywhere. One day he came back home from work, extremely preoccupied with some problems, missed Joyee's - 'hello baba' – but   acknowledged his son's (Ishaan) greetings a step away. The 'spitfire' quipped immediately, “Am I non-existent or invisible?” Her father hurriedly retraced his steps and gave her a warm hug to save the situation, and also himself from the trouble of suffering a long lecture on the philosophy of fairness and justness in righteous indignation.

When she takes my breath away

The 3-year old toddler's 'noch yer fend' (not your friend) rebuffs a dozen times by breakfast has amply graduated into a tempestuous tongue lashing whenever she can seize an opportunity. She is avowedly a 'no nonsense' girl – sorry, 'super woman' - placed to deal with a nonsensical world as a member of the “weaker sex”. I keep telling her if all the women could somehow emulate her diatribes, the definition of “weaker sex” may have to be redrawn.

And it is precisely for that reason my love for the eldest of my grandchildren is tinged with growing respect.

  

     

Dad's Diary 2 - Bengalis should stick to yapping!!

Tapas with son-in-laws and grandchildren
 (Agni and Ishaan)

 Grandchildren are beings of beauty and joy forever. I have three of them from my two daughters, loving and admirable mothers in their own right. My wife, Indrani, and I often compare the way they deal with their children with our way when they were kids.

I have a new pastime now; comparing the memory of my own situations then with my grand-children's now, and marvel at how time flies.

Ishaan was nine years old when this happened. He had gone out to play with his friends. I noticed from the window that he was running faster than the wind towards home as if being chased by a pack of howling street dogs. He spotted me at the window and shouted for the entrance door to be opened immediately. He rushed inside, and before I had time to close the door, the reason for Ishaan's panic, his nemesis, in the shape of an assembly of half a dozen girls, all aged between six and nine, stood panting before me.

Granddaughters Agni and Joyee (L-R)

I heard the chorus demanding Ishaan's mother to be summoned in total confusion. I was ready to grab any hint from him, but he wouldn't even look at me. So I tried the other end of the problem. I explained that his mother was not at home, and hurriedly volunteered the information that his father was not available either. But if they enlightened me about the state of affairs, I could take it up with his parents when they returned home.

They kind of sized up the wizened old man blocking the doorway, exchanged glances, and then a girl of

'perhaps-seven' pointed out another and blurted out, “Usne usko 'I love you' bola” (He said 'I love you' to her).

A knot started tightening in my stomach with intensifying efforts not to burst out laughing. The responsibility now was onerous enough. So I looked at the irate group with as much seriousness as was possible, and tried to talk out of the fast deteriorating situation.

“Toh kya hua?” (So what?) I ventured. “He does that all the time with everybody. He tells that to me, to his grandmother, to his mother, father, sister. It’s good that he loves everybody. That is no reason for you to get angry.”

Ishaan and Agni

I quickly looked back to see if Ishaan had caught on to the hint. The dull-dumb expression was gone. His eyes glistened with shrewd appreciation and the usual naughty smile hovered back on his lips. The knot in my tummy remained disconcerting.

Then came the femme-punchline: “Oisa nahi, usne dusri-wali love you bola” (not that type, he said the other kind of 'I love you'), 'perhaps-seven' thundered, her eyes sauntering over to the cover of film magazine lying on a nearby table on which an actor and his consort remained frozen in a romantic posture.

This was now too much for me to handle with the tummy-knot holding the laughter came very much near to an explosion. The situation was saved by a holler from the doorway of a neighboring house ordering two of the girls including the spokes-person, 'perhaps-seven,' to get back home. My promise to let Ishaan's mother know about their gracious visit and bitter complaints persuaded the other four to retreat.

I cannot match Ishaan's record of romantic adventures when I was nine. But here is one that would prove that I was also endowed with the rare quality of creating problems where none existed.

It happened in Darjeeling at a time when a series of Phantom and Tarzan comics gradually built up a sense of invincibility in me. And I was itching to try some of their fighting skill, the killer moves having been practiced time and again in my imagination. The opportunity was also not far away.

That fateful evening, as I climbed up the public staircase to reach the upper level of the road leading to the main market, I had no inkling that I was entering my own African wild.

I stood for a while at the top of the staircase trying to decide whether to go up the serpentine road or down. A lump of spittle released from the first floor window perched on the clothesline below and sprinkled out a few drops on my shoulder. A thousand Phantom and Tarzan invaded and possessed my whole being. Aite's face appeared at the window. He smiled malevolently.

'Come down here and wipe the spittle off my shoulder,' I ordered menacingly. Aite came down clasping a pencil cutter so dirty and rusted that together they would be more fatal than its edge. In two swift moves I got him down on the road. I was myself appalled at the prolific application of imaginary moves!

Then there loomed large my father's rather extremely handsome and well-built countenance some distance away. He had not noticed me, and I decamped from the scene carrying the knife as the victor's trophy. The initial euphoria later gave way to regrets as I ran the moves in my mind, and was sure that I indeed had ample opportunity to land two, at least one, 'deadly fist-blow' and another 'equally deadly boot-kick'. But it was time for me to constantly look over my shoulders to avoid any unhealthy surprises.

Another week later all my preemptive arrangements proved hilarious. Nothing happened. Aite had just vanished into thin air. I relaxed my vigil, and once more found time to say, not 'I love you-s', but potently bewitching 'namastes and good mornings, god evenings,' to pre-determined spots in neighbors' veranda in a kind of complaisant sort of way to prove myself to be a straight enough boy. Any aberration in the early 1950s, fortified by neighborly complaints, used to be taken seriously in the family; any grievance expressed by an older person was reckoned as a case reasonably proved, only the quantum of punishment had to be considered.

Normalcy returned, and I quit looking over my shoulders. On such a sunny day I found the owner's chatty doll-faced granddaughter managing their grocery store. I went in to buy a 'kaath mithaai' (pencil sized sticks of boiled and solidified molasses) that was the in-thing in those days. She informed me that all the boys had run down the road a while ago swinging catapults over their head. This meant there was a war-game on, and I had been left out.

I rushed down the road looking for them in the usual haunts. I found myself in a deserted patch of unfriendly territory between the graveyard and funeral pyre where boys did not venture out alone. My nemesis in the embodiment of a perhaps-15 or more looked me up and down several times before the approaching the subject.

“Do you know who I am?”

I really didn't. Somehow I felt my ignorance was perilous enough to jack up the nemesis' belligerency by a few notches.     

“My name is Aitu,” he volunteered, allowing a lingering smile that gradually hardened into a grimace.

I instinctively knew what was coming up, and I had hard decisions to make. No, I decided, I would not defend myself; that would enrage him even more. He was taller, muscular, and way up the ladder in terms of age; instead, my calling him 'daju' (elder brother) seemed to be pregnant with possibilities of launching a self-protection plan that must include a minimum of confusing lies. He did not seem to be a man with whom patience was a virtue.

“I had trouble with Aite, not you, you are Aitudaju,” I began. He stopped me short, stating, that precisely was the point. The problem apparently lay in the affinity between two names – Aite and Aitu.

“You bashed up Aite whom I do not even know, and boys all over the town are talking about me having been beaten up by a half- ‘Bongali’ (todays Bongs). “Why half?” I asked in amazement. The sunny answer came after a rain of 'fist-blows and boot kicks'. I even lost count of how many times I had been hit in the one-sided encounter.

My passivity coupled with freely rolling tears that had welled up in my eyes perhaps disgusted him. He peremptorily asked me to sit down, “Don't you understand that I have a name to protect!” “Sure daju,” I concurred. He selected a few leaves growing on the hillside, rubbed them on his palm, and applied the juicy salve on two particularly nasty looking bruises on my forehead. That was the beginning of a prolonged friendship.

The pain, the embarrassment, the unpleasant prospect of having to account for the bruises to friends and at home, all remained in the back of my head, as I ventured to reiterate my point, “But why am I only a half-‘Bongali’?”

“That is because ‘Bongalis’ are supposed to yap, yap and yap, kill the enemy by yapping. You come down to fisticuffs and lose half of your racial identity.” I decided to ignore even this unwholesome slur on my race lest he invited me to “dare to kill him yapping.”

Two generations down the line, Ishaan would have merited being 'full Bong plus' in Aitu's estimation. After his own fiasco, I had asked Ishaan to explain his conduct, and he retorted, “Your sugar coated blabbering with these silly girls is useless; you should have left the yapping to me.” 

** Bongalis – Bengalis are called “Bongalis” in Nepali

BY TAPAS MUKHERJEE 

Eternity -

http://royd-spiltmilk.blogspot.com/2011/01/lot-of-fun.html#more (A thread to Roy Durham's story)

Welcome Void followers – Don’t come too close to me as I am eternity, don’t touch me as you may melt and become me, don’t look at me for too long or you may get hypnotized, close your senses as I may just engulf you, devour you….

I was, once just like you – a traveler. I just happened to travel here and speak with Eternity. Eternity was not me at that time – he warned me just like I am warning you now. I didn’t listen and became a part of him forever. I thought I could outsmart him but I was wrong. Eternity is beyond you or who I was then. If you like your life, then don’t stay here too long – go on and choose a door. ESCAPE…

Here’s a hint – if you take the door in the middle it takes you to a cocktail going on in Paris somewhere. The door on your right leads you to the bloggers network and the only other one left leads you to a club… A club full of talented young people – They write poetry and add richness in all’s life, bloggers network is for the readers and the party is full of life. When you are done come back to me so I can put you at ease, release your pains and free you forever. All I need to do is touch you and you and me will be numb to suffering or joy. We will be here forever – for travelers to join. Eventually this void will be the end of all the laughter and all pain and we will be big enough to rescue the universe. I will wait ….

Check out the chapters of  Daisy Lemmas Riff Blog Chain  here:

Chapter One: Welcome to the Void
Chapter Two: Waking up.

Chapter Three: Eternity 

Chapter Four: Eternity 2

Chapter Five: Reality of a Dream
Chapter Six: Fragments

Chapter Seven: Dream or not it spoke to me 
Chapter Eight: The Bronze Elephant
Chapter Nine: A lot more Riff
Chapter Ten: Time Loop
Chapter Eleven: Elephant Graveyard
Chapter Twelve - Abyss 

Wishful (NOT) thinking

What Brought Me Here?

Here meaning where I am stationed in life right now. How did I land up here and where will I be in another 10 years? The latter being the most annoying question asked by an interviewer, as if to say where I am now should/must be temporary! And if I am satisfied with it, I am a loser!!! What is this quest of constantly wanting more? Don't get me wrong - I most certainly always want "more" but I just don't want it to be obvious to a stranger! 

Anyway, so I was this unassuming typical, nerdy, bespectacled, skinny girl, who had to fight off comments everyday from neighbors and friends about having "grasshopper" legs which reminded them of toothpicks! Now let me tell you that if I wasn't the subject of this absolutely unfeeling remark, I would have seen a lot of humor in it. But that wasn't to be. This was the stage in my life that saw a serious attention deficit in the social world! It was a stage where I constantly believed "You must really like me, cause you smiled at me." But I go too far with this one. 

After this never ending awkward phase got over, I found myself in college - with a group of gorgeous friends, a "to die for" boyfriend and myself not really unpopular. How that happened is a mystery - I think it had something to do with shunning the glasses and growing my hair. 

Career starts - I was in the capital city of India trying to meek out a living. Most of the time broke and angry! My meagerly salary allowed me to have just about two crazy nights in a nightclub/pub, after which I would survive on just bread till I got the next check. Basically from "check to check' was an understatement in my situation. A new term had to be coined exclusively to describe me; maybe something like the "corporate loser". 

Marriage - Just when my job and money situation took a jubilant turn, my husband (by then I was married) was moved to a town called Danbury, in CT. If one were to draw a graph of my career in Danbury, I think the excel sheet would give way and the software would need to be reinstalled, just to fit my life in. To make a long story short, from the first to the current year the pendulum swung from me feeling like a scumbag to feeling like an achiever. It took 7 years of my life for everything to fit. Any guesses what happens next??? We are MOVING AGAIN!! Yeah Marriage - sigh!

So there it is - my life in a nut shell for you to read - from "grasshopper" to a marketing specialist now. Do I feel achieved? That's an affirmative. Is there more achievement waiting? I don't know but I want more! What inspired (read provoked) me to write this post is a recent novel I read. A regular gossipy kind by Candace Bushnell – the kind which you wouldn’t dare admit to have read in a literary society, for the fear of being labeled. 

10 years hence - I want life to promote me from a consultant to a super business woman. I want to have already made enough money to last me a lifetime and will enough for posterity. But here's the thing - will that change me? I liked it when grasshopper finally became just Kriti. I like Kriti - I don't want her to go away like grasshopper did. I want everyone to love me even though I am sickeningly rich (like Annalisa Rice in the 5th Avenue) - a rare circumstance in this world according to Kiyosaki. 

Summer of 2022 - I walk into my husband's office and immediately recognize him, even though he is alien to whom I used to call my husband in 2011. He sits in a plush office directing people in the world and costing billions of dollars to governments and companies alike. Even the smell of his environment is unfamiliar - leather and cologne???? Common!!! I walk in, in my Chanel jeans (still not very happy to let go of the idea of "fashionable jeans"), Dolce and Gabbana bag, LV shirt and Prada stilettos. (My apologies to all if the above description does not speak money and fashion. These are just the brands I covet. I'll get there when I get there but in the meantime, I hope you know what I mean.)  I am still Kriti inside (but not out). My husband smiles a knowing smile, and then offers me his arm. We go out and meet all our friends from the past struggling years and have a genuine laugh over caviar and rare wine.  

50 years hence - I die a peaceful death, with a regret-less smile on my face, surrounded by friends, lovers and family alike. 

Back to 2011 – Post ends and I am being called a pathetic (unreasonable) dreamer by everyone who reads this entry.

    

My Dad's Diary

The flow of thought was steady in my head. In a few moments my sexagenarian life was in the  vortex of a dichotomy. But not for long. As I consciously agreed with the new import, all the notions  that I steadfastly clung to all my life about my existence stood nullified. The new impression imprinted itself dominantly, and changed me totally. In the wide memory-canvas I had etched many an episode of life spent in virtual futility; but now I am convinced that I am indeed a champ of some sort. And as the misty veil gradually lifted itself, I found myself swathed in a bliss I had never experienced before.

This was the day before I was to enter a hospital for a hip-joint replacement surgery, one of a series of complications that necessitated a major surgical intervention. “Entering the twilight zone,” was how I had always believed these to be, for even the attending medical personnel always avoided looking into my eyes while palpably lying about guaranteed favourable outcome, the understandable falsity somehow never creating a chasm in our relationship.

Would I see another sun rise? Was I leaving anything undone for my family? Would I like to see somebody for the last time? Immediately so many images surfaced, my mind automatically shuffling them into a panoramic collage, that I had to make an effort to pacify my thought processes, control myself.

And then it happened. As I closed my eyes in hopeless languor, the figure stood before me, but at a distance, against a backdrop of diffused light. I felt more than I convincingly saw that I was looking at a miniature version of myself, a midget of my own self, that appeared to be missing the outer covering of layers of skin. It was all muscles and veins and sinews, seemingly stark and supple at the same time.

In a moment I knew. That was the finer body inside my physical body. I remembered the Shastric dictum : the physical body – sthula sharira - is made up of gross elements; there is a finer body inside – sukshma sharira – made up of very fine invisible elements, tanmaatra(s). Seeing it is a rarest of rare experience.  

Aghast, I looked on. Then there was that surge of strange new thought wave, impelling but soothing, domineering but convincing; the inundation so complete that I ceased to be an existence on the surface of the ocean of life, but down under, groping but finding footholds everywhere.

Normalcy returned a while later. The first conscious thought that hit my head like a streak of lightning was that I was no longer standing on a quicksand in this world, I was on solid ground.    The next moment an inquiry cropped up in my mind. The whole process was bereft of any   assurance on whether I would survive the impending hospitalisation.

It is apt that I introduce myself properly. My name hardly matters. What matters most is how this existence has been tempered by the vicissitudes of cosmic interference time and again. I suffered bone fractures in both the legs at one go when I was about 10 years old, had shoulder bone dislocations 13 times between 14 and 50 years of age, underwent spinal surgery to extract a loose disc at age 20, and suffered a wrist fracture at age 53. Then came the time for hip joint replacement surgery at age 58. Subsequently, I underwent two hernia operations when I was 62 years old.

These earned me a rather dubious distinction in the form of a longish sobriquet in my friends' circle – 'Here is a man who breaks his bones on request'. They even wrote an epitaph – 'Here lies a Doctor's Delight.'

They have valid reasons too. For I also have a disease that chokes the nasal passages – vasomotor rhinitis – a name that one could almost fall in love with. I have pharyngitis in my throat, a heart palpitation causing tachycardia in the chest, a permanent and incurable cold and cough triggering allergy and I suffer from muscle cramps on and often, each time it seems that a tiger or a lion has an inexorable grip on me.

I consider myself to be an expert on pain management, but it has now become doubly difficult with osteoarthritis attacking both the thumbs, and that or something else choosing the neck and the elbows.

All the surgical interventions left me less and less competent than normal people. I am a lame person owing to leg fractures, a person with inadequate back strength due to spinal injury, diminished shoulder strength because of frequent dislocations. Inappropriate uses of anesthetics and sedatives and pain killers filled me up with kinds of problems that doctors have conveniently grouped under Allergy, nondescript ones. 

With these damaged resources I was determined to live as normal a life as was foreordained for me. It was a normalcy minus visiting temples or offering pujas or accepting prasada or read the scriptures. “Oh, the kind of stuff that happened to you; God saved your life,” elders sometimes uttered the heedless refrains. And I would retort back saying, “Yeah, He left me breathing and  took the life away,” causing consternation for the intended blasphemy. There was no end of raving and ranting out.

And then came the liberating influence of the Power within. As if a knowledge bank had exploded inside enabling me to view things differently, obdurateness as the intractable fort had crumpled, the threshold for understanding and acceptance raising itself on its on volition. The only aberration related to the unyielding inquiry – would I survive the next day.

It is needless to say that I did, but not without a sacrifice. The medical staff responsible for on- surgery care forgot to artificially water my eyes that was a must due to prolonged detention under anesthesia. The inevitable result was fissures on the walls of the retina that caused partial blindness in both eyes. 

Medical dereliction in fact had led to my lameness and my having collapsed during spinal surgery, and now partial blindness that the doctors explained away as old-age-degeneration; a degeneration that occurred overnight!! The hernia operations three years later maintained the dereliction record. Of the two hernias required to be tackled, the doctors forgot all about one. When it was detected a day after surgery, they carted me back to the operation theatre nonchalantly and repeated all the procedures to take care of the other, leaving a painful hardness in my stomach.

I have no rancour left in me now to keep condemning those responsible. Medical dereliction does occur; but how could it happen to me each and every time I was in the hospital? Was there a method in this madness? Or, a self-repeating design of the genius? I had to find an answer. I assigned myself the task particularly, now that I was heading for retirement from professional life. The Power within had successfully planted a seed that required careful nourishing. I knew I did not have much time left in this world for the task.

So, for the first time in years, I uttered a silent prayer – Lord, whether you are the ash smeared, trident carrying controller of the universe, the loving universal flute player, merciful Mother Shakti, benevolent preserver and protector of divine creation, please do not let me die an ignorant man.   

A friend had gifted the first four volumes of Swami Vivekananda's 'Complete Works' (now  available in 9 volumes) that mainly enumerates explanation and analysis of the Vedanta (Upanishads), both of his own and by other scholars. It is an attempt to introduce ways of practical application of the Vedanta in every day life; the ideas that took the world by storm towards the end of the 19^th century, the rumblings of which is heard even today.

With a life burdened with excruciating physical pain and mental agony I could never hitherto devote myself to reading those books. Impatience rooted in an innate revolt against anything believed to be holy and divine stood on the way of even casually reading, not to talk of assimilating the complicated details, anything even remotely connected with the Shastras.

Now I sat back and took a deep breath. What happened thereafter was a be-seizure by a force to reckon with. I had never found reading so beautiful, explanations of complicated aphorisms appearing with utmost clarity. Life was a play of gay abandon, of making constant adjustments between lower necessities and higher call, of an unceasing endeavour to mould oneself into more and more perfect instrument to emerge into one's own divinity.

What has that got to do with getting physically battered into a virtual pulp-mass? Battering has to be accepted with equanimity for I must be held responsible for the accumulated consequences of my own Karma. Birth after birth I need to work that out. Its a constant debit-credit account.  Besides, without endowing reward and punishment, this world will face a veritable chaos. Even I will not like to see my family, friends – near and dear ones – living in a disorderly world ruled by the tyrant's muscle power. That will tantamount to passing from the frying pan to fire.

There is a way out. Swami Vivekananda's prescription may appear tough and impracticable; but it is not when one has thought out the entire gamut of the issue. He wants us to plan the next life as we plan the next day, or the next week.   

Sri Aurobindo of Pondichery fame describes me most aptly in his legendary work – Synthesis of Yoga – when he outlines the profile of an average man: “To the ordinary man who lives upon his own waking surface, ignorant of the self's depths and vastnesses behind the veil, his psychological existence is fairly simple. A small but clamorous company of desires, some imperative intellectual and aesthetic cravings, some tastes, a few ruling or prominent ideas amid a great current of unconnected or ill-connected and mostly trivial thoughts, a number of more or less imperative vital needs, alternations of physical health and disease, a scattered and inconsequent succession of joys and griefs, frequent minor disturbances and vicissitudes and rarer strong searchings and upheavals of mind and body, and through it all Nature, partly with the aid of his thought and will, partly without or in spite of it, arranging these things in some rough practical fashion, some tolerable disorderly order, - this is the material of his existence. The average human being even now is in his inward existence as crude and undeveloped as was the bygone primitive man in his outward life.”

The two most damning stumbling blocks that the average man encounters from the first cry to the last whimper in this world are 'Ego and Desire'. Together they nastily pack a mean punch to create division and dissension among soul-mates. All beings and things are manifestations of That Illimitable One. We are the sparks of one Cosmic Soul, one Cosmic Consciousness. Whether we want it or not, whether we like it or not, we are all inexorably moving towards That Absolute Knowledge, That Absolute Existence, That Absolute Bliss - The Sachchidananda.

But what about the average man's mind? What about the feeling of pain and suffering, of being unhappy and miserable, of happiness and ecstasy, of a sense of belonging and rejection, of attraction and repulsion? The answer was simple.

The average man, being ignorant, equipped with a mind that reduced divine infinity into worldly finiteness in order to understand it with the help of his limited intelligence, mistakes the body carrying a name and a form as himself. He is in fact the Spirit, the Self, the Soul, with an  outer covering of the body. This costly mistake gives vent to a splurge of ego and desire. If you are the Soul, ego  and desire cease to have any impact on you.

But why should my average mind accept this as true? This is what Sri Aurobindo says on the subject: “Nothing can be taught to the mind which is not already concealed as potential knowledge in the  unfolding soul of the creature. So also all perfection of which the outer man is capable, is only a realizing of the eternal perfection of the spirit within him. We know the Divine to become the Divine, because we are That already in our secret nature. All teaching is a revealing, all becoming is an unfolding. Self-attainment is the secret; self-knowledge and an increasing consciousness are the means and the process.” It amounts to saying that the mind, on which we have no control, already knows this. And as soon as it feels that the man has stumbled upon the fact, it both acknowledges the fact and keeps on resisting it. That is precisely what has happened to me.

Isn't it somewhat difficult to believe that the Lord is waiting for the average man's yoga, his offering of union with Him, stationed as He is believed to be beyond in some unfathomable distance away?

Sri Aurobindo : “Life, not a remote silent high-uplifted ecstatic Beyond-Life alone, is the field of our yoga. The transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling, and being into a deep wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life must be its central purpose. The means towards this supreme end is a self-giving of all our nature to the Divine.”

Where to start?

Sri Aurobindo : “All must be done as a sacrifice, all activities must have the One Divine for their object and the heart of their meaning .. to express that One Divine in ideal forms, the One Divine in principles and forces, the One Divine in gods and men and creatures and objects.

“All life is consciously or subconsciously a yoga. Yoga is a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression of the secret potentialities latent in the being and – highest condition of victory in that effort – a union of the human individual with the universal and transcendent Existence we see partially expressed in man and in the Cosmos. All life is also a vast Yoga of Nature who attempts in the conscious and the subconscious to realise her perfection in an ever-increasing expression of her yet unrealised potentialities and to unite herself with her own divine reality. In man, her thinker, she for the first time upon this Earth devises self-conscious means and willed arrangements of activity by which this great purpose may be more swiftly and puissantly attained. Yoga, as Swami Vivekananda has said, may be regarded as a means of compressing one's evolution into a single life or a few years or even a few months of bodily existence.

 “This is life's true object: growth, but a growth of the spirit in Nature, affirming and developing itself in mind, life and body; possession, but a possession by the Divine of the Divine in all things, and not of things for their own sake by the desire of the ego; enjoyment, but an enjoyment of the  Divine Ananda in the universe; battle and conquest and empire in the shape of a victorious conflict with the Powers of Darkness, an entire spiritual self-rule, and mastery over inward and outward Nature, a conquest by Knowledge, Love and Divine will over the domains of the Ignorance.”

Once taken in all seriousness the average man's Soul, known as the Annamoy Purusa (food sheathe), starts a ascending journey and emerges as Pranamoy Purusa (vital sheathe or mental soul) when he undergoes a sea change in his attitude to life. The next station for the Soul to conquer is the domain of Jnanamoy Purusha (knowledge soul), and then to Vijnanamoy Purusa and then to Anandamoy Purusa, the domain of the blissful Brahman, the Satchchidananda. On reaching this stage a soul finds itself as the Lord of the universe, not a spark or a part, but the whole of it.

It is said that a protoplasm takes eight to 11 million years of its soul's evolutionary process to emerge as a human being. There is no fixed time limit for humans to hit the divine high. If Swami  Vivekananda's words are  any pointer, it could take a life time, or a few years, or a few months, with the help of yoga.

Yoga has exacting rules which my battered body can no longer be subjected to. Still I am on to it as far as practicable under the circumstances. May be a few life times more for me. But I am on my way. Thank God for the battering on my body which gave me this unique turn towards liberation. Every time I am required to be sent back to this world, to the lap of Mother Shakti, God, batter my body harsher than before, but, pray, every time I must emerge as a more perfect instrument to “unveil the Godhead here, ihaiva,” as the Upanishad insists. 

Written by Tapas Mukherjee

A Day in the Ladies Club –

It was one of those days when the weather makes you feel light and dizzy with happiness…. I walked into the club with Swati – both splitting up over the memory of the time we played ‘mistress and pet’. She the mistress (of course) and me the pet walking behind her in a leash, in all fours, barking whenever she wanted me to!!! I gave in because of the temptation of a treat she had promised later! How convincing was my sister? And more importantly, how greedy was I??

The club was bright with the sunlight flooding in through the floor to ceiling windows. I immediately spotted Sulekha and Rimly, sipping on some kind of a beverage and looking blissful in each other’s company. While I headed towards them Swati hollered at Dichen and asked if she had any “churpis” she could spare. Dichen, happily fished out a packet from her bag and settled for a chat, completely forgetting the article she was working on. Alpana, the always caring one, carefully folded the paper for Dichen and put it in her handbag.

By the time I reached “Imly with an R” chatting with her outlier, Chokher had just dropped in and was humming a catchy tune, which I couldn’t get out of my head for a long long time. In no time the three were discussing literature and poetry with a vengeance. The topic immediately grabbed the attention of Tuladhar who was reading Emily Dickenson in one corner of the room and imagining living the poetess’ life.  In no time Yoshay walked in and amazed everybody with her latest poem. While the chat here was too tempting to leave – I wanted to go around and say hello to all my other gals.

I saw a group at the center of the club, dressed to kill and ready for the world. They were so loud that one couldn’t help but get a little inquisitive about the topic of their conversation. Ronita was talking about her assistant. “Its preposterous” she was saying, “can you imagine living a life when most of your family is in the prison?? My assistant is the only one out of that hell hole and with a corporate job!!” Swati Coomar, looked at Ronita with amazement and shrugged wondering about the assistant. Pallavee said “really good of you to hire her Ronda! Who cares what her background is, when she herself is so bright and capable?” Suchandra was having second thoughts but was not really ready to make up an opinion. Zarbin sat there looking at everybody but really somewhere else. Next to her Srijana was busy making the most fantastic caricature of everyone around her. I took Anusha by the hand and introduced her to the group. She reminded me of Pallavee in so many ways and I was curious to see them together now. Pam immediately took the charge of making Anusha feel at home while Pratibha poured some tea to welcome her in. 

In another part of the club Rima was laughing uncontrollably about Lona’s remarks about sex and other things! Lona was saying, “If I don’t find someone soon, I’m going to start getting cobwebs down there!” She always had a way of saying things. I looked at both of them fondly (my oldest friends from school). Rina joined us and we were soon reminiscing about how we would sip steaming cups of tea while chatting for hours together in Rima’s room, overlooking the entire range of hills in Darjeeling! “ Do you remember?” asked Rina, “Rima and her ex-boyfriend would signal each other with flashlights from one hillock to the other at night!” reminded Rina. That topic was just the beginning of a long lazy afternoon of reminiscing. 

Out in the courtyard, Bhavna was sitting in the cozy corner with a group of friends, absorbing all the sunlight she possibly can. I looked at her and thought – this is probably the only way she can get warmth and take something. Mostly she is the one sharing the warmth and always giving. Giving selflessly and innocently…. For a person like her only the Sun has the power to give back. 

Gargi, Melissa and Ankana, Sukanya and Priyadarshini were talking about a project in Bangalore that went awry. Sukanya was hell-bent on bringing out the lighter aspects of things as usual – making the environment infectious with her laughter. I joined the group and hugged my little cousin, Ankana. “Do you know” I said to Melissa, “this brat here would pee on the floor when she was 2 and then call the maid to clean the area when was done!! It would make my grand-dad crazy to wonder how she managed to ask the maid to clean her mess, when she couldn’t even say “wanna go pee-pee”!” I had just finished the story, when I caught the glare coming from my little cousin, excused myself and got ready to leave. 

As I was leaving I head Gargi saying “oh common! There is nothing to be embarrassed about! We all have similar stories from childhood!” Priya agreed saying “no one is going to judge you based on what you did when were two, Ankana! In fact why do you care about judgments anyway?” Melissa quickly helped by changing the subject to my relief.  I thanked God for people like them as I left, looking forward to the time when my cousin and I can laugh about the matter; just like we laughed about everything else together.

Lavina had just walked in with Kanwal and Nina. I was so delighted to see this bunch that I almost tripped over while going to greet them! Kanwal had brought some samples of her latest recipes for us and the smell was making me drool. Nina had the most interesting insight on a particular film noir. I was already a fan of her blog and now I was hearing it straight from her. I almost wanted to take notes!!! Lavina, of course, added value to anything she approached. I  kept hearing my heart say  – I wanna be like Lavina, I wanna be like Lavina, I wanna be like Lavina!!! 

In a while I just walked past everybody and everything. I stood in a corner, looked around and thought to myself “this is where I want to be”.  My heart filled with joy as I saw Reshmi hugging Sulekha, Payal listening to Eva’s stories, Denka discussing a medical question with Kukula, Candida and Preetu sharing their interest in singing, Priscilla discussing her next story for the magazine. This was a room full of talent, love, sharing and giving. I saw myself in everybody there. I saw myself in their laughter, their struggles, their courage, their vulnerability. I was all of them and all of them were me.  

howaboutthis: To do or not to do

howaboutthis: To do or not to do: "Procrastination - an age old tragic flaw - a favorite of Shakespeare - a convenient temporary escape for most. Its a mental state of mind ra..."

To do or not to do

Procrastination - an age old tragic flaw - a favorite of Shakespeare - a convenient temporary escape for most. Its a mental state of mind rather than a deliberate decision. They say procrastination happens when the action/result for which you are procrastinating is an undesirable one. Hence if opening that envelope means seeing a bill which will burn a whole in my pocket - lets just not open it. Its the ostrich behavior - when you can't see the world, maybe the world can't see you. But there is a huge problem - THEY CAN (AND YOU WILL HAVE TO PAY THAT BILL.)

Most of us had a list of to dos when we started out on a career path - some of us a mental one and the more focused a physical laminated one. Well first of all it took me the first 6-7 years of my life to get that list. When I did, it was a scrap of paper - which I think I still may be able to fish out of a carton box somewhere. But since that is going to depress the hell out of me I will procrastinate on it and be happy for the ticked ones against the mental note. Leading that list are happy ticks against:

1. keeping in touch with all my friends
2. having a place I can call home
3. having a daughter who has changed my whole perspective of life
4. being independent at work

Procrastination is the only shell I have when faced with scary destinations. Let me stay here a while please...

Red in Legerdemain

It was long ago in a city, beyond the beyond, called Legerdemain, that a certain incident brought chaos in the lives of the bored gentry there. It was a gray city surrounded with gray walls and even grayer people. Early mornings wrapped in fog would hear the whistle of the tea kettle that would awaken the sultry people to go and look for what they had to - jobs, lives, food, company, (monotonous regularity?). Scraps of newspaper filled the cobbled streets that saw many a heavy boot stub and kick cigarette butts to the sidewalk. And so would begin the day.....
In that town lived a certain man named Henrick. All of thirty five he was burdened with 5 children, a heavy set woman for a wife and an old mother who was getting sicker every day. His occupation of a street newspaper vendor was just a mere band-aid for a wound that was oozing blood and puss.
As was the ritual, Henrick woke up unenthusiastically that morning, gobbled down the dry crust of bread with tea and headed to where his cart was parked. While dragging himself there he suddenly remembered a dream he had dreamt the night before. Or was it a dream? He recalled the roar of a car engine in the middle of the night and thought it was rather odd. The nights in Legerdemain were dead - not even an owl’s hoot dared to interrupt the silence. But being only half awake he had not given it much of a thought then. Now, however, he couldn't get it out of his mind. He played with the thought obsessively as if trying to solve a murder case!
Around afternoon when he had sold about 15 papers and ensured a small meal for the family, he thought of wrapping up and heading to the nearest barber shop. No this was not a customary visit to indulge, but the last stop where he had to drop a few papers for the customers. Of course the coveted cup of coffee that the owner sometimes handed him was impetus enough.
Rupert, the owner of the barber shop was carefully fond of Henrick. He did not want to buy Henrick's miseries but always looked forward to his company. The shop was particularly empty today with just a couple of people striving to look better. Somewhere a dusty gramophone made a grumpy sound akin to music. Henrick and Rupert sat together on high customer salon chairs and acknowledged each other with a nod. "Did you hear the car last night?" asked Rupert in almost a whisper. Henrick looked on while being internally relieved of his dilemma. "They say it belonged to a business tycoon who wants to set up a brothel in town." Henrick's eyes widened. "There is a congregation tomorrow at the church to vote the evil goons out. 11.00 a.m. sharp they say."
The next day the church was cluttered. Every inch of space was occupied with people who were almost alleviated with the confusion! They chatted so happily that momentarily the matter at hand was almost forgotten. It took about an hour to get everyone's attention and start the dialogue. Men, women and children all spoke at the same time and when the end of the day arrived - there was no consensus. The conglomeration decided to get together a second time. When the same end was met the second day, the town heads and seniors only came to one conclusion - they should return to their fateful shells and watch. Nothing could be done - there was too much excitement in a gathering. People just couldn't get enough of each other.
Months passed by and Legerdemain witnessed the birth and growth of a whole enterprise right in front of their eyes. The roaring of loud car engines continued all night along and brick by brick there grew a Red Mansion in the gray town. People looked on as more and more women made the forbidden mansion their habitat. It was on one of those days that a lady approached Henrick and asked for newspapers to be delivered there. "Certainly, and his cart will go over my dead body" hollered Henrick's wife from her kitchen window, while the old mother let out a groan from inside.
The woman, with some air of solace around her, quietly handed Henrick a crumpled piece of paper and left. '20 - Legerdemain Posts to be delivered to Celia' it said.  Henrick set out an hour early the next day, went straight toward the red mansion, his legs trembling with excitement, his face pale with anxiety. A quick comparison of the brothel in his head, with the one now standing in front of him, made him feel stupid. The place was nothing like he had imagined. The building that seemed to be an eye sore for months together, ruining people's peace and adding forbidden thoughts of color in their minds, seemed to be beckoning him with the kind of warmth that he was not familiar with. The shame he felt at that moment only forced his curious legs to move on and when half way towards the door, he noticed a lady inside. Upon seeing him, she hurriedly ran inside and brought out a quilt - a deliciously warm and intricately handmade quilt. She then rushed towards Henrick and nudged him inside.
"It’s not what you think Miss" Henrick managed to splutter. "It's not what you think Sir" retorted the lady after succeeding to bring him inside and forcing him on to a polished dark wood chair. She asked him to wait, disappeared and came back with Celia. "You must help us stop this", the latter immediately ordered, addressing Henrick. "We have come a long way to work here not to be punished by your people." Henrick looked on as if watching a thriller, his heart in his mouth now!"Will you give me your word that you will come back with your wife tomorrow sir? Please?"
"What does she have to do with any of this? The other day she was just being a wife you know? She didn't mean no harm. This is between you and me and I just wanted to give you the newspapers you wanted. Now if you will be kind enough to pay me, I will take your leave," Henrick demanded.
"You don't understand Sir, we are here to help you and your wife, the people of this town. You don't get it. Look at this quilt - this is what we are here for. We are mostly widows and spinsters that have invented and developed this technique of handiwork and we are here to teach this to your women. So they can learn and make a better living out of it. Show this to your wife and explain that. Only you and your wife can do this for us. Please I beseech you! The children of Legerdemain throw stones at us. You must help us get out of this shell and live a respectable life," the lady explained all in one breath. Henrick started with a whimper and then ended up laughing long enough to make up for a lifetime of sordid existence.
The next day a group of 12 women went to the mansion and did not return till dusk. When they did return nothing was the same again. There were smiles on their faces, there were colors at home, and there was life. The men were both relieved and disappointed! The women had stumbled upon a treasure that would make posterity proud. Soon they produced hundreds of quilts everyday that were sent out of town to be sold, exported, copied and envied upon. As happens with the oncoming of wealth things like hygiene, education, nutrition and health care quickly became the buzz everywhere. Hospitals, schools, malls, and other businesses wanted to associate with the developing "quilt town". The cobbled streets of Legerdemain were painted red. And lo and behold, along with this came a real brothel followed by many more. Like I said nothing was the same again.
 That was a long long time ago. Now all that remains is a secret. Somehow the legend of the Red Mansion in the gray town slowly got entangled in a wiry confusion. It ended up being re-christened the "lowly Red Mansion that ALSO made quilts". Even though the town prospered solely because of the revolution started by the women there, it became important for political reasons, to disguise the quilts labeled "Made in Legerdemain" with other decorative tags. While the new brothels prospered the Red Mansion remained the “gray area” in town.

The Ritual of Food (with a pinch of salt)

"But why do I have to eat in stages?" I asked. Everybody looked at me with the kind of disbelief that is created at the slip of a profanity, in the presence of elders. No one spoke for the rest of the meal. Later each member of my family took turns in trying to put sense into me. What my grand mom said amounted to aping the apes, literally. She maintained, "In the pre-historic ages our primate-ancestors, with their innate but intimate feeling of the vegetation around them, always ate in stages. First the bitter berries, then the leaves and fruits and finally the sweet berries. How can you question their wisdom?" My mother asked me how else is one supposed to taste the different preparations? "I mean", she said, "I might as well then just put everything together while making it, if you don't want the taste of each individual dish. " Someone else said it helped the digestion process. But the reasoning centering the tradition appealed to me the most. It not only just came down the ages and established itself as an unquestioned rule but has also survived the vagaries of evolution. There is not wonder then that a traditional Bengali menu starts with 'Sukto' (bitter) followed by 'Shagvaja' (fried leaves) and culminates in sweets. The space between bitter and sweets has been filled by Bengal's own evolution, and the contribution left by invading Turk, Afghan, Moghal and British rulers. Like this unwritten rule, there are hundreds more. It could have been the history, tradition, habit, influence or anything really that gives you the feeling of the on flow of time. Food is the primary factor around which every Bengali's life revolves. Ma likes to discuss the menu of the next course while she is serving the present meal! My father in law wants to know what he should get from the market the next day even while he is putting his bags down from his present trip to the market! Food is in fact one of the most engrossing topics of serious discussions in which, politics, literature, oil prices, current affairs is also dealt with. One can never let that go. Calcutta a land of lawyers, doctors, poets, artists, engineers and scholars is also the haven of the food lover. The demands of the palate have given birth to a myriad of dishes at every nook and corner of every street. We find an excuse, of the use of food even over and above just consuming it. I have found myself at a loss more than once, when I have had to explain the fish adorned with 'sindoor' and nose ring at Bengali marriages. Because it's pure, is all I could say, more to plunge into an escape route before the next inevitable question popped up. My father put my agony to rest one day, while casually discussing the history of different recipes. All along the stages of evolution, Bengalis had an abundance of land and water along with matching weather conditions perfectly conducive to growing rice in plentiful. So rice and fish naturally became a source of sustenance. This eventually proved so profitable that growing wheat for many became an agrarian responsibility much below their dignity! Hence even at present and for many years to come fish will remain the symbol of prosperity, sustainability and health. The presence of fish will mean a full life and Bengalis will believe this forever. There are other confusing habits of course, which one can ponder about at length! My brother in law, a Bengali to the bone, will cancel his appointment for the day if he hears the mention of a banana on his way out. My mother will never fail to make "payesh" on my birthday. My Bengali friend will end all his meal with "mishti doi'. And all of them will mark fish as the most important part of their meal. The entire world knows that Bengalis and fish go together. But it is amazing how Bengali fish and spices can go together. Bengalis cook fish with poppy seeds or mustard seeds or just mustard oil and 'kala jeera', with ginger, onions and tomatoes or spices one may never imagine. My favorite is the fish steamed with mustard seeds ('Bhapa Maach'). That with rice gives me the satisfaction that I never feel with any other combination. It takes just about 15 minutes of swirling in the microwave. The ingredients that go in this dish of relish for zillions of Bengalis is below: 1. ½ pound Hilsa /Prawn/Cat Fish 2. 2 ½ table spoons of Mustard seeds 3. 8 (take in as much as you can take)Green Chillies 4. 2 table spoons of Yogurt 5. 2 table spoons of Mustard Oil 6. Salt to taste 7. 1 tea spoon of Turmeric powder Procedure: 1. Marinate the fish with ½ teaspoon turmeric and salt for 5-10 minutes 2. Grind mustard seeds and green chillies together to a fine paste 3. Mix thoroughly yogurt, salt, mustard oil and turmeric powder to the paste 4. Gently add the mix the to the fish 5. Slit green chillies length wise and sprinkle it on top 6. Microwave the concoction for 10-12 minutes. 7. Serve hot with rice

My Fairy's Rescue

As a kid I was convinced that little fairies fluttered around me. They were always there - colorful and shapeless little things. Everywhere I saw. Some even stayed on when I closed my eyes. I knew I was special then as none of my other friends seemed to see them. This was the sole reason  I lost many friends and gained a few believers. They wanted me to ask the fairies questions - "Will I pass my math test?", "Will my Dad give me the picnic money?", "Will my Grand Dad live another day?". For the most part I would take this seriously and will my mind to make the fairies reply. This was the other reason I lost some of my friends and gained some more.

One day my Dad got the whiff of this and decided to interrogate me. He still believes in my dreams and encourages them generously, no matter how ridiculous it seems. However, this, he thought, needed to be investigated. "So darling - tell me more about your fairies", he started. "Well", I said, they are everywhere and are sent by God to protect me in this universe." "Are they here now?" "Of course they are." "Where exactly?" "Here is a red and purple one, there is a blue and green one, a black spot around there..." I continued, rolling my eyes in different directions to indicate my fairy's habitat. The next day I was taken to the opthamologist and was prescribed a pair of glasses with a really high power. A week later the glasses arrived and gifted me a perfect view of the world. Everything that was normal to me even a second before shone in a new light. The tension in my cheeks, from squinting too often, seemed to relax almost immediately. 

I looked at my Dad with complete awe and surprise and just when I was ready to word my feeling, I realized the fairies had disappeared!! None of them were there - I suddenly felt alone and insecure. I quickly opened my glasses and they promptly came back. The result - I tried to avoid my glasses as often as possible. As life rolled on though, it seemed more important to be seeing the world more clearly than my little fairies. Soon they lost any relevance to my existence and became a favorite family joke. 

Fast forward to the time when I was in Delhi working and living by myself. I was a pro at contact lenses by then. Soon enough fate presented my husband to me and after quickly falling in love we (along with a couple of my girlfriends) decided to rent an apartment together. Wasn't he the lucky one? 

Fast forward to the time when me and my then boyfriend (husband now) sat in his bedroom sorting out bills and discussing the budget for the next month. It was a cool Delhi night. We sat on his bed and let the breeze come in through the veranda. It was late and I let my guards down by taking off my lenses and letting my eyes breathe. Since I was blind as a bat then, he did the calculations while I uselessly ranted about things. My mind was in another place where I was walking hand in hand with my love and weaving our entire life together (over and over again). Floyd's voice in the background ensured uninterrupted flow of the romantic preview to my future. Somehow somewhere my memory of the fairies came back and so did they - crystal clear and real. Just in seconds, I suddenly saw a white sheet appear blocking my view from the veranda. It moved downwards from the ceiling of the veranda as if in slow motion. My pulse started racing and I finally managed a scream. 

I believe now that this time the fairies had come back to save and protect someone else through me. It turned out that the sheet was a man trying to commit suicide from the terrace upstairs!! My husband had reacted to my scream quick enough and like a superman with 20:20 vision had flown to the site and to his rescue. A slip disk that my husband had suffered just a day earlier loomed as a huge detrimental factor to the rescue of the man. However, he managed a tight grip of the rail to lean forward and pull the man right from mid-air on to the veranda - all with a screech of gritted teeth to the floor. A hero indeed! I watched everything with an open  mouth and a foggy gaze! I would have let the sheet flow into the breeze and reach its destination but something had prompted me to scream. 

The man we saved, lives now and is a happy employee of the Indian Navy. 

Pin Drop Chaos

When the pin dropped - all hell broke loose.

She walked with such dignity and eloquence. The sparkles in her 6 inch heel glittered like blood diamonds, her gown followed her like a faithful shadow - reverential and proud at the same time. Her corset did its job fearfully, while other women in the room gaped at the narrow waist. Her long neck adorned the most precious jewels that tricked the onlooker to her perfect bosom.

And her hair - her hair was the masterpiece. Tied up in a mammoth bun that could hold the world inside it. I thought her hair was bigger than Pam's summer hat (which was the biggest thing I had seen a head ever show off). She slithered from one conversation to the next with ease. All made space for her and would even feel belittled if she was not seen in their company.

Patrick, the quick to comment, shrewd yet humorous hedge-fund owner, was quick to knock on opportunity's door when she seemed at an approachable distance. His introduction went something to the extent "Hello Madam, my name is Patrick. I roll in money for a living and I am for real - are you?" She fluttered her eye lashes and after taking a long drag of her even longer slim brown cigarette said "I hope you get an opportunity to find out soon. In the meantime, I make a hell out of men's lives for a living. That reminds me I hope my maid put on that cruel red velvet and black satin bed linen for tonight. I so hate stale linen." Patrick wasn't as quick this time, he scratched his head and came straight to the point. "What are you doing later?"

She was earlier approached by Guy, a thinker and a philosopher - rich because of the friends he had and normal because of his analytical skills. He had invited her to be his date at his sister's wedding later that week. However, at this point she saw Shekhar staring at her lustfully from a distance. His wife close behind kept an eye on him while being utterly gracious with the audience around her. Shekhar, is the guy all the men in that room wanted to be. He was an industrialist and a financial analyst and Forbes 3rd richest man in the East coast. There were many that wanted him to be put to shame because they couldn't be him. Many shook his hand and made smart conversation while internally plotting his murder. Shekhar had not been fair with his men. He had fired ruthlessly, sued mercilessly and even shattered dreams of many a fulfillment for his benefit. Yet no one had the courage to focus the spotlight on him. They wanted him to love them.

"Who is someone you absolutely cannot stand in this room Patrick?" she asked. Patrick had fallen under her inquiring eyes and had immediately forgotten himself. He had wanted her to see him naked inside out from the moment he laid eyes on her. He now scanned the room with precision and started opening his heart out to her. He chatted about Jorge and his beautiful keep, about Tim and his obsession with real estate, Christopher's dyslexic mother, Nelly and her kind heart, Sonata's passion in art and finally Shekhar and his hatred for him. There was nothing evident at all that could tarnish his fortified reputation. All knew him but "not really". He won all the pitches and the girls. He had once made fun of Patrick, in front of his mother. This was when Patrick was in the hospital with a broken leg. The hurt of the leg was made manifold by Shekhar's sarcastic comments. Patrik was never able to forget that and was always in the look out for a chance to avenge it. "You got it" she said. "What?" asked Patrik. "I come today and only today in your life. You will never see me again. But you are doomed to love me for the rest of your life. To answer your earlier question - you wouldn't want to be with me later." And with a caressing stroke on his cheek she moved on to get a drink. Patrick stood there bewildered and shaken by the prophecy.
She got the dry Italian wine she wanted at the bar when Sonata came to get her drink and introduce herself. Soon after the introductions Sonata was on the attack of a verbal diarrhea regarding upcoming styles in oil paints and reputable artists who had not really made it yet. Soon enough Shekhar joined the club. He sent Sonanta off with a "Here you are my love! Harry's looking everywhere for you regarding that 4 x 7 ft oil on canvas". With that Sonata was history and the two that were the souls of the gathering stood eye to eye.
Shekhar got down to business soon, "I don't have much time with this conversation Madam. I would very much like to know you better. I am leaving for a conference in the Hamptons on Thursday. I would love for you to come with me for the weekend and be a judge to my culinary talents". "I don't think that can happen. I am on a diet Shekhar and I don't want anything to break my routine", she said. "In that case how about I reschedule just for you and we go to my vineyard in Mayodan? I see you do like your wine". So much for a man with such reputation. He had fallen for her in no time and now stood begging pathetically. She looked up as if trying to choke a laughter and then turned away almost rudely. When she faced him she was red with some kind of emotion that could not be defined. It looked like she was going to faint.
Everywhere else it looked peaceful where a war was actually going on. The women writhing with jealousy and the men with lust. The awkward air was heavy with sentiments when it happened.

Never had anyone heard the sound of a pin fall so loud till that second. It slipped through her bun and undid the magic. Every strand of her hair that was undone sounded like a whip lash. Everyone waited with baited breath to see what happens next. The next 5 seconds could have been a lifetime. The bun came down not to her hip but to the floor. Scalp and all. And there stood my friend Shawn in his undone Halloween costume - laughing and crying at the same time.

Patrick was avenged alright.