Man bites dog

On one ordinary Saturday evening, Shekhar’s life passed…one minute he was there and the next he was gone.

Then two years later, my Mom’s life passed…one moment she was there and the next she was gone.

Each time I lost more than the people I loved. I lost a definition. I moved from wife to widow in an instant, from child to…I am still looking for a new way to define myself.

After Shekhar, I lost the will to live. It was the singular thought of my children that kept me going. Until Mom… when to bypass the pain and angst I experienced after Shekhar, I decided to throw myself at life and living. I forgot definitions and said yes to everything that came my way – new job, travel, responsibility and obligation. In a ‘man bites dog’ frame of mind, I reacted, attacked and engaged with life. By ‘man bites dog’ I mean jumping into situations that are against your nature and norm that unnecessarily complicate what could have been easier if you just let sleeping dogs lie…

This has been my life for the past two years. Now, I realize allowing the pendulum to swing from one extreme to another has not helped. It is time to regroup and reassess. Time to find the centre. Time to redefine. Time to forge a bond with myself. Time to let go of the dog.

As we draw near to what would have been Shekhar’s 50^th birthday, the boys and I have taken a leap from our errand based lives to create new memories. To overlay the sadness with a new map…it is not just a time to look forward but also a time to look back and see just how far we have come. I have been afraid to do that…what if I turn back and he is just a speck on the horizon. What if we have come too far…

***

For too much of my life 
I have been a noun; 
child, boy, man, father, whatever; 
nouns of identity. 
Often, preceded by too many adjectives…

I exist through my living, 
not because of some label. 
Descriptives enhance mind pictures, 
but do not define the essence of my spirit. 
I am living. I am being. 
I am not a noun. 
I am a verb. 

—From I am a verb by Gene McParland, North Babylon, NY

Still buffering...

As I looked to upgrade the technology of our PC from the old to the new, I came upon an app the boys already knew about. In my excitement I complained, “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” Our younger son, always quick with his repartee told me, “Mom, when it comes to technology, you are still buffering…”

I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t take offence…just the vision of myself trapped in the ever turning hourglass, the little spinning wheel and the ever so slow increasing scale of the buffer was and still is enough to make me chuckle.

It was a very profound analogy on so many levels. In the four years since Shekhar, I have had to reconstruct everything in my life. Every day when I feel more confident about something, I am equally frustrated by the lack of progress on another. It is hard to build when you are trying to leave space for someone who is no longer there. How do you accommodate a memory? Still I have soldiered on…stretched, challenged, redefined, fallen apart and put myself together again. I have no long term vision now, no five and ten year plans like I had with Shekhar, so in the true sense, I am still buffering for a life in the absence of a better half.

As the boys achieve new milestones, grow out of their schoolboy skins into young men…I have realized they are buffering too…for new beginnings, challenges and adulthood. We are all works in progress. As a salute to the times, where technology defines your vocabulary...buffering for me now is just another name for living. 

***

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

Father Alfred D’Souza

Outsourced...

We go through life pushing ourselves to achieve and accomplish...goals, dreams, milestones. When we are weak, we look outside ourselves for someone to motivate us, believe in us...be our champion.

I recently saw a popular British comedian push himself beyond his physical limitations on television. As his feet dragged and energy flagged towards the end, family and cheering supporters egged him on. His triumph over physical odds would  not have been possible had he not outsourced his motivation to those who believed he could do it. He drank from the well of their strength, support and belief. I used to drink from the well of Shekhar's belief in me. He saw in me what I could not see...he was my champion, my motivator, the one who helped me overcome what he liked to call my 'ignition problems.'

I also outsourced my prayers to my mother. She had a better connect with God and made my case to Him when I could not. She spent long hours communing with God, sharing, requesting, cajoling, begging on our behalf - for our success, our happiness, our place in the world. It was enough for me to know I always had someone in my corner - no questions asked. That she had God on her side was just a bonus. When I found her letters among old photographs the other day, her prayers and blessings floated off the yellowed pages.

These were my people.

Today, as we began the akhand path to mark Shekhar's fourth death anniversary on April 19, I missed my mother standing by my side, praying for me and my children. I missed drawing on Shekhar's strength. God has taken my people.

I have now decided to bypass the physical and directly outsource my strength, motivation and prayer to God. Although I struggle to trust Him again, He has brought me this far...it is time to let go and let God.

***

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones. And when you have finished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Victor Hugo

How can He be perfect?

Everything He ever makes...dies!

George Carlin

In the name of the father...

In his 1991 book Immortality, Milan Kundera wrote, "We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't understand our name at all, we don't know its history and yet we bear it with excited fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration." I only realized the import of this quote I had extracted long ago when I sat in the cold at our younger son's citation ceremony.

As the names were announced one by one, the children came on to the stage to receive their citation. My heart burst with pride in the anticipation of seeing our son being commended. He did, to a mispronunciation of our surname. In one fell swoop, one significant moment of ignorance and brazen callousness not only had Shekhar  been erased from my son's name but he had changed origin, community and state.

Man leaves very little behind when he dies. The tangibles change ownership, age, fray or become useless. Only the intangibles remain. The memories, the love, the humanity...the name.

What's in a name? In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare wrote that it means little, except in essence. Yet when Juliet says, "Deny thy father and refuse thy name...'Tis but thy name that is my enemy," she refers to all the indefinables that come with a name. The name comes from the father. It signifies family honour. It represents lineage and loyalty.

To me our name matters...it anchors memory, defines who we are and says we belong. It is our unique identity, our signature, our introduction and...Shekhar's legacy.

I spoke to a friend the other day. It is sixteen years since she lost her husband. We spoke of many things but when the conversation veered to her husband, her breath caught on his name. Sixteen years and his name still had the power to keep him alive.

The boys have that power. They carry Shekhar in them...in every breath, fiber, cell and...in the name of their father.

***

A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.

Henry David Thoreau in the Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906)

Playing on heartstrings

In 2004, our older son requested my friend who was coming for a visit to bring him an acoustic guitar. She obliged, much to Shekhar's consternation. We had just bought a piano earlier in the year to make it easier for the boy to practice his scales.

Full credit to him, our son slowly, and rather painfully for us, taught himself how to play the guitar. Then on his next birthday he asked for an electric guitar. Shekhar balked. The boy seemed to be going through musical instruments at alarming speed. We went to the Music Store with Shekhar whining all the way to the cash counter. During the course of the next year, the accoutrements for the guitar grew - strings, picks, capos, fancy straps, carry-bags, a special tool kit, amplifiers, a wah-pedal, named very aptly, Cry Baby...mostly acquired when Shekhar was travelling so he couldn't complain.

Our son's guitar skills continued to grow. Some days Shekhar and I would watch in awe as his still chubby fingers moved along the frets...neither of us could play an instrument and we marvelled at how this musical genius had come from us. Of course, we were proud parents; anything he played would have sounded good.

Then...he asked for drums. This time even I resisted. But Shekhar indulged him and bought him an electronic set. As the house shook to the rhythm only our son could hear, Shekhar must have regretted his decision but he never showed it.

Yesterday, our son won his first competition and Shekhar isn't here to see how he has grown into this accomplished musician who plays seven instruments with consummate ease and composes heart rending melodies dedicated to him. He does not know that he has built this beautiful talent, given it soul.

I didn't get to see our son perform yesterday, only college students could attend. I don't believe there are any such restrictions on spirits...Shekhar must have been there, with tears of pride welling in his eyes. I know...because my happiness is tinged with the salt of his tears...

***

Ring the bells that still ring,

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything,

That's how the light gets in.

From Anthem by Leonard Cohen

A tiger by its tale

Some old photographs fell out of a book I pulled out from the shelf the other day. I almost did not recognize myself. There was one in which I was sitting astride a live tiger, smiling with abandon at the camera - a photo opportunity in a Far Eastern zoo. It brought back sharp memories of the instant at which it was taken. I could still smell the carrion breath of the tiger, feel its course fur beneath my fingers, the cold metal of its restraints against my arm, hear the loud beating of my heart and experience the rush of doing a brave and foolish thing impetuously. It got me thinking...

I was made brave by one man, who stood outside the frame of the camera. He held his breath and counsel, waiting to jump in should anything go wrong. Nothing did. As I jumped off the big cat with the help of its trainer, I remember Shekhar held me for a long time...no words, no judgement just a calm reassurance that all was well. I recall many instances of being brave and foolish like that in our years together - sometimes it was me, sometimes it was Shekhar.

Psychologist Arthur Aron at Stony Brook University, New York says it is not just feelings of love and loyalty that keep couples together, he speculates that the level of commitment may depend on how much a partner enhances your life and broadens your horizons. He calls this concept 'self expansion'. It is based on how much a partner provides a source of exciting experiences, makes you a better person and how much a partner is viewed as a way to expand one's own capabilities. Aron says, "We enter relationships because the other person becomes part of ourselves and that expands us."

Being with Shekhar expanded me, my life and my mind. I was a better person with and because of him. What the research does not tell you is that after the partner is gone you are left with a life of shrinking proportions that your mind and self do not fit any more. I find myself trying to define who I am without Shekhar and it is hard to explain the sinkhole in my identity left by his sudden departure.

Now, as life expands and shrinks at the same time, I tread on uncharted territory. Some days it is like walking off a cliff without a net, on others there is a comfortable familiarity in doing things in ways that Shekhar enabled. Even without him, I have realized that I continue to grow in new and unexpected ways. In the persistent uncertainty of my life, sitting on a tiger has become a guiding metaphor. I do it in some way or another everyday...with the belief in a guardian angel, who stands outside the frame, ready to jump in should anything go wrong.

***

A man's mind expanded to a new idea never returns to its original dimensions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

*

There was young lady of Niger

Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;

They returned from the ride

With the lady inside,

And a smile on the face of the tiger.

William Cosmo Monkhouse (1840-1901)

For everything else, there's MasterCard

I have found little reason to laugh in the past two years, nothing really amuses me. But then I have always been a little on the serious side. Shekhar lightened me...with him around, the house was full of laughter. His humour was gentle, witty and sometimes just plain silly but it was always funny. Even at the time that he passed, our older son thought Shekhar was playing the fool until the truth hit him. How does one laugh again after what has happened? Where is the humour? The laughter? What is funny? Then just like that one day you find...

I stood at the front door, car keys in hand; ready to leave the house on time so that our younger son could get to his cricket practice. I called out to him impatiently then stomped through the house looking for him. My irritation increased when my mobile rang just then. It was him. "Mom," he said, "Could you please open your bedroom, you've locked me in." A bubble rose through my chest and became full blown laughter as I let him out. This was the first time I found something worth a laugh in the time since Shekhar.

It hasn't got easier but the bubble has risen a couple more times since. The time when the Bhaiji at the Gurudwara misread my prayer where I had said 'adchana door karniyan' as in 'remove obstacles' and he said instead 'Bibi Archana di ardas...' as in 'Archana's prayer is...' The irony that my fervent prayers were being said in someone else's name was not lost on me.

Yesterday, after two months of fretting with our maid who just didn't get our timetable for meals, I finally lost my cool. Pointing to the clock time and again I tried to make her understand how important it was to make sure that she served our meals on time. The poor thing looked at me and nodded...then lunch was served at 4 p.m. I stood raving and ranting for a full fifteen minutes before it struck me and I asked, "Do you know how to tell the time?" and she replied, "Nobody taught me..." I felt really ashamed, then I couldn't stop laughing at the situation and myself. I had presumed that knowing how to tell the time was a universal skill. Who would have thought...

A psychologist performed an experiment where he asked one set of subjects to tap out a tune with their fingertips on a table while the other set tried to guess what the tune was. Turns out that it was virtually impossible. The explanation - the person who tapped heard the whole orchestral music in his head but the other subject only heard rhythmic tapping...

I realize that my maid just heard my tapping and I presumed that she heard my orchestra... a metaphor for my grief and a life lesson. That I could laugh about it...priceless.

***

There is no laughter in the natural world

Of beast or fish or bird, though no sad doubt

Of their futurity to them unfurled

Has dared to check the mirth-compelling shout.

The lion roars his solemn thunder out

To the sleeping woods. The eagle screams her cry.

Even the lark must strain a serious throat

To hurl his blest defiance at the sky.

Fear, anger, jealousy, have found a voice.

Love's pain or rapture the brute bosoms swell.

Nature has symbols for her nobler joys,

Her nobler sorrows. Who dared foretell

That only man, by some sad mockery,

Should learn to laugh who learns that he must die?

Laughter And Death by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840-1922/ England)