Grand Bonds

(Oct 13 2003)

Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children. - Alex Haley

I miss going to the market place with my grandfather - holding his hand and watching him bargain with the shopkeepers. He would patiently explain how to pick the best vegetables from the lot.
"The pahakais should be medium green with as few bumps as possible. The dark green, bumpy ones are very bitter. You will not like the pitlai if its bitter now, will you?"
"The vendakai should be very tender. Do you know how to test if you picked the right one? Try bending the end of the lady finger. If it breaks off, its not as good. Paati makes the best vendakai curry, dont you think?"

Little did I realize that the object of my adoration would hear a few words from my grandmother once we got home and grandly produced the wares.
"Why did you get beans again?" "These pahakais look so sullen. And the vendakais look crunchy!" "Did you forget the keerai? I told you to get the menthiya keerai..." Fortunately, I was too young to realise that my grandfather was not the best shopper. I did not know this till much later, when my mother mentioned it in one our trips down memory lane. As far my young self was concerned, my grandfather could not do anything wrong.

I read somewhere that grandmas are moms with lots of frosting. My grandmother was a gentle soul. She did not say a single word when I plastered her hair with chewing gum while she was sleeping. My mother, on the other hand, was a totally different story while she cut off clumps of my grandma's hair. I remember that Paati would sit down with the 'aruvamanai' to cut mangoes into chunks for lunch. As I passed by, she would plant a mango piece in my palm - "Wash your hands after you eat that." We would wait for the power to go off at night-time. Crazy thought - now that I think of it - but no lights meant that there would be no serving at dinner. I do not know what the adults did, but dinner for the children was either outside on the patio or on the terrace. All the children would sit in a semi circle around my grandmother. She would make balls out of the prepared curd rice and plant it in each of our outstretched palms. She would wait for us to make a small indentation in the middle of the rice. She would then pour a little 'kozhambu' in it. We would take a bite of our 'narthanga' and gobble the rice up. Under the serene moonlight, even prasadam from the temple could not have been this divine.

I do not remember all that happened in my life, but it is amazing how the littlest of things gets stuck, somewhere in the crevices of my memory. And it is a magnificent discovery when I dig it out. One such discovery permanently archived in my memory is the "gudu-gudu-pandi" incident. For those of you who do not know what a "gudu-gudu-pandi" is, let me explain. They are gypsies who travel door to door telling fortunes for some money. They annouce their arrival at your door by jiggling their damrus - hour glass shaped drums- and loud singing in a dialect I could not follow. All the young things in the house were mortally scared of "gudu-gudu-pandis". Why? Because our mothers had told us that we had not been behaving like proper little children and that he was here to pick us up. That did not stop us from stealing glances at the quaint gypsy folk. Strings of beads around their necks, colorfully quilted rags - they did not look normal - so we were inclined to believe our mother's were telling the truth. At the sound of the damru at our neighbor's house, we would make a sprint to our grandmother. Somehow we knew she would not let us be taken away. We were not so sure about our mothers. At the sight of those frightened imploring eyes, my grandmother would shout at my mother. "Why do you scare little children like this? Go and give him some money and tell him that we dont have any bad children here." Yes, we knew we could count on her.

Years passed, I spent many a happy summer with my grandparents. At the end of every summer, when it was time to head back to school and 10 months of mundane life, it was always a painful parting. I would wave goodbye to my grandparents standing on the railway platform - bravely holding back glistening tears which refused to pop back in. Once the train started moving I would head up to the top berth and pretend to fall asleep - only then granting freedom to my tears. I did not want to them to know I was going to cry myself to sleep that night. I did not think they would miss me. But I sure was going to miss them and could not wait to see them again next year.

I was old enough to realise that people die. But I was still too young to comprehend what it was that I was going to lose. My mother had to leave in a hurry. I could see that she had been crying when I came back from school. My father told me that my grandmother had passed away. I said "OK, so are you also going with Amma?" It had not sunk in that I would not be seeing my grandmother again.

It struck me only when I went back for the summer. Everything seemed a little different. My grandfather seemed different. My mother and my aunts seemed different. The food was definitely different. I had lost my first grandparent.

As I grew older, vacations were spent improving myself academically. There was no time to waste two whole months on fun and frolic. Visits to my grandfather became shorter and less frequent.

Then, as if it all happened in one day, the soft patient voice began to slur. The swift sure feet began to wobble. The broad straight shoulders dropped. The sharp mind that could rattle off numbers and propose tax benefits to worried businessmen began to dull. I was losing my grandfather. He had withered away right before my eyes. I was going to lose another grandparent.

Grandparent-less I am now.

Glossary:
pahakai = bitter gourd
vendakai = lady finger
pitlai = vegetable gravy with coconut base
paati = grandmother
menthiya keerai = methi greens
aruvamanai = cutting tool with a blade attached at about 120 deg angle to a wooden base, used to cut vegetables and grate coconut
kozhambu = gravy, prepard with tamarind juice and spices
narthanga = dried and salted sweet lime pickle
prasadam = prasad, food offered to the devotees at the temple
Amma = mother

Aging Moments

(Oct 19 2003)

kya pata kab, kahaan se maaregi
bas, ki main zindagi se darta hoon
maut ka kya hai, ek baar maaregi
- Triveni, Gulzar

This moment, too, has gone.
Another has come creeping in. A queue - never ending, continuous.

I have a body that tries, very hard, to keep up with the world around.
A mind, that I wish, was less alert to the changes around me.

I have led a good life.
Many ladders I have climbed, many seas I have crossed.

In some moment past, I have sensed the importance of kind words.
I have been hurt and I have hurt. Accumulated moments such as these; I decided to take a step to the sidelines. The race was changing me - it was turning me into a stranger. That was when I first realized, I wanted a change in what life was offering.

I know I have, around me, people who care. I just don't know where they are.
My heart now bleeds.

I have lived a life so full, I ache.

Yes, I am a person. A person tired of living and the living. I have put in my time. But the clock keeps ticking. The hands keep on moving.

I want to change the next moment in the queue.

Yes, Life has delivered.
Everything, but, Death.

 
 Time is endless in thy hands, my lord.
 There is none to count thy minutes.
 Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers.
 Thou knowest how to wait.
 Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower.
 We have no time to lose,
 and having no time we must scramble for a chance.
 We are too poor to be late.
 And thus it is that time goes by
 while I give it to every querulous man who claims it,
 and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last.
 At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut;
 but I find that yet there is time.
   - Endless Time , Rabindranath Tagore

Happy Happy Days

(Dec 7 2003)

Those were happy days. Days spent playing with cousins. Every summer, the whole gang would gather at my maternal grandparents house. I used to eagerly await the start of the summer vacations. My vacations started in May, while my cousins started school in June. So effectively, we had one month of uninterrupted 24/7 time with each other. And, boy, did we make full use of it.

The only terrible part of summer that I can recall are the pages of holiday homework that I was saddled with. You see, I started off in the next class in March/April. So, our teachers gave us homework that would be assessed when we got back from our vacations. Sadists the whole lot of them!! We used to travel by train, so we carried cardboard boxes filled with the books that I would need to complete the work.

My sithi (maternal aunt), who was loved by all the little people, lived close by. (She is still our darling, darling aunt) She used to save up all her magazines, just so I could use it for my homework. I would cut out pages and pages of pictures. All the cousins would be roped in, ofcourse. Most of the cutting was just an exercise in wasting time, which we had a lot off. I recall that the whole lot would help me finish the day's quota of homework, just so we could get back to our game on the terrace. Yes. My mother's strict rules - one page of homework per day will get me the pass to play.

The last of the cousins - twins - were born one summer. When we got the phone call at home, we were all amazed. Twins!! We had twins as cousins!! Following summers, we would get up early, wash up and be ready in time to take them to their bus stops. Ten of us at the bus stop, to wave goodbye to the twins. And, we would beg my aunt to drive us to their school so we could pick them up. Surprisingly, they are remarkably unspoilt, inspite of all this attention.

So every summer, the gala event would be their birthday celebration. This huge crowd of relatives that would descend every summer was enough to make any party come alive. My aunt never had to invite anyone else. We would have, what we considered then to be fancy party food. The menu would include pulao, raita, appalams (papads), puri, chole and a variety of north indian dishes. Of course, curd rice, pickle and fried salted chilies. Payasam (kheer). Hot Gulab Jamuns. All in all, it used to be a royal feast. We would help decorate the terrace with balloons and crepe paper. Then bring it all down in the middle of the celebration. I don't think anybody minded it, atleast to our knowledge.

My uncle had his own accounting practice. He had rented the adjoining portion of the house and had set up his office there. The office was included within the boundaries of our play area. The head accountant, I think that's who he was, was an old brahmin, with his hair shaved on top in the front and a 'kudumi' (knot of hair). He would come to work in a spotless veshti (dhoti) and a white khadi shirt. He did not take kindly to our antics. One of us was often cornered in his room and subjected to one of his lectures on how we would never amount to anything if we continued jumping on office chairs and using office stationery to scribble nonsense. We took it all in stride. I am amazed now, that my aunt or uncle never complained inspite of all the ruckus we created. I like to think, they genuinely liked having us around.

My aunt's house was also the place we would run off to at lunch or snack time if what was served at my grandpa's was unsatisfactory. Podolanga or bottle gourd was definitely unsatisfactory. Another dish was 'uppuma kozhakatai', which to this day I cannot eat. It was our chance to have fancy fare at my aunt's.

Evenings we would often go out. Now, that was an exercise in logistics - transporting this whole army. My grandpa had a very trusted driver for his white Ambassador car. He was old and loved working for my grandfather. Our issue with him was that he would never drive beyond 'tortoise' speed. And also he was extremely partial. He would not let any of us touch the car, except for one of my cousins. Only that one cousin was deemed capable enough to touch the steering wheel and also put flowers to the small idol in the car. The rest of us were persona non grata. If we even so much as passed by the car, he would shout at us to stay clear and not get fingerprints on the body or the glass. Every morning when reporting for duty, he would take an aluminum bucket kept for him and fill it with water. He would spend an hour cleaning the car with a rag. The end result was a spotless shiny car. This driver would be easily disturbed if we made noise inside the car, or if we crumpled the towels he had tucked into the seats. I really think, he dreaded summers. It was with some sorrow when I learned that he had died of cancer. He used to visit us in the summer, even after he retired due to failing eyesight.

So the Ambassador would transport us to the park or to a restaurant or wherever it was that we would go in the evening with my uncles. We would enjoy just an evening out to a large playground in the city, where there was really nothing much to do except run around and then eat 'kilimooku maanga' (a type of hard mango). The mangoes would be slit and liberally applied with salt and chili powder mix. We would each get a mango. We used to go to the zoo, as well. On one of my recent visits, I happened to go back there. As an adult, I can say that it is a sorry excuse for a zoo. But, I do not ever recall having those thoughts as a kid running from one smelly cage to the next. Another summer tradition was the trip to Ooty. My grandfather would hire a couple of cars and the whole convoy would make the trip upto the hill station. We would pack a whole lot of food, to be eaten at the Botanical Gardens. It was very comforting as a child to do the same things every summer. The mothers refused to accompany us after a few years.

My aunts and my mother used to take us along with them for shopping. Not often enough, thankfully. I remember one such trip with one of my aunts. We had told those at home that we would be back to eat dinner. But then we had not realised that we would be shopping near that new fast food restaurant that had opened up. So we stuffed ourselves with yummy snacks like bread chole (which was a real novelty for us) and pav bhaaji. We had to devise a story to tell the people at home. We decided that we would just say that we were not hungry and quietly go off to sleep. When we got back home, one of my younger cousins fell apart even before any questioning could start, and she said that she was starving and that we had not eaten anything. So all of us had to eat a full dinner because of her. To this day, we tease her about this incident.

Sleeping arrangements were a lot of fun. We did not have enough beds but we had sheets and pillows for all. There was one spare bed in the house. Whoever got to sleep on that, could sleep late. The rest of us on the floor had to wake up to the insistent sound of the servant maid asking us to get up and clear the area. "Endri, Endri" ("Get up. Get up") She would start by gently shouting at us. The 'jamakalams' - thick cotton rugs - would be folded away and pillows piled up neatly in one corner of a bedroom. Those sleeping in the hall, could stay up late and watch TV with my uncle. Only the older cousins were that lucky.

Summer days were very short. They were spent playing everywhere. One of our favorites was hide and seek. We had a large space to play in and as single family houses are built, we had a lot of space to run outside the house. We would play on the terrace. The terrace was floored with a red clay tile. It always made our feet red. We used to play Chain, Follow the Leader, Tipi-Tipi-Tap and a number of other made-up group games. I am not sure if Tipi-Tipi-Tap was a game that other kids played, but we always enjoyed playing it. On rainy days, we would play indoor games like Blindman's Bluff and Treasure Hunt. We could keep ourselves occupied for hours. Maybe we had cultivated this habit as a necessary survival skill. If we were not occupied amongst ourselves, our mothers might decide to give us some mundane task.

My grand mother would have a 'bakshana mami' - a lady to cook special savories - come over around the end of summer. She would spend a couple of days in the house making all sorts of delicacies including muruku, thattai, adhirsam and lots more goodies. These would be packed so it could then be transported by her children to their houses. This would be a reminder of our wonderful summer with all the relatives.

All the cousins are grown up now - many married with kids. It is always fun to revisit these memories. It is worth hours of talk every time we gather around. Those, most definitely, were happy happy days.

Crash!!

(Nov 8 2003)

"Oh, I wish I could just waft away from this life!" she said to herself, while putting away the dishes.

Yet another day was beginning. The house was quiet.
The windows were shut but she could hear the sound of her neighbor's lawn mover. "What was he doing up so early?," she thought. "Does'nt he have anything better to do with his life? All the time out in the yard!"
Of course, like all her outbursts, this one too had nothing to do with the real issue irking her.
How these little things upset her equilibrium these days! She could no longer just relax and take things in stride. Everything was a plot to upset her.
Increasingly, the feeling of worthlessness was creeping in. She knew she should do things a little differently with her life. But inertia was keeping her back. Atleast, for the moment it was better for her self-esteem to just blame the inertia.
One thing at a time, you see.
It was not that she was not capable. She was prone to drift off into periods of depression.
She was finding it hard to be good to herself.

They had planned to take a weekend trip to Virginia. They did not have to leave till later in the afternoon, but she still had a lot of chores to get through.
She had to finish packing and cook some lunch. The DVDs had to be returned and a package had to be mailed. It was very tempting to do these stopovers on the way to Virginia, but she knew they would not leave on time.
This would further delay them. So she decided, she was going to get this over with before they left.

By 10a.m., she had finished a lot more than what she had planned. She had cooked lunch and done a bit of cleaning. She was getting ready to take a shower and head out when the phone rang. Her friend from Virginia wanted the recipe for her bread pudding.
"It will be the perfect dessert for this fall day," she said. Of course the lady of this story could have given the recipe to her friend. But on an impulse, she said, "Oh please! I will make it and bring. You can heat it up in the oven once I get there."
So, it happened that she was rounding up the ingredients to make bread pudding.
She was perfectly happy to do so, till she realized that after all, she would have to stop at the post office and Blockbusters on her way to Virginia.

At 3 p.m., one hour later than the planned time of departure, they loaded up the stuff in the trunk and were on their way.
Oops! Take a U turn and head back home.
Pick up the bread pudding from the oven.
Stop at the post office.
Fill the car up with gas. Another thing that should have been done yesterday.
Drop the DVDs off at Blockbusters.
"Do you have any cash?" "Do we need cash?" "Might as well, draw some since the bank is on the way."

Finally, off we go!
Why could she not be better organized?
Now they were going to reach an hour late at her friend's place.

CRASH!
The car spun a couple of times, moving over to the other side of the highway. She could see it hit a dump truck, grazing its rear end. That force was enough to set the car spinning once more, pushing it to the shoulder. The car slid on the slick wet mud of the lawn. It hit the front steps of the house leading up to the porch.
The car was now standing on someone's front lawn hedged in between some bushes.
She looked back. The rear window had broken into tiny pieces and sprayed itself all over the back seat.

People had stopped on the highway. The first to reach her was the driver of the massive pickup truck that had broad-ended her car.
"Are you all okay? I did not see you."
"ARE YOU CRAZY??!!??! HOW COULD YOU HAVE NOT SEEN US?" It was all that she could muster.
The man quietly retreated back to his truck, opening up his cell phone.
Before she could get her phone out to call the police, one of the witnesses came running up and said that he was part of a volunteer first aid squad and that he had informed the police. He was followed by a fireman. All passing by on the highway this afternoon.
She tried the door on the driver's side. It was jammed shut. The people pushed the car forward away from the hedges so she could get out from the passenger's side.
Shaken and terribly stirred, she climbed out and surveyed the mess. A piece of fender from the pick up truck was hanging off the side, jammed between the doors.
The car had taken the impact remarkably well. She had not felt anything inside the car. What had shaken her was the near-death experience.
She could see herself wafting away from life while spinning in the car. Nothing else had registered, till the car had come to a stop.

The pick up truck was trying to cross the highway to join the northbound traffic. He did not look back to see her car. Instead his attention was focussed on beating the dump truck hurtling towards him on the south bound side of the highway.
He hit her car bang in the middle. He had narrowly missed the fuel tank.

If he had hit the tank, it would have been a different story. If the dump truck had braked a little earlier, the car would have hit it causing a major collision. If there had been heavy traffic, there would have been a mangled mess.
If the car had not hit the rear end of the dump truck, it would have not been pushed to the shoulder, away from the traffic.
If only they had left as planned at 2 a.m., they would have missed the pick up truck trying to make a quick turn. If only they had not made those stopovers.

If..If..If..
Life takes on a whole new meaning.

Life and Children

(first published Jun 22 2004)

Why do people have children?

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body. - Elizabeth Stone

A very pregnant friend told her 4 year old daughter, "You are going to have a baby brother or sister."
Prompt and pat came the reply, "Why?"
My friend did not have a clue what made the girl say that. Maybe she had heard something in school about how older siblings are left to fend for themselves when the 'bundle of joy' arrives. Maybe it was just a curious remark.

Couples without children can be categorized as "childless by choice" or "childless by fate". There is such a contrast between these two groups of people, that were they to sit down, it would be like an inter-planetary meeting.

One group is shattered and has felt the extreme sorrow that only they can feel. They, most likely, have tried everything - reproductive drugs to InVitro Fertilization. They could also be thinking of adoption. Why this urge, this passion, this obsession to bear a child? Is it at all possible for anyone to fathom the intensity of this sorrow?

The childless by choice are independent. They work hard, they play hard and they are brave. Brave because they have to keep defending their choice to a million people who will insist on questioning their ideas of a childless life. They regard a child as something that can easily be avoided by practicing safe sex. It provides them with a chance to live life to the fullest; to improve their life. They can do more because they don't have to worry about arranging for a baby-sitter when they want a night-out; they don't have to worry about day care; they don't have to worry about pleading with the boss for a couple of days off because their child has come down with flu; they dont have to save for college and on and on. Whoa! Why would anyone want a child?

People wonder how some can calculate the cost of having children. According to them, what has this world come to if children need to be thought of as an expense. If a person's instinct is to think of kids as a budgeting decision, I say, it is a practical move. Why burden someone with an unwanted child? Taking care of a child that you want is in itself a big task. The burden issue will only complicate the parenting equation.

"Everyone ages and ultimately dies..so what use is material stuff. Children are your gift to humankind."
How pretentious and pompous an argument is this! You want to leave a part of you behind for posterity sake!!! Hmmm. Why should we subject a soul to 80+ years of life on this earth?
Is it not selfish to have children just so we will have someone to take care of us in our old age. In any case, do we honestly believe they are going to keep us in their homes and nurse us in our twilight years? Dream on!
Going by the trend, the coming generation will be busier than the present and will not have time to sit at home with aging parents. So forget this idea of spending the last few years of your life anywhere but in a nursing home. Infact, you may yourselves decide that is what you want to do. There are many American senior citizens who refuse to live with their children. They want to lead an independent life. When they can no longer live alone, they move to a senior citizen community complex, and from there on to nursing homes.

"Oh that child is so cute, I wish I had one of my own!"
Such people should be forced to spend time with an adapted version of the computerized doll that is used to give teens a taste of parenting. Except in this version, the doll would be programmed to mirror the needs of a child from 0-21 years - a heavily condensed primer on babies, toddlers, adolescents, the teenage years and beyond.

Having kids is not a chore. It is not something you should have on your to-do list. It is not something that you should impose on anyone. It is an extremely personal choice. Even more personal than the choice of who to have sex with and how. So, people should not feel pressured to have children just because a relative refuses to quit interrogating or because a sibling is having a child.

All said and done, having kids is not a game. Its not play. Its not a competition. Its not anything that you have ever done before or will ever do.

If you are fortunate enough to have a child, enjoy it.

If you think you will not be able to give your every waking minute and every deep breath to a child - please do not condemn it to a life on this planet.

If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much.
- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.
- Michael Levine

Khooni Lafz

seene pe khanjar utraa
sirf ghayal hue hum
aapne teer-e-lafz chalake
hamein zinda maar dala

- Feb. 2005

Aftermath of Math

I am preparing a presentation for mathematics teachers. It started out as a demonstration of speed math techniques. While doing research online, I came across many a link that piqued my curiosity about the side-effects of engaging in mathematics. In four short sentences...

Mathematics is an enabler to develop an inquiring and limber mind.
Mathematics is not just about numbers and computation.
Mathematics is a brain development tool.
Mathematics is about all about enriching your life.

What I have always found fascinating about Math is that you can solve a problem using any method you choose and arrive at the same correct answer, provided the method adopted is based on logic and is mathematically sound.

This level of objectivity is very reassuring.

The 'zeal theory of excellence' satisfies the hunger for fairness and due place for hard work in an unjust world. Brian Butterworth, author of The Mathematical Brain, suggests that we are natural born mathematicians.

In Western culture, the most prevalent theory about talent is that it is innate. When someone is outstandingly good at something, we describe them as "gifted", and say they are "naturals". This idea is not so common in other societies, where hard work is seen as the primary reason why some people excel.

According to Butterworth, all the evidence supports the hard work theory. He goes so far as to say that the only "statistically significant" indicator of mathematical excellence is the number of hours put in. This seems to suggest that anyone could be a superb mathematician if they are willing to put in the hours - but the truth is slightly more nuanced. The crucial word here is "willing". Butterworth says that "anybody who is a good mathematician is slightly obsessed with maths - or more slightly obsessed - and they put a lot of hours into thinking about it. So they are unusual in that respect. But they may be no more unusual than anybody who is very good at what they do, because they have to have a certain obsessiveness or otherwise they're not going to be able to put in the hours to get to this level of expertise. This is true of musicians, it's probably true of waiters."

In my mind, there is no better reward than the one you get after hard work. If you have the zeal to work hard, you will excel.

He says that "if, for whatever reason, you start working hard at mathematics when all your classmates don't, then the teacher is going to favour you, so you're going to get external rewards, and you're going to get the internal rewards of being able to do something rather well that your mates aren't so good at, and so you'll start off a virtuous circle of external rewards, internal rewards, you work a bit harder, you get even farther ahead of your classmates, who aren't actually putting in the time. So it wouldn't be surprising that if random people who for some reason select to pursue maths on the whole get rewarded because they are going to be better than their peers.

The concept of external rewards powering internal rewards is not a new concept by any means. New for me is to see it applied to explain the benefits of engaging one's mind in mathematics. Does one need a more compelling argument to trigger the pulses in our brains if the promised land guarantees confidence, superior problem solving, logical reasoning and critical thinking skills?

Math is just the beginning. It's the Aftermath that we, as educators, should be interested in.

With confidence, you have won before you have started. - Marcus Garvey
(courtesy 'Quote of the Day' - a balm for the roving mind)