Nice Flowers

Some days come by for a reason. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

I know the man is looking at me as I approach him on the sidewalk. Growing up in India one develops a sense for such things, I can’t explain how. And I know what he is looking at…

But first lets go back an hour in time.

“1,2,3,4…

Walking like a man

Hitting like a hammer

She's a juvenile scam.

Never was a quitter.

Tasty like a raindrop. 

She's got the look.”                 

Early in the morning, at the exact moment I step into the grocery store these words from (She’s Got) The Look by Roxette ring out and it’s #TBT (Throwback Thursday). I am back in High School. (This not so remarkable song except for the memory it triggers, was a chart topper in 1989, much played when MTV entered India in the early 90’s, it was MTV and not MTV India then.)

This song was my cue to walk (the ramp). So it all came back in a flash: vivacious girls, baffled teachers, and the boys…well, they were like footnotes: sometimes important, most of the time, just around. We were so busy dashing away in our two-wheelers exploring the depths and limits of freedom, that everything else was secondary. With a curiosity like ours, the mind was a bee, exploring this idea and then that, but never pausing–the final, inevitable pause was far, far away.

Now when I see those girls of summer on facebook even the idea of summer vanishes in a poof. I am sure they have happy, even fulfilling lives. Yet what an unimaginably long break from curiosity they seem to be on. But at that moment when that song played, and I was transported back in time, it was impossible not to smile remembering the same faces that these days fill me with disquiet.

Now as I am walking back home I see the man watching me. I had noticed him and his workmate on my way to the store. They are trimming the low-spreading junipers around the parking lot. It is a very humid day, a day that ordinarily gives rise to such lassitude that all sense of goodwill melts away. But I know this is not that kind of day. For it is a day of coincidences, and rare associations.

As I almost pass him by, the man looks right at me and as I had expected says, “Nice flowers.”

You see this is the second time in two weeks that this has happened with me. It is a small thing, but as I walk back from the grocery store, carrying a bunch of common, local flowers, I cease to be just me. I become a part of an association: perhaps a memory, perhaps a feeling in someone else’s life. A young woman last Thursday crossed the street to come up to say ‘Nice flowers’ and this man drenched in sweat, wiping his brow, now stops and looks up to say, 'Nice flowers'.

Remember that character, from that novel by Milan Kundera who plans to hold a blue cornflower in front of her face as she walks down the street to protect herself from the ugliness of urbanisation. Well, I am sort of like that character, though I don't carry flowers to shield myself. 

But the flowers I carry open a little space in someone else’s heart and mind. And those things lodged deep within that seemed forgotten come up for air in a rush. All transgressions are forgiven; all lapses become what they are, momentary. So we end up smiling and saying, ‘have a nice day.’

The only intrinsic part about meaning is that it comes from within us.

Some days come by for a reason. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.  

A Hazy Shade of Spring

In the morning as I am brushing my teeth, a scene flashes before my eyes: two little boys in a light green bumper car surrounded by autumn leaves waiting for someone to take them home. In the morning haze, I try to recollect the movie I saw before going to bed the previous night, and just then the haze slowly lifts. It wasn’t a movie but a book, part of a collection, Suspended Sentences by Patrick Modiano.

The unknowable, enigmatic past that we try to grasp forever. Events never reach any fruitful conclusion; people come and go, never to be heard from again; places disappear, not just from our memory, but also often physically. Yet, it is the one “true” story that we have. So we try to find a way out of the haze, thereby giving direction to our lives. 

*

Over breakfast I say, we’ll forget everything. (I say that often I realize.) So I start from some sort of a beginning. The door opened and you were standing there. But then what happened next? What were you wearing? Which book was I reading? What were they talking about? And then the days zoom by– blank upon blank.

All the photographs have been scanned and sorted. But what do they say? What does this photograph reveal? Smothered in roses and marigolds, she is standing next to her and he…he is looking towards– what or whom? What were they thinking? Why does mother appear to be smiling so ruefully? When does love begin, when does it end? Did they know? But they had just met.

She isn’t even in this photograph you add as a matter of fact.

But did they know then? What good is this collection of all these half-seen, half-heard, half-known things, if it only pushes us further into the haze?

*

“What would you know about this song? It’s from the 60’s.”

Is followed by a laugh that comes from a bellyful of warm soup and bread. He slowly shuffles away from the line singing along, “Baby, Baybee…” More laughs follow.

I dislike walking down this part of 28^th street for reasons that are the pet peeves of those who walk the streets of New York, but for moments like these…that will perhaps become ‘sepia-tinted’ memories.

*

I seem to recognize your face
Haunting, familiar yet, I can't seem to place it
Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name
Lifetimes are catching up with me…

All these changes taking place...

Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away…
– Eddie Vedder, ‘Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z0cKtSlHOU

I see her standing next to the entryway of a Deli somewhere on 42^nd and 9^th. Dressed all in black except for the white hand-knitted headscarf. Frail body, but a steely erect spine. I notice her because she is standing at the exact point where the sunlight falls– all in black highlighted by the sun, while the rest of the street lies in shadows– the lazy brain has learnt to report photographic compositions. But today I am not seeking any more photographs or memories. Yet, looking at her I am reminded of Mrs. N.

Mrs. N in her classy chiffons leaving a trail of perfume. Mrs. N of the (what I always remember with a shiver as) cold mansion with massive glass cabinets filled with ceramic jars, crystal bowls and silver oddities. Mrs. N of the lavish Christmas Eve dinners. After dinner the guests in gratitude pocketed her silver tablespoons. She’ll hardly notice they thought. But she did. She was old, but even as a small child I knew, far from foolish.

The family has a black sheep who slips into the mansion at night and goes ‘baa, baa, baa’, they whispered. Never letting her rest in peace.

Mrs. N is dead, the newspapers reported. The police are looking at all possibilities, and for the moment have ruled out foul play.

In the only photograph of hers that I have, Mrs. N is wearing black.

*

Why should we recollect it all? Why can’t we just let the past lie as it is? Why must we understand everything?

A toddler wearing a woollen cap with a felted red rose is watching me intently. Her father is carrying her in his arms. She is carrying a stuffed giraffe in her hand. Towering above it all, with her head turned back she is looking at the world passing by. As I begin to think of another question why, she looks into my eyes and smiles.

Abandoning all reason, I smile back.

*

The blood moon has caused restlessness in the tide. The waves rush in, bang against the embankment, retreat and then return. Two gull are watching silently. The waterwheel– a creative evocation of the city’s past– turns slowly, the inscription next to it reads ‘Long Time’ and the descriptive arc engraved on it travels all the way from the big bang to the end of the earth (to be swallowed by a sun that has exhausted all its fuel). After Hurricane Sandy the counter has stopped recording the rotations. Such is the fate of all human endeavours. At some point they (should/must/can/will) stop.

How do we ever find our way?

The tide rushes in, bangs against the embankment and retreats again. The gulls rise, almost magnetically: 

Gonna rise up/ Find my direction magnetically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QO191imv0s

“Such is the way of the world
You can never know
Just where to put all your faith
And how will it grow

Gonna rise up
Burning black holes in dark memories
Gonna rise up
Turning mistakes into gold

Such is the passage of time
Too fast to fold
Suddenly swallowed by signs
Low and behold

Gonna rise up
Find my direction magnetically
Gonna rise up
Throw down my ace in the hole” 
–  Eddie Vedder, ‘Rise’

A Day in September

“What you remember saves you.”

― W.S. Merwin

“Bye, bye, bye…bye, bye”

The kids go round and round while the adults say their long goodbyes at the subway entrance. Watermelon and papaya. That is the color of the T-shirts the kids are wearing. Both are in green shorts. Round and round they go with a palm raised in expectation of a high five. Sometimes their expectations are fulfilled.

Bye, bye, bye…bye, bye.

The words ring in my ears even after I have left the kids a couple of Avenues behind.

Bye, bye, bye…bye, bye.

Every parting leaves behind a memory. Every remembrance is a meeting, but also a parting– even if it is the millionth leave taking. We try not to forget.

*

“I have always liked zinnias the best.”

Her frail, wrinkled arms push a shopping cart. A bunch of multi-colored zinnias peek from the top. Her much younger companion is holding the cart with one hand while pushing her own cart with the other. Her cart too has a bunch of multi-colored zinnias peeking out from the top.

They slowly make their way across the street.

I am left with a remembrance of zinnias: that flowerbed, that garden, that guava tree– and then one day the bent fender, broken glass, blood, crushed knee caps– leading characters from my earliest childhood memory.

           

*

While one of them is sleeping on his deck chair, the other is standing and reading a book. Beautiful dappled light filters from the tree above. Their carts are overburdened with large plastic bags. The sleeping one hasn’t shaved in a while. He has a sharp nose and a sharp jaw line. He looks like Gandalf tired, broken after a long hard, quest. The standing one has neatly combed back his white hair. He looks like an aged musician– Jerry Garcia from his later years.

What is it like to live on a folding plastic deck chair?

I can’t catch the name of the book. I can’t take a photograph. I am not carrying my camera. My hand refuses to budge and take out the phone from the bag.

The moment is soon past. But I remember.

*

“They closed down all the tunnels. People had to walk all the way across the George Washington Bridge… sirens ringing.” The father holding the hand of his son is saying as they overtake me. “I was…”

The child isn’t a teen yet. He is carrying a bulky schoolbag. Eyes fixed on his father’s face he is listening and learning as his father recollects that day when the world as we knew it came to an end, no matter how far away from the George Washington Bridge we lived.

*

“I was completely devastated.”

The man is saying, while the young boy nods his head. Both are carrying sports kit bags. Other kids in the same uniform as the boy, navy blue shorts and t-shirts are waiting across the street.

“Yeah! It was painful. And then they lost to Holland too.”

Ah! The Football World Cup. “I’ll never forget when the first goal…” now the boy is talking about the match between Germany and Brazil. The words ‘stunned’, ‘devastated’ and ‘painful’ are repeated frequently. Then even before the light turns green, they are talking about their hopes for the next World Cup.

*

Members of FDNY are dressed in full ceremonials. They are holding hands of their kids, their wives in their formal dresses. It is a somber sight. People are taking their photos. Soon the photos will be instagrammed with an appropriate hashtag. The next day the photographers will move on. But the people being photographed perhaps will not– cannot –move on.

*

As I turn off the lamp, a blue glow shines through the blinds. Two blue bolts of light rising high above the skyscrapers and the nightly din, casting a blue glow on every darkened square of glass from here to the edge where all is water. Behind every square of glass countless memories are breathing. Behind every square of glass far away from the glow of the blue bolt countless memories are breathing. Some born today. Never forget.

What you come to remember becomes yourself. What you remember saves you.

*“There is nothing for you to say. You must
Learn first to listen. Because it is dead
It will not come to you of itself, nor would you
Of yourself master it. You must therefore
Learn to be still when it is imparted,
And, though you many not yet understand, to remember.

What you remember is saved. To understand
The least thing fully you would have to perceive
The whole grammar in all its accidence
And all its system, in the perfect singleness
Of intention it has because it is dead.
You can learn only a part at a time.

What you are given to remember
Has been saved before you from death's dullness by
Remembering. The unique intention
Of a language whose speech has died is order,
Incomplete only where someone has forgotten.
You will find that that order helps you to remember.

What you come to remember becomes yourself.
Learning will be to cultivate the awareness
Of that governing order, now pure of the passions
It composed; till, seeking it in itself,
You may find at last the passion that composed it,
Hear it both in its speech and in yourself.

What you remember saves you. To remember
Is not to rehearse, but to hear what never
Has fallen silent. So your learning is,
From the dead, order, and what sense of yourself
Is memorable, what passion may be heard
When there is nothing for you to say.

–W.S. Merwin, Learning a Dead Language

Paradise Lost

“The true paradises are the paradises that one has lost.”
― Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

In South Delhi, close to a popular multiplex and an elite school, are two old houses inhabited by two lone matriarchs. In a lane where most old houses have been replaced by apartment complexes, there is a small patch of wilderness amidst which these two houses stand. The Parijat flowers (night flowering Jasmine) carpet the gateway. Other attractions include a huge Bel (Indian Quince) tree, a Shatoot (Mulberry) tree, a row of Ashoka trees, an old Mango tree, three Lime trees, old Bougainvilleas with gnarled branches, many creeping vines and shrubs– Madhu Malti (Rangoon creeper), Peeli Kaner (Yellow Oleander), Hibiscus etc.

A yard once planted with care left to grow as it pleases. The plants well established took on a life of their own and birds*, bees, butterflies, squirrels, and mongoose moved in creating an urban paradise.

But life was far from ideal. The ladies often had unwelcome visitors. While walking in the garden or coming back from grocery shopping, men would come up and introduce themselves as estate agents and without wiping the smile from their faces accuse the ladies of causing ‘national wastage’– living alone in houses that could be replaced by two four storied buildings with16 flats each; every bit of the land had been blueprinted. Did the women know the value of the land? Then an offer would be made. Ending with ‘think it over, there’s no hurry’. The ladies persevered, surrounding themselves with tenants and watchmen. But sleeping with an extra lock on their door.

Unaware of the hint of violence that underlies the ways of men and the world of their making, the plants and birds thrived. And so, every morning the red-vented bulbul called, the house sparrows created a ruckus, the purple sunbirds hovered among the creepers, the robin minded his quiet ways, the squirrels chattered in the mulberry tree, the spotted doves cooed, while the mongoose bustled among the shrubs. A paradise, but like all others, counting down to its ultimate fall.

*In an old diary I found a list of 25 species of birds spotted in one year– numbers swelled when the trees were fruiting. The houses and the accompanying wilderness were still standing when last checked in 2011. 

The Blue House

Hemmed on all four sides by ‘development’ an old blue house.

Three sisters. All senior citizens. Five cats. Dozens of hummingbirds. Cats stalking hummingbirds. Peonies, giant orbs in shades of pink. Lilac and honeysuckle. Summer, rhapsody in blue– blue iris then blue delphinium, blue hydrangea, blue geranium, blue African lilies, blue cornflowers, blue borage, blue salvia– interrupted periodically by yellow and white daffodils, white lilies and always the beautiful peonies nodding on stalks overwhelmed.

A shovel pushed with a foot and then pushed once again. Mulch and manure. Rain, sun, rain and rain. Rhubarb, chard, runner beans, tomato, peppers and corn. White plastic chair. Shucking corn, shelling beans. Spring to summer. Till all the leaves fall down.

The hummingbirds gone far, far south. Lonely cat at the window. Summer slips to memory. Another done. Catalogued by number of years. Or, perhaps fears. But always in shades of blue– the color of summer, the color of joy. The color of eternity.

The Hare: A Memory

 “Don't you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up?”
― D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love 

Watercolour Pencils and Charcoal on Fabriano Accademia Drawing Paper

Watercolour Pencils and Charcoal on Fabriano Accademia Drawing Paper

Watercolour Pencils and Charcoal on Fabriano Accademia Drawing Paper

One had a lovely face,
And two or three had charm,
But charm and face were in vain
Because the mountain grass
Cannot but keep the form
Where the mountain hare has lain.

― W.B Yeats, "Memory"

A memory

Four ducks on a pond,
A grass-bank beyond,
A blue sky of spring,
White clouds on the wing;
What a little thing
To remember for years-
To remember with tears!

A memory a poem by William Allingham.

Slowness

“Why has the pleasure of slowness disappeared? Ah, where have they gone, the amblers of yesteryear? Where have they gone, those loafering heroes of folk song, those vagabonds who roam from one mill to another and bed down under the stars?”

What would the present generation, and I mean it in a broad sense, as the generation savouring the fruits of technical advancement, be defined as? As the slave of speed, worshiper of instant gratification or as 'a generation of ‘dancers’ that is people wanting to be seen, for whom life is a perpetual show emptied of every intimacy and every joy?'

We decry rampant consumerism, the destruction of our environment, the vulgar display of wealth that is becoming our national culture, books written by foreigners that present a perspective alien to ours and a comment made by a stranger that rankles us. We rant and rage about it all on our blogs, on facebook, on twitter; opening multiple tabs while cursing the slow broadband speed. And the rest of the time we are busy uploading photographs of the sushi we ate last night, the taxi we took to the airport, our cluttered office desk, the holiday we had in Greece, our baby who is a few hours old. In fact, our entire day is consumed by performing a series of quick dance steps flitting from one move to the other while watching our friends, fans and followers performing a similar dance of their own devoid of not just intimacy but also meaning.

Why are we consumed by this need to display every mundane incidence of our lives? And why this hurry, this rush to upload it, tweet it, blog about it? What will the world do once it has heard about every minor detail of our day? What will we do with the hours that we save? Hurry and rush through life some more? What is it that we are hurrying away from?

In his book Slowness, Kundera writes:

There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.

A man is walking down the street. At a certain moment, he tries to recall something, but the recollection escapes him. Automatically, he slows down.

Meanwhile, a person who wants to forget a disagreeable incident he has just lived through starts unconsciously to speed up his pace, as if he were trying to distance himself from a thing still too close to him in time.

The degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting.

Maybe it is time to usher in the cult of slowness. A deliberate, well-thought out act of slowness in this mad rush of show and tell that threatens to obliterate all thought and all memory and all intimacy and all joys.

There is a Czech proverb that describes this easy indolence by a metaphor: “They are gazing at God’s windows.” A person gazing at God’s window is not bored; he is happy. In our world, indolence has turned into having nothing to do, which is a completely different thing: a person with nothing to do is frustrated, bored, is constantly searching for the activity he lacks.

And in this time and age most likely to be surfing the internet in a futile search.

(All text in Italics from Slowness by Milan Kundera)

July

July passes away. Just like a candle snuffed July shines no more, it will trouble us no more. And we watch the wispy black smoke dissipate and sigh goodbye July and not a moment too soon. With this July neatly folded and stored in the recesses of our brain all that is left is nostalgia for other Julys that have long gone but not entirely forgotten.

That July of the return to college at the start of a new session. The lukewarm, watery tea and oily samosas like mana from heaven nourishing and enriching conversations and memories forever more. Almost painting a luminous halo all golden and shimmering around them. Or the wonderful July of power cuts and endless meaningless drives late at night in Delhi’s sweltering heat looking at the clouds that pass by promising no respite. Ah! The joy of those late night trysts with orange bars and empty roads. Could there be a July more beautiful! And then there is that enchanting July when bucket full of rain fell and the grass sang at its touch. But the doctor’s warning rang ominously, “Don’t let the child play in the rain. The scars will get infected.” Heedlessly the tiny feet kicked and splashed, the wounds got infected and the doctor livid. Nonetheless that was a July bar none. That brings us to that peerless July, too perfect to be true, among the mountains when we…

So all the Julys come tumbling through memory’s back lane. Each beyond compare. Flawless, with a hint of sparkle, those wonderful nostalgia tinted Julys. Forever nullifying the present and glorifying the past.

The faint smell of jasmines and oranges

When you finally had the conversation with her she was almost ninety-five years old. But as always inquisitive and eager. There was so much she wanted. To fly in an airplane that she had seen only on a screen. To visit Bombay. To learn to swim. To wear a gigantic diamond ring. To find a pot full of gold coins. But that was mostly said in jest. What she really wanted to do was sit on a cot under a tree and recollect each and every day of her life.

But her memory had its own personal agenda. Sometime it would fixate on what she was wearing when she wanted to in actuality concentrate on remembering what he was saying. Sometimes when she would try to recollect her childhood, her memory would instead stray towards the power games she had played as an adult. Sometimes it would force upon her the visions of ghosts. People whom she did not want to remember. People long gone, who had no impact upon her life except for this occasional haunting that seemed to thrust her own mortality into the forefront, when all she wanted to do was recollect how beautiful she had looked as a young 16 year old bride. The memories kept pushing her in this and that direction. Till she simply had to accept she had no control over her memories.

Then a gentle breeze had risen mixing the smell of jasmines with the smell of oranges that you were peeling for her. She had sighed and looked right into your eyes and said, “Honestly, all that I want is peace.”

When a few months later the phone rang you knew what everyone had been expecting for the past six months had come to pass. And she had at last found what she had wanted the most. Trying to remember the last meeting all you could recollect was the faint smell of jasmines and oranges.

For Spiderboy, stay happy and stay safe

We often talk about Cambodia. For undoubtedly there must be no person dead or living who has been to Cambodia and then never thought about it again. Cambodia is always there somewhere. Possibly stored and neatly catalogued in some recess of your memory. And then on one grey, melting winter afternoon as you sit with a cup of coffee and look out of the window it resurfaces unannounced. And a small little voice starts to sing, “Lady, lady 3 for 1 dollar.” Thus scattering the catalogue, throwing all neatness off course. Leaving you with a rush of memories that your brain tries to unsuccessfully restore to some semblance of order. And with a shake of your head you wonder how do you deal with Cambodia.

How does one gather all these strands wandering off into numerous directions and reconstruct the web of experiences that is Cambodia. When all the while your mind replays the voice and it’s hypnotic refrain of something, something, something one dollar. And all you want to do is sit in some small restaurant under a gigantic banyan tree with the voice and listen to it going on and on till we are all transported to that safe place which exists only in our childhoods somewhere between before the light is turned off and the prince and princess lived happily ever after.

Thus you move onto other things and other memories but the unresolved question about Cambodia gently nudges you. And you promise to one day gather all the threads and weave together a befitting portrait. But until then you let this little voice of innocence predominate the narrative as it chants on and on that every childhood should be safe and all its memories sweet.