lily yellow

stairway to heaven

after a rain

monkeys

dragon fruit

Clowns From The Dark Side.

That's what I like to call them. You must admit the Lok Sabha (Indian Parliament) is a bit of a circus. And to think that it's televised across the country. Does that stop them from acting like .. oh I can't insult the baboons nor any other animals .. and though people do frequently refer to our politicians as clowns, my being a REAL clown takes offence at that. So it's Clowns From the Dark Side for them.

Today there was an important matter to vote on and it was total mayhem. That poor, poor man .. the Honourable Speaker (is he given this title because all the others there are dishonourable?) .. he was like a substitute teacher let loose in a classroom of delinquents. Although I'm pretty sure even unruly schoolchildren behave better than our MPs.

I am really quite worried about that man's health. Not only is he likely to strain his vocal chords with his constant pleas for everyone to sit/calm down, but just think of his stress levels. I hope he does yoga. I hope he goes for daily walks. I hope he has one of those electric foot massager things under his podium.

In fact, I think maybe every member of parliament should get one of those electric foot massager things in front of their seat, activated only when they sit down. That'll shut them up! If not, there's always superglue, automatic seat belts that only open when it's your turn to speak, or perhaps good old manacles. Judging by the number of criminal records there, this might make them feel right at home.

But let's not forget ahimsa - love and non-violence. So my vote goes for the electric foot massager. Yes, they're expensive. But I know how to fund them. Just this morning, some MPs barged into the House waving a crore of rupees, claiming a member from another party had bribed them to vote a certain way. Well, the member will certainly deny it's his money. And they can't keep it, because that would be accepting a bribe, which is a crime. I think the government should confiscate that money, buy everyone their foot massagers, and put the rest in the Prime Minister's Relief Fund.

I just hope they don't forget to send me one, too. It was, after all, my idea.

My neighbourhood

A friend sent me this link to a site full of pictures of the part of town I live in. Just thought I would share it with you so you can see what it's like here! Or what it used to be like, at any rate.

Click here to visit!

You may want to turn down your speakers a bit, because there's some odd trumpety music that comes up and it doesn't seem to have a Mute button!

What it does for me.

In this quiet time
the world recedes. The leaves stir
and tell me secrets.

Around the time Daddy went into hospital, I was just getting into meditation. I used to think it was all about concentrating on something. But as I read more about it, I learnt that it was about emptying the mind. Empty minds! An easy enough concept for us humans, I thought.

It's actually very difficult. My mind would start planning and worrying and daydreaming the moment I tried to still it. I discovered that fighting the thoughts just doesn't work with meditation. Fighting is violent, after all, and trying to link it to meditation makes as much sense as the concept of killing for peace.

So the thoughts would come and I'd learn to label them: oh, that goes in the planning box, that one is for worrying later on - and then I'd move on. Gradually I found it easier. Letting the thoughts in was not as bad as I thought it was. I just had to let them go, not hold on to them to dwell upon. The only time I found meditation didn't work was when I was in the middle of an anxiety attack over Dad's cancer. That time my fears were stronger than my peace, and they flooded in, uncontrollable, and overwhelmed me. That experience taught me not to try meditating in the middle of anxiety attacks! (Deep breathing exercises are a better option at such times).

But meditating, even for just ten minutes a day, does wonders for my sanity, and it's a bit like decluttering or spring cleaning - something I love compulsively! First, I've got to do a wander around the house of my mind, just looking. That way I see where everything is and where everything goes. Then I can deal with it later in an organised way. Otherwise I rush about trying to do everything at once, and the house doesn't look any less messy when I'm done.

But when I give myself this quiet time, of just looking and being - without judgment or planning or worrying or even hoping - that's when the soul of the world opens up and speaks to me.

Hide or seek

My bed, like my grave,

seems the safest place to hide.

Life runs past. I lose.

It's an old habit of mine, sleeping away life. I'm sure a lot of people with depression can relate to it. It's not just the fatigue, the total exhaustion that comes from just getting through a day, of faking smiles and saying, "I'm fine", or even of simpler things like brushing teeth and finding clean clothes to wear. Of bracing oneself to open the front door and step out.

Who was it who called sleep "the little death"? Unconscious to the world, it's the easiest place to slip into and escape from all the terrors that life can appear to hold when I'm depressed. Everything is too hard. Drugs and alcohol are not an option for me. Nor is suicide. I have tried them all and I already know they don't work. But sleep ... sleep is easy, harmless enough? And so comforting (unless there are dreams).

So I sleep. Last month I slept a lot, struggling - not very aggressively - with a bout of major depression. I tell myself it is pre-menstrual. I repeat other people's assurances to myself .. all in my mind .. if I'd just pray .. just be strong. Sweet-intentioned lies that they speak to me - and to themselves.

Deep down, I know it is an illness. But deeper down, I still doubt myself. However, there is one thing I know: like any illness - diabetes, asthma - it may have a lifelong hold on me, but that doesn't mean I have to lie down and take it. I can choose not to play this game. I can choose to wake up. Even games aren't always fun. Snakes and Ladders has its ups and downs. The point is to keep going. Someone will win, someone will lose.

Return of the Living Clown.

Yes, Gladys is back from limbo! In addition to moving back to my own home yesterday (I spent the past three months at my parents' house when my dad was diagnosed with bladder cancer) I also started clowning again this morning.

It was a lot like old times - Gladys and Mamu at St. Philomena's. Mamu's been going regularly and has added lots to his repertoire - magic tricks, new dances and jokes - and also rattles on quite admirably in Tamil! (Kishore is actually a North Indian - Sindhi).

Gladys has been through some changes (I hope for the better) and is quieter this time around. She also wears less make-up and looks, well, though I say it myself, incredibly sweet. She is also clearly a little girl. Six years old, in fact, as she informed one of the patients.

I suppose this means I have put my inner child to work. Is this child labour?? Oh dear. I won't tell if you won't!

Once upon an antique swing

Once upon an antique swing, I thought I saw much to envy. She sat there swinging, surrounded by beautiful artefacts, looking out at a perfectly manicured garden. She was dressed in crisp cool yellow. When she crossed her legs I saw her feet were soft and clean. When she ran a hand through her hair I watched the gold flutter down her wrist.

Waiting for the others to arrive, we roamed through rooms whose walls hung with perfect art. Her daughter, who was young and beautiful, had a TV in her bedroom, and an attached bathroom to die for. Her husband's shoes had no dust on them when he came home at one o'clock.

They took me to lunch at an award-winning restaurant, in an air-conditioned car that had a burnished wood dashboard. Her husband called the maitre d' by his first name. I ordered the shrimp that I love but can't always afford. I wondered if they could hear me swallowing my Coca-Cola or if they had noticed my nail polish was chipped.

Something in their eyes made me feel awkward, like an unexpected visitor arriving at a bad time.

They took me home for tea, and showed me into another room. Victorian curios, plush rare chairs. Glass yellow tulips that I can still see in my mind. (Mine were pink nylon, with plastic stems). Even the window grilles were beautiful.

"Yellow is such a cheerful colour," she said, and offered me some Swiss chocolates.

What was it in her eyes, in all their eyes? I let the chocolate melt slowly in my mouth as my eyes devoured all that I envied so much. And when I saw her son, in a corner of the room, I could have gazed at him for hours, and wanted to touch his face.

It was just a black and white photograph framed with a garland of small red flowers, but I recognised him at once, for he was the most handsome young man I had ever seen.

I had seen him before, in the newspaper's obituary and memorials section: always on New Year's Day, always the same photograph. He had died with his friends in a car crash coming home from a New Year's Eve party some years earlier.

I gave away my nylon tulips eventually, to someone who wanted them more than I did. But I still remember those glass yellow tulips, and although I've forgotten her face, I still look for her son's in the newspaper on the first day of January.

My lips are sealed.

A friend shared something private with me over lunch, and I joked about posting it as a haiku. Here goes! (Don't worry .. )

Everyone's secrets
stored safely in my mem'ry.
No room for my own.

All my life, I have kept other people's secrets, and kept them so well. But my own secrets, the secrets of my childhood: they aren't here in this head, or if they are, they are stored somewhere else, out of my memory's reach. I pieced my childhood together from a bunch of birthday party photographs and other people's anecdotes.

But lately I find that the body remembers what the mind does not. I don't know which is worse.

And all because I once loved her husband.

Got you there, didn't I? Couldn't resist. There is no sordid confession forthcoming. No. There is only:

LINDA McCARTNEY'S HOME COOKING
by Linda McCartney, Rs 95 at the Kaaba Book Fair.

I was never that fond of Linda - after all, she had the man of my dreams. But with age and wisdom (mine, I mean, she already had both) this mellowed into a certain mature acceptance. Then she went and became this healthy vegetarian animal-loving activist. And then she went and died. And then the new Mrs. McCartney just made her seem even more saintly than ever.

So I was quite happy to see her face smiling at me from the cover of her famous cook book. A flip through, and the recipes seemed do-able, even for me. More than I usually pay for book fair books .. but what could I do? I who once wore a folded piece of paper with "Paul" written all over it (lovingly covered with sellotape and religiously worn as a pendant through most of my 17th year!). It seemed wrong to pass over this book, so I brought it home, and am so happy I did.

In fact, as I type, my stomach is digesting perhaps the most exquisite soup I have ever made: a sweet corn noodle soup with celery. Very sumptious, very filling, very delicious, and best of all, very easy to prepare. I used to think only dessert could taste this good.

This is the best cookery book I've ever used. (Well, I may change my mind after trying some harder recipes, but today, at this moment, this is how I feel. It could be the celery talking.)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1881 - 1955

This afternoon at Manipal Hospital, I came across this quotation that was somehow so exciting to me - it said what I felt but had never captured in words - and took it further so powerfully. I mean, look at that last sentence, how MUCH is told in those few words, how perfectly he expresses love's potential for the human race:

"Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."

A few hours later, back home and blog-hopping, I came across another, by the same person.

“You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience.”

- Teilhard de Chardin

I go my whole life never hearing this name before, and now I read it twice in one afternoon, both times referring to ideas that have been nudging at me lately. That's the sort of stuff I just have to google, being one of those we-are-all-connected-and-nothing-happens-by-chance types.

And what a fascinating chappie he turns out to be: a French Jesuit priest and philosopher, as well as a paleontologist and a biologist. And he was "green" long before we put the colour to use as a political adjective!

"Chardin's writings clearly reflect the sense of the Earth as having its own autonomous personality, and being the prime center and director of our future .. " (from a rather interesting article by Anodea Judith)

He went all over the world, got into some trouble with the church over his theory on evolution, and published rather a lot of books, the primary being something called The Phenomenon of Man. He was involved with the discovery of Peking Man. And he even provided the inspiration for Father Merrin in William Blatty's The Exorcist!

So very well known by everyone it seems, except me. Better late than never, though, I always say. And I like to believe that people come into my life when they're supposed to. I'm sure he would agree. Any day now, one of his books will leap out at me from a dusty book fair shelf, and he will make a second appearance on this blog's Book Fair Junkie section.

Till then, I leave you with this thought-provoking gem of his:

"Our century is probably more religious than any other. How could it fail to be, with such problems to be solved? The only trouble is that it has not yet found a God it can adore."