Black eyes

I snapped at Sean when he was trying to compliment my beautiful brown eyes at the start of our courtship.

“My eyes are not brown! They are black.”

“I think they are deep brown.” He stammered after being rudely interrupted in his attempts to be romantic.

“NO! They are black!”

He did not contradict.

You have to remember that the standard of beauty in India lies in your fair skin, which my skin was not, blue black hair, which my hair was, and black, doe like eyes. While my eyes were not doe like, they were indeed black (or so I thought). I was not going to give up even one characteristic from the standard that I held myself to. No siree, my eyes were not brown, no matter how deeply you look into them.

Our bard, Rabindranath Tagore has immortalized black eyes in his song, ‘Kalo? Ta she jotoi Kalo hok/ Dekhechi tar Kalo horin chokh.” (Dark? No matter how dark she is, I have seen her black doe like eyes)

Recently, I was listening to popular Hindi songs from my teen years on Spotify when the famous song from the movie Baazigar came on – “Yeh kaali, kaali aankhen, yeh gore gore gaal…’ (these black, black eyes/ these fair, fair cheeks) and I remembered my insistence on the color of my eyes and poor Sean’s thwarted romanticism over them.

Later, I have come to accept that my eyes are indeed deep brown and they complement my brown skin quite well. I have looked quite intently into the mirror to truly see my eye color and conceded a win to Sean. Now I put brown on paper when I have to write the color of my eyes and smile at my husband when he looks at me with loving eyes as we listen to Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl on the radio.

Skunk days

I read somewhere that aging is not the issue, it’s side effects are. One of the side effects of aging is losing vibrancy (at least for me). The edges that were sharp become somewhat blunt and lines that were prominent become blurry – like the jawline. As my face becomes invisible each day, I turn to kajol to accentuate my eyes and lipstick to color my lips and fight a losing battle against fading. Why? Because I like to look at my kohl lined eyes and dark lips in the mirror when I get ready for work.

This poses a problem for me in the month of May. T.S Eliot picked on the month of April and reviled it as being the cruelest month. I disagree, sir. May is the cruelest month. It turned my world upside down and left me changed forever. As the month of May approaches, I find a tightness in my heart and brace for intense hurt. Ma died on May 9th, 2021 and baba followed her 10 days later. After 3 years, I have come to accept the deaths, but the trauma of Covid, helplessness, not being there, imagining their fear still keep me up some nights. All those traumatizing moments come back at odd times causing skunk days. What is that you ask? When the tears flow freely as I drive to work and I have to hastily clean up my kajol before I enter the library, when a simple word brings forth tears that I furiously blink away, when I often take deep breaths and gulp down the hurt and show a face which says, ‘nothing to see here. Just another usual day, folks.’

In the month of May, I am hyper aware of black streaks that threaten to run down my face (or blue streaks since I am in love with my blue eyeliner that matches with my blue frame) and I have my skunk days. May 9th was a skunk day, May 19th, most likely will be another skunk day with semi skunk days in between.

Why did I write this blog? Not to garner sympathy. I am in a better place – a place of acceptance and living my life to the best of my ability. But I wrote this blog because I know there are millions of you out there who lost your loved ones to Covid or to sickness or accident. I know we will continue to have these days when the tightness in our hearts will make it difficult to breathe sometimes, when well meaning folks around us will not be able to comprehend the depth of our pain because grieving is a solitary act, but we will breathe, and smile, and get through till the tightness eases and our sounds of laughter rings true again.

Adulting

As I continue to adult for over three decades, I have come to the conclusion that adulting is no fun. Unfortunately and realistically, I have been adulting since I was fourteen or fifteen years old. When one is poor one does not have the luxury of being a child for long. My parents were not good with money, so at a very early age I started working, primarily teaching younger kids for money. I was more financially responsible than both my parents, so I was given the job of managing household budget. When I think back on it, I realize how stressful it was, trying to balance our expenses including repaying debts that we had incurred to maintain our household and our status in society as middle class.

Once I fell in love, adulting became much more exciting. The stolen glances, the holding hands, the gorgeous smile of my boyfriend directed at me made my heart flutter. Marriage was an adventure. Parenthood was the busiest, most challenging, and most rewarding part of my adulthood. But then came financial decisions, savings, planning for future, what to do for our retirements, health concerns, aging parents who lived far away. Adulting became a lot more work. I don’t have a head for numbers. IRAs, Roth IRAs, CDs, 403Bs sound like harsh, alien words. I want to shut my ears. Truly. Yet, we have to make decisions 🙄. Save for our old age, pay for college, look for our last home. The worst part of adulting (mature adulting?) is losing our parents and other loved ones. We have reached that age where the generation who used to be our roof is slowly fading out. We are moving up to the roof – cycle of life.

But here is the best part. For me, the routine in our house growing up was something like this. Wake up, clean up and then study. My mother believed in the discipline of doing school work in freshly rested mind. Unless it was Durga puja or my birthday, there was no exception to this rule. After final examination though I was allowed to wake up and crack open a story book and read for pleasure. Ma still believed that if not school work, I should read when I wake up to continue the habit of reading/studying during break between classes. I still remember how I cherished those mornings. Honest confession? I was one of those kids who hid story books inside text books and read with unwavering attention. My mother beamed at my concentration as she passed by. This morning, as I opened my book to read with my morning coffee, I realized that this is the best part of being an adult. I know my responsibilities and make my own decisions. No more hiding books within text books. Of course, I have to go to work, I have to finish a few chores before I go. But nobody can stop me from indulging in my reading in the morning, or whenever I want. And nobody (but my conscience and glucose level) to frown upon me as I eat a chocolate bar that pair beautifully with a good book.

Adulting is not all bad.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

The best kind of books are those that you keep revisiting in your head even after you have finished reading them. This book is one such. I wrote a review for our library blog post. And here it is:

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

A post on kindness

I don’t remember a time when human beings were not intent on killing each other. My childhood was an era of oblivion, of course, but ever since I started paying attention to the wider world around me I read about cruelty meted out by human beings to other humans (and animals). Religion, borders, language, ethnicity – all become excuses to slaughter one another. But my post today is about the kindness that surrounds us too. Often, the acts of kindness do not make it to the mainstream media but if we look around us mindfully, we see it. There is this one poem that I listened to recently, read out by non other than the inimitable Helen Bonham Carter (I am a big fan). I must have listened to it more than a dozen times by now. It creates a warm feeling in my heart. The poem inspired me to write this post. Here is the poem:

Small Kindnesses

by Danusha Laméris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

— The New York Times (9/19/2019), Bonfire Opera

I want to write about the overpouring of kindness Gouri received from complete strangers thousands and thousands of miles away from her. Gouri came to work for my parents about 15 years ago. She had to heal first after she tried die by setting herself on fire. Married to a cruel man at the age of 14, she wanted to escape her fate by ending her life. She survived but with life altering scars all over her body and mind. Recently, the skin around her neck started contracting from the injuries, resulting in difficulty swallowing. We started looking for surgery to rectify that. But corrective surgery is expensive. I needed help to help her. After a lot of deliberation and discussions with my family, I decided to send out a plea for financial help in social media. I was tentative about my decision to ask for help though. Would people care or simply scroll through?

The response was overwhelming. I cried. Of course I cried. The kindness of my friends and acquaintances transcended every barrier – Distance from the affected woman, not knowing anything about her except for my words. Her need and her unfortunate circumstances were enough for them. I found empathy, not pity in their words. Friends from India wired money directly to Gouri’s bank account, friends in USA sent money to me which I then transferred. At work, my dearest friend handed me cash with tears in her eyes. “This could have been our daughters,” she said. This could have been. Those who could not help financially sent their best wishes for Gouri’s recovery. I asked Gouri if I could share her photo so everyone knew what the money was going to heal. She is very reticent about standing before a camera, but she took a selfie and sent it to me, saying, “Didi, I know you will only do what is best for me.” Her unwavering confidence in me warmed my heart.

The surgery took place a month and a half ago. While the surgery was not complicated, the recovery was long and painful. But Gouri is doing very well. She has to wear a collar around her neck for a year to prevent the skin from further contracting. The collar, she says, is uncomfortable in Kolkata’s heat but she wears it religiously to let her neck heal. She met with the doctor again to operate on the burn injury in her shoulders and arm. She can not straighten her arm due to the burns. And the money that complete strangers sent to her for her surgery will cover the second surgery as well. This will also take time and involve pain and long recovery. But Gouri is willing to go through with it all for a chance at better quality of life. The final surgery will, hopefully, be on her face to cover the scars from the burn but the doctor has not mentioned anything about that yet. He is focused on functionality over beauty at this point.

This morning, as I read about the deaths in newspaper, I honed in on the kindness.

How will my children remember me?

I just finished reading an incredible memoir in graphic novel by Tyler Feder. The book is called Dancing at the Pity Party. Feder chronicles her journey in grief after losing her mother to uterine cancer when she was nineteen. This book has both humor and heartbreak as Feder paints the beautiful relationship that she had with her quirky, funny, extremely creative mother, her diagnosis of cancer, her physical decline and ultimately her demise. There is nothing funny in death but Feder’s mother found ways to keep her girls smiling even through extreme grief. After her death, Tyler, her two younger sisters and their father need to relearn to live life without the bright, shining light that was their mother.

Tyler Feder remembers the memories she created with her mother. And this made me think how my children will remember me when I am gone. Don’t get me wrong, I do not plan to go anywhere for a long time if it is in my hands. But there will be an ‘after me’ and what memories will my children have when they think of mom.

My fondest memories of my mother is our reading time together. And seeing her laugh. Her laughter did not remain just in her face, it traveled to her eyes and eventually to her whole body. She laughed with her whole being and it is the most beautiful visual I have of her in my mind’s eye.

I will venture to guess what my two kids will remember of their mother:

Numerous trips to the library.

Cuddles and reading books together.

Whenever Sean traveled, our tradition was to make kathi rolls and eat them sitting on the kitchen floor Indian style.

Many hours spent petting Sage. Many, many hours of laughter over Sage’s antics.

Buying burgers and fries from the concession stand in the ball fields and eating on the grass watching a little league baseball game.

Eating dinner in the back deck while solving the problems of the world. Now that I think about it, our dinner time conversations were always very deep.

My gullibility? My first reaction to a comment is to believe it. “Really?” “No, mom. That was a joke.”

Listening to music together in the car while driving to sports events.

Days of making quick pesto pasta for dinner due to lack of time (and planning).

Alu bhaja and patla dal.

Being a sounding board.

Yelling/nagging.

Also laughing (and not being able to stop).

I don’t know if I will be remembered as a shining light. I hope to be remembered as a constant light. I want them to remember me as “Mom was there when I needed her.”

Memoirs written by immigrants.

The Wrong End of the Table: A Mostly Comic Memoir of a Muslim Arab American Woman Just Trying to Fit in by Ayser Salman

After Annie by Anna Quindlen

I read the quote at the beginning of the novel and wondered if I would be able to handle this book. I also wondered if this book was written for me.

Your absence has gone through me

Like thread through a needle,

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

—–W. S. Merwin

Annie Brown, a larger than life personality with her big laugh and huge presence, is a mother of four young children, a loving wife, and a remarkable friend. In short, she is like a sun around whom her family and friend revolve. When Annie suddenly dies due to an aneurysm, the world around her goes off kilter. Her husband Bill Brown does not know how to continue living and caring for their four children, Ali, their oldest has to grow up overnight to care for her siblings, and Annie’s best friend Annemarie does not know how to stay sober without Annie’s firm but loving presence. The story is about a bereaved family’s journey to learn to live with the hole in their lives but that hole is filled with the presence of Annie Brown in their memories. The plot seems simplistic. It is not the plot that carries the story forward, it is the emotion. It is the characters, and realism portrayed in the story. This book was sad and triggering. I often felt engulfed by grief as I read on but I could not stop reading about the lives of Annie Brown’s children, her husband, Bill, and her best friend Annemarie after Annie’s unexpected death. Anna Quindlen is a masterful and nuanced storyteller who can put to words the subtlest human emotions and can bring her stories to life. So much so that I became a part of the Brown family experiencing their loss and their sorrow at losing their mother and wife. I felt this book in my heart more than simply reading it.

And the quote is so apt! I am indeed colored by the absence of my parents. When they were alive, there was thousands of miles between us. We were together once a year for a few weeks. The rest of the times there were phone calls and regular wsapp messages. But now everything I do has traces of their absence. I wonder if their energy is what made tonight’s sunset extra spectacular, or the daffodils are more vibrant because they are now fortified with their hue. It is strange, this absence, this life in my memories, in my actions, in the lense through which I see the world. This absence that stitches colors to my tapestry of life.

A Book Review

I have been reading and enjoying quite a few non-fiction books lately. It has been a great way to learn little nuggets of history, culture or interesting events that my text books did not teach me. I wrote this brief review about this fascinating book. Not only was the event interesting, anger provoking, and heart breaking all at the same time, but the author was able to conjure up the post Revolution War New York in front of my eyes along with the social and class structure of those days.

The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America by John Wood Sweet

A sudden gift of a day.

I don’t want to sound like a whiner but I will say this: Mother Nature doesn’t always play fair with me. I don’t get every weekend off like many (not all) do. I get every other weekend off because I work at a library and the library is open seven days a week! My weekends are special. We, at the library, look forward to our weekends like souls thirsty for rest and relaxation. Let’s be honest, very few of us get the above stated rest and relaxation because….laundry, dirty house, bills, meal prep for the week and chores! And here is where you will tell me to quit whining. But I will say it anyway. Most the time it RAINS ON MY DAYS OFF! Ok, now that’s out in the universe, let’s move on.

Today was different. I woke up after a restful sleep. The sun was bright and my reading chair was awash in its golden light. The sky was baby blue with pillowy clouds lazily floating by. The tree in my backyard is full of buds and the daffodil bulbs which we discarded from our flower patch in ignorance has bloomed at the edge of our yard. We threw them out there but they come back each year to put a smile on our faces. They bring me joy. There is something special about these exuberant, bright yellow flowers that inspire hope and happiness in me.

For me, they are the first signs of spring. The second sign is the sighting of ants in my bathroom. I think I have written in one of my blogs that the first appearance of ants make me happy. That means spring cannot be far behind. Oh stop with your cringing! I am from India, I have seen worse than ants. I get mad at them as summer progresses though.

I can not stand winter. I love spring because it is full of hope, sunshine, and longer daylights but spring also means I have endured another winter. Fall is beautiful too, but what follows Fall? Not so much. No matter how long I live in this country, I cannot get used to winter.

I wanted to keep this day in my memory. I nodded at the happy daffodils today, watched an amazing performance at a local theater and witnessed a spectacular sunset.