Teen 2.0

I am attending a training for my work. It, sometimes, is waking me up at night. The work is not difficult, it is simply intense. Yet as I turn on the computer, all I want to do is write blogs. So, instead of working on Young Adult’s readers advisory, I am writing a blog about it.

Me: Sahana, I am going to interview you for one of my classes.

Dying pterodactyl groan accompanied with a word I understand: Why???

Me: Because you are a teen and I need to interview a teen who reads and uses the library. You fit the bill.

Sahana: Yes, but I am not your average teen. I will give you deep answers.

Me: How are you not an average teen? What is an average teen anyway?

Sahana: I am just better than your average teen. I have maturity, common sense and lucid moments. Your average teen does not have those.

Me: Do you think you also suffer from the sin of hubris?

Sahana: Nope, I just say it straight. It is what it is. I am not an average teen. I am Teen 2.0. You know? The upgraded version!

My sweet little teen did not realize how very ‘teenagerish’ she sounded in that entire conversation! I was making marinara sauce in the kitchen for dinner. I did not even feel the burn of an errant spot of hot sauce on my hand, I was chuckling so hard. Silently, of course!

🙂

For the love of….money!

Those of you who follow my blog will know that Ryan is a believer. He is a true believer of God and a devoted worshipper of….money. He, since a tender age of 2 or 3, has been strangely attracted to money in any form – paper bills, coins, currency of any country. The word ‘money’ has always brought on that expression of awe and reverence. He is very religious too, no, not the ascetic kind. He is very mindful of the quality of his life on earth and he worries about his existence after he passes on from this material world. He has learnt to merge his two loves – love of God and love of money by sharing his wealth and helping the impoverished.

In a recent discussion with his uncle, he expounded his theory of this happy merge of his two passions.

‘When I become a trillionaire, I will choose someone who does not have any money and make that person a billionaire. However, I will take away his money if he takes drugs or alcohol. He can not do that!’

He does not want money to serve vices. Good thought, I thought and we had a laugh over it.

He has different schemes always for earning. In India, he earned money first by carrying his grandfather’s grocery bags. He refused a rickshaw and politely asked if he could have the rickshaw fare instead if he carried the bags of vegetables and bloody fish. His grandfather agreed. Then he charged his indulgent grandfather for his companionship if there were no bags to be carried. Lastly he charged his innumerable aunties and grandmothers for hugs and kisses. He made a sweet sum at the end of his stay. He gave all of it away to his grandmother before leaving India.

In summer he weeded my flower bed for 5 dollars and opened a lemonade stand. Since he does not mess around when it comes to money, he wrote out a contract engaging Sahana as his junior partner and employee with a 75-25 % contract. And he calculated the exact amount that he owed her, and paid up.

Recently he has cooked up another scheme with friends. They are making book marks and selling them. I came home from work and was told triumphantly:

‘Mom!! Sahana bought 6 bucks worth of book marks!!’

I turned to my daughter, who is currently flushed with baby sitting money and also the money she gets from mowing our lawn, and exclaimed quietly at her generosity.

‘Why did you buy so many bookmarks? 6 bucks? That is a lot of bookmarks!’

‘It’s all good mom! This is all part of my plan. When we grow up and I am a poor struggling writer and he is a successful business man, I will remind him of this day and how I contributed to his start up business. The guy is a softie, he will help me out with my finances. I have got it all worked out!’

Well, then….:)

Believe, Hon!

Are you aware of the stereotype that media reinforces that men forget anniversaries and women get upset with them? Sean breaks that stereotype. I ask him “How long have we known each other now?” He knows the exact date, the exact number of years. I argue of course. “No no, it was this day of that month!” And he provides proofs and facts. I believe him then.

It has been 18 years of living together, raising a family, growing up in love. Life has been full of challenges, time for each other being the main one. The travels, the jobs, the juggling tire us both and romance often takes a backseat.

A few weeks ago, I put on a lovely saree, threw on some make up and went to the kitchen to show him my bedecked and semi bejeweled self, where he was flipping pan cakes for breakfast. “How do I look?” I asked. He quickly glanced up and looked back down at the browning pancakes.

“You look lovely. I like the necklace that you put on. Adds something more to the whole ensemble.” He said.

Sahana gave me the necklace on Mother’s Day and I have been wearing that since May. EVERYDAY! He never noticed!

“I have been wearing the necklace for the last 4 months for crying out loud! You never noticed???? You never look at me anymore? Is this what happens if one is married for 18 years???” I joke. I make it sound light-hearted, yet I am hurting a little bit.

He is, for a second stunned, at a loss, and then he comes back with an answer that he knows will get him out of the hole that he dug for himself.

I notice YOU! After 18 years I don’t need to notice any necklace or earring. I simply look at you, the natural you. I have always said you need no jewelry to be beautiful. I love the way you are naturally.

I grumble and groan. I tell him he is back tracking and covering up his mistake. He says “That’s my story and I am sticking to it, baby!” And laughs.

And I believe him. A huge part of me does. I believe him because it reminds me of the poem he loves, believes and recites. A poem by Pedro Salinas which he read to me when we courted, first in Spanish and then the translation, as I sang songs of Rabindranath Tagore for him.

To live I don’t want
islands, palaces, towers.
What steeper joy
Than living in pronouns!
Take off your clothing,
features, pictures;
I don’t want you like that,
masked as another,
always a daughter of something.
I want you pure, free,
irreducible: you.

Life together is not what it used to be 18 years ago. Our togetherness is spent talking about high school assignments, picking up dropping off children, text messages to each other. Yet, amidst all that, Salinas’s words remain, Rabindranath’s love songs remain. Pablo Neruda’s poem has the associations of that exquisite feeling that he wrote those words to give voice to our love.

September 8

Today, this day was a brimming cup,
today, this day was the immense wave,
today, it was all the earth.

Today the stormy sea
lifted us in a kiss
so high that we trembled
in a lightning flash
and, tied, we went down
to sink without untwining.

Today our bodies became vast,
they grew to the edge of the world
and rolled melting
into a single drop
of wax or meteor.

Between you and me a new door opened
and someone, still faceless,
was waiting for us there.

Pablo Neruda

All it takes is a moment of pause, a moment of looking back, a reiteration of some forgotten lines and I am once again the young woman in love. The heart drips with the oozy feeling of contentment. I smile and he smiles back.

I love it now!

Two American men took their newly wed brides to a baseball game for the first time. The brides belonged to two different countries, one came from India and the other from Peru. The game was a hotly contested one between two rivals. Both the American men were fans of a team from Boston. The women went to experience the all-American game of baseball, and perhaps to get an inkling of why this game appeals to so many in their newly adopted country. They failed to understand though. But not due to the lack of efforts of their very attentive spouses. The husbands bought yummy ball-park food, put their arms around their respective wives and whispered sweet nothings in their ears when they were not screaming at their team’s success, explained the rules and the reasons whenever they got the chance, yet the women found it hard to keep their focus on the game. They looked everywhere, sighed, stretched, looked at their watches and asked how long the game will last. The Indian one, a big fan of cricket, found this game terribly slow, which surprised her husband. Once the game was over and the ball-park spewed out thousands and thousands of excited fans onto the streets of the city, the Peruvian woman said to her husband in her endearing accent:

‘You like this game? But this is SO BORING!’

She spoke loudly enough to attract some looks. Her husband grinned, looked around and said, ‘Shhhhh…..!’

The Indian woman promised never to see another baseball game ever again. What a waste of time, she said. She could have read books in that time, she scoffed at her husband. And then her sly husband did something to make sure that she would start taking interest in the game. After 6 weeks of giving birth to their first child, when she was desperate to lose the baby weight, her husband urged her to join a women’s softball team. As I said, she was desperate to get rid of the extra pounds so she agreed. Being somewhat athletic, she caught on quickly and played in a local team. She had fun. But still she did not watch baseball. Once was enough.

Then she gave birth to a boy who lived, dreamed, breathed baseball. She made an effort then, to learn the game. She started watching it with the husband and the son. She learnt what tagging meant, she caught on to infield fly rule, she learnt about curve balls, sliders, knuckle ball, stealing home, double play, grand slam.

Now she loves it! She is almost as big a fan of the local team as her son. Almost, not quite. She discusses baseball with friends, neighbors, coworkers. She wears the jersey of her favorite player when she goes to watch a game and wonders how did she ever think the game was boring. Each wind up of her team’s pitcher is full of anticipation, each strike by the favored pitcher promising, each ball disappointing.

She went to a ball game recently with the husband and the son (the daughter refused to sit through it). And she thought back to her first baseball game at the ball park as a young bride, as she jumped up and high-fived the man next to her as a player hit a home run. She screamed with thirty thousand other spectators CHARGE, she clapped with them, she danced with her arms high and did the Mexican wave.

As she entered the ball park with thousands of other people wearing the same colored jersey as her, she felt a certain sense of belonging to the city which brought a smile to her face. She took off her sunhat and touched her chest as the national anthem was sung, and sang along. She noticed a dad with two little girls watching the game with their grandfather. The littlest one, maybe 3 years old, took care of the granddaddy by offering him drinks and putting her little head on his shoulder. She saw on the big screen, little babies whose parents held them in one hand and held a poster in the other, saying ‘Baby’s first ball game’. She noticed a son and probably daughter in law holding the hands of a very elderly lady as she navigated the steps to reach her seat with a wide smile on her face. She noticed the play of clouds up above and urged the husband to take a picture with his phone. She got teased for that, but the husband took the picture, anyway.

She smiled as she thought of her first game in the same ballpark all those years ago. She has adapted, adopted and grown indeed. She has come a long way.

The man from the faraway land came home.

I lied through my teeth for almost three months.

“I have double shift at work today. I have to leave by 9.00 am’ – was a common one. Every Saturday I would leave home after a faltering, mumbling lie. Walk with a fluttering heart towards Golpark bus stop, the heart rate increased as I neared Ram Krishna Mission. As I turned the corner I always broke out into a sweat of happy anticipation and guilt.

“Will he be there?” He always was. He stood in front of the Ram Krishna Mission, brighter than a sunshine, facing the corner where I would come from. As I turned the corner, his face split into a huge smile and I glittered like a diamond under its brightness.

After sneaking around for a few months, I decided my over active conscience can not bear the burden of this sneaky rendezvous, I needed to tell my parents that I was seeing someone. And the ‘someone’ belonged to a far away land.

So one summer afternoon as I lay next to my mother, I decided the moment was as good as any.

“I wanted to tell you for a while, I met someone I like.”

My mother’s head turned, excitement, apprehension in her eyes.

“Oh, really? Who is he?”

I knew the answer to “who is he” would be the hardest. He belonged to a different country, a country very far away.

I wanted them to meet him and nervously, they agreed. I was nervous, my parents were nervous and I believe Sean was nervous as well, although he does not admit it today.

The day finally dawned when he was supposed to come. Our house was cleaned thoroughly, the tiny living room was given a make over, the curtains were washed, cushion covers replaced, my seventeen cats were reprimanded and asked to be on their best behavior. My mother supervised the work and asked me if I thought the preparations will be up to Sean’s satisfaction. I reassured her he won’t really care. And then there was the question of what to offer him to eat. Although I had been seeing Sean for three months, we really had not shared a meal since our meetings were short and between meals. I had no idea what he ate or what he liked. I was not helpful, I just said, “Oh, don’t fret about it.”

Finally in the evening, Sean’s car entered our narrow alleyway. My mother was nervous and a little angry with me for putting her in this position where I thrust her into this realm of the ‘unknown’, out of her comfort zone. She did not know what to say to a man who was not from our country and did not speak her language! Why did I not find an Indian boy to fall in love with? Anyway, Sean entered our house holding two beautiful and expensive looking bouquets. He extended the bigger one to my mother and the smaller one to me. Neither ma nor I had ever received flowers from anyone, let alone a man. Flowers, rajanigandha sticks, were bought on our birthdays and put in a vase when we expected guests. We were baffled to receive flowers and worried right away if we had two vases handy to put them in. Sean seemed very comfortable. He shook hands with my dad and settled comfortably in the couch. Ma asked in halting English if he wanted any tea. Sean said, “Yes, sure. Thank you!”

At this point, my mother asked me to follow her. I went in towards the kitchen. She turned around to me with and said with gritted teeth, sweating a little,

“Ekta kotha o bujhte parchina!! Ki kore kotha bolbo?” (I can’t understand a word he says, how will I carry on a conversation?)

I said, with a concealed chuckle, “I will translate.”

After hot, milky tea and some halted conversation, mainly around me and how we met, a little about his work, they offered Sean some sweet yogurt – mishti doi, a specialty of Bengal. He accepted and ate it. Later I found out, he does not drink tea and he hates yogurt of any kind! The evening ended, Sean left and we started talking about him behind his back.

“He seems like a nice man. But the accent! Oh the accent! Can’t understand anything! How do you understand what he says?”

I said, “You get used to it. I can understand him fine!”

A trend started. He became a regular in our house. He had a very active social life, yet most evenings he came over to just hang out Indian style, sitting on our big bed with his legs folded under him, mainly laughing and listening, teasing my mother and perhaps observing the middle class Bengali culture through us.

I have been in several embarrassing situations and my parent’s unabashed pride in my achievements was certainly one of them. The pride was sweet, very endearing yet embarrassing. My trophies, cups and certificates were treasured in our Godrej almirah and Sean, once he became a bit more familiar, was subjected to each and every one of them, followed by a lecture on how smart I was and how well spoken and how many debates and public speaking competitions I had won. I was a catch and he better believe he is lucky to have received my attention – this message was delivered in subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways by those two who did consider me their prized possession, no matter how little I mattered to the world. I tried to divert the conversation, but I was ignored mostly. Sean showed interest with a quick amused glance in my direction and a meaningful smile which conveyed, ‘Oh you will be teased about it later!’

As our relationship grew and became richer so did his association with my immediate and extended family. My grandmother became Sean’s fast friend. They were often found in a corner in a family gathering, didun talking nineteen to the dozen to Sean about her trips to Belur, about her arthritis pain and other metaphysical discourses. Sean nodded and contributed to the conversation in English. This continued after our marriage and till she passed away to the other side.

A relationship between two individuals does not stay limited to just them, does it? It spreads its sweetness (or bitterness, as the case may be) to the people related to those individuals. Sean’s zest for life and his ability to spread love and cheer made him a favorite not only with me but with my family. We had our challenges in bringing our love to fruition but I believe our love and respect for not only each other but for those who we love helped us overcome those.

After eighteen years of togetherness I look back on the day when my two worlds met and how they interacted with each other. There was that fear of the unknown, there was curiosity, there was a little pride, there was a lot of stress and there was happiness too. It is with a smile that I look back and reminisce on how it all started, how we found acceptance and love in not only each other’s hearts but also in the hearts of family who nurtured us.

Fragrance of life..

I seem to be losing the energy and spontaneity with which I opened the blog every day. I wrote with joy and with a happy carelessness. I got so much love and encouragement from friends and unknown readers. I lapped up the love and at the same time lost the spontaneity. I started considering how readers will rate the blog. I lost sight of the purpose of my blogs – to write down my ramblings, to archive my memories of my children’s fleeting childhood, to chronicle the moments when I first met my husband, how I fell in love and how we grew together. I did not visit the blog site for so long. Yet mama thought. She thought of how to keep her children safe, how to love them more, how to meet deadlines, how to balance expectations, disappointments, work, romance, needs and wants. And she thought of loving her blog again. She thought of writing here her ramblings, her dreams and hopes, snippets of her life – life as it happens to her and as she sees it.

I wanted to document a few conversations as Sahana turned 15. The first one happened at dinner a few weeks back. The topic was types of parenting and a fifteen year old’s feedback on it. Sean and I were curious to know what she considers good parenting, objectively. She said:

‘Well honestly, for us, you can do nothing right at this point. If you are involved and take interest in what we do, we consider you smothering and extremely annoying. We try to elbow you out. And if you let us be, thinking you are giving us space, we consider you apathetic and uncaring. We feel sorry for ourselves. So yeah, for these few years, mom and dad, you can do nothing right!’

Sean and I turned around and high fived each other. The pressure was off. We did not need to change a thing. We could not win. Oh, joy!

She laughed with us. We all laughed at the incongruity of the situation, the absurdity of it all, and the clarity of her realization and her observation.

The second conversation took place at a trattoria while having an Italian dinner in honor of her fifteenth birthday. Her words have stayed with me:

‘You know, I am very happy mom that you belong to another country and dad does the job that he does. You have always taught us that there is another world out there, our perception of the world we live in is simply a part of it. It is because of you we got to experience a wider world and different culture. And I am glad that daddy does what he does for work. He brings back the stories of the world he travels to which make both Ryan and I realize how blessed we are to have what we have. It teaches us not to demand but be thankful.’

It was her birthday, yet she gave me a gift.

Last night while we heated up food for dinner, we talked about our evolving relationship as she gets older. She gets angry with me often, whenever I deny her what she wants, yet in her ‘lucid’ moments she knows we are forever in love. She wonders how it will be between us when she is a woman. I said I will always be her mother yet at a certain age we will be primarily two women – confiding, needing support, love and affection. Two women who will know in their hearts that they have each other to fall back upon if the world fails them. The relationship attains somewhat of an equilibrium as the daughter grows up. She seemed to like that.

And this morning I saw these beautiful words:

And I wondered, is this how they will remember me? First love, first friend, first enemy, fragrance of life? Continue reading “Fragrance of life..” →

Quinceanera

As I held the soft, warm bundle that were you, my heart just filled with this overwhelming, melting, oozy feeling that I have never ever felt before. A feeling of intense love for your tiny being, a feeling of complete bewilderment that your perfect body grew in my own, a fierce desire to protect you from all the evil in the world – a combination of all these and many more. Oh, and relief too, when the neo natal doc pronounced you healthy. Even now, when we laugh together over a shared joke, I look at your crinkled eyes, your wide smile and all of a sudden, think back to the moment when I held you for the first time. I can still feel that moment of wonder when I realized I am a mother to this tiny being in my arms. I remember I turned to every single person in the delivery room as I held you gingerly, and thanked them profusely. I thanked them for giving me you, a little pink bundle of perfection.

You are fifteen today. Almost a woman. Yet sometimes, when I enter your room to wake you up for school or swimming practice, I see in your sleeping face the baby that your daddy and I brought home. I move your hair and plant a kiss on your cheeks. You smile a little, in your sleep. Perhaps, even in your state of blessed unconsciousness, you feel my love?

You were born on a Thursday, the day of Goddess Lakshmi according to the Hindu mythology – the goddess of wealth. As we brought you home from the hospital, the landlady of our apartment in Delhi, stopped me to see your face as she thrust in your tiny hands an envelope full of money. She said, ‘Lakshmi has come to you on a Thursday!’ Your dad and I laughed.

Your dad boasted while you were still nestled within my body that he is an expert in babies, coming from a family of six siblings. I, being an only child, often expressed doubts about my abilities to keep a baby alive. I admitted I was clueless and all the books I read provided only theory. Your dad said, ‘Don’t worry, I know everything about changing diapers, bathing new borns. I will teach you!’ I, having never even seen or held a new born, believed him.

Then came the time to bathe you, for the first time. I handed you over to him and sat nervously watching. His hands were shaking and you were slippery. It was clear he did not know what to do with you, despite his bravado 🙂 . I almost died a thousand deaths in those few minutes in the fear that he will drop you. After five minutes, I could not bear the agony any longer, I took you back, ‘I can do this. I will do this!’ He handed you back and I cleaned you – fearlessly. As I look back, I realize motherhood came to me naturally. Taking care of you became my second nature, I did it with ease. Your daddy was of course, a huge help.

Your daddy and I decided to be with each other for many reasons, we discovered we completed each other in many ways. You, my dear girl, brought even more joy in our lives, than we thought was even possible. I have so many happy memories of the two of us sitting around you and watching you for hours, laughing over your facial gesture, gently sliding our finger into your closely fisted little fingers, tickling your tiny little toes and marveling over your belly laughs. I still can hear it!

We suffered from the agonies that all first time parents suffer from. We analyzed every cry, we tiptoed to your room when you were sleeping to make sure you breathed. We debated and read everything we could lay our hands on whether to lay you on your back, on your tummy or on your side when you slept. We asked innumerable questions to veteran parents and got patronizing and indulgent smiles. We proudly held you out for people to admire (you were really a very cute baby) and I frowned inwardly when people wanted to hold you. I antagonized a few family members by asking them to sanitize their hands before holding you. I really didn’t care what they thought. Your safety from germs was my primary concern.

You grew like a sunflower nourished by all the love not only from your parents, but your grand parents, uncles, aunts, neighbors, friends and teachers. People near and far loved you dearly and enriched your life with their happy presence. And you enriched theirs with your baby talk, toothless smiles, curly haired cuteness.

You made us parents for the first time. We learnt to be a parent by making mistakes with you. We learnt to create boundaries, we learnt when to give in, when to stand our grounds.

At fifteen, the worries remain for us. The reasons have changed. The overwhelming love that we feel for you for just being YOU remains, sometimes due to the conflicts that love is perhaps not as evident to you. But that first overwhelming intense love that we felt when we first held you follows you around faithfully. It will always follow you as long as we live. We do not sometimes, and may not see eye to eye always, but the love for you is permanent.

I want you to grow up and soar high with that knowledge. On your birthday, and for ever, do know please that you are intensely loved and lovingly cherished. I hope on your birthday, you will take a few moments to feel the love that surrounds you, make it a part of your essence and then when you go out to the world, spread the love on. We all know the world desperately needs it.

Happy birthday, my love, my dear, dear girl. Spread your wing, you will always have our love to fall back upon, if you so need, as your safety net.

Romeo and Juliet retold by Sahana.

As I flipped parathas for their lunch, I overheard Sahana telling Ryan the story of Romeo and Juliet. I peeked from the kitchen to survey the scene. Both were seated at the kitchen table in anticipation of lunch, Ryan was round eyed in rapt attention, while Sahana, very animatedly, told the famous love story. Albeit a bit differently than how the bard had said. I requested her to write it down for me so I could document one summer afternoon of storytelling for posterity. She obliged.

This is her narrative.

So a long, long time ago in some Italian place there was a kid name Romeo and he was completely, totally, tragically in love with this total hottie named Rosalind. And who knows, she mighta had the hots for him back ‘cept she was trainin’ to be a nun and all.

But our man Rom was deeepressed. He sat in front of her tower day in and day out, not eating or sleeping, just thinking about her hotness. One day, two of his homeboiiz, Mercutio(Merc) and Benvolio(Big Bad Benny) came up to him.

“Yo Romeo, homez, me ‘nd Merc gon’ crash the old Cap masquerade. You comin’, you dig?” Big Benny informed.

“Nah Big Bad B, that ain’t for me. I’d rather sit here all sad and stuff,” Rom responded.

“Nah, brah, ‘t’weren’t your choice, you comin’ regardless, dig?” said BBB.

“Fine man. As long as Pops don’t find out.”

See the Caps and the Montague’s(our boy Romeo’s fam) were total enemies, so if Rom’s Pop found out, our boiz’d be screwed.

So the three boiiz crashed the Old Cap Mansion and Rom bumped into a girl six years younger than him and fell head over heels in love with her, only this time the feeling was reciprocated. There was a problem though: the girl, Juliet, was Mr. Capulet’s baby gurl. Disregarding this, the two decided to get married and stay together till death do them part. Rom got his homeboi the Friar to marry them, which he did with some complaints but in the end relented. Neither fam was allowed at the wedding cuz no one else knew bout #Ruliet.

One day, Merc, Rom’s main man, fought Tybalt in the streets. Fighting in the streets was punishable by death, so when Tybalt killed Mercutio, not only was Romeo piiiissed, he also had good reason to kill him. Big Bad Benny told Rom to run away, because the Prince Guy In Charge had out-lawed street fighting and Romeo was gonna be killed or worse, expelled from the town. So Rom ran away.

When Juliet heard that her hubby had killed her cuzz she was like “Oh HELL nah that ain’t cool,” but she forgave Romeo cuz #truluv and all. Prince Guy In Charge did in fact banish RomRom for killing that SOB and Rom being the sad hombre that he was, fled.

Now Mr. Cap wanted Juliet to marry an über cute, über rich studmuffin named Paris but she wanted OUT so she got the ancient equivalent of a coma-causer and she passed out.

Rom heard that his wifey had “”died”” so he scurried back in town and poisoned himself over her tomb after killing Paris who was going to visit her(did I mention Paris was a total studmuffin). Juliet woke up with dead Rom on top of her so she said a speech and took his dagger and stabbed herself.

The Old Peeps walked in and saw the young ‘uns dead, and they were like ‘our fight is dumb’. BUT IT WAS KINDA TOO LATE FOR THAT OMG and then they put up #Ruliet statues and everyone lived happily ever after except for Mercutio, Tybalt, Paris, Romeo, and Juliet.

I laughed and laughed.

Racism

I have been asked if I faced discrimination for my color when I first arrived in this country long, long time ago. My answer has always been “no, never felt it!” I came with the naivety that in the land of the free racism is found in its past. I came with the belief that there was equality and camaraderie, solidarity and respect for all. The truth was, I was oblivious. I wasn’t aware I was being discriminated against because in India, where caste system still prevails, race was not something one worried about. The complexion mattered for aesthetic reasons(it still does), race did not. We were not segregated due to our race, we were however, segregated for caste. When I think back to some of the comments that I have received in US, with my new found sensibility of race consciousness, I believe I should have taken offense at them. I, however, incredulously pondered upon the ignorance of the person making such comments. I did not take her/him to be racist. As I said, I was naive.

I still live in a bubble. Or I like to think the world that I inhabit is full of people who do not judge me by the color of my skin, but love me for who I am as a human. I do not feel out of place among white/ black men/women because my skin is brown. I have ceased to notice skin color.

But racism exists in abundance. I discovered racism among my children’s peers. I found out it is completely acceptable for children of specific ethnicity to call each other by pejorative terms that is indicative of their race. Children of other ethnicity are not allowed. On a bus to a middle school New York trip with my daughter’s middle school, I flinched every time I heard middle schoolers of certain ethnicity calling each other with a derogatory nickname. I asked my daughter horrified. She explained it is acceptable to do that. As I see my daughter’s friends I find there is certainly a tendency for children with similar background to form a clan. That is not necessarily a negative as long as there is respect for all.

Recently, I watched a Folk tale Celebration of my Third grader, just before the culmination of his school year. As I listened to bright, energetic little voices singing this song with passion, a kaleidoscope of skin colors up there on the stage, I could not help but smile.

Some of us come from a distant land
Some of us come from nearby
But all of us carry a treasure chest
with things that gold can’t buy
And when we share our treasure chest
We all grow rich you see
The riches of our treasure chest
Are what makes you and me.

Holiday games and stories
Languages and songs
Faith and courage and wisdom
And ways to get along, and ways to get along
And when we share our treasure chest
We all grow rich you see.
The riches of our treasure chest
Are what makes you and me.

By Minnie O’Leary

If that song does not describe the essence of America, the great melting pot, then I do not know what does. We come from distant lands, we come from nearby. We all bring our treasure chests full of songs, language, cuisine, cultures and share among each other to enrich our lives, broaden our horizons and hopefully encourage acceptance and respect.

The schools in my community are doing such a terrific job of treasuring diversity. As I sat there and smiled at the enthusiastic third graders belting out this song with animated expressions, I wondered if they will carry the message of acceptance and respect for all as they grow. Will they spread that among the generation that they procreate? Will they, if necessary, teach their parents and family members, dogmatism and superiority hinder social equality and growth?

They filled me up with hope that one day racism will indeed be a thing found in history books. One day skin color will shed all its connotations and become simply what it is – color of one’s skin. Respect will usher in acceptance and solidarity. And the world will put away their guns because there will be no need to kill.

I am a dreamer, you say? Why don’t you join me? 🙂

The heart picks up…

I woke up to gentle nudges from my mother.

‘Uthe por. Khela shuru hobe, dekhbi na? (Wake up, the game is going to start. Won’t you watch it?)

I used to wake up, rub my eyes and turn my attention to the already blaring TV set. A football match between two countries was set to begin in a World Cup tournament. It was perhaps 2 or 3 in the morning, and most likely I had school the next day. Yet, she woke me up. Yet, she let me watch. When my father chided about school and health, she said, ‘There will always be school, but Football World Cup comes around every four years!’ I have seen very few football enthusiasts like my mother and thankfully, she has passed on her zeal for the game to me. I learnt the rules of offside, the different positions of footballers and other nuances of the game from her. Football, for me, is so much more than just a game. It is the companionship of my mother and sometimes father, sipping cups of tea in the middle of week night and watching athletes fight it out over the possession of a ball on the field. It is the resounding GOAAAAAAAAL erupting in the neighborhood at the dark hours of night when a foreign team scored (India never had a team to field in the global arena and still does not). It is the collective joy of our favored team’s win. It is the combined sadness of an entire community when our favorite team lost. Football was my first means to connect with the world without quite being aware of it. It certainly was a means to bond with my football crazy city of Kolkata.

I grew up in those dark days of no internet and no cable. Our entertainments were limited to newspapers, magazines, and the limited shows that Doordarshan provided on television. But those were enough to fire up our fervor for football. After watching an early morning football game we would go to school and analyze each shot, each miss, each corner, each penalty. We would defend our favorite soccer player and berate the opponents. We read up the sports pages and spouted statistics to impress. During lunch and recess, we would take a temporary break from playing basketball and kick around a soccer ball pretending to be Zico or Zidane. We would talk of nothing else. What else was there to talk about when the World cup was being fought over in the global arena? We lived in football haze. And how we loved that. We would get home, finish our evening chores, get to bed and set the alarm for the next game. My mother, I remember, watched the game and cooked the next day’s meal before dawn so she could rest the following day. This became our routine for the entire month. We lived during the night and drooped during the day. We were football owls.

The road side dadas (local neighborhood boys) hung the flags of their respective teams by the roadside and set up shrines to their football teams complete with garlanded photographs of the footballers. Our paara (neighborhood) donned the yellow and green of Brazil. Our next paara sported blue and white of Argentina. There were trash talks galore:

‘Ja, ja neche neche goal debo toder!’ (Get lost, we will dance into your goals!)

‘Dekhe nebo, dekhe nebo toder!’ (We shall see!)

All good-natured, all in good humor. But these built up the ambiance and that whole month of the tournament was nothing like ordinary times. Most of my friends, family, acquaintances were caught up in football fever. Our schedules, lives, homework, jobs rotated around the schedules of our favorite teams. In public buses and trains complete strangers either bonded over Bebeto’s crib dance or exchanged heated words over Maradona’s controversial goal. There was either hate or love in my world, there was very little indifference. You were either a friend or a foe. There was nothing in between. There must have been folks who did not care for our frenzy. For us, they simply faded into oblivion – for that month. And after the Final game was played and the after the Champion team lifted the trophy, we walked around for a few days in a daze, lost, dejected and unsure of what to say when football talk died down. Commuters looked forlornly out of the windows in silence and snapped at fellow commuters, we picked up the basketball again in school, we lovingly looked at our scrapbooks full of pictures and statistics of the World Cup tournament till we put them away and forgot about them, our mothers became the dragon ladies, stickler for rules and disciplines. And life, for a while, lost its color. Till the next craze – local football, Wimbledon, cricket whatever. And the fan frenzy returned with a vengeance.

I am a middle aged woman now as Soccer world cup 2014 gets underway, living in a country where soccer is not a religion. I am a chauffeur, chef, educator, counselor, disciplinarian, hugs giver – or in one word, a mother. I don’t have enough time to indulge in football frenzy anymore. Yet, I can’t seem to help it. I have the schedule posted on my refrigerator wall, I have the games highlighted, I have time set aside. And thanks to Facebook, I get to watch the game with my fellow enthusiasts who are scattered all over the world. We discuss the game, we berate teams, we trash talk, we laugh together and we plan which games to watch together virtually. It is not the same as watching it with my mother in the middle of night and with the entire neighborhood, but it works quite well.

I surprise my new friends with my soccer zeal. Do you even know anything about the footballers in the Brazil team that you are cheering for, they ask! I do not know a thing! I do not have any statistics or any information on the players of Brazil memorized anymore, but does that really matter? The support for my team is not dependent on any of that. I say Brazil will win simply because I believe. Yes, they were the world champions five times, yes they play amazingly beautiful football but most importantly the faith comes straight from the heart. The heart does not care for numbers or reason. It just remembers the passion of the past, the moments that I have lived during past Football World Cups and it simply picks up from there.

And non soccer enthusiasts? I love you deeply, I really do but you simply do NOT exist for me till July 13th 2014. I hope you don’t mind. It is not personal. 🙂