2012 ends, 2013 arrives

As 2012 draws to a close, Delhi is still cloaked in a pall of  gloom following recent events. There is outrage at the lack of dignity or security for women in this city, which promises to become a fortress tonight…

Darkness falls over the city fog, the wintry chill makes my eyes water and it is easy for the present to blur into a past winter – a perfect year-end in Germany and Austria. If Bavaria is magical at Christmas, then Nuremberg’s Christkindlmarkt (Christmas Market) is at the heart of the magic. We stroll among the colorful stalls on cold evenings, drinking spicy-sweet gluhewein and eating mouthwatering cakes, before walking over to hear the carol-singing in the historic cathedral. 

The day before Christmas we drive to Salzburg, arrive in the afternoon at the quaint family-run Bloberger Hof and are shown to a charming little room beneath the eaves. I can hardly wait to see the old town and it is everything I can hope for: narrow cobbled streets between tall ancient buildings – one of them is Mozart’s home, where he was born and lived almost three centuries ago… Foolishly, we have not booked a dinner table for Christmas eve, but are fortunate to get the last one in the coziest, most beautiful restaurant in the alley! It is the perfect end to a perfect day, surpassed only by waking up to the uncanny silence of a white Christmas - where the newly fallen snow forms a thick white velvet cover over rooftops and cars and branches.

For two days, we are tourists in Salzburg: cable car up the Alpine slopes, walks along the river and Europe's finest confectionery. On the third day, our fellow guests help dig out our snow-stuck car and cheer us loudly on our way when we are free! We stop in Munich to see the spectacular Residence, breathtaking palace of the Bavarian monarchs, and then back to Nuremburg.

Now, as I return to the present New Year’s eve, I can feel again the cold of Salzburg and see the breathtaking snow-covered vista we woke to on Christmas morning. I can taste the flavour of Christmas stollen and hear the sweet sound of Christmas carols. I can hear the calling of the geese, as they scramble for bread crumbs on the half-frozen lake near Munich, and smell the bratwurst cooking over charcoal embers. My mind turns to the spectacular fireworks at midnight that we looked at from the Nuremberg window …

Visit to India - at the end

I am profoundly struck by this unexpected aspect of my move. Everything about my life in America is new and every new experience is like unwrapping a gift. Along with this privilege of unwrapping the newness of America, I now find that I can experience India anew as well, discovering it afresh with an additional Western perspective. 

Perhaps one day I will visit home with an American friend and witness how it must feel to unwrap India for the very first time with a childlike and breathless excitement — the way I have felt flying over the Mississippi for the first time or watching the thoroughbreds race at Churchill Downs or snapping ice crystals from the branches of the trees on the street where I live. How many people are graced with such good fortune? 

My final day breaks to a chilly morning (never again will the weather in India seem cold to me!) and the skies are grey. My last evening is an appropriate end to my visit home. We walk up to the fort with a cool breeze blowing in our faces, the sun setting in one direction, the almost-full moon growing brighter in the other.

 

My thoughts drift in two directions as well: here I am in the land of my birth and family, but soon I will be back in St. Louis. Or should I say back home in St. Louis?

Visit to India – Delhi, Alwar

The Bombay visit ends all too soon and I try to memorize the city as my Jet flight takes off toward the North. Delhi airport is as I left it almost a year ago. There is pandemonum as I retrieve my bags and till I spot the placard bearing my name. Then, finally, I am greeting the family, our words spill over each other's as we try to bridge the distance of these many months. The shift is as instantaneous as the transition in Mumbai. Now I am pampered and cared for and loved in a way I had forgotten. I am the center of everyone’s care and attention and can have anything and everything I ask for. Of course I am spoiled and it is the only way to be! America with its strangeness is very distant indeed...  Effortlessly, I slip into the past. The language and words and idioms I feared I may have forgotten come back to me as naturally and easily as if I’d never left. Here I can unashamedly miss the past and speak longingly of times that were; here I can be my old self and everyone knows me still - things I have sometimes forgotten in foreign lands with foreign people. 

We carry a picnic to Vijay Mandir palace grounds to mark the last day of the year. That night we are in the breathtakingly beautiful environment of the hill-top fort at Kesrauli. I listen to the Sufi music and think how different it is from a Jazz at the Bistro performance, and yet how similar. While one is a magical experience in an ancient setting that reverberates with soulful melodies, the other took place in the warmth of the bistro, after which I emerged to the perfection of fresh snow on the streets at midnight. The memory brings back the cold of that first St. Louis snow storm, and the beauty of the ice crystals on the branches, along with the vibrant music. Each experience has touched a place deep inside me and I know I am blessed to have known both. Interestingly, there are a few Americans sharing in the wonderment of this New Year’s Eve and, for the first time, I can experience the  enchantment through their eyes and ears as well!

 

Visit to India - Mumbai

My visit to India, a year after moving to St. Louis halfway around the world, opens my eyes to some rich and unexpected rewards I never knew were mine. In a breathless moment of insight I see that I can have the best of both worlds. I can have the rare luxury of a constant newness.

We land in Mumbai soon after dawn, in 90 degrees Fahrenheit. As we drive towards Colaba, the open windows let in a balmy sea breeze. Soon my senses are overwhelmed by this city's sights and sounds and smells and colors. There is no gradual transition, rather an instant shift. Traveling along a once familiar route, I see the buses, the cyclists, the vendors and the street urchins with fresh eyes. Greedy to embrace this gift - this feeling of newness emanating from the familiar - I throw myself into my old/new lifestyle: walking under the coconut palms, dashing across the road dodging honking cabdrivers, drinking coconut water from the vendor at the street corner and browsing the old curio shops. 

Quickly, I slip from the busy, organized and independent lifestyle of previous months to complete decadence. Each room in Jyoti’s flat has one wall composed of sea - a breathtaking view that erases uncertainty and enables serenity. The days are full of reunions. My friends are unchanged and hungry for every detail – admiring of my ‘independence’, incredulous that I drive and shop and cook for myself, impatient to hear about the people I’ve met…

 

And then there is Kartik, unchanged and yet completely changed: confident, grown-up and self assured. He amuses us with his anecdotes and I marvel that this witty attractive young man was ever the baby who came to me in tears over a bruised knee or clung to my skirt shyly before strangers or threw a tantrum over something in the toy store… With mixed feelings I miss the little boy whose life centered around me, but am filled with pride that he has grown into this wonderful man. I know he will be different each time I see him and pray for him to remain as secure, happy and enthusiastic as he is today. I visit his apartment in Bandra, it is small and simple. Now he insists on paying for dinner and I smile to think of how independent he has become.

 

 

Abbey of Gethsemani – 3

This abbey environment is perfect to confront myself without the trappings of the day-to-day, which I have grown so addicted to. As I write out my ‘Retreat Offering’ check and look around me at my sparse yet beautiful room, I am ashamed that I have so much beyond what I need. In future I will try to de-junk my life, both in terms of not acquiring new things and also by giving away things that someone else will value more than I do.

Before thinking about what I want to achieve in the new year, it might be good to think about who I want to be. Perhaps now is a good time to revisit who I am, what I want to change about me and where I can begin. I start with the positives and am pleased to list the many thing I like about myself. Then I begin to think about the not-so-nice and find there are several things I’d like to change. To start with, I’d like to be less self-absorbed. America is so much about oneself. Each person is expected to be self-contained and self-sufficient and, yes, self-absorbed. So let that be my challenge. Let me consciously try to turn outward, be more curious about the world, more attuned to my surroundings, more sensitive to those around me. Let me be less guarded about my emotional self. We are all shaped by our experience and mine has taught me to be wary and careful. This attitude sometimes makes me closed and over-cautious, even though my nature is to be open and adventurous. I will try not to be inhibited by my baggage, as I live my life.

Abbey of Gethsemani - 2

This Retreat is liberating because I don't need to think about making impressions on people - with my appearance or attire or conversation. It seems everyone is turned inward into themselves so they don’t really experience me, just as I don’t experience them. When I see other people at prayer or at meals or just walking in the public spaces, they are faceless to me like the monks in their robes. I am free from having to see or hear or speak to them or indeed in any way acknowledge them; they merely coexist. Interestingly, this dimming of the senses to the outward seems to sharpen the inward focus, because here there is no possible excuse to evade introspection. Not only has the abbey caused me to shed the persona I don in order to present myself to the world, I seem also to have dropped a protective layer from the being I present to myself. Everything seems to be a little bit closer to the surface. A number of times during this day a mere memory from the past has made my eyes well up… as if the sadness or loss were closer or more recent than it is. So, in a way I feel strong and invincible; and at the same time, in a different way, I am more exposed and vulnerable.

While yesterday was wet and it rained on and off, today is dry and windy. I saw a few swirling snowflakes earlier in the day. After lunch, I go for a winding walk in the woods across the road. The biting chill penetrates my several layers of clothing, making my eyes water, my nose run and my hands turn numb despite their gloves. The gently rolling hills near the abbey, the woods and lake beyond them and the colorless dome of sky overcast with ominous dark clouds remind me of Hardy’s England with a sense of brewing drama... but perhaps I am being fanciful and it is probably just a gentle Kentucky landscape!

 

Abbey of Gethsemani – 1

I have been in this Kentucky abbey a whole day. In one way it feels the hours have flown by, in another it seems I have been here longer than a mere day, and in yet a different way it seems time has acquired a different dimension here. More than once in these hours I have felt faced with contradictions but, when I examine them, I find they do not really contradict. Rather they seem to be two complementary sides of a single coin.   

I always believed that words can allow one to describe anything, but right now my mind is full of thoughts I struggle to articulate truthfully. I have not spoken a word to another person since I reached here and no word has been spoken to me. Aptly the signs say ‘Silence is Spoken Here’. I think this silence allows us to travel inside our minds and focus on shaping our thoughts. I hope I will eventually find the words to express these thoughts. 

The only words I hear are in the singing of the monks during the several prayer services I attend. They sing timeless monastic prayers in Latin. It is unreal how they sing for themselves and for us. While the world around them fights and sins and struggles and carries on – they sing. Eight times a day starting at 3.15 in the morning, never having missed a service in this abbey since 1848, they sing! All the Retreatants seem to be American and Catholic and I am conscious of being neither American, nor Catholic, nor Christian. Still, listening to the prayers and hymns and readings transports me to the scripture classes in school and I find myself reading from the bible that is placed in my room. Before I know it, I become absorbed and two hours go by. I am surprised at how many of the stories in the Old and New Testaments are familiar to me, as well as so many psalms and parables and passages… While I have not planned for this to be a religious experience, the environment insists it become one. And it is a pleasant and comforting feeling after all…

Moving to America – Settling in

My expectations of service in the US are not high, but still I am surprised. The movers unpack at top speed and actually leave a piece of my bed propped behind the assembled bed. In their rush to finish, they  stack a heap of packing materials in front of the fire exit (the building manager speaks to me sternly about this on my very first morning in this new abode). When I raise these issues with the moving company, I am told someone will return to rectify the problem on a working day at 10 am as, they don’t work weekends! However, I have been in this country eight weeks now and my diplomatic and accommodating self has given way to a direct and no-nonsense one. I inform them that, since I will not be taking off from work to fix their mess, they need to come over on a Saturday morning at a time that suits me. Eventually the job is done and I am gratified to receive an apologetic letter from a VP in the moving company. I stay realistic and remain braced for the challenges that lie ahead, as I begin the green card process with the doctor’s visits, the tests and vaccinations, the documentation and more.  

When I look back at these early months in retrospect, I am convinced that not all the pain was necessary! Perhaps I had more than my share of difficulties. Perhaps I was more vocal about them. Perhaps many people were not as outspoken as me. Certainly I could have been better-prepared; the ‘cross-cultural training’ could have been scheduled before my move instead of after!  Some days I did wonder if the cons of this change outweighed the pros. Some days I felt the effort outweighed the advantages. But as I settled in, I grew to love so many aspects of America. I grew to love my work, my friends, my travel experience (but more on that later). Above all I grew to love the wild, whacky and irreverent American sense of humor and the innate goodness in so many people that I met…

Moving to America – Accommodation

Next, I start looking for a home. The finance company tells me I must have the ever-important credit history. They generously agree to accept Indian credit history and suggest reference letters from ‘Utility companies’ or ‘Credit Card institutions’. I can hardly keep a straight face as I imagine the Delhi Electric Supply Board writing a reference letter for me! I try to explain that I come from another planet where these things are not possible. Finally, my employer helps me acquire a mortgage approval.

After some looking, I find the perfect home that fits me and fits my budget. We do the offers and the counter offers and the contract is signed, the deposit paid. Only when we head out in suits and ties for the formal ‘Closing’ at the ‘Title’ company do I ran into a wall. Missouri state law stipulates that a married person must have a ‘marital waiver’ to buy a house, even when moving without a spouse. It's just that no one was aware of this law! We beg the seller for three additional days to protect my deposit. I call friends, relatives, others in the middle of their night – the husband, the Notary, the Courier service. It is hard to explain to people in the US that email is not all-pervasive in India and  ‘overnight’ or ‘express’  delivery is rare in a land where there are frequently no roads and two hundred miles a day is an unheard of speed! Somehow, it all gets done. 

Ironically, after all this, the property deed the Title Company mails me six weeks later has (in addition to misspelling my name) got me down as a ‘single’ person! This combination of particular and meticulous on the one hand and careless on the other amazes me - I await the corrected document…

Moving to America – Transportation

It is relatively easy to select a car – in fact it seems (and is) too good to be true! I soon learn that I must have insurance to drive out the car, a driver’s license to get insurance, a social security number to get a license and so on… This is just the beginning. I discover, a day at a time, that I don’t qualify for car-finance without credit history. I crack that, but find that finance can only be for three years because that is my visa validity (a green card application is planned, but not yet submitted). My American brother saves the day, he steps in and co-signs the loan. Lesson: a permanent transfer only works if you have a brother with a twenty year credit history in the US! I purchase auto insurance at a high premium (twenty five years of accident-free driving means nothing as it was not in the US) only to learn I can get a better deal. So, I cancel the insurance within a month and to my (unpleasant) surprise receive a smaller refund then expected - premium is not pro-rated but short-rated, highest in the first month and diminishing towards the last! For a wild moment I consider litigation as an appropriate solution in this country, where everyone sues everyone about everything …

While I am proud (part) owner of a legitimate car, I must still acquire a registration plate. The proverbially smiling car salesman has long ceased smiling at me, but I blithely drive off in my shiny car. A few weeks later, I realize the temporary plate expires soon and he speaks reassuring words. A day before expiry, I remind him again. An hour later his boss calls (the salesman can no longer speak with me) to say I can’t get registration plates as I have not paid property tax last year! I remind him that I did not live in this country last year, let alone have property to pay tax on, and we carry on... My patience, steadily wearing thin, snaps completely at some point and I hear myself yelling, ‘so why are you telling me today when the temporary plate expires tomorrow’ and ‘No, I can’t go to bloody City Hall on Monday (or for that matter Tuesday or Wednesday)’ and ‘Take that salesman off my case right now once!’ and so on, till I break down. More than outrage over the registration plate, I am shocked at the change in myself, this person that I hardly recognize… Eventually, my employer steps in and finds a solution.

Moving to America – A new identity

Leaving a life in India to find a new one across the globe, in St. Louis, means stepping far outside my comfort zone.  I suppose most people approach change with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension, as do I. Some days the anticipation is high and on others the apprehension hangs like a cloud. Always there is a heightened consciousness, a constant awareness of looking strange and feeling strange. I meet several Asian colleagues in various  stages of ‘settling in’ and try to look intelligent as they speak about immigration interviews and social security numbers, about driving tests and the interstate versus the freeway, about car rentals and home purchases, above all about the do-it-yourself American culture …

The early days fly by in a blur of new experiences. I learn to drive on the right (or wrong) side of the road in a rented car with no gears, at never before speeds. I assume every police car wants to book me for some unknown transgression or breaking one of the numerous traffic rules I’ve never encountered before. In my temporary non-serviced apartment, I figure out the mysteries of the coin-dispenser to do my laundry, the garage door that opens magically and the kitchen that must be stocked with food from heaven knows where. I know my world is truly upside down when I am advised that, since the heating is centrally controlled, it is best to switch on the AC and open the windows to neutralize the heat of the radiators that are going full blast!

 

Soon I will discover that I am nothing without a Social Security Number and a US Driving License, that I simply don’t exist. (If I had to do it over, I’d rate these ahead of housing or transport or money!) These critical documents are vital to ensure I am neatly labeled, tagged and slotted into the system, with my identity in place. Perhaps this is how it is in the witness protection program, where they build you from nothing and then you begin to exist…

 

Closure: DL # 8517 - Atlanta to Paris

The plane is in the sky over the Atlantic and it is dark. I expect the sun is beginning to rise at my Paris destination. Unbidden, my mind takes me down a scary pathway and opens doors long shut…

Friends expressed surprise that I coped so well with the loss of both parents within a year. On the last day dad was conscious, I traveled to Mumbai and attended a meeting. No one knew it was his last day, but I did not even want to consider that it might be. I thought acting normal would actually make everything normal (I yelled at my doctor brother for suggesting dad may not pull through this) and when I saw him next, he did not recognize me… I received the 4am call. The phone showed ‘hospital’ and, at first, I let it ring. I knew what they wanted to tell me. I called mom and heard myself stammering because I had no words. Till I die I’ll remember her response – a cry like an animal in pain, and then nothing. I stayed with her the next two days, but left soon after to avoid the mourning rituals. 

Something was extinguished inside my mom and she was in hospital a year later. Well before they detected her lung infection she said she felt breathless, but the monitors still looked good. One night, soon after I left her, I had a call saying she was asking for me. The image of how she looked that night remains with me: frail and beautiful in her blue hospital gown, prominent cheekbones, her large expressive eyes somewhat perplexed… I stayed with her a long while and it was very quiet, past midnight in the ICU. Being mom she asked me to comb her hair and commented on how my blouse did not exactly match my sari! After some time she told me to go home as it was late and she would worry. ‘Go, get some sleep.’ I laughed and said, as if to a child, ‘What’s the point, you might call me back again’ and she said, ‘No, I won’t call you back’. Did I perhaps tell her that her need for me was an imposition? They put her on the ventilator soon after and she never spoke again. 

The next day is a collage of images: the ICU room where they had erased all trace of her, a nurse handing me her diamond nose-pin in a plastic pouch, my shock at how cold she felt and how unlike mom she looked. I was filled with a sense of déjà vu and it was like the previous year. Even the air had the same beginning-of-winter chill, but this time it was a relief to not face mom’s unbearable grief or try to share with her the little comfort I had left.  

Now, years later, I am agonizingly engulfed with the sadness and the loss. I am the only one awake on this plane. It is peaceful and quiet, except for the comforting drone of the engine. I’m warm and cocooned in my seat and, oddly, feel safer than anyone should feel in the sky. Perhaps I am invulnerable because the worst has happened – what else can come to pass?  

 

Kumaon nostalgia - day 5

I finally complete the jigsaw puzzle, all 759 pieces of it, and gloat over it for five full minutes. Now it has been put away in fragments, till next I take it out. Soon I must leave this world. The sky is a somber gray and the rain is falling once more. It strikes me that the weather today is exactly as it was on the day I arrived. Strange how so often arrivals do resemble departures, perhaps because the former always pave the way for the latter – and in the same way are ends enmeshed with beginnings. Then there must be wisdom in living each day as if it were complete in itself, with a beginning, a middle and an end; with nothing carrying over from the previous day and nothing, unfinished, spilling over into the next. 

The rain falls heavier now, as I try to memorize each detail of the view. Tomorrow, when I’m far away, I’ll close my eyes and try to piece it all together. But this is harder than the jigsaw puzzle; here, to the picture I must add the smell of damp earth, the chill of the mist, the sound of the rain on the roof and the murmur of voices beyond the mesh door… Goodbye hills, ‘bye pear tree. It is a short drive to the train through the velvet night, with village lights twinkling in the inky blackness. My mind wanders to a dawn, when I couldn’t tell if the twinkling lights were stars …

Kumaon nostalgia - day 4

Today to Nainital and it is tinged with more glimpses of the past. In the courts I see the musty registrar’s room where Fredy and I were last present to make our wills. I wonder whether the inkpad used for making thumb impressions is a relic, the same I used before. Then we drive past the gates of Sem and Allsi, now part and parcel of our histories – Fredy’s and mine and Bianca’s and Kartik’s. It strikes me that these are tangible things in a sometimes shadowy past. The metal of the gate and brick walls are solid and will surely last beyond us all.

Later, I clean up the house, arranging all the linen in neatly labeled drawers. I spend hours going through boxes of things long forgotten – pictures, letters, a half done stamp collection, even a colorful parandhi from my ethnic Indian phase. Finally, I sleep for hours and hours (as if stocking up for the sleep drought I know will follow). A certain cocoon-like quality has always been the hallmark of this place. Here, the mundane does not touch one. It is a place to liberate one’s senses, indulge oneself and eschew all form of discipline. Even when I lived here all those years ago, while the day may not have brought anything more significant than a child’s scraped knee – still I was insulated from the soul-killing and the banal. Maybe herein lies the secret to being eternally young, where time and events don’t touch you.  

 

 

Kumaon nostalgia - day 3

This morning I step outside as the sun’s earliest rays fall on the ridge. I walk up without a pause, out of breath and surrounded by the fresh smell of moist lantana. I stop atop the ridge, as the sun grows warmer, and survey the view: the Sattal Lake below, Nainital and the towers of Sem in the distance, the Sattal bungalows in between. I turn left to walk upwards to Kartik’s place, but the lantana has blocked off the trail - obviously no one else ever visits his secret place! I walk back to the ridge and on towards the temple tree. On my right is a little hidden glade (it strikes me that this would be a fine spot for a little yellow-curtained cottage with the bedroom facing east). 

I climb upward and the view on my left becomes more picturesque. There is something feral about how the hills make you feel. All sensation becomes physical: the tired muscles in my legs, the breathlessness in my chest, the sweat trickling down my back. At the top, I put down the binoculars and take off my sweater. The breeze cools my arms and blows my skirt around my calves. You silly temple tree, who needs to pray to you? What wish have I, which you can make come true? What happiness can I want beyond that I feel this moment? To think I ever felt incomplete! As I turn back, I feel as if the beauty of my surroundings has entered my being through my senses: through my eyes and ears and nose and mouth and skin. I know my experience is complete and this moment perfect, lacking nothing and embedded in me forever.

Kumaon nostalgia - day 2

And then, I am home. There’s the pear tree and the water tank, unchanging as their setting. I wander through each room. In my mind’s eye I see the children’s toys as they once lay, as well as a glued- together vase, the duck shaped candle, a card from a long-ago Bianca – each a piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is my life; sometimes forgotten but never dispensable.

It’s easy to lose track of time. What one does here absorbs one completely – be it a Namita Gokhale book or a mammoth jigsaw puzzle or a game of Scrabble. These things occupy one completely as if there’s nothing else. I wake at dawn and it's hard to believe anything else exists or matters beyond the gray sky, the green hills and the pointless pattering of the whistling thrush on the roof above my bed. My escape is total and I need fear no intrusion, even into my subconscious. Even the tiredness after a walk is different: the physical exhaustion of aching muscles and beating heart, but one’s mind is energized and renewed.

 

Perhaps only these hills are eternal, while all other aspects of my life are transient. Here it is always calm and level, untouched by choppy waves in turbulent seas. This is the truly pure and selfless aspect of my life. Here I am prepared to give, expecting nothing in return. Here, I do not measure everything in doses of equality or struggle for a sense of balance.

Kumaon nostalgia - day 1

I step out of the train at Kathgodam and into another world. As other passengers run for shelter from the rain, I savor it, walking slowly and letting it fall on my hair. Through the station and into the car – I open the car window and let all my senses absorb this world. My eyes take in the green around me; I smell the foliage as the rain blows in against my face and neck. It’s not a walk down memory lane, rather like being cast into a sea of memories.  I reach out and touch them as they float by. Time has made each more beautiful – a bend in the road, the noisy river spanned by an ancient bridge, the teashop where time stands still, groups of hill folk walking under shared umbrellas, the rickety trucks – the only concession to modernization in these primeval hills. Even my thoughts slow down to acclimatize themselves to the gentle pace of these images that I pass. 

How I have changed in these many years since first I saw these sights. No matter how the city’s madness seeks to take over one’s life, a part of me lives here always; abides in these hills and valleys and forests waiting patiently till the rest of me returns. It is as if these inanimate things love me, offering me refuge and waiting with an enduring patience till they are needed – never judging, never recriminating, always ready with a healing balm to soothe and help me forget.