The Blue Flask and Grandma

During a recent visit to my parents’ house I saw some very old stuff they had taken out of the loft after several years. And after nearly a decade I saw the Blue Flask, the first thermos flask I had ever known. A long, stripped light blue flask with the name Hammer Master written on it. I took the flask in my hands and the cap fell down. I laughed aloud, because the falling of the flask cap brought fresh memories of old times.
More than 25 years ago, my grandmother and I had carried this flask every day for a week to the hospital where my sister was admitted. She was a hardly four and she was hospitalized for an upset stomach. My parents stayed with my sister day and night and I was with my uncles, aunt and grandparents.
At 7 pm my grandmother would make supper and fill the flask with warm water and take them and me in an auto to the hospital. Being with grandma, even today can be embarrassing or amusing depending on the way one looks at the situation. She can bargain endlessly with any human to whom she has to hand out money. If she can do that emphatically now in her eighties imagine her vigour in her sixties. So she scolded and she cursed, she reasoned and she pleaded with the auto-driver to reduce the charges for our hospital trip. I can simply recite from memory the words she used for bargaining with the auto drivers, I chuckled then and I chuckle now. When the bargaining was over and the money actually left her hand (Phew! ), we got down from the auto to start moving towards the hospital. 'Tat-da da tat', there was a noise 'what was that Hannahma?' my grandma asked. 'The flask's cap','it has fallen down' I screamed. Together we crawled all over the auto and under it without letting the poor auto-driver drive away. The auto-driver would panic thinking my grandma would take back some of the money she had just handed him. After five minutes that seemed to last for an hour we found the cap and went into the hospital.
The next day, we would call out for another auto and my grandmother scolded and cursed, reasoned and pleaded for reduction in auto charges. And just when the money left her hands the cap left the flask. I started enjoying this. So I giggled, crawling up and down the auto in search of the flask cap as my grandmother lamented loudly and the auto driver accelearted his throttle impatiently. Then when we were back home I enacted the whole drama to my uncles and laughed so much. Grandma is a good sport so she laughed too but she ensured that the cap never fell off from the flask again.

Having relived those funny moments, I bent down, took the cap and screwed it back tight on the flask.

In a couple of weeks, the then four-year old sister will be walking down the aisle in church in bridal garments. Grumbling grandma will be gleaming grandma at her favourite grand daughter's wedding. Thanks to the many cars her sons own, some fortunate auto-driver will have a peaceful evening that day.

Ah!! Those Gadgets

People around me are obsessed with gadgets. Cell phones, iphones, iPods, mp3, video games… the list is endless. Gone are the days when people would build a conversation with fellow passengers during a train or bus journey. Now anyone who begins a conversation is considered a nuisance. We have let our love for gadgets kill the goodness of the human spirit. When two people talk continuously during a bus journey, the other passengers start getting their earphones to shut themselves out. They don’t realize that the bacteria earphones can bring into their ears, are far more harmful that the cacophony of fellow humans. It’s pathetic to watch the children of this era. It used to be common to find children in a super market or circus holding hands and giggling, despite inability to understand each other’s language. These days when a child stretches out his hand to another, I see parents pull him away and entertain him using games on their iPod. Can the sounds and visuals on the iPod ever replace the warmth of a human smile and touch?


Also gadgets have made us an impatient generation. Everything at the touch of a button, that’s the rule of the thumb. But most things are best relished when received after a wait. Nature offers nothing instantly, neither rain nor food, nor flowers nor off-springs. The waiting doubles the joy of receiving. But look at us, if you dial the number of a dear one and the recorded voice says ‘The number you have dialed is not reachable’, panic strikes us. If we forget our mobile phones at home, we feel like fish out of water and those that dial our number think we have been kidnapped! If you are introduced to a new person in the office one day, the very next day he wants to be your friend on FaceBook. We go ahead and accept the friend’s request and never drop a line to him for the rest of our lives. Friendships that last a life time most often take a life time to build. STOP AND THINK. We are becoming a rude, discourteous, in-different and impatient generation by clinging on to our gadgets.

Mark a day of the week as ‘No sms’ day, Mark a day of the week as ‘No iPod day’, Deliberately leave your earphones at home one day of the week. Mark a day of the week as ‘Two-minute phone conversations only’ day. Mark a day of the week as ‘No TV’ day. Sit down and write your dear friend a letter, not an email or sms, but a real hand written letter. For when he receives it, he will first sit down, and read it, and then re-read it and then preserve it.

The reality of the reality shows

My granddad at four must have run around the house and played with mud and twigs and goats all day long. My father at four must have been busy eating groundnuts, looking at older boys spin tops and fly kites all day long. At four I went to LKG in the morning and played with my neighbours in the evening. My son is four, he goes to LKG in the morning, does home work in the afternoon and watches TV in the evening. And what does he watch on TV. Four year-olds dressed in designer wear sponsored by a textile giant, singing the latest movie numbers on a show sponsored by a communications giant. In the audience are their parents flinching at their every mistake and rejoicing at their every accomplishment.

What is the motivation? Money and fame! The two most notorious culprits that have dirtied every human endeavor. When money became the motivation for the medical profession, doctors became swindlers. When money became the motivation for educational institutions, teachers became commodities and students money wending machines. When fame became the motivation for news channels, News became dramatic and ‘exclusive reports’ became unbearably common. When money and fame became the motivation for the cinema industry, cinema ceased to be a vehicle of social reform.

May be these parents should stop and think. Its time these children got their childhood back. Many a student has skipped one whole academic year of education just to rehearse and participate in these reality shows. One year away from their friends, one year away from the comic books, one year away from the fun in class, and one year robbed off their childhood. Is that a justified trade-off? All the parents who send their children to these reality shows just want to realize their dreams through the child. So what if they spot talent? A wise parent only nurtures talent, never insists exhibition of the talent in a public forum. That is for the child to decide. This I think is the only way parents can let their children live a whole life. A life lived as execution of parents’ instructions is void and meaningless. I strongly recommend that all parents read about the damage Michael Jackson’s dad did to him by thrusting stardom on him. Especially those that have great singers and dancers for children, and intend to make them super singers or start singers and dancers.

If you want a house or a car or an LCD TV, or an i-Pod or a cell phone save up money and buy it. If you want your children to be stars just facilitate and let them live their lives. Actually each child is a star just like the numerous stars in the sky; each of them is unique and full of energy. Never try to use the reality shows to do either of these. As for the companies that sponsor, why not set an SMS chain in motion for the purpose of charity. I mean ask users to send multiple SMSs at the cost of the SMSs sent for voting purposes on reality shows. The revenue thus generated can go towards charity. The world will be a better place I am sure.

Elegy for my Grandfather

Two years have gone since I last saw your face.

Tears stream down as I think of the bygone days.

When I was but a child, you respected me as an adult.

And spoke to me at length of many a fear and guilt.

I loved to stay around you; your stories never bored me.

They never failed to move, thrill and inspire me.

How I had hoped your dementia would go away-soon.

And that you would talk sense to me someday –soon.

‘When I die, I need none of you by my side’- you often said.

You died with no one by your side just as you said you would.

I am glad you died alone,infact your most preferred way

But I tell my self 'he should've stayed on'- on many a day.

Especially today, your eighty seventh birthday.

A story

Martyred

Prema was making tea for all at home, when her husband came to the kitchen door and said “Tea with cardamom today please”. So she added cardamom to the tea filtered it into a glass and called out to him- then she broke down in to tears. How the dead tease their beloved by visiting them in flashes and visions!! Her husband’s latest prank on her was fresh in her mind and made her chuckle. Alas! The body of Major Mohan, Prema’s husband was to be brought that morning, to the military quarters in which his family lived. Prema wiped her tears and began sipping her tea; her son joined her quietly and drank his cup of tea. Soon both were dressed in mourning clothes and were ready to receive the cadaver.

Draped in the national flag and carried by uniformed men, the coffin was lowered from the van and placed on the ground. Prema and her son were joined by many families of soldiers, captains and majors. Each family wondered if their dad would face the same end and sobbed profusely. The district collector, the local army chief and many military men who knew Major Mohan stood in silence and mourning. Tears swelled up in the Prema’s eyes as she clung to her son in grief. Major Mohan’s battalion was summoned to the war zone two months ago. She knew, when he left that he may not come back alive. He had been killed twenty days ago, but the body could not be retrieved immediately because of cross firing. Heavy snowing in the war zone had preserved the body very well. Now at last the Major had reached home. Wreath after wreath followed and mourners lined up to glance at the face of the Major one last time.

It was a cloudy day, dark clouds seemed to get darker by the minute and the rain threatened to fall anytime.

The guns boomed, the trumpets sounded and the Major’s body was solemnly saluted. The officials took the microphone one after the other. The collector said “The Major gave his present so that we may have a future”. The army chief said “He was a brave soldier, he has laid down his life for a cause” A neighbor said “Major Mohan’s name has entered into the book of war heroes”. It was the turn of the family member s to speak a few words about the dead Major.

The son of Major Mohan stepped up to the microphone. His mother gasped in anguish. Still a mere boy at fifteen, the little fellow seemed very resolute as he began to speak. Perhaps knowing of his father’s death long before he could see his body had emboldened the boy.

“When I was five I saw the bullet injury on my father’s leg and asked him who had hurt him, for my father was a loving man, jovial and kind. I hated the man that hurt my father, but my father said the guy who shot him was just like him”. “He must have been a loving father and good friend himself, my son”, he told me. I was surprised. My father explained to me that war is shameful; men of war follow instructions not convictions of their heart. “Every man who trains for war has a heart that can love, he kills not out of hatred or reason but out of duty”, my father said. “You my son must seek peace and pursue it”-my father often told me. That’s why he gave me this strange name Shantham, which means peaceful”.

“You all speak of a brave man of valor who did not dread to die and lost his life in battle”- Shantham continued. “I am speaking of a man who hated war and was ashamed to be a part of it. I speak of a man who firmly believed that, he who shot him was no wretch, but another soldier like him obeying orders. Countries win war after war and take back lost boundaries, but the lost lives of fathers and sons cannot be regained. I do not hate the man that shot my father dead; I only hope he can make it back home alive to be with his son”



“I have lost my Father!” – Shantham chocked as he spoke. “A man of love and a man of peace” he continued. “The madness of war has eaten up the man that taught me to spin a top, to ride a bicycle, to whistle aloud and to hate war”. Tears streamed down Shantham’s eyes as he spoke. “Who will fill the emptiness he has left in my life”. Shantham wept bitterly.

The sky joined him and shed her tears-the rain came pouring down.

Thanks to the rain, every man in the crowd, uniformed and civil wept shamelessly, allowing their tears to fall. Each knew that he played a small but sure part in the great shame of mankind –WAR.

No one knew how to wipe away the shame from the face of the earth.

China Clay Boy

A couple of weeks ago, I bought some play dough for my 4 year-old. He was thrilled, his imagination ran wild and he started making an eagle,a motor bike a mixie all as he saw them, so the eagle was just a huge staright line of dough with a protruding speck for the eagle's head. As he played with it, I recalled how expensive and rare dough was when I was a child. It was called China clay then. If there was one thing that my sister and  longed for as play item it was china clay. Only one cousin of ours in the whole wide extended family could have it. He was an only child and his parents beleived in making the best things available to him. He was good at making moulds with the china clay. I clearly remember him making a radio, a hut  and a car with it. He would share the china clay with my sister and I but he was ridiculously paticular about how we handle it. Most often I was just happy to watch him make shapes and models out of it. Thoughts of china clay brought many other memories about  the same boy. He was a talented guitarist and was simple amazing with the bongos, but I never heard him sing or hum to himself, I never saw him close his eyes and loose himself in the tune of a song.
Those were the days when USSR was a mystery to many and the Sputnik and Misha were two magazines that seemed to let you peep a little into that mystery. No one I knew, except the china clay boy, had subscribed for Misha the Children's magazine from USSR. I loved to visit his house during summer vacation, for I would get to read all the issues for the previous year. China clay boy however did not seem excited about Misha and its contents. Not once did he hand me an issue and say 'Hannah this story in this issue is very good' . To me the learning of new words is an unexplainable thrill, he never turned my attention to the several he may have learned from his priceless books.
One cannot remember the time when Herge's Adventures of Tintin were inexpensive in India. Till date one needs to pay through ones nose to buy a copy. The Week, a weekly would carry a page of Tintin in every issue, I would beg and plead with my uncles to buy The Week just to read the Tintin. But boy!, the china clay boy's house was full of them. I fell in love with Captain Haddock, admired Tintin, adored snowy, laughed at the detective twins and marvelled at Prof. calculus all in the couch of his house. Sadly the boy himself never shared with me his joy of reading Tintin. Who was his favourite character, did he secretly cry out 'Blistering blue barnacles' like me. I never knew.
China boy died an untimely death, his parents were shattered. As I walked in to their house that day, they wept and asked ' You look for meaning and try to explain everything around you Hannah, give us an explanation for this sorrow'. Tears fail me when I need them most. I just stood there motionless and let them cry on my shoulders. Why would one with such a wide range of exposure in early childhood, shun adult life? Why would one so talented and gifted find no meaning in living? Why would one who received so much love be so devoid of hope. Despite spending dozens of summer vacationa at his house he never played with us, never laughed out loud, never shared experiences. In short he never became a friend.
May be it is not so important to give the best to your children or love them with all your heart as it is to teach them to love themselves and many many others with thier short comings. May be, as an individual it is not so important to be talented and gifted than it is to use the little that we are given, to plant a smile on another face. No amount of love, talents, books or music can make life meaningful unless you let it touch your soul.

The man who broke the wall

It was my son's third day in a new school. Months of preparation and pep talks just disappeared in to thin air as  my son saw his wailing classmates. "You teach me a lot of things, could you not be my teacher and not send me to school" he sobbed.How often I had considered home schooling and gave up only because it would deprieve him of growing up with other kids. Of course I could not tell him that. My mother stayed in the school as I reluctantly left for my office.I tried hard to recall my first day at school, but had no clue about what I had done."Thank God, Hanniel will not remeber today I told myself".
At noon, I rushed on my two-wheeler to get my mother and son home. His school like mine has a huge ground before the school building and my son was running up and down in glee. As I saw my mum holding his bag and just watching him run, I remembered how I would run across the ground in my own school several years ago. Then the three of us set off on my vehicle homeward.
My two-wheeler huffed and puffed up the little hillock on which my house is situated. Ahead of me I saw a tractor carrying some construction material. Suddenly the tractor started moving backwards uncontrolably. Its breaks had failed. I stopped still, should I turn round down hill?, should I move sideways and make way?. I could not figure out. But the tractor driver turned his steering wheel so hard that the tractor wagon turned in a right angle and hit the compound wall of a house.The wall broke COMPLETELY.
The owner of the house was furious. He yelled and I saw the tractor driver stand with downcast eyes. I heard him explain to the owner of the house about his breaks that failed. To him the tractor driver was a wall breaker to me a life saver. I could do nothing to save the driver from a possible pay-up, except say he averted a huge accident. Would the driver who was far poorer than the owner of the house be forced to pay? or would the house-owner exhibit humanitarian consideration? As I watched the driver be sent off without penalty I said a prayer of thanks. I had just received an answer to the pray we sang at school. "The world stands the need of liberation my Lord, it still has to learn to love".There is still hope for mankind, for kindness lives on in human hearts.

Reconciliation

Sometimes I wonder dear friend,
If good times must thus end.
They should really come again,
For now I am in great pain.
In me there is love to give,
If only you will me forgive.
Lies to you if these words seem,
My longing will be but a dream.

Ode to the Vicar of Whitefield

Shaking hands and building bonds.

Preaching sermons deep and short.

Smiling broad and laughing mild.

Visiting homes and spreading cheer.

Meeting the kids with child-like glee.

Luring the youth with jokes and truths.

Enchanting the old with a listening ear.

Encouraging the adults with words of hope.

Teaching the Bible with authority-while.

Learning the Bible in humility.- He is

A young priest with firm principles.

A good friend and a warm human being.

Morning Walk

The quiet and narrow road, with houses on either side,

Huge stony walls with crawling creepers on every side,

Glimpses of the beautiful flowers that they do hide,

Towering trees and tales they seem to want to tell,

Unkempt gardens and within them an unused well,

Chirping birds that make your heart with emotions swell,

The absence of people, the absence of noise,

The absence of traffic, the absence of chaos,

The feeling of calm, the feeling of bliss,

The fitting rewards for strolling awhile- in circles,

Around, the Whitefield outer and inner circles.

Unforgettable poems from my days in school

If music is the language of emotions, poems are but music in words. In my opinion they are superior than songs, for they give you the liberty to read them to your own tune. Poems can stir intense emotions not just on the first-read but on every-read. Fourteen years of schooling exposes one to poems of a variety of genre. The first I remember reading was "Boats Sail On The Rivers by Christina Georgina Rossetti". Elementary school English textbooks had many of her poems. As a child I marvelled at the simple subjects she chose and the profound philosophy she infered. 'Everything in nature is prettier far than anything that man has made',she said in her 'Boats sail on the river'. 'The clouds keep moving but where do they go?" she asked in 'Clouds'.
Come primary school and the subjects of the poems were a little deeper. Who could forget the truth in the words 'King will be well, if he sleeps one night. In the Shirt of a Happy Man', from John Hay's 'Enchanted Shirt' or the mystery in the words' who has seen the wind niether you nor I', from Rossetti's 'Wind' or the triumph of justice in Goldsmith's 'Elegy on the death of a Mad Dog'.
Middle school brought in the form of poetry a mixture of humour, romance and nature. I rolled in laughter for 'Simon Snoots Whiskers' and A.P.Herbert's 'At the Theatre: to the Lady behind me'. I  blushed reading Lord Byron's 'She walks in beauty' and Noyes'  'The Highway man'. I sang with Wordsworth's 'Solitary reaper' and shuddered reading Walter de lamare's "The listeners'. I sailed the seven seas as I read Masefields "sea-Fever' and "Cargoes'.
Highschool was simply breath-taking, beginning with Milton's 'On his blindess' I drenched myself in the wonders of  'The Village School master', 'Night and Death','Tiger', "Death the Leveller', 'Stopping by the woods on a snowny evening', 'The Daffodils', 'Menelaus and Helen', 'Milk for the cat', 'La belle dame sans merci', 'Soldier' and the ironical 'Ozymandias'.


I was always poor at memorising poems, but some lines stay etched in my mind for the truths they speak, the valour they express and the music they play.

1. "But the bow that bridges heaven,
   And overtops the trees,
   And builds a road from earth to sky,
   Is prettier far than these."
2. "The glories of our blood and state are shawdows not substantial things"
3. "only the deeds of the just smell sweet and blosoom in their dust"
4. "If I should die think only this of me, That there's some corner of a foreign field
   That is forever England"
5. "And that one talent which is death to hide"
6. "For oft when on my couch I lay in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon my inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude and then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils"
7. "Behold her single in the field yon solitary highland lass, reaping and singing to herself"
8. "Tiger tiger burning bright in the forest of the night'
9. "Men may come and men may go but I go on forever"
10. "Still they gazed and still the wonder grew, how one small head could carry all he knew"
11. "The soldier's pride
    Touched to quick, he said:
    "I'm killed, Sire!" And his chief beside,
    Smiling the boy fell dead."
12. "And this is why I sojourn here
    Alone and palely loitering,
    Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
    And no birds sing."

Poetry is such soothing salve to the wounds inflicted by the cacophony of the FM radios, silly SMSs, formidable forwarded emails, jarring caller-tunes and raucous ring -tones.

Pleasures that come with a power cut

I am making chapathis in the candle light, my nose is dewed with sweat and I am feeling very very hot. Just as I am thinking of fretting about power cuts in summer, I hear my son and my husband chit-chatting in the front yard of my house. "The moon is big and the stars are so small" my son was saying. "Actually the stars are much much bigger than moon, they are so far away that they look small" my husband was trying to explain. My mind flew back 15 years and I began recollecting power cuts during my childhood. Just when the power went off, by dad would start whistling " I saw rain drops on my window....". His whistling was good always, but the power cut made it more comforting and solemn. My mother would find her way in the dark to the room my dad was in and say "These power cuts in summer- annoying really". "Its cooler in this room" my dad would say. The luring of the silence that followed nwas magnetic. My sister and I would stumble in the dark and go to mum and dad. Together we would look at the sky always my sister would be the first to exclaim "hey hannah look how beautiful that cloud looks!" "yeah and it floats so nicely" I would say". "This is how our childhood was" my dad would say," no electric lights at home , just the kerosene lamps".  "We had to be back home from play when the street lights came on" my mother continued "we used to play so much in those days" she said.
When starring at the sky got boring we played a word game. one of us would say a word and the next has to say a word that started with the last letter of the word just said.  "English" I said "herb" my sister said "bedlam" my father would say "what on earth is that?" I would ask and my dad would tell us the meaning and the usage." "When the power comes back, you should look it up in the 'chambers'" my dad would tell us always. The number of new words I learnt during the many powercuts are numerous. 'Quay', 'etymology', 'mayhem', 'apothecary' to list a few.The way we bonded as a family during the power cuts almost made them welcome in our house.
Now my son is saying "Appa that cloud is moving" "why?". "They are light and can be moved by the wind my boy" my husband is explaining. I wipe sweat off my face, switch of the stove and sneak out to sit next to my husband and son and stare at the sky.  "Amma" my son starts "the clouds can be moved around by the wind do you know, appa just told me about it" he goes on. What sweet music it is to my ears.
Power cuts are a powerful and sure way to family time.

Friends and parting from them.

Few I am sure are as fortunate as I am when it comes to friends. From kindergarden to my present company, I have met with quite a number of men and women of character. What is friendship? It is all about taking a person as she/he is. When the rest of the world spends time listing your faults and speaking about them, a freind takes time to point out your faults unoffendingly and then takes pride in you when your faults are corrected. The smile of a friend heals many unworded wounds.
My list of such heart warming friends is long. Each of them is different, them that can talk endlessly and them that utter but a few words, them that laugh excessively and them that merely smile in the place of a laugh. Them that read voraciously and them that turn to a book for sleep, them that love to travel and them that dread leaving their hometown, them that are old and them that are children. From each of these friends I learn to look at life in newer ways. From the inland letter to the email and the mobile phone I use all means available to maintain friendships I have develped over the years.
Nevetheless,parting from these friends has always been difficult. When the time to part comes I remember all the good times I spent with them. Some long walks, some silent momemts in the cafeteria, stadium or auditorium, some bouts of laughter, some hearty meal in a restaurant, some memorable learinings on the job, some long debates and discussions in the desk. Tears always fail me by never falling down. Just recollection and remorse and a heaviness in the heart. The freindship remains always but also always ends in a way.
What do I want most? To stay with old friends or to discover new ones? I do not know. The only way I can connect with friends made thus far and go on to make new ones is by parting. A sad moment and yet one of hope. Hope that the freindship I part from physically will last and the hope that new friends I will find wherever I go next. How am I sure that I will find new friends?... well, if it happened to you several times in the past you would be as sure as I am.

Oh for the gift of creative writing in Tamil

"Take all my grand slams just give me wimbledon"  Ivan Lendl once said. "Take all my oratorical skills away give me the gift of creative writing in Tamil" I would cry out in his lines. What sadness it is to be able to think only in Tamil and write only in English. If only writing in Tamil was as easy as speaking in Tamil, I would have written on reems of paper. What does the trick? I am trying to figure out, reading a lot helps you write better yourself people say. So... yes I don't read creative works in Tamil. Most of my Tamil reading is confined to the Bible and the Thirukural. I love and relish the depth of Tamil is just those two books. Just the number of synonyms in Tamil and the etymology of every-day words in Tamil is mind blowing. The variety of words that come to your rescue when you want to express fragile emotions is astounding.
As I speak broken Kannada everyday, my brain constantly finds out Tamil roots for Kannada words and I marvel at the beauty of the language and how what may have been just a dialect many centuries ago has now become a new language. I see words that have scanty use by Tamils today find their real value in Kannada. Two small words 'ஓது ' and 'சொல்ப்பா  ie 'சொற்பம்', beautiful words that mean 'study' and 'a little' both in Kannada and Tamil, but words that Tamils world over have replaced with  the mundane படி'  and 'கொஞ்சம் '. Yet all this research and the exictement that comes with it has not helped me write in Tamil.Someday soon I need to read a lot of writings in Tamil, and let the language flow out of my mind in chaste form. Then I will pen in Tamil. What a wonderful day that would be for me!
 Lendl's wish never came true, what will become of mine is really in my hands (pun intended).

When I consider humanity ...... I find that:

Several have sought to understand the purpose of life.

Most believe, that living comfortably is the purpose of life

Most hold that achieving fame is the purpose of life.

Most understand that power over others is the purpose of life.

Many assume that acquiring knowledge is the purpose of life.

Many try to tell their fellowmen the purpose of life.

Many decide to set for themselves a purpose of life.

Some go on as if existing is the purpose of life.

Some think that wisdom is the purpose of life.

Some pursue enlightenment as the purpose of life.

Very few see that having been born,

Making the world a better place is the purpose of life.

Very few see that having been born,

Loving their neighbour as themselves is the purpose of life.

Very few see that having been born,

Loving the Lord with all their heart is the purpose of life.

A chosen few see that having been born,

Living eternally with God, after dying is the purpose of life.

Autokar Arumugam

Those were the days ......... days when human nature in general was less vile and wicked. Days when parents entrusted their children into the hands of maids, creche care-takers, tonga-riders and auto-drivers, all of them strangers and all without the indispensable MOBILE PHONE. I was entrusted into the hands of one such stranger when I was four. The auto-driver Arumugam. I called him auto-man or autokar(in my mother tongue) back then. The little ones like me, never got to SIT in the auto. We just hung out of the laps of older girls or metal grills in the auto. An auto meant for four would easily carry fourteen children and their school bags, most of which stuck to the auto defying all rules of physics. How I loved that auto, my deepest desire was to sit on the wooden bench that could be pulled up, opposite to the actual seat of the auto. Somehow I always ended up sitting on the metal bar instead. Every stop at the different houses to pick children up was interesting, some parents were kind enough to give all of us snacks to munch during out drive to school.

Above all these things the auto-driver was the single most important reason for making our trips to and from school a wonderful time. He would always talk, joke or occasionally yell to keep our minds off the congestion and lack of space in the auto. He would welcome every child as she stepped into the already crowded auto and greet the parents. As he started to move, he would ask "are you seated properly?. He had the knack of making every possible painful occassion light. When we had to wait in the evenings for bigger girls to come , he would play with us and chit chat with his stunning sense of humour and make us feel very good. When there were disruptions in the city that forced the schools to close, he would be one of the first auto-drivers to arrive,and take us all home safely- joking endlessly and getting us to forget that the city was actually tense. For all the small kids, he carried our bags saying, "are you a school girl or a donkey?, your bag weighs as heavy as a washerman's lot". Those silly things made me roll in laughter.

When I was eight I got very adventurous and went home by bus one day without telling auto-kar. The poor man had searched the school several times and came home to tell my grandparents that he could not find me. When I opened the door, he raised his hand to hit me,but then stopped himself. He scolded me severely, I was so ashamed that I had put such a loving man through an ordeal. In about an year's time we moved to a far away place and auto-kar was replaced by the town bus. My sister and I continued to recount the fun we had with auto-kar. I liked to look at the picture of one politician G.K.Moopanar, not because of his political ideals but because he looked so much like our beloved auto-kar.

Fourteen years later, when I was in college. At 8.30 am oneday, I heard an auto turn and honk."Rita......" I yelled to my sister "Autokar has come get your bag". I stopped and began laughing, we last went to school by auto when I was nine. As I kept thinking why I went back to childhood with one honk of an auto, I got the answer. Acts of kindness and love affect us in a special way and stay on in our subconcious forever. Even today when I hear the name Arumugam anywhere, I first think of him.

If he is still alive, autokar Arumugam must be 75. Is he dead or alive?, fit or frail?, active or ailing?. I dont know. But I am forever thankful that I had the opportunity of knowing such a benevolent man at such a tender age.

The question I will never ask my son

So often I over-hear mothers asking their little ones a questions and I tell myself "No I will never ask my son that question".
What will you be when you grow up? That is the most common and often repeated question. Mothers I asked claim that the question will set their children thinking about their future, would make them ambitious and will encourage them to study harder. I love the answers they receive, I will be a bus driver, a barber, I will be an engine driver, a policeman. I hear the mothers mutter things like" you are too young to answer that","Hey those jobs wont make you as successful as dad". I cannot stand the pep talks mothers give soon after the answers. "May be you should be a doctor, or a computer engineer, may be a bank manager". Thanks to the ignorance of childhood, the child sees heroes in the 'workmen', the barber, the cobbler, the tailor and the bus-driver.
How today's mothers and indeed parents have forgotten that all little children grow up to be characters- Chacracters they the parents influence heavily and will be formed before the child turns six. How they seemed to have forgotten that children are not born with the sole purpose of pursuing a career and making money. How they have ceased to remember that children are made in the likeness of God and they distort this God-likeness to petty ambitions and drives for success. How they fail to acknowledge that long before the lives of their children are over their careers will be over. Then these children will roam the face of the earth with bitterness and resentment, loneliness and sheer lack of identity.
I will never ask my son what he wants to be when he grows up. My desire is to bring up as a 'man after God's own heart'. So someday soon I will tell him what Martin Luther King said "If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well"

Airplanes

The mountains, the sea and the sky- they never cease to excite me.
On a dull and mundane afternoon, I just need to take a stroll and stare at the sky. The expanse, the colour, the clouds, the birds, especially eagles and the occasional airplanes just let my heart rise and fly. The emotion I experience, is one that no crazy roller coaster ride could give. I marvel, I sigh, I admire, I jump deep within, I blush, I think and I feel so small and insignificant. Then my dull afternoon becomes all so lively and I am happy and refreshed.
But my favourite is the airplane. My first memories of the airplane starts as early as my fifth year on earth. I still hear my uncles screaming "Hannah come, come!! look that is a jet plane". I saw a speck moving in the sky leaving two white lines that got wider and blurred out. "What is that I asked "ahem..... thats like the smoke that comes out of the silencer in your dad's scooter said one of my uncles". Till date those two lines turn me on like nothing else does
Then came the helicopters that would drop printed notices from the air, I would rush to pick them where they fell and then scream at the top of my voice as I ran under the helicopter imagining I was chasing it. I never bothered to find out what the contents of those handbills where. There was a famous pass time with the children of my neighbourhood to rush out at the sound of an airplane and scream "bye!, bye!". I truly appreciate the grown-ups around with us then;they never killed our fun saying "no one up there can actually see you". Over the years I started to guess where an airplane was heading from my city based on the direction it took. I was not right always but it was a good excercise to learn my north,south,east and west so well that I could understand when my grandfather gave directions to any place. He always said 'walk a furlong towards the east then turn north......... " he never said "walk straight turn left and then right".
When I was eight I flew in an airplane for the first time. Believe me!! looking down from up there for the first time was amazing. It dawned to me that all my waving at an airplane was seen by no one in the airplane. Somehow after nearly 25 years I still wave and say bye to an airplane in the sky. People dont think I am crazy because my three year old is standing beside me. What they don't know is that I could wave and yell even if I were alone.
The only man that has had a fright because of this habit of mine is my husband. When we were newly married we lived close to the airport. So depending on the direction of the wind, all flights that were landing or taking off went right above my house.Imagine my glee, I would rush out at the sound of every plane and wave and say "bye". My husband wondered if he had married a lady with a strange idiosyncrasy. Then I would scream" Honey that's a British Airways, and this one is Lufthansa, gee I can actually see the Airline names is'nt that cool?". He would only say a hesitant "hm......". Fortunately he soon realised that airplanes in the sky just made me a child momentarily and I was normal otherwise.
Airplanes in the night sky are magical. The blinking lights, the lights through the windows that remind me of the borders in rolls of old photograph negatives.Wow what a sight!
I reached the epitome of the joy of seeing airplanes in the sky a couple of years ago. Guess what? I saw an airplane from inside another airplane in which I was flying. It looked like a toy ,really tiny and seemed to float in space. It stays on in mind like a digital photograph.
I may travel far and wide on airplanes in the years to come, but when a grandmum I am, I will still wave at an airplane and scream "bye", maybe my grandchildren will save my skin ;).

I am teacing my son to lose

My son's daycare has been conducting competitions for the year, first there was the fancy dress, then coloring contest and now the sports day is here. Every child must participate, in all events,so I could not choose to send my son to be 'the audience' for any event. As this went on, my son won a few prizes lost a few and dint seem to bother about winning or losing.

Lately the spirit of competition in him has hit a new high. He has to win in every game at home!!!. If he did not, he wept. "I won!" "I did not lose!"

Then it dawned on me that winning became more important to him than deserving to win.
I tried hard to understand the basis of this desire and then slowly I began to see that all of us have the desire to win. Win when we do, we know how to take the praises. We like the fact that we are being applauded. And when winning becomes a pattern, then we hate to lose. We fret, we dread, we let shame consume us when we lose. Losing affects morale, self confience and self dignity. When we lose we feel insulted and disappointed. In short most of us think that winning is more important than deserving to win.
He must learn to lose....., my son must learn to lose.
"I will win", he said this morning and I said I would be happier if he lost. He started whinning "but I will win, I will win". "What difference would it make if you lost", I asked. "Nothing will change, mum and dad will love you just the same, your teacher would teach all the stuff she teaches to the winner"- I tried to reason with him. And then I told him what Pierre De Coubertin said "it is not in winning but in participating there is the true spirit of sportsmanship". "So shake hands with the girl or boy who wins today and say well done!". "Run to win but be prepared to accept defeat by one better than you".
It seemed above his age to tell him that losing gives more reason for striving to win than winning itself. After losing we work towards winning, but after winning we hate to lose and that is bound to happen.

Someday my son will read Kipling's 'IF' and understand what I told him today.

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;...........................

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"

The Smiling Mad Man!!!!

Mad people have always intersted and intimidated me.
I have often wondered if to the mad the sane seemed just as mad. They seem to shake their heads endlessly and mutter to themselves always. Perhaps they are sorry for us -the so called sane.

In one of the bus-stops that I commonly used, was a mad man, a genial and unintimidating one. He saluted you and bowed so courteuosly, before he put out his hand for alms. His eyes and his smile where never vacant or meaningless. If you refused him money he did not curse!!!. This mad man did not seem to mutter too.

I watched in wonder as he used a drinking straw as a cigar holder and smoked his beedis away.

New-comers to the bus-stop tried to run away from him, but the others just accepted him as an intergral part of the bus-stop itself. Years went by and suddenly one day he disappeared!!!!!!. Many like me would ask around, 'what happened to that mad man?'. No one seemed to know. If he died I hope he died smiling and carefree as he lived.


I have moved to another city, but when at my home town, and when at the bus stop I still look around hopely for a familiar face- The face of the smiling mad man !!!!

AHhhhhhhhhhhhChu!!!!!

I am at the lift lobby waiting for for an elevator to open its doors. A string of people join me, all looking up for the lights atop the elevator doors to glow. Ting Tong and the elevator doors open. I step in first and then.... there is the fragrance of a rose, ah chocolate aroma next, wow the sweet scent of lavendar! What was that now, smelt like cheddar cheese :). Who's the dacoit!!!, I can smell musquito repelent.

I look around and find not people, but staues cast in stone, staring at nothing. What ever happened to the ears-stuck to the - mobile whisperers this morning ?. 'Are'nt your noses tickling people??????. Oh come on, rub your nose, sniff a little or least bat an eyelid- There are no fumes in here alright but there are purfumes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.', I yelled on the inside.

I am breathing hard, 'can we close the doors please' I say to myself. But not yet!!!.People are still walking in and it felt like I just walked under a lemon tree,then under an apple tree, then near a blue berry bush.
Boy!!! the doors shut and we start moving up.
The elevator stopped at the third floor, I step out and sneezed Ahh..ahhh... chhu!!. 'Bless you' said a kindly soul. I screamed within me"Bless the man that has to climb the 11 floors in the elevator". He will be SCENTOFFOCATED!!!!.

He left his best with me

City breds that live in joint families- a fast disappearing breed,I am one of them. Brought up in the heart of an industrial city, my sister and I lived with four uncles, an aunt, grandparents and a whole lot of visiting 'relatives', who walked in and out all through the year. Those where the days when visitors gave children fresh one rupee coins before they waved bye bye. The fun in the parents' resisting and the guest insisting and the child simply staring- it will soon be unheard off I am sure.

Despite all the talking,laughing and playing that was so much a part of the family, silence and mystery shrouded my Grandad. No one chit chatted with him, no one laughed with him, no one asked him questions, no one scolded him. The only thing I remember somebody doing ' with him' was to play chess. The lone friend who called on him was Mr. Singh, the only friend that called him up was S.R.Naidu.

He was an active man though- took a walk in the morning, prayed fervently, chopped wood for the fire, cycled to the store, read voraciously, smoked or chewed tobacoo a little, undertook frequent civil engineering surveys and slept a sound sleep.

My first interactions with him began when I was three and started going to Pre-KG. He walked me to, and from the school. Thus started for me an enduring relationship- one that grew stronger by the day and lasted 30 years. By the time I was seven, I was running to the petty shop to buy him cigarrettes and 'nizam lady' (chewable tobacco). In a year's time I had learnt the names and prizes of every brand of local cigaratte that existed then. He took my sister and I on a little trip to ooty when I was 10. He took us to a very unlikely children's spot. The church yard of St.Stephen's church ooty. The number of epitaphs I read on that one single day out number all the epitaphs I have read ever since. Then he showed me the most important tombstone there- the tombstone of Mrs. Henrietta Sullivan. John Sullivan was a British collector of coimbatore who founded the queen of hills in the 1800s.

When I turned 12 my grandfather told me "try and memorise Mathew chapter 5, 6 and 7, and whenever you do it I will give you a prize". I never promised him I would and have not done it till date. Wheezing struck be down badly when I was 16 and he told me "the power of the human mind is immense, keep telling yourself that you will recover and you will not worsen". He had introduced me to the concept of autosuggestion. Suddenly one day I asked every adult in the family, "when is grandad's birthday?", they said the did not know. So I walked up to him and asked him, he told me 'five days before yours'. Then for the next 12 years I called him on every one of his birthdays and he did the same to me.

During the five years of collegiate education, I visited him once every week. He had by then taken me for a dear friend and confederate. Within the locked doors of his tiny room week after week, he sang songs, told tales, shed tears and bragged victories. It was then I learnt that he had been a sheperd boy, tea estate laborer, trench digger, soldier, shikari and a draughtsman in the Highways department of India. I heard how he losts his mother at infancy and his dad at teenage. He very fondly told me about the woman who treated him, as a mother would treat her own child. In that tiny room I heard him confess his follies and defend some and got to know why he had two initials to his name.
During one of my weekly visits he said 'Hannahma I may leave many things to my sons, daughters and grandchildren, but I want to leave this with you- the book The Sermon on the mount by C.F. Andrews". As I read the book, I realised why he had asked me to memorise Mathew chapter 5,6, and 7.Those were the best days of our friendship.
A job took me away from my hometown and after a few more years, marriage took me to another state. One day news reached me that he had dementia and that parts of the family wanted him away at an institution. I went to my home town and went to his house, where I found him sleeping on the sofa. My aunts and uncles told me, you have to help him recognize you. I said "Thatha this is Hannah". He said "oh you've come, how have you been?". Then with no trace of dementia he explained to me how he fell ill, why they amputed one of his toes and how he was feeling then. The whole family was stunned and he never went to an institution.
My son was fortunate to have sat and played on his lap. After a trip to the UK, I heard that his memory was fading soon. Again I visited him and said "Thatha, Hannah". He asked me "so when did you return from England?". His brain was attempting to forget his errors I knew, and we called it dementia. A couple of months before he died, he visited my house- he rarely left his own house. He died a peaceful and sudden death. You could call it luck, but I know it was providential grace that I was in the city that day.
When his death certificate was to be applied for my family called me up to ask questions like what was his given name?, what was his date of birth ? and so on.
Then I knew that when he died, my dad and his siblilngs lost their dad, my grandma her husband, my cousins a grand dad, his relatives an uncle .
But I lost a friend. A dear and remarkable one.
I never visit his grave, I never will, for he is not in there. But whenever I remember my grandad, I pick up The Sermon on the Mount and read it.

Then I tell myself, he left his richest possession with me.