of life, changes, and fears

I blacked out as I saw what I saw. I had to sit back down because the memories of my little brother that came crowding in left little energy for anything else.

I’m nine. My sister and I have just returned from school, and mom’s not home. We wear our lehengas, pretending to be princesses. Soon enough, there’s a bad fight. We’re rolling around on the bed pulling each other’s hair and screaming. Just as I break the rubber band that holds her ponytail, the doorbell rings. A wave of terror shoots through me. Within a minute I have straightened the bed, tucked my lehenga away and changed into regular clothes. My sister just stands there, holding the broken rubber band and crying. She is six. I marvel at how hair stays put in the shape of a ponytail even without the band. That makes me laugh.

I wait for the bell to ring again. It does. I open the door very gingerly, fully prepared to say we were sleeping. I don’t have to. My clearly overjoyed grandfather stands there. He ordered us to go with him. Bhaiya hua hai. You have been blessed with a baby brother. He doesn’t give us enough time to change or wear our slippers. Soon we’re in the hospital, and my mom is embarrassed. One of her children is wearing a school shirt with a lehenga and has on her head the remnants of a ponytail. The other one is not wearing any footwear.

We demand to see the baby, but he’s been transferred to the nursery. It takes a lot of pleading (me) and fighting (my sister) with the nursery staff before we actually get to see him. And when we do, I can’t look away. He is pink and his skin is peeling off in places. My sister asks the staff, iska chhilka kyon utar raha hai? I laugh and the staff tells me to be quiet.

Once he is home, mom becomes obsessed with him. So do I. Knock before you enter the room and don’t talk so loudly become our standing instructions to my sister. We start buying nursery print bedsheets and curtains in the hopes that he would like the colors. I draw colorful things for him. I pay more attention in crafts class so I can make him stuffed toys.

Soon he’s crawling all over the house. Once, he hides behind a curtain as we frantically search the house for him. Dad finds out and blows his lid. He screams at mom and amid the chaos, I find him tucked behind the Mickey Mouse curtain, sucking on his thumb.

When he learns to babble, he starts calling me eeya. None of us knows why. He calls my sister didi, but I’m always eeya to him. It’s like we’re communicating in a language that’s ours alone, and I like that. As soon as he is old enough to run errands, my sister and I send him to the market to fetch us aam papad and anardana churan on the sly. If he isn’t caught smuggling, he gets 10% of the contraband.

When I’m bored, I make him wear a dresss and my sandals and perch him up on a table to dance to Rang bhare badal se. He complies. He is an obedient kid, and I think I’m a pretty good mom. Then one day, after I am married, he tells me he has a girlfriend. I don’t tell him this, but I feel like he’s slipping from my grasp. The husband doesn’t get it – isn’t this something to be happy about? I tell my him he can’t possibly understand and that it feels like I’m losing my child. No you aren’t, my ex-husband says. Some day he’s going to get married and have children, and you’ll still be his eeya.

That thought brought me back to the present moment.

I have to call Mister and tell him was suddenly the only thought in my head. Calmly, I dialed his number. The phone rang for the longest time, but he didn’t answer, so I called again.

He answered the phone, and I started fumbling because I didn’t know how to say it.

Hey baby, can I call you back? I’m in a meeting.

Sure, I said, relieved. I sent him a text instead.

It’s a positive. We’re going to be parents.

Should I have broken the news to him (and to you) differently? How would you do it? 

going bananas over oranges

These days, I find myself seeing orange everywhere. The color just seems to pop at me from everywhere, screaming adventure and happiness and confidence.

So it’s no surprise I went bananas over the latest photo challenge.

That’s our letterbox.

An old Contessa I clicked in Pondicherry

a rusted water meter box in my building

Btw, last year I was in love with green, and the year before that, my life was all about purples. Does that ever happen to you? Do you suddenly rediscover a new color and go crazy about it? What’s your favorite color? Do you believe in color therapy?

of stupefication and stupefixation

You know how uneasy I was yesterday about how I had been feeling since mister left? Someone at work told me today that these feelings are a bit like a fever. You obviously don’t like it but it’s like your body is trying to fight an infection – so it’s basically a good thing because the only way to get better is to stay sick.

Holy Frankenfuck!

I was stupefied at how silly she sounded and how much she rambled, but I think her basic point was that I should just suck it up coz life isn’t really fair and to whine about your own whining is, well, retarded and pointless.

So I decided to just whine when I feel like it and not beat myself up about it. And then I decided to take up a new fixxation – something I can completely immerse myself in while I can’t indulge in my original obsession.

I have been toying with the idea of taking up Samba lessons for a while now, but no dance school in Delhi teaches it. (Why the fuck not?) Did I tell you that dance is my favorite art form?

Photography is a close second and an obvious intuitive choice.

(Okay, there might have been a nudge or two from Michelle and Indian Girl in that direction, but in my defense I bought the camera first!)

Anyway, enough said. I clicked these pics today. They’re nothing like the amazing stuff Michelle does with her camera, but I hope you like them!

Meet Sugar. She’s a crossbred. Mister adopted her six years ago. Btw, I hate it when people buy fancy high-bred dogs. Why not give these strays a home?

My bookshelf. Okay one of the shelves on one of my bookshelves. See anything you’ve read?

What does it look like? It’s just a candle!

A flower in the temple. In case you didn’t know, Indians usually have a small temple inside their homes where they house deities. Also, FYI – I am not an idol worshipper. Mom is!

Flowers in our balcony. At this point I had learned to play with the focus. Doesn’t the other flower look like it’s a mirror image?

The same flower captured at night. Like an hour ago! Quick Tip: IST = UTC + 5.5 hours

As you can probably tell, I have (ab)used a DSLR before, but since I can’t focus with my mind, I shall learn to do it with a camera!

of ghosts and stuff

After my landlord stole my denim bra, I was house hunting again. I found a beautiful apartment on the ground floor of a small building that had been converted into a number of small, one bedroom apartments. It was perfect, but people warned me against moving in, because a girl had been murdered in that house. They said it was haunted.

I didn’t really believe them, because:

A. I didn’t want to, and

B. I didn’t want to

(Seriously, ghosts and stuff belong only in the DeadMau5 universe.)

Soon after I moved in, I started feeling like something about the house was wrong. I sought solace in wine and feverish lovemaking with Mister at first, but then the noises became too much and I had to start paying attention to them.

Mister suggested I keep a diary of all paranormal activity – though in my case there were only noises that seemed to come from within the walls. I did. 

of human-ness

You’re afraid, very afraid, but you take that first step. You feel like you’re falling at first, but then you soar higher than you ever have. And once you have tasted the freedom that flying gives you, you will never be able to walk without looking up at the sky and yearning to fly again.

You’re human, after all.

“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.” ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina