Who We Are

What gives you that "living life to the fullest" feeling? At what times are you in the zone?

We are not cut-throat business people, with our eye on the profit line at all times. We are engineers, teachers, professors, salesmen, accountants, tutors. We are people that do something for other people, and thus go through our day-to-day life, living. Rock climbing and swimming and hiking, cottaging and getting together on Thanksgiving and Christmas and in the summer. We are readers and writers and dreamers and builders. Creators.

We are transitory. What do we live for? A sense of peace, perhaps. A sense of balance. A feeling of walking within truth.  

Cyclone No More

Cyclone Nisarga came and went this afternoon in a couple of rainy, windy hours. We were all terrified by a precautinary message sent by the administrator of our building: that we will have no power or water for the next 4 days. We stocked up on water, for drinking and for use, and I realized in times like these we really should have an emergency kit ready to go. In this kit I would have two things:

1) A flashlight with fresh batteries (or even better, a rechargable flashlight)
2) A power bank

You can always buy drinking water from the kiosk on the corner.

P.S. They don't take returns. 

Grey or gray?

The thing about the lockdown lifting is that I want to go out, but I don't want to go through the effort of wearing clothes, or finding clothes to wear, or dressing Fizzah or taking her to the bathroom first.

I am sometimes not here, if you know what I mean. I am at a beach or in a studio or in a forest cottage. I am not in Anjeerwadi in Mumbai. If I was really here, I'd know what people here were up to. We would be up to the same things.

What are the people here up to? And how do they manage to keep their homes presentable? Or do they?

A drop of rain

What a breath of fresh air! This morning we wallowed in our first rainfall in eight months, and with the lockdown measures relaxing it feels like a second life. The sky is cool-grey and cloudy. Sounds, muted, float up into the air: construction and car horns and crows; the pulse of the city. I never thought I'd want noise.

Inside, it is quiet. It is my favourite time of the day: Fizzah is asleep. I chuck my duties aside and sit down to write. Who I am blurs, no longer defined by motherhood.

Although, this, too, is part of the definition. This teasing recess: 1.5 hours of toddler nap-time. 

Blessings

Mumbai is slowly coming back to life. For two entire months, birds were the loudest noise-makers in the sleepy afternoon. No longer. The lockdown is in phase 5.0. Shramik trains rumble past. Cars are allowed. Horns blare once again. Various voices fill the air, singing freedom.


It is Sunday afternoon. The city is empty of migrants and daily wage workers - the ones from the other states. We still have to wear a mask before going out, and practice physical distancing. But meat is now affordable when once it wasn't, and is there anything more satisfying than having a late lunch of gosht and parathas?

In the space of one semester

In the last four months, I have learned so much that is new. I know how to change a diaper, burp a baby, bathe her and change her outfit. I have the toys for distraction. I can talk baby-talk and heat up food with just one hand. I know I never need to set an alarm for waking up. 

I know the extent of her clothing better than I know my own, and I know how much laundry it takes. She changes 3-5 outfits a day and her neck is wet with milk and drool. 

I know her tired eyes and offended eyes, tired eyes and sleepy eyes, aching eyes and whining eyes and her pick-me-up eyes. I know how much of her crying I can take. I know love, too, can turn to rage and back again. 

I wonder what she will turn out to be. I am blessed by the moments when she is happy, and in someone else's hands. 

Language

All our lives

We think, speak, and breathe in you, 

And you betray us all with this 

Illusion of truth 

You spread like the vilest of rumors

Mouth to ear
Here, so near, 

Seeping, soaking.