Too many hats

I have always worn many hats. I guess we women are destined to do so and do it with aplomb! Maybe that is why God has made our brains more evenly balanced between left and right-brain processing! But jokes apart, it is a fact that we are made to wear several hats as we saunter along the journey called life! And somehow many of us, including me I must confess, wear them quite happily and secretly dream of being a superwoman. Kamala my mom, God bless her soul, was a very practical and even astute woman and had a very different take on what a woman should do. When I got married and began wearing hats at the speed of light, she warned me and told me to remember that one day I will grow old, my knees will pain and my back will break, and people around me will still expect me to juggle my hats with the dexterity of a 20 year old! Of course I did not listen as I did want to be superwoman. I was wife, and mother and daughter and working woman and friend and cook and hostess and shoulder to cry on and punching bad and more. Each persona has its set of variations that came with the demands of the day. I looked at them as adornments to add to each hat: flowers, feathers, stars. Sometimes there were thorns that needed you to give more attention to one hat: sitting by your sick child the whole night and then making it to work after carefully making up so no one would see. It was exhausting and still is.

With time some hats were worn less often, and some even set aside for a while and new ones donned. The best part is that many of them were put on one's head willingly: that of mother-in-law, grandmother, Utpal's Maam'ji and Project Why's Anou Ma'am. And somehow I enjoyed them all but never let go off the main hat: me! I always made it a point to take that alone time that kept me going. Being an only child with a nomadic life, it was easy to do so as you have to master the art of creating games to beat your loneliness. Solitude was never a problem. I had my books, my invisible friends that were part of my life and whom I talked to and there were times I talked to myself in the mirror and even sang and danced. As I grew older the games changed a little. Books took a large place in my life and even today I read while in my auto rickshaw! I have also discovered a new stress buster that worked wonders. I play my iPod very loud while walking on the treadmill and as it has songs that I have liked from my teens and even before to now I time travel while exercising. When I get off the treadmill I have a sprint in my gait and a smile on my face. And a few years back I fulfilled a long cherished dream and published my first book. Writing is now my biggest catharsis.

On the 4th of July 2014 I was forced to don a hat I never wanted. Ranjan was diagnosed with cancer and I had to become his cancer buddy. It is a hat that weighs heavy on my head, like Baudelaire's heavy lid of low sky so beautifully evoked  in his poem Spleen. This hat is too heavy to juggle and all other hats have shrunk under its weight. I struggle to keep them in place and ensure they are not damaged. But what frightens me most is the fear of losing myself as should that happen then I would not be able to bear the weight of this new dark lid.