Au revoir la haut; until we meet in heaven

Au revoir là haut Etienne. I would have much preferred have him say these words to him and yet it was not to be. Etienne left this world last Sunday leaving us stunned and lost. Etienne was my father's best friend's son and we knew each other from the time we were both in our teens. He was two years my junior. He often said I was a role model. I guess we both were rebellious and non conformists to the despair of our rather conservative parents. This was in the sixties and we were true children of the sixties. I had happily embraced the flavour of the times donning my torn jeans and flowered shirts with gusto, my fringe practically covering my eyes. We lived in Ankara and Etienne who must have been 14 came for a holiday. We bonded at once and spent hours listening to the Doors and Dylan and remaking the world. Whereas I would return meekly to the fold, Etienne the tall dark good looking man, with deep brooding eyes remained a free spirit at heart and would go on to conquer the world of music and showbiz with success.

We lost touch for a while but did meet again and each time we did it was as if time had stood still and we are picking up the conversation of yesterday. In 1985 when I made a short visit to New York, Etienne took us to a magical dinner at the Riverside Cafe. The memory lingers on and fills me with immense warmth as that was what Etienne was a warm and kind soul.

He lived his dream and lived life to the fullest, at times even recklessly. But could it be otherwise. That was who he was. You cannot contain a free spirit, the world as we know it s too small a place.

I woke up this morning feeling that somewhere along the way the tables had turned and the mentor had become the disciple. The lessons of freedom and liberation I had once brought to him had been not only learned but perfected and never abandoned. 

We talked sometimes and it was always a joy. In January this year Etienne took my grandson and the husband to a grand lunch in Paris. I was happy to know that they had met. 

I will miss him. I will miss his smile, his booming voice, his warmth and his presence. He was a part of my life, a kindred soul. No wonder his birth day was one day after mine.

Au revoir là haut Etienne

Th best place in Paris

It is always difficult to chose the one place one likes  in the magical city of Paris. The choices are mind blogging. For me it is often the mood and memories that decide the Parisian flavour of the day. I just follow my heart. Another little bloke did just that last week. The difference is that he did not hesitate one bit as I often do. My grandson spent his holidays in Paris with one set of grandparents. He dutifully followed them from parks to museums and went on long walks. He was to the manor born, a far cry from the bundle of energy running through our lives every summer! But all that would change as his other grandpa, my better half decided to go and spend a few days with the boy in Paris.

Plans were made by one and all though no one asked the two main protagonists. It all boiled down to more walks, this time along the favourite haunts of the Indian grandpa. The later even took his walking shoes! I guess the walking shoes remained in the suitcase as my two favourite lads had other plans.

When they met in the hotel room, no one could have guessed that it would become the best place in Paris for these two souls. Agy spotted the big flat screen TV and the deal was done. It would take a little coaxing and wooing to get mom to agree that this would be where they would like to spend time, the little dude with his cartoons and the old one veering between book and screen. So for the past 3 days, barring meals and a few visits that need to be made, granddad and grandson snuggled under the comforter in the cosy hotel room and indulged in their favourite pastime, one that is not on offer in the little one's home. I guess he is gorging on unchecked viewing. The next time will be when he comes home to us.

So for my boys the best place in Paris is the warmth of a comforter and the big TV.

Enjoy boys!

The first man I fell in love with

It was on a cold April night that he came into my life. He was the first face I saw as I entered this world. It was love at first sight. As he  gently took me in his arms. I clutched his finger tight and knew I was safe. For the next 40 years and 8 months we would live a perfect love story till on a cold November morning he would breathe his last, me still clutching his finger. He was my father. I called him Tatu.

From Prague to Delhi we travelled across continents as I discovered life in its magnitude with the most incredible teacher anyone could have.

He was my father but also my pal, my guide, my mentor and my anchor. His arms were the one place I felt entirely safe. He loved me unconditionally. True we both had short fuses that resulted in angry words and banged doors, but minutes later a gentle knock at the slammed door made it all go away as he stood with a treat he had conjured that would wipe all the tears of hurt and rage. His unique way of  asking forgiveness was food, a pêché  mignon we shared as is amply proved by our escapades to restaurants that began when I was 5. He took me to Maxims in Paris for a three course meal serenaded by a violin. That was the first of many meals together in restaurants across the globe. But he was also the one who taught me to savour the simple of foods and eat with the simplest of people. A hot roti dipped in raw mustard oil with some salt was as titillating as a lobster or a bowl of caviar en tête à tête My greatest joy was when he fed me with his hands making that special bite. I must confess that I enjoyed those even as a gown up woman and a mom myself.

I took my first hesitant steps in life again clutching his hand and learned to walk alone with a confident stride knowing he was always just behind me in person or in spirit. He made sure I never fall. It was though his eyes that I discovered the world and he gently taught me how to look beyond the visible and see the essential. It is he who opened the dormant eyes of my heart and coloured my world with compassion and humanity. With him I discovered cities and countries and many other wonders but somehow everything was imbued with values and that 'je ne sais quoi' that made the most inconsequential place or object worth a king's ransom.

The 40 short years of this incredible journey had its difficult moments, most of them when I came into my own in my rebellious teens and we clashed. He wanted to keep me locked in his love and would have got me the moon had I asked for it and I wanted to break free and discover the street next door on my own. To the young teenager, the portly man was a far cry from all the long haired singers of the sixties, and a child of the sixties I was with frayed jeans and short skirts. I now smile with indulgence at the battailles royales we had as he frowned upon my attire and I held my on.

But the world without him may have meant freedom but everything seemed pale and faded, deprived of all the hues only he could put. It is only when I realised that and returned home as the prodigal child that I lived again.

Tatu was there at every moment of my existence and steered me through every peril and pitfall as I grew from child to woman. He made every hurt go away and every tear turn into a smile. He was the sunshine of my life. When he left he took my sunshine away. Life could only be a poor ersatz of what I lived with him. Only memories provide little slivers of light.

The real legacy he left me was not in the shape of things you can see and touch but in the most unexpected words of people that remember him, be it the woman who sold him vegetables and calls him 'the men with a hat', or his meat vendor who talks of him with gratitude for some legal work he had done or in the memories of a woman who was but a child when we lived in what was then known as Saigon.

To the world he was an Ambassador, a jurist, a man of letters, a connoisseur of wines and food, an orator, a humanist and above all a man as defined by Oriana Fallaci: kind to the weak, fierce to the arrogant, generous to those who love you and ruthless to those who ordered you around.

To me he is simply Tatu, the first man I fell in love with and still love with the same passion.

A beautiful smile

Kamala Goburdhun née Sinha
15 October 1917 - 13 June 1990

If there is one thing Mama had in abundance, it was her propensity to smile and laugh wholeheartedly, a perfect counterpoint to my Papa who was predisposed to gravitas and who did not learn the art of laughing. Mama was one of those women who grew more beautiful with age, reaching the pinnacle of her beauty in her fifties!

The daughter of a freedom fighter who grew up in want and paucity; the eldest child of a woman who became her mother when still in her teens and whose art of parenting consisted in disciplining her eldest who then was left with the task of keeping the siblings in line; a girl who broke all rules to accede to the highest level of education even if it meant adopting her father's Gandhian ways to get what she wanted; a woman who refused to marry unless her country was liberated and worked and lived alone in the big city at a time when girls were married in their adolescence; a woman who fought for women's right when NGOs were not in fashion; a woman who fell in love with a portly gentleman and followed him across the world; a woman who only spoke Hindi to her child so that her child could speak her mother tongue effortlessly as she grew in different lands, a woman who learnt her husband's favourite language (French) as a birthday present to him; a small town girl who was to the manor born ; a mother who ensured that her child would never question her origins and love her country with passion; a woman who embraced life to its fullest refusing any treatment for the cancer that took her away as 'life was too precious to be wasted in induced slumber', Kamala Goburdhun née Sinha was an incredible woman who died with a smile on her lips.

Her refusal to bear a slave child resulted in my having a mother for just 39 years! And all through those years she never lost her smile, even when she sat in a car following an accident waiting for help. It did not matter if her sternum was broken and so were her ribs, she smiled so that her 6 year old child would not be frightened.

I am who I am because of what I learnt at her knee.

I miss her. I miss her smile. I miss her presence. I miss the bliss of still being a child.

I try my best to live to her expectations but know I will never be able to. I only hope that when we meet again I can look her in the eyes without hesitation and bask in the warmth of her smile

In the words of Pierre Lemaitre: Au revoir, là haut!( see you, up there)

There is no God - Serendipity

Just got the news that my uncle passed away. He was my mama's youngest sibling and somehow more a son to her than a brother. She loved him unconditionally. I wonder if he ever knew the extent of her love for him. Now they are together in a better place and will have all the time to say what was left unsaid. He had been very sick recently and I reminisced about him in a blog I titled La Cabana and Shagoofa. In that blog I had prayed that he leave the hospital and go back home to his family. God heard that prayer. He died in his home peacefully. May he rest in eternal peace.

You may wonder why the post is entitled There is No God? It is serendipity at work. Last night my phone pinged and a picture appeared. It looked like a badly scribbled page. I was trying to figure out what it was all about when the phone rang. It was Utpal's teacher and mentor who said she had to share what the lad had written as it was very moving. I will not reveal all today as we hope that once polished the text appears in the school magazine but part of it was the almost disturbing words: there is no God. But the lovely boy went on to say: in the universe there is God: our parents and in those who make our lives.

Yes child, you are so right. For me God was revealed in the eyes of this very little fellow when I first saw him in March 2003. Whenever I am in pain or in doubt; when I am worried or sad; when I am fearful or apprehensive this little chap conjures the miracle needed and lifts my spirits. Having that little scribbled page on my phone assuaged the pain I felt today and reminded me that God is with us all the time.

Apologies for the silence

For the past few days I have been to say the least 'under the weather'. Or to be more honest I should say terribly unwell. Panic attacks and above all a writer's block like never before. Should have sounded the alarm bell. I guess the body/mind nexus does send us many gentle and not so gentle warnings to slow down but adrenaline freaks like me do not listen so big guns are needed and in my case: inability to write. I guess the much dreaded meltdown I wrote about in my book/blog has finally happened. A perfect case of adrenal burnout. I guess I should be singing the Famous Rolling Stones number: 19th Nervous Breakdown though in my case it seems like nervous, mental, intellectual, emotional and physical breakdown. But thankfully I was somewhat prepared though was hoping to be able to outwit it.

But did not happen. As my Doc said this morning there is only so my elasticity in our bodies and ultimately it snaps. So snaps it has.

The prognostic: good but omg haul. Diet. Yoga. Meditation. Exercise. Supplements. Happy Thoughts.  No stress. Well some will be easy, others will need some serious effort but I promise to give it my best try.

I am going to take it one day at a time, one goal at a time the first one to be to start writing again as this has always been my lifeline and if I promise my body to feed, rest and boost it, I hope it will relent and grant me the ability to resume writing.

Till then, apologies for the silence

I'll miss you guys

Since a few days we have all being trying to put up a brave face, by all I mean me of course, my big six year old grandson and the rest of the household. The reason: Agastya and his parents leave us tonight after their summer break of six weeks, six weeks that flew at the speed of light. We all, and most of all I, were aware that the hour of departure would come, but all of us, and again me the most, were dreading that moment from the instant I hugged my darling as he ran into my arms on his arrival and decreed he loved India best. The little imp sleeps with us - Nanou and I - since he first came into our home at the age of six weeks and in the unique style of children also decreed he would do so till he was 20! Needless to say it brought huge smiles on our faces. Our bed is not a big one. It is a futon at floor level and has been a perfect fit for the three of us. My darling child sleeps in the middle and has  assigned one leg and arm for his nanou and one for me. Over the years they have grown bigger and heavier but to us they are as light as air. Oops and I forgot. There is one more person that sleeps with us: Lapinou a stuffed rabbit he has has since the day he was born and that looks a little worn out but believe me there have been innumerable searches for him in the middle of the night!

The past weeks have been blessed but as the hour of departure comes closer, the heart grows heavier and the tears dread to spill with obsessive regularity. This time has been harder as Agastya too seems sad to leave and has been showing his emotions in a wide range of ways: from being impossible and even infuriating to smothering you with hugs and kisses or simply putting his little arm to hold you tight in the middle of the night and to of course demanding his due: cars, helicopters and more cars, small enough so that they can be hidden in his bag at the last moment bypassing his mom's watchful eye.

Yesterday we were in for a special and poignant treat. The day had been a tad melancholy and even Agastya was not his ebullient self. One was even worried about his coming down with a flu. He spend his day lolling around with me, watching TV that even mom gave in. When it was park time, an activity he adores, he decided not to go and preferred staying by my side giving me the regular hugs and kissed or simply putting his leg on me. He played with his cars while I read. It was pure bliss.

Every one though he was tired as he had had a late night the previous day as there was a party in the house, and his mom decreed he should go to bed early, I had a strange suspicion that it was not the case. He just wanted to be with us as he knew how sad we were. I reminded me of our special mode of communication inspired by favourite cartoon Doreamon's Anywhere Door that allows you to go everywhere just by stepping through a pink door. We were unable to find one so we settled for 2 small globes where his had New Delhi marked and mine St Louis and we decided we would hold them in our hands and Skype. I was surprised when he reminded me that his Anywhere door was broken and so we should and get another. Needless to say that is top of my agenda today and I am just waiting for the shops to open. I must admit that I looked for something yesterday and saw a doll like thing that apparently answers questions you ask from your heart. I may just get him that provided it does not have rechargeable batteries as with the voltage difference it may not work. But I will come up with something. The talk took a more sombre tone as he asked me whether I would always be there and what would happen when I passed on. My heart missed a beat as that is a question that gnaws at me each time he leaves. You see I lost my granny when I was his age. And yet the few moments we shared are engraved in my heart and always fill me with a warm fuzzy feeling of eternal love. I was taken back but then remembered what I had told my second born when my mom died. I had taken her out on the terrace at night and shown her the brightest star and told her that Nani lived there and was always watching on her. I told him the same thing but have added a twist shamelessly borrowed from St Exupery. Remember what the Little Prince told him at the hour of departure: But all these stars are silent. You-You alone will have stars as no one else has them... In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing when you look at the sky at night..You, only you, will have stars that can laugh. I told him his Nani star would laugh!

My little fellow is a wise soul and catches on everything you say. So he had a treat for us. When it was bedtime, remember the one we were told had to be early as he was tired, he decided that it would be laugh time and treated us to antics that had us in peals of giggles: he cracked jokes he invented, dance around, refused to lie down and sang for us and then he decided to bring balloons in bed and simply laugh and laugh. But all good things come to an end and he finally lay down and cuddled next to me and said: I'll miss you guys! Thank God he soon fell asleep allowing me to weep unabashedly.

Today morning I did take him to the doctor and there he suddenly held me tight and said: I'll really miss you. His eyes were watery and I was choking on my tears.

It is time to go shopping so I hope it will be fun. But I have to be prepared to another heart wrenching moment that might jus break the fragile walls I have erected around myself.m

I'll miss you too darling child.