Heyyyyy, it's been a long time since I've been here. And though I've been doing a lot of legal writing, I'm feeling the urge to blog again. I have an unfinished novel, about 80 pages, and I think I should begin working on it again.  May be post a few chapters here. This post is just to make sure I follow up on my New Year resolution. 

Hopefully, I can find the time to do this.

Lessons in the Life and Death of an Office boy.

I have two office boys. Technically they are men-ages 56 and 45. And technically now I have just one. Because the 56-year-old just died. This morning. He had been with us for 3 years. Not very long but long enough to earn him a lot of love from the staff, who organized birthday parties and presents for him.

Much of his charm was in his humility and his willingness to work. He rode a bicycle 20 kms to get to work one way. Apart from the office work he was also washing a dozen cars in the neighborhood and cleaning two homes.   The 40 km cycle ride cost him. He had to have prostate surgery 2 years ago.  After the surgery,I used to drop him home and during the 20 minute car ride, I heard the story of his life.

His father died when he was 10.  With two younger children to feed, his mother farmed him out to a relative, who put him to work.  With no education, all he could do was wash dishes or clean offices. In India, no matter how poor a man is, he gets a wife. So did he.  He married an orphan girl.  Marriage brought children, whom he was too poor to rear. His siblings took a son each.  The third son he kept.

 After the birth of the third son, his wife developed bipolar disorder.  Of course, he didn't know it was bipolar. He, his family and the entire neighborhood thought it was the evil eye, evil spirits, the devil.  He was accordingly advised him to reach out to god, religion, god-men, and the like. They did that for several years until I heard of it.  I sent him to a psychiatrist who quickly sorted that out.

He told me his siblings chose not to keep up relations with him. They had no children of their own and looked after the sons he had given them very well but the boys didn't know he was their father. He said he didn't mind. He couldn't have looked after them. But his wife did.

He didn't speak much of the son left with him.  Sons in India are precious creatures and perhaps that was why he never spoke of him. Because I learned today that his son is a waster. Just 18, he had left school,  was taking money off his father and blowing it on friends, returning home late in the night. Maybe, he hadn't wanted me to know that about his son.

So anyway, a month ago, he developed kidney problems.  He needed treatment. He had no money. What could he save on the very little he earned?   His siblings of course, ignored him.  The office collected money for his treatment. The owners of the houses and cars he cleaned came by the office to hand in their contributions to his treatment.  But today he died.

So I was wondering,what had life given this man?  Nothing except one hardship after another. Hindus would say he was repaying the sins of a past life and he was guaranteed the life of a king in his next life.  Christians would say he was sure of a place in Heaven.  Maybe and who am I to say if that is true or not?

But also I was wondering what was the point in this man's life? Could we learn anything from such a miserable life? From the years and dreary years of nothing but back breaking, thankless labor? He would have been better off as a butterfly living a couple of days only;  but those days, sunny and flower-filled ones.  I was thinking of him the whole day and finally I realized that yes, there is something to be learned.

That he didn't give up where thousands of others with far better lives do.  That even a miserable, poor ragged life can inspire love and affection because of the completely uncomplaining and even smiling manner in which that life was embraced by him. My staff loved him.  The owners of the cars he washed who visited the office in the last month asking about him, cared for him. I know from what he told me that his wife adored him.

 His name was Rajkumar,meaning prince. Irony? Maybe not. You would need to be a prince to live 56 hard years with courage and dignity.  

Who Owns the Bastards. A True Story.

In my office, a client-

"My name is Bhagyashri.  It means the fortunate one.  Ha. Ha. I am my parent's first born.  My father used to say that soon after my birth he inherited his father's business. He believed it was my "paigun" -meaning literally the good luck of my feet- that brought him this fortune and so my name.  That the inheritance involved his father's death never figured in the relating of this story. After me came two sons. So that cemented my parents' belief that I was indeed Bhagyashri. Anyway.

 I was really pampered.  Anything that I asked for and many things that I didn't, I got. Every Bhai-Duj and Raksha-Bandhan- when actually brothers are worshipped by their sisters, I was the one who was really worshipped.  All I had to do was tie a silver thread around their wrists and smear red vermilion on their foreheads. In return, I got fabulous gifts. Gold, silver jewellery, clothes, the latest in bags, shoes and cash. By the time I was 15 I was richer than most people in any village in India.

 I went to the best convent school in the city. I wasn't very clever but no one minded.   Least of all the teachers.  Every festival my father sent brilliantly wrapped gifts to the school.   I was loved even if it was, in hindsight, only 'dabba' love as they say i.e. the gifts were loved. 

I traveled to school and classes in a chauffeur driven car.  The driver never wandered off. He waited until school and classes were done and took me straight home. I went shopping with my mother.  If I wanted to go with friends, I could. But Mother accompanied us.  Even if one of the other mothers was also chaperoning my Mother insisted on coming too.  But when I was 16 I still managed to fall in love. With whom? Ha. Ha.

I could have fallen in love with one of the boys from the boys' school opposite my school.  Everyone in my Xth Class seemed to have a boyfriend there.  I could have fallen in love with my brothers' tutors.  They came daily to the house.  I could have fallen in love with my father's friends, old as they were. I fell in love with the chauffeur.   It was inevitable I suppose. You come to love those whom you spend most time with. The old chauffeur had retired and his nephew took his place. He was good-looking, I thought, and he waited so faithfully for me, never seeming to mind if I was late or if I yelled at him or ordered him to fetch this and that. It never struck me that he was being paid to do that.  I thought he did it all for me.  I fell in love with his slavish obedience.  I had not been taught that I couldn't have what I wanted. Or couldn't ask for what I wanted.  So I told him I loved him. In the beginning he wouldn't say "I love you" back, but in time he did.  We didn't have to meet secretly or lie to anyone about meeting each other.  It was easy as easy. We were sent away together. 

And then my brothers found out. They saw us eating pani-puri on Main Street when I should have been in school. There was no drama. No one scolded me.  They just stopped me going out of the house. No school, no shopping, no temple visits, nothing.  Ramesh-my lover- disappeared. But I had his number. I called and he came in the night to stand behind the wall near my bedroom window and I climbed out of my ground floor bathroom window after everyone was asleep and climbed over the wall to meet him.  Just like in the movies, with the moon shining down on us. If there was no moon then it was even more exciting, clinging in the dark, pretending to be scared.  It was wonderful!

And then my brothers found out. Within a week my marriage was fixed. I was to be married within the month. Yes I was 16 but if you are old enough to meet a boy at night, you are old enough to marry. They said.  I screamed, wept, refused to eat. But nothing worked.  The days sped by.  I called Ramesh. I planned and plotted.  " It's no use,"  Ramesh sighed.  "We must go our separate ways. Be happy in your new home."  But I wouldn't accept that. In my life, I had never ever not got what I wanted.  I wanted Ramesh. I would have him.  " I will not marry anyone but you. I will kill myself. I will run away, " I vowed. Ramesh cried.

The day of my marriage arrived.  The women from the family had been at the house for days cooking, sewing, decorating, cooking, preparing. They put mehendi on my hands and arms and feet; they rubbed turmeric and cream into my skin; they put ropes and ropes of jasmine flowers in my hair.I had jewels in my hair, in my ears, around my neck covering my chest, around my waist and arms and wrists and upper arms and fingers and ankles and toes.   They put a long red ghagra skirt on me and a red and gold blouse.  A  red and gold veil was thrown over my head.  I was ready. Now all they had to do was wait for the baraat-the groom's family to arrive. In the distance we could hear the sound of the "band", the drums and trumpets that accompanied the groom as he rode on a horse to my home.  The women ran out of my room to the entrance to get a look at the baraat. This was the moment I had been waiting for. 

I ran to my  cupboard, picked up the bag of my gold and silver jewellery, every piece that I had been given over the years, went over to my bathroom window and jumped. There was no one in the back of the house. Everyone had run to the front door. Then I climbed over the wall and jumped down into the back lane.  Just like in the movies.   I tied my veil around my face, picked up my red and gold skirt and ran through the streets.  It was late evening, but there were plenty of people who stood and stared as I sprinted past. No one stopped me.  I stopped an auto rickshaw. They never seem to stop when you want them but this one stopped at once. I got in and went to Ramesh's house. Of course I knew where it was. I had looked at my "future" home so many times, from a distance.  It was in the dirtier part of the city.Also the more crowded part.

 I stood outside the door and called out to Ramesh. He came at once.  Saw me and gaped. " What are you doing here? How did you come? Oh my god, your father will kill me.  You must go. Go. Go back. " I was stunned. I thought he would have been proud of me. Happy.
 "Go back? Are you mad? I will not marry anyone else but you. You are my husband. If you don't accept me, I will go away and kill myself."

Ramesh took me first to a friend's house.  Then he put me up in a rented room.
"We will marry soon," he promised. " Just let's wait until your father and uncles stop looking for us." But my family never did come looking.  I learned later that my father had a heart attack when the women came screaming that I was missing. It was the worst disgrace. To have a daughter run away from the wedding "mandap".  No one came looking. But Ramesh said we had to wait.

 I waited. Then he said, we couldn't marry until I was 18.  But even though I couldn't legally marry, that didn't stop me having a child.  I had a baby girl within a year. I lived in that room with my daughter. Ramesh gave us what money he could spare. He was working as an auto rickshaw driver and he said he didn't earn much. He visited us regularly.  But after a couple of years, his visits became fewer. I kept begging him to marry me.  I was already past 18.  He complained that he didn't have the money to marry. To prove that, he began giving me less and less so that I had to go out and find work to feed myself and my child.  I worked in a creche as an assistant.  That way I could keep my baby with me.

 Ramesh and I began having terrible fights. All I wanted was to marry him. "I don't care if we have no money."  So from pleading that he had no money finally, one day he confessed he was already married. He had married a year before.
 "My family insisted and I couldn't say no." He wept. "But I will always look after you."

His visits became fewer and fewer until sometimes he didn't visit for weeks at a time. I grew resigned to living alone with my daughter. I had begun giving tuitions. My convent education, even though I had not finished my Xth really helped.  I was earning enough to pay the rent and feed myself and Priya, my baby.   When Priya turned 4 I pleaded with Ramesh to visit at least, on her birthday. He came.  The next month I learned I was pregnant again.  When Ramesh heard of it, he stopped visiting completely.

How I got through the pregnancy and delivery I don't know. I would have died and Priya with me if the creche madam and my tuition students' mothers hadn't helped me.  I gave birth to a son.  My boy is as healthy and beautiful as Priya.  Both my children so beautiful, that when I step out with them, people stop to stare.  My mother saw us one day.  She stopped but she didn't stare. She cried and cried and took me home. My father cried even more than her.

My parents didn't let me live with them.  "What will the "samaj" -community, say? Your brothers are to be married. Who will marry them?"  I understood.  Really,  I was grateful that they had even spoken to me.   I didn't tell them I wasn't married.  They thought  Ramesh was looking after me.  I couldn't bear to tell them the truth. They gave me money, they bought clothes for the children.  I was grateful.

Then last week Ramesh visited.  He took one look at my baby boy, Jeevan, all of six months old, gurgling on a mat on the floor and said, "My son."

 I will always be ashamed that I actually felt pride when he said that.  Proud that I had given him a son.  He had never said, " my daughter" to Priya let alone said it in the tone of voice that he now said "This is my son." 

I should have known then what it meant.   Ramesh's wife had given him only daughters.  Jeevan was Ramesh's only son.
 "I am taking him," he said.
 "What?" I gasped.
" Yes. You cannot look after him. He can't stay here in this room. I will look after him. Don't worry I will bring him to visit you and I will pay you money each month to look after Priya."
"You are not taking my son away from me. He isn't yours. He's mine.  He's nothing to do with you. I gave birth to him. He's mine and no one else's." I sprang up clutching Jeevan to my breast. 
"I will be back and I will take him away.  If you stop me I will go to the police.  I am his father and I have every right to take him." 

Bhagyashri sat in my office looking at me desperately.
"So that's why I am here Madam. Tell me please. Does Ramesh have the right to take my children away? I don't want anything from him. I have told my parents everything. They're going to support me. But I want to know, my parents want to know, can he take my children away from me?"

I said wryly,  "You're lucky Bhagyashri, that your children are illegitimate. Had you married Ramesh, he would have had the right to them as a Hindu father.  But as bastards, they're all yours.  He can't take them away."

Fire Bush

Finally discovered that the 10 feet tall wide-spread tree in my front garden is a a hamelia patens or fire bush or firecracker bush or hummingbird tree. Consequently also learnt that the tiny birds with pointed beaks that hover upside down to suck the nectar from the tiny orange blossoms are not hummingbirds but sunbirds. (Like lavender, hummingbirds don't grow in India!)

A couple of them recently had even tinier babies. (What are baby sunbirds called? Nestlings? )  Mama Sunbird spent a long while building a small 6 inch x 4 inch nest hanging by what looks like a string or hair from the very furthermost tip of a branch.)  I wondered why the nest was built at what seemed to me to be a very precarious position, until I saw the black and white cat of unknown ownership who sometimes flashes by the lawn sitting at the base of the tree.  Wise Ma and Pa S.  No cat could ever climb on that twig like branch or climb down that string. Ma and Pa have even built a little awning outside the nest to protect their babies from rain or the gardener's hose. And I think they've deliberately made the nest as unattractive as they could . It looks nothing more than a lump of rubbish hanging from the tree and I had almost tried to sweep it away before I realized what it was.  The things we do to protect our young!

Meanwhile Ma and Pa S are fiercely protective of their little ones.  The beautiful red and black bulbul with a cheeky tuft on its head visits the tree with her mate and refuses to be deterred by Ma's screams. A pair of glossy black and white magpie robins also hop by completely ignoring the combined screams of the Sunbird Parents.   And the female koel, black and white spotted body, who turned up one beautiful morning, sat disdainfully still, two burning red coals for eyes staring into the distance.

 I haven't seen the nestlings yet.  They're tucked deep into the nest but they certainly add to the racket their parents make. Through the hot, long days this week, as Ma and Pa S were busy darting in and out of the nest with, I suppose, little sips of nectar from the orange blossoms on the tree,  the babies set up a loud screeching. I tried peering into the nest-it's just a foot above my height but to no avail.  Maybe when  Ma and Pa   begin flying lessons I will get a look at the first babies in the Fire Bush!

Latin Mass?

In church today, there was an announcement about starting a Latin mass. What? Latin? 
In the distant past, I have heard a smattering of Latin in some Western movie and my parents recited the Litany in Latin, but that's about it. 
I know the smattering that I had heard sounded beautiful and by that measure, a whole Mass recited in Latin would also, sound beautiful. Maybe.  For a little while. But an hour of it?
Besides, I thought the whole point of having the Mass in every language in the world was so that the congregation could participate in it, feel a part of it,  and not just doze off.
On the other hand, the Mass that I hear (at our city Cathedral, no less) is so dreadfully trite, I doubt anyone listens to it. So perhaps the mass in Latin wouldn't make much of a difference..
Or wait, maybe given my rare church appearances, I was missing something? Did Latin mass mean something other than a mass in Latin?
When in doubt, I turn to good friend Google. (Where else?)
  Right away look what I found!!

 "10 reasons to attend a Latin Mass" .
And one of the reasons is -hold your breath- "There will be only males serving in the sanctuary and only priests and deacons handling the Body of Christ, in accord with nearly 2,000 years of tradition."
https://onepeterfive.com/ten-reasons-to-attend-the-traditional-latin-mass/

There's a lot more similar stuff in there. But I am too zapped to venture further.
Really, really in a country where women are treated like shit, we don't need any more reasons, however well meant, to grind us deeper into the dirt. I am quite sure the idea of a Latin mass came from a male. Whether it did or not, wake up St. Patrick's female parishioners. Beat that idea to pulp.

Oh, by the way, what was Jesus's mother tongue again? Did that poor carpenter from the Middle-East converse in Latin or in the language of the fishermen? 

Moving.(House and Story)

 So many things happening. Most important.  Despite everything on my plate I did manage to have my annual  Joy of Giving-Serve Your Servants Day in 2017 as well.  It is the last time Iwill ever have it at my old residence in Shivanand Gardens.  In December I moved from there. Finally found the garden I have been longing for.  A huge 2000+ square feet of garden. Love it.

But buying it was such a horrendous experience I lost all of 7 kilos.  Moving in, all by my old faithful self was harrowing. But finally I am almost  settled.

Yesterday I managed to get out in the SRP campus for a morning bike ride.  The weather is so beautiful, just now, cool with just a hint of the hail that struck Amravati. Stopped at the Vitthal-Rukmai temple to join palms and to stretch hamstrings.  An old man, a really old man came up.
"Look, this is the way you do it," he mumbled through shrivelled gums stretching out his dhoti clad bones in a suryanamaskar.
"How old are you Baba?"
" I will be a 100 years old in 2018. Was born in 1918."
I made suitable noises.
Perhaps encouraged by my smile, the old man put out his hand, "Can you give me some money for tea?"
I refuse to encourage begging. Particularly in a man twice my age and twice as limber.
So it was a firm no.
"Where do you live?" I asked. "No family?"
"I have a house in Azad Nagar. " said the centenarian. " And a son who worked here in the State Reserve Police. He's retired now. He gets a pension, has a few properties, gets rent as well.   But he doesn't want me around. Says, don't stay here.  Nothing for you here.  But where to go? So I come here, to the temple as soon as I wake and stay here till dark," Hawked, shook his head, "And spread my hand out before strangers."

No moral to this story.  

My Mother Writes a Post

45 years ago

I am 31 today.  My birthday and my 9th wedding anniversary.   No celebrations. Just marking one more year of waiting and longing.

31 years and 1 day.
Mina, my sister and her husband visited.  They say a very holy man -J.P. Vaswani  is going to be in the neighborhood.  I asked is he able to work miracles.  They didn't know.  I am going to go there and get his blessings. After all, I have tried everything. I fast every Tuesday-St. Anthony's Day. I say the Novena every Wednesday-Our Lady's Day and I say the Rosary twice a day.  No sign in 9 years if anyone is listening to my prayers.  Maybe this holy man will work a miracle.

31 years and 7 days:
 I met J.P. Vaswani. There was a huge crowd but I managed to push myself through. When I reached him, he was surrounded by people. In front of all of them I just joined my hands and said very fast,  "I want a baby." He nodded and smiled. Maybe he does that to everyone. I don't know. Maybe it will help. I don't know.

31 years and  1 month:
Mina's husband has landed a job in a very big hospital. He and Mina took me to see a doctor there. The doctor says I need an operation and I should return with my husband who will have to sign his consent.
I asked my husband.  He refused. "I  don't want a child." I pleaded, wept, begged.
He insists he doesn't want a child. His first wife, his love died in childbirth. He says he allowed me to bring 3-year-old Rachel, my niece here and bring her up and isn't that enough?  How to explain that looking after and caring for Rachel just makes me long even more for a baby of my own.  Rachel isn't mine. No matter what I do for her, she still runs away from me the minute she sees her mother.
I want a baby who will run to me no matter who else loves her.

31 years and 2 months:
Mina's husband says he is ready to pose as my husband and sign for the operation. It is Mina's idea. Mina has always been a daredevil.  But I am scared.  If I tell my husband he will forbid it.  If I don't and he finds out?  One time I said don't take another drink, he threw a plate at me. This is much more serious than an extra drink on Christmas Day.

31 years and 3 months:
In the end I didn't tell him but went with Mina and her husband for the operation.  I had to stay overnight. My husband thinks I am staying with Mina.  Mina's husband signed. The operation was a very small one. Don't know if it's of any use. After all the lies and deceit...

I am 32 today. 
I am pregnant. 
Was it my prayers, or J P Vaswani's blessing or Mina and her husband's efforts or the operation? Or did all of it lead to the operation? I don't know. But I am going to have a baby of my own. I told my husband of the operation and that Mina's husband signed. He said he doesn't want a baby and he doesn't mind if he never sees another baby in his life.  I don't care. I am going to have a baby of my own.

Mother.

P.S. Like all daughters the baby does run to me no matter else who else loves her.
That the baby also turned out to be the apple of her father's eye is a different story.