Thoughts that lie too deep for tears

One of the most poignant things I've ever heard about the pain of bereavement came from a Sunday School colleague a few years ago. The older brother of D, another fellow teacher, had died and as we assembled together at their house to condole with him, this guy A, normally the most jovial, joke-cracking kind, spoke of how the dead guy had always been like an older brother for him. Struggling to hold back tears, he wondered why God allowed us to love each other so deeply when we must die and be parted forever. Why couldn't He have made us to love less deeply so that when death came, the parting would be more bearable and less heartbreaking.

Two weeks ago, on the evening of the 3rd of February, a good friend died. Parteii had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer two years ago and I had written about her here. At the time, I had wondered idly how it'd feel if she died. I've experienced a few bereavements in my time: first my father, then my mother, and in between and after, assorted blood relations, well-loved pets. This is the first time ever that a close friend has died.

I don't make friends easily and don't have many either. P and I got to be friends from being Sunday School teachers in the children's departments for several years, and this would've been the 17th. In many ways, we didn't have a lot in common. She had been born and brought up in a village and then came to continue college in Aizawl, found a good government job and settled down here, accomodating assorted nieces and nephews while her folks continued to live in Thenzawl. In many other ways though, we bonded instantly. It was a time when my mother had recently died and the onus of visiting bereaved families and paying condolences, in Mizo social tradition, fell on me. P was also active in Church and lived alone with no one else to rely on to do the condolence visiting thing. With another friend MB, also in circumstances similar to hers, we met up and went for these obligatory condolence visits together. Over time, we became close friends, being in the same age group, and single and childless.

A gentle spirit, steady, consistent, unassuming and unobtrusive, and coming from a religious family, clean-living and church-minded, her cancer came as a shock to us all. But in the months that followed, she remained calm and upbeat, invariably comforting us instead with her cheerful, philosophical attitude. A memory that shames me every time I think back on it is when I had been going through a low time at the beginning of last year. I visited her at home and cribbed about how everyone else seemed to be moving ahead while I was stuck in a rut and going nowhere. She listened quietly and spoke a few encouraging words, not caring to remind me that she had cancer and was in a far less advantageous position.

It saddened us all that she didn't have an adult relative living with her, taking care of her and her medical treatments. But when I once broached the subject with her, she said quite firmly that she had consciously taken the decision not to marry so she did not ever want to trouble her siblings or family in any way. Of course, when her final days came, her family came together for her. By then, she had grown skeletal and gaunt, and it was painful to even see her. We all knew there was no hope of recovery and prayed for a painless release, but when she eventually passed on, it was and still is, something that's difficult to come to terms with.

What I shall miss most about her as I realise belatedly was her always obliging readiness in coming to condolence visits with me. There were times when she'd have already gone with someone else but if I mentioned that I hadn't done my bit yet, she would say, "Do you want to go, Zualte? Then I'll come with you. I don't mind going again."

Rest in peace, my friend. Hon hoi theoi philousin apothneskei neos. They, whom the gods love, die young. And we shall meet again some day.

I Meant To Do My Work Today

I meant to do my work today

But a brown bird sang in the apple tree

And a butterfly flitted across the field

And all the leaves were calling me

And the buttercups nodded their smiling heads

Greeting the bees who came to call

And I asked the lizard the time of day

As he sunned himself on a moss-grown wall

And the wind went sighing over the land

Tossing the grasses to and fro

And a rainbow held out its shining hand

So what could I do but laugh and go?

- Richard Le Gallienne

This post links back to this one. I finally managed to grab an extremely rare (and slightly blurry) download the other day and among other exquisite (forgive me the overuse of the word) scenes, this is one that's lingered on in my mind for years and years. "....and I asked the lizard the time..." I've googled that line a few countless times but never got it until now. What a wonderful treasure trove of memories technology is.

The Name-tag Put-down

Question: as children how many of you were tagged a cruel, unkind nickname by your peers? A tag that grew out of something that was part of your physical features or personality? I was watching The King’s Speech last night (starring the lovely Mr Darcy) and felt impotently enraged when the infatuated-with-Wallis, new king Edward VIII spitefully taunts his well-meaning younger brother "B..B..Bertie" in the way that the Darcy character was often heartlessly ridiculed as a child for his painful stammer.

As a child, and even later in my teens and early to mid adulthood, I was often ruthlessly ragged for my quiet personality. I remember once in high school when we were doing Treasure Island in English class and the teacher was reading the passage about Captain Bones which went “He was a very silent man by custom…” She looked around the room and asked, “And who is that like?” and everyone went, “Zualteii!” and laughed. "Zual-tawng-duh-i", "Zual-kam-tam-i", "Zual-ngawi-reng-i." I hated gibes like that. I’d put on a forced smile but feel like dying of humiliation inside.

Name-tags are hilariously funny for the people calling them. Usually based on some aspect of the victim, admittedly they can be extremely clever and witty. But for the victim, since it’s based on some part of his/her personal make-up, it can be hurtful and distressing. Especially more so for shy, timid introverts with shaky self-esteem. I know, I’ve been there. The more self-assured ones take it with aplomb, flinging back something wittier and funnier, or even counter-attacking so sharply the teasers back off in a hurry. The less fortunate cringe and helplessly bear the brunt of childish/adolescent malice and insensitivity.

Happily, most of us grow up both physically and mentally. Life experiences help us outgrow our gauche ineptitude. We learn to know ourselves better, our strengths and weaknesses, to look out for ourselves, to grow thicker skins. We pick up self-defence mechanisms and social graces and how to smoothen away an awkward moment. We even learn to take a slight and deflect it into a joke, laughing at ourselves along with everyone else.

But every once in a while, an unexpected name-tag put-down still comes out of nowhere and gets you in the solar plexus. Ouch, some things never change.

4 days into the new year

A new year resolution is hopefully hopping onto your treadmill on an early January morning for an 8 minute walkathon in three layers of woollies..

I Am the New Year

I'm going to be lazy here and post something I came across online. Something profound and lovely that I'd never have come up with in a million years anyway!

I am the new year. I am an unspoiled page in your book of time.

I am your next chance at the art of living. I am your opportunity to practise what you have learned about life during the last twelve months.

All that you sought and didn’t find is hidden in me, waiting for you to search it but with more determination.

All the good that you tried for and didn’t achieve is mine to grant when you have fewer conflicting desires.

All that you dreamed but didn’t dare to do, all that you hoped but did not will, all the faith that you claimed but did not have — these slumber lightly, waiting to be awakened by the touch of a strong purpose.

I am your opportunity to renew your allegiance to Him who said, "Behold, I make all things new."

Dare to dream, and dream big! A very Happy New Year to us all.

These Mountains I Call Home

Home sweet home. As I get older I find cliches to be increasingly unerringly true. It was an indescribable feeling the night I woke up in my own bed after a couple of weeks away. Half asleep as I was, I had this unshakeable feeling that this was the loveliest, most wonderful bed I'd ever slept in, the most beautiful room I'd ever been in, the most blessed sleep I'd ever slept. Ever.

And it is always a beautiful time of year up here in these mountains. The rain and sticky heat is gone, and in its place comes stealing in what I call the sad soft feel of a year preparing to depart. A precious ambience I've come to associate over the years with oranges, dust, woollen clothes, cold nights, warming your back in the morning sun and ah, Christmas. And all the connotations of the year with its problems and difficulties doing a fast fade, and an anxious excitement for the new year to come in as if all the old year's problems will dissolve away with the last sunset. On the flip side, there's also the implicit realisation that all the year's good times and treasured memories will slide further away in time. Another year gone, another time was.

Time comes, time goes. Seasons change. People come and go. But these mountains are eternal.

Photo: Jonathan Ralte

Ear we go again

Here's a new one - a micro blogpost via cellphone. Back at the CMCH Vellore. Had repair ear surgery on my right ear on Friday. The one I had in late April had been a great success but in mid September I blew it quite literally. I just woke up one morning with my ear off and when it remained stubbornly off the second day I did the unthinkable - pinched my nose and blew my ear open. And out.

My earlier visit here had been at the scorching height of a sizzling summer. This time our first day was rainlashed, grey and sunless. The handwork of cyclone Jal as it turned out. We had to dig out the woollies we'd packed for the home journey through the much cooler north east. Apart from that unexpected one day weather hitch, everything has been smooth-sailing. We even got in a day's sightseeing of the rather arid Vellore Fort which suprisingly holds not much else apart from a sumptuously elaborate 16th century Vijayanagar Hindu temple.

My surgery went well, thanks to the prayers of loved ones and wellwishers, and I'm looking forward to a gentle journey home, again by train to avoid air pressure damaging my new auditory structure. This time I'm planning to max out the home route by taking a two day rest and shop till we drop break in Cal. Whoopee de doo.

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And I Have You

I've always loved the poetry of Nikki Giovanni since I was introduced to her by Manorama, a roommate at a month-long refresher course in Burdwan who was then attempting a doctoral thesis on Ms. Giovanni's works. I never knew if my roomie ever got that thesis done but I'm eternally in her debt for helping me discover Nikki's fresh, readable, entirely identifiable, yet faultlessly classy poetry. Her love poems especially so get it right on the button.