For Dad

Always wanted to do a write-up on Dad but somehow it was always Mum I ended up writing about. Now since it's Father's Day tomorrow and I have this dearly-prized old picture of Dad carrying a baby me, I figure this is a good time to do a father post.

Dad was always something of a James Bond figure, being the only male in a sea of females. Only son with six sisters, and father of four daughters and no sons, I never once heard him grouch about not having a son. But then Dad was always ahead of his time. 

Born and raised in the southern part of the state, he was an Edmunds graduate and then went on to Mumbai (then Bombay, of course) for a Masters' degree in Social Work. Lots of old photos of him as a skinny, smiling young man with lots of friends, both Mizo and non-Mizo. Then he met Mum and they fell in love and got married, and lived happily ever after...at least for about 14 years. Maybe it was because he loved cancer sticks (I remember the cartons of Panama cigarettes around the house), he picked up stomach cancer and grew gaunt and quiet, and died, leaving behind a houseful of bewildered females, four under the age of 13.

Dad was bright and outgoing, with lots of interests. He liked sports and was very proud of a couple of trophies he'd bagged for badminton during his Bombay days, and he liked coming home after work and hitting a few shuttles with us, never mind all we could manage were clunky sky-high shots in the air. He was also involved with the YMA and the Mizo Academy of Letters, and had a collection of interesting Mizo cultural knick-knacks that he kept in a display cabinet. He was also widely-read, reading everything from the Statesman dailies, JS magazine, Eve's Weekly, Readers' Digest, etc, and had a stack of Louis L'amour cowboy novels. He also loved travelling and it was always fun having him take us to boarding school at the start of the year and then coming to pick us up again at year-end. He enjoyed doing up the house at Christmas time, stringing colourful streamers across the ceiling and blowing  balloons to hang around. He also got a big kick out of making these huge hot air balloons out of coloured tissue paper, and launching them on New Year's Eve.

As I sit here recalling all these memories, I miss my father in a way I haven't done for years. He was always so full of life and ideas and things to do, and perhaps that was because he was only 46 years young when he died. Thank you for a wonderful childhood and a fabulous springboard to life, Dad.  And wherever you are now, rest assured that you were the best father you could have ever been - for me.

So who's afraid of technology?

Argh, it's just so aggravating when people refuse to make use of technology, even the user-friendliest kind. 

Case in point, today I had three colleagues arguing over whether this Mizo poet was dead or alive. Colleague #1 claims the man had died sometime last year. #2 goes, nooo, the man's wife had come visiting her Mum just earlier this year and there had been no mention of the husband passing on. The third colleague who's supposed to be teaching the old guy's poem in about fifteen minutes, talks to #1 about the poet-guy's daughters/nieces et al. They all seem to know his family well  but, and herein lies the catch, it never occurs to any of them to pick up their cellphones to quickly clarify the matter. Finally, colleague #3 wonders worriedly what to tell her class. I say okay, my cousin's wife is a relative so she should know. I pick up my phone, dial her number, ask, and she tells me, yes, the man is still alive and they'd had a big celebration last year in honour of his 100th birthday. 

Case solved, easy peasy.  My colleagues joke they've almost killed off the poor guy and give me effusive thanks. Not me, technology. 

Fine Vintage

So there I was supposedly working on these articles written by the students for the annual college magazine in, uh, not so hot English. Then I see this Twitter update by Pastor Rick Warren who has such a great sense of humour. It's funny and pert and gets me kickstarted on good thoughts about getting mellow with the years.

I am no longer young enough to be right about everything,

lost my idealism,

the fierce insistence I always need to be right.

I no longer see things in black and white,

reality is too complex

and life comes in shades of grey.

It no longer matters that I should always be right,

I'm happy now to step back,

to let life surprise me

and expect the unexpected.

A feel good post. Thank you, Pastor Warren.

A Mother is a Mother Still...

"Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while but their hearts forever" ~ Author unknown

Mother's Day tomorrow. Another trend that's broken out its western confines and gone international. At least online. I seriously doubt any of the worthy mothers in my near neighburhood are aware it's "their" day. Or that they actually even have a day at all. Facebook has been throwing up a lot of reminders over the last few days and after taking my laptop in for an overnighter to get extra RAM added and Windows 7 installed, I finally succumbed today and put my mum's picture as my profile picture. Which led me on to feel the urge to put up a tribute blog post as well.

Everybody thinks their mum is unique and so do I. And though I know I've blogged about her a few times already, well, she deserves this. My mum was one of the intelligent people I've ever known, incredibly sharp and astute and very quick on the button about most everything. Despite that, she was also often unbelievably vulnerable especially after being widowed early with four young daughters to bring up. We used to have this picture of my parents on their wedding day; her veil slightly lifted away from her face by a breeze but both she and Dad oblivious to it, smiling ever so happily into the camera. My sister cut it out to fit into this tiny little picture frame that stood in our sitting room and I remember once looking at it in between dusting, and thinking how happy they looked and how unsuspecting they were that they had only 14 years to live together.

Strangely, though Mother's Day is a concept that we had only read about in western books, in the last year of her life, Mum got to celebrate her day. In Mumbai where we'd gone for her cancer treatment, we went to church on this Sunday morning which turned out to be the 8th of May and all the mothers in the congregation were each presented with a sweet red rosebud on a long graceful stem. What a lovely surprise that was for Mum, and a fitting tribute on her last ever Mother's Day.

Picture, picture on the wall

Another Holy Week gone, a time of forgiveness and new life and fresh commitment, as well as a poignant new reminder that some day because of Resurrection Day, I will be reunited with lost loved ones. My thoughts were specially with Parteii this year - you are so deeply missed, my friend.

~~~

On a happier note, I had been meaning to post these earlier but with one thing after another, I completely fogged out. Earlier last month, there was another photo exhibition, this time with a theme, albeit a rather open one -  My Mizoram. I had wanted to send in a picture of a church captured within a wineglass which I figure epitomises Mizoram best.  After all these are the two most dominant issues here - the Church and alcohol, both with their own teams of highly vociferous supporters. But to my total frustration, I just couldn't get the picture I wanted - my skills just not good enough to translate into digitised form what was in my mind's eye. In the end, without any great enthusiasm I sent in a couple of pictures  and surprise, surprise, one of them actually sold again! And yes, a bird picture again, this time of a red-vented bulbul that remained perched atop a tree in our garden for ages on the evening of Parteii's funeral.

I felt so emotional about having clinched a sale again, despite being such a know-nothing about photography in the first place, I thought I'd return the favour and purchase one of the pictures myself. And this is the one I picked. 

Taken by TZa, I can see now that the black and white layout is actually a better option for an exhibit considering  the local guys don't do colour printing of large photos all that well. I love the arid starkness of the landscape with the rundown tin shack, the giraffe-necked tree with leaves clumped impossibly out of reach at the very top, the barren earth littered with dry leaves and twigs, and the lone female figure seemingly emerging out of the wasted background like a Venus rising out of the sea. Haven't actually got it framed it yet but it's definitely slated to grace my walls very shortly.

I wonder

I keep on searching for the old me

I keep on thinking I can change

I keep on hoping for a new day

Will I ever feel the same

Now I wonder..

*Chris Isaak

Betrayal: the residue

Hurt

Pain

Hollow

Aching

Pain

Can't eat

Can't sleep

Can't breathe

Pain

Heavy

Tearing

Pain

Why why why

What did I ever do to you?

Was this what you meant by

always and forever?

Passage

Winter shreds

the leaves from the trees;

denuded, desolate, defenceless,

they stand in silence.

But Spring comes

and out of the bleak nothingness,

a new life breathes.

The old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.