The Attack of the Cells

Strangely, it takes time to settle in. You hear your  speak the words, but they flow over you. The dab of the needle is dulled by the anaesthetic, till the moment it wears off. Then you feel the prick, the cold steel prodding its way through your veins.

The first thing that hits you is fear. What now? How do you handle this? Where do you go? Something in your life changes forever. You did not expect this. You cannot handle this. You look at your mom, who is suffering from it. She smiles weakly, and you smile back. What do you tell her? What can you tell her? The numbness seeps in. The brave facade you put up in front of already mourning relatives and friends is not because you are brave, but because you are numb. You are still registering the shock of the news. 

Then come the doctor visits. Each trip to the hospital is a visit to purgatory. There are others. There are worse. If you thought you were in a spot, you see others. They fill the footpaths, crowd the waiting room, sleep on benches and wait for hours to get the doctor to see them. The hospital might be the purgatory that Dante visited. More specifically, the first circle of hell; limbo. 

Mom was fine till the first chemo. She would have been fine even after it. It was us. We were not prepared. We never quite grasped the intensity of the shock. We were still paddling in high water, when the chemo hit us. Mom could not handle it. And we watched her fall, like collateral damage between two rioting factions. It was painful, on so many levels. 

Yet, she fought. With a braveness I did not know existed within her. Somehow, the disease has taught me more about my parents than 27 years of life. I learned that my mother more than anything else. I learnt that there are love stories beyond the ones that movies or novels can create. I learnt that I can break down any moment, anywhere. I learnt that you can never have too much help. 

And this is just the first battle with the dreaded disease - cancer. The war is still on. 

Fighting Emptiness

Emptiness can be a difficult construct to get used to. It requires patience. An ability to sort out necessary thoughts from unnecessary ones is mandatory. Also, the ability to ignore the few unnecessary thoughts that peter into the consciousness can be helpful. I realise this is not everyone's cup of tea. The mind can be a dangerous, but unavoidable companion in those quiet moments. It is the birthplace of all illusions that will drive you crazy. Little niggles will expand into unbearable pain. The searing cut knifing through your thoughts, imploring you to find some placebo to dull your senses. Find something to delay time, or perhaps, fast forward it to the future. It will force you to find a way to pass time in the most boring manner. There will be anger. There will be a sense of frustration. A helplessness that will threaten to destroy everything you seek to protect. You have to keep it under a leash. It is difficult. Ever try to keep a tornado under a leash? It is impossible.

You have to fight. You have to rein your mind back. Again and again. From thoughts running wild, and create a cohesive idea. The idea is often dull, flickering behind curtains of foggy words and images. It threatens to vanish before you can capture it in your mind's eye. You stay on it. You draw back the cobwebs of delusions. You crowd out the noise. You need to fill the emptiness with silence. Easier said than done. Vagueness will cloud your senses. Fight against it. Focus. And soon, it will emerge. An idea, pure, clear and beautiful. You shape it, create it and put it on a pedestal for all to see.

Suddenly, in a moment, as unexpectedly as it arrived, it shall vanish. You are suddenly used to the emptiness. 

Page 2 of the Travels in Bangalore: It Rains in May

The advantage of being on a vacation is that you can lose all count of time. You are cocooned in a bubble of lethargy and comfort that exists only in fairytales. The world huffs and puffs and runs after buses to work, while you sit down with your kaapi and pongal and enjoy the rush hour from the balcony.

Nothing quite defines a Bangalorean like the morning tiffin. This is the first ritual of the day, and the continuing tradition that, I hope, will never be broken. It is the standard set to measure the hospitality of a host and the generosity of their guest. From the more recognised idli, dosa and the elaborate pongal, adai to the hastily organised lemon rice, each dish is a ritual that the ardent Bangalorean worth his salt will adhere to. If you seek proof of the respect this tradition holds, visit the MTR (Mavalli Tiffin Room) or Vidhyarthi Bhavan for a morning. You will know it first hand.

The MTR, located at a 10 minutes walk from Lalbag Botanical Gardens(No relation to the Ganpati mandal at Dadar) is an institution in the cuisinal tradition that carries on till today. It is a place the elders in my family swear by and the youngsters feign indifference to. The menus might have changed. The quiet orthodoxy of people may have given way to liberal values. The humble bungalows might have been dwarfed by multi storeyed skyscrapers. Roads have widened. Languages and apparels have changed. But the practice of having tiffin at 10 am with a cup of hot filter kaapi continues. The nouveau bangalorean might opt for the occasional cup of tea, but kaapi is for truebloods.

This is a city of contradictions, of oppositions and change. Virat Kohli and Chris Gayle might lead RCB in the IPL, but their aggression is a fairly new emotion. You can be as aggressive as you want, but slur Rahul Dravid or Anil Kumble at your own risk. The curses you will endure are only comparable to the passion of a Maharashtrian defending Sachin Tendulkar. Youngsters might wear Gucci and Levis, but will still close their eyes in prayer as they cross a Vinayakar temple on 4th cross. This is India. A traditional ancient civilisation coming to terms with the sudden change in its atmosphere and culture.

The architecture of a city is often a representative of the tastes of its residents. From the Gothic structures in Mumbai, to the Victorian elegance of Kolkata, Indian cities are dotted with structural beauties that jut out of the other modern structures that have occupied space. The Vidhan Soudha, the Mysore Bank, Nataraja theatre are some structures that turn back time as you glance at the ages that have washed off their façade.

My memory of the 80's constructs a Bangalore city dotted with comfortable individual houses, surrounded by sparse streets; each lande geometrically dissected and named confusingly as 4th main 2nd Cross, or 6th sector 3rd main 4th cross. My recent visits have crowded the same city of my memories with large monolithic buildings and a sudden spurt of KFCs and McDonald's that have rooted out traditional bakeries.

The yuppie invasion armed with Mac books  Digit magazines and Chetan Bhagat novels has redefined the city. Kaapi powder is no longer made at home. Iyengar bakeries are not the only source of bread. Tinkle, Amar Chitra Katha and Vikatan are replaced by Chip, AutoIndia and ET. Of course, not everything changes and not completely. Bangaloreans are still conservative wolves in the clothing of liberals. The religion of an individual and their caste is a determiner of their social circle. and Akki roti still takes spot over the pizza.

I came here in search of the Bangalore of my memories. A city that is fast disappearing in the concrete jungle, crowded by the mish mash of cultures and brands that have seeped in. I am in search of a Bangalore that exists in the taste of an Akki roti at a roadside stall. A taste that washes over you like a thunderous downpour on a May evening, only to disappear without a trace the next morning. Except for the faint longing in the air.

Farishton se safaai maante hain

Farishton se safaai maangte hai

Log sach ki gawaahi maangte hain

Apne khoon se arzaan kiye hain kalam ke karz

Ab log mujhse siyaahi maangte hain

Hum unse bhi wafaa ki aadat rakhte hain

Jo humse bewafaai maangte hain

Mohabbat kab hampe meherbaan tha

Ab to dard e dil bhi judaai maangte hain

Ranjh se yun shiddat si ho gayi hai

Ke ab dua me bhi duhaai maangte hain

Ek zindagi ke sivaa sab kucch to karz tha

Aur woh bhi yaa ilaahi maangte hain

Woh bhi ho jaata hum pe meherbaan

Ek hum hi rukhsat e maseehaii maangte hain

Dum ghut-ta tha zaahidon me

So hum mazhab se rihaaii maangte hain

Jaane log kyu maut se ghabraate hain

Hum to zindagi se rihaai maangte hain.. 

The Great Depression

I am a slacker. The last of the species. Perhaps the only one so built, that he cares for nobody or nothing. It is pathetic, to think about it. But then, so is life. Why am i this way, you may ask. Maybe an early childhood filled with trauma... maybe being an ignored child in a family... Throw some Jung at me. Some Freudian hypotheses, and you would still be wrong. The point is, that I do not know the diagnosis of my own problem.

Yet, the fact remains that I find the world uninteresting. Its been like this for a couple of years now. I wake up every morning to go to work. I come home every night bored out of my brain. I laugh. I cry. But every moment I keep hoping that I would die. Someone must have switched on the auto mode in my brain. You ever get that feeling of an out of the body experience? When everything that is happening to you seems to be happening to a stranger? and you are an observer? Yeah. I feel that. Every. single. day.

So, what exactly is a slacker? Other than an asshole who pretty much keeps feeling sorry for himself? The creed of a slacker lies in the fact that he has no ambition. He has no dreams. No wants. Nothing. Absolute nothing. You might have heard of hippies, travelling across the world with nothing, but a backpack. Well, this is kinda like that. Except, I don't travel nowhere. I go on with my miserable life till it ends. Or I decide to end it.

Don't worry. I no gonna kill myself. I am too much of a scaredy cat to do that. It's not like I have not tried to figure this problem out. I have tried losing myself in work. Not really a great idea to get rid of stupid thoughts. I tried running in the morning. But you really can't run away from your problems. Seriously, I tried. Plus, you only get sweaty and tired. I tried drinking to death. Shot my liver a couple times and ended up on meds. Plus, they kicked the junk food out of my system. That sucked royally.

So what do you do? How do you get your life back on track? I dunno. Still trying to figure that one out. Till then. I wake up every morning. Go to work. Come back home. Smile. Laugh. Cry. Pretend that everything is fine. Till it actually becomes fine. Maybe it will.

Jeez. That was a weird write up. I think I might be losing it. But, then there is no pain I am receiving. A distant shipsmoke on the horizon. I am already coming through in waves. My lips move but I can't hear what I am saying. When I was a child, I had a fleeting glimpse. Out of the corner of my eyes. As I turned to look, the view is gone. I cannot put my finger on. The child is grown. The dream is gone. And I have become Comfortably Numb.

Just a song. Life is just a song. 

Incomplete poem

Image by Vainsang via Flickr

 Memories are strange things.
They take you to places you know,
and show you different things.
Sometimes when i lie awake at night,
wondering about the course of my life,
i see my birth flash in front of me,
i see the way i died.
I remember people and faces,
some complete, some in traces
Memories which sometimes heal
At times they leave you numb
At times, they are too deep to feel
Like old long lost friends
 Meeting suddenly around the bend
With an awkward smile
Awkward unfinished conversations
That lasted a while.

I see life

Image by may the circle remain unbroken via Flickr

I see life
Thirsting, panting, crying
I see life
Waiting, wanting, buying;
I see life
Breathing, cursing, ranting
I see life
Seething, raging, recanting
I see life
preaching, teaching, writing
I see life
hurting, stealing, fighting
And all through this myriad world
I see life
Living and Dying.