HAS

Reality is like a horror show

I have been missing in action since last two weeks,  have been battling a lot of emotions and trying to make sense of it. I am , therefore just voicing out my thoughts loudly. Feel free to stop reading beyond this as it will have more emotional stupidity and angst., but if you feel you would like to enter my muddled world, a big hug to you. 

A dear friend of mine  recently told me that world is not interested in seeing your tears or know your weakness,  as it will misuse it to their benefit and/or ridicule it for their gain or ignore it as it is also facing stiff problems.  He said people need laughs in this doomsday scenario, so be funny.

My nephew who is training as a resident doctor is so disillusioned with the system , he can't yet wrap his head around the horror meted out in Kolkata but more than that,  he is shocked at the medico fraternity reaction. Apart from few people,  hospitals have asked people to just wear a black band and ensure the show goes on.  

Assault and rape against two 4 yr old girls: I can't  wrap my head around the fact that how can humans be so devilish and what kind of experience do they get that makes them do it? 

An ex colleague passed away as her pancreas was nicked during removal of uterus, which resulted in septic spread .  The hospital just wrung their hands and said sorry. 

Due to these types of news,  I have been feeling angry,bitter, sad and helpless,  hence the absence.  Going forward,  will try to give more laughs and less tears.

And a kind request to all subscribers , please do read and give your feedback.  In case you find difficulty in app, please unsubscribe and subscribe again. Comments /Likes etc are like air to my writing, it allows me to breath and live. 

PS 1 : My title means Helpless,Angry, Sad.(HAS)

PS 2: To my keyboard friend, please don't wait to meet me FtF, send me your critique feedback asap so that I can improvise.

Rain drops

It was drizzling lightly

as we drove down the highway

Fields on the side

Trees covering the road like a canopy 

Car was packed with people 

And talk sounded like noise 

I rolled the window pane down,

Breathing in! deep breaths that could pull in the earth

Put my head out, catching raindrops of water

On my nose, on my temple

My little one fiddled on my lap

Eager to see what his mother is seeing

Feel the happiness what she is feeling

I pulled him up,  made him face the wind

He felt the raindrops on his palm

Giggled with surprise

The noise inside grew 

Arrows of advice aimed at me

Questioning  my ability to be a good mother

Harsh curses were thrown about his health

I was declared insane

I looked out at trees, 

heavy trunks, branches heavily laden with leaves

swaying to the gutsy winds

as if a rock concert was going on

and it was dancing to the music

Smelt clear air, a kind  of familiar smell

pervaded my nose, calmed me 

seemed like it was caressing me

I asked the driver to stop by the wayside

All i could see in rear-view 

was lips moving,  but i couldn't hear any sound

no words made any sense, my ears got shuttered

I got down with him

Feeling the full warmth and cold of rain 

The wind,  rustling my hair, his t-shirt

His squeals of laughter mingled with fear

His joy at something new

made me smile and feel lighter

As we sped away, I remembered the fragrance

It was my mother's, post bath Hamam soap 

She was there with me, a constant even now

Telling me, it's okay I am human. 

Drought

And i thoughts words are infinite

I have / had seen rivers,wells etc drying up,  even for that matter relationships drying up but never realized that over time even words could dry up.

Four and half decades of my life,  I was blessed with innumerable friends and acquaintances. I used to talk talk talk and then talk some more.  If there was one thing which was bottomless for me, it was conversation.  I loved having conversations or would have long one's with people.  There were times when an extremely reticent person will open up and talk and the conversation will go on for hours. I remember an incident when I used to work in news channel  wherein a print editor came in to ask something around 7pm and I had packed up for the day but,  a one minute ask became 3 hour conversation with sandwich dinner and we left at 10pm. That guy was known to be a man of limited words(verbally), high intelligence and a night owl., and I used to be slightly wary of his temper (for which he was equally famous) but after that conversation,  I saw a new version of him.  Conversations or words those days, used to either  heal,hurt or hug or give happiness ,sense of belonging or living.  

Such incidents are many and not only in office, this used to happen in local trains also. I used to have conversation with total strangers for an hour (mind you, really interesting topics) and then we used to walk away at our respective stations or become friends for life. 

Words were like clothes for me, constant in my life ,sometimes excessive, sometimes short, sometimes bold, sometimes rude... I always felt words or rather conversations are like your body organs,  will be always with you, always used. 

But now, I realised that words do dry up, conversations do get stilted, especially over phone. Situations and age are the seeds of drought, that dries up words. Nowadays, when I meet someone in social situation I can't move beyond pleasantries about health or weather.  

With strangers,  I just smile and nod, that's it.  With friends I don't know what to talk over phone and these are people with whom I have like, chatted for hours and still felt bereft of time.

It has been a slow process, when words became scarce ; like when a person accuses you of manipulation and you know none of your words will make a dent in their belief or when a friend accuses you of intentional disappearance from their life, you know words can't make them rewind their thoughts or when you feel like talking a lot, wanting to describe the happiness you felt or something that moved you and you realize there is nobody to talk to,then words dry up (There is a song in kannada which says ( there is only one said word on my lips but 301 unsaid words are in my heart : "Tutiyalli bantante maatu onde ondu, hedeyalli ulllididdu 301 - )

Nowadays , words are not like clothes to me but  they are like face cream or powder , okay if you use it or okay if not , doesn't make a difference as such. 

I want to water it, make it sprout out and have a dense jungle but to paraphrase Sonakshi Sinha's dialogue from Dabang 

" Mujhe baton se dar nahi lagta hai saab

Rishton ki samaj se dar lagta hai"

And its been 2 years

Journey unto an unknown responsible life

July 15th, my son turned two years old.  And what a journey it has been. Lots and lots of learning,  compromise , patience, a peek into unfiltered love when his eyes look up at you or seek your fingers or just wants you to pick him up.  My mind is still jumbled up with emotions but few take offs: 

One of the things I am still learning and still there is a long way to go is not to get stressed and make any situation more worse. I have this habit of over thinking which i used to call earlier in my Corporate Life as planning contingencies. I used to have Plan A, Plan B, Plan C... and still used to get stressed out. Motherhood made me realize that stress is one of the problems of the current situation you are in,  not the solution. 

Anger, again a long way to go in not using it as a weapon to lash out at others for my disappointments. It is tough, damn tough to take deep breathe when you are angry, you feel you are the only person on earth who is being sane and others are idiots but again motherhood teaches you that anger is a self destructive weapon and to use it on people who are unarmed is the most cowardly act ever in human kind,  so imagine when you are angry and your little one tugs at you ,wailing ,just so that he can be in your arms... how do you stay angry at that little face ? I am still learning how to manage especially when I am drained out physically and feeling low mentally. It is tough for someone whose nickname has been short-fuse.

Arguments , I have realised that it leads to nothing except to get a self satisfaction that you have enough bullet points to prove other person wrong.  And every person feels the same way so nobody wins any arguments anyways, metaphorically i mean.  And arguing in front of your child either using raised voices or rough gestures doesn't make your life happy or better,  it just confuses your child more.  Actually i have found a new found respect for pigeons, earlier their coos used to irritate me, i used to think whom do they talk with so much,  but now i realised that it sounds like Mmm, as if agreeing to all the arguments happening in world. No wonder they make so much sound continuously. 

Again, to walk away from discussions when it is turning into an argument is a tough job but yes,  slowly I am trying. 

There were times that I felt  ME,Sudha Rao as a person who used to exist before Motherhood is dead., and I do miss her.  I miss her quirky humor (nobody to joke around), her sarcasms (no team to work , no money paying job), and when these come back as open gaping wounds of memory, my little one's toothless grin makes it bearable,  his little fist curling my thumb makes me feel that maybe my second avatar is worth it? . He does applies bandages over the wound when his small body hugs me,pulls at me face or just looks at me or plays silently leaning on to me with a confidence that is hard to copy.

I am still learning,  I am learning to co exist as a person,  as a mother,  and hope I do justice to him. 

Happy birthday my sweetheart. God bless you with all that you deserve and more. 

Bear with me for my shortcomings, as I don't have any excuses except that maybe I am human with most imperfections than a normal adult human may have. I haven't yet learned to love myself without conditions so bear with me if I seem far off to you, as I have realized I don't know what is love. 

DEJA-VU

When memories make you laugh and cry together.

Disclaimer : I don't know how to write, how to convert feelings into words that can speak,  honestly i have millions of thoughts flying through and brilliant prose gets formed when I least expect it but when I sit down to write,  i lose the flow, i become too conscious about language and instead of a  strong straight drink on the rocks, it becomes watery with lots of soda and ice, and the drink/ writing becomes very tepid. Not to mention I am a person with  Agrammatism disorder.

Still, I write so that I can  unravel my thoughts,  my emotions and try not to become too conscious about anything. 


A few weeks back, we had to go to a relative's place and the quickest way to reach was via  local train.  And we wanted our little tyke also to experience such pleasures in life and hence we went(thankfully it was not crowded) and had a great journey. It was a deja-vu moment  for me as it took me down the memory lane coupled with the fact that this week Mumbai witnessed heavy rains and suburban trains problem. , I thought why not write about my train memories ?

In Mumbai, the best way to  travel was by train and  if you are employed, the best travel time. Only here, you get to see the timings as 0924 am train or 0720am or 0952 pm and while it feels weird in beginning,  it becomes kind of exciting to race against time to board such trains. It was exciting for various reasons :

Books
Even in crowded trains you had vendors selling stuff (books,eatables,clothes,make up accessories,vegetables,fruits) and one of the things i used to love was books. They used to sell used or pirated version anywhere between 50 - 150 rs , and it was a steal considering the kind of selection that was available and the various genres you could just check out without burning a big hole in your pocket. And if you were lucky and you got a place to sit or stand comfortably,  you could just immerse yourself in the book, laugh aloud or cry or just go through the emotions of the character without feeling self conscious.  Sometimes this also gives you a chance to make friends as people are curious to know which book makes you laugh without inhibitions.  I remember when i was reading Shopoholic by Sophie kinsella, i laughed so much in train that my co passenger requested me the book for a quick glance  through it and later became my good friend also.

Friends
The most happening place to make friends. People here are very friendly and will not think twice to ask the most personal questions or comment on something which they don't like.  And the fights for a place to sit or to hang out at the door are generally the precursor to forge a long lasting friendships. We used to eat together, sing songs loudly (sometimes bhajan so that people don't take offense), celebrate birthdays with cake cutting etc,  cut vegetables, share personal day experiences of either office or home. This was a place where we felt safe.


Self care and Me time
So the grouping used to happen in mornings for most but evenings,  as the office timings were different we used to mostly travel alone. And trust me, we were alone but never lonely.  This was the time we could cry silently (people gave you space to just let be you, unless you looked unwell), observe others,  unashamedly hear others conversations,  just let your thoughts run wild by closing your eyes or sometimes do make up ( if you are going out in evening)  paint your nails.,etc. The most beautiful part is you do all this without being attached to cell phone.

Life lessons
As I said earlier, you get to learn a lot by either hearing others experience or just by observing.  My favorite was watching the vendors sell their ware and the beauty with which they did it.  They were not  educated but the technique which they used to sell,  had a lot of management lessons hidden in it. They will sell at a time to 5-6 people , bargain with few more, collect money from few more but without showing even an iota of stress. Always had a smile and Oh God! the persuasive methods which they used were an art in itself.  I loved watching them and most often, I used to get solutions for my office problems just by listening to them discuss their life ( as i said earlier ,i don't know how to express this in words , you have to experience it to understand it).

All these passed through, before my eyes as we made the journey with my little one.

If possible, go for a ride once and just be you.  Yes, there are experiences which may leave you with a bitter taste but hang on, you will start to like it.