Amnesia

The mind is a tricky animal. I read somewhere that the heart understands. The heart is on your side. But the mind, the mind is dicey. It will go berserk in a second. It will mess you up bad, you will never know peace. 

Off late, I have been more unhinged than usual. After my son was born, things have been hard. My mind has been asking me to rebel, break free. It has systematically not allowed my heart to love. That apart, I have come to believe that amnesia is a part of post partum. Like, I wouldn't be able to recall which friend I spoke to last week, which sheets are in the laundry bag, what I had for lunch yesterday, whether I have been planning to call my mother or I have already called her in the past half an hour. So I seem to forget things more than usual. Sometimes I wonder if it's nature's coping mechanism to make me forget how hard being a mother is.

Since my short term memory is being wiped off as we speak, my repository of events to go back is taking me further behind. So I have had an average life, nothing out of the ordinary. Mostly, I have to try hard to remember if some event happened in 2016 or 2017. Everything before that is quite hazy. Hence I try not to remember anything in the first place. So it could be that my subconscious is digging further behind, or it could be the isolation and confinement at home for months, but suddenly memories of decades ago have started sprouting in my head.

I now remember, clear as day, incidents, painful episodes of sexual abuse that I was subjected to as a child. Perhaps, I had blocked them out completely because that's what the hippocampus does. As an act of self defense. But now, as I see my son erupt one milk teeth after another, I cannot help but roar in pain that when I was abused, I was so little that I too had my milk teeth. And yet, I can feel the day, the light, the time, the smells, the texture of the floor, the aridity in the air, the sighting of blood. It's like I am there. Immediately transported back to an hour in my life I didn't know I had lived through until a few months ago. 

And then my mind does its thing and connects the precendents and the consequences of the episode and everything comes back. Nothing is blocked anymore. I writhe in agony and wonder who would do that to a child as I nestle mine in my arms. But there's no escape. There's no forgetting. There's no getting past. There's no understanding. And I become a million scattered pieces of myself in the air. 

Potpourri

Back in the day

I never knew what potpourri was

Then in my fourth standard book of GK

I found out

All my life, I have wondered

How underrated smells are

Olfactory is a powerful sense

But we let it wither so easily

So now

At the age of whatever I am

I am making potpourri

Unless I think otherwise tomorrow

In a glass bottle

That came with the dessert we ordered

On an evening long ago

Mango mousse, or something

Am gonna put orange peels

As many as I can

And sprinkle it with dried bougainvillea

Pink & white & orange

Then am gonna add beads

From a bracelet I got made

Long ago in a fete I wandered into alone

With letters of my name

Am gonna also put

Old earrings with their tarnished stones

And some more dried petals of rose

Sprayed with my expired perfumes 

Am gonna tear up old Polaroids & put them in

Just to add to the nostalgia

And a bit of the umbilical cord 

Sprouting from my newborn's navel

Also add drops of my mother's shampoo

So that it smells like her too

And scrunched old love letters as well

Because old lovers deserve some caging too

Isthumus

Yesterday in the middle of the afternoon, our windows shook. Doors too. May be the walls, a little bit. Assuming it was an earthquake was the safe bet. As we were planning to run downstairs, there was a loud bang. Like a collision between celestial objects. Or may be a supersonic jet. Or a very loud thunder; but the skies were bright. We were stupified, not knowing whether to stay in or run out. Suddenly the clouds covered the sun and added to the gloom and chaos. In a few minutes, many people started making calls and the telephone network gave up. This clueless lull stayed for about an hour. Then towards evening the power went out. 

I rescued some candles that had been buried deep in the kitchen cabinets and we sat on the floor, close to each other. Our car wasn't in the best of shape. What if, we had to escape and the thing just gave up. The only thing that kept it running, more than petrol, was faith. Nobody was hungry but we all ate leftovers for dinner. Around midnight, there was a knock on the door. 

A neighbour who I had never met introduced himself and asked if we were doing fine. I said we needed water, there was no water to drink. He said nobody had water to drink and that by morning a water tanker would come by and cater to the neighborhood. After shutting the door I wondered if he really was a neighbour. 

Towards dawn, only a while after I had managed to doze off, there was another loud bang. This was twice as loud as the one during the afternoon. I clutched the bags I had packed with some supplies, woke everyone up, made them empty their bladders for the road and headed for the car. I couldn't remember if someone had locked the house but seeing the exodus on the road, we didn't head back. 

We drove constantly for a couple of hours and nothing felt different or new except for the traffic. People in stopped cars, lowered windows and exchanged rumors. There were folks on foot too, on cycles and bikes, who were faster than those of us who were stuck in cars.

When the sun rose to the top of the sky, things got moving, like really fast. Like they had diverted the traffic or found an alternative road or something. The road ahead emptied out. No one knew where we were headed. There was no destination. The idea was to get as far as possible before the third time the loud bang happened. But would we? 

The city ended and we hit the highway. We drove really fast without even bothering about filling up the tank. We took turns and drove. When it was my time to drive, we switched seats and I lowered the window to see water everywhere except the road ahead. The road looked a shiny grey vis-a-vis the brown grey of the water all around. And there was nowhere to go except ahead.

I asked aloud if anyone knew where we were. There was no answer.

They had bombed the dams. The nearest dam was a few hundred kilometres away. The one after that was a thousand kilometres away. The one after that, it didn't matter. There was water everywhere. The city must have been under water by now. Who knew? 

The road we were driving on, felt like an isthumus that had suddenly showed up. Connecting two landmasses, the one we had abandoned and the one that lay ahead. Something definitely look lay ahead. It had too. 

A few minutes into driving, it dawned on me that the road we were on, wasn't a road it all. It was a flyover. And sooner or later, it would plunge into the water. 

At the Beach

Been living in isolation for over months now. But it doesn't feel odd. It's peaceful in a way because there's no urgency to go out and meet people. There's no obligation to buy stuff. There's no valid reason to be anywhere but home. This isolation has given a validation to my chosen way of life. 

Do you remember Celine, from Before Sunset. When she talks to Jesse about living in a communist country. This is vaguely what she would've meant. Her mind opened up and creative juices started flowing. Nothing of that sort has happened with me, of course. My mind is still in some self induced coma, there's a stasis I have chosen to hang in. But I am assuredly unafraid as I don't have to be around people anymore. People aren't so bad, tbh. But I am not just built for it. My bad.

When I imagine the future of life this way, is there anything I would particularly miss? Probably not. May be, I would want to get away a little bit, once in a while. I fret and panic a lot, I live with a lot of anxiety. So a break, in a few months is something I really would appreciate. Not that it changes anything, but. 

Long time ago, I remember being at the beach. It was Puri. Near the crematorium. But it's business as usual, even with such proximity to death. The eateries by the sea were doing good business. There are some stalls that sell sea food of all kind dipped in thick batter and deep fried till they turned orange. I somehow never gathered enough courage to eat at such a place. Then there are some hawkers selling samosas and sweets. A fast food stall that's shaped like a circle and is famous for its rolls. I would've gone there, but kept walking instead. 

We sort of reached the end of the market. Beyond that the beach looked virgin, the sea wilder. We stopped because there was no where left to go. There was a shack that sold tea in those white little paper cups. No matter how little tea the seller poured in, there was always a fear of it tipping over. In the strong breeze, our hands shook as we took small sips. It was milky and sweet enough; thick with some cream added after straining. We saw eggs and asked the seller, a boy of mid teens, if he could make anything. He was just manning the shop, he said, and his father was running some errands. 

So we waited. The sun began setting and fell deep into the sea. A yellow bulb came alight upon the stall. Not many were around, we were pretty far from the hoopla of the beach. It got cooler, our sweat dried against our skins and we got a chill. Sitting on the sand, I made a trip or four to play with the waves. The foam looked dreamy on my toes. Everytime I would be screamed at and asked to retreat. In between one of my trips to the waves, the boy's father showed up.

He made us bread omlettes and served them on paper plates, garnished with ground hot black pepper. The man was quite a pro and cooked fast on an iron frying pan. The stove fire was the only light we could see for a distance as even the bulb went out. 

I could feel the salt in the air seep into my skin and the chill penetrate my nostrils as the waves touched my toes again, and again and again. 

Fast Food

We had accidentally spent the entire day at the doctor's. I had imagined it would be an hour long affair once I got the appointment, or two. But, the tests involved, waiting for results, chatting up with fellow patients, sitting in large waiting rooms, took up our entire day. We had left soon after breakfast, hoping to cook lunch after getting back from the doctor's. But we left in such a hurry, the vegetables lay half chopped on the board, peels all astray. The day was slightly tiring, we ate lunch at the doctor's canteen. It was our first eat out in a long time. 

On the way back home, it was almost evening, right beside the canal that leads us home, I saw the neon lights come alight on the sign board of a tiny fast food shop. As we crossed it, I saw the pictures of momos, brightly colored. Usually a fast food shop had its kitchen out front and the dining at the back. We stopped and I walked out and asked the cook who had just started the kitchen fires, if they had momos. They didn't. I could get an egg roll though, if I waited. I was not as hungry as I was bored. I somehow wanted to delay getting back home and went into the dining area and waited alone on a table after placing my order for an egg roll to be taken away.

The kitchen was a smokey hot place. But the dining area was cooler, it had about half a dozen tables adjacent to the walls and a couple in the middle. I sat in a corner. The walls were tiled white, some paintings were hung. They had tried to give the place some kind of touch. I kept looking at my phone and then at the clock hung at the wall, matching the time. The cook, still visible from where I was seated was just beginning to assemble stuff. 

Meanwhile a woman walked in with her two kids. A boy and a little girl. She parked her scooter next to the canal and held hands of both her children as they crossed the road to the fast food shop. They looked quite happy, the little girl with curly hair was almost bubbly. I think food of choice makes kids happy. The older kid was slightly aloof though, he appeared geeky with spectacles. The mother looked tired, she was a bit more on the stoical side, but constantly monitored her children. The father was amiss, I thought. But it was a weekday, he could have been at work. Their soups came really soon and they playfully slurped from their spoons. Then came bowls of chowmein. The guy at the counter signalled that my rolls were packed. I left immediately thinking of my half chopped vegetables on the kitchen counter.

On the short drive home my head went back to my days as a kid. School buses made me nauseous. The smoke, the heat, the sweat, everything added up against me. Plus there was a big rush for seats and not everyone ended up with one. On somedays I would be picked up from school by my parents. It was an extremely joyous occasion to find a familiar face outside school gates. We had just moved into the city and everything felt foreign and too aggressive for my mellow mind. I barely had any friends and the classroom made me homesick. I found the teachers to be somewhat rude. So I ended up wanting to stay home or go to the park. We always went to the park on Sunday afternoons. When we were there, I wanted to build a house in the lawn and live amongst the flowers. But the park was far from my school. As we rode back from school to home, we would stop at a fast food shop. It was a shack next to the road and the farmer's market. It barely had a roof, the tables and chairs were set on the sidewalk and people shopping at the farmer's market would often stop by. 

My family would occupy a table. Sauce bottles, mostly tomato and gree chilli sat on the table beside a plastic jug of water and a few glasses. We were not supposed to drink that water no matter how hot a chilli we bit into. It could be a health hazard. Instead whatever remained in our school water bottles would have to do. I wasn't fond of any kind of meat as a kid and would often have to be cajoled really well before I touched it. Instead I loved eggs. I would order soup and egg chowmein and egg rolls. Oh it was such a feast!

I wondered if the egg roll I had parceled that day could match the taste of the rolls I had relished as a kid. In fact, could ever anything.

Just-existing

Like in peak summer

The soul has evaporated

Walls have shrunk

My mind has imploded

Anxiety isn't cake

Every day, every hour

Unknown fears obsess 

There must be 

One cheap shrink for me

Will take a cab every Saturday

Or biweekly

Just talk you know

Cry, hug, roar, may be

Sit on a chair

Stare, be heard

And for one fleeting moment

Be unraveled

House plants still flower

Husband still cooks

My son, cries, smiles, 

And doesn't eat enough

Drink enough

I sweep, wash clothes

And work too

Phones ring off the hook

Mails are typed and sent

At super fast speed

Sans typos

There's no time

None at all

But even in those free nano seconds

I get daily to barely sit

Somehow I manage

To devastate myself

With worry

With regret

With anger seething

And unbearable disappointment

You know what I am talking about?

Every day, I weigh

Not-existing over just-existing

I shouldn't have to

It probably ain't that bad

But I just cannot

Seem to manage my mind