As a fan and student of Carnatic music, I gravitate towards seeking refuge in music, especially during hard times of my life or during particularly difficult times of day. My taste in music and subsequently ragas, seems to follow in lock step, the coping strategies I have adopted when life has gotten stressful. In days past, I would have run from my problems and indulged in ragas that complemented my emotions, those which evoked a romantic musical escape from my problems. That worked then, it was sufficient. But now as I look inward, in the stillness of self awareness, as I reunite with my spirit to evaluate who I really am and how I want to lead the rest of my life and as I invoke the courage to cope with adversity, I find myself indelibly drawn to the depths of Bhairavi and the solace it has to offer.
Peculiarly, my desire to listen to Bhairavi coincides with when I feel the worst. It beckons me to seek refuge in its embrace. It offers catharsis.
It is at once a reflection of my mental state and the cure for it. For how can one cure pain without first acknowledging it. There isn't a quick or superficial fix for the pain. On the other hand, there is no excessive lingering in the state of melancholy either. No denial, no running away, no dwelling, just an acceptance of what is. From this visceral recognition comes the courage to cope with and find a way out. There is no heady optimism here, but an affirmation and commitment to heal. The healing has a certainty and sense of permanence to it. This power arises not out of foolish hope or romantic rescue but from an ascent fueled by the depth of the fall.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Vermillion Vows
As we hurried up the steps of the imposing white brick house, the only stark white brick house in a neighborhood of neo-classical red-brick, custom-built, and turret adorned stone colonials, he said to me, "You will stick out like a sore thumb!", to which I replied, "Thats exactly the point, my dear". The door opened and Uma greeted us at the door. Her eyes widened in surprise as she took in my appearance. She was glad that we could make it that evening and as she took our jackets she inquired if we were coming in from another party, to which I promptly replied in the affirmative. It was easier to make up an excuse than to explain why I was donned in a sari. Uma's quizzical look ushered us into eve of our nineteenth wedding anniversary.
As I took in the tastefully decorated foyer and formal living and dining rooms, the carefully chosen modernist pieces of furniture, the breathtaking floor to ceiling drapes and the canary yellow leather couch that I caught glimpses of on my daily walks in the cul de sac, my eyes were drawn to three striking paintings on the living room wall. The dark silhouettes of the Taj Mahal, the Charminar and Jaipur fort set against the fury of the setting sun in the paintings were the only hint of the couple's Indian origin. Otherwise , the house could have been a showcase for post modernist metro-glam design. This was the first time we were visiting the Ravulas. As I admired the paintings, my thoughts wandered off to the earlier part of that evening, to when I was getting dressed. After having worked all of Saturday, my husband and I had decided at the last minute to accept the invitation to our neighbor's "Beat the winter blues" cocktail party. On the spur of the moment, I decided to wear a Sari to the party. Normally I would not have ventured to mix the two, a sari and cocktails just didn't seem to fit together, atleast not in my mind. But this night I was in an especially daring and playful mood. It was the eve of our nineteenth wedding anniversary and I wanted to celebrate. Nothing measured up to the festivity and regal sensuality of a sari. When I wore it, I felt beautiful and sexy. I picked out a new favorite, a silky smooth georgette in shades of green and smoke blue with little silver sequins sowed all over the "pallu" of the sari that gave it an air of understated elegance. With an aporetic raise of his eyebrow, my husband said, "You would look out of place! A sari to a cocktail party with mostly white people?" he questioned. "Why not?", I challenged. "Who says one can't mix a sari with alcohol or white people?" He was quiet. "You never wear one when I ask you to and then you pick the most improbable moments to do so!, Its your wish, do as you please!", he said in a tone that was both resigned and indulgent at the same time. Resigned to the fact that he had to accept my spontaneous and sometimes maverick ways and indulgent of my child like insistence. I was so sure that it was the right thing to do. "We have known our neighbors long enough now," I said, "I am sure they will accept me and my wardrobe as is"
It had been a couple of years since we moved into our new house. We loved the house and the neighborhood. Finally, I had mature trees in my backyard. We quickly struck a close bond with some of our neighbors. We were all in our early forties, ambitious and cosmopolitan. We bonded many a weekend over wine and cheese, over bullish and bearish markets and along republican and democratic party lines, conferring on our political views , cherishing our children's accomplishments and our generally happy and upwardly mobile lifestyle. Yet I felt that there was something amiss, something that didn't quite fit. I could not put a finger to it but it was undoubtedly there, that feeling of not completely belonging. I was uncomfortable and could not reconcile with the fact that I had two distinct sets of friends, divided along race. We never mixed the two. The neighbors were never a part of our "Indianness". We never included them in our celebrations during Diwali or the Dasara or Holi. Were we afraid that they would not accept that part of us? Was it necessary to divorce ourselves of our original identities to be accepted by and into a new one? That night I chose to make the wearing of the sari an instrument of reconciliation between these two disparate worlds, the hosts being another Indian family helped.
"Integration should be about acceptance," I said. "Does a melting pot have to mean that one has to sacrifice one's identity for the sake of the uniform assimilation! Could I not be my own person and still be part of the whole?", I said indignantly. It occurred to me that a sustainable long term relationship with a life partner and that of an immigrant with his or her adopted country was not all that different. Both require a healthy balance of freedom of expression and acceptance to mature and flourish and give birth to a new identify. The result is not the smooth and fluid vision of a melting pot but that of a beautiful mosaic.
He knew better than to argue with me when I got into these grand philosophical musings. We had reached that comfortable juncture in our marriage where such
issues were better laid to rest quickly than be allowed to flare up into an argument.
But it was partly true, what he had said about me not wearing a sari upon his wish. On occasion in the earlier years of our marriage, I would get upset when he would ask me to wear a sari "for him". The idea of getting dressed to please him seemed old fashioned and submissive. I would promptly remind him that when I dressed up, it was solely for the purpose of my own pleasure.
"Can I get you something to drink?", the host's deep voice cut into my thoughts and veered them back to the party. I ventured deeper into the room, as several pairs of eyes turned towards us. Some in admiration and others in surprise. "How gorgeous you look tonight!", said Marie, our Home Owner's association president. "You wear it so well", said another neighbor and friend, Kayla. "I have never seen you in an Indian outfit!", said another. The compliments kept coming and I gave my husband that "I-told-you-so" look as he and I split up and started mingling with all the guests. We had a good time as we caught up with friends and the breaking news of the week, how a group of sixth grade boys had beat up a friend at the local middle school. Shocked moms were discussing the sorry state of modern morality at middle schools. The pace of the conversation kept up with the flow of food and drink.
When the party had thinned out to just a close group gathered around the kitchen table, some inebriated and others just bored, my husband announced that it was our anniversary the next day. More spirit was served up at this and everyone pledged to stay till the clock struck twelve so they could wish us. "A toast is in order!", someone said. "Say a few words about your partner of nineteen years!", they pleaded. My husband raised his glass and said, "To an eclectic, intelligent and beautiful woman, with whom I look forward to spending the next twenty!" Bravo! they cheered, and now it is the Lady's turn! What was the verdict on the state of the holy union, they wanted to know. I looked deeply into my husband's eyes, raised my glass to him and then turned to everyone and said, "I am Free to Love, for this I am thankful!"
At the mention of that opportune word, Varun, with the flowering prose of a drunken poet, reminisced about the first time he saw Uma, behind a curtain and how he was smitten ever since. Uma followed with her story of quiet certainty with which she told her father that this was the man she was going to marry. They fondly recollected their elaborate five day wedding, and before we knew it we were explaining arranged marriages, dowries, the mangal sutram and the significance of the "bottu" to Tom and Barb, the only non indian couple left at the party. I shared with them the story of my own marriage, about how it was arranged, how my husband swept me off his feet with his good looks and charm and the promise of a great life in a far-away land, all in three weeks and under the watchful eyes of two sets of parents, how we were deprived of an engagement period lest we changed our minds about the alliance. We remembered the stolen glances , the secret hugs and the disapproval on my mother-in-law's face the morning after she caught the reflection in the mirror, of newly-weds caught kissing in the aisle, only to be interjected by questions from Tom. Being the inquisitive man he is, intrigued by what he had heard and saw, wanted to understand how we could have agreed to marry after just a few weeks of getting to know each other. I looked at my husband to see if he was going to say something and he smiled knowingly at me. The same thoughts had crossed both our minds when we heard Tom pose the very question my husband had once asked of his mother, when he said, "Go ahead, you tell it better." It was then that I shared with my neighbors, the story I called, "The Grain of Rice Prophecy".
Twenty some years ago, my husband's parents had set about the most important task in their life at that time, that of finding their eligible son a bride. In the tradition of forward looking and rebellious children and trailblazing in matters of love, my husband was disinclined to the idea of shopping for a bride and dismissed any proposals sent his way. When his mother was exhausted and disillusioned after meeting several prospective daughters-in-law, she demanded to know what exactly it was that he was in search of, to which he replied "Ganta kottali". Loosely translated, it meant that his heart bells had to toll, he needed to "feel" the chemistry. This only made his mother ever more disheartened until a chance meeting with my parents at the Presidential tea, on January 26th, Republic Day, 1990. When the car drove away from out of my father's bungalow on a chilly february night, his mother looked at him with all hope. That is when he turned to her and said he had heard the distant sound of bells! After three weeks of courting, romantic evenings spent walking in Nehru Park, shopping along Janpath, sweet lunches at my favorite dhabas and long telephone conversations that stretched into the wee hours of the night, we decided that we would get married. Even then, there was that peripheral doubt that plagued both of us. Would it ever work? Choosing a life partner based just on a three week test drive with a family guarantee and no returns policy? To which, my mother-in-law reassured us in terms she was more familiar with than buying a car. She likened it to checking the done-ness of rice. She said, "One does not have to check every grain of rice to see if its done, it is sufficient to test the top grain. Messing with the entire pot does not make for a fine presentation!"
To Tom, the Grain of Rice Prophecy, and watching two loving couples share the stories of their marriages arranged or otherwise, replete with rituals, seemed a powerful, mystical and magical force. Barb begged to understand the practicality of the arrangement. I started to explain how in an arranged marriage, the macro compatibility factors were sorted out by families matching partners from a similar socio-economic backgrounds and education levels. And how the compatibility at the micro level was sometimes sacrificed to uphold the institution of marriage or in the words of the rice story, the "fine presentation". If one was fortunate, like we had been, we would find compatible partners, where each was allowed to be their imperfect selves but was required to nurture the relationship by feeding it with love and respect and accepting one and another's quirks.
While Grain of Rice Prophecy" makes for a charming story for the fortunate to share at cocktail parties, I know of less fortunate couples that are not blessed with such acceptance, where one or both are controlling and as a result the freedom to truly love one another is lost or they let the interference from the extended family take over their relationship and ultimately destroy it.
We walked back home, hand in hand, feeling serene and secure. We made plans on how we would spend the next day. To start with, we would visit the temple to renew our Vermillion Vows.
As I took in the tastefully decorated foyer and formal living and dining rooms, the carefully chosen modernist pieces of furniture, the breathtaking floor to ceiling drapes and the canary yellow leather couch that I caught glimpses of on my daily walks in the cul de sac, my eyes were drawn to three striking paintings on the living room wall. The dark silhouettes of the Taj Mahal, the Charminar and Jaipur fort set against the fury of the setting sun in the paintings were the only hint of the couple's Indian origin. Otherwise , the house could have been a showcase for post modernist metro-glam design. This was the first time we were visiting the Ravulas. As I admired the paintings, my thoughts wandered off to the earlier part of that evening, to when I was getting dressed. After having worked all of Saturday, my husband and I had decided at the last minute to accept the invitation to our neighbor's "Beat the winter blues" cocktail party. On the spur of the moment, I decided to wear a Sari to the party. Normally I would not have ventured to mix the two, a sari and cocktails just didn't seem to fit together, atleast not in my mind. But this night I was in an especially daring and playful mood. It was the eve of our nineteenth wedding anniversary and I wanted to celebrate. Nothing measured up to the festivity and regal sensuality of a sari. When I wore it, I felt beautiful and sexy. I picked out a new favorite, a silky smooth georgette in shades of green and smoke blue with little silver sequins sowed all over the "pallu" of the sari that gave it an air of understated elegance. With an aporetic raise of his eyebrow, my husband said, "You would look out of place! A sari to a cocktail party with mostly white people?" he questioned. "Why not?", I challenged. "Who says one can't mix a sari with alcohol or white people?" He was quiet. "You never wear one when I ask you to and then you pick the most improbable moments to do so!, Its your wish, do as you please!", he said in a tone that was both resigned and indulgent at the same time. Resigned to the fact that he had to accept my spontaneous and sometimes maverick ways and indulgent of my child like insistence. I was so sure that it was the right thing to do. "We have known our neighbors long enough now," I said, "I am sure they will accept me and my wardrobe as is"
It had been a couple of years since we moved into our new house. We loved the house and the neighborhood. Finally, I had mature trees in my backyard. We quickly struck a close bond with some of our neighbors. We were all in our early forties, ambitious and cosmopolitan. We bonded many a weekend over wine and cheese, over bullish and bearish markets and along republican and democratic party lines, conferring on our political views , cherishing our children's accomplishments and our generally happy and upwardly mobile lifestyle. Yet I felt that there was something amiss, something that didn't quite fit. I could not put a finger to it but it was undoubtedly there, that feeling of not completely belonging. I was uncomfortable and could not reconcile with the fact that I had two distinct sets of friends, divided along race. We never mixed the two. The neighbors were never a part of our "Indianness". We never included them in our celebrations during Diwali or the Dasara or Holi. Were we afraid that they would not accept that part of us? Was it necessary to divorce ourselves of our original identities to be accepted by and into a new one? That night I chose to make the wearing of the sari an instrument of reconciliation between these two disparate worlds, the hosts being another Indian family helped.
"Integration should be about acceptance," I said. "Does a melting pot have to mean that one has to sacrifice one's identity for the sake of the uniform assimilation! Could I not be my own person and still be part of the whole?", I said indignantly. It occurred to me that a sustainable long term relationship with a life partner and that of an immigrant with his or her adopted country was not all that different. Both require a healthy balance of freedom of expression and acceptance to mature and flourish and give birth to a new identify. The result is not the smooth and fluid vision of a melting pot but that of a beautiful mosaic.
He knew better than to argue with me when I got into these grand philosophical musings. We had reached that comfortable juncture in our marriage where such
issues were better laid to rest quickly than be allowed to flare up into an argument.
But it was partly true, what he had said about me not wearing a sari upon his wish. On occasion in the earlier years of our marriage, I would get upset when he would ask me to wear a sari "for him". The idea of getting dressed to please him seemed old fashioned and submissive. I would promptly remind him that when I dressed up, it was solely for the purpose of my own pleasure.
"Can I get you something to drink?", the host's deep voice cut into my thoughts and veered them back to the party. I ventured deeper into the room, as several pairs of eyes turned towards us. Some in admiration and others in surprise. "How gorgeous you look tonight!", said Marie, our Home Owner's association president. "You wear it so well", said another neighbor and friend, Kayla. "I have never seen you in an Indian outfit!", said another. The compliments kept coming and I gave my husband that "I-told-you-so" look as he and I split up and started mingling with all the guests. We had a good time as we caught up with friends and the breaking news of the week, how a group of sixth grade boys had beat up a friend at the local middle school. Shocked moms were discussing the sorry state of modern morality at middle schools. The pace of the conversation kept up with the flow of food and drink.
When the party had thinned out to just a close group gathered around the kitchen table, some inebriated and others just bored, my husband announced that it was our anniversary the next day. More spirit was served up at this and everyone pledged to stay till the clock struck twelve so they could wish us. "A toast is in order!", someone said. "Say a few words about your partner of nineteen years!", they pleaded. My husband raised his glass and said, "To an eclectic, intelligent and beautiful woman, with whom I look forward to spending the next twenty!" Bravo! they cheered, and now it is the Lady's turn! What was the verdict on the state of the holy union, they wanted to know. I looked deeply into my husband's eyes, raised my glass to him and then turned to everyone and said, "I am Free to Love, for this I am thankful!"
At the mention of that opportune word, Varun, with the flowering prose of a drunken poet, reminisced about the first time he saw Uma, behind a curtain and how he was smitten ever since. Uma followed with her story of quiet certainty with which she told her father that this was the man she was going to marry. They fondly recollected their elaborate five day wedding, and before we knew it we were explaining arranged marriages, dowries, the mangal sutram and the significance of the "bottu" to Tom and Barb, the only non indian couple left at the party. I shared with them the story of my own marriage, about how it was arranged, how my husband swept me off his feet with his good looks and charm and the promise of a great life in a far-away land, all in three weeks and under the watchful eyes of two sets of parents, how we were deprived of an engagement period lest we changed our minds about the alliance. We remembered the stolen glances , the secret hugs and the disapproval on my mother-in-law's face the morning after she caught the reflection in the mirror, of newly-weds caught kissing in the aisle, only to be interjected by questions from Tom. Being the inquisitive man he is, intrigued by what he had heard and saw, wanted to understand how we could have agreed to marry after just a few weeks of getting to know each other. I looked at my husband to see if he was going to say something and he smiled knowingly at me. The same thoughts had crossed both our minds when we heard Tom pose the very question my husband had once asked of his mother, when he said, "Go ahead, you tell it better." It was then that I shared with my neighbors, the story I called, "The Grain of Rice Prophecy".
Twenty some years ago, my husband's parents had set about the most important task in their life at that time, that of finding their eligible son a bride. In the tradition of forward looking and rebellious children and trailblazing in matters of love, my husband was disinclined to the idea of shopping for a bride and dismissed any proposals sent his way. When his mother was exhausted and disillusioned after meeting several prospective daughters-in-law, she demanded to know what exactly it was that he was in search of, to which he replied "Ganta kottali". Loosely translated, it meant that his heart bells had to toll, he needed to "feel" the chemistry. This only made his mother ever more disheartened until a chance meeting with my parents at the Presidential tea, on January 26th, Republic Day, 1990. When the car drove away from out of my father's bungalow on a chilly february night, his mother looked at him with all hope. That is when he turned to her and said he had heard the distant sound of bells! After three weeks of courting, romantic evenings spent walking in Nehru Park, shopping along Janpath, sweet lunches at my favorite dhabas and long telephone conversations that stretched into the wee hours of the night, we decided that we would get married. Even then, there was that peripheral doubt that plagued both of us. Would it ever work? Choosing a life partner based just on a three week test drive with a family guarantee and no returns policy? To which, my mother-in-law reassured us in terms she was more familiar with than buying a car. She likened it to checking the done-ness of rice. She said, "One does not have to check every grain of rice to see if its done, it is sufficient to test the top grain. Messing with the entire pot does not make for a fine presentation!"
To Tom, the Grain of Rice Prophecy, and watching two loving couples share the stories of their marriages arranged or otherwise, replete with rituals, seemed a powerful, mystical and magical force. Barb begged to understand the practicality of the arrangement. I started to explain how in an arranged marriage, the macro compatibility factors were sorted out by families matching partners from a similar socio-economic backgrounds and education levels. And how the compatibility at the micro level was sometimes sacrificed to uphold the institution of marriage or in the words of the rice story, the "fine presentation". If one was fortunate, like we had been, we would find compatible partners, where each was allowed to be their imperfect selves but was required to nurture the relationship by feeding it with love and respect and accepting one and another's quirks.
While Grain of Rice Prophecy" makes for a charming story for the fortunate to share at cocktail parties, I know of less fortunate couples that are not blessed with such acceptance, where one or both are controlling and as a result the freedom to truly love one another is lost or they let the interference from the extended family take over their relationship and ultimately destroy it.
We walked back home, hand in hand, feeling serene and secure. We made plans on how we would spend the next day. To start with, we would visit the temple to renew our Vermillion Vows.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Pot Lucks and Pauschian Head Fakes ....
So the next time we meet for a pot luck, consider this.
By accepting to attend, you have just committed yourself for a 4-6 hr
block of time away from your busy life, you have also committed yourself
to cooking something, so what if we did this instead:
Instead of bringing a dish to the party, you find an item to donate and
bring it to the party. This is something we typically put off for spring
cleaning or wait for a compelling charitable moment to arrive in our
otherwise busy life. But given that you just committed your time, use it
to round up books, clothes, electronics or whatever else you want to
donate.
We'll order pizza and beer instead and pick a charity of our choice and
drop off the pot on our way back from the party? The luck of the pot
goes to the charity of our choice and we give new meaning to the word
party donations!
We'll still party or still think we're partying anyways! Thank goodness
for head fakes!
By accepting to attend, you have just committed yourself for a 4-6 hr
block of time away from your busy life, you have also committed yourself
to cooking something, so what if we did this instead:
Instead of bringing a dish to the party, you find an item to donate and
bring it to the party. This is something we typically put off for spring
cleaning or wait for a compelling charitable moment to arrive in our
otherwise busy life. But given that you just committed your time, use it
to round up books, clothes, electronics or whatever else you want to
donate.
We'll order pizza and beer instead and pick a charity of our choice and
drop off the pot on our way back from the party? The luck of the pot
goes to the charity of our choice and we give new meaning to the word
party donations!
We'll still party or still think we're partying anyways! Thank goodness
for head fakes!
Parties
Recently, my husband and I hosted a party for a few of our close friends. We belong to a larger set of common friends and for whatever reason the only way we had been meeting up for the last few months was at huge gatherings where each time the hosts felt the need not to exclude anyone and took on the challenging and exhausting task of organizing food and entertainment for large crowds. While I thoroughly enjoyed meeting people I otherwise would not take the trouble to meet, and was grateful to and admiring of the hosts for their abundant-spirits and tireless enthusiasm, I know that I am not the only one who feels a bit lost at such events, in spite of my outgoing and extroverted nature. I realized that I was craving for a more intimate kind of party, one that involved fewer people, one where we could savor an actual conversation, where one takes the time to really get to know the other and not exhaust oneself with exchanging empty pleasantries.
So we decided to invite just a few of our dear friends and make it a pot-luck. We warmed up by playing poker but the best part of the evening was getting to know a bit more about each other through a game of Scruples. While I don't mean this as an endorsement of the game itself, I think everyone including us thoroughly enjoyed it. Post party, we engaged in playful labeling of our personalities, voting each other as mysterious, unique, dependable, edgy, risk averse, risk-taking, green, perverse and so on. We patted ourselves on our backs for the ability to entertain ourselves in this fashion and as a group voted to continue the tradition of intimate partying.
As I joyfully anticipated the next gathering, I spent an uneasy week, between enjoying the compliments my friends showered upon me and and ruminating about why we had such a good time, I realized that perhaps the reason for the high degree of enjoyment was deeply seated in our innate nature to indulge in our sense of self. With the help of affirmations from other players, we were casually yet systematically assessing the rectitude of our friends and silently renewing our own sense of morality. While we had lent an air of "meaning" to our parties we had just just embarked on a serious but dangerous ego trip. This feeling was only reinforced when the following weekend, we met a group of close neighbors for a night of wine, cheese and stimulating "conversation" . We entertained our intellect and teased apart our most private thoughts on touchy subjects from race and the Obama presidency to persecution, perceived and real, of peoples across the globe, celebrity gossip to neighborhood gossip, and ended the night confiding in each about our deepest secrets, about jealous wives, insecure husbands and troubled children. As we walked back home, I caught myself riding the judgement train again and the realization that I was yet to find the perfect recipe for a party.
Maybe it is that time of the year , of new resolutions , of new beginnings, or the search for a spiritual existence, devoid of excesses, ego and judgement and replete with intention, abundance and charity that inspires me to find a better way to party. It sound oxymoronic to have a party devoid of these ingredients but I vowed to find it. And so I started to write to my friends about PotLucks and Pauschian Head Fakes.
So we decided to invite just a few of our dear friends and make it a pot-luck. We warmed up by playing poker but the best part of the evening was getting to know a bit more about each other through a game of Scruples. While I don't mean this as an endorsement of the game itself, I think everyone including us thoroughly enjoyed it. Post party, we engaged in playful labeling of our personalities, voting each other as mysterious, unique, dependable, edgy, risk averse, risk-taking, green, perverse and so on. We patted ourselves on our backs for the ability to entertain ourselves in this fashion and as a group voted to continue the tradition of intimate partying.
As I joyfully anticipated the next gathering, I spent an uneasy week, between enjoying the compliments my friends showered upon me and and ruminating about why we had such a good time, I realized that perhaps the reason for the high degree of enjoyment was deeply seated in our innate nature to indulge in our sense of self. With the help of affirmations from other players, we were casually yet systematically assessing the rectitude of our friends and silently renewing our own sense of morality. While we had lent an air of "meaning" to our parties we had just just embarked on a serious but dangerous ego trip. This feeling was only reinforced when the following weekend, we met a group of close neighbors for a night of wine, cheese and stimulating "conversation" . We entertained our intellect and teased apart our most private thoughts on touchy subjects from race and the Obama presidency to persecution, perceived and real, of peoples across the globe, celebrity gossip to neighborhood gossip, and ended the night confiding in each about our deepest secrets, about jealous wives, insecure husbands and troubled children. As we walked back home, I caught myself riding the judgement train again and the realization that I was yet to find the perfect recipe for a party.
Maybe it is that time of the year , of new resolutions , of new beginnings, or the search for a spiritual existence, devoid of excesses, ego and judgement and replete with intention, abundance and charity that inspires me to find a better way to party. It sound oxymoronic to have a party devoid of these ingredients but I vowed to find it. And so I started to write to my friends about PotLucks and Pauschian Head Fakes.
Monday, December 17, 2007
An Immigrant Christmas
I love traditions, old and new, own and adopted. One such tradition is the one we adopted when our kids came of age and wanted a Christmas Tree like all the other kids in their day care! So for the last 10 years we have been putting up a tree and participating in Holiday traditions. Our tree reflects our Immigrant life in America. Rooted in deep Hindu values but branching out to explore new ways of the American Immigrant life. We adorn our tree with richly decorated Indian elephants and camels and birds and with little replicas of violas and pianos that the kids play at their school, photographs , souveniers from family vacations and this year with the Chicago Bears Team Spirit ornaments. ( My son is a huge fan now ).
What's a tree without presents under it. So like every other year, this year we participated in the ritualistic gift exchange. As the years went by, the value of the gifts we exchanged increased. We partied and partook of all the excesses. I was uncomfortable at the dangerous realization that in embracing the new customs we had only picked up the outward consumerism but not captured the underlying meaning of the celebration, expressed in service and charity.
Like every other immigrant family, our emphasis has always been on education and we reserve indulgent treats as rewards for academic excellence. I always second guess myself and wonder if I am ruining a lifelong love of learning by associating incentives with A grades. That is another topic of dicussion. But, only because she won her School's star award , we decided we would surprise our daughter with an I-Pod Nano for Christmas. She on the other hand had been saving her babysitting money and my son his birthday money for buying Christmas presents.
All is fine until the week before Christmas and our spirits are drained when we hear news about my husband's aunt being terminally ill. While we are grappling with the thought of her imminent death and extrapolating that to (and pondering upon ) the mortality of our own aging parents, our distance from them and our inability to take care of them in their hour of need, our kids are unsuspecting , ignorant and immune to our state of minds and happily writing up Christmas Wish lists. Lists of things they desired, coveted and wanted , not what they needed, for everything that they ever needed was already taken care of. You could not blame them , they were just trying to fit in with everyone else making wish lists at school. Except, there was one big difference. While most other kids would be receiving their gifts from many family members and giving them gifts in return, our kids had only 2 possible gift givers, their Mom and Dad , okay 3 if you count my daughter and son buying each other things with their parents money of course. Even though we are feeling depressed and weighed down by the news about Ayamma's deteriorating health which seemed to arrive each day like gifts ( only morbid ones ) from the song "On the twelve days of Christmas" we decide to indulge the kids and take them shopping. As we drive to the mall , I ponder upon the True Love of my life's song, the bird of my calling , french hens, pipe dreams and such.
Now shopping is an excursion that both my husband and I avoid like plague especially during the holidays. It seems like even today, after 2 decades of hard work, making a life for ourselves ( and a comfortable one at that ) we are both unable to buy something for ourselves without a trailing feeling of guilt. In contrast there is my thirteen year old daughter who, at the clutches of peer pressure and guided by the advice from her Teen Vogue magazine pre treats her wish list with an air of entitlement. In her mind, she unquestionably deserves the Juicy Couture socks and the expensive pair of ballet flats that tout huge crystals on the toes. It was obvious that cost of obtaining the full wish list far exceeded the money she had saved up and we had already bought her a present. So we gave her the option to forgo the ballet flats for the promise of a surprise. But she obviouly wanted the cake and eat it too. She started to cry and was so miserable at the thought of losing her flats to a present that her parents were to surprise her with. For how cool could such a present be. After all it was from parents who always reminded their children about how half the world's children go to bed hungry when they left food on their plates at dinner time, who did not believe in brand named anything and always embarked on a lofty lecture before any purchase at any other time of the year. She ranted and raved about how she hated surprises and how she preferred to buy something SHE wanted than be surprised and how the flats had tumbled to the bottom of the "maybe" section of her list from the "must-have" section. And I thought to my disappointed self, where had the essence of gift giving gone? It had perished I suppose in the I-driven world we live in today. How was it a gift to me if I thought of it and I ( forced ) someone to buy it? My husband, being the rational man he is decided that we should reveal the surprise to her and let her decide if she wanted to keep it or trade it for her flats. I was crushed at the thought of being denied the pleasure of gift-giving , robbed of the satisfaction I would get when I saw the gleeful look on her face when she would open the I-pod and stripped of all coolness that I would have earned for giving her such a cool gift.
I could not help but remembering that short story about the " Gift of Magi" that had so touched my heart when I was a kid. I implored my husband to not spoil the surprise but he was dealing with his own hurt and he insisted that she be taught the lesson. Of course when she found out what our surprise she was torn with angst and filled with remorse, she realized she had ruined it for everyone, for herself and her parents. But as saving grace she did decide to keep the I-Pod. Those bejeweled ballet flats would just have to wait , only long enough until the next A was achieved.
What's a tree without presents under it. So like every other year, this year we participated in the ritualistic gift exchange. As the years went by, the value of the gifts we exchanged increased. We partied and partook of all the excesses. I was uncomfortable at the dangerous realization that in embracing the new customs we had only picked up the outward consumerism but not captured the underlying meaning of the celebration, expressed in service and charity.
Like every other immigrant family, our emphasis has always been on education and we reserve indulgent treats as rewards for academic excellence. I always second guess myself and wonder if I am ruining a lifelong love of learning by associating incentives with A grades. That is another topic of dicussion. But, only because she won her School's star award , we decided we would surprise our daughter with an I-Pod Nano for Christmas. She on the other hand had been saving her babysitting money and my son his birthday money for buying Christmas presents.
All is fine until the week before Christmas and our spirits are drained when we hear news about my husband's aunt being terminally ill. While we are grappling with the thought of her imminent death and extrapolating that to (and pondering upon ) the mortality of our own aging parents, our distance from them and our inability to take care of them in their hour of need, our kids are unsuspecting , ignorant and immune to our state of minds and happily writing up Christmas Wish lists. Lists of things they desired, coveted and wanted , not what they needed, for everything that they ever needed was already taken care of. You could not blame them , they were just trying to fit in with everyone else making wish lists at school. Except, there was one big difference. While most other kids would be receiving their gifts from many family members and giving them gifts in return, our kids had only 2 possible gift givers, their Mom and Dad , okay 3 if you count my daughter and son buying each other things with their parents money of course. Even though we are feeling depressed and weighed down by the news about Ayamma's deteriorating health which seemed to arrive each day like gifts ( only morbid ones ) from the song "On the twelve days of Christmas" we decide to indulge the kids and take them shopping. As we drive to the mall , I ponder upon the True Love of my life's song, the bird of my calling , french hens, pipe dreams and such.
Now shopping is an excursion that both my husband and I avoid like plague especially during the holidays. It seems like even today, after 2 decades of hard work, making a life for ourselves ( and a comfortable one at that ) we are both unable to buy something for ourselves without a trailing feeling of guilt. In contrast there is my thirteen year old daughter who, at the clutches of peer pressure and guided by the advice from her Teen Vogue magazine pre treats her wish list with an air of entitlement. In her mind, she unquestionably deserves the Juicy Couture socks and the expensive pair of ballet flats that tout huge crystals on the toes. It was obvious that cost of obtaining the full wish list far exceeded the money she had saved up and we had already bought her a present. So we gave her the option to forgo the ballet flats for the promise of a surprise. But she obviouly wanted the cake and eat it too. She started to cry and was so miserable at the thought of losing her flats to a present that her parents were to surprise her with. For how cool could such a present be. After all it was from parents who always reminded their children about how half the world's children go to bed hungry when they left food on their plates at dinner time, who did not believe in brand named anything and always embarked on a lofty lecture before any purchase at any other time of the year. She ranted and raved about how she hated surprises and how she preferred to buy something SHE wanted than be surprised and how the flats had tumbled to the bottom of the "maybe" section of her list from the "must-have" section. And I thought to my disappointed self, where had the essence of gift giving gone? It had perished I suppose in the I-driven world we live in today. How was it a gift to me if I thought of it and I ( forced ) someone to buy it? My husband, being the rational man he is decided that we should reveal the surprise to her and let her decide if she wanted to keep it or trade it for her flats. I was crushed at the thought of being denied the pleasure of gift-giving , robbed of the satisfaction I would get when I saw the gleeful look on her face when she would open the I-pod and stripped of all coolness that I would have earned for giving her such a cool gift.
I could not help but remembering that short story about the " Gift of Magi" that had so touched my heart when I was a kid. I implored my husband to not spoil the surprise but he was dealing with his own hurt and he insisted that she be taught the lesson. Of course when she found out what our surprise she was torn with angst and filled with remorse, she realized she had ruined it for everyone, for herself and her parents. But as saving grace she did decide to keep the I-Pod. Those bejeweled ballet flats would just have to wait , only long enough until the next A was achieved.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Leaving home to go home
Sitting at the Indira Gandhi International airport , I was trying to hold back the tears that were swelling up inside of me...
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