Life

SURVIVAL - PART FIVE (FINAL)

WARNING:  READ PART ONE, TWO, THREE AND FOUR FIRST

The next day, Reshma, Hema and Guddi were asked to dress in brand new clothes and to wear their most sparkling smiles.  They were called into the headmaster’s office after breakfast where they found the same tall man and the small woman seated in chairs.  All three flashed their widest smile with eyes twinkling.  The woman got up from her seat to walk towards them by the door.  She stood there for a short moment, bent down with extended arms and engulfed them into a warm hug.  They inhaled the sweet aroma of her perfume, nestled closer to her bosom and fell into her embrace.  Over the next few days they met the couple daily and spent several hours with them outside of the school.  They began to pick up some of their language with the help of a teacher in their school.  They learned that once again, the three sisters will be moving to a new home and this home will be far far way, across the ocean, over the clouds, past the mountains.  Their new home will have a mother and a father and it will be cold there with snow and many lakes but no mountains.  Everyone in their new home only spoke the new language the girls were learning so they’ll have to learn it fast and be good at it.  In their new home there will always be warm food, clean clothes, comfortable beds and lots and lots of hugs.

At first it was all strange.  Their new parents were gentle and loving.  Each sister had her own room with so many stuffed animals, colorful walls, princesses or clouds on their bedcoverings.  They were all tucked in on their own beds every night after their new mother or father read a story from a beautiful book with lots of colorful pictures.  But as soon as their new parents went back downstairs, Guddi and Hema tiptoed to Reshma’s room and all three slept huddled together in her single bed.  The sisters discovered new parks with swings that did not squeak, went to large buildings with so many shops where they bought new clothes, toys and books and to museums where they could see and play with so many interesting things.  They saw so many lakes and even went on a boat ride.  They went to a very big school with so many children that had blue or green eyes and very light hair.  Schoolwork was hard and their parents helped them with homework every day.  Hema had a very hard time with her numbers and dad patiently explained.  Guddi got all the words confused in her books and mom helped her read them.   Reshma kept her distance and watched over her sisters.  Then one day, just when they started to see the magic of trees changing into beautiful colors, they went to a meeting.  There they saw lots of children who looked like them who had parents of lighter skin and blond hair.  There were also some adults who looked like the adults at the orphanage.  These adults talked to the group about Diwali, the festival of lights.  Reshma knew all about it but her new parents did not.  When they went home that day, her parents asked her questions and wanted to know more about other festivals and of the land she came from.  Reshma educated her parents with pride and hugged as hard as she hugged her grandmother the night of Guddi’s birth.  Genuine smiles began to appear on all their faces and stayed there for longer times.  They were afraid to sleep for fear of waking up on the cold sidewalk and realizing this new life was all a dream. 

-          The End -

SURVIVAL - PART FOUR

WARNING:  READ PART ONE, TWO AND THREE FIRST

Just as the heavy clouds laden with snow loomed over their heads, reminder of a dismal winter ahead sat like a heavy burden.  Reshma nestled her sisters closer to shield them from the torturous wind that shrieked from the mountains.  The next morning, standing next to their angel was another woman.  With her body wrapped in a simple but clean sari, her face wearing a smile, she extended her arms towards them.  Before they could comprehend, all three of them found themselves sitting in a bus next to the sari-clad woman.  The bus took them to a bustling city with wide roads and flat land. Reshma remembered their bus drove past a huge gate in the shape of an arch.   From the bus, the woman carted them towards a three-wheeled scooter and they sat squished inside the noisy monster.  It stopped in front of their new home of another large gate.  This time they were led inside and taken to a spacious room lined with mattresses on the floor.  They heard sounds of children from the small window and Reshma caught sight of them playing outside.   Before they could join the playing children, they were carted towards a bathroom where they received haircuts and a thorough scrub down.  Dressed in clean clothes and full with fresh food, they settled in.  They met new children but couldn’t understand their strange language.  At first they stuck to each other and Reshma watched over her younger siblings, protecting them from the new, strange environment.  Hema, the more talkative one of the three began to venture out of her cocoon and began to make a few friends.  She quickly picked up Hindi and taught Guddi the new words.  Reshma eventually let her guard down slightly and started to absorb the new environment around her.  Soon the sisters adopted the new language and used it often.

It was the day before Guddi turned four; Reshma remembered that date well for that was also the date they lost their mother.  On that day, the sisters heard a commotion in the front yard and ran out to observe from the doorstep.  They had heard such commotions before as various adults walked through their home, gawked at the children, tried to smile and be friendly with them while keeping their distance.  It was also not unusual to see people with light hair or blue eyes like the ones in the compound on that day.  Hema and Guddi dashed out into the yard and joined the other children crowding around a tall man with brown hair and a small woman with blue eyes.  Their kind eyes smiled at all the children as they tried to follow the headmaster into his office.  Just as the woman was about to enter the building, she saw Guddi.  The woman bent her knee and came down to Guddi’s eye level to say hello.  Guddi took a step towards the woman and climbed onto her lap and started talking to her in Hindi.  Hema tried to pull her sister off and called her to get off but was ignored.  The woman intently listened and nodded her head as if she understood everything, all the time a warm smile pasted on her face.

To be continued…..

Survival - PART THREE

WARNING: READ PART ONE AND TWO FIRST

Reshma nestled the toddler in the crook of her arm, grasped Hema’s fingers with her free hand and walked down the steep slope towards the city.  They walked the streets aimlessly traversing the bazaars, meandering through the shops their mouths drooling at the smell of freshly fried bread, the spicy potatoes or wholesome lentils.  Reshma managed to procure a few pieces of fried bread to temporarily satisfy their tiny stomachs.  As night began to descend on them like a haunting shroud, the girls huddled closer.  They walked in search of shelter or to escape the darkness.  When they could walk no more, they found themselves outside a tall wall that separated a massive structure with a cross at its gate from the sidewalk.  Spreading out her grandmother’s dull shawl close to a street lamp, Reshma helped her sisters settle in for the night.  A second shawl, a bright red with tattered edges that had belonged to their mother she spread over them.  Three bodies huddled together under the bright shawl fell into a blissful slumber as they inhaled their mother’s lingering aroma.  The girls made this sidewalk their home and every night they lay huddled sandwiched between their two shawls.  Hunger was the next dilemma they were faced with especially not all scavenging days were rewarding.

One morning, just a few weeks in their new “home”, the girls saw a kind face smiling at them from the big gate with the cross.  A woman dressed in white from head to toe stood there with a basket in her hand.  She looked just like an angel.  The girls could smell comforting aromas emanating from the basket as they licked their lips and held their tummies to mute the loud growls.  The angel reached inside the basket, removed a loaf of bread and offered it to them.  With a shy smile, Reshma took a tentative step towards the gate, took the food and ran back to her sisters.  As soon as the angel had returned to the structure inside the gate, the three sisters sat leaning against the wall to enjoy their first breakfast ever.  From then on every morning they woke to find the angel offering them bread.  The nights grew less crisp and the snow receded higher up the mountain range.  Green leaves started to sprout on the trees and the girls woke up feeling more rested.  They continued to scavenge but nice weather also brought hordes of tourists on their way to mountain treks.  The sisters earned enough from begging to buy fresh food to satisfy their hunger.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

Survival - PART TWO

WARNING - PLEASE READ PART ONE FIRST

Their new home, a dilapidated shack not unlike their old one stood at the edge of the town.  The grandmother led the sisters into town everyday to sit by a sidewalk.  A dented tin cup set in front of them, the group looked up with expectant eyes at each passersby.  The wind howled down from the mountain range and they huddled close for warmth.  They listened for the musical sound of a coin as it was dropped into the cup and five year old Reshma, the oldest sister held on to the money for safe keeping.  Every morsel of their meager ration was shared after the baby was fed a few ounces of milk.  Some days Reshma wandered off to the back alleys with the three year old Hema in tow.  They rummaged through the piles of garbage and scavenged for discards that could be sold.  Some days the hunger pangs were so loud that even the half-eaten apple in the waste pile brought drool to their mouths.  The cold air continued to blow all the way down from the great Everest and found a home in their grandmother’s lungs.  While Guddie, the baby braved the world and grew stronger each day, their grandmother coughed harder.  Before winter could blast them with the last of its howling wind, their grandmother breathed her last breath.   With that the girls lost a loving hand over their heads and their only shelter.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

Survival - PART ONE

A woman’s scream pealed out of the wooden shack into the dark alley.  It mingled with the howling wind that descended from the roof of the world.  Two innocent pairs of eyes glared from a corner inside the shack, their mouths agape.  A tiny hand gripped a young arm as they stood frozen to witness the scene unfold in front of them.  They watched a soft candle cast a warm glow on their mother’s distressed face in the center of the room.  Beads of sweat dotted her creased forehead as she turned her head full of disheveled hair from side to side.  A baby’s cry sliced into the cold night, twirled around the shack in a whirlwind and finally escaped through the open window into the empty night.  Just as the new life took hold, the mother screamed her last scream.  The candle next to her blew away by a sudden gust leaving her face in darkness.  The two pairs of innocent, round eyes widened in their corner and their bodies moved closer to each other.  Tiny hands gripped tighter.  A delicate bundle nestled in her arms, their grandmother walked towards them.  She offered her free hand and the oldest child grabbed it into a strong grip.  An old woman and three granddaughters stepped out of the dismal shack into a new life.

To Be Continued....

Three Mice

THIS IS A STORY I GREW UP LISTENING FROM AMMAJI, MY GRANDMOTHER.....PUBLISHED HERE IN HER MEMORY!

Once upon a time there were three little mice.  Chooia was the oldest sister and she lived in the sugar-cane fields.  Sukhia was the middle sister and she lived in the forest.  The third sister was called Chakia and she lived in a millstone grinder in the house of an oil trader.  All three had a happy life and tried to keep in touch with each other.

Suddenly, one day, Sukhia of the forest heard that her sister in the sugar-cane fields was getting married.  She was very happy and excited.  She could not wait to share the news with Chakia, the third sister.  But how to send the message?  Several days later, Sukhia spotted the very oil trader passing through the forest whose house Chakia lived in.  Sukhia thought this as her chance to send her message but had to think hard as to how.  Then she had an idea!  She hid behind a pipal tree and started singing:

“Oil man, Oil man, walking through the woods,

    Oh please, Oh Please, if you could;

Give this message to the mouse,

    Who lives in the Chakki in your house;

That your sister in the sugar cane fields,

    She is to be wed!”

The old trader heard the singing and looked around the forest.  He could not see anybody.  He thought he imagined the sound and kept walking.  Sukhia followed the man, hid behind a tree and sang her song again:

“Oil man, Oil man, walking through the woods,

    Oh please, Oh Please, if you could;

Give this message to the mouse,

    Who lives in the Chakki in your house;

That your sister in the sugar cane fields,

    She is to be wed!”

The man looked around again and without seeing anybody, thought the forest was haunted.  He got scared and ran as fast as he could, out of the forest!

Finally, when he arrived home after dark, he sat down to eat his dinner in the kitchen with his wife.  As they ate, he remembered the strange song from the forest.  He told his wife, “when I was returning home tonight after my trade on the other side of the forest, I heard some singing among the trees”.  She asked, “Who was singing?”  He replied, “I don’t know, there was no one there.  Perhaps it was a ghost”.  His wife then asked, “What was the song?”  He sang the song he had heard;

“Oil man, Oil man, walking through the woods,

    Oh please, Oh Please, if you could;

Give this message to the mouse,

    Who lives in the Chakki in your house;

That your sister in the sugar cane fields,

    She is to be wed!”

They both said together, “But what does it mean?”

Suddenly, they saw in their kitchen a tiny mouse come out of their millstone grinder with her head covered by a scarf and tears of joy in her eyes.  She bobbed her head from side to side repeating:

“Brother, is the wedding today or tomorrow, today or tomorrow?  Is the wedding today or tomorrow?”

Translation:

CHOOIA – female mouse

SUKHIA/SUKHI – happy, content

CHAKIA or CHAKKI – millstone grinder

PIPAL – banyan tree

Harvest

They come in great big trucks filled to the rim
chances of survival now are nil

injured and sick de-stressing in a pen
waiting for the vet to say when

a long needle pricks them down for nap
in heaven, they will now flap their wings,

necks hung up by a hook, in a swift move
a knife pierces their throat

bled, de-haired, sanitized
beheaded, split in half, frozen
skinned, portioned and split
lurched down separate lines to be processed

smoked or wood fired for Hickory flavor
browned in a machine for caramel color
flattened and compressed, sliced to strips
bacon is packaged ready to be shipped

another line has ham or pork belly
the skin is separated for-- jelly

unmentionable organs are cleaned and cut
shipped to customers who even eat the gut.

A Hog's life is over in less than one year
we keep harvesting and processing without a tear...
The head is stripped into many parts
the tongue a delicacy, even more than the heart.

A Little Girl in Paradise – PART THREE

WARNING: READ PART ONE AND TWO FIRST

Shiv and Pari’s grandmother ran the house with a solid hand.  Having lost a household helper, the despotic grandmother assigned chores to little Pari.  Shiv watched Pari morph from an innocent sweetness to an overworked, neglected young girl.  Her vacant eyes carried her through the days which turned into months and years.  Her clothes hung on her like a rag doll.

One day Shiv saw her walk across the courtyard carrying a basket of clean clothes.  He noticed her face change colors and scrunched as if in pain.  He walked up to her and touched her shoulder lightly.  She winced as he asked if she was okay.  He offered to carry the basket for her while she walked slowly behind him.  Since he was a boy, he was not allowed to do any household chores.  She sat on the bed and started to fold the clothes.  Each movement seemed an effort until she could carry on no longer.  She allowed herself to fall on the bed and her eyes closed.

Shiv let her rest and walked away.  A few minutes later he heard screams.  He ran in to see Pari waving her arms in the air frantically as if fighting unseen demons.  His grandmother walked in and exclaimed, “She’s got the devil in her.”  Next think he knew Pari had been moved to a remote corner of the house.  Over the next few weeks he witnessed the comings and goings of various sadhus, priests, exorcists.  They carried feathers of unusual birds, red hot peppers in bunches, smoking clays bowls and various other unidentifiable objects.  He heard shrieks all through the days and nights.

One night he sneaked in to her room and saw her face by the glow of a diya clay lamp.  Her eyes stared up at the ceiling as if in a trance.   He noticed her sunken-in cheeks on her ghost white face.  Even though she was under blankets, her body shivered.  The howling wind outside travelled in to whisper terror in her ears.  Her feeble voice called out, “don’t snatch me, no… make the pain go away.”

The next morning they found her stiff body cold as the Himalayan mountain peak.  The image of her sparkling and later glassy green eyes stayed with Shiv.  He also could never forget the tragic and short life his angelic cousin had endured.  If only he had the strength or the intellect to help her.  Years later he learned that his Pari had in fact been possessed with a demon and that demon had a name – Cancer.

- THE END -

A Little Girl in Paradise – PART TWO

WARNING: READ PART ONE FIRST

A whole month passed before Shiv was allowed to see his new cousin. Her hazel eyes were as deep as Dal Lake, her skin as soft as the snow on the mountains, her hair as dark as the night sky.  She reminded him of an angel and decided to call her Pari.

From a delicate bud, Shiv observed his cousin bloom into a colorful flower.  He laughed as she tried to toddle behind her mother.  He listened to her as she added words, then sentences and finally the incessant questions.  She followed him everywhere in the house but as soon he stepped outside the main gate of the courtyard, she would look at her mother and back away.

Just like any ordinary day, Shiv dashed back home before sunset from his daily adventures in the orchards and river bank.  But one day as he stepped through the gate, what greeted him was unlike anything his creative mind could have imagined.  A commotion of adults gathered in the courtyard.  The air was filled with a stench he could not place. His mother saw him frozen at the gate.  She ran to him, sheltered him in the folds of her sari and walked him away from the courtyard into the house to join his cousins in a room.  Pari ran up to him and looked up with her big, wet hazel eyes searching for answers.  He had none and looked away.  She sat down beside him and rested her head on his shoulder.

The day of commotion was never discussed in the house.  Shiv picked up words like “spark”, “cooking” or remarks like “sari clung to the skin”, “what a tragedy” from neighborhood chatter.  He stared at Pari unsure what to say to her.  She walked around the house in search of her mother, tears constantly rolling down her cheeks.

TO BE CONTINUED……

A Little Girl in Paradise – PART ONE

A mighty bird circled above a tree guarding its nest.  Snow-capped mountains of the Himalayan range stretched in the horizon for miles dividing the continent.  They loomed over crevices, ravines and valleys as they stretched upward reaching for the sky.  Sheltered by the high mountain range, the valley boasted green prairies, translucent lakes, colorful wildflowers, gurgling rivers, succulent apple orchards and mountainside wild life and the settlement of Kashmir under the Raj.  Within this valley a bustling city, Srinagar flaunted a large lake nicknamed “the jewel of Srinagar”.  The jewels in Dal Lake were numerous and diverse.  Floating gardens drifted parading their lotus blossoms and lily pads.  Long Shikaras speckled the lake as they rowed people to floating hotels and houseboats, scenic gardens in the far banks or just for a serene cruise.  Tiny islands boasted the Chinar trees with their hollow trunks.

Shiv stood at the bank of the lake that featured the Moghul gardens.  His eight year-old legs took him aimlessly through apple orchards and walnut trees.  He explored in the crevices of the Chinar trunks and sat cross-legged in the hollow center, pretending to meditate.  Before the sun started its low descent to rest its head on the pillows of the mountains, Shiv ran to his large, bustling house.  He dashed through the open gate of the boundary wall and stopped in the courtyard where his father stood with his six brothers and their children.

Shiv looked up at their worried faces then turned towards the screams coming from the room with the closed door.  The door opened and his mother stepped out.  Without meeting anyone’s eyes, she dashed into the kitchen and ran back into the room.  A few minutes later, the door opened again and one of his aunts stepped out, ran to her room, and returned with something tucked under her sari.  She slipped back into the room from which the screams were louder and more frequent.  Then a cry. Shiv looked up.  It was the cry of a baby.  His mother slowly stepped out and walked towards his oldest uncle.  “It’s a girl,” she announced.

TO BE CONTINUED……

Best Friend

Beagles and their urge to chew

It is their destiny to be shrew

You give them food, they gobble it up

For every treat they’d waddle or sit up

Raw hides or chew toys are not enough

They even munch the inedible stuff

Carpets or sofas, take your pick

These in my tummy, make me sick

Chomping, munching and gobbling

Canine jaws working at gnawing

Whatever they see in the mouth it goes

In the tummy out the poop by joes!

Beagles and their urge to chew

But their loving friendship is few

They look up with those expectant eyes

What they dislike most is goodbyes

Right next to your sitting form

They cuddle up close to you at home

Licking away tears off your cheeks

Cheering is their business, they are not meek

Sensitive and depressed they feel

Love is their next best meal.

In quiet they lick their wounds

Uncomplaining remain these hounds.