Kalu the cat

exactly 15 days ago, my maid from kolkata called me at 4 p.m to announce that Kalu had passed away, or rather that she was found dead on the roof top in the afternoon. Kalu, my sweet little innocent, wiered Kalu, the cat with a mole on the upper lip and with a hesitant bid for friendship.

She came into our household after being left to die in torrential rain for two days. Rusha rescued her and begged us to keep her with us. She rescued Lalu the smart and pretty cat a day before. Both were of the same age, about two or three days old, wet to the bone, shivering and crying feebly. But they both were to live - with us, to make us happy, teach us many a splendid things with their royal, majestic cat philosophy.

Kalu had black, fawn and white colour on her body, she was always a little plump as she loved her food, her share of fish and rice, which she would relish. long after the cunning Lalu has finished her share, Kalu would sit and finish every little morsel of rice and fish and all the little pieces of catchow lying around.

Kalu had green eyes, they always had suspicion in them but also had curiosity and shyness. If i were sitting in the bedroom, she would come in and would take one halting step towards my lap. then she would perch herself on my lap and then very softly, croak :"meaow" which i guess, meant, "hello there" in her language. which also was a signal for me to pat her on her head, scratch her chin, rub her back, etc. if i forgot to continue, she would nibble at my fingers, first softly and then, if her demands were not heeded to, a little more forcefully. If i yelped, she would look up to my face with an immense expression of hurt, as though saying "what is the fuss all about? it was not that bad, was it?"

what i loved most about Kalu was her capacity to entertain herself. we just had to throw anything at her and she would start playing with it and have fun. it could be a piece of paper, a little red ball, peel of any vegetable, even a green chili would do.

Now that she is gone, it is very difficult to imagine that i will never see those green eyes again, nor that funny wierd face of hers with a mole on her lip, and she would never ever tiptoe inot any of my rooms again.

I guess her time in this world, with us was over. I only hope that she left this world in peace. she was not sick or at least no one knew anything about it. my maid suggested that someone from that house poisoned her. my stomach churned at the thought ..... i fervently hoped she was not.

i am agonised, grieved, sad, angry, depressed - but I hang onto the memory of Kalu and the time she decided to spend with us - her lovely spirit, her loving affectionate nibbling, her curiosity, her desperation and anxiety when both rusha and i left kolkata, her beautiful plump appearance, her love for food, her propensity to get into trouble and utter inability to get out of it .... all of these.

i also feel immensely guilty that i have moved to bangalore five years ago without the pets (two of them have passed away since - only one is left) and i have not been able to do anything. i have blamed lack of infrastructure here and all other kinds of things and i wonder whether there was anything that i could have done.

i remain thus, answerable to you Kalu, to you Pudding and to you Lalu.

and I shall not seek forgiveness.

Aparajito by Ray

just finished watching Aparajito by Satyajit Ray. It is the 2nd part of a trilogy by him, from a novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. Felt very moved while watching. It is a simple story of a small family of a husband, wife and a son.

The story is told in a non judgemental way from the point of view of the little boy under the age of ten. He grows up amidst fondness and love of his parents who are surrounded by deprivation, illness, uncertainty, death and hardship. Surprisingly the boy's curiosity and innocence remain refreshingly intact. As he grows up and moves away from home, his apparent lack of any close emotional ties with his surviving and slowly ailing mother or with anyone does feel like a very natural flow emanating from a character like that.

while i was watching the movie, i was also thinking that although the storyline is based almost eighty or ninety years ago, it still seems very contemporary. The theme of moving away from home is very alive today, in fact even more so today.

the movie has a background of deprivation and poverty and yet the boy finds his wherewithal to go out to a bigger city and study. In today's time, most city dwelling middle class parents would want their children to go out and study so that they do well in life and they do provide for all such necessity. However, the tie that gets loosened between the child and home as it has been shown in the movie, has not probably changed.

Moving away from mother's close watchful eyes to a larger world full of freedom, opportunity and new wonders. Home seems like a distant past where nothing moves and time stands still. Very aptly, the hero of this film says, "I don't feel like going back to my village, i only feel sleepy there". I thought that comment was a signifier of what home perhaps mean today to most. It is probably a place that provides continuity and safety but does not provide any stimulation. May be that is the nature of home.


I wonder, however, is the essentially in the nature of home or is this what we have made it out to be? Has home become only a refuge of those who stay back, waiting only for those who may or may not return?

the days have been hard! there is not a single day and a single moment when i do not think about the divorce case and whether whatever i am doing is the right thing or the wrong thing. on one hand i have known this person for the last thirty years - i have literally grown from a teenager to a middle aged woman in this relationship. and on the other hand, how impossible the situation is for me to stay in this marriage.

I know it is hard for anyone to go through divorce when it has not been initiated from his/her end. I also know how scary and how traumatic it is for anyone who goes through this; ask me about it. But, every day when i ask myself whether this was necessary, there are counter questions that come back to me and they are "how would you then like to live your life? in fear? in disgust? in anger? what kind of remainder of marriage would that be where you would be scared and lothsome of the other person? living in fear of your safety, your child's safety; and above all, what about your dignity? will you be able to live with dignity in that relationship? will you be dignifying the other relationship"

the answer to all those are negative. i will not be able to live with my dignity, nor will i be dignifying the other person. the relationship has reached a stage(not just now, but about ten to fifteen years ago) where there is nothing left but fear, repulsion, loathing and mistrust, on both sides. the only way i had been living in that relationship was to blackmail myself by saying that "no one forced you into this relationship, you walked into it, it was your choice, and you have pay a price for your choice and your commitment."

Today, despite all else, i still want him to be happy and healthy. i would like his well being, i would not want him to be harmed. i would want him to be stable and i know very well that with me around and with these kinds of stress between us, he will find it very difficult to be stable and happy.

everyday i face blackmail and guilt - from him and more importantly from my inner self. the messages that come are "How could you .............?" and i cringe and back off and fall down ... and repeat these questions to myself. and the answers are just the same, every day.

i know that guilt and blackmailing are going to be part of this process, more than anyone else, i would do it to myself ... but then, i would also be there besides me to extend my hand and show the way to to her to get up the next day and live for one more day with her head held high!

when two people start feeling bitter towards each other, any interaction between them can be so tiring, so loathsome and so depleting. one or both start feeling mean, enraged, cruel and punishing towards each other. such emptiness...

If i were to look back in my childhood, bitterness has been a constant companion in my surrounding ... it has accompanied most people in their lives through their daily chores, mundane conversation, feelings towards each other.

little moments of relief came when i heard a tinkling of laughter from someone when she laughed at little nothing, when i walked on the afternoon-empty corridor imagining that i was actually walking on the sky as it reflected on the mirror held in my hand, when baritone voices came through the ancient radio kept in the corner of the big hall carrying the emotions of a lover unwittingly leaving his lady love, on the Friday night weekly radio play .... those moments were like magic windows that opened and closed if only for a few seconds .. those windows made life seemed good and even cheerful.

I can still see those summer afternoons when the strong tropical sun beating down on the 60's Calcutta roads, melting it ever so slightly, tired hand cart rickshaw pullers wiping their sweat with the little piece of cloth kept on their shoulder, a thirsty crow cawing away somewhere behind the neem leaves, housewives are just about to retire to their lazy afternoon naps, the radio is broadcasting "anurodher ashor" (songs as requested) and the mellifluous voices of Manna Dey, Sandya Mukhopadhyay, Lata Mangeshkar and others filling up the hot and humid air; those were my afternoons ... to sit there and watch the world carrying on doing its own thing. as i watched, the afternoon ever so slowly turned on its side, yawned, opened its eye and turned into evening, who more often than not, looked like a pretty slim teenager who had just learnt to wear her saree. the sky will be full of slightly pinkish clouds, the breeze from the river will start flirting with everyone on the road, the flower vendor will choke our nostrils with heavy scented jasmines ... the kulfi malai (Indian version of homemade ice creme) vendor will stop exactly on the spot where he knows greedy eyes await his return every evening.

then came the night ... i did not like nights for a very long time ... it meant darkness, it meant waiting for dad to return home late, it meant encounter with millions and zillions of cockroaches in the toilet, it meant 'no light' ... i hated 'no light'. silence was not someone i welcomed ... it only meant waiting for the morning to arrive.

it also reminded me of all the bitterness that i saw around myself the whole day. bitterness came back to remind me that it was there and will not go away in a hurry.

the beginning .......

It has never been easy for me to turn around and leave ... just like that ...just leave ... never been able to do that... always had the last minute pull to stay, to restore, to comfort, the maddeningly foolish belief that 'everything will ultimately work out right' ... that i was not looking at it properly, that if only i could do things differently, things would be OK.

well, i am not calling myself foolish ... that would be even more foolish :-) but the realisation is that underneath all those thoughts and feelings, did lay one thing, that is my belief that i could do anything under the sun and that (this is even more hilarious) i was strong. and who does not know that strong people stay strong, no matter what.

so, i went through life being strong. when i was a child and was being beaten up for little nothings by my aunt and my cousin and her husband, and being humiliated by any and everybody under the sun, i told myself (or so i believed!) that i was "too strong" to be touched by any of these people.

i also think i was so blase about my body - did it get hurt? did not matter. did anybody comment upon it unkindly? did not matter. did anyone touch it with indignity? did not matter. i mean how much more blase could one be?

the ambiance in the households i grew up were such madhouse. i, among many other such, parent less or one parent kid would just be around .... to be called for food on time, and then let loose ... in the house, somewhere. the adults will be busy playing cards and winning or losing money ... from ten in the morning to eight in the evening.

such freedom within so much captivity .... both experienced together ... days got over before one could blink .... people would come and go ... people would stay and leave the next day ... the houses looked more like railway station than anything else. nothing belonged to any one, more so, no one belonged to anyone.