A hole in my sock and hunger in my stomach...

Woohoo!! *whistle* *hoot* *scream*...

I am d-o-n-e. No need to recount the gory details of how I did it, suffice to say, I am done. Hoowoo!!

Most importantly too, after weeks of eating at all odd hours, and eating every bad food in the book, got taken out to a wonderful dinner and filled up the tummy. Life is a bed of peonies :).

Off for a long hiatus now.
Vancouver-->Cairo-->Chennai-->Kandy-->Bangalore-->Indianapolis.
Many new stories shall be born. And I can finally get to all that reading I've been putting off this past year. Long airport waits, here I come!

Everyone, have a wonderfully refreshing summer, dig into the melons and overdo on the lemonade.

Kathra kathra milti hai, kathra kathra jeene do...
Inbasat amigos!

I'll wear the raincoat, and you can pick up the sticks...

I loved watching my mind play. It had now transformed the charmless voice of the tour guide into the sound of rubber being stretched. Not any more pleasing to the ear, but of greater variety nevertheless. Different forces applied at different angles gave rise to varying sounds. And of course, one could always play with rubber pieces of differing tensile strengths….

We seemed to have stopped for some ‘closer observation’ reason and my eyes wandered to my left. Roadside café—blue and white striped umbrellas, bright yellow plastic chairs, waitress in a flowered skirt traying tall glasses of lemonade—typical of a summer tourist city. Could have been anywhere in the world for all that I cared. The dull voice of the guide droned on, but this time my mind was refusing to jest.

And then—eyes. Arresting.

My own stopped wandering on looking into his. It was the only part of that figure seated at a table that stood out. Framed in a sallow face with graying hair on their path to total disappearance, the eyes were alive—still. Interesting, I thought, that I had used that last word.

The group had moved ahead and I jogged along to keep apace. No point losing myself in a new city of unknown tongues. And I settled back into the indifferent and uncaring attitude of a tired tourist following our guide only out of respect for the factual knowledge he possessed. Does anybody really pay attention to these guides, I asked aloud to no one in particular. I saw stones laid in pretty patterns beneath me, smoothed by the scurrying feet of millions and invaded by cigarette butts.

Random, wandering thoughts.

Arrested.

By a single thought.

I have to see that face again.

The best part about being your own master is that you don’t have to answer to anyone anytime. Nevertheless, as I ran back, I was courteous enough to shout that I would meet the group at the bus.

****

And I saw him again—this time intent on looking into his drink as he strawed it out. For a moment, I was lost—there was nothing telling me what to do now that I was here. I sunk into a yellow plastic demon, all of a sudden feeling powerless. Look into those eyes again and leave, I told myself.

But instead, I ordered a drink and spent a few minutes under the influence of a trained, rational mind. A half hour till the tour ends, a five minute trek to the bus, four more hours before I leave this city, forty eight before I fly home; the number crunching proving to be a strain on the rusty analytical side of my brain. And, after having firmly established that it would be completely useless and almost impossible time-wise to strike up a new friendship here, I picked up my glass and walked over to his table.

Along the way over, I tossed out the range of warnings being sent to me from some unwanted set of neurons.

“It is doomed”, he said as I sat down.

“Uh..”, I answered.

He looked up with surprise in his eyes. Obviously he was talking to the liquid in his glass, and had not even noticed me. I did notice though, that he spoke English.

“Why, hello”, he said.

“Hello”, I replied, “my guide bored me immensely and I thought you might be better company”. I spat that out and smiled.

So did he. “I will try—but you are so young.”

No sound of surprise there. No accent, apparently not a native. Strong teeth, not more than forty, although he looked much older. Unusually long, well kept fingers grasped the glass, not an outdoorsman for sure.

“Thank you, not many people think that way”, I said and paused. “Aaaargh, I wish it would stop”

“What would?”, he politely enquired.

“These thoughts of mine. They’re processing all your physical features in an effort to gauge your background; they wonder what the ‘it’ was that you said would be doomed; they're constantly curious, always seeking information. I wish they would give me a rest”.

He nodded and I went on.

“Its this training we are subjected to, that tells me I should follow the guide, or that says I should know more about you, that basically decides everything for me—everything that I’ve been trying to avoid.”

“Ah”. Not a talker, apparently.

I stopped, took a sip out of my glass, calmed my nerves and did what I had wanted to do. Stare right into those eyes—for a few minutes. The words then came to me again: alive—still.

And then I heard my voice saying, “They say you are going to die, correct?” Why I asked the question, I cannot say, because I knew the answer already.

Unflustered, he said, “Yes…that they do say.”

*****

Soon we were walking down an alleyway with huge trash disposal containers. I found us holding hands as we walked past the confining brick walls. And as one alley led to another, he talked about sickness and the impending loss of physical form. The struggling ant in his lemonade had been doomed. If I wanted, I could have all his remaining sketches.

The next few weeks we spent together were filled with a silent presence that threatened to douse us both if we relaxed. So we didn’t. We moved—everywhere his legs would take him, everywhere our trained and untrained thoughts would lead us. And then, two days after we had broken through the fetters of language, his breath stopped for good, almost—arrestingly. As if the only reason he had held on was to speak.

I moped around for a while, and finally when I could make up no more excuses for being away, I flew home. And into the arms of my wife, who had been waiting for two months to tell me she was carrying our first child.

Moonshine on a summer night deep in the woods...

The dogs wake her again. As they have done for the past seven days. Each morning, early morning, they start their tirade. It streaks across the silence of night and breaks all barriers. They say to her as she brushes her teeth that everything that was yesterday is no longer today. The footprints out in the snow are gone, replaced by a fresh layer of white. New prints made today will be replaced by another layer tonight. One on top of the other, never ceasing, never relenting. Until the winds change and all that history is wiped away, in a single ray of the heat, or maybe in two. But while it lasted, it did, it was very much a real living story. And she knows it will still be out there, somewhere, cycling. In the clouds, in the dew, in the rain, in the trickle that flows through her tap, it will be there, cycling. Like everything else.

She walks out to the common room, it is empty, everyone else is just stirring. She reaches for the cup of tea that has been waiting. Swirls of steam escape from her cup. For one last time she takes in the march of aluminum cans outside. They are coming in on the sleds, carrying the milk that will feed them all today. Swirls of snow fall outside blurring the daily milk bringing event. She wonders what the others are thinking as they begin to awake, unknown swirls of thought in each one of their heads. But, she does know what she is thinking.

She is thinking of Vanya. Her heart aches knowing that she will not feel his lips in an unformed kiss on her cheek again. She cringes that his hands will never again reach out to her to be carried. Her heart aches and she aches. But at the same time, she knows that his touch has set her free. Just by its ephemeral nature, the touch has released her. To fly away, to go back to a place she calls home, and to fit back as the center piece of the jigsaw of her life. Touching all the other pieces around her.

And what will she tell these pieces, these other ones close to her? They will ask, they will want to know, they will want to hear what went on at Sergiev Posad. Can she tell them about the first time she saw Vanya? About how he came crawling over to her and lifted himself into her lap. Can she tell about his wet bottom on her freshly washed jeans, and how her first reaction was to lift him right off of her and set him down again. And then, more importantly, can she explain why thirty seconds later, why she had to lift him up again and place him right where he had wanted to be, right on her lap. How can she justify why she slept in those same jeans for the rest of the week. That the scent of the wetness so close to her skin, in that single moment, had ceased to represent unsanitary. It represented something so moving, that having it close was the only way to even begin to experience it. What can she say about the times Vanya would touch her breasts, pat them almost, as if asking for something he had probably never had in all his three years. How can she explain what that meant to her? And more importantly, how can she even begin to communicate the way in which they began to communicate with each other. About how he would touch her mouth with his fused fingers and then touch his again. Of how he would start to scream each time she came back upstairs. Of how he would crawl to her and raise his hands. Those pale, pale, hands, set against his pale, pale, face. But red, cheeks of red. And a smile that always lit up at her sight, even if the teeth were unformed. How can she explain that all this started to happen in not one week, not in two days, but in less than an hour. That in a few minutes they both had connected more than the other connections felt ever before. Was that even the right thing to say to all those other pieces around her, who cared, who loved, and who welcomed her back?

She thinks not. She cannot explain all this, she cannot tell all this, she cannot communicate all this. Because she herself cannot comprehend its intensity. The only thing she can say is that it was intense. That sounds important enough to satisfy the questioners. And then of course, there are the others. They will go back too, they will have things to say too. Let them talk, she thinks. She'd much rather court the silence and the unsaid. Because she knows it will be there, out there. Always cycling, in one form or another. Like everything else.

Somewhere along the hallway, a radio comes to life. Unintelligible words in an unknown language. She gets up from her chair and stretches. It is time for breakfast.

If you prick me, it hurts...

Have been following on and off this story of the Chinese-American girl fatally-stabs-mother-to-death. Recently, she was sentenced to 8 years. One side says mother was crazy controlling, the other says the kid was wrong in the head despite being a straight-A student and pianist. It happens..this side taking, and since this is all filtered through Kansas City news reporting, I'm wary to form a strong opinion. But what surprises me is that she was calm enough after the killing to continue updating her Live Journal through her friends. And I must say in parts her writing was thoughtful and poignant for a 16 year old. In most other parts is was pure expletive (hah). That apart, the thing that stood out was she-killed-her-mother, and that this is pretty common place (although matricide amongst adolescents is apparently rare). And then in the same reporting frames I see all of the Indian politician story, and the Nepal killings a few years ago. Three examples amongst the sea that exist out there. Three of the many publicized, while many other stories die in their own cosmoses. Rage vs. Relationship.

But the fact that they do exist is an important one. From my personal-frame-of-reference stance, these types of familial killings are just unacceptable. Not the unacceptability of the killer to kill, nor of the unacceptability of provocation by the victim. But in general unacceptable for *drum roll* society. It makes me angry and it also makes me sad. And not just for the extreme violence cases, but even for the less extreme. I, of course, live in my own wonderful world where family is super. Some culture and some individualistic; both cause the parental units and I to hit it off very well. But, I of course also know that I got lucky. Way lucky. And it saddens in a very encompassing way to see the daughter who doesn't talk to mother, the brother who refuses to acknowledge the brother, or the father vowing never to see his son again.

Relationship--its such a strained word. I cannot believe it was meant to be this way. Of course, I inhabit that place in the clouds, but it nevertheless causes the saddening. And being of a policy bent, I tend to ask: what can be done? Can anything be done?

Many variables confound--norms, personalites, civics, culture stuff. So maybe nothing can be done on a large scale for the sake of relationship. And also, often other matters seem more pressing. Small wonder then that the UNDP funds women's nutrition and not family therapy. Small wonder then that governments give for tsunami rebuilding and not so much for social (and mental) rehabilitation. Small wonder then. But it is not a rungs on the ladder type deal. Relationship is more like the rail that holds the rungs together, or not. So maybe this ignoring of relationship is not right..maybe.

Anyway, to end on a less contemplative and happier note, its Daddy's 50th bday soon. So, Happy Birthday Daddy!!!! :) Hope you have a great day, year, etcetera. More to follow via USPS. Oh, btw, does anyone know how international post works? If I pay at my counter in Indiana, who pays the India postal system folks that deliver the goods? Are there international agreements on this? Maybe this was one of those duh type life-lesson-tidbits that I was supposed to have picked up along the way, but, that I oh so obviously did not pick up. As per usual.