rainy, with a ray of sunshine

dull, dark, gloomy and grey
in more ways than one
that's what started off her day
oh, how she longed for some sun

two little munchkins
under the weather
rough night resulting in
a sleep deprived mother

such a bad start
that even the third was naughty
she well played her part
but only out of necessity

she wanted to scream
she was so beat
she was tired and cranky
that it felt like a feat
to get through the day

but then she thought
that this was an opportunity not often got
just the munchkins and her

so her sleep she fought
and a hot coffee she got
and let the day unfold without a plan

all cuddled up under the covers watching a movie
sans snacks this time, oh for recovery
chit chatting and shooting the breeze
with her little muchkins throwing in an occasional sneeze

and then it was time for music and games
boy did it fly by, she wanted more of the same
for this precious time, time at home
she hardly got with them, almost never all alone

she wondered how they felt, were they bored at all
did they humour her or enjoy it, even if only just small
and so today went by, with a little of this and that
what will tomorrow bring, a repeat perhaps

she sees them growing up and feels melancholy
but only at times, she's mostly jolly
she's proud and happy that they are how they are
her little munchkins, but already ready to fly far

It's easier to get a divorce than to renew a minor's passport post-divorce!

I read a post on The Wire about the humiliation women face when they want to remove their spouse's name from their passports after going through a divorce. I went through a similar experience while renewing my minor child's passport after having gone through a divorce.

The Passport Seva site is quite well organised with links to most bits of information such as required documents, appointment dates, and Passport Rules and Acts among others. It lets one upload all their documents ahead of time, pay online and schedule an appointment as well. What it also unfortunately does, is trick one into believing that the rest of the process will be as smooth.

There are three stages to the passport application process of which the first two are 'outsourced'. IT service professionals verify, scan, snap and file away all the necessary documentation before one can move on to meet the passport officials from the government. While they are efficient at what they are trained to do, they are unaware of the formalities that the passport process itself mandates, especially in cases like mine--single parent who is also sole custodian of two children. In non-legalese, this means that my children will not need their father to sign off on their passport application--which is a standard process otherwise followed--because he had waived off his rights as their custodian after our divorce. There is a form, Annexure G, that is specifically for this purpose and I had this at the ready as well.

Armed with everything, I made it through the first two stages with not as much difficulty as immense delays. Glad to see my token number flash, my joy was short-lived. It was that particular passport officer's lunch time, but he couldn't reassign me to another officer as it wasn't protocol. After a 45-minute wait, he came back, asked for my documents and went through them cursorily until he reached Annexure G. He looked up at me and said, "You're divorced?" and I said, "Yes." "The father is not a custodian at all?" "No, he's chosen not to be." With a puzzled expression, he asked to see the divorce petition where this is explicitly stated, but he was still not convinced. He asked more questions about the details clearly stated in the petition, even though it wasn't his place to do so. Finally, he returned all the documents and reassigned me to another official who, supposedly, had some experience handling cases like mine. Murphy's Law or what have you, but it turned out to be his lunch time as well when it was my turn to meet him.

So another 45 minutes went by, and a conversation similar to the one with official one happened upon his return from lunch, but he made some notes in the system and told me to meet the Assistant Passport Officer (APO). So there I was, in line for the third time in a span of 3 hours, waiting to meet the APO. Luckily, she didn't go to lunch when it was my turn, but the conversation turned out to be much the same. I had wrongly hoped that a woman might empathise, but I felt judged at every stage of all those conversations which finally ended in her saying that she couldn't authorise the renewal and that I had to meet the Regional Passport Officer (RPO) in Koramangala who would take the final call on this.

By this time, I was livid. I had been in line with my 6 year old since 9 am. It was 3 pm and we had nothing to show for it except three annoying conversations and a cranky child. And I had all documents down to a T! If the outsourced folks had been better briefed, I could've been on my way out soon as the picture and biometrics stage was finished, saving me about 4.5 hours! I had no choice but to leave the Passport Seva Kendra that day, set up an appointment with the RPO for another day, go through this entire rigmarole of explanations one more time until the passport was finally granted. But it didn't end there. At the police verification, I had to explain all this one more time while the policeman in charge talked to his colleague in Kannada about my divorce when all he was supposed to do was to verify the address.

This was more than a year ago and now, unfortunately, it's time for me to renew my other child's passport. I'm telling myself that I should expect nothing. After all, a year isn't much time for any change, is it? If anything, a process change is possible but a systemic change? Hah!

I hope Part two of this post has a happier ending. 

insanity

sticking together through plenty, but feeling stuck,
physically side by side, but mentally so far apart,
forged by commonality, but equally split by it,
in sync sometimes, but completely lost otherwise,
that's life apparently, and that's what we must endure.
or so we're told.

isn't that insane?
apparently not.

insane is something else.
it's if we don't plan but live in the moment,
it's if we find liberation in difference,
it's if we fight for a cause, one that may not only be our own,
it's if we express, but quietly,
it's if we feel, but gently,
it's if we question without accepting blindly,
and it's also if we accept openly without judging.
we are the insane ones, the ones that need to be cured.

and there is always a cure, or so it seems.
happiness.
superficial, easy, stuff,
an escape, a distraction, a hobby or a class.
but these things will, at some point, pass.

and then we'll be back to reality.
but what reality? whose?
the loud one or the real one?
the majority's or the minority's?
the one we've been taught or the one that we see?
the one that's fast or the one that we feel?
binaries, alas.

we need more.
more spaces, more acceptance, more love, more time, more conversations.
not more stuff and not more rules.

insanity is dead, long live insanity.

protest

hands held, chain formed.
united,
but many links missed,
chasm revealed.

worlds

Published on The Wrong Review, March 2017

my worlds
yes, plural
not just two, but more
many more
and i inhabit them all.

the world of safety and security
discipline and light conversations
where lines blur between traditional and modern
but not as much as i want.
yet i inhabit it, happily even, off and on.

the world of laughter, freedom, lightness
long, late-night chats, memories now
where i can do and say anything
but maybe not as much as i want.
yet, i inhabit it whenever i can.

the world of routine

early morning wake ups, hurried tasks one by one

throughout the day

but does it make life easy?

i don't know, yet i inhabit it, all the time.

the world of randomness, chaos and drama

where everything comes to life

momentarily

definitely not as much as i want.

yet, i inhabit it with mixed feelings, as much as i can.

but these worlds aren't isolated

they often collide 

envelop, overwhelm, even suffocate

pulling, tugging, tearing me apart.

yet, also holding me together in an explicable way.

it is all these worlds that have made me

that have taught me to accept, to love, and to let go.

and letting go of these worlds might be the only way

that i can hold myself together for a bit longer.

just a little bit.

A new challenge

The first challenge that I distinctly recall that folks went nuts about on Facebook was the ALS ice bucket challenge. While I thought it was foolish as well as a waste of precious water and energy, it apparently raised a good bit of money for the cause. That was almost two years ago. Cut to today, and there are two other 'challenges' being showcased on many walls--the black and white photo challenge and the motherhood dare.

The first, as the name indicates, challenges one to post a black and white picture of themselves. Is this challenging because we are in the age of Prisma, where photos are being morphed into paintings and other such cooler modes making black and white impossible any longer? And the second, is it a dare to the children because they don't want to be seen with their mums? 

I wonder how these dares even begin. The ALS challenge might have been initiated by an ALS group somewhere but what about these other two? Was someone so tired of looking at colour or sepia-toned photographs that they wanted to shake things up a bit? And was some mum so thrilled when her child/children posed with her that she decided to dare other mums?

I was recently tagged in another challenge, one that hasn't made too many rounds yet. Something about posting pictures with your partner for 7 days in a row. Not 8 or 9, only 7. No idea why. Caught off guard, I decided to unfollow the person who tagged me on this post--not a very close friend obviously. I feel stupid about doing that now. No, I don't mean that I want to post the pictures but I wish I had written to her declining her challenge instead of being annoyed and deleting her as a contact.

I dare someone who's tagged in either the B&W or the motherhood 'challenge' to turn it down. Not to ignore it, but to say "No, I don't want to be a part of this challenge because I don't understand how it's a challenge" instead of blindly following it, posting a picture and writing I accept but I'm not sure how it's a challenge. Someone needs to stop this madness. Soon. I wish it had been me.

Late aa yezhudinaalum na latest aa yezhuduven!

I finally watched Kabali three days after its release and for one-third the release date's price! Thankfully, that was only one of the things I was pleased about. (Big bucket of pop corn all to myself, was another.)

For a Rajni fan, this movie was unusual to say the least. While he was obviously central to the movie, he featured in it quietly, even in the first scene. His slow walk out of jail was a contrast to his usual half-run directly towards the audience when he makes his appearance. His catchy oft-repeated one-liners were dwindled down to one word. And when he spoke, it was brief. He was hardly highlighted in any of the dance sequences (for good reason), and did not--thankfully--have a young love.

Instead, he wore his clothes and wig with grace. He appeared pensive rather than jittery, and he showed some emotion--not quite that of the Rajni from the 70s but certainly not the one from even two years ago. (Yes, I am referring to Linga.) He didn't fly in the air and perform any gravity-defying stunts, he just did a couple of pull-ups. And no, I will believe until my dying day that he, and not a stunt double, did that.

What worked in the film was the background score, the music and the Super Star himself. What didn't, was the illogical and unbelievable sequences, the 'romba sumaar' (average) screenplay and the incredible amounts of violence that left me wondering what had changed since Baasha released in the 90s, where he also plays a gangster. That was violent too, but this took gore to another, completely unpleasant level.

Although there was no comedy track at all--a first for a recent Rajni film--the subtitles provided enough entertainment. In addition to translating words like 'avall' to 'My beautiful Mrs', they also explicitly told us whether his laugh was a 'tickled-pink laugh', 'confident laugh', 'arrogant laugh', self-assured laugh' or 'brave laugh'. Rajni fan or not, we could've figured it out.

For a fleeting moment, I had wondered if I should take my children and introduce them to the experience of watching a Rajni film in a theatre. To hear the crowd go crazy when the words SUPER STAR RAJNI flashed across the screen! To not be able to hear the dialogues for the first few minutes because the whistles were so loud! To watch people cry and throw things towards the screen! But I'm glad that I didn't because none of it happened the way I remembered it. Maybe because it was a weekday, or maybe because it wasn't the first day, or maybe because it wasn't Madras.

I'm glad I watched the film but I'm even more glad that I watched it alone. Just me and my memories of how it used to be.

Accepting brilliance for what it is

"If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same", wrote Rudyard Kipling. What better place to immortalise that than at Centre Court, Wimbledon. And what better player to deal with both than Roger Federer.

He almost met with triumph today. Almost, but who knows. My mind replays 40-0 at 5-6 in the 4th and it makes me believe that he would've won the tie break and the match. And it also tells me that he would've beaten Berdych or Murray simply because he was inspired. Because he knew that it might be his last shot at a Grand Slam title.

Age, injury and fatigue that let him be thus far have suddenly caught up. When was the last time that a trainer came onto the court for him twice? And when did he last fall? I felt the same last year too when he made the finals and eventually lost to Djokovic. I thought that was his last chance and that he wouldn't make it this far. I was wrong, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel the same again.

Younger, better, faster and stronger against brilliance. Does it stand a chance? Should I even wish that it stood a chance or should I just enjoy the brilliance as it happens? As it kicks the hell out of all the other things every so often, but only just? Should I enjoy it without hoping for more, without wondering what next year might bring or if there will even be a next year? That would be the real disaster, wouldn't it?

Triumph and disaster aren't exclusive to a select few. The impostors show their heads four times a year for sure, and many other weeks off and on too. I have to learn to treat them both just the same. Just like Roger.

Equal parenting equals a change in attitudes

In response to a post on The Ladies Finger

As a mother to two children who are well on their way to the eye-rolling tweens, a change in attitudes is what I wish for the most since my time to wish for a partner who would share with more parenting (at least the physical, rigorous demands) is out the window. Life experiences have made me understand how social conditioning leads many mums to believe that we are the primary caregivers for various reasons, physiological and cultural. We praise a father's active involvement when we needn't, we applaud a successful diaper change when we shouldn't, we speak of them proudly to our friends hoping to show up those whose partners aren't 'as involved'. And we are afraid to let go because what then, is our value?

Indian dads need to parent. That does not mean only being present on sports days and annual days or making clichéd statements at work, “I'll call you back, have to get the kids in bed”, and dropping an iPad onto the child's bed. Or taking selfies! I can list out a 100 things that a dad should do but the most important one can't be put on a list because it's innate. It's a feeling, a want, to be a parent. And a willingness to learn what that means as it's NOT a constant. Mums don't have parenting classes before the kids come along!

As India contemplates a six-month maternity leave instead of three, maybe we, as a society, should also contemplate how to change our own attitudes towards parenting. Both men and women.

the banyan

Published on The Wrong Review, March 2017

roots, roots everywhere
thin, thick, old, new
deep rooted to a fault
comforting, in a sense
but an unshakable identity
to everyone around

the same roots bind
strangle, compete
dry out, fall, break
rot and die
but an invisible choke hold
to everyone around

shade, conversations, secrets
people unburdening
happiness, sorrow
wants, needs
but a silent companion
to everyone around

oh, it was tired
its roots weighed it down
and the stories made it heavy
but it didn't know what to do
how could it stop?
what would they do?

should it break free?
but free from what, there was too much!
should it go deaf?
but deaf from whom, there were too many!

truth was that it loved to just be there
to comfort, to listen
save for the odd moments
when it all became too much

maybe it needed time
time to rest
to heal, to breathe
time to do what everyone did
with it, to it
time to let everything slip away
momentarily
just momentarily

before it would be back at it again
comforting, listening
doing the things that it loved
building roots, branching out
connecting new and old
people, stories
but being there
always there