deponti

I got an email from a friend in Chennai, I quote verbatim:

"seepa tho i dont write often to u ..U know i am there to tell happy and sad events...we just saw in paper that R and RVS and RS..all 3 of whom u know well ...passed away...just keepin u informed...i opened mail box to write and tell u when i see a brief mail frm R that she is rushing back frm usa today"

The background...just last week, a friend of ours died suddenly, in a car crash in Korea..five people died in the accident.

RVS, R, and RS are siblings, and R and RS are particularly close friends of mine...so you can imagine what I felt when I saw this email. RS lives in Tanzania, and R,who lives in Chennai, often visits her daughter in Chicago...so I was wondering if all of them had been together for a wedding or something and had a bad traffic accident....the newspaper headlines, which I desperately googled, didn't carry anything that indicated such a terrible event...

But wait, I thought: in the very next sentence, she writes that R is rushing back from USA....how confusing...but it also gave me some hope that it was not, after all, a terrible tragedy.

So I called my sis in law in Chennai and asked her to look at the local newspaper...and heaved a HUGE sigh of relief when I realized that it was their MOTHER (old and ailing) who had passed away in Chennai.

Frankly, for about an hour after I realized what had happened, I would not have minded inserting an obit announcement for the abovementioned friend , the one who emailed me and spoilt my entire morning!


I do wish she would write emails properly, and that she had READ what she wrote before sending it off.

And yes, at such times, I hate the way people use SMS lingo in emails, too. I suppose the practice of typing "gr8" and "u" and "r" because they may be charged if their character counts exceeds a certain number...carries over into all other forms of communication too!

Call me old-fashioned....but I want an email that talks of a bereavement to be "properly" written....but I guess that dates me.

http://www.z100.com/cc-common/news/sections/special/michaeljackson/


He was such a mixed-up person...but his prodigious talent was undeniable. I hope he has finally found peace...


In his memory, one of my personal favourites:





I remember an old joke where a parent was trying to explain to the child about God. "God...is neither black, nor white, neither male nor female, neither good nor bad...." The child thought a little, and said, "Oh! God is Michael Jackson!"

My brother was a very talented mridangam player, and if he had put his mind to it, he could (I'm not saying it because he was my brother) have become one of the top players in Carnatic music...but he was too easy-going for that.

For many years, apart from the traditional Carnatic concerts, he played for the musical group of Ananda Shankar . He had such immense fun during this time...a college student in those days had very few avenues to be flush with funds...and he was! He would bring extravagant gifts for my daughter, arrive in a taxi...go out with his red paintbrush for nights out on the town....

My sister-in-law sent my daughter a link to one of the songs:






and





Does the music sound dated? Remember, this was about 35 years ago! We were not very happy when the dancers started taking over from the music....but the dancers were talented, too, led by Tanushree Shankar.

When I watched the ceremony in Chennai on the webcam, I did not cry..but the sound of the mridangam in the first piece brought the tears streaming down. I wept for the loss of my brother...all over again, a year later...when I thought I had developed a hard carapace that nothing could breach. Music can melt the barriers one puts up....

I almost never gave a concert unless he accompanied me on the mridangam...even in Muscat, Oman, he accompanied me for my farewell concert. What a fantastic accompanist he was! He completely gave up playing in his later years, and I still feel, what a waste of talent that was...



Excuse me...I am still very weepy. Let me go dry my tears, and put my shell in place again.

My thoughts are, more than ever, back home today...because in Chennai it is tomorrow... and a year ago, I drove down to see a bundle of clothes .

My sister-in-law has coped incredibly with her loss and grief, and the thousand mundane things that act as little daggers to a sorrowing heart. And she is alone there. Yes, surrounded by friends, but we aren't there with her.

Do I hope that my brother will be somewhere around? Do I believe in that, at all? I have no answers.

With his death, I lost all the people of the immediate family I was born into. I didn't expect him to die at the age of fifty....

Am I feeling miserable? Or guilty that I didn't know that he would die, and I went to Thattekkad? I am so mixed up, I don't know what I feel. Unusual...

Another unusual thing...I have never been able to have photographs of my parents or my brother or of Mohan's parents to look at. I just cannot look at them. I carry my memories in my heart.

Memorial Day, in the USA, is a day when one is supposed to remember the fallen soldiers who have laid down their lives for America. (It's another matter that, like on Gandhi Jayanti in India, many people spend it holidaying...)

Well...we too had a memorial day in our family. On the 18th of January,2008, DnA lost their son-to-be, Minnal (he was named after lightning, because he was a bright and brief flash on this earth) Mohan Shaffer, who had multiple and major heart defects and did not make it into the world. His tiny body was donated to medical research by the grieving parents.

In his memory, they donated money towards the upkeep of Forest Park, and in front of the Spanish Pavilion, there is a whole sidewalk laid with bricks, honouring the names (and sometimes messages) that the donors have nominated.

We went, the parents, the newborn daughter, and I, to see the little brick that bears his name:





( more about it )



I took a snap of DAK, standing near the memorial to the departed son:




The Hindu scriptures hold that a person's time on earth (maraNa lOkA, or world of death) is actually a penance for sins accrued in other births/lives, and those who are with the least sin, spend the least time here. The gods, who are cursed to spend time in this world, often live only the womb, and return to swarga lOkA (paradise)..

Illustraing this belief is the entry from the wiki on the birth of Devavrata, who later became BheeshmA .

Who knows if this is a belief, or the truth?

For a brief while, though, we held hands and thought of little Minnal, the boy who died before he was born....and then we returned to the world of the living, which the immortals call the world of death, because that is the ultimate fate of the beings who live here.

I got a call from the Canon Service Centre yesterday; apparently, after replacing the zoom unit, they found the camera still wouldn't work, and needed a couple of more (read expensive) things replaced as well. The young woman who called said that the cost would now cross 12K.

Yes, it's only a material possession, I know. But for the last year and a half, I have truly enjoyed the Canon Powershot S3IS . I got it in June 2007, and took it to Tanzania, where I got many nice videos; I used the supermacro function a lot, and street photography, and low-light photography (which the S3 is NOT supposed to be good for) worked pretty well. My play reviews were so much better when backed up by a photograph!

And...the number of interesting scenes, people, situations, signboards that my MLC has captured for me....it has really given me a lot of joy. I also did get to know the camera, and its capabilities, really well. As I am NOT a gadget person, this, too has been a source of satisfaction to me.

I am thinking about buying a new camera, because I do want that video function to document the usual "I have the best grand-daughter on Planet Earth" baby stuff, but I hope I will document other interesting-to-everyone stuff too.

Should I go in for the Canon SX10, or should I buy another camera? itsalouwelylife and mohanvee recently bought one that I could get used to...but the Canon SX10, at the same price, comes with the CMOS sensor....

Suggestions, please....shivakumar_l, you have already given me some pointers, any more cameras you can suggest?

I am trying not to be miserable about the death of my MLC....but it's incredible how attached I had become to it...it really did go EVERYWHERE with me....

Awful...I visited Chennai for the first time after my brother died, exactly six months ago. My sister-in-law was away, and I entered the empty flat...

I just do not know what happened. The tears suddenly came ...in a hurricane of something that I could not even identify as emotion or grief...never, ever, have I had this unthinking or visceral a reaction in my life so far (except,I think, when I heard that my daughter had fallen on her face from a height of about 12 feet, or when I heard that she had a fast-growing lump behind her knee that the surgeon did not like the look of). It took me several minutes of crying before I could even analyse that it was grief, bereavement, and missing that bratty brother of mine with his ready wit and generous heart, and that I should control myself.

My heart is somewhere in my toes right now. Today I feel I am an island.

Don't worry, this won't last long! I will bounce back soon. But, idahoswede, I *know* how you felt that day....

The sheetrock at Ragihalli (which is in the Bannerghatta area) means fantastic views, and surreal designs in the rock...the sun, shining through a wisp of raincloud (all that water in the cloud gives that prismatic effect) was reflected in one of the hundreds of rock pools on the rock slopes...





Reminded me, in some strange way, of this photograph by Seshadri...

http://www.indianaturewatch.net/displayimage.php?id=52835


******************


No birder likes crows, as they ...er...crow-d out all other birds (they are the humans of the bird kingdom!) and mob other birds too...but they are very intelligent, adaptable birds.

We were sitting in Ragihalli village after a long, lovely morning of birding, having hot chai at what I call Ragihalli Restaurant, when I saw this baby crow with its mother...





You can see it's a baby because of the pinkness inside the mouth. The baby is sitting, hoping to be fed more food; but s/he is almost fully-grown, and the mother has the resignd look of mothers everywhere, who wish their baby would start growing up and getting their own food, instead of wanting to be spoon bill-fed!

*****************


The third image had me riveted to the spot for a while. So often we see butterflies whose wings are in tatters; Karthik tells us that such butterflies are old butterflies, which have survived the attacks of predators, and therefore, are fit and old butterflies!

But I found evidence of one butterfly which had not won one such battle...





I think that's from a SOUTHERN BIRDWING....




There the wing was, lying on the floor of the forest area....it brought me, for an instant, face to face with death, impermanence and loss...and this butterfly had yet made the place a little more beautiful, even in its death....before I went on to try and draw morals out of this, I snapped myself out of my mood, and walked on!


*

Three months have gone by.
Life goes on as before..
With unexpected and sudden
Dagger-stabs of sorrow.
I keep them hidden.
The wounds bleed into my heart...
Or is it my heart that bleeds?
Why do these seeds
Of sorrow tear me apart?
When will I cross the ocean of woe
And reach serenity's shore?
We didn't speak to each other often...then why
Do quick tears make my eyes sting and smart?

Another friend condoled with me yesterday, and said the same thing I had posted about earlier..."At this age, we should expect and be resigned to such losses." This friend, too, is pushing sixty.

I realize that,first of all, these people imagine my brother to be sixty or over...surely they wouldn't say such a thing if they knew he was fifty?!

And in our culture (I am talking mainly of the Tambram community to which I , and both friends who made that observation, belong) we are conditioned to think of anyone over fifty as "old"....so perhaps, death is easier for them to accept.

I am 53, will be turning 54 in a couple of months...but as long as I am in good health and enjoying life so much, I don't feel "old" at all. I am very lucky that I am able to relate to people irrespective of their age or mine; I can have equally long and interesting conversations/ spend a lot of time with my 10-year old neighbour or my dad's friend who is 87....it's their personalities I interact with. It's a great gift, and I am grateful for it.

Age brings so many gifts, too. There is an acceptance of one's physical appearance, of one's capabilities and faults, which is NOT there at a younger age when one knows one can improve oneself in many ways. The majority of one's social and family obligations have been carried out. I have been able to get interested in a whole variety of new things, and the learning carries on. I have (I hope!) become more tolerant of people, and am trying constantly shed the judgmental (alas, typically Tambram!) I-am-morally-superior-to-everyone attitude that I find difficult to accept in others. I am still not able to control my temper or my emotions, but I am a little better than I used to be. The journey to conquering myself will continue, but I am able to look back and see that I *have* made some progress (I sound so superior and prissy myself now!)

But...I am not ready to retire into a corner and get my dentures fitted and wither away slowly. I have just as much zest for life today as I had when I was 20, and probably am enjoying it more, having come to terms with more than I had back then.

And I want my near and dear ones, *whatever* their age, to be healthy and happy too. No, I will NOT expect and be resigned to "losses". If they happen, I will have to deal with that; b Death may come to me and be dealt with, but I won't go in advance to Death and deal with it!

PS. these are only my opinions and thoughts; I don't expect others to always agree.

It's a kind of roller-coaster ride, this thing called bereavement. I never usually think that things like birthdays (after the first ten are over) are big deals, but I felt really low today, because today my brother would have turned 51. I remembered the lovely party my sis in law organized for him last year...KM and I went...did we even imagine that that would be his last birthday? Definitely not.

One nice anecdote out of the past: My parents had bought us both expensive badminton rackets, and during a quarrel, my brother broke mine. Weeping, I went to my mother to complain. My brother followed almost immediately, with a happy smile on his face. "Sorry, I know I shouldn't have broken your racket!" he said; "I felt very bad, so I have broken mine also, I hope you will be OK now!" My mother was most certainly not OK!


And the commentlessness...I keep my blog post public and even enable anonymous posting because I am interested in dialogue....today, my stat counter informs me that I had 111 unique visitors..did not even ONE of them feel like making a single comment? Expressing their point of view, plus or minus?

Oh well. Friends came by, and cheered me up again....and let me post, from my trip to Nandi Hills, this image, that I call "Stairway to Heaven" (isn't that a beautiful song by Eric Clapton?)





With all the crowds and cars and trash, Nandi Hills is still an incredibly beautiful place....

Someone is on a mailing list, on which a friend had posted about my brother's death. This person emailed, and said they never read that mailing list. So I emailed hem back about my brother's death.

This morning, s/he called, and once again, I heard those words which are so dreadful to me...WAH? (What Actually Happened?) I *hate* hearing those words nowadays. It's....7 weeks now, and I somehow cannot go over the details...but reluctantly, I told this person.

The response? "After a certain age, we have to die!"

My brother was 50. The person who was condoling is 60! Would this person have liked to die at 50? I wonder if s/he had the idea that my brother was 80+... or was the idea to comfort me? If this is the idea...well, it did not...it only made me say that if 50 is an age to die, one might as well die at 20 and be done with it much earlier!

Note to myself...I *must* be careful what I say, thinking that I am comforting someone in their loss...I could be opening their wounds again, and making them angry into the bargain. It's a better thing to say, "how are you feeling now?" and listen, rather than to try them high with philosophy....

The clothes you wore are gone
But not the person.
You left us, but I still find you
In the dim recesses of my memories
As scenes from our shared childhood
Flash across my mind.

Why should I feel sad about the clothes you wore?
When I walked in that evening
All I saw was the clothes:
You had gone.

When what's within is gone,
The human body
Is nothing but a set of clothes:
Skin,limbs, teeth, hair...
A discarded bag of bones.
A flute without its music, a house bereft of its owner.
How does it matter how the shells are disposed of?
Empty cartons need to be thrown away.

So I'll learn to be content
With my memories....and not miss you.
I'll learn to be content
With your presence in my thoughts....

I hope that my memories,too,
Will not become faint
With the passage of time...
An aging brain
Drops the clothes of its recollections
And stands bare, or is sometimes absent.

Ultimately, the people we love
Live within us.
They do not have a past tense
In our thoughts.

Why can the heart not accept abstractions
Of death, loss, and bereavement
That the mind can?
Why do we need to hold on?
Why can we not let go?

How To Watch Your Brother Die
For Carl Morse

When the call comes, be calm.
Say to your wife, "My brother is dying. I have to fly
to California."
try not to be shocked that he already looks like
a cadaver.
Say to the young man sitting by your brother's side,
"I'm his brother."
Try not to be shocked when the young man says,
"I'm his lover. Thanks for coming."

Listen to the doctor with a steel face on.
Sign the necessary forms.
Tell the doctor you will take care of everything.
Wonder why doctors are so remote.

Watch the lover's eyes as they stare into
your brother's eyes as they stare into
space.
Wonder what they see there.
Remember the time he was jealous and
opened your eyebrow with a sharp stick.
Forgive him out loud
even if he can't
understand you.
Realize the scar will be
all that's left of him.

Over coffee in the hospital cafeteria
say to the lover, "You're an extremely good-looking
young man."
Hear him say,
"I never thought I was good enough looking to
deserve your brother."

Watch the tears well up in his eyes. Say,
"I'm sorry. I don't know what it means to be
the lover of another man."
Hear him say,
"Its just like a wife, only the commitment is
deeper because the odds against you are so much
greater."
Say nothing, but
take his hand like a brother's.

Drive to Mexico for unproven drugs that might
help him live longer.
Explain what they are to the border guard.
Fill with rage when he informs you,
"You can't bring those across."
Begin to grow loud.
Feel the lover's hand on your arm
restraining you. See in the guard's eye
how much a man can hate another man.
Say to the lover, "How can you stand it?"
Hear him say, "You get used to it."
Think of one of your children getting used to
another man's hatred.

Call your wife on the telephone. Tell her,
"He hasn't much time.
I'll be home soon." Before you hang up say,
"How could anyone's commitment be deeper than
a husband and a wife?" Hear her say,
"Please. I don't want to know all the details."

When he slips into an irrevocable coma,
hold his lover in your arms while he sobs,
no longer strong. Wonder how much longer
you will be able to be strong.
Feel how it feels to hold a man in your arms
whose arms are used to holding men.
Offer God anything to bring your brother back.
Know you have nothing God could possible want.
Curse God, but do not
abandon Him.

Stare at the face of the funeral director
when he tells you he will not
embalm the body for fear of
contamination. Let him see in your eyes
how much a man can hate another man.

Stand beside a casket covered in flowers,
white flowers. Say,
"thank you for coming," to each of seven hundred men
who file past in tears, some of them
holding hands. Know that your brother's life
was not what you imagined. Overhear two
mourners say, "I wonder who'll be next?" and
"I don't care anymore,
as long as it isn't you."

Arrange to take an early flight home.
His lover will drive you to the airport.
When your flight is announced say,
awkwardly, "If I can do anything, please
let me know." Do not flinch when he says,
"Forgive yourself for not wanting to know him
after he told you. He did."
Stop and let it soak in. Say,
"He forgave me, or he knew himself?"
"Both," the lover will say, not knowing what else
to do. Hold him like a brother while he
kisses you on the cheek. Think that
you haven't been kissed by a man since
your father died. Think,
"This is no moment to be strong."

Fly first class and drink Scotch. Stroke
your split eyebrow with a finger and
think of your brother alive. Smile
at the memory and think
how your children will feel in your arms
warm and friendly and without challenge.

Michael Lassell

And latelyontime's words below (in quotes) are my thoughts, too...


"P.S. I know it is long and it probably hurts the scroll finger like bloody ho but I am not putting it behind a cut. Something this beautiful needs to remain so that everybody can read it at first glance."


*********

Well...my brother died, too, a month ago...he wasn't gay, I don't have a wife, I *didn't* watch him die that day, so suddenly...but the raw pain of this poem....was reflected by my pain in asking him a few days prior to his death, "Shall I come and be with you for a few days?" and then, being practical, and not going, because he had no serious health problem that I could imagine he would leave us in a short time...

There are times when grief is composed of large dollops of guilt.

1. Do visit a bereaved person as soon as you can...but do call before you visit, if you can. Find out if the person is willing, and able, to take the visit. If not, postpone the visit after saying that your thoughts are with hem.

2. Please make your visit brief. Yes, you may be visiting the bereaved person after a long gap, of months, or even years. But at this time, your visit MUST be short. Trying to catch up on lost time, and touching base, is NOT a good idea now. The person is probably grappling with a lot of logistical details as well as emotional trauma, and is just not able to handle a prolonged social visit.

3. Explanations about why you could not come and meet the deceased earlier serve NO purpose whatsoever but to expiate your own possible guilt. And it becomes ridiculous if you start explaining health issues. You are visiting now, and your affection for the deceased (or your sense of duty) has brought you there. So that's enough. This is true even if it is a phone call you are making. Lengthy explanations of why you cannot make it in person are not needed.

4. Even if you meet up with other friends and acquaintances in the deceased's home, don't start conversations... keep the visit brief.

5. Do not visit during mealtimes or in the afternoon unless absolutely unavoidable. This might be the only rest the bereaved family is getting after several sleepless nights.

6. Try not to bring babies and children along in the hope that they will "cheer them up". And if the baby is napping, do not sit through the baby's nap..it's convenient for you, but certainly not for the bereaved family.

7. Talking about cheerful subjects is OK, but only up to a point. Beyond that, it gets too difficult for the bereaved to bear, or relate to.

8. Do NOT talk about other people who have just died. It's SUCH an insensitive and ridiculous thing to do.

9. Do not unload your present problems even if the bereaved family asks. This is not the time to share your woes.

10. Once again...keep your visit brief and crisp. Not saying anything is sometimes better than words.


Fantastic words we heard recently:

"What saree are you going to buy for the 13th day ceremony? Will your sister in law buy it for you?" (Don't I get to give HER something as well?)

"R...that was not the name of the girlfriend your husband was going around with when I knew him..." (I am NOT joking)

"You should not have been sitting in Thattekkad. What is the need to go and watch some birds when your brother is dying?" (Yeah, right, he told me he is sinking and I carried on to Thattekkad. Or...I must sit at home everyday, waiting for one of my relatives to die.)

"When your father and mother were such pious people, how can you have a memorial/shanthi homam/havan on the 5th day, and worse, call us for lunch during the 'tainted' ten days?" (They were all good people, but my brother is...was...different from my parents.)

"They never had any children?...so bad!" (wow, how does one answer that!)

"I wanted to come and visit many times but I have been having this uterus problem (said with a wealth of exCRUciating...and long-winded... detail about said organ.)" (You and your you-terus...go home, lady, I just CAN'T take your medical history in now.)

"Oh! V and K are also here! Oh, good to see you after a long time...did you know that E's daughter got married? They were asking about you..." (go HOME!)

"The body goes so cold immediately after death...did you find it hard to arrange it in the refrigerated casket?" (YEUGHHHH....)

"No, no, you carry on with dinner, we had an early dinner and came, we will just be here..." (that is exactly what we don't want...)

Thank goodness, there were more of the affectionate hugs, the thoughtful, well-chosen words, the presence when needed, the practical help given at the right time, the support that we could never have done without....

Many of my relatives were aghast when I decided not to do a professional course (particularly, the medical course that my parents were hoping I would do) and decided on studying English, and Philosophy instead, and took up music very seriously.

I think I had a Liberal Arts education....before the term was invented.

But today, whenever I have to face a crisis, these three things...the ability to express myself, the philosophy that I studied, and the music that I practiced so sincerely.....they stand me in good stead. They prevent me from slipping deep into the Slough of Despond that Chaucer talked about, and bear me up to face life once again, and start over with a smile.

"tum ithnA jO muskurA rahEy hO...kyA gam hai jiskO cchupA rahEy ho?" goes a beautiful ghazal by Kaifi Azmi.

Who knows how many tears others' smiles cover?

Those two overused words: Thank and You.

Your affection and your care comes through, and that's what matters to us right now.

Yes, Anjana is here, and Derek is arriving on Friday night (managed some time off from his demanding job!) so we will be together for a while....oh, it's going to be a long road to the new and altered normality, but we have started walking on it now.

I have been singing out loud a lot (we only had close friends and relatives yesterday and I was able to sing) and that has helped ME a lot. My common-sense husband, whose lack of emotion (actually, lack of display of it) I sometimes deplore, has been a rock since he came back.

I am sad, but also realize that I have so much to be thankful for....

We had given an insertion in the newspaper, " A V passed away". It turns out there is another A V with connections to Calcutta, the city we grew up in, whose dad has the exact same name as my father, too...since the insertion appeared, we have been fielding calls from people who think this is the OTHER A V! I don't know whether to cheerfully announce, "YOUR A V is probably hale and hearty, drop that funerary tone from your voice!" or to say quietly, as I do, "In any case, I am glad you called with affection in your heart..do keep in touch with those whom you have lost touch."...there was a sneaky wish in my heart, once or twice, that it needn't have been OUR A V...but then I was horrified at what I was thinking....

It's rather funny to have to tell someone that they are needlessly condoling for someone..or it would be funny, if it wasn't this situation...

Why can't we have some music? That would ease my mind. The Christians have so much music as part of their funerary services...we just set aside music as only being for bhakti, or happiness...surely, surely, music can ease sorrow as well?

I had hardly entered my home after the Thattekkad trip when I got the news....I lost my dearly beloved brother....

I drove down to Chennai with a little help and a lot of support from amoghavarsha and it's SO unreal, that my brother, my little kid-brother with that incredibly happy, sunny outlook on life, that gifted musician with a great sense of humour, is now a pile of ashes....

Sudden, fast, unexpected...that's life.

It's only my brother's wife (who is as dear to me as my own sister) and I who have to take care of things here. KM is in the US....there is no other immediate family.

When one person is emotionally devastated, the other has to keep cool, take care of arrangements, see to the feeding of visitors and guests, and do a hundred and one things...there is no time for tears, maybe I can shed them later, maybe they will dry up unshed....

I will be back to some semblance of normality....in a while....

Keep me in your thoughts please.