Seasons

...

[ July]

Heeya behaved not so nicely with me this morning. I was disturbed. Maybe also with life.

Midway at lunch, she asked, almost in an accusatory tone. "I don't get it. Why would you even sit down to eat with me if you don't want to talk. You could have had lunch before and I could have had it on my own." 

"When someone is hurt, she may not feel like talking." I said softly. Not an act, I was down. Could sense she was looking for a retort. At fourteen, it can just be about winning dialogues. I finished lunch, put my plate down and came back to the table with fruits and ice-cream. Arranged in two bowls for the two of us, put the spoons in and sat down. Pulled my bowl and started having the dessert. She was still at chicken. 

"Ok. If you are hurt, why would you want to sit here with me. You could go to the room or do your work and not even be with the person who hurt you. Why are you even here...!" 

"I am here because I like being around you. 

I like being around you because I love you. 

Even when you hurt me, that doesn't change." 

She looked up from the plate and for a moment I could see her little girl big eyes. I added - "But beyond a point, if you go on hurting me, and making me sad, I may not be around anymore. Even if I always love you."

...

[August]

Rhea has started training in eastern classical. Riyaz must be done every morning and evening no matter what. She is learning music; and I, the harmonium. She sits across me and the box with folded legs and her frock pulled to cover her knees and her back straight and arched alternately. We sit on the floor and with the air conditioner switched off, as strictly advised by Guruji. 

One such evening. We were grappling with a new palta where I was getting the 11-22-33-22-11-77-66-11 algorithm wrong every time during descent. It was 6 pm, I had postponed a meeting to get this done and it was not getting done. I was irritated with myself. She was singing fine though, without aid. 

-- 'Rhea please stop fidgeting and sit quiet when doing riyaz. Guruji said sitting still is the first step.'

-- 'Rhea ! You are restless again. Sit apart from the harmonium.' 

-- 'RHEA ! move away from the harmonium and stop touching it. This is the LAST time I am telling you.'

-- '...Wait. Do you keep going back there for the little puffs of air that keep blowing in and out of the bellows when I play ?!'

"Yesss Ma !! This is so much fun ! Give me your hand - You try .."

I did. With my right hand, as I blew the bellows with my left. It was fun.

...

[September]

Rhea is learning. "Swarasthan" - placing a note in its right place. "Sa - Griha" - The home which she has to know so well. "Hawa diye haway chhobi anka" - Painting pictures in air with air from the play of breaths. She is learning. How a song is so much more than its notations, how one note trickles into the next, almost unuttered, just as a butterfly is beautiful only with blending of its colours. She is learning. Ten thhats. Their soft and high notes, their ragas and times of day. She is discovering the sudden spookiness of a "komol" Rishabh and subtle magic of a "komol" Nishad when followed by "shudhho" Dhaivat. 

We do a blindfolded quiz sometimes. I play 5 or 6 notes, a good mix of Shudhho-Kori-Komol, and she identifies them. This is her favourite part of the everyday riyaz.  

"One more, Ma" And I make it a little more complex. Going back and forth. High and low. Soft and sharp.

She keeps eyes tightly shut and listens intently then takes a few seconds and tells me the exact notes almost every time. She gets 8 out of 10 right on a usual day. I am 5 out of 10 on my best days. 

There is something she requests between notes. Asks me to play the full sargam a couple of times before launching the next tune and listens in. Sort of resetting her ears and mind, clearing the head. Every time she does that, it reminds me of someone smelling coffee beans before trying out the next fragrance.

I watch with love. She, is learning. 

...

[October]

Heeya had promised me a birthday painting this year. I wanted a couple of my favourite things in my favourite colour. 

But we had a row and birthday eve saw a black canvas redone many times over and stored angrily away frontside back, upside down. I rechecked at dawn, first thing my birthday morning, before she was up. Was sad, but said nothing to her. 

A week later, she picked up that black canvas again, early Sunday morning in the balcony, on the easel, and even before breakfast started to work in a driven sort of way. It started with white streaks, clouds in night sky? No, a white bird. Minutes later, black again. "Where did the bird go?" I asked. "It just died!" Came a loud answer, over her earpod music.

By forenoon, the canvas had a bemused moon. A blood moon, with grey white gossamer clouds floating desultorily.

I liked the moon but wished it were my favourite cream-white-yellow, a full October moon. 

There was another painting created in the flow, on the same day. This time some special sunflowers, not all yellow though, not the way I had imagined them to be. 

Her gift reflected her mind, but were after all made of my favourite things : the full moon, a sky, some stars, and sunflowers.

...

Pause

1st Feb, 2021

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There is a singular sensation that can make you wish for death and life at the same time, sometimes. The sense of a helplessness induced by an inexplicable connection with another human being.

You suddenly desire Death, because there is extreme anxiety, discomfort, fear, restlessness that you wish weren't there. You are responsible for what you love but then you are so very helpless. One doesn't need to go through this. 

And then you desire Life, because only this vulnerability lets you experience undiluted love. Makes you a little more than your self. You can almost touch tenderness in that moment of truth. Even as you try to rationalise objectively that every connect in life is a give and a take, be it parent or child or a friend, love seeps in silently from underneath.

No exchange, no expectation, no negotiation, numbing pain and rare pleasure, still ... love. It is such a thing. 

As I put Rhea to sleep early for the morning surgery, singing her favourite song, my voice echoes strange in the indifferently white hospital room, and that singular sensation floats in again. I dodge for a while, then deny, then smile and let it flow. And settle. The view of the night garden just outside the window brings in a soothing quiet.

Love, it is such a thing.

...

2nd Feb, 2021

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Fearless never works for me. I am afraid of things. Things that matter. But I do try to keep it aside and do what must be done. So it appears to onlookers as though I am fearless. But you see I never really am. I only choose to defocus.

---

Post surgery, tonight is a moon's crater sleep story lent by a friend. Thousands of craters creating the unique lunar texture, each with a name, an aura, a sight to see. Rhea watching them all in her mind, through a telescope from Earth. She listens thinks questions almost reaches the moon travelling across the silence of spaces. It really is the Moon right now. She wants to jump high pick heavy stuff easy and vacation on the Moon. Mars is still uncertain but Moon is quite a friendly neighbourhood. She can even pick a crater and build her city in it and a house on top of the hill in the centre. And watch Kolkata with a telescope and maybe see her first Earthrise...

...

3rd Feb, 2021

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Three lights are on throughout the day and night in a room two levels above us. That is the topmost floor of the hospital building. To me they look like "Akash Prodeep", the 'Sky Beacon'. Those lamplights that stay aflame on Earth to guide those in the sky. 

The midnight silence of the hospital is both clinical and deep. Somewhere in that quiet there are deaths, there are births and there are lives breathing in between. All foliated beautifully by life.

When Rhea slowly goes off to sleep, holding a hand of mine, so I dont go anywhere away from her, leaving her alone in the scary bed full of wires and dials, I kind of see my purpose. Seeing the girls off to their lives. Seeing the parents off to their endings. Then stepping out and seeing my final self off, to silence. 

...

Montage

 

1.

Workday lunch between meetings. Rhea and me at home. 

"Ma I need water."

"Finish the food first. Water in between food dilutes digestive juices". 

I buy time with my eyes on the laptop.

A minute later.

"Juices ... seriously ! Ma, I NEED water."

"Rhea finish up the food first." 

Cant even ask her to fetch herself as the glasses are beyond her reach.

"MA I NEED WATER. 

My throat is as dry as the dried riverbed in Shantiniketan. Even a drop will do."

Exasperated and guilty, I give up and get up. 

"Drama Queen !" I mutter under the breath. 

"No, that's Didi. I am the Drama Princess."

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2. 

The quintessential first dental appointment. Been there for Heeya, seen that, sat endlessly on a paediatric dentist's chair for months on with her on my lap. Repeat play after 6 years. 

"Ma I'm scared."

"Hm. So what do you usually do when you are scared."

"I sit at a corner for two or three hours."

"And then ?"

"Then continue with my normal day."

"OK. Good. That's one way. There's another that I follow. A surer one."

"What is that."

"Just do it. The scare and fear is instantly gone. Shall we try it at the dentist's today."

"What ?! What if I bleed and die in 'just doing it'." Rhea shows a quote-unquote gesture.

With the younger one, I am never ready for the retorts. 

Tailpiece : 

Pretty much nothing worked. The dentist got half bitten on two of her fingers and half kicked under her chin even after two assistants tried pinning down the patient. Thankfully, nobody bled to death.

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3.

Rhea is in bed reading. I have a rare early night and just as am about to turn the lights off and kiss her goodnight, there is a quiet bomb blast.

"Ma how do you know I am not a transgender ?"

Ouch.

Pause.

She is seven.

"Where did you learn that word Rhea"

"Didi told me"

"And do you know what it means?"

"Of course. It means either a girl's mind in a boy's body or a boy's mind in a girl's body."

Here I am unsure of what to say next.

She goes on.

"But Ma, what is this girl mind. How do you even know you have a girl or  boy mind. I mean I have a girl body but what mind ? What is your mind ? Girl or boy."

I find a floater to survive.

"Alright do you like wearing hairbands and well, earrings and eyeliner and look pretty?"

"Yes I do. Sometimes. All the time is boring."

"Yes sometimes is fine. But that is a girl mind. Now imagine a boy likes that as well and dresses up like a girl. Then we say the boy probably has a boy body but girl mind."

I can only hope I nailed it.

"But Ma. I love wearing boy clothes as well. My jeans and my t shirts and cap and I like playing with them and with Baba with football and do other fun boy things. So what's my mind ? Tell me !"

I need urgent aid. Anybody there. Anyone.

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4. 

Early winter mornings are cold. And warm. 

"What will you have for breakfast ?" 

"How about a snuggle Ma.."

"Alright (snuggle 1 2 3 and when it doesn't end) hey who will cook breakfast ..."

"Keep your hair on Ma. God will."

"Really. Is he even a good cook."

"Ma, is God a he or a she."

"Good question. I don't know. What do you think."

"I think she...I think God is a bit like Didun. So let's just assume breakfast is cooking and let's just snuggle back."

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5. 

She is a reasonably independent girl at seven. Post bath dressing on her own time as I dry her hair.

"Ma, what if pants were alive."

"What ? What pants. I don't know"

"I think they would have pretty gross lives."

"Why ... ?"

"Because they always have to be, you know..., with our private part ! Jeez don't you ever think of them "

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6

Rhea is not fond of classical music except a select few. Vivaldi Four seasons is a favourite, where she likes trying to identify the seasons from each other, although it certainly is not an ideal sleep music. 

I had an unavoidable official call scheduled around midnight, hence put on a Chopin Nocturne for early sleep induction for Rhea. Number 9, to be precise and to be doubly sure.

After a good fifteen minutes, when I tried checking on the sleep status as I usually do by picking and dropping a finger let's say, she peeps half out of her pillow and asks me in a deliberate and displeased tone :

"Ma. What is that noise playing on and on.  

Can we turn it off now so I can get some sleep."

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7.

After I fix her online classes after three disconnections, and in the process, save her face in front of her class-teacher :

"Ma, you are just like an umbrella !"

Then rethinking for a second, all of one second, she comes a little closer and sliding her hands under my arms in a hug, softly adds :

"Actually you are like a warm coat. A warm coat."

I reckon the repetition is for emphasis.

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8.

And this one I need to write for Rhea to remember that we did this ever so often. And how she used to love doing this super silly sweet thing

The first time we tried, she was afraid. Standing at the edge of the bed, turning around, not looking back, counting to ten and then a slow backward fa...ll.

I catch her and ask "You trust me?" 

She smiles in relief and says "I do !"

Afraid, Unsure, Hesitant. Slipped badly once and hurt herself on falling at 3 instead of 10, but still undaunted, the brave girl suggests:

"Ma, why don't I close my eyes when I fall. It will mean more trust, no ?"

And she does it. Fall of Faith, with eyes closed and no longer afraid. Precious.

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9. 

Heeya set her Google Assistant to French.

She converses with her all the time, almost like chatting with a friend while learning the language. 

This evening at dinner table :

"Ou es-tu, Google ?" " Where are you, Google ?"

Google promptly answered :

"J'etais en train de vous preparer un petit cafe mais je suis de retour pour vous aider"

What was that - I am curious.

Heeya smiled and did a quick but wrong translation for me.

"I am on my way in a train to a small cafe, but will return whenever you need me."

Sweet. I smiled. 

After a minute, she corrected the translation.

"I am in the middle of preparing a small coffee, but will return whenever you need me." 

I liked the wrong translation better. 

It painted a picture of a day when maybe Heeya will write me a letter with that line somewhere in it. And I will see a bit of her life at someplace far away from me, with a promise to return if I ever need her. 

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