Static Equilibrium

This is a poem I wrote when I was working in a city college in 2004. One of my students – Mary Shirley (B Com 1 year) – had gone to Vailankanni for Christmas. She was swept away in the tsunami the next day. Of her family of eight, only her little brother survived. The enormity of this event left me awestruck. Here was a girl – my student, much younger than I – and she now knew what lay on the other side of death. She was a good and honest student, and I knew that whatever accounts she rendered up to the Hereafter, they would have been positive and utterly blameless! Even today I wonder where she is! But the Principal Sister Superior carried on ………

“Plink … plonk … plink”, the bell sounds – “Girls!
We have a special assembly today.”
So how’s today different
From every other day?

For thirty years she’s worn the same
Plain beige blouse and saree.
Shunning colour, hugging faith,
His Cross she wants to carry.

This little dolls’ house with its flowers,
Its hedgerows all in order,
These classrooms where her girls are taught
To prepare for the life hereafter

Flowers of varied colours, these girls
Become women, mothers, chasing careers
In a dynamic, relentless, unforgiving world,
Like Charybdis, swallowing up the years.

Year after year, like her spring flowers
Her students come and go.
But “Plink … plonk … plink” still rules her life
In rhythmic ebb and flow.

A little dolls’ house, a school
Where all the classes are scheduled
No late assignments, no slacking off,
No rest from following rules!

“Plink … plonk … plink”, the Assembly
Today lasted an hour,
To mourn the passing on of one –
A bud nipped before it could flower.

Outside this sheltered world she went
To pray at Vailankanni.
A day after Christmas, she was swept away
By the unexpected tsunami.

One little boy stared bewilderedly.
Where was his family of eight?
Some kindly aunt then took him on.
But he’s still dazed at Fate.

He was the only one to grab
A floating wooden door.
His sisters, parents – all were lost
Forever on the ocean floor.

“Plink … plonk … plink”, classes go on,
Their lost friend they have mourned.
Now back to Science and EDP,
The dreary, predictable sojourn.

Syllabus, semesters, internals
Must nevertheless go on.
Routine shall measure the pulse of life
With plink … plonk … plink each dawn.

But, sister, what’s this perfect world
With nothing out of place –
Not even a fold of that beige saree,
Which you’ve worn with so much grace?

One day this little clockwork school
Will no more be the same.
Lost in that awesome tsunami –
An infinity none can tame!

For what is life but a molecule
Suspended briefly in Time?
Yet we want to perfect it
With rhythm and with rhyme.

But the most “perfectest” things
Are found in randomness,
Unpredictable, irregular, unruly, wild –
Fractals of wilderness.

So it really does not matter much
If schedules are out of sync.
They are just infinitesimal pauses
All disappearing in a blink.

Just like little match-sticks, lives
Are cast out into the sea.
What do moments of perfection
Matter in that infinite tsunami?

If you just take the time to think
Of when life all began –
What came before the Beginning? –
The Ultimate most certainly isn’t Man.

Grandpa, Grandma, and I

“Hari! Oh Hari, come back here!” Mummy shouted to her little two-and-a half-year-old boy.

Where do you think Hari was? He was crossing a canal between two fields of rice behind his parents’ home in Dehra Dun. Sultan Sheikh was harvesting the rice.

“Memsaab, shall I bring the child back?” he asked. Mummy opened her arms to receive a wriggling little Hari back.

 “I ought to tie you up to a tree”, Mummy scolded.

Hari did not speak much. He just said “Manaa” for everything. This was Tamil – “Vendaam”, or” I do not want!”

But he ran, ran, and ran everywhere. His home was at the foot of some lovely hills. The hill tribes – Garhwalis – farmed the land and grazed their buffalos.

One day, Sunehri, the Garhwali who grazed her buffalo on Hari’s lawn, led him home by the hand. “Memsaab”, she told Mummy. “Hari came across two fields to my house. He pulled up a turnip and ate it. I washed it first. Then he drank a glass of milk straight from the buffalo!”

“Thank you for bringing him back”, said Mummy in Hindi, which she knew quite well. “Baby, there are snakes there. You must not run off”, scolded Mummy.

 “Manaa”, said Hari.

Mummy got Hari ready for his afternoon sleep.

She said, “Do you know baby? Your Ammamma and Thathaji are coming here from Madras?” “Ammamma” meant “Mummy’s Mummy” in Tamil. Thathaji meant Grandpa.

“Mummummy” said Hari. His little legs were tired and he slept. 

Ammamma came two days later. She picked up Hari and kissed and cuddled him.

 Thathaji walked with a stick. His legs and hands shook all the time. He had a disease called Parkinson’s Disease. He could not lift up Hari.

But he held out a gift. It was a grey–brown teddy bear with black patches around its eyes. It was a raccoon, which Grandpa brought back from his trip to America.

Hari loved the raccoon and called it “Singh”. Hari did not ever say “Manaa” to Singh.

Daddy was away on tour. Thathaji was kind. But he could not give Hari a scooter ride, like Daddy did.

Ammamma and Thathaji sat in the sunny lawn while Hari played under the guava tree. Hari picked off a guava from the ground. He bit into it and ate it up.

“No, don’t do that”, said Ammamma. “I will wash it first”.

“Manaa”, said Hari and munched one more!

“Hari is very active! He does not listen at all to anybody!” said Ammamma to Mummy.

“Never mind, he is just a child”, said Thathaji.

Hari began riding his plastic tractor and tooting the horn. Thathaji walked beside him with slow shaky steps. Yes, Thathaji was now getting his exercise after a long time.

 “Singh”, said Hari and seated the raccoon on his tractor. He ate his curd rice with his teddy bear; he went to sleep with him; and he talked his baby words to him.

 “Aao, baitho”, said Hari to Singh. He was asking Singh to “come and sit”.

“Oh, the child has started speaking in Hindi!” exclaimed Ammamma.

“Yes, he hears these words everyday from Sunehri, Sultan Sheikh, and others”, said Mummy. 

“One day, Hari told Singh, “Hum jayenge (we’ll go)”. They went off across two fields of rice. Hari crossed the “naali” or the canal that brought water to the fields. Nobody noticed. Poor exhausted Thathaji was dozing in the easy chair on the lawn, after babysitting Hari.  Ammamma had – with difficulty – made Hari stay still long enough to eat his dosas (salty pancakes) and chutney.

While Ammamma and Mummy were talking, Hari ran off; crossed the naali; and went into the house beyond the next field.  

“Hello, who are you?” asked a grandly dressed teenage girl. She had just got married.

“Hira”, said Hari.

“Oh Hira”, said the girl, “I am Neha. You must come for my party tomorrow.  Here is the card”.

 Hari nodded, “Hum aur Singh jayenge” (We and Singh will go).

Back across the naali to Mummy! Hari tripped and fell. He picked himself up – he never cried when he fell. But he forgot poor Singh. He came back home dirty and muddy. He gave Mummy the card addressed to “Hira”.

“Hello, what’s this? Where did you disappear?” asked Ammamma.

Thathaji was looking for Hari.

“Where were you, you little scamp?” he asked Hari.

“Jayenge”, said Hari.

When it was time for his nap, he wanted Singh. “Singh kahaan (where is Singh)?” he cried.

Thathaji hunted in the garden. Ammamma hunted all over the house. Mummy went round to Neha’s place. Nobody had seen Singh. Hari would not sleep.

Ammamma took Hari tenderly on to her ample lap. She sang some Carnatic music songs. She tapped Hari’s head gently in time to the rhythm. Hari pulled her sari down to his thumb and slept off.

Thathaji said, “Can we get him another Singh? Do they make such toys in Dehra Dun?”

Mummy scoured the toy shops – no Singh.

Sunehri came in just then, holding a dripping wet Singh by one ear.

“Memsaab”, she said, “I found this bear at the grate at the end of the naali”.

They gave Singh a bath and hung him up on the clothesline. You can see him there hanging by one ear in the winter sunshine. Thathaji is watching over both Singh and Hari.

All is well in Hari’s little world!