"First Impressions"

     What do the words “First Impressions” mean to you? For me, I first think of the title Jane Austen originally had in mind for Pride and Prejudice. Today, as I was laying out a set of hand-me-downs for the next size up from what my baby girl is currently wearing, I noticed the clothing tag near the neckline of this little onesie: “First Impressions”. I was thrilled of course that my child would be wearing something that is remotely Jane Austen related. But I also thought of my first impressions of her, my little flower: my initial thoughts when I found out I was expecting, my first ultrasound where I prayed to hear the doctor say that there was a heartbeat, the first initial nudges from her on the other side of my belly button, her contented face when she was laid upon me after her arrival, her pink glow in the incubator when I first visited her in the neonatal intensive care unit, all those moments when she fell asleep on me or near me. I am under her spell…

A Walk to Netherfield

I often walk around our neighbourhood, now as a way of simply getting some Vitamin D with the little one in tow.  In former years it used to be a way of getting exercise, and sometimes an excuse to buy a bunch of flowers from a local flower shop. On the way, there is this impressive house, with a well-kept lawn, and a brick that is just faintly pink in colour.  It contrasts very nicely against the cream trim and columns.  Although the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice shows Netherfield Park to be a house of rich red brick, somehow I have always called this particular house in the neighbourhood, “Netherfield”. And guess what? It is on sale and it has been so for quite some time.  But unlike the house in my favourite novel, it has NOT been let at last.  I suppose it must wait for some Bingley with deep pockets who boasts a heart of a still greater depth.  Every time I walk by I can picture an elegant Darcy pacing on this lawn.  The Green Lawn.  

Beauty in Disintegration

       At our grandparents house I was happiest to have discovered a stack of books by Enid Blyton in a loft, belonging to our estranged maternal Uncle.  They allowed me to escape and imagine and devour new words.  I was happy also, when my sister and I sat in the rain one day tearing a piece of paper to shreds at our home-home.  Mesmerized by the changing texture of the fibers.  Our mother saw us, and let us be (bless her!).  There was another day when we sat in the front yard digging up mud, mixing it up with water and creating little objects. We let them dry in the sun, and were surprised that they became dust once more.  That is the final destiny of all things.  Therefore our composition is the composition of other things, alive or not.  And hence, I suspect the love in us later becomes the love in other things.  Is it possible that when everything falls apart, the love we have stays intact? 

A Glimpse of Eternity

Today I spent a lovely afternoon in the park with my family; the one I created, not the one I was thrust into. I didn’t realize that going to the park is a possibility with a newborn. My husband and I sat or lay on the picnic blanket, reading while our dear flower napped. We were in the shade of a deciduous tree, the kind that look like their leaves are from a different realm when positioned against the blue sky. Light breeze. Three separate wedding couples getting photographed not too far away. A small artificial brook making music. A harp (no really!). An older couple sitting affectionately on a bench by the pathway. Some small children and their guardians at the thing that looks like abstract art, masquerading as a playground. People in the spring, summer and autumn of their lives. This park where all seasons intersect, is quite dear to my husband and I.

Splintered Family

I was listening to a podcast recently by Lynette Corolla and Teresa Strauser, where they talked about their difficult relationship with their parents. They discussed that in their childhood things stopped being celebrated, something that I could relate to.  It is one of those things that we had to let go.  The next thing we let go was eating together, because our parents had different work schedules.  Now our family seems splintered.  My mother left my father and she is avoiding anything having to do with him, including visiting my sister and my niece.  The reason?  At the risk of losing my only follower ...Well, I am too ashamed and deeply saddened to explain any of it.  It suffices to say that it is positively Shakespearean.  Tolstoy said something to the effect of "all families are the same, and unhappy in the same way".  I don't know what he would have said if he met my family.  My family is a wasp nest and my very sanity at times has felt endangered (but more on that next post). 

Mr. Darcy's Dream

I try to make a conscious effort of remembering my dreams.  But my husband tends to not remember them, though he has some entertaining ones from what I am able to deduce from his nightly sleep-talking.  He oddly enough, remembered meeting my maternal grandmother in his dream.  Bear in mind, he never met her in person.  In his dream, he was serving tea to my grandmother.  And he asked her if she would like the milk poured first, and she replied in the affirmative. And they apparently had a nice cup of tea together.  Sadly, my grandmother passed away a month ago, having never met my husband or our newborn.  Apparently, as she was nearing her end, she kept asking to speak to my husband and to see my daughter.  Despite being a tough disciplinarian who, like many in Jane Austen’s time, believed in accomplishments, also had a fondness for sweets.  And if we are what we eat, she was incredibly sweet.

Vintage Voodoo

Any sense of idleness was heavily reprimanded.  With good intentions, our grandmother and aunt wondered very openly why we never did things. Things. You know all those things: stitching, drawing, crocheting.  And if we tried to we never felt at ease because their criticism then changed to them thinking that we were doing those things “for show”.  We were so flummoxed as to how to please them.

But I think I am ready to teach myself some embroidery, because it will still my mind.  Elizabeth Bennet and all those other women, fictitious and real, who have come before me would prick fabric in the absence of voodoo dolls.  Some of my memories, recent and ancient, are still causing me to have sleepless nights, when everyone, including my precious, baby-girl, my flower of my flesh sleeps away.  I am doing this to please only myself, for I long to add something pretty to this cluttered "Pemberley". 

Epiphany

        I have realized that being anonymous is not enough for me to use this blog the way I had originally intended.  I wanted to unveil the dysfunction in my family, but I find I am still censoring myself.  I check myself repeatedly, for disclosing too much or for accidentally saying the unsayable.  I had a suspicion that I loved them, but I had no idea that I wanted to shield them from their own reflections in the internet mirror.  Do tacit agreements in families go that deep?

Ritualistic Make-up

I remember watching our mother dressing herself at the dressing table. Putting on lipstick, shindoor, teep (Bengali word for Bindi). Combing her hair and putting it in a bun.  And I remember watching our aunt dressing herself at her dressing table and noticing the difference.  Yes there was the obvious lack of shindoor(red powder added to the forehead and hair parting of married women). But there was something more.  Our aunt took pleasure in ritualistically dressing herself and our mother didn’t.  Years later our aunt came to visit us in Canada.  I remember getting out of the shower one evening and taking some lotion with me to bed. I simply wanted to put some on my feet. She said something about wanting to witness how I had finally learned to love myself.  I remember feeling angry in the pit of my stomach.  How dare she? How dare anyone talk to me of self-love?  I was always taught to not care about one’s looks, because it shows conceitedness.  But we were also reprimanded for not caring about our looks. 

Tangible Impossible Ordinary

I grew up understanding that a marriage was an agreement between two people and two families. I was told that love and romance were only things seen in the movies. And children were only impediments to one’s life.  In addition to all this, we were taught to go after professional ambition rather than be like all the stupid neighbourhood girls and dream of love and marriage and babies.  I learned that mothers-in-law made you slave away with housework and are always after one’s jewellery and valuables.  With such unromantic thoughts being circulated around me it is indeed a wonder that I married for love or managed more than just a vague inclination for poetry.  In fact it is more than an ordinary miracle that my mother-in-law and I get along so well that she seems more like a fairy-godmother than an in-law.

Hugging, Lightning and Farewell

I was eleven when we moved to Canada.  I remember our grandparents crying at some train station.  That was the first time we seemed to witness the novel concept of hugging.  I remember our last night in the house in which I grew up. There was a power outage that night, which wasn’t so novel. But there was an amazing display of thunder and lightning, which was terrifying.  Lightning struck the road in front of us as well as the tree that was in front of the neighbour’s house.  One of the branches caught fire and fell to the ground.  We had not even left the house in which I grew up and already it seemed to threaten to crumble in our wake.  I remember mummy mentioning that it was our last night in our home.  I remember that our father mentioned something about how we must be together as a family.  He said that by all means we could all live our own lives, but the reason why we four had been put together was because our experience of life would be better as a whole unit. It was as if he knew and feared what was coming.  The independence of the three women before him. 

Tears of Blood

One of the worst dreams that I had as a child was a simple one.  A close up of my mother’s face.  But she was not looking at anybody in particular. But she was crying, and had been crying for a while. So much so that the tears had turned to blood, because that is how long she had been crying. I am usually able to understand most of my dreams.  I knew that this one meant that I had caused her too much pain, and I honestly tried to be “good” as soon as I had that dream.  It was a haunting image…the red tinged streams of tears.

What has been your worst dream?

Mango Storm

        When there were power outages in our grandparents’ home, it was more of an adventure rather than a case of stress and anxiety. I remember a major spring storm with lightning, hail, wind and of course rain. In the morning, I remember my grandfather, my sister and my aunt all picking up green mangoes from the ground that had fallen all over the fields. I believe one or two of the eucalyptus trees had also fallen before their prime.  I remember that some of the mangoes from the neighbour’s tree had rained on our lot, and hence somebody was sent over to our place to pick up some of these wounded fruit. To me it felt like a party but I dared not mention that to anyone. Why mess with a good thing, especially when the very next moment could be spent with me thinking how horrible my sister and I truly were and how undeserving we were of everything.

The Polka Dot Sisters

          Our lives are dotted with many things. People. Emotions. Colours. Scars. Laughter. Sadness.  If there is an even distribution of dots, it is more aesthetically pleasing.  If there are just a few dots in any one life, they look like blemishes.  Things to be pitied and perhaps hidden from view by the anchal of a saree.

       Yes we had dresses that were polka-dotted. Our mother, or our aunt, or our grandmother would often buy fabric that would be enough to make two dresses, one for my sister and one for me. Sometimes they would be identical in style and sometimes they would not. But they would always be long enough to be hemmed several times, so that with every growth spurt, we could still get the most wear out of each dress.  It was a kindly gesture that we recognized to be also a creativity fostered by necessity.  Buying clothes was expensive. Silk, satin, cotton prints all in varying colours and styles copied out of dress patterns from the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties. Cutting fabric and sewing it on a hand-wound sewing machine has a very distinct smell for me. It is intoxicating.

Home

        I grew up in two places: our home, and our grandparents home. In my childhood brain the town where our home was  had a name that meant the sound that things make when they fall. In my adult brain that knows better, it signifies religion, and the laws that govern human beings and their souls. It is knowing the difference between right and wrong. I think I had asked somebody why our grandparents' home had the name it did, and I believe it may be related to a Saint. Growing up in either place had its share of happinesses and anxiety.

The good things about growing up in our home. My sister and I were often left alone with the house locked up while our mother went out to do errands. May sound terrible to people now. But she had no options and babysitting was unheard of. My sister and I read books and played all the records that we wanted. Television wasn’t a big deal because we only got one channel and the programs were only on at certain times. There was a certain liberty that we felt. In our grandparents' home our maternal grandmother would cook amazing food. The house seemed more intrinsically beautiful. Even the lizards and moths on the walls looked more cultured and proper. There were fruit trees galore outside in my grandfather’s orchard. There were roses and lillies and chrysanthemums and dahlias that he loved to grow. There were cows, and hence an abundance of milk and sweets. There were dogs and cats to play with and befriend. Occasionally wild animals from the nearby forests would come into the orchard. Power outages were less common than our real home and there was always water. There was a big red tube-well whose sound I can still hear in my head if I just think about it.

Distanced From Feet

      As I was walking up the stairs last night, I actually felt a little distanced from my feet. This distancing is important so that I don’t feel like a fraud, and its proof of having grown up.

In my early childhood I was rather prone to falling, usually to my knees. If rocks are really dust and if dust is our final destiny and since I fell on the so many rocks that lay in my path, it makes me feel like all that falling was really a subconscious desire to pray. 

But much before all of that. My two earliest memories. My sister and I playing with small plastic yellow cups. There were grown-ups around us sitting in chairs and sofas and we were on the ground and she said, “I said, hurry up!”. The other memory is that of me being where my grandparents used to live. I was in my aunt’s room where my mother asked me to eat something that she introduced as “bitter tea” using a mixture of Bengali and Hindi. We all need a little bitter tea in our lives.

A Curtsy to the Original "Lady"

I don’t know if Jane Austen would approve but I know that I approve. Ultimately that is what counts and this self-acceptance is what makes or unmakes us. With my trusty netbook, I have the good fortune of deleting a misspoken thought. Jane Austen however would have had to use scissors and pen-knives and mutilate paper. Paper, which my sister so rhapsodizes about.

        I am afraid of myself because of what I will reveal and also by what I will not. I hope by the end of it to have distanced myself from my feet and be happy. I hope I can get the words out. I remember attending university and dreaming about my English literature professor who was speaking to me, and sitting at my bedside. She told me that certain things are difficult to speak about, and I was trying to agree with her but I could not even get the words out. Although dreaming, I felt the weight of rocks weighing down my tongue. There are some dreams no matter how old,that I refuse to forget. My sister told me that I was a woman of few words between the ages of one and ten. People would visit us, and the grown-ups would ask the predictable questions are generally asked of small children, I would always look to my sister to do all of that for me. I don’t know if I necessarily know how to use my words now but I certainly can attempt. I know speaking all of this out would definitely be a bit more of a challenge.