A whiff of Jasmine

A whiff of jasmine

I am five again.

Trotting beside my father.

The village temple

The warm granite courtyard

Pillars black with lamp soot.

A blast of cold air

Laden with scents-

Lamp oil

Tulsi leaves

Camphor

And jasmine.

Always jasmine.

I inhale deep.

Jasmine. A thick garland

In life my father was austere

In death, covered with flowers.

Jasmine, rose, tuberose

A chain of tulsi leaves.

Nothing registers

Except the smell of jasmine.

He slides into the furnace.

The doors slam shut.

He is gone.

I am left with jasmine.

Fear

Fear.

That thing you are taught to conquer. To deny.

The only thing you have to fear is fear itself you remind yourself when you face yet another situation you cannot control. You learn to manage the fear.

You make decision trees, you assess the risks, you assign weightages, and you tell yourself that even the worst isn’t as bad as the fear you have. You pat yourself on the head. You think you have conquered fear.

And yet, there days when you wake up at night, petrified for no reason. You are engulfed in fear, but you have no idea of what. Your normal strategies don’t work. You are paralysed. And you do not know why. This is primal fear.

You try hard not to think about it. It eventually fades away like a shadow does when the candle flickers out. And yet, you know the fear exists. And you know it will come back when you least expect it to.

And then Carrie Fisher comes along. “Stay afraid but do it anyway”, she says. That beautiful, flawed lady. The woman so different from the character she plays, yet so intrinsically linked to it. She tells you that your entire life was a myth. That you should be afraid.

Water terrifies me. It has since the time I nearly drowned when I was 7. Nobody ever spoke about the incident; most people I am sure forgot about it. But I never did. Even after I forced myself to learn to swim, I could never let myself go underwater. That moment of weightlessness when I dived wouldn’t last long. I’d come spluttering the surface. To safety.

I knew I had to go scuba diving. I had to tell my fear I was stronger than it was. The practice sessions were hard. Even though I knew very little could go wrong, I just couldn’t stay underwater.

Fear. My old friend refused to leave.

But Carrie Fisher was more persuasive. “Stay afraid but do it anyway”, whispered.

“Breathe continuously and never hold your breath.” The Golden Rule.

Breathe in and breathe out. Twelve meters down. Caught in school of fish rushing out of class at the ringing of a bell.

Breathe in and breathe out. That’s a pretty fish. Should we follow it home?

Breathe in and breathe out. Check the tank. Has it really been 30 minutes? Where did fear go?

You pause awhile at 3 meters. Breathe in and breathe out.

Then break out onto the surface. You cannot control your smile. That fear that ruled your life for 40 years is no more.

Yes, be afraid, but do it anyway. It is worth it.

You still fear fear. You know it may be back anytime. You know that all the knowledge and intellect cannot save you from fear. Yet you also know that fear need not stop you from doing anything.

You can be afraid and do it anyway.

Be Kind to Yourself

"The world does not revolve around you."

I don’t know who else needs to hear this, but I certainly do. There are days when I am almost paralyzed because of what is happening in the world around me.

Violence. Injustice. Poverty. Hopelessness.

A virus. Cyclones. Locusts.

A world seemingly spiraling out of control.

It breaks us. Every story of suffering. Of women giving birth and continuing on their journey. Of men almost reaching home after walking several hundred miles, and coming to hear of the death of a child. Of the wife who kept waiting for her husband to return, not knowing he had died and been cremated. Of the man who died of hunger because there was no food to be bought on train he was on.

We feel guilty because we cannot do enough.

But we need to realize that we have limited means, limited influence, limited time.

We can do our best, but that’s all we can do. We cannot feed every hungry person. We cannot bring back any of the lives lost to negligence. We certainly cannot change the direction of a cyclone so it expends it’s fury over the sea. We cannot reverse what has been done.

If we could, we would. But we can’t.

And beating ourselves up doesn’t help.

All it does is break us from within.

And then we feel guilty about feeling the way we do. We tell ourselves that others are worse off than us, and we have no right to feel broken or scared. It seems almost disloyal to acknowledge our helplessness. But the reality is that we are all overwhelmed, confused, worried.

Just because someone is worse off doesn't mean we cannot give in to our fears. Our feelings are real too. Very real.

We too are badly affected. And our emotional needs also count. Being kind to others is important, but before that, we need to be kind to ourselves too.

We should continue to be empathetic. Because empathy is what makes us what we are. But we should not allow our empathy to incapacitate us.

Chai...

I smile in anticipation after finding a piece of shriveled ginger in the fridge. With fresh ginger no longer available, this piece is pregnant with possibilities. I drop it into boiling water, and wait for the flavours to seep out.
Ginger is not just ginger. It can be adrakwali chai.
Chai!

“Thoda chai patti aur shakkar de sakte ho?”, a man asked my friend when she at the grocer.
A stranded laborer, he was getting food from the government. But it was chai he craved for.
She gave him all the money in her purse, wishing she had more.
Back in the space which his family inhabits, he will brew chai for his wife and child. As they sip the sugary concoction together, at least for a few moments, the city would feel like home.
Chai is not just chai. It never was. Chai is belonging.

I drop the Red Label chaipatti in. And wait.

In camps where stranded laborers are housed, they wait for 4 pm. Chaitime.
Today there is no chai. The camps have run out of money. They barely have enough for food.
Reduce the food, they say, but give us our chai.
Chai is not an essential, but it is necessary to stay alive.

The steaming beverage on a hot summer day. The sugar rush it provides.
Chai is belonging.
It is the feeling of being wanted.
Of letting you forget you situation.
Of making you feel that you are in control.
I pour the chai into my favourite mug, and inhale deeply. The pungency of the ginger hits me like a tsunami. Carries me away to the ocean where only chai drinkers go.
Friendship
Gratitude
Togetherness
Passion
Addiction
Joy
Necessity
Chai means different things to different people.

Handloom Face Masks

 Couple of weeks back, a friend and I were joking about getting handloom face masks to match our blouses. I was dreaming of face masks in ikat and indigo mul, when the pop-up ads started appearing.

Two and three layer masks in handloom or handprinted cotton. Some reversible, all beautiful.

They were so beautiful, and with the linkages to providing livelihood in the handloom sector, and for women tailors, they appealed on more than just aesthatics.

But do these masks really work? When I set out to find out, I realised that most of those mask do not serve the purpose for which they are designed.

The purpose of the masks is to act as a physical barrier to prevent the spread of the virus through respiratory droplets suspended in the atmosphere. Which means, the fabrics and/ or combination of fabrics should be tested for the ability to filter out particles.

The efficiency of filtration of these aerosols was tested on various fabrics and combination of fabrics, especially cotton. Since the size of the droplet is not known, the fabrics were tested for aerosols from 10 nm to ∼10 μm sizes.

Details of the study are given in the article, but to sum up, a double layer was more effective than a single layer, and a combination of fabrics worked better than multiple layers of the same fabric.

Two layers of cotton provides protection of above 70%, but only if thread count is 600 TPI.

Coming to handlooms. Handloom is not densely woven, and has thread count of 80-200. Two layers of 80 TPI provides protection as low as 40%.

Though handlooms look nice, they aren't effective as face masks.

The most effective masks would be a combination of cotton-silk or cotton-chiffon, but both fabrics should have tight weaves.

In the absence of a certifying authority, we should be careful before buying and using a handloom mask- if it doesn't protect, is it worth wearing?

We should certainly support handloom and handmade, but we should also insist on the face masks performing the purpose for which they are designed.

Incidentally, four layers of silk (a scarf wound around) provides upto 85% protection.

Details here- https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.0c03252#

Photograph taken from the web.

To continue to be kind

I almost don’t want to go to Facebook any more. All my friends are cooking elaborate five course meals, and participating in book readings and saree challenges. But for me, just ensuring the family (including dog) is fed and clothed seems like a major achievement.

Every day is like being on a treadmill. Meals, laundry, work, worry. You are running all the time, but even after putting in your best effort, you are exactly where you stared. The meal gets consumed, and you have to think of the next one. Laundry keeps piling up.

I admire the people who are baking their own bread- crusty, melt in the mouth buns for teatime. But I cannot be like them. I will shamelessly admit that I have taught my kids to fix themselves Maggie for lunch on days when I just cannot get myself to enter the kitchen.

There are people working on embroidery projects and learning Madhubani painting. I tell myself if I do something creative, it will help. But helping solve a trigonometry problem is about all I am capable of doing in my current mental state.

To all the people saying that if you do not come out of the lockdown without having learnt a new skill, all you lacked is discipline, I will only say, ‘Good for you that you are able’. But I can’t and it is not discipline that is lacking. It is the will.

We are in the middle of a pandemic. We are worried about ourselves. We are worried about our loved ones. There are nights when I can’t sleep worrying about my mother who is alone in another state 600 kms away. I worry about her.

I worry about the economy which was in bad shape even before the Lockdown, and which will only get worse. I worry about the recession that will come. I worry about how many people will slip further into poverty. I worry about increasing violence at home and on the streets.

I know that my worrying will not help. But it paralyses me. It prevents me from being creative and productive. Every night, while going to bed, I tell myself that tomorrow I will make the effort and wear kajal. But if I even comb my hair before noon, that’s an achievement.

There is just one thing I am able to do for myself. Every evening, I fix myself a strong mug of coffee, and sip it on the balcony while watching the sun paint its masterpiece on the western horizon. It is those 15 minutes of emptiness that keeps me sane and grounded.

And I tell myself that this is not a competition. I do not have to submit samples of my creativity to be graded by anyone. I do not have to make lists of books read, and movies watched. I do not have to be smarter and slimmer. I only have to continue being kind.

For me, and for many like me, survival is enough. If I come out of the lockdown with my sanity intact and without having lost my humanity, that’s enough. Paula Radcliffe can run a marathon in 2:15:25. If I turn up at the starting line, that is good enough.

Mere Survival is enough

 I almost don’t want to go to Facebook any more. All my friends are cooking elaborate five course meals, and participating in book readings and saree challenges. But for me, just ensuring the family (including dog) is fed and clothed seems like a major achievement.

Every day is like being on a treadmill. Meals, laundry, work, worry. You are running all the time, but even after putting in your best effort, you are exactly where you stared. The meal gets consumed, and you have to think of the next one. Laundry keeps piling up.

I admire the people who are baking their own bread- crusty, melt in the mouth buns for teatime. But I cannot be like them. I will shamelessly admit that I have taught my kids to fix themselves Maggie for lunch on days when I just cannot get myself to enter the kitchen.

There are people working on embroidery projects and learning Madhubani painting. I tell myself if I do something creative, it will help. But helping solve a trigonometry problem is about all I am capable of doing in my current mental state.

To all the people saying that if you do not come out of the lockdown without having learnt a new skill, all you lacked is discipline, I will only say, ‘Good for you that you are able’. But I can’t and it is not discipline that is lacking. It is the will.

We are in the middle of a pandemic. We are worried about ourselves. We are worried about our loved ones. There are nights when I can’t sleep worrying about my mother who is alone in another state 600 kms away. I worry about her.

I worry about the economy which was in bad shape even before the Lockdown, and which will only get worse. I worry about the recession that will come. I worry about how many people will slip further into poverty. I worry about increasing violence at home and on the streets.

I know that my worrying will not help. But it paralyses me. It prevents me from being creative and productive. Every night, while going to bed, I tell myself that tomorrow I will make the effort and wear kajal. But if I even comb my hair before noon, that’s an achievement.

There is just one thing I am able to do for myself. Every evening, I fix myself a strong mug of coffee, and sip it on the balcony while watching the sun paint its masterpiece on the western horizon. It is those 15 minutes of emptiness that keeps me sane and grounded.

And I tell myself that this is not a competition. I do not have to submit samples of my creativity to be graded by anyone. I do not have to make lists of books read, and movies watched. I do not have to be smarter and slimmer. I only have to continue being kind.

For me, and for many like me, survival is enough. If I come out of the lockdown with my sanity intact and without having lost my humanity, that’s enough. Paula Radcliffe can run a marathon in 2:15:25. If I turn up at the starting line, that is good enough.