Witness to tell

As my bai who was devotedly moping on the floor looked up to tell me something, I hurriedly blinked away the tear drops that were swelling up in my eyes. She has a score of horror stories in her stock which she once in a while takes out in her attempt to entertain me; the Agarwal bahu who jumped into the well next to the water tank with her two kids and one in her womb, the drunkard maid who boiled her master’s baby in the cooker in order to vindicate her being stopped to drink, her own husband lurking around to hit her whenever the opportunity strikes and so on.
I was watching one of the news channels which was continuously showing the flood victims of Bihar. The river Kosi or the ‘river of sorrow’ as it is notoriously called had changed its course again to wash away the simple and humble dreams of thousands of human beings. The channel was continuously showing people begging for help and wailing, unable to find their families, successfully projecting the helplessness of the distraught. I am reminded of the 2001 earthquake which hit Bhuj. My husband was posted in Nalia that time which is just a 100 km from Bhuj. He had gone on a course to Hyderabad and so I had gone home to Kerala with my son. I witnessed the devastation when I went to Nalia a month later. A cousin of mine, who was in the US that time, told me that the US media reported the earthquake in Bhuj as if India was yet another country in the African continent. She felt humiliated at the thought of her country being treated as underdeveloped undernourished underprivileged and under what not..

Truth is always painful. Our media was not so advanced seven years ago to dramatize whatever was happening in our vast subcontinent, but now; they are.
With at least half a dozen news channels in every regional language they reach everywhere and what they show though sensationalized, is or should be, true. The flood in Bihar has been declared as a national disaster and a thousand crore rupees has been declared as aid. As a common citizen of this mighty nation and a silent witness of our degrading corruption I could only imagine the celebrations and joy that would immediately fill the minds of a certain group of people who would definitely benefit from the relief money. But I could not imagine a smile on the faces which I saw on the television; a young girl who was crying for her mother who could not be rescued and a man who with folded hands was begging to god to see his family alive. We are only pathetic watchers of the media; who are aware of what is happening and what is to happen; given the general behavior of our bureaucrats and politicians. Again, why blame them when we as citizens are their creators as well.
A week before, when the nationwide strike proudly organized by some of our leading political parties brought all transports to a standstill, the media found an unlucky mother who lost her two year old son and was not able to reach her son’s dead body as she was more than 200km away stuck in the nationwide strike unable to find a transport. That wailing mother, clutching her mobile phone in distraught must have made all mothers who were watching her cry with her as I certainly did. What else is the Indian population supposed to do? Silently watch the atrocities of a minority of the population and then cry, cry with all one’s heart at ones helplessness in an age where all one can become is a very able witness.
I switched off the television and turned to my bai. She has recently come to know about a man in Pune who roams around with a knife, ready to strike and kill to steal watches and purses. Won’t anybody give up their watches and purses in order to save their lives? Why would anyone need to kill them?

I wrote this when we were in Bhutan

‘So, how long can you stay here?’ This is the first or final question I encounter every time I appear before an interview for a teaching job. Keeping aside my certificates of qualifications and whatever fragments of experiences I can claim about, this question lingering in the eyes of my would be or would not be employers reverberates in my mind too. I am an air force officer’s wife. Does that award me the certificate of a gypsy or a nomad? However sincere I am in my job, the sincerity I owe and show to my family of a husband and two sons make my superiors and colleagues eye me with suspicion because they know that with a posting signal of my husband I will be out of my job.
The plethora of experiences that I and my sons have had just because of my husband being in service is something any one could boast about; just like a retired army man in a village tea shop opening his oft repeated bundle of valor. I have studied from nursery to tenth standard in one school; my son who is 8 years old is attending his eighth school. That’s not all; he has also studied different languages in different schools, Malayalam, Hindi and Dzongkha. Thanks to the universal language English he could learn his math and science without any breaks.
Somebody who was terribly bored with his job recently told me that I was lucky that I can lead the protected life of a housewife. The other day when I had to leave my job of 8 months as a teacher I heard my elder son ask his father,’ Acha so amma will be a house wife now?’ My husband reprimanded him by saying that his mother is a qualified teacher and should not be called a housewife. For eight months I was totally busy with my job and home. All of a sudden I felt my clock has stopped leaving me alone to push and pull the needle of time ahead. Never to belittle the job of a housewife or a ‘home maker’; to put it euphemistically; modern technology has reduced the strain and stress of household chores to such an extent that people like me find plenty of time to spare. I always make an effort to make myself believe that I am busy. When I had all the time to myself, I suddenly realized that the carpets needed a wash and the music system had to have its cover changed. The kitchen towels were dirty and so was the dining table cloth. There were lots of books that I wanted to read and lot to think.
Still, staring at the spinning wheel of water from the garden fountain or gazing at the mountain ridges covered with snow, listening to the rugged music of the chilling winds on the valley and the chirping of the betel nut sized sparrows on the trees I muse upon my loneliness, to bring bliss to my solitude. I am no poet; still, I write odes to nobody in moments of dejection; I wait for April to plant the seeds of flowers and watch them every morning and evening for signs of growth gathering hopes for; ‘If winter comes can spring be far behind?’