O mio Luciano caro!

It was the 6th of September, 2007. I wore black to work. Having gone through the first three of the Kübler-Ross Stages of Grief, I was at present wallowing in the fourth: depression. I sure as hell wasn’t going to move on to Number Five: Acceptance.

I cry. I mourn. I beat my chest. Why, Luciano, why did you leave us?

Would there ever be a tenor like him again? Sorry Placido, good-looking as you are (were), you can’t cut it and let’s not even mention the ‘other guy’. And Juan Diego Florez: you are really, really cute, but you need to get a beard first…and a voice and the girth of Pavarotti.

My family cannot appreciate the music. It usually sends them running from the room, hands over their ears. (Nota bene: mothers who want peace). They agree with Peter Boyle when he remarked, “Opera? Just what the world needs: more fat women screaming”.

They cannot understand my infatuation with opera either. She’ll get over it, they console each other. Remember the other phases she went through? Watching baseball: an addiction that cost my family their dinner every night. Scrap-booking: they called Michaels to stop sending me their 40% off coupons. The Vegetable Garden: which didn’t last long, because my husband said it was hard for him to digest tomatoes that cost five dollars each. Eating edamame: I ate them day and night, in addition to adding them to every dish... till my daughter found them in the khitchdee and cried: Enough is enough!! (It then evolved into a caramelized-onion obsession, but putting it in desi khana was something even I could not bring myself to do).

I cannot explain this love, this addiction, this obsession I have. Just before chocolate and just after Jeopardy. The passion for opera may run in an Italian’s blood as sure as spaghetti sauce, but we Indians prefer Bollywood and Bhangra ...(as sure as haldi in our blood). But there it is: all the CDs in my car…Pavarotti to the power of six.

People say the Art of Opera=The Art of Dying. Sometimes macabre, always melodramatic, almost all of them end in murder or suicide, and if the audience is lucky – both. La Traviata. Aida. Tosca. Carmen. Romeo and Juliet. Rigoletto. La Bohème. Il Trovatore. Otello. And of course the peerless maudlin masterpiece: Pagliacci. The list is longer than the governments of Italy (about 60 since 1946?).

It is emotionally draining, which is why you don’t see a lot of people clamoring to get tickets to La Scala or the Met. Today they want to emerge from an evening’s entertainment with a feeling that they just spent a day at Disneyland, not Auschwitz. Of course, if I went to see something like Clueless or Zoolander or Dumb and Dumber, I would make sure to order cyanide instead of popcorn at the concession stand. I could include Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, but that is my kids’ favorite movie, which just goes to show that I didn’t raise them right.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe people don’t go to the opera, because it is not cheap. Cheaper than an iPad perhaps, but can Aida download apps??

“Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive”, said Molière. What was he talking about in 17th century? Why didn’t he try going today? Turandot cost me one month’s mortgage and I would’ve gone to Tosca, except I chose to feed my family for the next year instead. So I do the next best thing. I watch the performances on the wide screen. Met Live screens simultaneous podcasts. And near enough to my house and cheap enough for my wallet: five miles and twenty bucks. Can’t beat that. You do have to beat the Senior Citizen army that gets there two hours in advance to save seats, and maneuver your way past the wheelchairs and walkers that line the gangway. Nary a brown face in sight, but I do see a lot a lot of wrinkles and gray hair. Aah! I am with my people.

In keeping with the theatric side of this genre (and my personality), I have chosen what songs to play at my funeral, starting appropriately with Pavarotti’s “Mamma”. Only an Italian could sing with such emotion and dedicate a song to his mother. Did Puccini have his in mind with Senza Mamma? Both these will be followed by Che Farò Senza Euridice. Vesti la Giubba. And lastly Lasciatemi Morire- a bit ironic, considering I should be dead already. (It means ‘Let me die’). There better not be one dry eye during my wake. None of that eating and drinking stuff, nor that uthamna-ish sitting-in-silence. I’ll give them something to remember me by.

I regret not catching the opera-virus earlier and going to listen to Pavarotti live. Never mind. The power technology: DVDs, You Tube and TV to the rescue. The local public station airs his special on a regular basis, and I can watch and weep…with him when he sings Una Furtive Lagrima, soar with hope at the end of Nessun Dorma (Vincerò! I shout in unison) or giggle with the braggadocio of his conquests as Don Giovanni. Radames or Rodolfo, Edgardo or Otello, Calaf or Cavaradossi – Pavarotti, you are The Man.

My next trip to Italy will include a visit to Modena. To offer a wreath and lay a white handkerchief for my King. The King of the high Cs.

Requiescat in Pace, mi caro Luciano.

I want to reach as many people as possible with the message of music, of wonderful opera.

Luciano Pavarotti

Glossary:

khitchdee: rice and lentil dish

haldi: turmeric

desi khana: Indian food

uthamna: Indian mourning ceremony

When Harry met Daddy

My father entertained a lot. And not just on weekends. Sometimes three, four times a week.

I rarely bothered to ask who he had invited. It could be someone my dad met at a Rotary meeting, at a party, on a plane or in some country. It could be someone, who knew someone, who knew my dad. Or even someone, who didn’t know someone, who didn’t know my dad. He handed out invitations like one hands out candy at Halloween. Some guests popped in for tea, some came for dinner, others ensconced themselves in the guest room and overstayed their welcome by days, weeks, and yes, even months. Mi casa non es tu casa, I wanted to tell them. I was ready to cross-stitch the saying “Guests are like fish - they stink after three days” and hang it by the front door.

One evening, Dad came home from work and told me to prepare for dinner guests. This time, I did ask who was coming…and all I got was a cryptic ‘The guy who makes those James Bond films’. I was impressed. My dad knew about James Bond!! Being in the film business, you would think he would take in a movie now and again - either Western or Hindi. But no. When ‘Star Wars’ came out, I remember dragging him to see it. He started snoring before the titles even finished – not that I blame him. So sue me, sci-fi shit ain't my scene either.

We were often invited to Hindi film premières. These were (and are) the Big Events of the day. People called on favors, pulled strings and bribed unscrupulously for the much-coveted invitations. This was a chance to see the Bombay glitterati up close and personal. For my dad, it was more of a business commitment than an evening’s entertainment. He would schmooze with the producers and directors, promising to supply them with enough raw stock to complete their film and then leave by intermission.

Meeting Yash Chopra or Gulshan Rai or Dilip Kumar was one thing. Ghar ki murghi dal barabar. But the guy who makes James Bond movies?? Wow! I thought immediately of Albert Broccoli. With a name like, it takes center stage and the co-producer becomes ‘the other guy’.

The other guy was Harry Saltzman, who came with his wife Jacquie. Apparently, Harry’s people had made a few calls to find out who they could contact in India for some help to visit a swami. And they contacted my dad. And the swami they wanted to visit was Sathya Sai Baba.

Jacquie had terminal cancer and with all the treatments and the doctors all over the world, she was not given much time to live. Someone had told the family about this swami in India, who was known to perform miracles and so here they were. Pinning their last hope on this man, they had made the trip to India.

Now when someone like Harry Salzman says ‘Where is Bangalore?’ you don’t give him a map and tell him the next flight is at 7 pm. So my dad accompanied them to South India.

As I recall, my father said the Sathya Sai Baba did one of his famous miracles of producing vibhuti or ash out of thin air. Even as a non-believer, my father was floored. The Sai Baba apparently gave Jacquie a pearl and asked her to put it in a glass of water every night and to drink the water the next morning. I guess it is not up to me to decide whether it was a miracle or the power of faith, but I heard she beat the odds for a long time and eventually succumbed to the big C sometime in late 76 or early 77.

As for the Sai Baba, he has numerous followers all over the world. His organizations support various charitable institutions including free schools and hospitals. However, several corroborative reports also show him to be a charlatan and a fraud. More and more allegations surface as the years go by – sexual abuse and corruption, illegal fund-raising and the best yet, an announcement that he would appear on the moon. Spoiler alert! He didn’t.

My father also learned later that his ‘miracle’ of producing ash was apparently aided by a compressed ash tablet between his fingers.

As for Harry, he reciprocated by inviting us to visit him in England. I was in college and busy studying for my finals, but my sister Varsha gladly took him up on his offer and came back with wonderful stories of being a guest at his estate and dining with Michael Caine and his beautiful new wife Shakira.

Harry’s film “Live and Let Die” was about to be released at the time of her visit and he invited her to the premiere where she was told she would get to sit right next to (Sir) Paul McCartney, who had composed the song. It was a good thing she couldn’t make it. It was hard enough to get her to stop bragging about Michael and Harry, but had she met Paul, for sheer jealousy, I would have changed the title to “Me Live, You Die”.

Cry Baby

I have become a putz. The Poster Child of Weepers.

I cry at everything. A beautiful rose. An awesome sunset. Weddings. Funerals. Peeling onions. A Hallmark commercial. Aw, c’mon. You have to be special kind of hardass not to cry at those. Methinks they are in cahoots with the Kleenex guys.

I cry at sappy endings of mushy movies. Beaches. Ghost. Together. Departures. Tsotsi. Parent Trap. Well, excuuuse me!! if I become maudlin at the sight of a family reconnected. My husband has banned me from watching “An Affair to Remember”. He finds it easier to understand the complex hydraulics of Bernoulli’s Principle rather than the waterworks of the sniffling pulp whimpering on the sofa. Deborah Kerr looks up at Cary Grant with those water-logged eyes and says, “Darling, don’t look at me like that. …I was looking up…It was the nearest thing to heaven…” and the dam gates burst forth.

I soak up other people’s misfortunes and miseries like a sponge and wring it out with waterworks. I feel their pain.

I cry when something bad happens. A pile up on the I 5. A friend gets cancer. Wasabi up my nose. A war. An oil spill (let’s be current here). A dead bee in my pool (Seriously. This is a cry for help).

I cry when something good happens. The 16-year old lost-at-sea sailor found. A homeless guy wins the lottery. A photo of a veteran coming home. Every Mother’s Day/Birthday/Anniversary Card from my kids. Something in my eye, I say. Allergies, I apologize. Please stop with the cards, I tell them. Put Hallmark and Kleenex out of business.

I cry when nothing happens. No chocolate in the pantry. No Jeopardy on TV. No call from my son. He should have reached by now. I am a worrier and a crier. Paranoia disintegrates into Panic Mode, straight to Lachrymal Mode. While I am pulling my hair out and beating my chest hysterically, he calls with an apology. The tears turn to anger. A shouting match ensues. And I wonder why he doesn’t call more often.

My doctor has an answer for this: I am apparently ‘peri-menopausal’.

My family has a solution for this: they google ‘senicide’ and ‘eskimo’ and ‘ice-floe’. But change their mind when I start crying.

My Grandmother

What can one say about Ba, except that she was the epitome of the universal concept of a grandmother?

Her physique - soft and plump; her demeanor - sweet and gentle; both concealing a core of steel and an indomitability that belied the temperate exterior. Raised in the small town of Sarsa in Gujarat, she was married off in her early teens, as was the custom, to the son of a farmer, also a Patel. And as was the custom, my grandfather, Dada, changed her name and Rupa became Suraj – from ‘beautiful’ to the ‘sun’ – radiant in any name and form.

It was wonderful to sit on her bed as a child and listen to her stories; her rudraksha mala moving constantly, failing to skip a single bead. I rarely heard her describe her life in the village as being hard. There were no regrets, no complaints. It was true the wells of Ode were deep, and it chafed her hands raw as she pulled water, and that was that. She knew all the ways to eke out a living Dada’s meager schoolmaster paycheck. To save a matchstick, she would walk to the neighbor’s hut with a piece of scrap paper to get a light for her chulo.

Ba would regale us with the adventures, in the true sense, of life in the village. She once heard screams emanating from the outhouse. Choosing a broken-off branch as a form of self-defense, she rushed out of the hut. Dada stood cowering in a corner, pointing to the snake wending his way towards his bare feet. Calmly bringing the stick down on the snake with resounding force, she then carried it out and went back to the hut to continue rolling out the rotlis for dinner.

When my father contracted small pox, she carried him in her arms, some distance away, to the temple of Shitala Devi, the Goddess of Small Pox. She paid no heed to the naysayers about the chances of curing her son of the deadly and infectious disease. Whether it was her faith in the Devi, or her steely determination that her son would not and could not die, my father carried little else from the infection, but a few pock-marked scars on his face.

We heard about the pilgrimages she took, to faraway holy places. Pilgrimages that took weeks and months, in bullock carts, with real danger imposed on the travelers in the form of dacoits and wild animals. Whether these stories were apocryphal, just to keep our attention and give us that gentle frisson of fear, or whether they were actual accounts, one can only conjecture. I for one would prefer to believe the latter.

We had no cuddly toys to cling to in bed, no warm, fuzzy blankets. Ba was our security blanket. There were times when, even if fabricated, I would cry out, Ba! Sapnu ave che! using a nightmare as an excuse to crawl into her bed and snuggle up against her soft, talcum-smelling warmth. I would find the pallu of her sari and pull it over my head, rendering me invisible to the monsters, which would then hopefully pass over me in search of other six-year olds with no Ba for protection. We would repeat her nightmare-dispelling invocation together…Rajrasik, damyantinasevak, ratuparan, karkotak naag, korumtam, kari nastam! To say the names of the divinities out loud in rapid succession was to dispel the incubus and invite a deep and blissfully divine slumber. Most of the times, I would fall asleep out of the sheer boredom from the monotonous chanting, that had neither meaning, nor as a clear picture as with the proverbial fence-jumping sheep.

She was the rock we clung to, a pillar of moral rectitude. 'You see a pencil on the floor at school, do not touch it! You pick it up, and with it you pick up a piece of desire to keep something that does not belong to you!' Gentle admonitions on concepts of honesty, integrity and courage from someone who had never attended school, leave alone held a book in her hand and based purely on her own experience and the teachings of her elders, passed down through the ages.

Ba never grudged being brought from the village, where she could have lived out her remaining years in the peace and solitude of rural life. Instead, here she was, in a big city, in an apartment, looking after three, young motherless girls - ages 2, 4 and 6; girls, who fought in English, a language totally alien to her. She found it futile to intervene or admonish, not knowing what they were fighting about.

Aliyo! Jhampo ne! English ma su karva jhagdo cho! she would cry out, her open palm repeatedly smacking her forehead. Soon her patience would start running out, and she would fall back on invoking a few gods for the strength to deal with us. Seeing her distress, the fighting would stop and we would run to hug her, burrow ourselves in the folds of her blue sari and beg forgiveness.

With every death in the family, the color of her sari would change. As with the norm, I guess she must have started off with the traditional white for mourning, which changed to a maroon with my mother’s death, then to light blue with Dada’s, and finally in 1961 to black, with the death of her oldest son.

I was sixteen when Ba died. One minute she was asking for more sugar in her lemonade, the next she was gone, the nitroglycerin tablet still in her hand.

“As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.”

Leonardo da Vinci.

The Persistence of Memory

“There are two things that happen to you as you age. One is that you start losing your memory...and... I forgot the other one”. Email forward.



Salvador Dali seemed to have a handle on memory. He remembers what it was like in the womb - a paradisial period, so vividly clear to him, ‘as though it were yesterday’. (In case you are wondering, he elaborates in detail about his experience in this intra-uterine paradise, which was paradoxically the color of hell, the color of flames, and soft, warm and gluey. There was a bit about floating eggs, but I couldn’t read it as I was busy gagging).

It should come as no surprise that, like most normal or non-Dalian people, I cannot recall these prenatal images, because here I am, someone who cannot even remember what they had for breakfast. Now, I agree that this clichéd thought is apparently shared by anyone over the age of fifty-five – not that this prandial knowledge of is of vital importance to anyone.

Fair enough. But forgetting my son’s name is going to get me a ticket into the Hall of Shame ..and probably short-list me for the Worst Mother in the World award as well.

So here is how it went:

Mise en scène: Luncheon in India given in our honor. Bunch of my friends standing around with drinks in their hands. Son standing by my side. An old friend walks up to us. It seems an introduction is necessary at this point.

Me: Beta, this is Seema Aunty. We went to Elphinstone College together. Seema, this is my son…my son…”

I blink. My brain goes blank. I snap my fingers. I try to focus, to find his name in the flotsam and jetsam of my mental rolodex, which was whirring fast alphabetically.

I wished the earth would swallow me.

My embarrassment at this point was immense, but not as much as the pique my son was displaying on his already reddening face.

“Vivek,” he offered helpfully.

I should have stopped while the going was good. But then I had to add “He is fifteen.”

“SIXTEEN!” yelled my son, now really pissed off.

I looked at him with an ‘Are you sure?’ look.


Later that night, as I crawled into bed, I shamefacedly recounted what had transpired at the lunch. Apart from providing a wonderful sleep, the conjugal bed in our house serves as a confessional booth. It is pretty much a one-sided event, my husband playing the priest, me the sinner. I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘sinner’, but definitely a blabber-mouth. Latest transgressions are divulged and forgiven with either a smile, a kiss, an admonition and/or a lecture (sometimes with a snore).

As I admitted how I made a fool of myself or what a fool my memory made of me, I added the bit about his age. My husband looked totally stymied.

“Are you sure? I thought he was fourteen.”

A Trip off the Beaten Path

Ludiya turned out to be an absolute delight, and so was my serendipitous encounter with Rajshree. There is something to be said about spending quality time with someone pulling water from a well, sleeping on a charpai under the stars, eating bajra na rotla and mug ni khitchdee on a floor made of cow-dung patties and washing dishes using mud for soap (where is the Maytag repairman when you need him?).

The bathroom, and once again I use the term ‘bathroom’ loosely… about as loose as the door falling off its hinges. The toilet was your standard hole-in-the-ground kind, a cracked, plastic bucket in lieu of a shower, and offered no soap and no towel. And no, we did not use mud. Fortunately found one of the little hotel soaps in my kit, bless Marriott Suites and my dupatta doubled as a towel.

Being the intrepid sort, I went in first to take a bath. I cautioned Rajshree: the first shriek emanating from the bathroom would be the cold water hitting my body, the second if I saw a spider and the sound of a thud meant I had fainted upon seeing a snake.

The villagers of Ludiya made up for any discomfort and by a long shot. Ravabhai and Koraben were the most hospitable people I have ever had the fortune to stay with. Opening their doors and their hearts they welcomed us into their homes, as did the rest of the extended family. We were shown samples of the ‘bharat kam’ the women did to earn a living. The men, when they were not smoking bidis and lazing under the shade of a tree, made furniture and sold it in the neighboring towns. The women worked relentlessly the whole day.

The children went to the well to get water. While the 12 year olds walked back to the village balancing the heavy ghadas of water on their head with the grace of a model on a runway, Rajshree and I struggled holding one between the two of us. Half the water sloshed to the ground, as we lumbered and panted alongside. So much for ellipticals and lifting weights at the gym.

Using her experience with Teach for India, Rajshree has been back several times since then, expanding on their educational goals, training the teachers on high expectations, motivation, and using creativity and the environment as tools.

A trip to Ludiya, albeit off the beaten track, is a recommendation I can make wholeheartedly.