My 'green' terrace

 

And finally, my plants in waiting:

 

Lost and found

48. I am 48. 4 and 8. Forty-eight. A numerologist once told me that 4 and 8 together are not a good combination. Seeing the way this year has gone by so far and the way it stretches ahead, I would he was BANG ON! OK, I understand it now, I am believer, can I go get some rest now? If only life was like a school, learn your lesson, give a test, go home, forget about school, do some homework, go out and play, eat my dessert and go to sleep. But in life you give the test, then learn your lesson, the only difference between homework and play is perspective, and I am sure as hell still waiting for my dessert! Only one thing is for sure – there will be a long rest at the end of it.

I am bitter. Why am I bitter? Is it because I lost almost everyone dear to me in an accident 8 years ago? Or maybe I have turned into this crone with a cackle because I just cannot feel anything anymore? My only child, my darling Sonia survived, but in what condition? The shock of the accident, the aftermath, the mutilated bodies of her dad, aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparents, the screams – I don’t think she was ever able to make it all go away…So what did she do? She went away! Today, she is alive and healthy, but there is no one home inside that tiny 10 year old body. She is like a shrivelled sunflower, who has forgotten what it is like to be in presence of the Sun, who has forgotten the very existence of the Sun, and consequently her own.

I have tried to do everything I can to erase the past horrors. I have been to all the top doctors in the world (money is no object to us, you see) and have tried almost all scientific/holistic/ayurvedic remedies that doctors and grandmas have recommended in these eight very long years. We have switched many houses and cities in order to find a place that may somehow awaken something in Sonia. We have now come to a new city that has a reputation of having something for everyone. It’s old and new at the same time like most ancient cities.

We have been here almost a year and we have fallen into a sort of pleasant routine. There is a rather loud, kitschy, and jostling market nearby and I take Sonia there every morning with me. She shrinks even more in such crowd, but she never protests, at least there she seems to finally become invisible. I try to invent new ways of getting and coming back from there – sometimes, we go on foot, sometimes in car; we go in and come out different ways – anything to get even the slightest of reactions. So far, nothing. And it doesn’t seem things are about to improve today.

The weather is rather humid, we have come out in the evening instead of morning, we are walking, and for some reason, both I and Sonia have a jacket on. Really, I must give up my cold showers, they seem to do the job of numbing my brains a little too well. I am trying the path that goes by the key-makers’ group of shops, and then it happens… A sound floats, something undecipherable, almost like shouting, but non-threatening. It seems as if some people repeating something over and over, very loudly. No wait! Not people’s, these are children’s voices. They seem to be learning something by repeating it. It’s almost hypnotic the way they keep chanting the same indecipherable phrase again and again. For the first time in 10 years, something has caught Sonia’s attention.

We follow the sound and reach a quiet madarsa behind the key-makers’ shops. An old man with a heena-dyed beard looks at in mild surprise. After a moment of staring, he cracks open a smile, with paan stains all over his slowly rotting teeth. “Asslaam Aleqam, madamji,” he says in slightly slurred voice, shifting his half-chewed paan from his right cheek to left,” have you lost your way around here?” I nod in a non-committal way and indicate upward from where the chanting seems to be coming. “Ahhhh,” he lets out a slightly nauseous breath, “so you are one of the generous ones, is it? You have come to help these poor kids continue their education? Though I must say,” he continued, “you don’t look like the usual NGO type or even the charitable socialite type, not that this is a popular charity or something…,” he trailed off.

I finally find my voice and decide that it is time to remove this scared and bleached expression of my rather wrinkly, over made-up face. “I was going to the market, when I heard this sound, of children repeating something, over and over again. I guess I was pulled in this direction.” His eyes seemed to become a lot shrewder, his manner graver and less mocking. “God resides in children, madamji, and when they invoke the Name of God in their innocent and pure voice, not many can ignore it,” he continued, “though God knows we choose to so, everyday, again and again and then again.” By now his eyes had a faraway look, where he seemed to be looking at a picture hung on a distant wall in a big art gallery.

“Do you think…I-we- I mean that…you see…,” I fumbled with choosing the right words, “maybe we can…” More fumbling took place. “Can you let u-us…” By now I was looking in every direction but his face and was contemplating a fast exit plan. But those sharp eyes over his hawk-like nose were not just meant to look, they were meant for searing inside your soul. Not that he needed any insight to see my very obvious discomfort. He asked so gently that I almost jumped out of my skin, “You wish to go inside, madamji?” I nodded and looked at Sonia for the first time during the entire conversation. She was staring at the open window directly above us from where the voices were still coming.

We went up through narrow, rough and but swept staircase. A class like I had never seen before was in session. There were roughly 40 children there, more than half were boys sitting on the right side and the remaining were girls sitting on the left. Right through the middle ran a tattered piece of once-fine muslin curtain. The teacher, who was called the maulawi as I later learned, was teaching them the Urdu alphabet. He would say one letter and the entire class will repeat it. They would do the entire alphabet at least 10 times, and then begin again till it’s time for the class to get over. The faces of these children seemed to run into one another. There were no uniforms, hell, some of them did not even have entire set of clothes on. And yet, there was no complain on their faces. They were not ashamed to be standing next to our finery and in their less than fortunate attire. They were curious, but not angry. They had no sense of being victims of fate. They were just being there. They were just being.

A shock went through my entire system. My life came full circle to me then and there. This is what I had been avoiding. Thinking about past and future, in order to avoid the present. The present. The present that had Sonia. I resented her. I resented her becoming what she had become but also for being in my life. She had tied me down to her with my love for her. I could not leave her; I could not live with her; so I avoided her. I just went through the motions – just as absent as she was. I turned to look as Sonia. She had started crying silently. Her lips were quivering. She finally was reacting to something.

We went outside and waited for the class to get over. After that we went in and I spoke to the maulawi and told him everything about Sonia. I begged him to take her in as a student. But he refused. He said that the madarsa was for Muslim kids, and we were Hindus. This was highly unusual. I begged. I offered money for the madarsa. I threatened (with racism, discrimination all such words). I cried. I pleaded and then I pleaded some more. To no avail. Even the kind man with the henna-dyed beard kept shaking his head the entire time. Beaten, I decided to finally leave. As I turned towards Sonia to lead her out of the hallowed grounds, I felt a bolt of electricity pass through me. The other two men also turned their heads to see what I had seen. Sonia was sitting next to a small boy who had been asked by the maulawi to stay back and finish writing the letters one more time, and was trying to mouth the sound that she had been listening all this while. In one moment, it all came together for the both the men. They looked at each other and some silent message was exchanged. I had still not found my tongue, or my legs for that matter. I just could not tear my gaze from my precious Sonia. Some force seemed to be sapping away all my strength, all my accumulated resentments, my rigidness…. I felt weak and strong at once.

For a few minutes, no one said a word. My tongue had turned soggy and I was afraid I will gag on it and die on the spot. The maulawi then picked up his pen, opened his register and said, “What is the full name of the child? Do you think she can start from tomorrow?” I could not trust my now-turned-to-cotton tongue so I just nodded, and then just kept nodding through my tears. Whatever happened after that is a blur. The man with the henna-dyed beard called me an autorickshaw and instructed him to take me home safely. He asked for my exact address and once he was able to make sense of my garbled attempt at giving him my address, he explained the same to the autowallah.

* * * * * * *

“Mom,” she whispers and I am shaken out of my reverie. “Mom,” she says again and extends a notebook towards me. Sonia had promised to bring a present for me today. She has been going to the madarsa for almost 1 year now. In a few more months, she will be able to go to a regular school too. Of course, she will not be leaving this evening school of hers that has become her second home. She still does not speak much, but she is no longer absent. She is present, right here, right beside me, as am I for her. I no longer loose myself into poetry and prose of yesteryears, all the while ignoring the now.

Here she is, my little drop of light, extending her notebook towards me… I start leafing through it; her eyes are watching me, with bated breath, looking for any sign of change in expression. “Sweetie, I don’t see anything here, it seems blank, is there any other notebook you want me to –” and then I saw it. In the middle of the notebook that mostly had illegible doodles, see had written my name, in Urdu. The teacher had written my name in parenthesis in Hindi so that I should know what it is, but I knew before I saw the translation. I was so overcome with emotion that I just sat there stunned for moments together. Sonia must have been confused with this reaction, so I just hugged her tight and kissed and thanked her. Many times over.

That night, after I had put her to sleep, I went to pick up the notebook and look at the labour of love again. Our tears had mixed and fallen on the sheet that had my name on it and had smudged the writing form here and there. For a second I panicked thinking that I had messed my most precious gift, but then just as quickly I realised that the smudges were not really smudges – they were shaped like my daughter’s new wings.