above, or around

| 2.5 MINUTE READ | A guest post by my daughter Shloka

I grew up in an apartment in the heart of Mumbai, where the smell of fish from the market below and the siren of trains entering the nearby station, washed into our home. At bedtime, as my mother softly read ‘Goodnight Moon’, I bid goodbye to nobody, to the air and to noises everywhere.

I am drawn to the inarticulate beauty of ordinary things. Of feeling loved by the monsoon sunlight, journeying many million miles before warmly crowding onto my face. Of the uncontaminated joy in my retriever Zoe’s wagging tail, as I lather her in bubbles and rinse her with warm water. Of noticing this overlapping coexistence within me, between the child that embraced that lullaby and the young adult that aspires to thrive in discovery.

Writing is an excavation. From the terrain of pretence towards the truths that nourish us. Which makes it hard to explore an unalloyed version of ourselves without both the victories and vulnerabilities that define us.

When I was 8 years old, India’s first professional orchestra began scouting the city for students to train. After auditions across the major schools in the area, they had a final shortlist of children from which they finally picked some. The orchestra director looked closely at my fingers before selecting me to play the cello. Then came the tidal wave of a rigorous routine.

For the next 5 years, on weekday evenings before dinner and weekend mornings before lunch – around truncated playtimes, amidst family vacations – my calloused fingers roamed over strings, forming a muscle memory of each note that my bow strokes harnessed into music.

In sounds, like the texture of our lives, lies a multi-layered story.

Bach’s first Cello Suite stirred within me a sense of tranquility, tragedy, and triumph, taking me beyond the concreteness of words into the energetic expansiveness of rhythm. As I began performing on stage, with my eyes closed and my heart open, the performer and audience diffused into the magic of an equal music.

In 2017, a pain in my left wrist that I assumed was strain from music practice, rapidly deteriorated, spread and immobilized me. I was diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Polyarticular Arthritis. ‘Idiopathic’ is a medical term used to define conditions arising from an unknown cause.

My mother refused the aggressive steroid treatment proposed to manage an ‘incurable’ disease. I began working with a nutritionist and yoga therapist, learnt to cook my meals free of gluten, dairy, lentils and sours. We began a quarterly schedule of blood work. I let go of many of my favourite foods (goodbye pizza, hot Cheetos and sour punk candy!), my erstwhile comforting allies, now ominous adversaries. Two years and a lifestyle transformation later, my indicators began to trend back towards normal and my limp began to disappear. It taught me my first set of lived life lessons.

Science may not have all the answers……….Check. ✔
A mother’s instinct is a powerful thing……….Check. ✔
It takes faith and effort to build resilience……….Check.✔

Cellists ‘hug’ their instrument as they play it, a sense of belonging to one another that deepens over time. As I slowly returned to the cello and stepped back onto stage, beyond the joy of the undefeated, an abiding sense of equanimity prevailed.

From an obedient child I transformed into a tempestuous teenager. My bond with my mother became a vortex of abiding love and unbridled conflict. I wrote and trashed my first novel. Now giving final touches to my second, about exile, war and magic.

Things seem uncertain until we make the journey to the root of things. Both wisdom and healing arise from the gut. And I am learning to trust mine.

There is no such thing as idiopathic. I embrace the inevitability of unexpected obstacles. My only decision will be to go above, or around.