Criss Cross

| 2 MIN  READ | We live in hope and expectation. But the winds take us where they go.

She was kind. She was elegant. She always wore dark lipstick. That’s how I remember her.

My mother and she were teachers at a school for mentally challenged children. A warm hovering presence during our early years. She treated my brother and me like we were her own.

I see her one afternoon, seated on the main living room sofa – head bent, hands held by my grandmother. Being comforted as she cries. I feel the weight of her quiet sadness. Carry it with me back to my room.

Amma explains the mechanics of divorce. That families can break is an idea that escapes me. In her tumult, she withdraws into a cocoon and gradually erases away from our life.

The years slip by. We move cities. Everything changes. There is much we have forgotten. In the long arc of her life, Amma has passed through her own cliffs and valleys. In her twilight years she remembers her again.

Her three children live abroad now. She shuttles the long distances between them. Spends the rest of the time in an old age home. I imagine her walking down an empty corridor in a foreign land. The old age home turns out to be closer. Amma gets a central Mumbai address. Goes there but is unable to see her. She does not see anybody.

Amma collects disparate scraps of information about her. When I piece them together, all I see is her –  seated on the living room sofa, head bent, hands held by my grandmother. Enclosed by a sadness that has outlasted everything else.

-x-

A few more years pass until the present time.

I am to meet friends for coffee this morning. But we caught up over Cognac the previous evening instead. It frees up my Sunday so I decide to go for a meditation sitting. I ask Amma if she would like to join. We arrive to a room that is half filled. I seat Amma on a chair near the entrance and take the space on a sofa at the centre of the room. I want to fold my feet up, but there is not enough space. There is a lady sitting next to me. Her eyes are closed. Someone asks Amma if she would like to sit on the sofa by the window. I move there and fold my feet up. Amma takes the place I vacate.

The silent meditation sitting begins. In the middle a bell rings. We follow the sound as it slowly scatters back into silence.

There is a Q&A session after. Amma takes the mic and talks – about the foolishness of her faith and the miracles in her music. I have heard these stories before. Her enthusiasm fills the room with lightness. The mic roams around and the questions gradually taper. The mic returns to Amma. I wonder what else she has to say. She speaks of how happy she is to be sitting next to her.

I turn and look. She meets my gaze. Kind. Elegant. Still wearing dark lipstick.    

I extend my hand to hold hers. Amma shares four-decade old memories in a few breathless sentences. I cannot let go. The session ends.

It took her a long time to wade through abandonment and depression. There is forgiveness and friendship with her ex-husband now. I enquire about her children. A hint of surprise drifts across her face. Yes, I remember their names. Yes, I never forgot you. We make our way to the exit. She takes my support to step down to the driveway.

I feel like a child, enveloped in the unwinding glow of serendipity.

Postscript

I started my blog on 15 May 2017. In these last 8 years, it has allowed me to:

• explore the truth that hides in plain sight like all the light we cannot see,
• express things that had long remained unseen within me,
• connect with the minds, hearts & souls of people in close and distance places,
• share stories and moments that capture the expansiveness of existence
• introspect on the various shades of this great game of life and
• hone my craft of using words and silence to turn what I write into something that sings   

After long periods of writer’s block, this May has been a busy month. Thank you for your patient reading. For the warm and thoughtful responses and comments. All of which I receive with what can only be described as child-like joy.