Of privilege

I was sitting in the Old Delhi railway station waiting room when I heard cries between me. 'Hat! Hat!' screamed the woman attendant. I looked around. It was not a stray animal she was shooing out in that manner. It was a sleeping man. He woke, got up meekly and asked for permission to go to the loo before he left. 'No!' screamed the woman again.  I went cold with nervousness and guilt. My turn next, I thought, even as I knew that it would not come.

This was the 'upper class' waiting room- for passengers who have purchased a 3-tier AC ticket. The man who was being thrown out presumably had a sleeper class ticket. So did I. I too, was an interloper.

But I would not be thrown out, I knew. And I was both reassured and mortified by that. The being reassured is simple enough, the mortification needs some explanation.

See, what was the difference between me and that unlucky man? We both had sleeper tickets, we were both looking for a place to spend a few hours between trains. The difference was my being of a family of atleast four 'educated' generations, on both sides. And their being educated at that time could only happen because they were brahmins.

And today, because of them, I exude that something which makes the waiting room attendants believe that I belong in the Upper Class area. In the waiting room it was my computer. But the previous night, I was lying in my sleeper (non-AC) berth swaddled in Mian's lungi. Half-asleep, I could hear the ticket collector make his way up the compartment. He was business like to the point of being curt. 'Ticket dikhao' is all he said over and over again. And then I heard him say 'Hello Madam, your ticket please'. The three generations of brahmins apparently are visible even through a lungi.

It makes me uncomfortable, this cloak of privilege.

Disclaimer: I don't normally use my cloak. The ladies' waiting room was closed for maintenance, and the general one was shadowy and forbidding.

The perils of interviewing

While interviewing people in the course of work, I always am slightly uncomfortable. Researchers ask respondents for their time, their opinions and their  emotions. All of this is often willingly given. And what do we give in exchange? Very often, it is nothing.
And sometimes, we offer entertainment in exchange.
This happened when N and I trudged up to a village almost exactly in the centre of Uttarakhand. 'We are trying to understand the river', we said. 'We would like to speak with you.' We were led to a group of  five merry old women-maybe in their seventies. These were old friends who had now moved to various cities, but return to their village every year.
 On age:
'What is your age?' I asked one.
'The same as yours'
'But I am 37!'
'That's what I said. Now write that down!'

On livestock:
We asked them the number of cows, buffaloes, goats, and mules  in the village. At the end of  it, one of them pointed to a mango tree.
'There are crows there. We don't know how many, but you should go and count them.'

Towards the light

The dark underground space was full of small chirps and whistles. Almost unheard among these was the faint sound like paper being torn as the first baby pushed out of its egg. This was immediately followed by more rustlings till the entire brood had emerged from their eggs into the warm darkness of their nest. Aimlessly, they stumbled around till the first of them felt a far-off thunder and sensed a glimmer of light above. This faint radiance drew the brood towards it with the all consuming passion of  going home.

Its siblings stayed back as the first baby turtle struggled up from the nest and poked its head out onto the beach. After several suspenseful seconds, it clambered out and was immediately followed by the rest of the brood. They were going home.

There it was. The sparkling horizon reeled them in, all instincts led the turtles to scurry towards that light. Where the light twinkled, their bodies told them, there it was. There they would find home.

They continued walking around, over, and through traps that their instincts could not warn them against. The plastic bags and discarded nets and rolls of twine trapped some, but the others went on and on towards home.

Stray dogs claimed some turtles and terrorised the others. But it did not matter, there- just in front of them- surely was home.

They couldn't reason, but their bodies knew what to do. Over the beach they struggled, filled with an overwhelming sense of urgency that drove them on. And so the turtles eagerly panted on and on, towards the distant rumble and twinkling lights of the East Coast Road.

Far away behind them, the sparkling Bay of Bengal continued to call its babies.

*  *  *

D, my colleague, told me of the disorientation of the Olive Ridley hatchlings due to the road along the beach. Very few of these hatchlings survive that first walk to the ocean, even fewer reach adulthood. There are some efforts being made to lessen the extent of the damage that humans are doing. The Chennai Students Sea Turtle Conservation Network I've been told, are doing stellar work.

In hiding

There is a woman I wish I knew better. She's super-intelligent, attractive, and tough. She has committed her life to a cause most would consider lost, but still retains her sense of humour. Her integrity, her courage and her brilliance are held in awe by all the people who know her. In three sentences, I have told you pretty much all I know about her, barring a few details of name and place. Despite this paucity of information, I love her. I believe she likes me too.

She has been diagnosed with cancer of the breast. The mutual friend I spoke with could not hide the betrayal he felt as he told me that the tumour was not discovered for a long time. 'I don't understand how you can not notice something like that', he said. 'It's in such..such  a prominent place.' And then stuttered at his wretched choice of word. He didn't need to. I understand what he  meant. As a man worried about possible  inflammation of a hidden gland, it can be difficult to understand how women can not see something right under their  chins.

The truth is, we banish our breasts into hiding.

I am not talking of publicly- there of course, the two-three layers are there, covered with a dupatta over it all. I am talking of in private. Neither I nor my friends, non-prudish and non-diffident women though we might be, ever look at our naked breasts. We shower in a hurry, wear our clothes in the bathroom, and only face the mirror for makeup. We are conditioned to go through life hiding our breasts, and we have learnt to do that so effectively that we hide them from ourselves as well. And yes, there are times when we show them off. But then too, they are not something we look at for themselves- they are just tools in our seduction kit. Do you ever anxiously examine your chisel? And so it is shockingly easy to not notice any changes.

A breast self-examination. Learnt properly, practised regularly. Please.

Gardening is sexy!

Yes, it is incredibly sensual. There are very few other activities I know that so utterly enchant your senses. To potter around among the vegetables, feeling the air on your skin, smelling the flowering tomatoes and being kissed by the plants while the bees hum around you? It's a wonder I get any other work done at all. Focused on your surroundings, no detail gets missed. The tight symmetry of a sunflower bud, the glossy back of a ladybird, the intoxication of brushing against mint- the only other time we notice and admire such details is when we fall in love.

Our tomatoes

But like making love, gardening has its share of painfully embarrassing moments. And I am not just talking of those mornings when we wake up with aching muscles and realise that our enthusiasm has once again overridden -excuse the pun- our abilities.

First peaches from the garden

No, I am talking of conversation. Since G undertook to do the digging and heavy work around the garden, I find myself in increasingly more involved and explicit conversations. This is not helped by my poor hindi and his impeccable propriety.

Take something as simple as planting maize. G adores rows, I prefer blocks. In this case, I wanted  to explain to him why it is not just a matter of preference in the case of maize. I wanted to say that the male and female flowers are separate, that the plant is wind pollinated, and that block planting ensures that the pollen falls on the female flowers. Simple enough in English. Try to do that in a language you are not comfortable with. I ended up slipping into hand gestures before I blushed and ended with 'please just prepare a square be..plot! i mean square plot!'

And today he found me among the squash trying to impregnate a pumpkin. Not for the faint hearted, this  gardening business.

Zucchini- thankfully, these pollinate themselves

A story of perfume

Open any woman's cupboard and you will inhale a rich mixture of scents, evocative of her own self.

There might be the deep sweetness of a sandalwood jewellery box, the intense woodiness of some carefully hoarded spices, the lemony fruitiness of her favourite lotion, and there will always be perfume. That's how I remember my mother's and sister's cupboards. Amma's cupboard was redolent of sandal and lavender, my sister's of more complex perfumes and creams. As a tomboyish child who - if you were lucky- smelled of Nycil and Pears, these cupboards were indescribably exotic.

And then my  own cupboard acquired fragrance. First simpler florals and finally grown-up perfumes. I remember a friend hugging me once. 'Oh, that's what the magazines mean,' she exclaimed, 'when they say a perfume should be only smelled by the one kissing you.'

But later on, a mean little voice began to be heard inside my head. 'Such things are for pretty women' it hissed.'What are you doing with them?' I stopped and my cupboard  became a purely functional, sterile thing.

Still later, Mian came along and insisted that I deserved all the prettiest and most splendiferous things in the universe. Incredibly enough, I began to believe him. But I still did not buy any perfume. By then, I was out of place in a store that sold fripperies. I felt clumsy and gauche and showed it.

Fragrance came back to my list of 'someday haves' though, spurred by a friend who told me with a mix of shyness and defiance 'I buy nice things for myself these days. Why not?' Why not indeed? I began to read fragrance blogs. Mian, spectacular husband that he is, took notice and took notes.

And on my birthday, he pulled out the very bottle I was lusting for .'Did I get the right one?' he asked worriedly. He had, but there is no wrong one.

Now when I open my cupboard, there it is- that lovely, lovely fragrance. All mine. Back after so many years.
Thank you, Mian

Death by indiference

I wrote earlier about Rubeena and her family.
Since then, I have put up a photoset on India Water Portal's flickr page. Please do go and take a look- The people and the landscape need to be not forgotten.

How my garden grows

I have three gardening enthusiast friends in the Chatola-Sitla area. Two of these, A and L, have gardens as mature and exquisite as themselves. Their gardens manage to be both quiet and exuberant, voluptuous  and aloof. When confronted with these gardens, I find myself stunned into silence with my mouth hanging open. Come to think of it, that's also how I am in the presence of the ladies who created these spaces. I covet a garden like that, just as I too want to be as gracious and..and refined  as the gardeners. And I know that neither is achievable for the bumblebee that I am.

Our garden is  still in its infancy as far as Mian's and mine influence goes. But thankfully, we have inherited established plants from the people who lived here earlier- things that give us much joy and would have taken us a decade to grow. There are the fruit trees, of course. But there are also the giant sunflowers that I love so much, and the beautiful old roses, the lilies that crop up every year.

There are also things that I am not particularly fond of, but still turn up and are welcomed every year- the ramrod straight gladioli, the faded-yellow dahlias. They are all welcomed.

The beautiful rose arch..would have taken us  years to get it

Our mark- Mian's and mine and G's- is becoming slowly apparent now. We have planted things to climb over the house- ivy and roses and cathedral bells. There is a baby rosemary hedge- it is 6 inches tall now, but soon I will be able to spread our linen to dry on it. There are lots of golden rod and salvia to attract bees. There's parsley and chives and sage for the picking.

The Giant Sunflower in the foreground, flanked by gladioli, mint below, parsley and chives in the background, and lettuce and squash just visible!

 And things are always happening in the garden- nearly every day, a new 'project' gets executed. I want fragrance, and shade. I want bumblebees and honeybees, and birds and frogs and earthworms. And for this, I need lots of fragrant flowering and fruiting things. It will happen- Not soon, but it will.

The wild himalayan rose- my favourite flower here. We don't have it near the house yet. This  monsoon, I wil plant lots

I lied to Rubeena

And I wish I hadn't. I didn't know then, that I was lying to her.

This was in Chaubari, where I was interviewing people about the state of the Ramganga.

Rubeena was in the middle of harvesting cucumbers from her fields in the middle of the river. She, along with most of the other people from her village, plant the bed of the river when the waterlevels are low. This  silty soil, with a good source of water just below, is ideal for melons, cucurbits, and gourds. They have been doing this for generations. And pitiful though the profits are, Rubeena and her fellow-farmers do not know of any other means of income. There is the farming, and a little labour in the off season.

And now there is a barrage coming up just downstream.

Rubeena had heard rumours that the barrage meant that they would be displaced, their lands flooded, their villages evicted. Not so, I told her.  The barrage is only for protective irrigation during the Kharif- the monsoon crop. Once the monsoon is over, the water will be let out and you will be able to farm as usual.

Rubeena's children

Turns out, that is not the case. I spoke to the engineer who had designed this and he said that my assumption was only half correct. Yes, this was intended only for Kharif, but there would be some impounding throughout the year. I protested, spoke about the farmers in that place. 'Change happens' he said. And then he added that awful phrase- 'It is the price of progress.'

The problem here is that the landed farmers of a far-off district are progressing while people like Rubeena pay the price.

Shooing boars

It began when Gangadi and I went to a meeting of the spring conservation committee in Mauna. The women participated in it, but then complained to us.

 'We always come to your meetings', they said. 'You never come to ours.'

'Call us and we will'. Ganga and I rashly promised

'Midnight tomorrow then. We are chasing boars.'

'Ah'

And so it is that one evening the two of us  caught the last bus down to Mauna.

That was the most raucous all-night party I've attended since my wicked college days. Actually, even those days were tame.

The people of Mauna had divided themselves into 5 groups. Earlier in the night, around 11pm, the groups formed, going from house to house and gaining members. They all met at the school where there was dancing and singing.

And then they diverged again to patrol  the village shouting, singing, beating tin canisters, ringing bells and lighting small fires.

Finally, around 1, the groups settled down for an hour or so in different fields for gossip and singing before moving back home.

I saw a totally different side to the women. Was it the faux anonymity offered by the darkness, or are they always like this  outside the meetings? They were joyful, boisterous and full of fun. The three men in our group were subject to ribald jokes. They would dance - and wonderfully- whenever the mood struck them.

We were in bed at 3am and lamenting the fact that we needed to catch the 8am bus. When we woke and staggered out, we were met by the women again. They had finished milking, cleaning the cowsheds, getting fodder, cooking and were now off to the fields- in high spirits.

These women humble me.

I walked from Mauna

Now if a pahari woman was to read this she would shrug- it's the walk that I know G casually makes to meet up with friends on festival days. But for Ganga and I, it was momentous indeed. It started off when we were returning from spending the night with a colleague.
We would catch the eight O'clock bus, and return in time for Ganga to go to office, we decided. Easy enough, except the bus never came. We asked around, walked till the junction from where we could get six-seaters, waited there, and finally called for help. The only help that was coming was in the form of a motorcycle. I can't go triples, I said. Not on these roads.
And I knew the old bridle path that led up to Chatola.  And who minds a walk when we have things like these to look at?

And so I handed over the two brooms and giant melon (my purchases from the relatively big market of Mauna) to Ganga and set off. A pahari woman would have carried the purchases herself. But I was proud of me. Not only did I do the walk, but I also arrived in decent time and in good enough breath to play with Madhu Bhaloo when I did reach. As for what I was doing in Mauna in the first place, that's another post!

Shona's gone

There. Said it. This has kept me offline for the last few months.
Shona Bhaloo disappeared one morning in April. We hunted and hunted for her, waited so many nights. She never came back. The logical explanation is that either a leopard took her, or a human being did.
Mian and I are sad.
But also glad we have Madhu Bhaloo. Her own daughter. The one about whom I say that she neither has her mother's beauty nor her brains. Thankfully, she has her heart.
Here's the last photo I have of Shona. Sho and Madhu are on our porch. Shona  is alert and watchful as usual, Madhu  is clueless, also as usual.

The times I hate myself

I was standing by that golden car ready to head back to Patna when she came up the road. A vaccination worker, Anita had walked from the bus stop on the main road carrying her cooler of vaccines and assorted notebooks. She stopped to chat with the stranger in her town, and I covertly observed her while talking with her.

That foggy morning, she was clad in one of those synthetic shawls that are sold so cheaply on the streets in India-the ones that try to make up in glitter what they lack in warmth. I was doubly warm in a hand-woven wool shawl rich with woolen embroidery and a drab but highly effective fleece (one stolen from sis, and the other stolen from husband. But how was she to know that?). Next to her, I looked rich and pampered. Next to her, I was.

Perhaps this is what prompted her line of questioning. 'What department do you work in?' she asked. 'I don't work for a government department, actually.' I replied 'I work for a magazine that writes about water and publishes on the internet'
'What do they pay you?'
I named a figure that was roughly one-half of what I do earn, knowing even this to be more than her salary.
'This is yours?' she asked, pointing to that eyesore of a car.
No! I don't have a car, I hastened to explain. And then I went into how my office pays for travel, but how its mostly public transport, and how this was for lack of time and too many places to go, all with the excessive detail born of guilt.
'Get me a job in your organization' she said.

Now I field these requests all the time. And usually saying something like, we are a small team, no plans of growth, so sorry, is enough. But this time, it stung.
See, the question is not just one of an English education. Even if her daughter was studying in an English medium school, I think its unlikely that she would get a job where I work. A first generation English scholar from a school in rural Bihar will not have the fluency, the exposure to literature that the job requires. She will not have the 'water contacts' that make obtaining content possible. She will not have the deep enough pockets that serve as my Plan B in case travel goes awry. Accumulating all this requires generations of educated and relatively affluent people.

My job stinks of privilege- it is something I've inherited rather than earned. And I enjoy it, revel in the experiences it offers me, and would not exchange it for Anita's.

Times like these, I don't like myself very much

The times I hate my job

When I began working in the 'NGO sector', my then boss VP gave me a single bit of advice.'NGO wallahs should be like fakirs' he said 'You go to a place empty handed, stay there for a few years, and leave empty handed. And somehow, leave the place better for your being there.' I don't think he realised how it would stick to me. In all the years that followed, that was the parameter by which I judged a job.

And now I am in this one. I go to a place, escorted by the people working there. I see the work they show me, speak with the people they introduce me to. And while I speak with them, I am looking for stories, looking to create some heroes, to add drama to my article. All this I do within the span of a day or two. My job is speed-dating.

The only consolation is that as far as possible I use public transport. Sometimes I see more and converse more during my trips to and fro than during the visit itself.

Until this time. I was visiting North Bihar and the organisation I called up flatly refused to let me go gadding about by train, bus or tempo. It is not safe, not in winter, not during the fog. We don't want you stranded at some junction. If you come, they said, we will hire a car for you that we know and send a colleague along. I agreed.

When the car came, I recoiled in shock. It was a gleaming metallic beige tavera- about as discreet as a set of gold incisors. And in that huge, flamboyant vehicle sat I as we slowly rolled down impossibly narrow village lanes, brushing thatched roofs, scaring goats, crowding children. I got down, I spoke with some people, I got in, I drove off. Ugh. What a pompous, self-serving visit.

I hate speed dating. I hate this style of insulated interaction. And here I am expected to do both.

I need to defend the people I was with though..The little I interacted with them made me respect them immensely. And no, they don't do the car thing. They do local train and tempo. But they were understandably nervous of my being stuck at a junction in the middle of the night.

The last dawn of the year

It had been a bitterly cold night, and it seemed to me that I'd just managed to get warm enough to fall asleep before Shona and Madhu woke me up with their partying. There were the bumps of Shona's jumping on furniture to escape her daughter, and there was the determined scrabbling of Madhu's paws as she raced around the living room.

But wait. I had dropped the dogs off at A&D's because I would be traveling for a while. I did what I always berate the heroines of horror movies for doing and went to investigate.

It was a storm.

A storm where it seemed the four winds were dancing around this house. The howling seemed animal and malign. The trees seemed to be trying to uproot themselves and leave. And so I did what was only natural. I stepped out into that fury.

And then I gasped,came back inside, grabbed my big ladakhi coat and a pair of shoes and stepped out again. I am so glad I did.

It was snowing. Big, fat, fluffy,feathery flakes of snow driven horizontally by the wind. I came back with a drenched head and stinging face, but then I slept very well indeed. And later, I woke up to this:

The dawn

Last flowers

The forest

The yard

I ruined the pristine beauty of this yard very shortly afer this snap. And that is because my neighbour is one of the most generous men I know. He called me today when he saw I was awake and pottering around- 'Wait and I will bring you hot water' he said. I couldnt allow that,and went down with a french press, overcome with his thoughtfulness. It's not the hot water itself, though bless him for that..but how many people would remember their neighbours' cooking arrangements and the gaps therein? I know I wouldn't- I need to work on that this year.

Two-headed monster

The world's most adorable two-headed monster.

Shona and Madhu. Madhu is Shona's pup, and the one that Mian and I decided that we just cannot give away. And in a way, it's wonderful for Shona- she's turned into a pup again. On the other hand, Shona's turned into a pup again. 5 minutes after I clean the house, it looks asif a tornado went through it- and two little tornadoes have indeed gone through it.

But. They have perfected the art of snuggling with me. When I sit on the sofa, Madhu is draped across my shoulders, Shona has her head on my lap. At night, Shona tucks herself into the crook of my knees, and Madhu into my neck.

And so, here is a non-monstery photo.

Curtains

When I was in college, I would pass the Shyam Ahuja store every day. And that is when I decided that full-length silk curtains would instantly make me all classy and posh. When I grew up, I understood that
a. No amount of a fabric would make me posh, and
b. I utterly hated the idea of boiling caterpillars alive to make shiny stuff
But there was something about the lustre..

And so when I needed curtains in Dehradun, I bought myself several metres of bottle-green, dark, dhoop-chav khadi silk, which is made using spent cocoons- after the butterflies fly away. This makes the material rough, but still beautiful. Now, I felt. Now, I had arrived.

Those curtains travelled about with me, and especially in our Chatola house, worked very hard to cover up the warts and all.

And now this:

 For the last year, they have been used as sofa protectors. It was okay when we only had the decorous Shona, but with the young one..the curtains only prove to me yet again that no amount of fabric is going to make me Posh.

And I am perfectly okay with that.

Mera Kuch Samaan

A couple of friends, Mian and I were having dinner together last week when the conversation turned around to the types of people on this planet.
 'Far more good than bad', I said. 'Think of any rail journey you've been to.'
'Do you really think so?' asked R
'I know so', replied I smugly

A little too smugly, as it turns out. I had cause to regret my statement just a few days later.

It happened on the way back from Delhi. We will soon be returning to our Chatola house, and so I had bought plumbing fittings when in the big city. Nothing 'designer', but reliable and sturdy. By Delhi standards, it was perhaps not much; for Mian and I that sack represented a major withdrawal on a bank account that had been added to several months 'for the house'. In addition, my rucksack was full of the foolish and vain purchases one tends to make.

Too much for me to carry, and so I said 'yes' to the first porter who approached me as I got down from the auto. I did bargain, but not much.

There was another train at the platform, and as we passed the goods compartment, the porter and I got separated. No matter, I thought, and continued on to where my compartment would be. He would be standing there and waiting for me.

I kept looking for him, but reached the end of the platform without finding him. I walked back to where I'd lost him, and again to the end of the platform. By the time I did this walk the second time, my heart was beating fast. Too many thoughts went through my mind- of how the cop asked to see the receipt for the fittings, of how the porter saw the value of the goods he was carryng for a very, very small fraction of their cost, of how terribly easy it is to walk across the dark platforms at the end and so come out into the goods yard with all its confusion. Of the foolish things I'd bought, of how I would go back empty handed.

I needed to ask for help, but my mouth was coated with something that did not allow me to speak. Swallowing was out of the question, my tongue was dry. I hooked a finger inside my mouth and cleaned it.

I was almost weeping by now.  I went up to a pair of porters standing on the platform.
'Help me. I've lost the porter who was carrying my luggage. I searched everywhere and couldn't find him'.

Something in my face told  them I was not upto conversation.

One of them indicated his shirt. I nodded. He pointed to the badge on his arm. I nodded again. He raised his hands and patted the air around him, I nodded and agreed to wait. Or maybe he was telling me to calm down.

He then told me- slowly and carefully- to go to platform 5 and he would come with me. As we turned, I saw a most glorious sight- high above the crowd, a blue rucksack and a white sack were bobbing towards me. In a scene reminiscent of a hindi romantic comedy, we ran towards each other.

'Where were you? I went to the bridge and back!'
'Where were you? I went to the end of the platform and back!'

Pretty soon, he realised what I had been afraid of. You should not worry, he said, your baggage is safe with us.

I agreed, and apologised again and again.

After he left, his colleagues admonished me further. They didn't need to, I was feeling rotten anyway.

The only thing bolstering me was the sure knowledge that I had been forgiven by the person I had wronged. As he left, he gave me a very quick, very shy, side hug.

Definitely more good people than bad, and I should remember this.

oh,the places I'll go!

Doesn't get much more exotic than the last..

The omelet that never was

Sounds like an Enid Blyton story, does it not? This story isn't quite that fluffy

Omelettes have been a big part of my childhood memories for some reason. I have written before about Susha mama teaching me to make an omelet; eggs are also part of my other childhood moments. And of course,  omelette memories of my mum predominate.

I think I first realised the magic of sharing 'special' food when my mum made me a 'sunny side up' omelet. I still remember Amma bringing her prize in from the kitchen, beaming all over,. The white was nicely set, flecked with the vivid green of finely chopped chillies and coriander; the yolk sat proudly intact in the exact centre. My younger self looked at it with superstitious awe. I could not for the life of me figure out how she did that. Today, three decades down the line, I have a fair idea of how that might be managed, but I still do not have the guts to attempt it.

Later, I began to make omelettes myself. I make them well enough, but my triumph always lay in making them the way mum liked them. And this was a moving target to aim for. Turmeric and fluffiness were the two constants. The first is now an ingrained habit; the second I learnt to achieve by beating the yolks and whites separately before folding them together. Other things varied with my mum's state of health. Her pleasure in finely chopped chillies gave way to an insistence on chilli powder, moved to large chopped chillies (all the better to pick out), and then back to the merest hint of chilli powder. Onions would be loved, or detested. But I tried; most of the time I achieved. Even when she was at her most ill it was the omelette that I could still do right, the only source of approval for my hungry self.

And today mum told me she 'never liked omelettes'.

I protested, saying that she would tell me to make them all the time. 'Yes, but because you liked them. I never did. I always wanted boiled eggs.' When I tried to protest further she became angry.

Now, I do know better. Mum always had a strong reluctance to admit that her tastes could change. This trait is a whole different discussion, but I think it centres around thinking that admitting her taste can change implies that it is not The Absolute Perfect. Far easier to deny.  Then, her memory might be failing, something that this strong woman is very disturbed about. Three, anything other than absolute assent is seen either as a threat or as insubordination in the ranks, depending on current level of vulnerability. I know all this as surely as I love her.

But knowing is one thing, accepting in my heart is another. This very trivial conversation shattered me. I am now trying to understand why. Is it for me, because it is not enough that these memories are mine, because the sharing of the memories is important? Do I question the reality of those memories, my ability to remember?

 Or is it not about the memories at all, but a terror that my sister and I are now- already- the only survivors of that little family who once lived in a rambling house in Sawantwadi?

Mum and I on the beach the three of us went to every summer. Wish my sis was in this snap too.