AN INSIGHTFUL BIRTHDAY

AN INSIGHTFUL BIRTHDAY

Birthdays are not just occasions that mark the day you were born- they are far more significant. This is the day you faced your first eviction after 9 months notice. And, the heartless landlord who chucked you out after much bawling and a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears was none other than your mother. No wonder all of us have such Jekyll and Hyde relationships with our moms. For nine months she provided you with the best water bed of your life. No slumber was as sweet as those nine months of floating in animated suspension. Food was piped in 24/7 through a tube. And then life’s first harsh lesson was taught to you by your mother-‘All good things come to an end’.

With her sigh of relief came your cry of pain and the first war of emotions began. Whenever she laughed, you cried and vice versa. You were out of sync in the emotional plane from the first hour of birth and it continues till death. And, though the cord is cut at birth it immediately begins a slow but powerful re-growth that no doctor, lawyer, husband or child can ever sever. They can dent it, twist it, tug at it but it just keeps growing and binds you to this one woman forever. Even if you try to reach and snip it just grows rubbery and snaps like an annoying elastic band, back in your face.

Pretty soon after birth you face eviction from another favorite hangout- Mamma’s milk bar.

But, she never stops feeding you. She feeds you comfort when you need it most, she feeds you advice when you least feel like it, she feeds you forgiveness when no one else will, she feeds you love when you have given her many moments of hatred- she is God’s ultimate cook and you feast your whole life remembering only occasionally to thank her. And, that is why the day she dies begins the slow starvation- that is when the cord of life that bound you to this supreme source of nourishment is ruthlessly severed. 

If you have lost a mother, the loneliest day of your life is your birthday. You realize that you are celebrating alone- your ally, your partner, your soul mate, your confidante, your friend, your critic and your favorite punching bag and comforter has gone forever. 

And for the rest of your life, this will be the day you celebrate without the only person who gave you the best gift- a thing we take for granted called ‘life...’

Nimmou Nilakantan

May 29^th 2012

(5 months after Amma died)

Personalised Poetry Service

My personalised poetry website is finally up and running...

Check it out at http://personalisedpoetry.co.in

To Amma

To Amma

If God had an army
He would have placed you at the Head
But you were needed more on Earth
So he put you here instead

If the phone had a purpose
You made it amply clear
It was an instrument to be used
To bring everybody near

If self help books were based
On one simple creed
You showed us by example
To reach out to those in need

Nothing could stand in your way
When in pursuit of a goal
Honesty and immense courage
Were the hallmarks of your soul

So many journey through life
Leaving no footprint on the ground
You charged every life you touched
You were lightning accompanied by sound

No Da Vinci code or Rubik’s cube
Could ever be more of an enigma
We spent a lifetime with you
And still could not solve your persona

If death could be looked upon
As giving life a fresh new start
I know dearest Amma you’ll live forever
In each and every loving heart

Your loving daughter,
Nimmou

Economical Relationships

Relationships and economics have so much in common. In the former, you give sometimes and you get sometimes- but ultimately it depends on the dynamic that is at work. In the latter, it is simply called"Supply and Demand". You wouldn't try to sell ice cream in the North Pole would you? It just doesn't make economic sense! Why then, do we invest so much of our time and energy in relationships that are just not going to work? Mere blood does not guarantee bonding- how many of us are in abusive relationships with our relatives? Whether it is a domineering mother who constantly criticizes her child, or a father who deliberately crushes the ego of a fragile offspring or a jealous sibling- the list is endless. Somewhere along the way we have to take stock, invest our time and energy wisely and demand more bang for the buck. Respect, trust and unconditional love are the only coinage which will ensure a functioning and healthy dynamic. Now, that is the economy of a rich relationship...
(If you want your relationships to be gilt edged then you have to remove the edge of guilt..)
Nimmou Nilakantan

THE PARENT TAG

What makes a good parent?This question has always haunted me and the answer has been as elusive as sighting a ghost. To me, being a parent is the ultimate cosmic responsibility. We summon a soul into the world through one act of selfish pleasure. Surely then we owe a selfless duty to the free spirit for tethering them for life?
When the answer dawned, it set me free from the overwhelming responsibility of being a "good parent"- you must love yourself first and then, and only then can you love your child. Love is the fountain from which springs all pure and noble feelings. We bring our children into the world but we cannot feel for them, love for them or carry their burden of pain. But, if love emanates from our very being then that is the blanket which envelopes them and gives them a strong and sturdy root from which they can flourish and flower...
Nimmou Nilakantan

ABOUT FACE...

Facebook and annoying relatives have much in common. In both interactions you end up talking to a wall. whether you like it or not, both have a habit of intruding into your life with unwanted and unwarranted comments. Both forms of communication become public immediately. You are subject to boring accounts of"yummy" food, "great" holidays, "instant nirvana" and bombarded with trivia you just cannot tune out.
If facebook had a "face" I would put one of my most boring, pain-in-the-ass relatives photo. The only advantage in Facebook is, one is always just a click away from escaping. Alas, one cannot do that with relatives unless a genius avatar of Zuckerberg comes up with an invention which can zap the annoying presence into another dimension.
Who knows? Who cares? Amidst the hordes of nonsensical posts one does stumble into something which is pure genius and inspirational. Hey, if I was looking for companionship or friendship the last thing I would do was talk to a wall...

AN INDIAN TOURIST IN TURKEY- ALIEN VIEWPOINT

The Chinese invented the water torture but the Turks have refined it. Any tourist to Turkey will attest to the exquisite torture of having to buy water at 1 Turkish lira for a half litre bottle (one lit­­re costs 2 lira) and then having glugged a few bottles during the course of the day, having to pay another 1 lira to use the toilet to pass out the same water. And, if you visit Turkey in July where the temperature reaches 40 degrees Celsius in certain regions you end up spending around 20 lira a day being tortured by the Turks...

Water sold in a museum

Water is not the only torture perfected by the Turks. In spite of being a Muslim country, thanks to their visionary founder Mustapha Kemal Ataturk (the founder of modern Turkey)…

Mustapha Kemal Attaturk in IZMIR

the Turkish women really know how to strut their stuff. Not only are they astoundingly beautiful, but their clothes (or rather lack of it) really tortured the men in our diverse group...

The face of modern Turkey!

Turkey is doubly blessed- not only do they have beautiful natural wonders but they have mastered the art of civilizing their ‘ruins’. Every artifact, every remnant of a bygone age, every museum that has lovingly restored a relic and showcased it is a tribute to the one thing they venerate above all- the tourist! India has ruined its civilization (our plummeting tourism industry and frequent terrorist attacks are testimony) but Turkey has tamed the tourist and civilized its ruins...

Lovingly restored ruins

In Turkey, the tourist is regarded either as a God or the devil in direct proportion to how much he spends and how much he tips. Even a canny tourist cannot help but fall prey to the water torture, but if he signs up for a guided tour like we did, then the tourism department has thought of a myriad ways to rook him. For every museum visit there is a subtle deviation to a carpet manufacturing unit. The Turks are famous for their carpets and tremendously proud that only their carpets have the double knot which makes it the most durable in the world (and also keeps their women bent over the loom for a year to produce one carpet). All the time, while they show you a dazzling array of carpets and an equally dazzling number of facts about weaves, textures and styles, you are subject to subtle pressure to buy, buy and buy. And a Turkish carpet, however beautiful can blow a hole the size of a water bottle through your wallet...

Wherever you go you are offered tea. The Turks take their ‘chai’ pretty seriously (apart from taking the tourist’s money) and thankfully it comes virtually free especially when you are being subtly pressurized to buy carpets. Turkish tea is a treat. They give it to you in small hour glass shaped glasses, without milk and with a cube of sugar on the saucer. In that heat, the tea is like manna from heaven. Apple tea is a favourite (there are quite a few flavours), but drinking Turkish tea is an experience to relish. And a sure way to offend a Turk is to refuse the offer of a tea. You can refuse to buy a carpet and get away with it, but refuse tea and you leave a bad taste in the mouth, literally...

Turkish ‘Chai’ and the Chaiwallah!

Apart from carpet factories, we were whisked to pottery making units, fine jewellery factories and select restaurant stops, where if by some oversight you have bought nothing but water whole day, there are shops that sell you all the knick knacks which are somehow irresistible when you are a tourist.

A pottery making workshop.

The temptation to buy lies all around you (even among the ruins you have the mandatory gift shops which conveniently stock water among the curios) and actually there is a WC alongside where tourists queue obediently like sheep and then pay to use.

Like Wine, Women and Song – Food, Water and WC – pay for all 3 in Turkey

The WC of old - the LATRINA

The tour guides are thorough professionals and know how to captivate their audience. Apart from the mandatory stops to help part the tourist from his foreign exchange, they are walking talking

Cihat – our long suffering tour guide - Always on the job!

encyclopedias. And they are proud of their country. The Turks revere their founder, Kemal Attaturk and everywhere there are statues to commemorate his leadership. Our guide’s name was pronounced as ‘Jihad’ (spelt as Cihat) and unfortunately he had 8 Indians in his group of 11. Throughout the tour the only war he waged was to capture our attention. We had 2 couples from Mumbai who were more interested in eating ‘Theplas’ (they had packed a suitcase full of snacks which they had carted everywhere) and the leader of this group frequently interrupted Chihat to ask ‘how much longer’ and when we stood amongst the ruins ‘Is this what we paid to see? Italy had more ruins!’.

Cihat waging his holy war – 4 out of 11 were listening!

Indians love shopping and hate keeping time. Since we were on a strict schedule, Chihat had to literally herd us because invariably one member of the group would have wandered off and got lost among the shops. At one stop to drop off a member of the group in his hotel, one of the shopaholics ran off to shop in the hotel lobby while the rest of us fumed in the bus. Our guide went berserk in trying to keep to his schedule.

Cihat with the Indian Shopaholics

Turks are unfailing polite. They never get angry (maybe they have a punching bag at home), but we never got a glimpse of road rage or any public displays of anger. Traffic flows smoothly and the roads are clean – the two things prized above all by the Bangalore tourist.

Food is exquisite. Salads accompany every meal, even breakfast, and olives, yoghurt and honey are delicious add-ons. The rice has a unique flavour and sticky consistency, which is rather delicious, and the breads – a bountiful collection! There are flat breads, hard breads, thin crust and thick crust, rye bread, sesame bread- you name it the Turks have baked it! And unlike in China where the vegetarian tourist has to gaze forlornly at birds nest soup on the dining table, in Turkey there is a banquet of legumes and vegetables and a variety of cheeses- goats cheese, feta, soft cheese, hard cheese to name a few. It’s a gastronomic dream and the wines are pretty smooth too...

A veggie’s dream spread!

Turkish delight and Baklava are two must try culinary experiences if you have a sweet tooth but not everyone likes the taste or consistency (too sticky, too sweet!).

Turkish Delight on the left.

Apart from these two Turkish sweets, the Turks delight in offering you a sweet made of thick yoghurt (much like the Indian shrikhand) topped with poppy seeds and with a smattering of honey on top. They call it “Turkish Viagra” and caution you with a twinkle in their eye from eating too much of it. Both of us had some and it did nothing for the libido- our packed tour itinerary and fast depleting resources took care of that...

Nila sampling Turkish Viagra!

The only jarring note in this land of cheese and honey was the cigarette that hangs from almost every Turkish mouth, both male and female. There is no ban in smoking in public places and in some places we had to view the sights through a haze of cigarette smoke. Other than that Turkey is just beautiful. No wonder that they have placed the symbol of the “evil eye” everywhere- my own eye has fallen on this charming land and people...

Beautiful Turkey

Nimmou Nilakantan

Happiness is a Butterfly

There is no "will be" in happy. It is not conditional. One cannot claim with any authenticity "I will be happy when I get this or if I were healthy"... Happiness is a state of being. You are either "being" happy or not. It has no time frame-any moment it can suffuse your being with that glow which only later you recognize as happiness. The lack of that feeling is what we crave for and in our relentless pursuit of it we become more and more unhappy. And then we reason and justify- "If only"' "When I can"' If I had"- as conditions to achieving happiness and the more we chase it the more it eludes us. Happiness is a butterfly- beautiful, delicate, colorful and so near till you try and capture it....
HAPPINESS IS A BUTTERFLY

The more I long to hold
This feeling in my mind
It flies ahead and leaves me
Helplessly pining behind...

It flits ahead so tantalizingly close
And every time I get near
It just vanishes into the distance
Leaving me full of fear...

And the more I chase the futher it gets
Tormenting my very soul
In broken fragments I simply exist
Waiting for happiness to make me whole...

Until one day as clear as light
It suddenly dawned on me
That this exclusive prey that I did chase
Was something I could not see...

It was a feeling that filled me
When I was not even aware
And I only noticed it most
When I hardly did care!...

Happiness is a butterfly
It chooses its own flower
To capture it is futile
It is not within your power...

But when you stop your chasing
And not wait for it to alight
Why then your life will always be
Filled with sudden delight...

And this is what is happiness
Not a constant flow or stream
When it flies around the corner
Why then, life is like a dream!...

Nimmou Nilakantan

HOW TO SURVIVE PHYSIOTHERAPY

You can’t- mentally I mean. Physically, our bodies can take the battering and come out none the worse but mentally it reduces you to a nervous wreck. You just need to tune out while you physically get a fine tuning. Easy? You bet! Just follow the Ten Commandments.....

THOU SHALL NOT WILT...

The first put off is the physiotherapy table. You lie there like a gutted fish while your therapist pummels you- painfully. All your ooh, oww, ouches fall on deaf ears because not only has he heard it all before(yawn) but he has got his mind on other important things- like how to get a high paying job where he doesn’t have to stand on his feet all day, never mind that he has to get you back on yours...

AND THIS TOO SHALL PASS

The question uppermost in your mind is-will I ever get normal again? There is no point pestering your therapist about the range of your joint or rather the lack of it. Chances of your jumping off the table and running the hundred meters are so remote as to be non-existent. The body takes its time and both you and he know that you will not climb Mt. Everest once you are fully fit. So just grit your teeth and bear it. Be happy with your snail’s progress- eventually you will reach that goal....

DO NOT COVET YOUR NEIGHBOR'S MOBILITY...

All around you other patients seem to mobilize their joints with consummate ease. You grunt and groan but your joint is as stiff as a leg of mutton in the deep freeze. You watch sick with envy as the old crone in the next table laughs and jokes with his physiotherapist as he bends his leg with the ease of a circus acrobat. Your therapist has a face like Thor ready to swing his hammer at the unyielding joint. No doubt he is totally zapped by your lack of progress and every time he pushes, your leg reluctantly yields one zillionth of a centimeter. Don’t give up- just don’t look at anybody else. They might be better in their physical range but your IQ is way out of their range-Score!

SLOTH IS A SIN...

Your idea of physio is lying on the table while the poor sod of a therapist massages you gently with something aromatic and ever so carefully gets the joint back to full working order. Unfortunately, that scenario exists only in Spas. The joint is a stubborn thing which requires military tactics- no scented candle approach will cut it. So your therapist pushes with all his might and bellows at you to ‘RELAX’. This is war and to win it you cannot sit on your butt. You go home like a tightly coiled spring and instead of unwinding in front of the T.V. you hop onto your exercise bike and pedal through the pain. Who knows? Once this is over Tour de France beckons...

THOU SHALL NOT KILL (YOUR PHYSIOTHERAPIST)

God knows you thought about it often enough- in fact, let’s be honest, there is nothing else you think about. He is the equivalent of a one man torture chamber and as he pulls, pushes and pummels, all you think about is clonking him one on the noggin. Better sense prevails and you lie there stoically enduring the pain. . Murdering him will only land you in jail and there you will be subject to far worse than physiotherapy....

THOU SHALL NOT SWEAR...

There is no point- of even muttering under your breath. Physiotherapists need to pass only two main criteria to qualify in their profession. They must have strong upper bodies with which they can wrestle stubborn joints into mobility and they must be hearing impaired so that the patients curses can literally fall on deaf ears. Otherwise, surrounded by scenes from Dante’s Inferno they would not last long in this profession. A simple “How are you” elicits an endless outpouring of unbearable agony from long suffering patients. Every push brings out a colorful epithet or a groan which falls on deaf ears. So save your breath or vent at pretty Polly at home- your physio just isn’t listening...

GLUTTONY IS A SIN...

Since your appetite remains unbridled by the calamity that befell your limb; this is the time to do some serious reigning in. No, not of the leg – that’s not going anywhere in a hurry but your gargantuan appetite that increases as rapidly as your mental anxiety. As a kid your P.T teacher dinned into your head-input should be less than or equal to output. You did a physio on him (turned a deaf ear!)and guzzled coke and munched on those chips and in spite of never lifting a finger, you still never put on an ounce blowing his input=output theory to bits. But now it comes back to haunt you. Whatever you eat snakes its way into your hips and thighs making the therapists job that much harder. Most therapists are thin since they are doing all the hard work. You lie there contorting your face while emitting high pitched squeals and though you might writhe in pain it just doesn’t burn calories.

So just zip those lips and keep the input=output theory of your P.T master live and kicking, at least till your legs take over- the kicking bit anyway...

And finally,

DO NOT QUESTION THE LORD’S WILL...

There is no point turning your face heavenward and asking God in an anguished tone-“Why me?” If you listen closely you might hear a deep rumble along with the words “Why not?” and if you are lucky a bolt of lightening will illuminate every brain cell and help you understand the futility of such questions. Your knee is blown; you are a dumb patient to that smart ass surgeon, a pain in your therapists butt and a pathetic sight to all around you. But, as the Good Book says “And this too shall pass...” Till then, just groan and bear it!

Nimmou Nilakantan

TO NILA, MY HUSBAND

TO NILA, MY HUSBAND ON HIS 60^th BIRTHDAY, 2^nd APRIL 2010

Whenever I think of you my love

One thought springs to mind

Among the million lives that abound

You truly are, one of a kind….

When I have oft struggled to see the path

You showed me the way to be

You opened my eyes to hidden sights

And filled it with a simple beauty….

You brought into our relationship

A richness beyond measure

The honesty of your emotions

Was a wealth, which I could treasure….

I cannot count all you have given me

But what I consider prime

Of all the gifts bestowed on me

I value the gift of your time…

A man is but the sum of parts

One word will suffice to be

The hallmark of your entire life

Has been marked by Integrity….

Until you came into my life

I never thought I’d find

Such a perfect harmony of

A loving heart and a pure mind….

Your wife, Nimmou