this city speaks of home @greyglassmoon - Tumblr Blog

Happy Mother's Day to me.

Never beg for love

LOVE AS VIOLENCE VS LOVE AS SOFTNESS

Ada Limon, The Good Fight // Mary Oliver, West Wind // Danez Smith, Bare // Sappho, Fragment 58.25-26 // Mitski, I Don’t Smoke // Ashe Vernon // Hozier, Cherry Wine // Shauna Barbosa, GPS // Richard Siken, Little Beast // Chen Chen, Summer [The sunflowers fall…] // Warsan Shire // Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

It's been 4 days. I sleep on your bed and drape your sheets over me, hoping to be in your embrace. Ma walks around the house, trying to put back things in their place but still keeping them as if you were still here. I sense her trepidation. I can't gather myself to say anything to her.

It rained today; I watched the rain from your bed, from where you'd have seen life go by in the last year and a half. How did your eyes see the world?

For now, I've hijacked your bathroom. I want to feel the tiles you scrubbed for hours together when your obsessive behaviours were at their peak. I use your half-empty bottle of frangipani shower gel; I smell of you for many hours after.

I generously pour your shampoo on my palms and run my fingers through my hair. I undo the knots in my hair; I take after you in many ways, including the curls in my hair.

I wear your checked shirt today. Amma mistakenly glances at me. Our eyes meet. We are both quiet, inhaling your absence in ways we cannot yet fathom. I go back to window gazing from your bed.

Your sheets keep me safe as the rain overwhelms the night sky. I hope you're dreaming of rainbows and warmth. Good night, Appa. ♥️

The Last Raaga

They say hearing is one of the last senses to go. Or stay. Depending on how you see it.

Ma often called out my name of endearment - puTTi (the little one) - to see if you were responding, if you still recognised your own blood in the dusk of your life. You turned your eyes in my direction; that's all I wanted to know - you, my life giver, acknowledging my presence. You slowly lifted your head in the direction of my name even two days before. See, he still remembers you, Ma said with triumph.

I slept resting my head in the nook of your arms for days and nights on end. I played your favourite raagas as I gathered you in my arms, wiping fluids, and patting your chest when you struggled to breathe

I played shehnai in Raaga Bilakshini Todi, the raaga of despair, when the house was quiet. This Raaga pushed Ma into a landscape of bleakness that she wasn't ready to step on. The lilts of Raaga Todi Teen Taal, she hung on to.

You slept peacefully when I played the Sitar in Raaga Jog and Raaga Desh, the raagas of nightfall.

At times, words took away more than they could offer in this streak of grief. When the noise in my head was less tumultuous, I played you Raaga Jaunpuri and Yaman, and Raaga Chandrakauns in the robust voice of Gangubai Hangal.

The Vina was for times I had no emotions to offer, no strength to hum the song in bits and pieces. I just wanted to sleep in your arms and listen to the haunting notes of the regal Kambhoji or the exhilarating Shankarabharanam, strum through the Vina.

The melodious Raaga Sriranjani was the last Raaga you listened to before you closed your eyes and never woke up again. The remnants of the raaga were still lingering in my ears, in your eyes; I was in and out of sleep as I woke up to see you take your last breath.

When you listen to my favourite raaga, make a star shine brighter and I shall watch it, sleeping in your bed by the window.

Today, your phone rang. My heart sank as I heard the tune ring into oblivion. Ma did not pick up the call. Nor did I. We both watched it ring till it stopped ringing of its own volition. Ma put the phone on silent; she didn't want to switch your presence off.

It's all silent now. The house is calm and peaceful. I almost feel as if you're quietly sleeping in your bed, as if nothing has happened. I keep coming back to your room, to touch your things, smell your towel, wear your clothes.

Today I smell of musk. It's your Old Spice aftershave lotion. I pour a bit on to my palms, rub it, and gently caress my neck with it.

Sometimes, all I want to do is sleep in your arms. I make do with your pillow, sheets, and Ma's embrace.

After a month of checking to see if you're breathing, I now keep looking at Amma to see if she is breathing. She is. I am. We all are.

Evenings are the hardest. I want to make you a nice, steaming cup of tea and feed you biscuits, while telling you to not spill the tea.

I say feed because that's how it's been. Feed. Clothe. Put to sleep. Give medication. These have been our modicums of interaction, almost maternal for me, almost childlike for you.

I didn't have to birth a child to become a mother.

The pit of my stomach twinges when I catch a whiff of you; tonight, I sleep with smell of musk on my neck. ♥️

I say I want something bleak. Bleaker than Coetzee's Disgrace. Not tragic but bleak. I've traversed the landscape of tragedy, rolled in its darkness, and have found colour in its dusk.

I want to feel the breathlessness when I read a string of words, which are naive on their own but are searingly heart stopping when they trail. Trail, trail.

How did Virginia Woolf feel when she walked into the river with stones in her coat pocket? What did Sylvia Plath last remember when she put her head in the oven? Was Esther's Bell Jar just the flicker before the end? Why did Jean Rhys' Antoinette want to blot out the moon and pull down the stars? Dark, dark.

When I close my eyes, I think of your hands, the vein on your forehead, your lopsided smile. Your bleak eyes that saw something in the sky.

Is the grass singing on the other side?

SHIFTING THE SUN

When your father dies, say the Irish

you lose your umbrella against bad weather.

May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Welsh

you sink a foot deeper into the earth.

May you inherit his light, say the Armenians

When your father dies, say the Canadians

you run out of excuses.

May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Indians

he comes back as the thunder.

May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Russians,

he takes your childhood with him.

May you inherit his light say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the British,

you join his club you vowed you wouldn’t.

May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Armenians,

your sun shifts forever

and you walk in his light.

- Diana Der-Hovanessian

The Anatomy of Grief

I sit in front of the laptop and move between tabs. Hours pass, and I have no recollection of what has ensued. Memory is a strange affair. I'm a stranger in this wilderness. ⠀

⠀

The sun is no longer shining. The sky is a single screech of grey. So is your shirt that I wore today. In memorium, in death, in grief. ⠀

⠀

It's the two of us now, Ma and me, living, breathing, aching in this three-roomed house, asking ourselves how much space is too much space. I sleep in different corners of the house each day, invoking your almost physical love for the house you built. I want to die in this house, you said. And you did, staring at the skylight that streamed in the gentle suns and the half moons.⠀

⠀

I still make enough food for four people. Old habits die hard. Less milk, less water, less sugar, but there's somehow always enough tea for three people. I drink your share and make peace with it. ⠀

Yesterday, a 39-year-old Kannada actor passed away, leaving behind a heavily pregnant wife. I watch the visuals of the bereaved wife screaming in agony. I play it, I play it again. I cry for hours after. Amma says at least you led a full(er) life. I nod in agreement, but the screaming woman doesn't leave my dream. ⠀

⠀

I re-read about the five stages of grief; I call it a fallacy. I am not in denial. Or in anger. I don't want to bargain for your life. Depression doesn't capture the nuances of this grief. And acceptance rings of cloying optimism. What this is is a dull ache, heaving and throbbing in my gut. It's visceral. ⠀

⠀

Your ashes have arrived. I wonder if I'll find your teeth in there, your ceramic fillings, the steely implant from your surgery. I don't have the heart to unclasp the urn. ⠀

⠀

The little baby has somehow understood your absence. He doesn't ask too many difficult questions. He knows the finality of Amma's tears. He knows there is no homecoming this time. He offers a hug and throws himself in Amma's embrace, his chatter filling the void. ⠀

⠀

I sit under the skylight and watch the sky turn cloudless. I let the light swallow me whole.

It's been a month since I've held you, Appa. Ma cries less often these days. She says she wants to be strong for me; she only cries when she is putting your things away: the remnants of a shared life that taunt her every single day. She busies herself with cleaning projects, the patience of routines, and occasional tears. I try to work, floating in a daze of uncertainty. On the nights my heart is full, I am unable to cry; the tears are stuck in my gullet.

I fear forgetting you - if I don't cry often enough, if I don't invoke you every day, am I treading down the path of self-imposed forgetfulness? Will you forgive me if I don't remember you every single day? Because remembering you is painful; the ferocity of it makes me gasp, the pain makes me numb.

I took Ma to the lake the other evening. The birds were chirping, lovers were canoodling under the trees, Ma went ahead walking briskly. I had no one's hand to hold, Appa. Yours was the one I held. Always.

Ma and I sense your presence in the house through darkness and light. We both grieve the loss of a child, a father, a husband.

I miss the way you brushed my curly hair away from my eyes; I miss the way you loved me unconditionally; if I had displeased Amma somehow, she'd tell you to scold me right at the door the moment I came back. You never did. You opened the door, smiled, and caressed my cheek. I miss the way you quietly slept; I miss the warmth of you as you held me in your arms.

These nights, I drift in and out of sleep, searching for your hands next to mine.

They say grief comes in waves. It does. I'm often gasping in their barrage; all the swimming I learnt isn't helping me breathe. ⠀

⠀

I stand still and wait for it to wash over me. There's no cherry picking here. No curating. Just a storm and I'm stuck in its eye. ⠀

⠀

Ma cooks less often these days. She goes to the kitchen, starts prepping out of habit, and then forgets the recipes of dishes she has effortlessly made for 40 years; I rescue her half-cooked dishes and feed her with love. ⠀

⠀

Your memory box arrived in the mail today. It's a red trunk with golden hinges. I want to keep your things in it; red was your favourite colour. Your black-rimmed glasses, the locks of hair I saved from your last haircut, your pristine white handkerchief, your watch of 20 years, your comb, and your aftershave lotion. ⠀

⠀

I opened the urn day before yesterday; I wanted to keep some and put the rest in another urn to immerse in the river. The top of it was all bone fragments. My gut twinged and I broke down; no one is ever ready to see their loved one in this form. ⠀

⠀

I keep waiting for you to call me puTTi (little girl); I keep waiting for you to tousle my hair. I keep waiting for you to tell me to keep myself warm and wear a pair of socks. I keep waiting for you to pat my head. I wait. ⠀

⠀

I'm awake on most nights to see if the storm has passed. It hasn't. I'm still choking in its stronghold. I gasp and wait for sleep to unburden me. ⠀

It's been three months since I last held you in my arms, since I slept in the warmth of your embrace, since I smelled the aftershave on your cheek.

Time hasn't stopped, time hasn't flown; it's all morphed into a shadow of days and nights - painfully grey. I wake up many times in the night, gasping for breath, for the grey to change into some colour, any color.

Ma is blinded by blistering headaches every single day. She wakes up before I do, makes coffee, and spends some time reading the papers. The house is eerily quiet and she is terrified of the quiet. She plays some music to shatter the stillness. The app on her phone only shows the songs she has played for you; they haunt her without being played.

I weep often. The part of my heart that was whole with your love, is empty. I try to fill the void - with chores, with work, with plants, with anything my tired self can do. The more I fill it, the more it grows; it's a problem with no solution and a solution that adds to the problem. Ad infinitum.

I read. I'm particularly drawn to grief memoirs. I read Joan Didion. I read C S Lewis and I'm stunned when he says "god always vivisects" in 'A Grief Observed'. I'm not a believer, but I find myself calmer. God is, indeed, a vivisector.

I give away some of your things, but wherever I turn, I find you. There are nights I collapse and cannot make my way out of this labyrinth of memories. I sleep on your side of the bed, wear your shirt, and sing to Amma as she struggles with a headache. Had you been there, you'd have lovingly massaged her forehead. I'm doing it on your behalf. You've left me with this mountain of grief, with no plateau in sight.

While I might be seeped in the depths of your absence, the part of me that wept at your physical suffering - is relieved.

I wake up this morning to Joan Baez's rendition of '500 miles'. I wasn't even fully awake when the words from the song wafted into my dream.

Out of the window, as a grey, sunless day comes into being, I hear the whistle blowing... a hundred miles.

I am desperate to keep you alive in my fondest memories - I am equally desperate to forget the face of your suffering. I can't seem to do one without being pulled by the other; the heart works in capricious ways.

I cry to Ma, telling her I can't erase the image of you staring upwards, blank, lifeless, in your last days. My hands can't forget the memory of your cold, cold, hands. I still hear the trill of your languid breathing - almost the sound of howling, monsoon winds.

If I had credulously assumed that watching you suffer killed my spirit, what your absence is doing to me is something I can't even begin to emote. I sit dumb, mute, forgetting words, names, incidents, with no imprint of things past - a tabula rasa, as Locke would have said.

Maybe it is human nature to dwindle into the somatic when grief overpowers the will to be. I seem to be moved only by two things - the goings on of nature, and pain, in all its forms. I want to flee, not fight anything in my way.

I'm caught unawares by bouts of nausea through the day. I wait for the feeling to pass. I fall asleep to the sound of rain.

Ma and I water the plants in the garden, pot some new saplings, re-pot some others. We come across the plant we had nurtured in your name. It's all withered now - the metaphorical allusion isn't lost on us. We pot a sapling of peace lily in its place and hope it thrives. It's the season of life, of renewal. I let nature take its course; I rush in as the first droplets of rain fall on me.

Dear Pa,

Yesterday was the first time in months that I stepped out of the house alone without Ma. Just like old times.

With a friend in tow, I went to Church Street and my usual book haunts. I had a beer, bought some books, ate some hot snacks, and trapezied around, looking at the street art and the paintings on sale. Just like old times.

I came back at night, revelling in the chilly November air of this city, the city lights, the friendly cabbies, and the people milling about. Just like old times.

I rang the bell and Ma opened the door. I walked in and heard your voice from the room - did you come back, little one? I instinctively looked inside your room, thinking you were sleeping with the lights off. Just like old times.

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own…I have loved none but you.” —Captain Wentworth, Persuasion

#jane austen

A got married. Wow. I had asked him once if he’d date me.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

this city speaks of home