Renaming and other ramblings

By the way, in case you are wondering at the new blog heading, I grew tired of "life beyond the hill"... i mean, this still is life beyond the hill, but one year onwards, i felt like it should be more than jsut that! This afternoon, i started reading Neruda's memoir, and this line on the first page jumped out at me. Yes, I thought, this is why I blog even amongst the maddest of times at work and oherwise. It's also why i daydream, which i do A LOT (sometimes, i think i do it too much). But he's right, these intervals of dreaming help me stand up and keep goign when the work is hard (and by work here i don't jsut mean office, i mean a lot of things that are just hard work). This blog is those "intervals of dreaming" so that seemed like the right name.

The rest of what I would write about today is a dilemma i face every time i write for a public space: what is appropriate to share? Usually, I would limit a blog space to external stuff... in my mind, the blog and the diary have very different spaces. But, as I mentioned some posts ago, i increasingly find this blog going personal because there are lot of external things i cannot comment on without going inwards. And I am ok with that, generally speaking.

But today i have spent a lot of time online reading people's writing on different fora, discussion groups, and blogs. Basically, I have been trying to research patients' perspectives on some new treatment my doctor wants to put me through, because i am not yet convinced she knows what she is doing (if you don't know me and my medical history that well, you'll wonder at this attitude of mine. But i have seen way too many doctors mess up and mess me up as a result... so now i double and triple check every treatment and medication through support groups for the two major diseases i have. And say what you like, patients know WAY more than doctors do!). Anyhow, as i read all this stuff out there, i was incredibly grateful to the people who put that information out there, a lot of it very personal. I was looking at the blog of one particular woman who seems to have started that blog solely to document the effects of a particular treatment she was undergoing for that disease... it's updated regularly after every session of her treatment, and it even has photos. On one hand, i was so grateful because she had the exact information (and lots of very valuable advice) that i had been looking for. On the other hand, I felt a little squeamish... I don't think i would ever put such a detailed and personal report of my illness up on a blog. I don't know why, it just seems inappropriate. Maybe it depends on the particular blog and who your audience is... i know that most of that info is meaningless to all of you who read this blog, but maybe i would be more comfortable putting it up on a support group where i know my readers are interested in knowing how things are and what will help (come to think of it, i think i did post something like that on the support group once-- Chris, you might remember. But later I was so embarrassed and really, really wished i hadn't. Especially not if nayone i knew was going to read it). Why? Don't know. Maybe there's still some shame associated with the disease, maybe i, just I, struggle with the private-public line, maybe i should stop wondering and go do something more productive with my time.

OK, me likes that last idea. Good night!

Happy Birthday Blog

How time flies! I first posted here on December 16 2007, and i can't believe it's been one year and one week since then. Then again, when i read those entries, it feels like it was written in another lifetime...

I found one post there, which i wrote on the airplane home from California, listing things I thought i would miss about SUA life. Now, i feel like revisiting that a year later. Here's the original list with comments:

The neighborhood cup-- YES! I miss that place!
Walking to town center- Well, not the walk but the company (Masako, call me!)
dark chocolate- nah, you get decent dark chocolate in India now!
being mistaken for mexican- YES
running hot water 24/ 7- Surprisingly, no. I guess I re-accustomed pretty fast to life here.
brewed coffee- Nope, manage that at home now
being able to eat sushi and pancakes in the same meal-- YES! And Sushi in general. And pancakes in general.
California sunrises and sunsets- YES!
Midnight conversations- Oh, so much!
Signboards in Spanish- Not really. Maybe when i think about it, but not every day.
feeling safe walking alone at night- YES. It;s a good thing I have nowhere to go in the evenings these days, because i have no idea how i would get there. This is a big one.
Being able to laugh at my professors- Oh, I still manage that long distance! yay facebook!
Peace Lake- I miss Peace Lake!
moments of cultural-outsiderness- No, because after all that globetrotting i am still as much of a cultural outsider here in Delhi as I was there in other countries.
hugs- yeah, sometimes... because hugging isn't nearly common enough in india and because most of my friends are no longer within huggable distance.
all the people who come to the writing center for a "candy fix"- Hehe, only when i think about it!
watching people get high on too much work- yeah. At office, overworked people seem to get stressed and cranky. But I do miss the noise and madness of the cafeteria right around exam time...
clean public restrooms- ALWAYS!

Huh, interesting... I wasn't so far off the mark, was I? :)

Writer's Block

This blog entry is simply an attempt to break through Writer's Block, as i sit staring at an empty word document an hour before bedtime, longing to have at least one draft of this essay done tonight. Once the ball gets rolling, i know i can get a draft down in half an hour... but right now, the ball isn't rolling.

I'm trying to write an autobiography. One of my grad school aps and one fellowship application want me to write an autobiography. Of up to a 1000 words. Sum up my life in a 1000 words. And I don't even know where to begin.

In some ways, all personal statements have stumped me in this way... even jsut the idea of summing up all your academic interests, your interest in this program or that school, your dreams for the future, your work expereince... and then trying to make that essay seem interesting (applying to writing programs, the essay better be interesting!) is a lot of work. But at least, there you have your broad area of focus delimited for you. In this case, this "autobiography" is in addition to that kind of personal statement AND another statement about why I want to go to that particular school (yes, 3 essays for one school). At first, I really liked that because, after playing mindgames trying to sum everything up in 300 words for another school, I felt liberated by the amount of space. More than that, I felt that here, finally, was a graduate program that actually wanted to get to know me, not jsut my work but me. I still feel that, which is a large part of why i want to take this autobiography thing seriously. And yet, and yet, where does one begin?

In some ways, writing is always this process of overcoming self-doubt, isn't it? For a couple of weeks I was struggling with an essay for the internal newsleter at work, sure I was making no progress whatsoever, sure I could never get it done. And then one evening i forced myself to sit down at the computer because it was due the next day (had been due the previous day actually!)... and I got it down in an hour. I'm still amazed at the way that happens, even though I have expereinced it hundreds of times. Just sitting down, trusting the process that even when it seems like i have nothing meaningful to say i just need to keep saying it and suddenly it will all fall together (ok, the first couple paras will probably get thrown out at that point). And yet, every time, i wonder where to begin.

I jsut answered my own question, didn't I? Stop wondering what to write, just write. And trust the process. Oh, when will I learn to take my own advice?

Autobiography time now!

Kids and Disability

Today was a whole day's work and involved lots of screaming over the voices of noisy students, which might be why i feel really tired just now. But there's something from today that has set me thinking... and feeling. This was going to be a diary entry, but then it felt like the kind of diary entry i might want others to read, so here it is. (as time passes, i'm letting this blog get more and more personal!).

This evening, I had a meeting with someone who works in an inclusive school (disabled and non-disabled kids). The point of the meeting was to discuss possible ways of working together, doing workshops with kids there, having them work with our teachers on inclusive classrooms, etc. It was a great meeting in many ways- the people we met were lovely, and so many possibilities emerged that i really felt it could open a new chapter of my journey as a would-be educator. And yet, I returned feeling slightly disconcerted, not feeling quite at ease, feeling like something in the evening was bothering me. this blog post is an attempt to examine that feeling.

At one point, while talking about teacher sensitization to disability issues, i shared my concern that we sometimes focus exclusively on students with visible and obvious disabilities, forgetting that the word covers a whole range that we cannot ignore... yes, there is the blind student but there is also the severely visually impaired student... in the first case, the teacher certainly knows about it and probably won't be too insensitive (provided he/ she is a decent human being), but in the latter he/she is more likely to be hurtful. I shared an example of a teacher who once scolded me bitterly for walking up to the board to read what she had written and how I internalized guilt for not being able to read from my seat-- like there was something bad about me if I couldn't do that. I know, it may sound like a small thing to you-- i know it did to them-- but think about it. I was 10 then; I'm 23 now, but I still remember the scolding and the bitter shame I felt afterwards. It obviously left a strong impression and, in retrospect, I believe it really affected my perception of my own illness. Even today, I am embarrassed to ask for help reading something at a distance or requesting a "favor" like larger print copies.

Another example: In 5th grade, I used to hide the pink chalk. I am partially green-pink blind, and pink chalk against green boards used to make classrooms impossible for me. So, once I was thought of as "responsible" and given duties like making sure there was enough chalk near the board, I used to hide pink chalk at the back of the box and keep putting out other colors. Then, when I knew we were running out and only pink chalk remained, I used dread the coming weeks. Looking back, I can't believe I didn't simply tell my teacher that pink against green didn't work for me and request her to use different colors; I highly doubt she would have told me to deal with it and continued using pink. But somehow, the fear, the sense of shame, took over, and I pulled myself through those dreaded "all pink" weeks.

Once, in 7th grade, I couldn't copy down all the Math HW questions from the board, and I was sick of always losing marks over "copied wrong" questions (even if they were solved right, the teacher would give you no marks if you had copied a question wrong from the board). So I called the girl I then thought of as my "best friend" and asked her to give me the questions over the phone. Her mother took the phone from her and screamed at me, telling me not to take away her daughter's precious study time, and telling me that if I didn't copy the questions down on my own, it was my problem and no one else's responsibility. The woman had known me through 4 years and 3-4 surgeries, so it's not like she could pleade ignorance of my eye condition. But there she was, telling me, just as my 5th grade teacher had, that this was all my fault. And, once again, I believed her. I remember crying after I hung up, and I never called this friend for help again.

Over the years, many "larger" issues emerged. I had to study through audio tapes. I needed to take frequent long breaks from school for one surgery after another. On many days, my teachers had to accept that i was still listening to them even though I would keep my head down for the entire period because my eyes hurt. I had to give board exams with a scribe, which was complicated because i was giving exams in the "blind student" category although I wasn't blind (the exams have been broken up into "seeing" and "blind" categories-- the first are the normal exams; the second are the ones that someone else writes for you. No one seems ever to have thought of a "large print" category). In college, I had to make my own large print copies of texts, had to convince professors to give me extensions on papers when i suddenly took unwell, had to even write exams with my left hand when my glandular problem got really bad. Lots of big and small things like that came along in the way to my education.

Strangely, though, none of the supposedly larger issues left as strong an impression as those 5th grade scoldings. They hurt, they were struggles, but the emotion with which i now look back is triumph, is pride, is the sense that I proved stronger than the obstacles. Those long ago scoldings, though, still inspire an inexplicable sense of shame and, yes, even fear.

Of course, that's partly because as i grew older, I learned to deal with all these emotions, learned to talk to my teachers about my struggles. I was lucky to have some incredible teacher sin high school; not only did these women understand and support me completely, they also voiced their admiration for my efforts and went out of their way to help me succeed, recording books on audio cassettes for me, giving me photocopied notes when I couldn't take notes in class, exempting me from mapwork...thanks to them I completed school with good grades and with a strong sense of self. I owe them a lot.

But yeah, coming back to today's conversation, all these reflections really forced me to go back to the important role a teacher can play- incredible damage and incredible healing. They reaffirm to me why it is so important for teachers to be aware of, and sensitive to, the needs of their individual students. Also the need to involve the parents in the process-- i don't know if I ever told my Mom about those scoldings; I'm sure she would have taken it up in school if I had, but maybe the 9 or 10 year old me was too scared/ ashamed to do so. Not every disability is immediatley obvious, but over months of working with a child, reading their letters of absence, observing them in class, one should be able to tell if something is amiss. At the very least, we need to equip kids with the skills and the courage to articulate such fears, worries, and insecurities.

"How" is question number two. This blog post is still at "Why," written from a very personal space.

So, here I am after another disappearance. I am guessing there's no need for long explanations-- most of you know that i had an eye surgery about ten days ago, so i was out of action for a while. Back again, little by little now.

After surgery, i slept straight for 4-5 days, really, i have no track of time, of when i awoke, when someone called, nothing... those 5 days are a complete blur. Just as well, because i wasn't awake long enough to be in too much pain! The next five days were more interesting (OK, that depends on what you consider interesting!) because i was awake but unable to do much except lie around in a dark room, periodically popping pain meds. No, that's not my idea of fun either before you ask, but it was interesting because it became a sort of forced reflection time... time to think about so many things that i would never otherwise bother with. As a result, this is likely to be a very disjointed blog entry, with random little bits of thoughts from the last few days.

First, I felt like Rip Van Winkle when I awoke... the world changed so much while I was sleeping! The Mumbai attacks were still underway when i went into surgery... it had already been a nightmarish couple of days in front of the television, with scenes that looked more like war than terrorist attacks (a bomb blast is one thing; 50 hours of sustained gunfire and grenade attacks is another). Anyway, that's how things were when I went to bed after my surgery. When I awoke, i could only hear war-mongering. So-called solidarity marches one week after the attack descended into little more than cries to go to war against Pakistan. I lay around in bed, feeling helpless but amazed at the sheer stupidity of even thinking about another war between two openly nuclear states... over and above the madness of thinking that such a war would end terrorism anyway. Then I heard people hailing Guantonomo Bay and the Iraq War as models of how to fight terrorism, pointing out that the USA had never suffered another attack post 9-11. Gosh, i don't even know where to begin answering that question... having lived in a college campus in the USA for a few years, i had naively begun to believe that everyone acknowledged the erros of Iraq... clearl, i was wrong. And the two situations-- America's and India's-- are so different in so many ways that any comparison, either in terms of situation or possible responses-- feels totally futile. Really, what is common between the way 9/11 happened and the way the Bombay attacks took place, except for the fact that we have placed both under an arbitrary category of terrorist acts?

Speaking of which, I had an interesting conversation with some of my students about what constitutes terrorism anyway. Significantly, none of them talked about the actual loss of life as much as they talked about violence specifically aimed at creating a sense of fear and hatred, creating panis and insecurity, in the minds of people far beyond those directly affected by the violence. When asked why, then, we call these acts "terrorism" but don't use that word for Hindus raping and murdering Christians in Orissa, they shrugged, then finally said "I guess it's because we are hypocrites." Yes, I guess so.

Except, where does that leave us? Now we have not one but mulitple perpetrators of terrorist activity in the country. How do we respond, and where do we turn? The answers are unlikely to be easy and will definitely not be immediate, so let's leave the questions open for now. Perhaps the quest to answer them will itself prove to be the answer.

And, while all these events were disturbing the wrold and the country, i lay in bed, almost unaffected... that felt strange, felt WRONG, but there it was. Ot affected me all emotionally, yes, but still it felt wrong to be able to go on with life as usual in the midst of all that. Besides, life was not usual... i was recovering from surgery and had other stuff to worry about, stuff that seemed petty in comparison and yet stuff that was hugely important.

One of which was love. Amidst all the hatred and cynicisim that, I think, was eating at all our hearts, i was receiving message after message of love an friendship from all over the world. Expressions of solidarity with people in India. Expressions of concern from classmates who weren't sure which part of India I live in. And then of course, expressions of live and support in light of the health crisis in my personal little corner of the world. When I finally did get to my email and facebook after a week's post-op break, I found beautiful messages from some 25-30 friends, all in different parts of the world, literally messages from all 6 inhabited continents. It was one of those moments when you see so much hatred amongst peoples and cultures, thn see so much love amongst other peoples and cultures, and choose which you will believe in. I choose to believe in love, perhaps it is a desperate hope rather than a belief, but i must believe in it.

I'll close this entry here now, but in truth it hasnt even begun to detail all of this week's reflections. More soon, I hope.

In defense of the imagination

Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days I have experienced in a long time. Today was one of the most frustrating. In both cases, it's amazing how the whole day-- not jsut work, not just the evening, not jsut the morning, but the whole day-- turned out the same way. Anyhow, I won't get into details of either, because talking too much about yesterday would be disrespecting several confidential spaces, and because talking too much about today is unfair as i will be presenting very one-sided versions of a story that clearly has many sides. So, let's drop them both.

Instead, I will focus on one thing from today (and from several months in some sense of the other) that has been on my nerves. Below is a fictional letter (which i probably will send sooner or later) to the director of the Transformative Language Arts (TLA) program at Goddard college and, by extension, to all TLA practitioners out there whoahve contirbuted ot the amazing reader "The Power of Words".


Dear Caryn,

Remember me? We met at the "The Power of Words" conference held at Goddard in 2007... I was the odd international student (both, student and international, were odd) who flew up to Vermont from my college in California. What a beautiful four days they were! What a delight to meet so many people, attend so many workshops, and learn so much together.

Caryn, did I ever tell you just how relieved I was to discover TLA? To discover that somewhere out there, there were other people like me, people who had a sneaky suspicion that creative writing and stories were intrinsically connected to personal and social change... people who have devoted their lived to exploring this connection. Honestly, I am tired of people telling me that art is irrelevant in the context of society, that it is more the "fancy (read: superflous) stuff," or at most that it is a tool for self-expression... I hear that about poetry above all, and that stabs me because I love poetry, I live through poetry. For too long, i too had grown up thinking that my passion for creative writing (reportage bores me) somehow contradicted my desire to work for social change. TLA was such a perfect coming together, such a comfort, because suddenly I saw that my life could be whole, my two greatest passions could speak to each other, could even work together to create something even more powerful and beautiful.

I have written to you, haven't I, Caryn, about the Creative Writing for Personal and Social Change workshops I did here in Delhi? I worked off of your book "Write where you are" and Linda Christenson's "Reading, Writing, and Rising Up" to create the curriculum. It was such a beautiful expereince for me to facilitate that workshop, to see how these two passions of mine could indeed converge, to experience rather than just read about TLA.

And yet, despite everything, i seem to always hear people say that creative writing is irrelevant to the real world, to the world beyond "I." Have you heard that, Caryn? And do those words hurt you too? They hurt me deeply-- TLA, or my interpretation of it, has become what i really believe to be my life's passion, the meaning i find when all else is muddy, and it just hurts to have people tell me it does not, cannot, even exist.

Today was one such day. So after I got home from work, I opened "The Power of Words." First, I read Katt Lissard's story about her work on HIV in Lesotho-- that's always been one of my favorite TLA stories. Then I went to the dramatherapy for troubled teens one, because i too work with teenagers. And then I just read through a bunch of other essays like the one about making the journals and finding the students writing their names in it... lots of other ones. It felt so good to read it all.

Earlier, i have read this book for ideas, made little notes about how i could try out some of these techniques. Or i have read it as stories about the power of words. But today, the stories themselves were the words that had so much power. They reminded me that I am not alone in these dreams, that stories and poems and theater do indeed have so much transformative power, that even if a million people disbelieve in the sheer power and beauty of the imagination, there are a handful who believe... and that changes everything.

I think I can take up this conversation again at work tomorrow, this time more equipped with a sense that it IS possible and important, even if others don't think so. I think I'm going to take this book along to try and prove a point to those who still won't believe. Anove all, I think that now even if this project were to fall through, i will be disappointed but not totally disheartened. Because i will know that I have succeeded with one small group, that many others have succeeded with many other groups, and that even if not yet, eventually, I can work on making TLA my life's mission.

Thank you, Caryn, for opening up this space. And please convey my deepest thanks and warmest regards to everyone I met at the conference and to everyone who contributed to this book.

With love,

Aditi

Yet again

While facilitating a workshop this morning, I suddenly had a shooting pain through my left eye. The pain subsided soon, then became a kind of dull, annoying ache that lasted through the day. Not terrible, just annoying. Not the kind of thing that would usually have carried me to the doctor, but this time instinct said "GO!", and so i did.

Good thing too, because this time i have not 1, not 2, but 3 broken stitches inside the eye! Fun times.

I'm amazed at instinct, though... at how the body just knows how to tell me when something is severely wrong as opposed to my random everyday pain. All three times that this has happened, the pain/ grittiness/ discomfort hasn't been much out of the ordinary, or much more than a regular day. But each time, i have just known that I need to see the doctor immediately. I still don't know how i have known, but i have. Instinct. It's amazing.

I'm a little exhausted from all this. It hasn't even been 3 months since the last surgery (tomorrow is three months to the day), and here I am going back into the OT. The memories of the last one are still too fresh, the pain too real... over time, the memory fades, and forgetfulness helps one be brave. But right now, the memroy is fresh, and I really don't want to go through that again!

Oh well, at least this time i can prepare for it. Download lots of auidobooks. Buy lots of snacks and cold foods (have i mentioned how, when i am sick, i can only eat cold food or i want to throw up?). Stock up on pain meds. Hand over the most urgent things at work. Finish important-to-finish-now writing. And then I'll go back into that sterilized room. Ugh, I've spent way too much time in OTs, the memories make me shudder.

So yeah, I'm ranting. But right now, at moments like these, I also have a vauge sense of pride. Just pride that I have made it this far. Sometimes I forget all the struggles to get through school, to get through college, to balance (not always successfully) a working life and taking care of all these chronic illnesses. Sometimes, I get caught up in little stresses, start doubting my life's capacity for limitless growth, limitless expansion. Then, something like this comes along and forces me to reflect, just for a moment, on everything I have fought and won over. Not immediately, perhaps, but eventually. And that brings me pride and comfort anf faith in the future, faith in my life's capacity to defeat obstacles and open up further.

In the newspaper this morning, there was a short essay by Sensei (don't ask me how it got there-- i have no clue-- but it was perfect for today). He wrote about a 19th centruy mountain climber who was trying to conquer a particular mountain (i'll dig up the details another time). He wrote about each expedition, about all the ones that failed, about the ones where the mountaineer was seriously injured, and then about the 8th one, when he finally conquered the mountain. He wrote about how, even if you fall down seven times, the important question is whether you get up the eighth. I guess that's my question to myself right now as well. Even if I fall down seven times, will I get up the eighth?

And the answer is yes, I will, I always have so far. Moments like this remind me of this simple fact. And although that cannot alter the fact that I have a very not-fun few weeks coming up, although it cannot prevent me from wishing i didn't have to deal with all that pain yet again, although it cannot really change anyting, it does remind me that this, too, has meaning.

And maybe that reminder sums up all the change I need right now.

It's been a long time since i wrote anything. Not just on the blog I mean... I mean wrote, in general. For reasons that some of you know well, I am spending too much time writing about writing these days... too little time actually writing!

It isn't for want of things to write about. It is partially because some of the things i would write about might invade the privacy of others; a lot that's on my mind right now has so much to do with other people in my life that it cannot go up here. And partially because I don't want all of you to know about some of the other things going on in my life. Argh, sometimes, I wish i had kept the blog anonymous, but then again, if i did that, how would I stay in touch with all the people who do know me?

I've typed two LONG emails today. Why do i write so much when i sit down to write? It's exhausting for me, and I am sure it's exhausting for others too. Old habits die hard.

Certain things that have happened in the last... say, 2 weeks... have really made me think about the ways in which my life has changed and grown over these last 4-5 years. Sometimes, I am blown away by my own journey through so many lands, so many cultures... my interactions with so many people. I am amazed at everthing and everyone I carry in my heart. I had an interesting conversation with someone at work a few days ago, where she felt strongly that the more people you try to stay in touch with and be connected to, the harder it is to make space for new people... she felt that we each have a limited amount of love and energy to offer, and it gets distributed depending on how many people we choose to give it to. I've thought about that, but i am pretty sure i disagree. My life tells me a different story. With each new place I have travelled to, with each new person I have loved, I feel my cpacity for love growing rather than diminishing. Sure, I don't have te energy to keep up with everyone-- I am out of touch with too many people from Argentina, from Mexico, from SUA, even from right here in Delhi. But I don't feel out of touch. I know I could pick up the phone tomorrow, and it would be like we had just talked. We would have a lot to tell in terms of filling each other in on news, but i don't think we'd feel for a moment that we havent talked in months. I'm not sure how that has happened, but I am glad it has. It keeps me from getting lonely. I feel lucky to have so many SUCH beautiful people in my life.

I could ramble forever once you get me started on this topic, but I think I'll goeat dinner now. I have an especially challenging workshop session early tomorrow morning, so I want my full night's rest! Hope to find time for some more meaningful writing/ blogging this weekend.

Life Lessons Learned at the Pottery Wheel

1. Patience. Rush, and the clay is sure to collapse.
2. Trust the process, even when you can't see immediate results. It's quite incredible how you keep thinking the clay isn't rising at all, and how you suddenly find that it did rise. You're never quite sure when or how. and if you are me, you often think that this one is just not happening, until it does.
3. Starting right is crucial: If you haven't got the clay properly centered when you begin, forget about completing the pot. As a beginner, I thought of centering as just an annoying little ritual before the real work of pottery began. Over time, I realized that proper centering is at least half the real work of pottery
   
4. Small mistakes have huge repercussions. Leave in one air bubble while kneading the clay, and your perfectly shaped pot will collapse, either while you are making it or (worse) in the kiln.
   
5. A second's carelessness can undo hours of work: So you have the perfect pot, 12 inches high, beautifully straight sides. And then you pull too fast just once. The top spins off center, your pot collapses. You have to focus throughout, or there's no way you'll complete it.
6. With practice, almost any mistake can be remedied: I don't know what to do when my pot has spun completely off center, but my teacher can pull it back together almost effortlessly. And today, I was able to do that a couple of times too (of course, the "almost" is key-- for instance, an air bubble is an air bubble is an air bubble).
7. You know more than you think you know. After more than a year away from the wheel, I was convinced I had forgotten how to use it. But the moment I sat down at it, my hands just knew what to do. The body has an amazing memory.
8. No matter what, you can always start over. So, make your mistakes and have your fun. When one pot is beyond repair, you can recycle that clay and begin another new one, with new hopes for how high it'll go, new confidence if how beautiful it'll be. You may be right, or you may be wrong, but what counts is that the process is fun.
   

Nanu's illness

My Grandpa (Nanu) had a stroke yesterday. Fortunately we caught it really early and rushed him to hospital immediately (despite his objections that he was really ok and didn't need help! Nanu!), and so the damage seems to have been minimal. As of now, it's mostly that he cannot raise his right hand, and the docs are still hopeful that this, too, could heal. Although given his age and other medical complications, it will probably be a very long time.

I stayed with him in the ER for most of the day, having sent my grandma home to rest because she was exhausted, physically and emotionally, from the last few years' battles against illness. And at some point there, i had a weird realization: this is the first time I have stayed alone with a relative in hospital. In fact, it is the first time in my (somewhat) adult life that i have been to hospital because someone in the family was ill: roles have usually been reversed, or like last year, I have usually been out of town.

Now, have I mentioned that I hate hospitals? That smell... youknow how they say that smell is the sense most closely connected to memory? Well, I have a LOT of not so great memories that I associate with the smells of hospitals... even the ones that try to look all sparkly clean, they only nauseate me further because, really, what are they trying to hide? And who are they kidding? As we were wheeling nanu from the ER towards the ICU, I had a faint sense of deja vu, remembering a time 3 1/2 years ago, in another hospital in another country, where I was the patient. That hospital corridor had been dimly lit. Someone was pushing the wheelchair, and I was dizzy from all the drugs. I remember the distinct feeling of being alone in an enormous maze, with just one person pushing me along, but I wasn’t scared. Just curious, in a dazed sort of way. Just wondering at how large the place was and whether the corridors ever ended.

They did end. The strong smell of antiseptic made me gag, woke me up a little. And then, for the first time that day, the fear set in. Not for long, though, in only a moment, I was in the operation theater. I had a moment to wonder at how tiny the place looked. I felt that operation theaters—places where, every day, people walk that thin line between life and death—ought to be grander. Shouldn’t there be a little more ceremony to the place from which many people walk out with entirely changed lives and some people walk out of life itself? The drab white and blue walls didn’t do it.

I thought the same yesterday as I stood by Nanu's bed in the ICU. The room was a mess, gowns scattered here and there. Noises, all kinds of noises, noises i don't often hear and didn't want to know more about. His sheets were clean white, but other than that, nothing in the room made it seem like the kind of place where so many people's lives are saved, so many lives are altered, and some lives are lost, probably every day. Is it only in movies and books that the scene is supposed to match, somewhat, with everything going on in it? 'Cos these rooms sure don't.

It was weird, seeing nanu there. I know it was weird for him too. He coudn't understand being the one taken care of, me being the person taking care. You see, I'm still his little girl (he still never calls me Aditi but prefers "TM," which is short for "Teenie Meenie" or "Toofan Mail," depending on his mood! And, even through my teenage years, even at 23, I've never minded that particular nickname... I think that's a pretty good summary of our relationship!). He kept apologizing for the "trouble" he was causing, but how could I explain that he, of all people, could never be troublesome?

We are talking of the man who gladly woke up at 2 or 3 AM to peel pomegrantes for his troublesome little grandchildren (my brother and me!) when we were a few years old. This is the one man who I always knew was on my side; if my brother bullied me, he was the first to scold him; if my grandmother turned down a treat I wanted, he was the first to grant me it anyway; when my grandmother's desperation to marry me off starts getting on my nerves, he's the first to change the subject.When I was little, he would often sit me on his knee and tell guests that i was his favorite granddaughter, and i would reply, "how many granddaughters do you have?". "Just one," he'd admit, "but you're still my favorite." One day, he said "grandchild" instead of "granddaughter," but I automatically responded "How many do you have?". "Three" he said, looking at me with an earnestness that I haven't forgotten, some 13 or 14 years after the fact. And yesterday, this man was apologizing for the fact that i spent an afternoon reading at his bedside? How could I even respond to that?

And yet, when he said those words, I knew suddenly that yes, I am his granddaughter. Those would be, often are, my exact thoughts (and, sometimes, words) when the situation is reversed, when I am the one lying helpless in bed. Not to him in particular, but to my caregivers in general. I don't think it's a good or even a healthy frame of mind at that time, but it is mine, and his too apparently. I don't know why, but that sameness was comforting... that sense that despite everything, in some ways we are exactly the same.

The talk of caregivers brings me back again to the operation theater i started writing about earlier. When I awoke from the anesthesia a few hours later, I was shivering and I kept asking for more blankets. I asked the nurse why I felt so cold, and she replied, “Well its not like you have several layers of clothing on in the operation theater, you know.” Not a very comforting answer, but oh well, it would have to do. I slipped back into sleep.

The nurse came back: “Who is accompanying you?”

“A friend.”

“Is she a good friend?”

I thought for a while but was still too fuzzy to analyse the merits of this friend. But she did drive me to the hospital, so I figured she must be good. I said, “Yes, I think so.”

“You think so? Is she or is she not a really close friend?”

This was getting exhausting. I mumbled that she was, although I wasn’t sure yet.

“Okay!” the nurse sounded relieved. Next thing I knew, she asked my friend to come into the room and dress me. Oh, close enough, I supposed.

Interesting the way relationships and definitions change when someone is sick, huh?

November

I just gave someone my blog address claiming that i blog here "fairly regularly" and then that felt like a lie in recent weeks, so I was forced to come here and write something!

No, don't ask me for an update. I have been avoiding blogging and emailing (and even writing my diary, strangely enough) because too much has happened in the last 2 months, and writing about it is like being asked to process it. Don't want to go there, don't want to reflect on CLAP, don't want to process the madness of the few weeks that preceded it, so we'll sum it up as "It went well, much better than I had expected." Unfortunately, I was too stressed out making it happen to actually be able to enjoy it fully... still, i know that the experience was enjoyable and powerful for the participants (I still get SMSes and emails and calls about how much they miss those 4 days together!), so that's satisfying. I think I will write more about the Writing workshop at another time, though... that was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life... so you will hear more soon, jsut not yet.

Today, I went to the Daryaganj book bazaar with Dad. This is a Sunday used-books and used-stationery market that takes place on the pavement outside closed shops in one of the busiest areas of Old Delhi. It's a delight. I picked up lots of books at Rs. 20 or 3o each... but mostly it's jsut a pleasure to watch this place. The variety of stuff you'll see there is simly mindblowing-- I saw everything from Shakespeare and Ovid, to Jane Austen and Dickens, to Da Vinci Code and Sweet Valley. Even more interesting, I saw a book called "How to start a business in Georgia" (exactly what a random Delhi book browser would need, no?), one called "Robotic Science for traders" (still trying to figure out why a trader would need to know robotic science), and another called "How to really love your child" (anyone who buys that one must be beyond help!). It's a relaxed but exciting way to spend you Sunday morning, picking out your favorite books, then just thinking about all the books there and who must buy them...

Still thinking about other things like friendship and trust, although in different ways than what I wrote about a couple of entries ago. my close friends have long accused me of naivete, but i like to think i'm just innocently trustful. They are right, and I am too... I'm just not sure where the line should be drawn.

Another completely random jump: J, a close friend from SUA, visited me for a couple of weeks recently (she just went home on the 6th). It was the first time I introduced a non-Indian friend to my home, my life, the madness that is India. I had fun, and I think she did too. But also, I really got to see India through the eyes of a foreigner. If you read my entries in Feb- April of this year, you know that I was already feeling like I am looking at home from an outsider's perspective, but this time round was different. When I look through the phtographs she took, I am amazed at how I woudl never have taken half the same photos! So much that was new and strange to her was too normal to me for me to even consider photos. But when I look at it now, it's new (on that note, J, if you are reading this, one of the bulls that hung around in the lane behind my house died today, not sure how :(... just saw it as i was leaving for pottery today).

It was cool though, exploring Delhi like this. For the first time in years, I went inside the Lotus temple. For the first time ever, I went inside the Jama Masjid. And to all my Delhi friends who havent been to either, GO! I was amazed by the complete sense of peace inside both those places, especially Jama Masjid, given that it is surrounded by some of the most crowded and noisy streets you can imagine. There's something about buildings that are 5 or 6 centuries old, I tell you... the temperature drops by a few degrees, the noise gets shut out, and suddenly you really feel transported to a different place altogether. Beautiful.

OK, this is perhaps the most incoherent entry I have written in a while. At least I am back to blogging. Hope to write something more meaningful in a few days, now that CLAP is over and I have a life again :)

Goodbyes

CLAP-- the program at work that has ruled my life for the last few weeks-- is finally over. I saw the last group off on Friday night, and since then, have been sleeping or reading, too exhausted to do much else. I think it went well (the workshop, at least), but don't ask me more about it just now because i am yet to absorb it all and still too fatigued to reflect!

Yesterday i said goodbye to one more friend who has just moved to South India because of some family and work issues. Now just one close friend remains in Delhi, everyone else has moved out. It's weird, realizing that. The last 18 months or so have been full of SO many goodbyes-- saying goodbye to my class at SUA, saying goodbye to all the amazing people and places i fell in love with in Mexico, saying goodbye to SUA and everyone there in December, saying goodbye to Mongolia after just those brief weeks, and then moving back home thinking that all those goodbyes were behind me only to find that, one by one, my close friends are all leaving Delhi for different reasons! It's weird, unsettling. Even though I am used to not seeing some of these people for lengths of time (thanks to my years away), it's strange to be in Delhi without them... Delhi feels incomplete. With each goodbye, I am more aware that the Delhi I left 5 years ago will never be here again. Not sure if that is good or bad, but it is.

That also makes me think about the last day of CLAP-- the goodbye day. These kdis had only been together for 3-4 days, but you would never have guessed that by the emotional outbursts at farewell time. One little girl, all of 11 years old, cried every time someone left to catch their train... given that she was in the last group to leave, that meant the poor thing broke down about 8 times that day! Watching her, watching them all, I wondered what these 4 days together would mean years from now... how would they look back? Given the way they are all from different parts of the country and may of them will possibly-- even probably-- never see one another again, what will this brief intersection of their life paths, or our life paths, mean? For many of the outstation particiapnts, this was their first time leaving their villages/ towns; for all the Delhi kids, this was the first time interacting with children from rural India. They started off polarized, but somewhere down the line they did become friends... they all hugged and kissed each other at goodbye time... what will these brief friendships mean years from now? Many of these kids have no internet access, won't be able to stay in touch as easily as I am used to with my friends... will the brevity of this encounter make it more important or less important? It's hard to say... only time can tell, and perhaps it won't tell either. But I can't help think now of all the people I met briefly, for a few moments or days or weeks, and wonder what those encounters did for me... even I am not sure, how could I expect anyone else to be?