Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho...Jagjit Singh lives on in a smile

If you are an Indian, your music, specially your film music, is an inseparable part of your life, isn't it?
And so are the singers. And when one of these singers dies, it's as if someone in your own life has gone away. It's a voice that's been a part of your life, your growing up, your memories...

Jagjit Singh's voice was one that you came running from the kitchen, if you happened to hear it playing on TV, which was often. At least "Hosh walon ko khabar kya...." from the film Sarfarosh is a big thing on TV. He died this morning; may his soul rest in peace. May his music stir many more hearts and create in people who don't really appreciate ghazals a love for that genre of music.

For me, somehow, the songs that come instantly to my lips when I think Jagjit Singh are those from the films "Saath Saath" and "Arth". Incidentally, I discovered only today, that both were made in 1982. I don't know when exactly i got hooked to those songs, or why i bought the tape first, and then the CD...but somehow i listened to it a lot after i got married. Maybe because both movies have dealt intricately with relationships and it was a kind of Hindi cinema where the lyrics were actually meaningful, reflected the theme of the movie, made sense when heard individually too. I just can't put my finger on it. Maybe it was the perfect marriage of great lyricists like Kaifi Azmi and Javed Akhtar's words with the soulful voice of Jagjit Singh.

Even today, when I'm low, I reach out to this music. I cry sometimes listening to "Jhuki jhuki si nazar" and "Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho...".

Then there's the most hauntingly painfully truthful song from Arth:
"Koi ye kaise bataaye ke wo tanahaa kyon hai
wo jo apanaa thaa, wohee aur kisi kaa kyon hai
yahee duniyaan hain to fir, aisee ye duniyaan kyon hai?
yahee hotaa hain to, aakhir yahee hotaa kyon hai?"

There's a painful deliciousness to the lyrics...you sort of savour the pain in the words and when Jagjit Singh sang it, he added his own beautiful pain to it -- though, with the soothing balm of his timbre that was his trademark.

I HATE Sundays; it means so much more work!!!

Bah
I'm back from a Sunday, and actually feeling peaceful at work. ACTUALLY.

Despite the bitch of a boss and bummer colleagues who always dump me with work on go on vacations -- I've got loser written all over my forehead -- I'm just finally breathing deep in office.

It's a nasty thing to say, but come on, you MUST have felt it too... sometimes, ok...at least this one time....
You know, really, I must have said this several times on my blog, but almost on every Sunday I thank god that I don't stay at home everyday and can get away from it all by going to "work". I mean, really, office and its tensions are there too. But sometimes they seem minuscule. Women who stay at home all day, everyday, must be getting frustrated with all this at some point in time. I do it for just an entire day in a week, and I do!

Hubby came back from a  long tour, so it was good that we were all together at home after a real long time, when all of us had a holiday. But the day was so much slogging ......

There was and elaborate breakfast and lunch to be cooked (had to pamper hubby who hadn't had 'home food' in 10 days), there was the folding of the laundry, just some basic cleaning up in the kitchen, doing a check in the fridge to  put away old stuff, make space for more stuff, put away veggies and sorting greens for the next few days, li'l fellow's tantrums to tackle, lazy hubby to scream at, take Sonny to the park (raining, so run!), visit hubby's relatives (yes, that's slogging/task), come back to a lonely dinner with Sonny (hubby just fell asleep without dinner) and the worst part -- putting away all the leftovers/dishes after the Sunday dinner. That's really the worst thing.

After which.....aaargh...Sonny wanted to make a collage, so sat cutting coloured paper while half dozing off.
And in between all this, I was desperate, desperate to read -- while i couldn't get to read much of the morning's paper because Sonny sat on it, i so badly wanted to read this graphic novel my dad gifted me, Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist -- A Graphic Novel. I between all this, I managed to finish it. Yipeee!!!
But how hard i struggled (Apster., I promise I'll do that post on reading/books that you tagged me for. Promise :-*). And I felt so bad for myself. Didn't watch any TV, and really struggled to read the book (was feeding Sonny while reading a large part of it, or was cooking and reading).

Honestly, whoever was talking of Sunday as a holiday wasn't thinking of women like me....

When every sentence of the day begins with WHY?

Why should I pee?
Why is there sunlight in the morning?
Why should I brush my teeth?
Why can't I swallow the toothpaste?
Why should I drink milk?
Why hasn't the maid come in yet?
Why should I go to school?
Why does the earth shake when an elephant or dinosaur stomp about?
Why does an elephant have so much strength?
Why do I have to nap?
Why should I wash my hands after touching my bum?
Why does a plant need water?
Why can't I keep an elephant at home? A real live one??
Why did you just exclaim "Ayyo"?
Why did you just hit me?
Why did you not say "sorry"?
Why are you cooking?
Why are you not wearing bangles today?
Why are you wearing MY bangles today?
Why did you just call me a "bad boy"??
Why do you have to go to office now?
Why should we wear a different dress before we go to bed every night?
Why are you wearing a bindi?
Why did you just tell me not to do that?
Why should we pray before going to bed?
Why do we have bad dreams?
Why can i not put all my fingers in my mouth at once?
Why can I not watch my favourite elephant rhyme more again?
Why do people live below our house?
Why do you want to watch TV?
Why did the cat visit our house today?
Why doesn't a cat have a house of its own?
Why can't I stay with my grandfather?
Why should we not leave the tap running?
Why does daddy always watch TV?
Why do we have to put out a milk coupon in a bag every night?
Why is it dark at night?
Why can't I drink water soon after I have my homeopathic medicine?
Why should we sleep at night?

Intelligence: what can a 3-year-old understand?

Maybe intelligence is too loaded a word, maybe understanding is what I'm talking about -- not sure, though.

Sonny turend three years old recently and he leaves me befudled by his understanding or lack of it of many things around him. Ok, before anyone can pounce on me, i know "he's only 3!!!"

I'm looking at it in relative terms -- I'm not comparing him with other kids. I'm comparing it with his comprehension of various different things.

He asks me questions about death, my aunt who died, weather we'll all "go" one day too, and seems to be pretty calm and absorbent with the explanations offered.

He wants to know what happens to food once we put it in our mouth, how mosquitoes suck our blood, how water comes out in a tap, where from etc. He understands most of the answers given.

He's able to solve pretty complex jigzaw puzzles...he also seems to have a decent memory for names, things, incidents, people, places, images... 

He's figured out that the gate mustbe closed behind him, that after eating chocolate, the wrapper must be thrown in a dustbin...

But then seemingly simple things, he can't get. Each time I raise this, a very kind ol uncle of mine says that's how kids work. What's "seemingly simple" to us adults is not necessarily simple for kids. Hmmm plausible explanation.

But he can't seem to understand that i need to eat, to pee, -- basic things that others do too -- and he does too. Why is that unacceptable? Agreed, may be he thinks it takes away from the time spent with him, but honestly, a pee? And all the time I eat at home, I eat with him or soon after him, sometimes talking to him or while playing with him. He also doent allow any people into the house (maha-embarassing) and screams when I take a phone call at home -- even as I type all this out it's getting clearer that these may be "wanting attention" issues.

He can't seem to care for explanations when he wants his way -- a sort of blocking out of logic when he wants what he does. I'm tired now of tantrums. Screaming, crying bouts for "i don't want to eat this!" or "i want to go to grandpa's RIGHT NOW", "i don't want to sleep inside the mosquito net", or "i don't want to wash my hands before eating". No explanation is acceptable when he WANTS or doesn't want these things.

He doesn't want to understand the word "no". When it's bedtime he wants to colour. When it's time for dinner he doesnt want food, when it's time to play he's hungry -- just so disturbingly so. Is it his way of telling me he's The Boss? Gawwwdddd.....

I'm not really thinking this all out clearly maybe...maybe i'm mixing up issues. But i'm just TIRED. heeelllllpppppp

Do you still feel "at home" at your mother's home?

Mother's home. Mom's place. Tavaru maney... These are phrases that really hold a deep-rooted emotional umbrella of feelings over your heart. They shade your heart from the rest of the world.

Yet, its so ironical how you feel so out of place in this same home you grew up in all your life, once you move out and have your "own" life. The umbilical cord connecting you to that distinct world "before marriage" gets stretched and strained in unimaginable ways.

No, I'm not in distress or anything...I just got thinking about it a few days ago, when I made a comment to an aunt of mine. I was visiting her. Hubby was on tour as usual. "So will you stay back at mom's tonight?" she asked casually. "No, I'm going back...I just feel more comfortable there...." without realising the horror of what has just escaped my lips. But my aunt, a decade older than me, completely identified with that and said she feels the same way too...we swept over the issue with an understanding smile for each other.

But, it is true...for me at least. maybe it is too for some other women.

My mom has always been a very strict disciplinarian, and post-marriage, the freedom from that I guess makes me feel this way. Even now when I go back to mom's I hate being whipped by her -- put the glass away after drinking tea- don't let it dry up, don't enter kitchen till you've brushed your teeth, "go, go have a bath fast", make the bed as soon as you get up, don't keep the oily ladle on the kitchen counter, don't drop food on the stove while serving yourself dinner....

I know, small things...still, no one tells you that in your home! (It's a different matter that you're saying all that to husband and child perhaps, in your own role as mother...) Sometimes I feel miserable that I take this home, these people and their presence in my life for granted. My friend who recently lost her mother always points out in times of distress "But at least you have a 'mom's home' to go to....." Oh how miserable I feel for her at such times.

I don't know if it's age, but every conversation with the parents is no longer a conversation -- it's an argument, very often a fight. Because we disagree on most things. How and when did I grow so different from them, and they from me?

I don't like being told what to do. I never liked it, but I was never so vehement in protesting either, earlier. Perhaps then, I didn't have some place to "escape" to. No "escaping to husband's" when parents piss you off.

But it's amazing how I'll still run to mom's when I'm sick, when things aren't smooth with the in-laws or hubby, when I'm just feeling low, when I don't feel like cooking. It's still a place I go to seeking solace, comfort, food, love, and the familiarity of all things childhood and growing-up. But then, there's a point when I want to return.

Whenever I point out to mom "My pollen allergy always gets triggered in YOUR house," in between my allergic sneezing bouts, it gets her all teary. "MY house..? You grew up perfectly fine here all these years..."

This thing of yours and mine, mom's and mine, parent's and husband's ... how easily we cross over, leaving behind more than two decades of what shaped us. How casually we sift and separate, distinguish and compartmentalise. How foolishly we claim what we have now is ours.