Stranger in a Strange Sea

 "Yeah, the water's salty, it burns, and it'll get in your eyes and mouth. But don't worry, you get used to it." As soon as the scuba master said this, I decided diving wasn't for me. Unfortunately, at that point I was treading water, a belt of lead weights around me, looking as ridiculous as only a fat man in a skintight wetsuit can look. We were 20 minutes away from a decent shoreline. There was no backing out.

He was right. it burns, and you feel like you'll never stop blinking. The shampoo they wash your underwater goggles with to ensure they don't fog up, stings. But you do get used to it. One minute, you are sputtering and gasping, trying to get used to the strange sensation of breathing through your mouth, and only through your mouth. The next, you know exactly what Dorothy meant when she realised it wasn't Kansas anymore.

This is a world where the normal rules don't apply. Nothing works like it should. Light doesn't. Nor does gravity. The plants don't flutter in the breeze, they sway to the gentle ebb and flow of the currents, or the silent probings of the marine life that cuts through them. It's wet, of course, but it's wet all around, so it doesn't feel wet anymore. Instead, it just is....a slow motion world where you are the alien invader. Bug eyes peek at you from within creamy white bulbous shoots that gently float in the water. It's their world. You are just a visitor.



You're told not to touch anything, and your instructor makes sure you obey, firmly guiding you away from arm's reach of every interesting, spiky, gelatinous, shimmering, sparkling, crusted or just plain weird object you see (magnified 2.5 times thanks to your underwater goggles). It's the world's scariest "look, don't touch" policy, because you don't know which little sting gives you a mere 7-hour itch, and which one puts you in a hospital. The presence at your shoulder does, of course, but he would't tell you even if he could. Which he can't. So you drink in through your eyes, while hoping you don't drink anything in through your mouth. Yes, he showed you what to do if your breathing apparatus comes off. It's just that you are 30 feet underwater, and you'd really rather not check if you remember all the steps in the correct order.

In fact, you're quite helpless, being pulled and pushed and occasionally tapped on your shoulder if there's something interesting you might be missing. Your dive master points at what seems like an surprisingly even, jagged split in a rock before disturbing the water with a wave of his hand. The opening snaps close, and you realise it was a gigantic clam, so crusted with corals and mud so as to be indistinguishable from the bedrock. A fish wiggles by, paying you scant attention, every colour of the rainbow and then some playing on it's gleaming surface, Sea cucumbers, one and a half foot long and nearly as wide rest on the ocean floor, barely registering as living creatures. Schools of fish show more coordination than a Chinese regiment, moving as if controlled by a singular, erratic, and above all, lightning-quick puppet master.



And then, just like that, it's over. A quick visit to the sea bed to experience the novel sensation of walking 30 feet underwater, and you are pulled back to the world of noise and motion, away from the comforting, insistent pressure of water all around you. Suddenly, you realise you are wet, you are cold, you are hungry because you didn't have breakfast, and your throat is parched. Time moves. You clamber back into the waiting boat. Waiting to take you away from this world of blue and green dreams. Back to reality. Back to the familiar. Back to where you belong. Back to where the water is sweet and the eyes don't burn and the plants move like they are supposed to. So why, as I sit on the swaying deck and look at the emerald water below, do I want to slip quietly back in, and be an alien once more, in a world that isn't quite mine?

Vicarious Reincarnation

“Why are you so fucking inquisitive?” they ask. Well, not to my face. That's just rude. But they ask with their eyes, their voice, their defensive postures. The way their eyebrows arch just a little bit and the corners of their mouths turn up in irritation. “Why are you so fucking inquisitive”, they ask with their scrunched noses, every single time I lean into a conversation, uninvited, with a “What?”, or a “Huh?” or even a quizzical expression that says “Please validate my existence by acknowledging me as part of this little discussion”. Of course, they’re not looking for answers; it’s a rhetorical, nonverbal question to make the creepy guy go away. I do have an answer though, if they only stopped to listen.

It’s because I don’t believe in reincarnation.

There, now isn’t that a zinger? At this moment, I am leaning back into my chair, a smug little smile on my face. Ain’t eye a clever boy! That’s such a cute little answer, isn’t it? Enigmatic, so you want to know a little bit more. Or, you think it’s stupid and nonsensical and have already walked away, but in that case, you aren’t reading this anymore, which means you are not aware of what I am saying right now, which means if you actually ARE aware of what I am saying then you are intrigued by what I have to say next, which means my answer WAS enigmatic and clever, which means….what exactly?

And now I am stuck in a loop. Where were we? Oh right. Reincarnation. Specifically, my lack of belief that the human body is basically a glorified hard disk and that the data can just be transferred once you get one bad sector too many, into a different model, hopefully one with a larger capacity and shiny, brushed aluminium body. I don’t think that happens at all. And so, I ask questions. I shove myself into conversations. I appear, uninvited and unwanted, and no amount of uncomfortable silences and behind-my-back titters are going to dissuade me. See, being there is my only shot at reincarnation.

Because when you speak, and I listen, I am enveloped, for a moment, in your essence. Every word you say comes from a perspective that isn’t mine. It comes from a place that I have never been, and I never will be. When you speak, it’s a fascinating journey, a glimpse into a world and a worldview that is familiar, but oh so different.  And when you speak, through your eyes and your worlds, I live a different life. It may be brief, it may be shallow, but it’s the only chance I have. The relationship you have with your father, or the fight this morning with your significant other, or even the weekend movie, these are all things you have experienced uniquely. I may sit right next to you during the movie, or have a similar relationship with my parent, but it will never be exactly the same, and it will not affect me the same way. When you speak, when you share your life, you are not recounting facts. You have taken facts and dipped and marinated them in that all-important sauce that gives life its zing – PERSPECTIVE! It is your perspective that makes everything about you unique, and when you speak, you lend me a little bit of that unique worldview. For a moment, in a strange and powerful way, I am not me. I am you, and you, and you, and I am living a different life every minute. It is intoxicating. In fact, you should try it sometime. Perhaps then, the next time you see me wading into a conversation with a stupid little grin on my face, you would not draw back or walk away. You would understand. You’re the only chance I have, just like I’m the only chance you have.

At reincarnation.

At a different life.

At eternity.

Stock-Home Syndrome

A mother's love is unconditional. Usually.

Parents put their children ahead of themselves. Usually.

A father is a shelter, a port in a storm. Usually

But this blog is not about the parents. It's about the kids. Not those who are kids today, but those who were kids once. Who suffered...yes, suffered in the hands of their parents when they were growing up, not because their parents were evil people, but because they didn't know any better. If it happens outside, people call it assault. If it happens at home, people call it tough love.

Many of my friends have horror stories. One is about how his fathers whipped him with a belt for scoring less than 80 in maths. In his class 7 exams. There is a tinge of pride in my friend's voice when he recounts how the welts didn't disappear for weeks. Machismo. 'Cos that's what dads do.

Another friend once told me why she kept skipping classes every month. Her mother didn't allow her to get out of the bed when she had her periods. She was "unclean" after all. Mind it, we were both in college. The girl was effectively under house arrest for a week every month. Only allowed to go to the toilet, the rest of the time she was confined not even to her room, but in her bed. Month after month. Year after year. It was normal to her. A tinge of sadness, a bit of irritation, but normal.

These are not isolated stories. Many people I know have similar dark patches they try to blot out. I have mine. When the abuse isn't physical, its mental. Screams. Being locked away in dark rooms. Being treated like nobody. Humiliated because they cannot fight back. The only word for it is bullying. But it's not when the parents are doing it.

So many grow up to have terrible relationship with their parents. Those that don't have terrible relationships with their children, because they think bad parenting is the only way of parenting. Few have the courage to accept the truth - that their parents frequently screwed up. That parenting was the biggest test of their parents lives, and nobody really checked whether they were ready for it or not. A person isn't even allowed to be a security guard at an ATM without going through an interview and a background check. Yet he can be a parent, no questions asked. Creating a human being and nurturing him or her into a person somehow requires less skill and knowledge than sitting on a stool and blowing a whistle really hard.

The worst part is the expectations. Expectations that the parents know best. The unspoken rules that children don't have self-respect to bruise and parents don't have to say sorry. People who are barely 23,24,25 years old are somehow EXPECTED to know how to bring up a child. And because no one really corrects them, because no one really tells them "You're doing it wrong", few parents actually grow as parents. Even at 40, even with a teenage son, they still have the parenting skills of a 25-year-old. And the 15-year-old son rebels, like all teenagers do, but doesn't really LEARN any better. And when the time comes for him to become a parent, the vicious cycle continues. Even when the child knows what he is doing is wrong, he cannot change, because that would mean his parents were wrong. That is not something the Indian society allows us to believe.

So kids, even if you are a kid of 40 with parents in their 70's, accept that your parents made mistakes. Talk to them about your pain, your suffering, and how much it hurt that they never said sorry. Tell them that you can understand that they never meant to hurt you, but they made mistakes like every other human being does. It will be difficult. It will be difficult to say these words, and even more difficult to accept them yourself. But unless you do, you will be doing the same hurtful things to your children. You will make them suffer as you have suffered. And in the end, they will alienate you like you have alienated your own parents, in your own mind. I realize I am not talking to everyone out there. I don't care. I know you are out there. I know you cannot forget. You never will. Learn to forgive first, and then only can you forget.