HER MEMORIES-MY WISHES



My grand-mother started talking to me, yea, she always talks to me about things like food, neatness and so on, but today she told me about herself, her birth, childhood,

about her father, mother, the village, different people there and so on it went on.
Ammamma was born on__/__/____?? i don't know, apparently she deosn't know too. Her parents got married at the age of 10 and 25. yeah, her mum was 10yrs. old

when she was married to him. After a long wait, lots of prayers and pujas, they had a girl child who lived for 5 years and broke their hearts, her parents, her father
especially went deeper into spirituality and muths, mother into religion and prayers. Then they had another child, who lived. At the age of 2months, the parents took the child along, on their travel to Kasi, from Eluru, when she was three months old, they met a sadhu on a boat in Kasi, who took the child, dipped her thrice in water, cleaned her forehead, streched her arms and legs and named her, Kasi Annapurna Devi. The name couldn't have been more apt, because my grandmother never sent away a man hungry maybe completely stuffed and unbearably full but never hungry, she cooks and has been cooking since she was seven. She's Seventy exact now, and she still wakes up earlier than anyone in the house, bathes and cooks, watches the ayurveda programme, notes down every important point he says in clear, legible telugu, with dexterity better than i could ever manage. Now, the bond between ammamma and me is a long and strong thing which is pretty difficult to sum up. But going on with today, her father, whose name, i forgot to ask, and mother whose name i also forgot to ask returned home in three months, i.e. she's five months old. Within a year they went on another yatra, when she almost got lost, but well, they came home once again. She had 4 siblings, all 5 are dual named.

She had to write her 10th exams at a place a little farther from home so she stayed at her aunt's and took the exams. They had Seematummakai trees lined up along their yard. The trees were long and strong and bore plenty of fruits, since it was summer, it was practically weighed down with them, kids and teenages used to pick the using thick long sticks and eat them, by the time her exams were over my grandmother had been able to collect almost a bundle of its seeds. She went home and gave it to her father, who, at the begining of the rainy season that year, called her to the farm, ploughed the land all along the horizon of acres of fields and made her plant the seeds in them, a landless labourer followed her up by covering them. By the end of that summer they grew into strong plants and in a few years, they grew up into trees strong and independent. Ammamma reecollected the joy she had felt as a child while watching them grow and attain life. She says nothing produced naturally is ever a waste, if we are throwing away something, it only means we are incapable of using it not that the thing is incapable of being used. I don't know how far and deep the moral went, but i loved the imagination of ammamma as a child, bending over the borders of green and brown fields planting seeds in the earth, guided by her father.

I wish, i had moments like that, well, dad is there, a loving dad too, but not nature, not fields or trees or sweet smelling breeze. It feels pretty pathetic to know i stay in a blocked apartment in a crowded city where every breath adds just a little more poison to my system. This way, i'll live, i know, and life-expectancy rates of Indian women has increased to 64 years from 61yrs, previously recorded, i know, but its not about survival, it's about life. Life like my grandmother's father or like her likes or atleast like the weeds they removed, where another breath of life doesnt end up costing me two times the measure. Where the sun-rises over horizons instead of buildings, where i can roam over naked earth in naked feet and a singing heart to the rhythm of the wind freely floating by and when having had enough of it, retire home to warmth and windows to gaze out at dark, jet black skies, sprinkled with endless numbers of stars and a thoughtful book and warm bed. Isn't it like, like, life ? I want to live you know, and live to be 116.__ years old, and live, with life as life and not as survival. Strong, long, healthy, and die in a deep sleep, undisturbed.

Hahha. Where was i ?? yes,

Now, my grandmother's father's a real real impressive person. Real Impressive not just as my grandmother's father but also as a responsible, strong and kind human.

Now i bear evidence for every word - responsible, strong and kind. And the evidence might take a long time to present, so ill do that next time and end this here,

incomplete, as usual.

With any hope, i might follow this up.

Yushka.

Reading Blogs

Im new to blogging…and I picked up a real bad time to start it. I have finals in a month and am completely unprepared to face them.

Talking about blogging…I haven’t seen many blogs, but the few I saw were so good they made up for the time I lost in prep.

Now I’m almost afraid of looking at another blog because I want mine to be like theirs..not about how impressive but how warm and simple their blogs were. When I was reading a few of them, it was like, I could see what they saw, feel what they did and in the end, I could only be grateful to them for taking the effort to post such valuable information.

Each blog had a different touch, (because it maybe rude to name and dissect them..i wont post the names of the blogs) there was this blog with ink and pen and watercolour cartoons, i saw how people around the world are pursuing passions. Where I stay, we are so tuned to studying , finding a job and settling in life..that every slight variation looks like an inspiration to pursue something different, something new.

There was also this blog talking about travelling around the world..he says, “never say no”. I couldn’t have agreed more. I wish I can face things like him, unafraid, eager to experience and have a readiness of acceptance of every experience like it was precious. I want to be able to look back, see and accept the cons of life like the piece of a puzzle, each part however different is essential in creating the whole picture. By the time I finished reading his first post..i was already regretting about my little and negligible travel experience. I wish I can pursue ideas with his conviction.

There’s more to his blog…the way he explained things, everything was so detailed and simple.

He seldom used words like awesome, marvelous, fantastic, cool , brilliant, wonderful….which made his blog seem convincing and honest. I’m impressed. But don’t expect that from me. I’ll continue being easily awed.

I saw another blog which was also very simple…it talked about daily routines...with an unaffected air.

There was also this blog where a girl was doing 365 nail designs or painting or whatever they are called, each for each day of the year. What patience. She not only paints…but posts on how she painted, what inspired her to paint that particular design with pictures on the blog. Either she has endless patience, endless time or is endlessly dedicated to nail art. Then suddenly the nails I just keep biting away acquired a new importance.

In the end, I’d like to tell u about my best friend’s blog. To be honest, she was lazier than me…she posted 3 posts in 2 years..but one of the post started somewhere and just got deviated to me..and how valuable friendship is and all and went on that way till the end of the post. I thought it was silly of her to mix-up different emotions and write things that would make her seem like a conventional muddle head. But it made me so happy to be remembered, so cherished to have her and I loved the blog…I don’t know how many times I’ve visited it, I keep going back just once, once again.

And my title known strangers is so because when I read the blogs I was able to frame images of them if not accurate, at least interesting.

And yea...Thank you every blogger not for reading this, but for having a blog I can read.

Thank you again and again till a millionth time for giving me such a dynamic reading experience no book has ever presented.

Ill keep visiting and posting till I grow tired of blogs and eventually, as an additional benefit I might just learn to do that well. Though I couldn’t care less about the quality of my performance or writing..i’m more concerned with being myself and not getting lost in expected standards and expected formats…we face so many of them everyday that the little chance we get to be heard regardless of the impressions we create on others become very important foundations of holding our distinct self…anyway, before I get anymore carried away. Bye.

Fundamental rights

"Is a right something that must be provided for or something that is simply not taken away ?"
-Amartya Sen

The Fundamental Rights are defined as basic human freedoms which every Indian citizen has the right to enjoy for a proper and harmonious development of personality. But are we actually having them or are they just theoretical fundamental rules to prevent further arguments against basic human necessities ? What use are the rights put to without being provided the necessary amenities to utilize them?
1. We have a Right to equality, we all know that. Most of us must've studied in out 5th or 6th grade that all are equal in the eyes of law, is that enough?


MY LOST SISTERS

I took this pledge that states that India is my country, all Indians are my brothers and sisters… 10 months a year for 12 consecutive years of education. I don’t know about brothers but by this time you would’ve understood what I am beginning to say. It’s about the millions of sisters of India and the world that I’ve lost.
Just between 1986 and 2001 because of foetal sex determination done by unethical medical professionals 5 million girls have been eliminated. Sadly enough it’s only increasing day by day. Did the child have a right to live…sure it did. Our constitution guaranteed it. Did it get the right? Do you think it could’ve walked to the court and got it’s right back?
My mum wakes up before sunrise and starts cooking then she finishes the other household chores like dusting the house( thankfully we have a maid to assist her in cleaning the dishes, sweeping and mopping the house, washing clothes which by the way she used to do it herself before i was born) and then she goes to office works the day off comes back and cooks again. How cool!? Aren't the female population of India gifted to have such understanding men who allow the women to attend offices?
I’m bone-tired of feeling sorry for the women suffering from their own ignorance, from domestic violence, dowries, cruel, ungrateful treatment, unaccounted household services and so on and so forth and so much more forth. My deepest condolences to the broken spirits and lost lives. And it’s time we felt angry instead of being sorry, high-time we intervened and took what belongs to us and help others realize their capabilities too.
For all that freedom, pursuit of happiness, liberty and equality we have been given but never provided for, those fundamental rights of Indian constitution that stare at us for help while the social realities rebuke them and all that mind that went into drain while making them because its team mate known as implementation stood as a failure through time…my deepest sigh.

“The one thing that doesnot abide by majority is a person’s conscience” –Atticus Finch.

We mustn’t get too used to ignoring and accepting mistakes thinking we’re not wronged or that we’re wronged just a little… we live in a society that moves in unpredictable circles. Unless we stand up for what we believe in noone else is going to stand up for us.

Tenali, Andhra Pradesh, India.

That's where i was born. In the early showers of a late summer night. I stayed there till was nine.
This is a recollection of my recent visit.
I went to attend my little sister's birthday who's almost the same age as me when i left it. Little did change. The open drainages, the narrow street, the typical little town's love and gossip... and so on. I reached there by 6 in the morning and pinni(my aunt) saw me first and was all smiles she came to me at a fast pace tried to take my bags and was so sweetly surprised it made me feel so guilty for not calling her often enough. My sister woke up rushed to me..kept on jumping and singing around me and was showing off her gorinta(mehendi) all day. She went to school early and all dressed and looking pretty and i slept off my tiredness till she returned. then the birthday preparations, arrangements, celebration, everything happened in such a blur. It was evening already and i had to leave...
Somehow, i didnt want to..i didnt like that place ever, ever as a child. I had many haunting memories of cruel teachers, loneliness, embarassing moments. The whole place maintained a slow pace and severe discontentment. But i still wanted to stay there just a little longer just a little more...like a bird that returns to an empty cage again and again.. unable to leave unable to stay.. and when i looked back for one last time through the narrow streets full of pigs..i saw not the pigs but me running to my mother as she returned from work. (the sentence got a wrong sound but well, im sure uve enuf mind to take it ryt) i also saw the creepers on every house and remmebered the jaji teega near which my mum used to sing soft sweet songs in a smooth voice rich with love and similarly a lot of memories little well-cared kids have in common but the similarity of it doesnt dull the preciousness one tiny bit. And then i thought, 'well, well, there i go wrong again. It was so so wrong of me to have been prejudiced against that place beacuse as a four and an eight year old i took the beautiful things for granted and blamed all the magnified sad things on the town.' I t really was so wrong of me to have hated that place. from nine to eighteen i went to Tenali lots and lots of times but always with a slow resentment and returned with relief.
For the first time ever i left to that place in resentment and came back with resentment too.
And yea, the jouney from Tenali to Hyderabad has been really really beautiful... we had floods recently and from the bus window i could see the dark sky reflected in sparkling water all along the way. Especially when we were on the bridge, it was all dark and silent and the cold wind was knocking against my face and i looked down, boy oh boy, there was a never ending view of water shimmering with moonlight and there was just more and more and so much more dark water the entire world seemed like an ocean.
You should've been there. You would've loved it.