God of small things......

 Driving back the other day....summer's first evening of swimming with the girls ....on an impulse , i rolled down the car window and switched off the air conditioning . Probably not a smart idea given delhi's amazing traffic and pollen season bang on top of us....
I leaned a little out and as soon as the wind hit my nostrils...i knew i was right ...
 
It smelled just the way a summer evening ought to smell like...
.
it smelled just the way summer evenings used to smell like .....back in the days when people used to wet the front of their houses along with their plants and gardens simply to settle the dust or cool the verandah down ...that smell . The particular smell of vendors with pushcarts selling popcorns and orange bars ....the swarm of mosquitoes on top of your head , that wouldn't leave you , no matter how much you ran helter skelter , and your mother lathered your skin with odomos ...Every child seemed to marinate in a curious combination of grassy odour ...mosquito repellant and sweat....heck , who ever heard of deo's back then ....

As soon as the wind hit my nostrils.....my head and heart were filled with these images....despite the collective groan from the back about the ac...i played mean mom wanting the girls to start making their own memories about what summer evenings smell like.....
Take your mind back to some of your favorite memories ...and more than sights and sounds....you are more likely to remember what it smelled like.....its funny how the mind works....

 I often tell people about the " god of small things ".....in days and times when almost everybody is talking about staying focused on the bigger picture ....i find ...it is my faith in the god of small things that keeps me going .....

Its a lot like bokeh you know....when i zoom into a tiny detail....i am so filled with awe and rapture and astonishment and a gazillion of other emotions ...the rest becomes hazy and shifts into the background ....even if , for a few minutes.

Life 's like that . I'll take those few minutes every time . The trick is to make a life out of those minute chunks....

There are always those , who will snort and snicker and call this cheesy or cliched....but like Pema chodron said .....  " Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world "

 And my warriors world is not made of exciting adventurous glamorous things ....it consists of two school going brats , an office going husband , maids with drunken spouses , a dog who begs shamelessly ...of dinner and laundry and homework and grades and grocery lists and scraped knees .... a constant struggle with self to attain certain personal goals i have set for myself......an armful of highs and a truckload of lows.....now i  may want to water my grass away to glory to make it greener than thou but thats not how its works.....you cannot have HAPPY....there is no such thing ....what you can have instead is WHOLE ....and whole comes with  happy highs and lowly shitty lows ....the entire jing bang...one end of the spectrum to another .....roses with lots of dirt under your fingernails....

More often than i care to count , i find myself unable to connect , convey , share or understood ....my love for the ordinary , my love for small details, my self made life mantras....my propensity to get sad or emotionally overwhelming reactions to the people and scenes i photograph .......wanna hear a doozy example ??  
The other day i was at the passport office and like these places are , long queues and endless running around for one document or another , finally when my turn came at the xerox window.....there was a sikh gentleman in front of me , looking at a sign that read -- please carry change or you will not be entertained , change , which he obviously did not have.....he requested the xerox guy, who ...enjoying his 30 seconds of fame refused point blank....I took out 10 bucks and handed it to the gentleman saying , please take it...he shook his head vehemently ....i again reiterated , please take it ....i happen to be carrying change..and dont lose your turn....after a lot of battling inwards...no's and refusal....he reluctantly took it......He left and for a long time afterwards..... i was overwhelmed with the man's simple yet intense sense of dignity......something so ordinary , that managed to reaffirm my faith in human values...
....difficult to convey...but there it is...my god of small things..and why it affects me so...??...reading into people's syntax or my own ellipses , believing firmly that semantics are important .....all i can say is , you gotta be your own hero and the faster you learn that Life's toughest battles and your most cherished victories are personal private things walked on lonely paths .....all alone , the easier it gets .....

I sit in this crumbly world war 2 vintage barrack i call home ....constantly like snowfall the white wash crumbles and fall on various surafces , my eye travels to the flowers i begged from the maali bhaiya and arranged in my kitchen window and i recall warmly a friend once exclaiming ...oooh you lucky thing , flowers ! somebody spoils you too much " and i said ....yep , i do .

oh , and to those interested , if you are ever in delhi , there's a shack right behind pondicherry house , thats sells the worlds best melt in your mouth malai tikkas ....you have to sit and eat in your car , with windows rolled down and make some fabulous life lasting memories of what a summer evening smells like .......


~o0o~