Our Journey in search of a teacher

       One of those many journeys we make as we grow older perhaps is to search for a lost part of ourselves. But, none could be as unique as the story of which I am about to tell.
Last week many of us old friends from school gathered at a friend's engagement party. It was splendid- the food and all. Better still, were the moments we got to catch up with old buddies; rare ones amidst all the busy lives we all lead. But, no. That is not the story. This story is different. It is about the search for an old teacher. Someone who had etched her name upon her hearts with her unique way of teaching and of course,  quite- hard -to -believe-'REAL'- life-stories.  Those stories unlike what we had expected, have stayed on with us and perhaps that was what made us search for her in a world where she is alive and yet forgotten. I say 'alive and forgotten' because ..well you will see.

     So it began that after the party lunch that day someone suggested visiting Sharadamma miss. No one really knew where exactly she lived, though the one who suggested it claimed having been to her place a couple of years back. I had not seen her in over 7 years and I presume that must have been the case with most of my friends. So it was, that we all jumped up excited and made off to her place guided by the one who had most lately been there.
The search for her turned out to be more than a mere visit. As our cars pulled in and out of the little lanes, we realized with dismay that perhaps indeed finding her would be much more than an everyday trip. It would become a saga of endless search, through hope, and spin out something like the exploratory pilgrimages that Paulo Coelho writes about in his books. It was both a thriller, a horror and an introspective journey- all in one. Now, you would think I am making a mountain out of an ant hill. No. I am being completely true to the word here. To know why you have got to know her. -Our Sharadamma Miss.

   Miss Sharada, as her name must officially be, was an aged and very much experienced teacher from the earliest time that any of us could remember. She would hobble along the school road as we peddled down the lush green water front where our school was (and still is). Upon her wrist would be a heavy blue lunch bag that she would never allow anyone else to carry. Even at 78 she was fiercely independent and never allowed anyone else to do stuff for her. Even though we as students fearfully considered it a privilege to be able to carry down a teacher's bag to school for her (yes, we are pretty much old school that way...), she wouldn't hear of it and would politely decline. 'Politely' for her normal fierce-self. I remember the time when I did once get the privilege of carrying it down to school for her. Come to think of it today as an adult, she must have been really exhausted that day to succumb to my fearful (but persistent) offer. I stood there waiting at the gate holding the heavy blue lunch bag, scared and feeling stupid for not having asked her where she would like it placed. She could be very choosy and particular about things like that- even today, she still is, as our journey finally revealed.
    As for her classes- she taught us Social Sciences in high school- they were hours we spent fooling, and came round only for the many unbelievable  stories she narrated. They were of landlords of bygone years, agricultural practices her aristocratic family had on their acres of paddy cultivation,  the 'diamond-studded dresses' she wore as a little girl, of being the most popular teacher in FACT school, Aluva, during her young years...and on it went. But, the one story most etched upon our minds is the one she told of  ghosts and yakshis that inhabited her tharavad (ancestral home), and of the many legends associated with her ancestral temple. Another, was of two friends who came along the Arabian sea, traveled via the western ghats and lost all their precious gifts there to bandits and went along emptying their goods along the way to the Bay of Bengal. They picked up 'gifts' from it and made on to the Aravalli range via the Eastern coast. Now, unless you have guessed it already, it was her brilliant way of helping us remember the route of the South-West monsoons in India!! And she was right. We, at 27, still remember it- with no doubt whatsoever!
In spite of the fact that she was fiercely independent and portrayed the first of the many this age has seen, she must have been lonely. For, you see, she was still unmarried in her late 70s. She had lived her entire life for her sisters and brothers who, after the downfall of their well-to-do--aristocratic lifestyle depended entirely upon her for maintenance. Sadly yet, they all fought with her for the ancestral property once they got independent and she was left alone and lost. We knew this as children, and perhaps this was what drew us to her fate and bound us intricately to it. We felt like her own kids, for we knew she had none other and were drawn to her just as naturally. But, we doubt she ever cherished us as much as her 'FACT' students who she repeatedly vouched loved her a million more times than us. For all we know, it could be true.
So, this journey we took had us spiraling down unknown lanes over a dozen times, as the guide kept asking for directions in whatever ways we knew. Although quite legendary for her many years in the profession, sadly no one seemed to know the way to her house!! She had done well to keep everyone away, intentionally or not, we do not know. Rumor though wants us believe that she fought with neighbors, friends and family for anything and everything. Some people even claimed that her house was out-of-bounds - it being the abode of tabooed baadhas (evil spirits). Although, knowing her, it must have been her fiercely independent nature that drove away everyone who cared.

Finally, we did strike it lucky. We trudged along the sandy road and realized with regret that she had been very serious when she scolded us with 'making all the way down here early in the morning on time from where I come from!!'  when we were late for extra classes. The lanes were in the most inaccessible of interior regions.No cars or buses could make it to her house from the main road, and at her age it must have been a tremendous ordeal walking all that distance to the national highway to catch a bus!!  
  We reached her house only to find it desolated. We knocked repeatedly knowing that an old lonely lady might just be sleeping inside unawares enjoying her afternoon siesta. Still, no one answered. We went about scanning her place , asking her neighbors for her. Although there were scores of people about living nearby no one- ABSOLUTELY NO ONE  seemed to have any inclination of where she could be !!!   As the day wore on hopelessly we realized that everyone of her stories had been true!! Even those stories of Yakshis and baadhaas!! People of the locality had done all they could to contain the evil spirits to her home, those very spirits that had supposedly destroyed the wealth, peace and prosperity of her once blissful, typically Keralite aristocratic family. 

Looking at the desolated house at the end of a long search.

Frequented but unmaintained ancestral temple

Unkempt and shunned backyards

 We found sacred red cloth tied over her front door- indications of fervent exorcist poojas and homams that had once taken place there. I imagined the people who like ferocious mythical hounds might have plagued and ostracized the inmates of the house once before. That is the thing with the masses. No matter how educated or liberal we have become we succumb to things we do not fully understand, and fear it with the kind of pure horror that has passed down generations unchanged.

  Her deserted plot of land (- for it could be called only that with the house in ruins, the land unkempt, the temple frequented but in neglect and no one venturing in through the front door...!!) - showed no sign of reanimating suddenly. So after a lot of snooping round for signs of life we finally got hold of a relative's phone number. Keeping our fingers crossed, we dialed and waited eagerly. From the man who picked up we got her number, and called. With utter trepidation we realized she was in KVM hospital, Cherthala. Thankfully, she was only looking after her sister who had undergone an eye operation there. 
We made off to KVM hospital without a second thought.

 There we found her- with a little jar in hand making off to the tea shop to get the patient her evening coffee. She hadn't changed a bit and seemed to be etched in time. For even today, we couldn't figure out her age. I hovered around 88, still unsure. It dawned on us that she was still the selfless old lady who had given up everything for her family. She didn't know any better. While the patient's son not caring for either the house nor the patient (we came to know she now lived with this sister and her son)  had gone away somewhere, leaving the two old ladies to care for themselves that day. She had remained.

  She was immensely delighted to see us and complained of not being able to see us clearly. Her eye sight was now almost completely gone and was trying hard to recollect our faces from her mind's eye. 

Complaining about lost eyes sight.

We told her how we had missed her and dreamed of her every other night, not knowing what had become of her. Again she ended up rambling about her FACT students who had visited recently and we felt, yet again, seconded in love to them. 
   As we took leave of her, there was pure need in her eyes. Not wanting to let go, she kept going on about stories she would have liked to hear from us.We told her of what we had finally become, some of us lawyers, some engineers, some teachers....She seemed proud of our accomplishments and blessed us all. She seemed to  be able to finally see some of us perhaps through her mind's eye- I am not sure. She mentioned how I hadn't changed much just like another friend next to me. Nevertheless, it gave me no less joy to know she remembered, even though what it was she remembered  I cannot guess. 

recollecting memories....

Wondering and expressing anxiety for what we could become..

Following her footsteps.

Finally as we bid farewell, her old blurry eyes moistened and her mouth kept echoing blessings after us. 

As we drove away, a little part of us felt sure that in reality we were never second to any- for her love. Myself a teacher today, I comprehend that a teacher's love is most expressed by time- and by how she lives on in her students' minds and hearts.

A good teacher, like a good entertainer first must hold his audience's attention, 

then he can teach his lesson.

- John Henrik Clarke

And who else taught us this better than our teacher?

Coffee @ Starbucks

She sat in the Starbucks cafe, sipping her coffee and staring out of the window. The blood stained knife lay next to her handbag, covered with her blue silk scarf. Mom would kill her if she saw her scarf now. She had always loved that one. Blue with pink stripes and little golden somethings. Like the freckles on her nose.   Mom had always hated that one. Not the scarf this time, the freckles. She thought it looked a lot like the kind of thing one finds on a servant’s or a watchman’s daughter. That was her. Always drawing lines where Lila could not see any. Guess, that way she must have borrowed something from her father. And for that, she was thankful. Not that it mattered anymore. In an hour’s time, there would be people all over the place. And she didn’t know what to tell them. About the noise.  All that shattering and banging. They would now question her, dissect and cross-section the ethics and logic behind what she had done; people who had not turned to look up on her- for what, over a fortnight? Then maybe the police would be here too. With the kind of person Ramesh had been one would think they would have been used to it by now. Ramesh was always repairing something or the other, either at the balcony gardening or doing the plumbing that should have actually been the proprietor’s job. And they had been okay with it too.

Until now.

Just when she needed them to leave her alone!

Ramesh had been very adamant about adopting. That was two years ago. He had grown increasingly distracted and said he wanted it more than ever. That he was sure his career would not be at stake by the decision. Whatever happened to all those disgruntled outbursts? Moments when excitedly he would pace about the room and give lengthy speeches about why he thought he didn’t want it. He would hold her roughly at the elbow and pull her to their French door that had a great view. From there she could see the great suburb of Mumbai. Mumbai with its beautiful Bandra-Worli link road, the rocks by the seashore and little specks of moving silhouettes, which were actually people out on an evening walk. Most of them were young couples, who had probably skipped college and were out there making out wordlessly. Lila sometimes wondered, standing there looking at all that youthful life pass before her eyes, if things would have turned out any different  had she chosen not to marry Ramesh when he had asked her to-one one knee filmi ishtyle. Her girlfriends had all thought that romantic. Lila, had too. Sort of. Today, she wasn’t so sure.

The thing was, Ramesh would stand by her at that balcony and show her the boy who lived with the Varma’s in the next flat. They occupied the ground floor and he could be seen playing with his cute little Labrador. He would pass a ball to the dog and watch it hobble around to fetch it. Sometimes, just sometimes she pitied the fate of the dog. What it must feel like to be pushed about and be made to do things that one simply didn’t feel up to. Ramesh hadn’t been like that in the first three years of the marriage. But, then he started showing more and more diffidence mixed with a sudden burst of assertiveness. He took to planting weirdly common plants like the one Lantana that now grew from the blue pot beside her. Then, from somewhere the notion that they could adopt had crept in and that had slowly but definitely seeped like a slow weedicide into their marriage.  She opposed. He reinforced. She opposed again, this time more vehemently.  And he had argued all the more more violently. Finally, she had relented.

Finally last march they had gone to the adoption centre and adopted Redaan. Mostly, he was playful and contended. But, there were moments when he fell into some deep crevice from where there was no turning back. Where whatever plagued him nobody could guess. The adoption centre had warned them of this. Wherever Redaan had been before, someone had abused him physically in a way that had left him emotionally traumatized. Even today he cornered himself, literally, when confronted by her or Ramesh when he had been naughty.

Less than a month since they had adopted the banging and crashes had begun.

Periodically, someone would call her name from below to ask. It was probably the Mrs. Mehta.  Such nosy people, she thought. Always on time at the wrong time. The other day, when they were, well...

“You wouldn’t have a little ginger, would you Lila darling?” The pot’s on boil and I just remembered I hadn’t bought the ginger for the rajma. How foolish of me, no?

 Lila had smiled politely.

Bang.

“There was this white plain sweet…”

 Lila tuned her out. The day had been bad enough without Mrs. Mehta at her door. She didn’t send her away either. She had stood politely smiling, her mind on other things. The non-stop bailing about this and that had continued for another 10 minutes. Now, if the pot was really on boil how could she be expending her time the way she was right then. And finally, when Lila could take no more she had politely reminded Mrs. Mehta of the pot on boil and whether she shouldn’t be going.

Mrs. Mehta would stall, unsure if she shouldn’t be staying nervous eyes flitting into the far about corners of her house looking for something. Lila knew that the Mehtas increasingly wondered what all the thrashing and crashing was about. She wondered if they secretly didn’t gossip about Ramesh hitting her and about their marital bliss being all phony. Her visits had become remarkably frequent, each time her eyes searching for, God knows what, as if unhappy marriages had ‘UNHAPPY’ posters on the walls. In reality, her marriage had seemed that more of late- unhappy. Not like the bold red letters that advertised UNION BANK at Nariman Point. But like, subtle little colors that had washed away at the littlest rain in the tiny tea shop on Market road in West Borivali. Hadn’t Ramesh and Lila hung out there numerous times before they had called the shots at marriage? How many times had Ramesh pledged to never let anything or anyone else get in between them ever. And yet, here was proof of his changing yearnings. Was it the first of many?

Another bang. This time a little less fervent.

Lila looked away from the open window where the curtains with their bold embroidery, gold with green creepers were ruffling in the wind. It looked like they were trying hard at something. Like trying hard to cling on and not to be blown away, from where they couldn’t hold out any longer.

A dragging sound.

Lila remembered how Redaan would pace about endlessly on the corridors and seemed disturbed. Like he couldn’t take out whatever was killing him inside and neither fight back. Like someone was blowing a trumpet inside his head in full swing… she would think when she watched him suffer this way. Ramesh had tried consoling him, bought him his favorite snacks from the store, taken him for long walks….and when that had failed he even tried long drives by night. Nothing they could comprehend seemed to ease his pain.

 During those moments he would take up a frenzied thrashing about. He would lie on the floor one moment in crippling pain and in the next he would find a corner either next to his bed or in the corner beside Ramesh’s table.

Lila took all this in from a distance during those first initial months. She hadn’t really been party to the decision, had she? She had just given in so she wouldn’t lose Ramesh to it. That was what Ramesh had wanted badly, and she had chosen to give him that. That was what she had thought marriage would be like, had she? And mom and dad had begged and pleaded to think about her decision. But, she had stood firm. She had only wanted Ramesh- to be his. But now, well things hadn’t turned out as she had imagined. Things were different. But, then, was it?

Just then someone had rushed upstairs and knocked repeatedly and violently on the door. Lila had slowly stood up, tired. She had borrowed a rag lying next to the balcony garden and moped up all the blood on the floor. Redaan lay whining in the centre of it all. She cast him a pitiful look. Whatever she had done, it couldn’t be rectified. She could not still see why Ramesh wanted him so badly over her. Maybe her motherly instincts hadn’t kicked in yet. There were little pieces of glass still stuck to his torso and she shuddered at the thought of having to remove more of them. They were too little to be even seen and she had just misplaced her glasses the other day. Until another one could be bought….

The banging had got louder.  This time she had feared that whoever it was on the other side might just break down the door. She had gently risen to her feet and threaded those steps to the door cautiously. Whatever was to come now could not be stalled anymore.

She had slid the latch and opened the door warily.

Ramesh.

She sighed. He had stormed into the room. He had known how much Lila had hated Redaan. He had known that whatever had happened couldn’t be anything good. Ramesh gradually took in everything in his vision. Redaan’s bleeding head, his curled up whining figure on the floor, the blood everywhere on the floor, and finally the knife had slowly registered on his mind, but the horror was quick to get to his face.

His mouth fell open.

Just then someone else too had rushed in. Lila stood there apologetically and partly defiantly. If that was the way Ramesh would know, so be it. She was tired from all the pretending.

Lila had gently bent down and picked up the knife. Somewhere in spite of her disapproval and strict abhorrence she had come to care for Redaan. All that banging and heart wrenching silent misery Redaan felt had gotten through to touch some place deep inside her. She just couldn’t wait to see him torture himself to death. Not when he had cut himself up so badly against the French doors and was bleeding to death. How could she wait for Ramesh to show and up and care for him all the while feigning indifference. The flat did not allow pets. True, but she wouldn’t let that stupid rule take an innocent life, and a miserable one at that.

She had walked back to where Redaan lay. She gently wiped his head with a clean wet mop and changed the bloody patches she had earlier tied him up in.

Ramesh had then suddenly moved like he had just returned from wherever he had gone for those few transfixed minutes. The man standing next to him clubbed, also seemed to have been released from whatever spell he had been under.

Ramesh had slowly walked towards the kitchen. The man, which Lila had then recognized as the neighbor from four floors down on the left flat, spoke urgently and in hushed tones with Ramesh. He simply nodded. Lila couldn’t guess if he had just been asked to move out or was being offered solidarity. He then wiped his hands on the kitchen towel and picking up something that Lila couldn’t see he had walked towards Redaan who was still whining on the floor. Whether from pain or the internal bruises Lila hadn’t been able to decide.

Ramesh came to kneel beside Redaan and Lila standing up had moved away. He gently stroked Redaan and nuzzled his ears. After a couple of moments, Redaan gently pulled himself together enough to lick the bone Ramesh had put towards him. In one swift brief moment then, Lila had known.

Throwing the scarf that lay on the chair back she had walked out.

Tired, now she sat pensively stirring her coffee. Over the years, the place itself had changed, from the time she had come there the first time with Ramesh. Starbucks had then just opened in Bombay and like everything else, Mumbai not Bombay she reminded herself, had openly received Starbucks into its heart. The photographs on the wall had changed and even the counter had raised its standards to ‘Yours’, as the sign in front of her read. But, the coffee cup with its classic Starbucks logo had remained.  Like that random moment she had that afternoon, which reminded her of what had made her stay rooted in her decision all those years back.  In these times, she was reminded of all that had mattered, then.  She raised the cup to her mouth and drained its last contents and walked out.

For her, marriage had changed many things. She sure wanted some things to change back to what could have been. But, Ramesh, wasn’t one of them.