Lost and Found

The curiosity and nervousness about jobs after college arrived with the routine frenzy of course registration and finals. As a math and economics student, could I compromise a posh corporate salary for a creative Masters degree or the idealism of public service? My parents urged me to be sensible: think of the independence you’ll have after working, earning and saving for a few years, they said. Do what we want first, it sounded like, and then what you want. I didn’t necessarily want to follow their example, but I didn’t know how to be original, either. Halfway through my third year at Columbia University, I believed my future lay muddled in the grid of New York City. Maybe I could work at the World Bank. Perhaps an economic think tank. Do the Peace Corps and then continue at the UN? I hadn’t yet found my coordinates.

Queens-bound for the first time some days later, I looked forward to pedestrian anonymity and the absence of a campus (and its career center). Venturing into the strange borough, my arrival was briskly anointed by sunlit graffiti and expressionless faces on the subway stairs. Signs advertised buses and subway superintendents, orienting me in the city’s tirelessly tired manner: Welcome to Queens. Now, please get out of the way. The cold wind funneling down the stairs shocked me into a sense of urgency, suddenly making me impatient as I joined the pile of people that bus stops create.

“Are you from India?” An Indian man my father’s age had interrupted my reverie. It was an oft-used innocent conversation starter, ice breaker and patriotic nod amongst Indians; I found that I didn’t dismiss him as summarily as I did most strangers in the city.

“Yes, I am. I’m actually looking for the Ganesh temple; do I take this bus?”

“Ah, I’m headed in that direction. I can show you the way. But don’t be mistaken – I’m not your guru.” His joke – was it a joke? – about not being my guru, my teacher or spiritual guide, caught me off-guard. I tried to humor him, thinking it would end the conversation. Far from it.

“Um, thanks. I suppose I’ll find my guru eventually.” I shifted my eyes to the bus pulling up to the curb.

“Actually, your guru will find you.” He climbed into the bus, gesturing for me to follow. I obliged in silence, hoping that quiet would preside over the rest of our time together. Again, I was mistaken.

This stranger, my neighbor, launched into a soliloquy about the many, and hidden, talents of a guru, and how effectively one could size up his students before guiding them to them their true paths, their destinies. He quoted the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient, practical, heavily-thumbed spiritual and ethical Hindu text, and praised its principal characters: Arjuna, a heroic prince at war; and Krishna, God descended to earth to restore peace to a troubled land and serve as Arjuna’s guru. Krishna, he said, volunteered to be Arjuna’s charioteer knowing full well that Arjuna would succumb to preemptive guilt and doubt about the war he was to start. At that crucial point, Krishna would redeem Arjuna and remind him of his duty, as only a guru could. I listened in silence – I hadn’t promised him a conversation – and nodded occasionally. The bus turned, and so did the man’s thoughts.

“What do you study?” I was startled by the question, so stereotypical of Indians, but so incongruous in context.

“Applied Math.” I didn’t bother with the other half of my degree; my education bore no relevance to his ministerial monologue.

“Mathematics, very good. And what do you want to do after you finish school?”

I hesitated. Was it worth telling this man that I was torn between the sensible and the spontaneous? I limited my answer to a breezy “oh, I’m not sure,” wary of his next speech about India’s plethora of mathematicians and engineers, so I limited my answer. For a third time that morning, I was wrong.

“You want to work at the World Bank, perhaps?” He fixed his eyes on mine, his head nodding slightly with the jostling bus, and I responded with a speechless stare.

“The World Bank? How on earth did you know that I’ve been thinking about exactly that for some time now? I never once mentioned the World Bank, or my Economics minor, in this conversation!”

My voice was raised and my words tumbled out, but he was not flustered. He smiled, completely in control.

“How can you not tell, by now, that I know who you are? That I can see through you, but I choose not to?”

This time I was silent simply because I did not know how to react. We swayed with the bus, as it pulled up to the curb.

“Ah, this is our stop. You need to go down this block and turn right, and you’ll get to the temple. Good luck with the rest of your life. So long!”

I mechanically thanked the bus driver and waved at the man. He was headed in the opposite direction, and I watched the distance between our backs increase. The irony of strangers in New York, I realized, is that while you may choose not to see them, they may have seen through you all along – and may also see you through, as only a guru can.

Sing

Inhale air and exhale music

The invisible becomes audible

The ambient becomes iambic

Thoughts become notes

Taught and taut

Floating

Reaching

Teaching

Rising

Shrinking with distance

Like stones skipping over the ocean

Leaping towards the horizon

Waves announce themselves

And recede

Melodies peak and dip

Chests rise and fall

Breathe

Enter the reservoir of sound

Sing

Angels in the Backyard

Dedicated to all the angels, seen and unseen,that the "Ridgewood Redskins" have enjoyed at 410 Albin Court

Saturday afternoon and it’s time to explore the backyard for bugs and alien life, as usual. You are armed with the brand new magnifying glass Amma let you buy with your pocket money. Suddenly the palette God uses to paint your garden produces rainbows that you have never noticed before. You admire nature through the thick lens: the grass, sometimes erect and alert, sometimes hunched over and brooding, flexes green-blue-purple-striped-spotted bodies at you. The soil is a chaos of multi-colored crumbs, a layer of soft chocolate cake covering the ground. The identical-looking daisies Amma planted now prove as different as the snowflakes you and your classmates once made in school, folding paper many times over and cutting out little triangles. You follow the curve of the petals—such a pure white!—to their source, a bristly yellow center that turns into a yellow carpet, velvet on your fingertips. You wonder if baby flowers can grow in those circular yellow fields, and you smile, picturing flowers inside flowers inside flowers. You are transfixed by infinity. Some people count sheep and some contemplate the expanding universe. You multiply flowers.

Having inspected Color with a quiet awe, you move onto Texture: fluffy furry scaly sticky brittle powdery smooth poky squishy interactions with your thorough hands amuse you. Then Movement—inevitable and alluring—reveals itself to you. Through your glass, you see the garden come alive! Sunlight sizzles before your eyes and hypnotizes the short grass and lanky stems into a synchronized dance. Petals look like they are breathing, the way they first unfurl towards the sun and then retreat ever so slightly when you touch them. Ants are no longer boring. They are bulbous, like three jellybeans joined delicately together with antenna jammed into the tips of their heads that unerringly point forward.

You are amazed at the crawling creeping swaying sprouting activity around you and feel grateful to your new instrument for your discoveries. Amma watches from the backdoor, her eyes following your delicate steps through the grass, the stripes on your favorite t-shirt undulating like a wave as you bend over to inspect a ladybug, then straighten to survey unexplored terrain. Your silky black hair reflects the sheen of the sun and flops softly over your forehead, stopping just above your eyebrows. Amma can hear you talking to yourself, and smiles when, every few minutes, you turn to her to jabber excitedly about your latest discovery. You couldn’t be happier.

You study a centipede trundle across your palm and observe wide-eyed, with your wide-eyed glass that he really does have one hundred legs! You are convinced you can see little shoes on all one hundred feet, too, which makes you gasp with pleasure—“Look Amma he has so many legs!” How long, you wonder, does it take the centipede to lace all his shoes up? You imagine the centipede’s Appa teaching him how to tie his shoelaces the way your Appa taught you when you started third grade and became a big boy. The song goes: Here’s a little rabbit, and here’s a great big tree. Watch the little rabbit run around the tree. Out pops his head, to see what he can see. How neat a knot he made around his great big tree!

But you pause, stuck on the impossible imagery. Aren’t rabbits really big, compared to centipedes? And wouldn’t trees be too gigantic for them to imagine? You concentrate with a rare frown as imagination battles with rationale; Amma hears your silence and anticipates imminent exclamation. Maybe centipedes use different objects instead of rabbits and trees. An ant and a blade of grass? Ants don’t run like rabbits and grass doesn’t stand unmoving like a tree, but they will do, you reason, patiently correcting the proportions in the song. You are eager to understand your surroundings and careful to treat its inhabitants with a courtesy commensurate to their abilities, not size. Any creature that can tie one hundred pairs of shoelaces and never trip deserves your admiration, and you happily lavish it upon the centipede. Eight-year-olds do not believe in being stingy with emotion and you are no exception. “Amma,” you shout, “I figured it out!” Like all mothers, Amma responds with a smile that is half-knowing, half-surprise, ever impressed by her child’s latest accomplishment. “Well done sweetie,” she calls. “I’m so proud of you, my son.” The sun beams.

Size enthralls you, which is why your magnifying glass is so special: it makes everything bigger and stronger, granting puny creatures volume and power and turning sand piles into veritable kingdoms run by giant insects. On Friday you chose to re-read Jack and the Beanstalk by yourself during Story Time. It is one of your favorite stories and feeds your fascination for transformation. Today in the garden, you pretend to be a hungry giant trolling the grounds for little boys to eat. You feel an ant crawling up your leg and you are thrilled to be the tall mysterious beanstalk that led Jack to his adventures. Because you are a cast of one, you turn into the giant at the top of the beanstalk. “Fee fi fo fum,” you proclaim to no one in particular—but Amma hears you; she always does—“I smell the blood of an English ant!” You hop about in a dance best befitting a happy hungry giant before releasing the ant to the ground. You were not enthused at the idea of eating an insect; Amma will have a much tastier dinner ready for you anyway.

Sunshine dulls into shadows that get in the way of your glasses, and by sundown it is getting harder to see the little creatures in the dark grass. Amma has turned on the lights that shine onto the backyard but something about the angular contours of the roof against the thick navy blue sky make you want to go inside, so you do, wiping your feet on the doormat and slipping into your comfortable slippers. Amma and Appa and your sister are moving about the kitchen with soft steps and vigorous conversation. Appa is talking about surgery that day—your sister wants to be a doctor just like him—and Amma is singing while she puts the finishing touches on dinner. White rice green spinach yellow dahl white yoghurt to draw in and mash together with your eager fingers before consuming with noisy slurps! Fee fi fo yummy!

The kitchen walls are painted yellow and remind you of being outside in the golden sunshine, which pleases you. Amma’s potted tulips, obediently lined up against the wall and leaning towards the dinner table to hear what you are about to say, remind you that you can study them with your magnifying glass as well. Joy rushes over as you as realize how many surfaces, objects, nooks and crannies are still to be explored!

Dinner is familiarly noisy—the sounds of being home and enjoying a delicious meal with Amma, Appa and Archana. Appa chews deliberately and asks everyone about their day, starting with yours. You are excited because you have much to report from the garden. You describe the ant hill you had prostrated before for some time, examining grain by sand grain. There were ant foot prints dotted all over the hill, pinpricks in the rigid sloping sand. Are they called ant foot prints? Ant prints? Do their feet have prints? You are focused with a faraway look in your eyes, like a philosopher trying to pinpoint the meaning of existence with a stare. Feedback emerges from around the dinner table. Appa agrees that they are called ant prints and pats you on the back, congratulating your discovery: “you are a scientist, man!” Amma suggests going to the library to read about ants. Archana says, “you should give them a name, since you noticed them. Maybe mix ‘foot’ with ‘ant’ and call them ‘fant’ prints! What about that, little boo?” You giggle at her comment. ‘Fant’ sounds like ‘pant’ and now you are imagining these tiny ants wearing pants—with tiny pockets! Appdiya? Isn’t that something!

Everyone laughs and you glow with growing confidence. Beyond the window lies darkness but you know that you are conquering the garden with your magnifying glass, one exploration at a time, befriending all green-blue-purple-striped-spotted grass and the yellow daisies. Amma reports on her day: “I watched Aravind crawl over each square foot of our backyard, studying every weed, seedling, pebble and burrow. He’s become the backyard expert!” Archana asks if you will teach her all the things you know about the garden. “Sure,” you offer, happy to share the revelations you have experienced about pollen and leaf pores and baby ants and all.

As always, day ends in night, you end in bed, under the covers, gazing up at your glow-in-the-dark stars. Amma, Appa and Archana have all tiptoed in and out of your room to whisper goodnight to you and lulled you into that limbo state between wakefulness and sleep. Your ceiling constellations grow dimmer and move farther from you as you become lost to sleep, lost to dreams, until it’s time to wake up again.

Start With The Big Stuff

Because that makes the basket empty quicker. Towels are easy—rectangular and regular and their corners touch and the creases cooperate. Then t-shirts, but you have the check the label to know if it’s your dad’s or your brother’s. Men can be ambiguously similarly sized.

Always leave socks until the end. You can hang them over the basket and locate their twins more easily that way. Your lazy brother (he of the ambiguously sized t-shirts) may even walk by and claim his socks with a flick and another flick.

If you fold fast enough the piles retain their clean fresh smell and you can bury your nose in them for a treat at the end.

Five Minute Love Affair

Nothing says abandonment like a destroyed, distraught umbrella. It lies helpless on the road, spokes exposed, rolling about like a dead carcass.

I sought it when I was desperate, needy, dying to cling to something brave and strong. It stood there, slightly askew, leaning against the wall with attitude, waiting to be noticed. Its was impressively tall and I knew I had to claim it, to make it mine.

We got off to a rocky start but I was hopeful. Sure, we formed a maladjusted couple whose nooks and crannies poked each other, but my urgency to not be alone compelled me to stick to my choice. I clutched my new companion’s solid stem and liked the way it responded. Slowly it opened up, let me in. I held it close and it hovered above me, protecting me, preserving my warmth, preventing my thoughts and my happiness from being leaked on.

The world seemed to fade around me, I could barely see past my new companion and I had no desire to. Yet I began to grow cold. The smooth spine I held onto for dear life began to reject me; it curved with a flourish I could not match. It tried to pull away as I drew it nearer to my heart. I compromised – as one does – but by giving it some space, it gulped down much more. (Cold feet? Mine were wet!) It began to grow heavy on my shoulders, exerting an uneasy pressure on me. Its resistance to the outside world and its devotion to me began to weaken. I tugged in frustration – where was its focus? But this only angered my somber friend. It threw its arms up in anger, surrendering to the rain, letting go of its identity and purpose completely. It was finished. We were finished.

There were tears everywhere. Metal flashed angrily in the glare of car headlights. I understood what it was trying to say, so I left it. I would find warmth somewhere else.

Nothing says abandonment like a destroyed, distraught umbrella.