Red Hills

           (Image courtesy http://www.wallpopr.com/landscapes-red-hills-lakes-10728.html )

There were five of us. The School had broken for summer holidays. In the early 80’s in a remote part of North Eastern India; holidays did not mean sleepovers and malls. It meant roaming around aimlessly in the surrounding jungles, playing around on the roads and going for picnics on your cycle. On that summer afternoon too, little idle minds wondered what was to be done of the ensuing evening and greater part of the afternoon that still loomed large. Not that we were bored, thankfully that word had not yet taken over the dictionaries of children still. Someone suggested a game of hide and seek, another suggested the Red Hills. Venue and game decided, we set off for the beautiful Red Hills. The place got its name from the view from the plateau that we used as a base for our activities. One had to climb up the gentle slope situated centrally, to see hill. While climbing, we always took off our slippers, in sheer reverence for the soft grass that we walked on. Guava and Olive trees, punctuated the terrain. Guavas hung around on the trees, as if in the remote hope that some child would chance upon them and bend them down to the earthy-ness of human hands. A small ceremony was always followed for the first sighting of the Red Hills. As we slowly approached the slope, all of us in the unison of the sincerity of a child's prayer, closed our eyes tightly. The first glimpse of the Red Hills was always special. Bathed in the afternoon glow of the setting sun, today it seemed surreal.

Someone shouted that hiding places could be anywhere along the slope and hill next to it, but not beyond, never beyond. There was of course place enough to hide if one knew where one was going. Mamma had insisted I behave more like a girl and pulled a white cotton dress through my 9 year old head. It was a big problem, the dress; it lingered on and seemed to attract dragon flies, and little blue flowers that somehow lingered on. Someone started counting 20-19-18-17… As I scurried down the hill, I wondered where I would hide. A Guava fell off a tree and rolled down the slope, settling on the bend of the adjoining hill. Guavas I thought were good navigators; I followed the fruit and came upon a resting place. I had often seen the nuns from our school come here in cars, along with other people. Strangely, when they arrived, they would always be crying but while going back they seemed to be drastically cheerful, almost as if someone had ordered them to be so. I had asked Mamma about it, and she had said, that Christians believed in giving happy farewells to their dead. While much of the meaning of the Red Hill might have been lost to me, its potential as a great hiding place seemed to offer the greatest of opportunities to my muddled head. I ran to what seemed to look like quite a large stone placed on the ground. Two stones joined at one end, making the perfect ‘L’.  I clutched the long white frock and hid behind the stone that stood. Extremely excited because I was sure, no one would find me here, I sat in the quiet. What a perfect hiding place! Having sat myself down to the silence of stones, I inspected curiously the back of the stone on which I had rested. It seemed to be quite ornate, little leaves, flowers and cherubs drawn on it. I touched my hands on it, the edges were rough, probably from the rains, but the center of the stone strangely still felt smooth. The counting should have been over by now, but I had almost forgotten about the game, I crawled over to the front. To my delight, it was like grandpa’s arm chair, the one I wasn't allowed to sit on. I stretched my back on the standing stone and neatly kept my legs straight on the stone that lay on the ground. My head cushioned on the stone felt cold though, just beneath the top. I turned to look at the stone, facing it for the first time. There was a photograph of a small boy, much like my neighbor, the one who always cried. As I looked closely I saw something written there.

'Here lies Peter, born 1968, died 1971. May his soul rest in peace.'

I looked at the photograph again, remembering the date in the school notebook, on the left hand corner, blue margin, it seemed an awfully long time for a small boy to be lying there.  I smiled at him, wondering if he was happy where he was, perhaps he liked the fact that I had chosen him to play hide and seek with. After all it was quite natural that he would be tired of lying there all those years. I stroked the photograph then. The sun was almost down ad yet in the last rays of gold, Peter seemed to smile back. I stroked the face then, in some way trying to reassure him that I would be back with more games and laughter.Someone shouted out to me, “Come out, we can’t find you, 'You've won'.  

I tugged my way up the red hills, with my long white dress strewn with flowers wild, I felt I had left the little boy happier.

Neurons

I closed my eyes…I dived into a world unknown..it was green, shimmery..everything seemed to be floating around me..there were thousands of neurons and nerve like structures..delicate feline, just about to break if you had the audacity to touch them..they seemed to be floating..gently..I raised a finger to touch them, but they swayed back, as if in the fear that their dreams would be broken..and then suddenly I had wings..my body seemed to sway without knowing that it was gravitating towards any particular creature or substance..suddenly I had this urge to visit one crevice that seemed to be isolated..it had little nerve like ends..they were red in color..through the haze of bluish green color..I watched the nerves tingling..as if they had been touched..felt shy and retreated back into their own worlds of dreams..I floated past some of the red tendril like creatures arms flung in longing they seemed and yet I knew if I touched them they would retreat into their lost world….I looked up, there seemed to be thousands of little children there playing ping pong throwing up their dreams, their conversations and their fears in some bizarre mad juggle and amazingly so not a single dream nor a single wish, nor conversation fell out of rhythm..I saw then an six year old, shaking her little brother it seemed she wanted to know something, the little brother only had a mysterious smile about him..I felt like slipping into the six year olds mind..just for a bit I thought, I was sure she wouldn’t mind….I slided in pretty smoothly..her neurons were different, they waved into the air with dream like majesty too..but they were happy neurons or so I thought..they didn’t feel threatened, instead they seemed to be happy to see me and welcome me without judgment of who I was and why I had come . I put my ears against one of those soft red tendrils to hear what she was thinking..At first I couldn’t hear much..hear with happiness, hear without malice, hear without thoughts of taking from another..someone seemed to whisper..I smiled..I closed my eyes and leaned again..this time I heard a soft music like voice say to her brother..” I want to feel God once more..will you help me..will you tell me how he looked like..I seem to be forgetting fast”

I felt blotches of water on my face..I opened my eyes, it was raining all around me, while I lay on the grass in my garden, My book of ‘How to explore the brain’ lay open at page 85, wet, real and a mesh of papyrus..Little fireflies laughed.

( Image courtesy Google)

Of Dragon Flies and Glow Worms

Smriti, an unusual name and eyes that reminded you of dreams yet to be dreamt. The day she crossed my threshold with wonder and amazement written in her eyes I envisaged my childhood, come back to me. Her mother Lalitabai was my house- maid, turned ‘neighbor’s envy owners pride’. Housed in the suburbs of the city a house- maid was a priceless item and I hung on to her like one. She hummed, she swept, she moaned, she brushed all with perennial sing- song of a yearly raise.
Always the first to abide by our odd requests, Smriti, the one with quiet lifestyle, quiet walk and almost every other thing quiet…walked into our lives need I say quietly, but surely. She became a part of our furniture and the walls, almost matching & mingling in a shade of her own with that of the pastels. One could witness in her the urge to ask, to know of the very mundane that encompassed her wonder. With deft fingers she oiled my hair, carried about glasses of water or in her shrilly singsong voice rendered me a song. All for the simple pleasure of learning ‘Angrezi’, English as we, the lesser of the dreamers call it. She was quick to learn and it was a joy to see her eyes light up on seeing some crayons. Red, blue, green she had used up all of them to color the alphabets as much as she colored up our household. Her curiosity and amazement in the mundane things of life - a refrigerator, the merry ring of the phone all reminded me of an age gone by………..that of my own childhood when life was a beautiful wonder, when running after dragon flies was the aim of life and where the presence of a glow worm was enough to transform one into the world of fairies. As Smriti and time rolled into one another, she began to unfurl slowly but steadfastly to the world that I had thought I would introduce her to indeed I took it to be my right that she would learn the ropes from me. She was me after all, being with her, feeling for her, teaching her and perhaps living up my childhood dreams through her had made me possessive- she was rightfully mine…..well that’s what I thought or guessed maybe. Into my 25th year of marriage with not a child to boast of, I was beginning to dream of rosy evenings spending teaching her to sing or for that matter just being a part of my fantasies that no one but her would understand.
It was Durga Puja, the Goddess with the ten hands had come forth to bless us; it was going to be a night of revelry from the likes of it, loudspeakers blasted songs meant to incite the reveler within one; when all at once I glanced at my little one….the one of dreams, I called her my little one (she was my childhood incarnate, you see). Dressed in a pink Salwar Kameez, she was smiling and talking to someone down below in the street, that smile caught my eyes it was innocent all right but there was something else too, a pain shot through me, I couldn't’t understand what was happening to her. As if nothing had happened I walked up to the balcony with her, there was a boy, a young boy smiling at her and calling her downstairs. Smriti was her shiest best, I could see she wanted to go but was simply waiting for me to say so, ‘Go’ I said releasing her from my bondage, because I could see she was aware now of a world that beckoned of other things to her, of love, of satisfaction, I could see it all written in those eyes blended in vain with the remnants of the innocence that were. I couldn't fathom why I felt so let down, so fragile as if the child within me had stopped playing. My eyes were misty, as I wished the Goddess back at her home, as if that would alter things. Things run the way they ought to, it was wrong to expect the woman within the child to behave as one…..child I mean.
It was maybe the tiny hope that some women grow up enough to let the child within them still play, which had visions of some women who still do dream dreams that whisper of dragon flies and glow worms by the night to bring them back the land of the fairies.