Tribute to a very dear friend....

I have a few close friends...
Very dear to me..
I lost one of them..
On Saturday night..
All of a sudden..

It was well past eleven.....
When the door bell rang downstairs..
Something was very wrong..
My cousin was at the door..
What is it? what is it?....I ask looking down from the window....
Mrs ....has passed away...he says..

What????
It cannot be..
I dash down the stairs..
To her house..
And there she is on the floor..lying where she fell...
I feel her her hands ...so cold....so limp..
A massive heart attack..they tell me..

The husband is in a state of shock..
I heard the dog bark and came out..he says..
Saw her slumped over the sofa..I touched her...
She turned and fell over..
I knew she was gone..he says..
She is still lying there....

We spread a sheet on the floor..
Carry her to it..
She should face the North....my aunt says..
Her sammandhi...equally shell shocked...
Tries to find a lamp... a wick..oil...
It is lit...
Her arms placed over her chest..
A pillow under her head....
Tie her toes together...as custom demands...
Is it for this that we were friends???...I wonder...

My friend so full of life..
Lying lifeless and limp...
So unreal...
Could this really be happening????

But I saw her online at 10.30..I say..
I was talking to my son..
When the green light next to her name came on in Chat..
I almost talked to her...
And then decided not to...too late..
Why didn't I say something??....

The astrologers said she would live until she is 73....her husband says..
But she is gone now... only in her late 50s...

Is her spirit still around??...listening to us as we talk..as in some out of body experience???..I wonder...
Relatives arrive...
We leave..to give them space to mourn...
As we mourn ourselves..

The dogs in the compound are barking...
As if they know that something is very amiss...
"It is the soul..passing on,"...says my Uncle.....
"They can sense it," he adds...
I wonder...

She has been so much a part of my journey through life...
I have to talk about her....

I keep hearing the sound of her voice..
Speaking my name..
Occasionally lapsing into a few sentences of her stilted Tamizh...
Recall images of her..
Sitting in her veranda..
Reading the newspapers..
Or poring over her laptop....
Looking up for a quick wave..or if time permits.. a chat...

We have lived in the same compound for many years...
We were not always friends...
At first I only knew her as my aunt's tenant..
The lady who loved animals..

When a baby squirrel fell off the tree we took it to her..
If a crow was being pecked at..
We threw a basket over it..
And told her..
A little owlet sitting on my aunt's washing machine..we sent it to her

Stray cats and other animals gravitated to her house...open to them all..
As if her pair of Apsos wasn't enough!!

Even now two cats stray into the house..
She drew them in..saying that..
Pepper...her beagle..was lonely and needed friends....

It was a fight that brought us together..
We had a common enemy...
A rabble of noise makers....
Had moved into an unauthorized construction behind where we stayed...

For three years we fought..
Together we went to petition...the chief secretary....the commissioner of police...the commissioner of the Corporation...MMDA...sundry lower level officials...
To the lawyer.....checked her documentation....prodded her on..
Together we went to the city civil court...every time our case came for hearing...
Together, we took friends and neighbors...to hearings of the Pollution Control Board's Appellate Authority Tribunal...
Together knocked on sundry anonymous doors on our street...in a signature campaign against noise pollution...
Together walked into police stations..demanding that they register our case...made innumerable phone calls..
They played dirty...we did not...

When a Summons came for me from the Police Inspector at Vepery...
Everyone advised me not to withdraw my complaints..
No one offered to go with me...
Except my parents....
And my friend...
She and her husband came with me to the Police Station...
I was quiet as they talked...
The situation came under control .....

It was War...
But we won....ultimately....
Our joint victory....

I could never have done it alone...without her by my side....
Supporting...encouraging...
Bolstering up my sagging spirits....
Always doing the right thing....
We complemented each other..
In temperament...
In everything we did..

She was always so particular..
About doing the right thing...
For herself..
For her family and friends..
For those who worked for her....

The bond which began by sitting on the steps of the city civil court..chatting...
Was strengthened by long conversations...across the fence..

Sandy...her Apso..widower...12 years old.... came to rub noses at the gate with
Our Daisy...Alsatian....4 years old...flirtatious...as
We shared confidences..
Discussed politics...
Harish Khare's column...
Shashi Tharoor... a distant relative...
Her faith in homeopathy and ayurveda...
Priests and poojas..
Astrologers...
Tried to match-make....for her brother...went to
Art of Living classes...
Sent each other maids and gardeners...or
Simply gossiped...swapped family stories...problems...
So many similarities..so much to share..

My son....
And her daughter.. a few years older..
Two peas in a pod..
Both October born..
Living for their friends..
Avid shop-till-you-drop-ers...for clothes and shoes...
Credit-card happy....
Party animals...
He... now a student in Peoria, Illinois
She..now a successful confident working woman in Chicago, Illinois...only a few hours away...
We shared our hopes for them...

While I went back to my routine...battle-weary after the war..
She continued..
Haranguing tardy Corporation officials for not clearing the road..
Saving trees..
Because of her ...a huge tree lives on ...
At Raintree Place..in Chetpet...
She stopped her friend from felling it...
She loved our compound....
Vibed well with all of us...
And then there were the causes of those less fortunate women abused by their husbands....
She was their strength and support...

Then.....
Her electronics unit blossomed...and began to really takeoff...
Her buyers in Japan invited her over...and later they came...
Orders came pouring in..
She got busy...
And so did I.... in ways not so spectacular...

The astrologers said I will be able to buy an elephant to tie in my backyard she told me once..
We laughed over that one..
She was almost getting there....

Her maid of many years comes crying to me...
She saved my life... she says..
When I drank acid...because of my husband...
She used to come and sit with me in the hospital.... she says....

A worker from her unit...who once swept our gardens comes to see me..
Amma was so good to you....I say...
I am not the only one...she says...
Almost all the women...about 20 odd... in the factory are like me...have problems with their husbands...
Then there are four people sent by SCARF...one talks to himself..
There is also a man who comes in on a cycle for the handicapped she says...
She guided these people....counseled them..about how to better their lives...

At the funeral..
When I go in .. to place a wreath..
Her maids tell me..
She was talking only about you yesterday...for so long...
She said we should get you a new cook...
She said you are having so many problems because of that...

I am so touched...
She has held me up...during a very difficult time in my life...
And continues to look out for me..even now...
And I have given her nothing in return..
Only taken from her...I feel...

I wish I had brought her fresh flowers for her birthday..
I only sent her an sms...belated at that...
And she quickly called me...from Kerala..where she was traveling...
And later..from Bangalore..on Friendship Day...

The rituals begin...
I join the family..
Place the rice and thulasi and water on her lips..
The women representing their tharawads place a red silk cloth over her..
And then she is gone...
I cannot believe that it is final...

I understand now how my father feels... every time he loses a friend...
His shoulders sag just a wee bit more...
It is my turn now...

Farewell!!!
Noble Crusader for worthwhile causes..
Comrade in Arms..and..
Dear dear friend...

I thought I would see you grow old..
Sit on your veranda...like your mother used to..
I feel cheated...

I wish I had been a better friend to you...
Showered you with more affection..
Bought you gifts...
Called you home...
Visited you more often...
I realize now...how much you mean to me...

Life does not always turn out like we think it will..
You were gone..before you knew it...in a moment...
No lingering or looking back...

The loss is mine...
I have not been so lucky...
I wish it had been otherwise...

Celebrity ....the stuff of spin doctors???....

Celebrity….....
In my childhood…..it was a fleeting glimpse......
Of Queen Elizabeth II.....in an open car....at the head of her motorcade....driving down Mount Road.......regal......distant...

Chacha Nehru.......
Dr Rajendra Prasad....
Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan....
We saw them all....whiz by..
A wave of the hand...a nod..and then gone...

A moment was all we got.....
To capture the image in memory.....camera-like...forever..
After all..
Celebrities had only that to offer…
A supercharged adrenalin high moment.....

So........
A glance at the Pavillion..from
The Nawab of Pataudi……
Or Abbas Ali Baig......
Or any of that kind...
Quickened the pulse....
Of adolescent moonstruck young things....
And became a treasured memory...

There was no TV then....
To beam in celebrity images into our drawing rooms...ad nauseum...
So the mystique remained...

It also helped that..
We did not hear at all...
About Prince Philip's tryst with constipation......
Or of Obama's morning breath...
No butler's revelations...
Or handyman's tales...

But we did not mind...
We survived!!!!!
And they did too!!!...
Their private lives left largely unscathed by the glare of publicity!!!

Indeed, there were those who shunned the attention that fame brings.......
Like the writer....JD Salinger.....a veritable recluse....
Not so today.....
A time of instant recognition and fame...
A new breed of celebrities have cropped up....

The Page 3 people....
Avid seekers of the spotlight...
We see their pictures....
Abhi and Deepak....
Minnie…and Menon.....
Smiling for the cameras....

Who are these people???
Celebrities for an evening???...or a day???...or a season??
Who knows??? Or even cares???!!!!!

Why is celebrity so downgraded???
Surely..
It is the exponential growth of the media on the one hand....
Balanced by the growth of the PR industry on the other....that is to be blamed..
The dog..and its bone..
The one demands……
The other creates...…
Myths....
The stuff that celebrities are mostly made of!!!!

A politically correct persona....
A carefully stitched tale..... full of events that appeal...
to every segment of the voting public..
And also withstands intense media scrutiny..
This is an absolutely must for those in the public eye.....
Especially in the West..

So an Obama describes his pot smoking days....
When his contemporaries remember him as a quiet law-abiding youngster.....
A Senator McCain claims to have been tortured...
When the warden of his prison says no such thing happened...
Where does fiction end..or fact begin??

As in the public space..
So too in the private space..
Family history...personal history.....
Are all..
Fertile ground for myth making...

And it keeps happening all the time..
All around us.....
So much ado about nothing...
Based on nothing!!...

The Bard it was who said..
To thine own self be true..
Only..
That would put the spin doctors out of business....
And then where would all the attention seekers go??

Makes one wonder???...
Is all history the stuff of spin doctors???
Is it all made up then?? Since back when??
That is the question!!.....

Until next time then....
Adieu!!