Do I feel too much or do I just feel enough but always the wrong way? My inside does not match up with my outward personality. The matrix of my heart is not at all in accordance or in proportion with my worldly wise and self-actualized mind. I don’t know…I am only me. May be that’s what a person’s personality is: the difference between the inside and outside. What has changed me gradually is always a question that lurks my mind. Is it just the experiences of my life or those of others around me or may be both? Have the demands of my life stretched out to an infinite and self-styled engaging and seductive mirage or the twenty-four hours of a day at my disposal have shrunk like the “endorphin rush” in my body and soul. Despite all the opiates that a western world could offer me…like a shrill tinsel of gaiety of gadgets, long stretches of highways and comfort friendly transportation, all sorts of media, and ludicrous amount of all kinds of man made madhouse of goodness that money can buy, despite the number of friends and folks I have made over a period of time on socially interactive media sites there is a hollow, a hollow deep enough not to be filled.

Often walking down leisurely through the back alleys of my neighbourhood or driving on the main streets I gaze hard through the piles and blocks of concrete, yes I try very hard sometimes to get just a glimpse of my back home country old wise Banyan or a godly Peepal tree, respectfully and religiously tied up in a pious red or peaceful white cotton twine, over and over and over again by simple people…educated and some not so educated yet blindly faithful people of my home country. In my eyes there is hardly any religious or mythological fear of relevance of these great trees, I look at them somewhat differently… they have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families in forests and groves and even more I revere them when they stand alone, in the nook of old run down street or on the threshold of open, never ending rice paddy…sometimes at the front entrance of a famous deity’s age old white and gray marble temple.

The age old stump that there was in the park by my house back home always intrigued me when I was a young girl and often my late father had a lot to speak about it during our walks together, “a whole history of a tree lies in its luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk…in the rings of its years, in their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there… Old, huge trees are epics. They struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves…As per Hindu religion where the trees are God personified nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree”. My father opined on many occasions. He could go on and on forever, while I would sometimes listen, sometimes just pretend to listen, as I was but a little girl, not so worldly or nature wise but I certainly enjoyed those walks with my late father! A very bright man in my eyes always, back then and today!

Often when I pack Jasmine Mehar’s lunch in the morning, I keep in mind the dos and don’ts list sent by her school each year, ” no nuts or peanut butter, no fish or shellfish, no sesame seeds, no strawberries, no kiwi, no tomatoes”, due to severe allergies among some children and the most recent addition is, “not too strong essenced or flavourful foods,” as some children (with all my respect) reportedly have the tendency to go into anaphylactic shock due to strong smells. Hard to draw a line between mild and strong when many years ago mustard oil soaked mango pickle rolled up in a homemade whole wheat flatbread nicely packed up in a florescent red, green, yellow, blue or purple plastic lunch box and on an odd day wrapped up neatly in a day old newspaper along with a side of evenly sliced red delicious apple or seedless sections of oranges had always been a symbol of my pride during recess throughout my school years… not because my lunch was home cooked, but for the fact that my father would prepare that lunch for me every single day…and how I used to cherish the look of my class fellows widened up eyes at the glimpse of a perfect round flat-bread made by my daddy the chef!

Coming back home from University, on cold January afternoons had a charm of its own. A little weary, after a quick ritual of exchanging boots for slippers and washing hands, I would religiously put teapot on gas burner to brew. Often I enjoyed my steaming hot Chai with at least two thick slices of buttered toasts, butter that ran through the dark brown cinnamon raisin toasts in the form of tiny golden drops and how I used to swipe the plate clean with my index finger thoroughly relishing the last lick of the home country whipped butter! One cup of Chai at a time was never enough for me and it never will be. First cup is normally no more than a starter, it is however my second cup that is an elixir of clarity and wakeful tranquility.  My cup of Chai helps me create a heart to mind and vice versa conviviality, a way to go beyond this world and enter a realm apart. Chai helps me view better the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of my day-to-day existence.  It is a ticket to my comfort zone from where I see the bigger picture, from where all realities sink in, all curtains are raised… my many cups of Chai in the course of a day give me many chances to sit down even though momentarily and think…let loose and forget…may be forgive and forget what was not meant to be and whatever was not mine, it allows me mental space and peace to forgive if not worship the imperfections of my challenged life. A good cup of “chai” always reintroduces me to myself!

Back in those days in family home fading sun and later stars would shine through gaps in the Khaadi (hand-spun cotton) and blended synthetic silk burgundy and ivory curtains that quivered very gently every now and then, from left to right as I would turn the volume high or higher on my favourite radio stations that played my all-time favourite Hindi songs on our wooden framed huge antique radio that my father used to buff and shine on his days off when he was alive. I vividly remember going for shopping with him when he purchased those curtains at a handloom exhibition for our average sized family room. He washed, starched and ironed those curtains many times just like he washed and ironed my school uniforms to perfection many times religiously. Those handloom curtains quivered again as I broke into a loud cry and paced in and out of his room I remember when my father passed away on a dark December night without much fight for life or any visible agitation…He could not keep the promise to take me to our much anticipated and looked forward to, trip to Mysore the following week, however I kept the first class railway pass under my pillow for many consecutive months. Those curtains in family room stopped quivering for a while the day I suddenly decided to turn the wooden framed radio on to a full blast as I wiped a thin layer of tiny dust particles off of my father’s black and white portray placed gently on it. That was then and this is now, my father is no more, University years are far more than over but my relationship with my Chai Tea remains the same, well may be there is stronger bonding now as we are but life partners!

While having my last cup of Chai for the day and writing this open note to adore some more pages of my compilation “Viraam Chinn Moments” (The Pause), I see life neither magical nor mysterious…it is simply and truly a successful flow of consequences, consistently reinforcing and applying the laws of nature. What’s interesting is the fact that we succumb to it very unconsciously… any kind of growth is a leap in the dark, a plunge into nothingness, there may be a tremendous material gain but the price one pays is incomparable by being unwillingly detached to the realm that once was. Human mind is a prisoner of desire, maintaining inner peace specially in difficult situations could be challenging, striking a balance between my western wish to accumulate more of everything and revisit the fragrance of my back home cinnamon toasts with dripping butter is a task, still I strive hard to stay connected with myself by accepting the things I can not change and focusing my energies where I as a single parent can make a difference.

Most every night a huge cup of my home style Chai gives me a perfect excuse and time to however to explore and cultivate myself, revisit myself in my family home without any emotional upheavals, without being ruled or governed by external or worldly circumstances. A good cup of Chai sets me free through each and every pore of my being!

– Anoop Kaur Babra