The
diary entry went back seven years. Reema fluffed up her favourite bolster and
settled down with the camel coloured journal, inviting her daughter Chehak to
the space besides her on their well-loved sofa bed.
“Sitting
in gyan mudra under the Terminalia Arjuna, I felt scrubbed clean. My skin
hummed in the light streaming down from its leaves. The red of my blood swirled
into their luminescent xylem. I had just finished reading about phyllotaxis.
Placing the book aside, I looked up at the canopy to see how the leaves
arranged on a stem so as to intercept optimum sunlight for photosynthesis. The longer I gazed, the brighter it became
around me. It began to feel unusually warm. The brilliance in the air exploded
like the 1000 skyshot, with its multi-coloured Diwali flare. I lost all sense
of life and limb. The only certainty was about being where I floated: in the
nucleus of the sun! There was no fear; just a tiny niggling worry about the
Ethnobotany semester exam the following day and what missing that would do to
my semester grades. It felt unconstrained, quite unlike my claustrophobic body.
Sensations of expansive connectedness alternated with an effervescent lift.
There were no lungs to fill and yet I breathed in deeply. I saw no form but my
arms spread wide to embrace the indefinite space radiating from my centre. I
was the centre and the circumference. It was finally fun being me!”
Reema
drew a ragged breath and looked over the journal sheet at her newly wed
daughter. Muted sounds of domestic appliances kicking in were the only other
signs of life in the green home library, outside of which, the world went about
its daily business of self-delusion.
“Ma,
I have left my body twice since this episode.”
Reema
leaned back and crossed an arm over her eyes, the journal nestling on her
sternum. Her mind went back to Chehak’s school days. The English TGT Mr
D’Costa, during one of the parent teacher meetings had asked to see the parents
in private, “Ma’am, your daughter is an evolved soul. I don’t know how
spiritual you consider yourself but she often voices concerns about the nature
of existence. I think she senses I am open to metaphysical debate and feels at
home challenging views of reality in my presence.”
Other
frames crowded at Reema’s feeble attempts to fight them off. She took her arm
off the eyes and grabbed Chehak by her hand, taking care not to chafe the
bridal red bangles. The air between them blistered with unexpressed anguish,
“You have just entered a new phase of life Chehak ….the last thing you need
right now is to go any deeper into that head of yours. This is the time to be
laying the bricks of a happy home so you can start your family soon and fulfil
your social role.”
“Mum,
don’t worry. I understand that completely and am entirely up to it but you
wouldn’t expect me to wish away the Tunganath temple darshan last week now,
would you?” Chehak protested calmly.
Reema released her arm and fell back on
the comforting upholstery. There was no denying the event that had taken place
in that tightest of sanctums high up in the mountains and barely a week ago.
The groom was walking away after the obeisance but the bride had stood rooted
to her spot facing the deity. As Reema made to prod her, the priest had held up
his hand with a look of warning. Reema remembered well his ring finger frozen
in a crook, sandal paste dripping as he waited. Unknown to the rest, Chehak was
in the grip of a most personal darshan with Lord Shiva.
“It was like a faucet of twinkling blue tridents hailing over me”, Chehak had
recounted dazedly to her stunned family outside of the precinct. It brought a
smile to Reema’s face, the memory of the priest’s hand finally coming to rest
on the devotee’s broad forehead for the anointing. Several eyes had seen the tilak turn strangely fluorescent in the
shivery air.
Chehak
drew patterns on her henna covered hand, “Mum, it is a continuing conflict but
you must relax. I may be detached but I have no desire to run away from my
humdrum commitments! I am here, right beside you.” The two hugged each other,
bound by their wondrous disquiet at these brushes with the unknown.
“It
has puzzled me to see how people fight shy of looking into each other’s eyes
long enough, other than the smitten folk of course”, Chehak felt emboldened
enough to further vocalize. “Have you
tried holding someone’s gaze? It is shocking how revealing it can be. A strange
energy circuit builds up and the barriers all dissolve. It feels like everyone
is connected in some form of shared union. And yet, it is discomfiting in that
fluid intimacy.”
“There
is coffee in the percolator, Malabar blend. Let’s get some!” Reema heaved
herself up from the couch, casting about mentally for a sane resolution to this
spiritual intrusion in their family space. She cursed herself and her husband
silently for discussing the fifth dimension, cellular transformation and TV
serials like the Fringe and X-Files at the dining table with their children.
What’s more, it had often been said at home, within earshot of the siblings
that the fundamental sanity of Indians sprang from a belief in the afterlife
and the notion of destiny!
They
had been foolish in their parenting. Reema winced at the taste in her mouth.
“Mum,
I need to segregate my stuff; can’t take all of it to my married home. Where
are my school papers….all the teen letters and the slam books?” Reema pointed
Chehak to the garage and laid out the coffee mugs. She debated a visit to the
Parapsychologist, “No point discussing this with anyone else, they will think
we are crazy!” Lost in an intense reflection, the metal grip slipped off her
hand, spilling hot milk violently at a jubilant shout from the backyard. Chehak
entered the roomy kitchen, holding aloft a red coloured diary, “Look Mum, read
this note from Padmaja…you remember her of course, my closest friend in
college. I had forgotten all about this. Here, read please.”
Reema
rinsed her stinging fingers under the running water from the
Her
mind now made up on meeting a professional, Reema got down to assisting Chehak
depart for her new home. There was nary a household item she did not want her
daughter to have. The two were kept busy until post tea when she finally stood
waving a white handkerchief at the receding tail lights of Chehak’s car in the
distance. She was just about turning in from switching on the porch light and
wiping a tear when the front gate clanged open with the rudeness of
familiarity. It was the family doctor, on way home from his evening health run,
having decided to stop by for a hot cup of tea.
“Don’t
tell me! Are you crying?! Here, let me see. Already missing our Choosy, are you
now?! Come here, give me a hug,” Reema allowed herself to be held, feeling
conflicted and emotional. In that weak moment, she decided to come clean with
the dear doctor on Chehak’s other worldly experiences.
The
doctor took no time and did not mince words, “It is dehydration, plain and
simple. The weather is turning; these modern kids do not drink enough water.
Plain hallucinations! A parched brain deactivates the visual cortex which in
turn ignites the part that drums up kinaesthetic imagery. Send your helper
along when I leave. I will give him a dozen ORS packets. Drown her in the oral
rehydration solution. But first your spicy cardamom tea; two spoons sugar
please!!
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