Miscellanea/Sylvia Khan
A Brief Trip Into Madness
The other day, I popped a slice of heaven into my Bombay-ravaged
system. Well, anyway, that's the way I saw it. With my husband
out of town, the kids were missing their chief Arbiter of Disputes
and I was missing the chief Hefter of Blame onto Mama. Things
were getting out of hand, proportion, and everything else.
Then I had this flash of genius.
"Everybody pack !," I said to the brute brigade, "We're
going out of town for a couple of days."
"Who's taking us ? You?" they asked with a politically
unsound display of distrust.
"You can't take us anywhere, you don't have any money."
I let them live, only to be subjected to a brisk round of Five
Hundred Questions.
"Are we going to Goa?"
"Singapore ? There's a great Peter Andre concert that I can
take in" (That was my thirteen-year-old, quite often her hormones
spoke for her.)
"We're going to Igatpuri," I announced.
"What's that?"
"Where's that ?"
''Is that the village where you were born?"
"How can I tell my friends I went to a place called something
'puri'?"
My children are blessed with the scientific spirit.
"Come on you guys" I entreated, ever the saint, "Give
it a shot. It's a wonderful place. Shock your lungs with fresh,
no-pollution-for-miles air. There's this track which winds round
the hotel, on which a real cowherd leads his flock home every
evening. Then there's this fantastic brook, where you can count
the pebbles at the bottom of the stream - it's that clear. There
are also some amazing walks, where you can touch real trees and
admire real flowers, not just flowers of silk and wire."
"Okay, okay Mama, don't go on about it, we'll go on this rustic
trip of yours !"
The matter was settled. We piled into the car the next day and,
some hours, many stomachy rumbles and about a million squabbles
later, we reached Igatpuri.
We found our hotel and tumbled out of the car, limbs aching with
relief. Then it hit us like a sandbag. There was no sound. No
buses grumbled past. No motorbikes screamed away the silence.
No television sets assaulted us with inane blather. I smiled at
the sky blissfully, and stretched. It was just as I remembered
it - beautiful.
The perfect moment was ended by my son's voice, "There's something
abnormal about this place. It's like the city of the dead. You
know, after the entire population has been wiped out by chemical
warfare, and only the shells of the building are left?" I
didn't dignify that with a comment. What could you expect from
a person whose middle name was "TV's- my-life"?
I was their mother. It was my duty to educate them. "This
is normal," I said, "This is what is life giving. What
we of the city call a life is manic, death inducing and definitely
not chicken soup for the soul". The Now generation
exchanged looks. Clearly I had touched a chord. Pearls are pearls,
whichever way you look at them.
There was a lot of relaxing to be done, and we got on with it.
That evening, Ayesha, my firstborn and solace-in- a cruel-world,
slipped into my room. We spent a wonderful evening in that rarity,
true mother-daughter companionship. Then, she said in her serious-child
manner, "Mama, I have to tell you something about this 'Let's get close to Nature'
stuff. If you feel that you've done the
right thing for your kids by exposing us to the simpler pleasures,
and you're happy, then that's good."
"This little excursion of yours has been a success. But Mama, we
have to go back to the world you so dramatically denounced this
morning. That's where we live, and strive for happiness and the
illusion of sanity."
"So, even if the system is 'death inducing' as you so
charmingly put it, don't go on about it, okay ? Because it's still
what we call a life, perhaps for want of a better word, And Mama,
no one would want to believe that all that has so far defined
our lives and happiness, is madness. Really Mama, sometimes you're
completely over the top!"
She gave me a hug and was gone.
There was a whole day left, in which I could try and whistle away
that little speech. We ate well. Read. Listened to birdsong. Watched
the sky turn amazing colors at sunrise and sundown. Went for rambling
walks in the fields near our hotel. Watched the villagers watch
us. Sometimes missed the television remote to squabble over. And I thought
we were happy.
We were a quiet lot as we drove back. The 'nature fix' was too
tiring to even discuss.
As we carried our bags and our weary selves into the home, my
holocaust-awaiting son summed up our weekend.
"Mama, it was good", he said, "like a brief trip
into madness. Short, sharp and satisfying! Wild ! All that no-TV
and dead silence, and plasticky cows with only their jaws moving!
I'm glad we went, and I'm really glad to come home to sanity!"
Are they crazy ? Or is it just me ? I think I need help on this
one.
Illustrations: Dominic Xavier
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