It will never be okay.

I saw him through the haze, alone, strong and dressed in white, a contrast to the gray of the wall. I walked up to him and then, I saw the grief written on his face, like unmistakable graffiti screaming at me. The urge to hug him and tell him it will all be okay engulfed me. But I felt conservative eyes on me and saw the hesitancy on his face as he held out his hand. I shook it, urging my eyes to convey what I knew he needed to see. “How are you?", I asked and then immediately regretted it. That is not a question you ask at a point like this, I chided myself. He smiled his broken smile and said "I am okay".

He pointed me to a narrow stairs, easily overlooked in the architectural confusion. "Ladies that side" he said, matter of factly. I smiled at him and turned. The dark, dingy, steep stairwell made me claustrophobic. I took a deep breath and walked up.

Multi-colored hues startled me as I reached the top; blue, purple, pink, green and a few expected black. What happened to sober colors, I thought. Wasn’t that the official dress code for events like these? And then the silence screamed at me. Why is it so quiet? Why isn’t anybody crying?

Curious eyes looked up from their prayer books. Somebody grabbed my hand and led me to a room overlooking the main gathering area. The room had no windows and no space to move. Claustrophobia resurfaced. I sat at the edge of a door, my back towards the room, facing the women. Somebody cleared their throat and suddenly there were no more eyes on me. I still felt like an intruder, someone who, so clearly, didn’t belong. The woman next to me picked up a few more date seeds and continued chanting and adding seeds to the pile in front of her.

This is nothing like on television. This is so much more unreal.

Sunlight came down in streams through the gaps in the parapet. It was a hot day. I wish I would have had time to have a proper bath, I thought to myself.

I heard the faint chanting as my ears adjusted and filtered the sounds coming from the neighboring houses; the pressure cooker that was refusing to leave any pressure, the incessant knocking of a door, the children playing and laughing. It was a Sunday in some other world. Over here, there was just grief, palpable and obvious, boring into your soul while you slept, pushing itself into reality while you ignored its existence.

I had never met her, this woman who was loved and revered; who I had heard about always with respect on peoples tongues. I wasn’t there for her. I was there for him. But I never really saw him after that. Just a few flashes of white. I hope he will be okay, I thought, every time I spotted that brilliant color through the gloom.

It was time and everybody moved together like an invisible force was pushing them. They all wanted to see her one last time. The crying started as one by one, they came out from the room where she was laid. I stood in line and waited patiently for my turn, for the others to whom she meant so much more. When I saw her she was wrapped tightly in white. She can’t move! I thought unreasonably. I quietly crept out before my mind took on thoughts I knew it had no place for.

The men came, all in blinding white, to take her to her final resting place. I marveled at their ability to negotiate their way down the narrow stairs I had come up from, all the time making sure she didn’t lose her dignity.

Stories were told by the eyes that were deep in sorrow, wet with fresh tears. She wanted to open a school, I learned. "She was courageous even when she was breathing her last." "She had met Allah much before her body gave up." "She had always lived her life for others."

I left hoping he will be okay. She meant so much to him.

Tomorrow is another day.

The after-Goa Insights

Right, so I am back from another trip to my half-home Goa. Now, don't take me wrong, I love Goa. It is an awesome party place, lots of interesting people and fantastic, picturesque locations to take pictures of and show around to awed friends/colleagues once you come back.

However, being half Goan, I have always seen this other side of Goa, the simpler one; where you draw water from a well, crap in outhouses, run to the beach in the evenings and hang around with a beer at night patiently waiting for dinner. And since I have seen this side of life in Goa, every time I go to Goa just for the express purpose of partying, I always come back wishing I had done it the other way around. Where I could have just done the normal routine thing and then for a couple of nights done the binge drinking, partying scene.

Or maybe I am just getting old.

Anyhoo, I am back, with a tan so bad I now 'look' firmly south Indian; not that I have a problem with it. I drank what seemed like a zillion beers and a few liters of sea water, smoked a gazillion cigarettes, flirted with no body (though got minor crush on a guitarist called Elvis), walked a thousand miles, ate a couple of pigs, a few hundred chickens and a couple of kilos of rice.

By the fifth day, I wanted to go home.  I was tired and sleep deprived, missed my mom, my dog and my bed and just wanted to wear clothes that didn't smell of the sea.

I am old.

Eat, Pray but Dont Love.

I never really liked the book. Maybe because it came so close to home, so many times.  However, I admire the woman for closing the gap between who she was and who she wanted to be; something I haven't been able to achieve, despite striving for it every single day.

Anyhoo, these are some of my favorite passages from the book. Describes the many bad days I have been having lately, all replete with doubts and emotional cutting.

Depression and Loneliness track me down after about ten days in Italy. I am walking through the Villa Borghese one evening after a happy day spent in school, and the sun is setting gold over St Peter's Basilica. I am feeling contented in this romantic scene, even if I am all by myself, while everyone else in the park is either fondling a lover of playing with a laughing child. But I stop to lean against a balustrade and watch the sunset, and I get to thinking a little too much, and then my thinking turns to brooding, and that's when they catch up with me.

They come upon me all silent and menacing like Pinkerton Detectives, and they flank me- Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don't need to show me their badges. I know these guys very well. We've been playing a cat-and-mouse game for years now. Though I admit that I am surprised to meet them in this elegant Italian garden at dusk. This is no place they belong.

I say to them, "How did you find me here? Who told you I had come to Rome?"
Depression, always the wise guy, says, "What- you're not happy to see us?"
"Go away," I tell him.
Loneliness, the more sensitive cop, says "I'm sorry ma'am. But I might have to tail you the whole time you're traveling. It's my assignment."
"I'd really rather you didn't," I tell him, and he shrugs almost apologetically, but only moves closer.

Then they frisk me. They empty my pockets of any joy I had been carrying there. Depression even confiscates my identity; but he always does that. Then Loneliness starts interrogating me, which I dread because it always goes on for hours. He's polite but relentless, and he always trips me up eventually. He asks if I have any reason to be happy that I know of. He asks why I am all by myself tonight, yet again. He asks (though we've been through this line of questioning hundreds of times already) why I can't keep a relationship going, why I ruined my marriage, why I messed things up with David, why I messed things up with every man I've ever been with. He asks me where I was the night I turned thirty, and why things have gone so sour since then. He asks why I can't get my act together, and why I'm not at home living in a nice house and raising nice children like any respectable woman my age should be. He asks why, exactly, I think I deserve a vacation in Rome when I've made such a rubble of my life. He asks me why I think that running away to Italy like a college kid will make me happy. He asks where I think I'll end up on my old age, if I keep living this way.

I walk back home, hoping to shake them, but they keep following me, these two goons. Depression has a firm hand on my shoulder and Loneliness harangues me with his interrogation. I don't even bother eating dinner; I don't want them watching me. I don't want to let them up the stairs to my apartment, either, but I know Depression, and he's got a billy club, so there's no stopping him from coming in if he decides that he wants to.

"It's not fair for you come come here," I tell Depression. "I paid you off already. I served my time back in New York."
But he just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favourite chair, puts his feet on my table and lights a cigar, filling the place with his awful smoke. Loneliness watches and sighs, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over himself, fully dressed, shoes and all. He's going to make me sleep with him again tonight, I just know it.