<<     December 2006     >>

Well....good luck then

Our local newspapers contain the usual sections: sports, politics, local news, and so on - but my favorite section by far is the classifieds.
Among the standard employment, real estate, and automotive listings is the 'matrimonial' section; something like traditional personals save for the fact that these advertisements are placed with the sole and explicit aim of marriage.
Many marriages in India are still subject to the arranged marriage tradition - brides and grooms selected for young singles by family members or through highly paid matrimonial experts specializing in settling men and women into a successful married relationship.
To those who do not have the luxury of falling in love, or enough money to secure a profitable arrangement, the newspaper classifieds provide a certain means to an end.

Under the section 'Brides Required' one finds the paid requests for available women, organized by religious preference (Including the familar Brahmin, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, as well as lesser known (to me) faiths: Kannadiga, Mudaliar, Naidu and so on.) With the same presentation in the far less populated 'Grooms Required' section. Ads ordinarily offer specs on height, skin color, education, income, and family background.

This week, a number of eligible bachelors and bachelorettes seek their soul mates via newsprint. I find these fascinating, here are just a few:

M. Vasishta 37, 5'8",very light skinned, only son DG Central Government requires qualified employed/unemployed Brahmin bride. Salary Rs.15,000 [This is approximately $350.]

Very handsome, fair CSI Nadir Christian 27/185cm sofware engineer working in Australia seeks fair, tall, good looking doctor/engineer for marriage partnership. Interviewing early 2007.

Brahmin (now in India) 28, 5'8", B.E., M.B.A., (U.S.A.), seeks any (employed) professional girl.

Thulava Mudalair 28, B.E., (ECE), software engineer (IBM Bangalore), Rs. 25,000 per month [This is approximately $600], 5'11", seeks employed doctor/engineer Bangalore and surrounding brides only. [Contact information provided with this ad is the lonelyheart's mother.]

Immediate alliance invited from professionally qualified boys working in U.S.A./UK, age 25-30 years, belonging to educated, broadminded family for good looking, decent girl. Applications with bank receipts and photograph should be sent to Box#___...

Wanted Kannada Mahwa bridegroom for fair girl, 26 years, working in MNC Chennai. Apply to matrimony service directly with salary and family information.

Alliance sought immediately for divorced lady, 43. Available financially secure professional men apply to Box#___...

Quick marriage sought for beautiful, light skinned girl, 34, unemployed, seeks well employed, educated boy from good Bangalore family.

Often it is the only thing between you and impossibility...

So here I am reading Bukowski on writing, and staring 2007 square in the eye (or, whatever you want to call that fine, shining point of light up ahead) - practically staring it down and melting it altogether with all of my heady expectation. But I know perfectly well how very, very dangerous expectation can be, how it leads easily to disappointment, and so I shift that focus to the left a bit and call it 'intention' instead.

2007 has the potential to be one of the most momentous years of my life thus far - it certainly promises alot of literal movement, especially considering that we've no other choice than to be out of India by the expiration of Hamid's visa at the end of May and our next (semi-)permanent locae depends entirely upon the mercy of the United States government coughing up an entry visa for my beloved husband sometime in these next five months. There are notions of home and children and back-to-university(again) and business expansion that take up actual space in this world simply because we've talked them into solid and promising existence. There are a million things/events/dreams/ideas and I am at the edge of the birth of each and all of them, coaxing them into viability, leaning over the space that is future-possible ready to jump in and see what's next. Ready to be what's next. I have been waiting for this year and every single one of it's 31,556,926 moments for what seems like a lifetime...working hard not to hold my breath too long in anticipation and growing dizzy anyway.

I stare into 2007 and quietly, directly, set my intention: abundance, grace, knowledge, movement, courage, serenity, growth, success, manifestation, friendship. A wonderfully endless list of good things to come. And I thank the universe in advance for delivering.

Bangalore, India

Poopy puppy paper

I just lost my wedding ring - although now this fact is almost beside the point because I found it again - but not after what I can safely say was one of the single most traumatic and disgusting experiences of my adult life.

We buy about ten kg of newspapers every two weeks.
Mooshy, the little darling, has not yet mastered the art of waiting to do his business when we take him outside and so we provide his royal highness with fresh newspapers splayed out on the balcony. He's smart enough to use them. A talent for which I am grateful every day.

The task of cleaning up this mess falls to me every four or five days - but in the meantime, as he messes one layer I add a fresh one over the top. It may sound rudimentary but the system works.

Tonight I realized it was about-that-time and so made my way dutifully to the balcony to replace the mucky papers with completely new ones.

Beforehand I'd washed my face and like a big dummy placed the four rings I was wearing, including my precious 32 stone white gold eternity band, in the kangaroo pocket of the red hooded sweatshirt I'd thrown on to ward off the encroaching Indian winter.

I crouched over the balcony and it's charming task, plastic gloved, folding the wasted newspapers in on themselves until they were a manageable size. I then stuffed them all at once and with much effort into a too-small plastic grocery bag and set the whole thing aside to go in and wash my hands. With that done, I decided to quickly wash the floor in the main room of the house and bent over yet again to do so - not understanding, until I saw Mooshy happily attacking my huge black onyx set in a border of small silver stones as if it were any old plaything, that something was amiss. I snatched the ring out of his mouth as yet another fell out of the useless pocket and danced across the tile floor. Grabbing them up and reaching in to where the others were supposed to be I came up short. With only one more ring accounted for I realized in a sickening instant that I had lost my wedding ring - even more sickening was the thought that I'd probably initially lost it while working on the soiled newspapers project and that it was now somewhere in that bag, tucked up within a big gooshy mess.

Groaning, I dragged the bag into the bathroom where we have the brightest light and emptied out the contents on the floor. Appalled by what I knew I had to do I made another pass of the balcony and then the adjoining room, checking under the dyed sage green floor mat edged in beaded sari material. No dice. I ran my hand under the washing machine and came up with nothing but a dusty confirmation that it needs very desperately to be cleaned under there.
I wondered if the puppy had eaten my diamonds and cringed at the prospect of recovery, eyed his frolicking backside, imagined having to tell Hamid - and returned immediately to the bathroom to lift out and inspect every single nasty piece of paper, one at a time.

Working in years past as a nanny, I've changed a lot of diapers with all sorts of indescribable ingredients, but this was another story altogether. Had I been in competition I'd surely have won for thorough searching, but alas did not actually find the ring.

I returned to the main part of the house to lay on the floor in a heap of despair. What would I tell my husband? "Sorry baby, I lost the ring in a pile of poop and couldn't find it."
Or, "Ummm, I think the dog ate my wedding ring...wanna help me look for it tomorrow?"
I turned my head to the right, literally sick to my stomach at what I'd just forced myself to go through and upset at the possibility that I'd have to replace that much adored, hand crafted ring - and *poof* there it was....under the bed...way, way, under the bed - but there, glinting and shining at me from among the dust bunnies. A sign, an omen that things are and forever will be perfectly OK, no matter how bad they might seem at any given moment.

Faking it

It must be that time of year again as the news now includes reports of U.S. and British shopping habits and retail projections. The only sign that Christmas is approaching is the news flash of disappointment that is the American shopping public this year.
They expect better of you!

Here in Bangalore there are no jingle bells or holly festooned malls hosting pictures with a rented suit Santa. There is no mad rush to converge on the retail establishment brandishing 20% APR plastic and freshly withdrawn cash with which to acquire a mass of stuff that is supposed to make people happy, remind them with wrapped paper and impressive price tag that they are loved.
Here there are no tree farms packed with ebbing life, manufactured solely for this purpose. The lot adorned with a space-heated camper trailer from which always seems to emerge the same man smelling of cigarettes and in need of a shave - and maybe rehab. I imagine there is a clearing house for these tree sellers: catering to those on badly timed disability from a factory job.
I am happily exempt from this ritual of installing a little green thing to its pine scented death sentence in the middle of my living room. A few years previous to this seemingly never-ending excursion to India, I purchased a rather impressive fake tree that held the lights and baubles just as well if not better for its poseable wire branches. Plus, never having to water it meant never having to rescue a tree skirt and freshly wrapped packages from the inevitable accidental overflow. It dented my bank account but assuaged my guilt over having participated in the seasonal mass execution and fostered my penchant for holiday entertaining and decorating in the least damaging way I could imagine.

In my present distanced reality I have become virtually unaffected by the socially accepted Western norm of Christmas holiday=shopping, and I'm Muslim now anyway. But I still wish with all my heart we could be with family and friends (two things in very short supply in our current locae) this season, because that's ultimately what it's all about.
Maybe next year.

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I don't get it

My Indian counterparts maintain the perplexing habit of washing the street outside their homes on a daily basis.

When I was living in and near South Indian villages it made sense; the roads, mostly dirt, grew dusty after baking all day in the sun and the daily rush-hour from field or factory to home meant vast clouds of heavy grime floating in the air - choking to the lungs while walking or driving through it. Sprinkling water on the roads outside houses and shops meant a cleaner atmostphere for everyone and kept freshly hung laundry from dirtying and thickening with the kicked up mess.
But here, in Bangalore, we live on a paved (albeit badly) road and yet the watchman will stand outside our house with a hose of running water and nicely fill the ever-expanding potholes until they are transofrmed into brackish mud puddles. Being thorough in his task, he goes on wetting the surrounding pavement as well for no evident purpose.
Twice a day he does this, waking up with the sun to water the blacktop and returning at the end of the day to repeat the process.

Before I met Hamid I rented a small flat attached to a very large house inhabited by an older divorced businessman and his sweetly aged mother. My bedroom windows, floor-to-ceiling french doors of paper-thin glass, faced the long gated, covered driveway next to the main house. Each and every morning I would hear the old woman emerge from her front door with a great fanfare, toting bucket and whisk broom in hand to clean the drive from top to bottom. It was maddening to be awakened each day at five a.m. by the scraping 'whish whish' of her seemingly endless activity, and even more so for the lack of obvious necessity for this tradition.

I've been standing on the balcony musing to myself over the freshly filled puddles below - and I just don't get it.