On the Edge of Two Worlds
I like to linger on that sunny rectangle, our bodies ensconced in the warmth of the sun.
I stand under the leaky canopy of a chaiwalla, waiting for the downpour to stop.
I cringe every time I hear someone ahead of me order a “chai tea latte” at the local Starbucks. See T-shirts scribbled with witty sentences—”I live for the thrill of flight.”
I thought I could find happiness by escaping my old life. But I miss my mother’s nagging, my father’s rules, my sister’s whining.
My tired eyes observed the curlicue highway ramps and barren trees along the roads with an inexplicable sadness.
To sit cross-legged on the mat, breathe in and out rhythmically for ten minutes.
Drinking Red Label every night. Sense the snakes hiding under innocuous garbage bags.
The drawer in my nightstand is filled with nebulizer paraphernalia, transparent tubes of Albuterol and Budesonide, hand lotion and odd bits of jewelry.
The brass pots that sat on a ledge above my Aajji’s gas stove I claimed as my own. I have witnessed them inhale the sweet aromas of my Aajji’s ginger-cardamom chai, my Baba’s spicy mutton curry.
I stand, alone, on the edge of two worlds.
I wait for the tea leaves to seep and settle on the bottom, for the water to turn a deep, mud-red. A bead of sweat trickles down my back.
I hope the earthquake is not a foreshadowing of my married life to come.
What Prompts a Mother?
What prompts a mother, a wife, a woman to say to her family she’s tired of it all, that she is at the cusp of leaving them to walk off into the sunset like a clichéd Western movie, though she has never seen one, she doesn’t like English movies, she’d rather watch a Hindi movie but her bratty kids are clustered around the TV watching the latest episode of Friends, and her husband is not home yet, and she just wants a glass of water and a cup of chai because she has come back from a long day of work and wants to lie down for a bit before she has to start dinner but maybe it’ll be easier for her just to leave this house, go down the twenty one narrow stairs, she has to climb every evening to reach the second floor of the house, the messy hall her girls have neglected to tidy up, the toilet her son has forgotten to flush, yet again.
Breathe
Every morning, as the sun’s soft morning rays hit our East facing living room, my husband spreads his yoga mat in front of the fireplace, sits cross-legged, and practices Pranayama, synchronized deep inhales and exhales that energize his body, mind, and lungs by filling them with fresh oxygen. His rhythmic breathing sounds like an air pump and is loud enough to wake me up from my slumber, though I don’t get up right away. Unlike him, my son and I like to laze around in bed for a few minutes before we start our morning.
Both my husband and son suffer from upper respiratory syndrome, which is usually triggered by allergies and sometimes, in my son, by intense physical exertion like running in the dusty school field or riding the rickshaw on smoggy Indian roadways. It took my husband thirty-six years to figure out that Pranayama helps alleviate his condition. He wants our son to embrace yoga and Pranayama, to give him a head start with his condition.
Our nine-year-old is more interested in watching Wild Kratts instead of sitting cross-legged on the mat and practice breathing in and out rhythmically for ten minutes. My husband shakes his head in bewilderment. He tells him, “Do this for ten minutes every day and you will never have to use the nebulizer again.” My son nods, “Yes, Papa,” and goes back to watching Wild Kratts.
It pains my husband to see the transparent triangle of the nebulizer mask cover our son’s soft features, his eyes fluttering, his chest rising and falling rapidly. The nebulizer hums loudly as it converts the liquid Albuterol and Budesonide into cold vapor and ease his breathing. Within twenty minutes he is breathing easy.
He is so used to the contraption that on days when his condition is severe, I strap the mask on while he is sleeping, or reading a book or watching TV, and he does not protest.
“If you did Pranayama, you won’t have to use the nebulizer ever again,” my husband tries to convince him over the hum of nebulizer and the sound of the TV turned up.
“But Papa, I don’t mind the nebulizer. I can watch Wild Krats while it’s on.”
