Friday 2 November 2012

From the ashes


As a child, I loved epics. Now, as my mother narrates to me tales from memory and hearsay, of an era that I had not witnessed, it is with the same passion that I listen. Someday, I shall compile all those narrations into a book.
As years add to my life, the urge to know where I come from….the urge to dig deeper into my own roots, dominates my inquisitiveness. I urge my mother to narrate to me episodes from her childhood, which give me glimpses of life then, and of people who were my own blood, but people who faded away into deep recesses of time as yet another generation unfolded.
I never cared much for my lineage or my roots when I was young. It was only as my mind grew with the experiences that life treated me to, that I paused to marvel at and treasure the emotions I felt and the thoughts that crossed my mind, most of which seemed to operate at a purely subconscious level. I never knew where they came from, and I seemed to have no control over them, but to flow with their natural flow, was to experience paradise. They took me across untrodden paths, undiscovered lands and uncharted seas….they took me to my first feel of infinity.
It was for the first time that I regarded my mind as if it were something distinct from what I knew to be ‘me’, and I realized that my mind was a gift from my lineage- an immortal treasure that had been passed across generations, and perhaps the only immortal link between me and my ancestors. In science, they call it genetics. Suddenly, I felt very close to my ancestors. It was as if they stood by my side, watching me experience this moment of eerie elation.
I had always believed that I borrowed from my mother’s lineage, much more than from my father’s. And I felt this special reverence for those ancestors I didn’t even know.
My mother is my only link to my family clan. She tells me about the 300-400 years old ancestral house which was recently demolished. I always feel an ache deep within when I see its remnants, but then it was falling apart in any case. Now, only the foundation remains, and it is overgrown with grass and weeds. Where generations lived, the earth has now claimed back what belonged to it. The trees stand tall, some as old as the house, perhaps older, and I look up at them in silent reverence, for have they not witnessed my past? They have stood through time, witnessing all. My mother’s great-grandmother, who was a very religious and pious woman, and who mysteriously disappeared because of an apparently agonizing pain that brought into her life a lot of suffering. My great-grandmother, who would bustle about the house, seeing all, missing nothing, shouldering responsibilities with a composure that defied their magnitude. She was a beautiful woman, with profound emotional depth, and an intellect that surpassed her years. When she was eventually bed-ridden by a fracture than never healed, we cut her hair short, and she could have easily passed for a Caucasian. She was the picture of radiance….and of tranquility. Her absence remains a permanent void in my life and in my mother’s life. And then my grandmother, who I have no memories of, because she passed away from cancer, when I was barely an year old. Music was her domain, and all her children inherited that gift from her.
 
My mother tells me of a second cousin who was very philosophical from a very young age. He had no inclination towards materialistic aspects of life, and in his teens, he left home to lead the life of an ascetic. Even as a child, people found it hard to imbibe his philosophical and spiritual thoughts. I do not know why it left me with tears. Perhaps because I can on occasion feel what he felt. Those moments when a series of emotions and thoughts flow across the mind, dettaching one from all that is ‘real’, connecting one intimately to something that is more real- the inner self. For many people, this is madness. Simply because it is beyond their comprehension.
I have often wondered what madness or mania means. These days, as I learn to integrate what I have learnt from Medicine and from life, I often believe that mania is a state where the subconscious mind unleashes itself from the conscious. And the subconscious mind is very powerful- like the sun. If we were to be exposed to the sun directly, it would blind us to everything external. In mania, we drown in the radiance of our own subconscious mind. Even in the brief moments of subconscious writing that I experience, I find within me a powerful emotion that overpowers all else, that makes me slave to it, that shuts out everything else. Words escape my mind much before they have come to the notice of the conscious mind. The conscious lags, and eventually fails, to keep track of and keep a check on the subconscious. In the end, I am drained, for it has been such a powerful emotion that has just left me.
One portion of our grove houses the dead; their ashes and their bones lie deep within the earth here. I wonder where the dead go. Can they hear us? In the silence of the grove, I always feel the invisible presence of my ancestors- their faces a blur, save for the ones who have been a part of my life in the past. In the fading light of dusk, I experience them within myself. And I want to tell them that I am indebted to them for their immortal gift that I harbour within. They have heard me. A soft wind blows and leaves rustle, as if echoing the acknowledgement of a hundred ancestors. For I have finally learnt to take pride in my lineage and to value it.
I have watched death-rites being performed on the banks of the Bharathapuzha, which to me, is the soul of Kerala. The river fascinates me in a mysterious way. The culture that thrives along the regions that this river flows through, is what I relate to the most. Despite the fact that in reality, the river is alien to me. And yet, all the glimpses of life that are based on this culture, which I have experienced by way of books and movies and people, fail to surprise me. For that is the culture that thrives within my mind. Is this where I belong in truth? Is that why I experienced a supernatural connection with this river, even as a child, when we passed its banks on train journeys? It is my greatest desire to spend a day on the sandy banks of this river, for I know that I shall experience something profound. And it is also my greatest desire that in death, I would want my ashes to merge into this river. For this is where I have come from, and this is where I belong.
Now, I find myself standing at a juncture, where I spread my tentacles deep into my roots, integrating with a past that is spanned across time, and from this pedestal, I look at a future that emanates from me, and that will span across time. Past, present and future merge at ‘me’. Did I just spell out ‘immortal’?

 

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