L’enfer c’est les autres (Hell is other people)

At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on...

- Samuel Beckett in Waiting for Godot

One death too small…

And then they put guns in young hands

That would have held a pen

Honour, courage, duty - those three devils 

Of wartime - they struck again and yet again

And the fetters of love and friendship

Whittled slowly away

And then - with hearts held high

And heads in the clouds

Again and again we went to war

Till blood and gore mixed with daily news

We watched without horror or despair

A million deaths were not enough

To bring home a little truth

Covered with lies told so well.

Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener. 

- Samuel Beckett in Waiting for Godot

L’enfer c’est les autres (Hell is other people)
- Jean Paul Sartre in No Exit

The Brink

Staying on the brink, just there but not
we the unbrave rendered thus by chaos
from past lives that have rent

minds from peace. But the brink is all-
Pervasive — so often the brink
of love, of insanity, of suicide, of clarity,

of peace, and pieces, and war
becomes the all of existence and keeps
you on the brink of life

when a little leap of faith is all it takes.

My Life in the Shatabdi

Some trains, you have to understand, are not about getting anywhere. The Chhattisgarh Express is a train in point. It starts somewhere beyond the middle of the country, slowly strolls northwards, and by the time it reaches Delhi, it is usually several hours late. Standing in any part of the Northern Railways network it is not unusual to hear the announcers going, “Train no. 18237, Chhattisgarh Express, is 3 hours 46 minutes late, we regret the inconvenience caused.” By the time this has been repeated in three different languages about nine times in a row, we sort of expect it to be the inevitable outcome of the existential crisis of this train on a routine basis; forgive the train, we say to each other. 

Of course, once you are on board the train, you realise quite why you must forgive it. From Nizamuddin to Punjab, any logical train headed for its destination would set its sights on a north-north-westerly route. But no, this misnomer of an express train sets a course towards the east, rambling first to Ghaziabad, Modinagar, then to Saharanpur, taking in the sights of eastern and northern Uttar Pradesh at a leisurely pace. You become completely enthralled by the clear fields of sugarcane dotting the landscape and touching the horizon; call your relatives and well-wishers on stations in Punjab telling them to expect you “some time in the near future, but don’t bet on it”. By the time it stops at Meerut Cantonment, you begin to wonder if you will get to see the foothills of the Himalayas at Dehradun soon; but the train takes everyone by complete surprise and shoots back into Haryana, rocking into Ambala Cantonment suddenly from the east, then strikes a course northwards towards Rajpura, all the while grinning back at you broadly and saying, “Gotcha! And you thought you weren’t getting off today, right? No such luck, buster!” 

You sink back in your seat, much disappointed that, after all that preliminary excitement, your destination is drawing nearer without enough adventurous wandering having been packed into it. Some may even feel that they haven’t got their money’s worth.

Frankly speaking, the Chhattisgarh Express represents what life should be, right? You get onto a train not with the sole purpose of getting off it as soon as possible. You shouldn’t. Where’s the fun in that? It’s like being born only to die as soon as you possibly can. Well, not that you can dictate the duration, but certainly there may be something to be said about the metaphoric wandering possibilities available between exiting one tunnel and entering the other. 

Amongst these possibilities, the best ones are available on railway platforms.

The first thing you notice while waiting on a platform are the rats. Usually, they are not roaming around freely near your feet, but on the railway tracks. They emerge, or pop out, one from one hole and one from the other. There’s fierce rivalry too. Little bits of bread, torn packets of chips, anything with the faintest whiff of food has to be tugged-of-warred and then, the victor triumphantly bears it off. Actually, not. The victor scoots before the defeated can catch up with it. 

And then you turn your gaze towards the rats on the platform. Rats of every shape, almost every size, and almost every social class. The platform is a great leveller. The only social class incongruously absent, except when inaugurating new trains or during election campaigns, is the politician class. You look from the rats on the tracks to the rats on the platform and there’s a human face to the rat and a rat face to the human... that’s what Orwell wrote. Oh, yes, sorry, he was writing pigs this and pigs that. But much the same, so let’s not nitpick. 

Some platforms, by the way, are spotlessly clean. In fact, there is a chap with a long-handled broom who sweeps people and garbage without discriminating every ten minutes from one end of the platform to the other. Then there is a fellow on a motorised mop-machine who toots impatiently, regardless of who is holding him up - passenger, luggage or broom. Every ten minutes, these two pillars of platform hygiene sweep and swab from end to end, and helpful passengers, to ensure they don’t feel useless the next time they come around, find enough things to throw down immediately.

The fun and games in the compartment, of course, are the most delightful part of a train journey. Most people have graduated from “footsie” to a complex form of “elbowsie” - and control of the armrest of an AC chair car seat hangs in balance. First, the person next to you will try to get the back part of the armrest. You “adjust” and take the front part. Somehow not satisfied, they will then claim the front part. You “adjust” again and take the back part. At some point of time, they have got three-fourths and you are just hanging on to a bit of the territory - simply to not have to retire with dignity having admitted defeat. One little false move - to put the phone to charge, or get something out of the bag, and WHAM, you’ve lost the battle and the war! 

This is nothing compared to what happens if you have the middle seat. First this-a-way, then that-a-way. You are like one of those countries sandwiched between two avaricious countries, not to name any here, of course. 

The most interesting games can be played in the aisle seat, though. On the one hand, you must keep up the game of “elbowsie” with the neighbour, of course. Honour demands that you do. On the other, there is dodge the luggage (before stations), dodge the luggage (after stations), dodge the hips (at all points) and, if you are near one of the compartment doors, hold the breath - each time someone goes in or goes out.

Of course, it never does to travel alone. If somehow you are, invariably somebody will ask you to move to some other place because they are traveling with someone, or with a large family. Over time, one wearies of this. You gain a voice. You tell people that you bought a seat and you will sit in it, even if you are traveling alone. You are sobered by the thought of what society and communities do to people who choose to remain single and live alone - are they constantly being asked to move over for couples, families and groups?

Train journeys are too much like life!

Second Draft

Sleep stumbles, tumbles out
Shoes out the door
lift down and the open air.

The morning dark kisses
nerve ends on bare legs
pin-pricks awareness

Alone. Dark. But aware.
A zephyr whispers on bare arms.
Almost autumn.

Above the sky. Darkslateblue.
life's mysteries. One. Two. Three.
Three bird calls. Waking. 5.15.

I walk to escape what ennui
there is in milliseconds slowed down
creeping slowly

till blood flows through
touching tips and skin
chanting life buzzing

now awakening that longing
as through the dark stairs of
eight floors of controlled panting
and the darkest shade of blue

I climb out into the light.

First Draft

Lesson plans - check
Department meeting - check
ATL Workshop - check
Resource collection - check
Uploads - check
Downloads - check
Frontloads - check
Sideloads - check
Backloads - check
Mindmap... heartmap... soulmap...?
Stretching it - the day
will be done soon

and you only managed
the first draft for it!

Aerial Shot

Photograph taken over Denpasar airport after take-off.

Everything is reduced from
overwhelming to miniature
plaguing concerns
irrelevant
when you realise, suddenly,
that you cannot fly - not actually -
and if your aircraft crashes
it will be over
in a second.

There's no time for more
than an instant of regret
a couple of people you hurt
or offended
a couple of tasks left undone
But you know those people
will forgive you - and someone else
will do those tasks.

And just a moment left to wonder
whether
in the long run
you managed to live or not.

I fly much more often than
I would wish to.

Last Walk

A fence, a graveyard, keeping women out,

Mourners walk out, all men, blank-faced, calm

Before our own last walks.

And soon, your last walk, on the shoulders 

Of your uniformed brothers that black box

That used to be you.

They told the family that the fuselage 

Of your fighter, somewhere deep in a desert found

Your last moments and yet

Untold the details of what those were.

Your mother asks why, and how, and begs

For a last glimpse of her son

Now enfolded in that impenetrable dark

Mystery that your brothers carry.

And I can only see their backs moving

In a slow, graceful walk, away from us,

Airmen, all, stoic-faced, grieving only

In their eyes as they walk past me

With fleeting shadows as their eyes meet mine

And I know that our hearts feel the same

On your last journey home.

And repeatedly I talk to you, apologise,

For knowing too well, for not knowing enough,

For hasty words sent on an impulse

That now can no longer be retrieved.

But when I try to remember your energy,

All I can see in my mind’s fitful eye

Is your last walk in a box and the shoulders

Of your brothers. And I struggle to breathe knowing

That finality of the final moment

And a lifetime of regret.

Odd Goodbyes

Odd, though, isn’t it

How easy it is to say goodbye to the living

Than to say farewell to the dead.

Leave, go, you say to those seeking others’

Pastures. With no forgiveness, temporary

Or otherwise to mitigate the pain

That flushes in and out of your face at 

Memories that flood of betrayal, of those

Trusted moments that now rip your heart while 

You pace and pace and try to draw your breath

For long enough to breathe; but it doesn’t even

Fill your lungs with enough to last

One short moment of time. And yet, how odd

That the one that really got away, to heaven

Perhaps, a good soul before he crashed

His way out of your life, leaving words so bitter

You will always wonder if his last thought was

Filled with hatred for your betrayal and if

His heart was ripped out by your words scattering

The sheets with your impeccable writing, those neat

Precise words indicting, accusing of what

He may have never done.

Stories

"We make stories and stories make us."

- Dr Shelja Sen

April 2011

The dining table is entirely occupied by something other than food. The family has been eating all meals at the coffee table, only occasionally able to glimpse the wood for the Tree. What had begun by being a little tree had turned into an artwork of life-size proportions.

This was the last activity of the Family Therapy Course conducted by the stupendously insightful Dr Shelja Sen of Children First in New Delhi. In the Narrative Therapy segment of the course, we had been asked to create our tree of life, individually. The task was one originally formulated by Michael White and David Epston and been very successful in nurturing (and enhancing) stories that would otherwise have been very sparse, bleak and perhaps dismal to the lived and the more so to the beholder.

The result in the Banerji-Doyle household is pictured above. A seven-foot tree from roots to treetop, filled with the experiences of a lifetime. An unwieldy artwork that was difficult to preserve from the tests of time and space, and has only survived all these years because my first-born, Sara, has staunchly refused to let me preserve photographs while junking the rest. The leaves are real sal leaves, collected by the second-born, Tyger, and I on one our visits to my friend Maya's school in Dehra Doon - we dried and painted on them and they lay around the house waiting for something more to happen to them, till this tree-making came along.

On the roots, I wrote about where I came from, the culture(s) I grew up in, people who populated my childhood and youth and had a large impact on my story as it formed: of particular interest was - Hiking, Buddha and Books! On the trunk, I wrote my beliefs - and I chose to write them in short sayings that are still the foundation of my life - like, It's good to have strong views; it's great to change one's mind. The branches had thoughts on what I wanted to do. The flowers and fruits had what I considered my achievements and activities I have enjoyed doing - and one of these came out in the form of a poem. The leaves had all the significant people in my life - all those who continue to warm my life with their stories - it's a really long list so I should not bore you! The worms had all the challenges that I wanted to conquer.

April 2017

My tree looked like this:

Far more manageable in A3 size! A lot of the content had changed, many flowers and fruits had been added, and some of the worms had gone away.

December 2017

A fast-forward, of course, but the time-lapse is necessitated by the publication of Dr Sen's second book, Imagine: No Child Left Invisible subtitled "Building emotionally safe spaces of inclusive & creative learning". 

Few writers write with the flair that Dr Sen's has, her pen flowing over ideas and concepts with the ease of a master. She states right at the beginning that she has avoided the tone of an academic work and "tried to reduce the clutter in [her] narrative by not bringing in piles of research in every chapter". A breath of fresh air, that. More importantly, a narrative that is accessible to the non-academic mindset; a reaching out to the practicing populace. Learning facilitators who need this enthusiasm, these alternatives to the straitjacketed narratives available to them. 

Straitjackets that constrict and confine, lunatic to the point of being a menace to the nurture of creativity and growth. Straitjacketed narratives that we must lock up, throw keys far into oceans to settle down at peace in the coral reefs where they can no longer do any harm.

May 2018

Midsummer, and Not a Word

A feeble pen dried prune-like

and a fly on the wall, of an existence - in a straitjacket...

Utterly odd - something written after almost six months of vegetation. Where does time go, then?