The math of life

Doesn't add up

Every summer vacation, we descended at my dadi’s house. Whether we landed in the morning or midnight, Chachi would magically put food on the table and organise beds for us to sleep in. As a child I never wondered about this, expected it even, but as an adult the math of her home eludes me. It was like a mythical kitchen where there were always fresh phulkas for one more mouth, always a cup of chai for one more unannounced guest. As was her love. I liked being in her house more than in my own. In her home, I felt special. In her home, there was more love, more food, more time, more play, more rest, more everything.

Over time, when I saw that her other nieces and nephews were also beneficiaries of her generosity, something inside me became smaller. Like someone had torn away a piece of my phulka.

Same story at home, where I was told I was Biji’s favourite. By none other than herself. Only to realise that my brother and all my cousins had been sold the same propaganda. Again, having to share my spotlight with a peer felt like my oxygen was being sucked out.

We dealt with this blow by making fun of her, saying she was loose with her words, chose the ones that suited her, she couldn’t be taken too seriously anyway…but I wonder now.

I could not imagine that I had it in me to make space for a whole other human being in my life - physically, emotionally and the hardest, professionally. My life was tightly run ship, maximising any and all opportunities, pushing myself to do the most that I could. But when my first born came along, I made space. It wasn’t something I planned, in fact my planning had been to do none of the above…I wanted to be back ‘in shape’ even before I checked out of the hospital and to continue on my career path as if the maternity leave was only a minor inconvenience, a blip to be forgiven and forgotten as soon as possible.

I ended up making decisions that surprised me. I cut back from work, from attending to myself, from sleep. Just when life was getting back to some semblance of normalcy, I did it all over again with my second one. And then some. And just when you’d think there isn’t possibly any more space to make, in comes a kitten who sleeps on my chest and wants to play in the middle of the work day. And guess what…I save my work, peel myself away from looming deadlines and…play. As if there’s infinite space inside me. An infinite capacity to love.

As Biji might have had. As did Chachi. Vast and infinite like an ocean.

Left to right: Biji, me, Mumma and my aaya at Sangam, Allahabad

I wonder now if we have all been callous in our choice of words. ‘Special’ and ‘favourite’ are not as wholesome as they sound. They predicate value on the other. Special niece as compared to regular nephews, favourite granddaughter as opposed to all the other, plain vanilla grandchildren…because there is only so much love she can give and so many hungry hearts clamouring for it. Maybe these words do a disservice to her, maybe Biji did love all of us so much that we all felt special. Infinity minus a little something is still infinity.

Wanting to hoard their love, to have it all to myself is a bit like trying to collect sea water in a tiny hole we dig on the beach. We all know how that ends…no matter how many trips we make to the sea with our sad little, green, plastic buckets, neither does our hole ever get filled nor can we stop all those other annoying, noisy people from enjoying the largesse of the waves.

It’s not just love though, it feels like we are capable of infinite cruelty too, as is on display in the world right now, has been in the past and will undoubtedly continue to be in the future, causing endless grief and suffering. But we see this being met with inifinite, unbelievable resilience fuelled by infinite hope that there is enough and more in this world for everyone. To believe otherwise would be infinitely stupid.