consciousness

I ride the Regional Rail

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / Leave a comment

I ride the Regional Rail to work and back again, from outside to in, Center City to Marcus Hook, where the oil refinery shoots plumes of orange flame and the ladies at the diner call me hon. I watch the signs – Eddystone, Crum Lyn, “The Gas Light”.  A worn billboard, paint curled, letters faded, stands tall midway. I can just make out the hopeful plug:

“Visit our suburban city, and see what’s new in Glenolden!”

The first time I saw it, I laughed.  But the joke is too old, and too sad to be funny.  The lost luster of the suburban dream reminds me that I am not as young as I used to be.

I ride the Regional Rail from my hometown, seeing it with my 36 years old, consciousness-raised, social-science eyes.  The Chester Transportation Center speaks its truth to me.  Promises broken,  people unmade, climbing too many stairs just to wait for a train to somewhere else. University City still ten stops away.

I ride the Regional Rail to work, from outside to in,  Marcus Hook to Center City, where the fountain at LOVE park shoots plumes of purple water and the lady at the chinese food truck knows I need more hot sauce.  The sky scrapers rise up, the murals sing praise songs, and I am young once again. My pulse quickens with the beating heart of the city until it’s time to ride the Rail again.

 

 

 

I drew two pictures

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 1 Comment

I drew two pictures, just like the book suggested.  I was home alone, beads of sweat pooling in the crease between my thighs and the swell of my baby-filled belly.   The crayola box was covered in a thin layer of  dust.  I selected brown and red and peach and yellow, blue and gold and pink.  I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.

Fear: I drew a dark, windowless room. I drew myself lying on a bed. My big, brown bulging form was strapped down by black wires and cords. I drew two women near me and colored their  faces peach and gave them long blond hair.  I drew word bubbles rising from their mouths. “#*?! ”  they shouted.  On my right calf muscle I drew a large red X.

Hope:  I drew myself sitting up in bed and my husband Jon next to me.  I drew a brown-skinned woman smiling nearby.  I drew a river flowing out from between my legs and a small brown baby floating atop.  In the air above the baby, I drew a star.

A few weeks later:  I sat up on a delivery room bed at Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago and  pushed.  The room was bright.   I closed my eyes and went inside myself.  I sensed the people in the room: my husband, my blond nurse, and my friend Sandhya.  My right leg spasmed and I shouted incoherent commands to this team of supporters. “You!”  I pointed frantically towards no one with my eyes closed. “Rub my leg! Up! No, down!  Left. More left.  No. Outside!!”  I felt hands on my leg, easing the cramp into a dull ache.

The nurse’s voice warned me of the next coming wave.  “Focus on your bottom!” Words you only hear in a delivery room or at the gym.  I breathed in deeply, standing somewhere inside myself in the dark, wondering who this child would be. “Do you want to feel the head?”  I reached down between my legs and felt a patch of hard skull covered by soft hair no bigger than a quarter. I wondered why my baby’s head was so very tiny.  I imagined I was pushing out a small doll. It seemed very doable.

The doctor appeared between my legs.  “Hi Aarati, I am Dr. Starr. Your baby is almost here.  Let’s get another good push.” I pushed my soul against hers, willing her into the world. I felt a sudden gush, a rush, and thrust myself against myself. “Wow! That’s a lot of water! Here she comes!”

Asha. Hope.  Kimberly. From the meadow of the royal forest.  The hope from the meadow of the royal forest was born.  All hail brown-skinned, all hail pink-skinned.  Born on water and under a star.  She is here, she is here, she is here!

 

 

Jai Meerabai

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Something about her captivated me.  Her waist was so narrow I thought it could fit between my thumb and pointer. Her eyes were wide and earnest and far away.  She was enraptured, tortured, swimming in the deep waters of pain and love. Her soul married Krishna, a Hindu God, butter thief, lover of women, and consultant to Kings, when she was five years old.  Her parents later married her body to a powerful lord, but she remained faithful to Krishna in her heart.

Her love for Krishna over family led to her being ostracized and attacked by her powerful in-laws.  Krishna protected her from these assaults.  He turned poison to ambrosia. He  transformed a bed of nails into a bed of roses.  Venomous snakes became garlands of flowers. She fled her in laws home and traveled the country, composing hundreds of song in praise of Lord Krishna. She became famous for her beautiful songs and the purity and strength of her devotion.  She grew old but did not die. She spent her last moments on earth performing rapturously in front of a crowd of hundreds, collapsed at the feet of a statue of Lord Krishna and vanished.

Meerabai. Poet- saint. Chanteuse.  Her Raags are still performed today.

I met her in a comic book when I was 8 or so. She was a beautiful illustration of a woman in love, a persecuted soul,  a spiritual leader.  I fantasized myself into those pages. My long eyelashes drooped sorrowfully and a playful half smile formed on my lips. I held my veena to my body, caressing the strings with a passion that I could detect but did not yet understand. I would name my daughter Meera in hopes that she would follow in the footsteps of this tragically mortal woman immortalized in pastels and word blocks. She was more beautiful than Cinderella, braver than Snow White, and more tortured than Belle. She was my fairy-tale princess. She was better than a fairy-tale princess. She was a real person.

In my 20s I worked as a rape crisis counselor and prevention educator.  As a counselor, I was surrounded by women in love, persecuted, and tortured. Their lives were not romantic, beautiful tradegies.  Life was painful, complicated, and real. As an educator, I spoke to hundreds of teenage boys and girls.  I talked about the power of stories and the messages in fairy tales. I wanted them to know that love did not have to equal pain and abuse. During those years, I thought often of Meerabai. Her story glorified pain and suffering. I would not name a daughter after her. I did not even know if I wanted children anymore. Comic books and fairy tales were fantasies concocted for and by men.  For a time, I let Meerabai go.

She has been calling to me lately again.  There is an itch inside of me. A  place in my mind that flashes her picture.  A small voice in my head trying to remind me of this one thing – Meerabai was no fairytale. She was a real woman.

She was born in 1498AD.  She wrote hundreds of songs that are still sung today.  She refused to join her husband on the funeral pyre. She left her family to wander the country. She sang to crowds of hundreds. She challenged the priests of the day with her devotion and piety. She did not heed the words of men because Krishna was the only true man.  These are the things we know about her. How much more is there that we do not know?

I want to know the herstory of Meerabai.  I do not want to be her, or name my daughter for her. I do not want to fetishize her or idolize her. I do not want to know the comic book version of her.  I want to know her pain, and her resilience, and her conviction and her insanity woman to woman. That is the story I can learn from. That is a story I can tell my children. Meerabai lived.

Soul Searchings

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 1 Comment

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SOUL SEARCHINGS
 
My sister was born with a tooth in her mouth and a chip on her shoulder.  She was spoiling for a fight from the first.  She eyed us suspiciously. She lashed out at us mistrustfully.  She was born on the defensive.  I was 9 when she was born. It was then that I began to  think seriously about the possibility of reincarnation.  Maybe, something bad happened to my sister in her past life, maybe right before she died.  My parents and I loved the fight out of my sister. It took patience, and time, and a Fred Flinstone punching bag.  She remained angry through her preteens, and then she mellowed. Whatever had happened to her before, she seemed to have moved on.
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While in college, I traveled through Austria and Germany with the chamber singers. We performed hymns in old cathedrals.  In each of those spaces, as we began to sing, I felt myself disappear. My voice blended with those of my fellow singers. We became an instrument played inside a space that no longer existed in time.  We could have been singing a thousand years ago or on another planet.
During that same trip, we visited the concentration camps at Dachau.  I saw the ovens where hundreds of thousands of Jews were burned.  As I walked in that space, I was swallowed by the silent voices of a thousand screams.  I wept continuously. I could not see where I was, or where I was going. My friends took me back to our hotel.  While others went out to the local beerhaus, I sat in my room in silence. I wept. I slept. I awoke again, and was just me.
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After my second miscarriage, I had a dream.  I was in an empty room. At one end of the room, there was a small rectangular pool of water sunken into the ground. A little girl sat on the edge of the pool, dangling her feet in the water. She was plump, with dark curly hair, and tan skin. She saw me, and slid into the pool until she was completely covered by water. I stayed at my end of the room. After a few minutes, she pulled herself out the pool. I went over to her, but she turned away from me. She crossed her arms across her chest angrily. She was mad at me for making her wait. She was ready to be born.

I did not know I was beautiful

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 4 Comments

I did not know I was beautiful when the photographer taking pre-school pictures said, “Aww.  Your hair is so long.  What a beautiful little Hawaiian girl. Say “Aloha”.

I did not know I was beautiful when I went to the beach and all of the other kids had to wear sunscreen to keep from getting too dark.

I did not know I was beautiful when it was fitness week in my fifth grade class and we all had to weigh ourselves and I weighed over 100lbs.

I did not know I was beautiful when my mother caught me looking nervously at my pre-teen reflection in the mirror and asked me, with fear in her voice,  if I wished that I was White.

I did not know I was beautiful when I was the only one of my friends who did not have a date to homecoming.

I did not know I was beautiful when my highschool boyfriend told me that he could not get too serious because I was not Christian.

I did not know I was beautiful when my Asian college boyfriend dumped me and started dating my White roommate.

I did not know I was beautiful, but I was.

So I started wearing my nose ring and the sparkle offset my eyes.

So I got a tatoo over my heart reminding me of what lies inside.

So I learned to care for my body with kindness, and attention, and movement.

So I surrounded myself with people whose beauty radiated from within.

Then my boyfriend said, “I choose you, and choose you, and choose you.

Then I heard friends say “Your daughter is so beautiful. She looks just like you.”

I did not know I was beautiful, so I made myself feel beautiful, and then people told me I was beautiful, and now I know that I am beautiful… sometimes.

Going home

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 2 Comments

Delaware:

The kids sleep in my old bedroom.  I sleep in the guest room.  There are rooms to spare and we spread our things  across the house knowing it will take hours to find them again when it is time to leave. My parents get up in the morning and do the same things they have always done.  Dad’s arms sway up and out and down to the floor.  He stretches to get the blood flowing.  Mom lights the candle on her altar, says a quick prayer under her breath as the kettle sings its insistent song.  “I am ready! I am hot!”  She makes the first of three cups of morning coffee. Each one will be left in an unknown location in the house, two-thirds full, stolen away by the coffee elves.  The kitchen smells of incense, and cumin, and burnt toast.   The floor is cold.  My kids run around, and around, and around from the kitchen, into the hallway, into the dining room, and back into the kitchen.  Outside, I hear leaves rustling, acorns drop, birds twitter.

Delhi:

For the first week I am groggy. Day is night and I cannot keep my eyes open. I have never been good at dealing with changes in sleep.  The air is thick with the smell of dust, and sun, and people.  Vendors sell vegetables and hot chai. They sing their insistent songs, “Hot chai!  Ready! Good price!”  I roll out my mat to sleep on.  The floor is hard, but I soon become accustomed to sleeping this way with my cousins nearby.  I wander the streets during the day, to market and back.  I am absorbed into my uncle’s family.  We catch auto rickshaws to go to see a movie.  The roads are jammed with people and cars and motorbikes and animals. I can hardly hear myself think.

D.C.

The sun pours in through our windows into our living room, amplified by the yellow of our walls.  It is a cozy apartment.  Living room bleeds into dining area into kitchen.  Two tiny bedrooms tucked away at the back of the apartment hold all our things and all our dreams.  High shelves keep cherished books away from tiny hands.  On nice days, we choose which playground to go to.  Our playground? The school playground? The far away playground?  On rainy days, the children roam the hallway in our building, imagining worlds behind doors.  Outside, birds, sirens, hammers, helicopters, and neighbors all shout for attention.  “We are here! See us working!”

Big City Love

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 4 Comments

I need the Big City.  I need towering spires of steel and glass glimmering in the sun. I need feet, hundreds of feet, pounding miles of cement sidewalk.  I need my feet to pound that pavement, feeling the rhythm through my soles, into my soul. I need the Big City voices, young, old, Black, White, Brown, swelling around me into the day.  I need the push, the rush, the flushed sensation, the vibration of hundreds of thousands living en masse.  I need to feel the beating heart. I need to see poor next to rich next to me. I need to smell human beings living around me.

When my husband and I were looking to buy our first home, I spent a few days in my hometown of Wilmington, DE. My mother and I chatted about their decision to buy the home I grew up in.  My mother said, “I remember the trees, and the quiet and just feeling so good and peaceful. I just loved it here .”   I listened to my mother and in that moment, years of my own internal monologue suddenly shifted.  They LIKED living here in this suburbany neighborhood on the edge of a small city limit.  They CHOSE to live here. It’s what they WANTED. 

In my mind, the silence of my old neighborhood was a vast isolation.  The quiet of the trees echoed my own loneliness, my sleepiness, and my laziness.  I never felt truly awake.  I lived to escape to the hustle and bustle of school.  I became active in extra-curriculars because to be home was to sink down into the silence, the cool oblivion of home.  It was not a bad place. My parents were loving. I was safe and cared for in my home.  So safe that I could not be fully alive. I was dormant at home.

Things were different in India. I have family in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Bangalore, all big cities.  Those trips were like a jolt from an enormous battery.  I couldn’t get enough.  I thought it had something to do with reconnecting to my roots, getting in touch with my Indian self.  Some of that was true.  Now I see that most of that feeling came from the energy I got from being in a Big City.

I got my  fix after I graduated from a small, rural, liberal arts college. With no job, I moved to Chicago, city of Big Shoulders.  Chicago was my power source.  The skyline fed my dreams.  The people moved me to play, and dance, and scream and fight.  I reached into myself and sent blazing trails of me out into the Chicago streets.  I laughed with the El train as it moved haltingly from the elevated tracks of streetscapes and sunshine down into the rumbling belly of darkness.  I peered out the window atop the John Hancock Tower and gazed at the solid grey silence of Lake Michigan kissing the controlled chaos of the city map.  I was in love with life. The Big City was my power source.

Now, I have two children.  The siren song of suburban life is everywhere.  “You will be safer.” “More space.” “Cheaper housing.” “Better schools.” “Everyone is doing it.”   I am not doing it. I now understand that my mom chose to live in a quiet neighborhood because it fed her soul. That was right for her.  She needed that space to reflect, to find solitude.  I need the Big City to pull me out of myself.  I need to hear the voice of the city calling me out onto the street.  I need to know my children will see humanity in all it’s messy glory every day. Maybe they will think I am crazy for  choosing that.  That’s OK too. When they grow up, they can find their own way, their own true home.  Until then, they will have to learn to respec the Big City. Maybe they too can feel the Big City Love.