Firstly, with thanks to Meenakshi DCruz and Dr. Sunil Pandya for personally writing to my mother and to me to express concern for my long silent absence from my blog. Five months now, I calculate. So, in this, my birthday month, I shall attempt to redress the balance with a newsy post.
I left England for Asia at the end of March after a lot of dithering because Dad wasn’t in top condition. He intimated as much a few days before my flight, and I nearly cancelled all plans. Perhaps that might have been wise, as I proceeded to encounter a grisly case of gastroenteritis in Singapore, ending up in Tan Tok Seng hospital. Unfortunately for me, there were no beds available on the ward, so I was placed on the corridor stretcher, where I proceeded to pick up pneumonia. I didn’t know it was pneumonia, only that I had a cough, which turned more and more devious as I once again contemplated the wisdom of travelling on to Kuala Lumpur. I did go. Twin nieces awaited! And ended up in a Malaysian hospital this time. Finally, I cut my trip short by two weeks and hustled home in case my luck really ran out!!
Dad was relieved to have me home. He had a few grisly infections himself. And then summer pretended to arrive, and with it Irfan, Theresa and the kids… we celebrated Dad’s birthday and now with them gone, here is Rizwan. In between, my uncle Zubin drives to Cambridge from London when he can, to read to Dad and take over the washing up, and generally add to the support network that has been much needed since Dad fell last autumn. What is time? One moment Dad was a father to toddlers, then teenagers, and now his son is father to a teenager.
The plants need watering. Meals must be cooked. My breaking heart walks herself into the garden. My sweet Wendy House into which I have poured a silly amount of love, paint, art and happy memories, is probably in her last days before she will be dismantled and taken to the skip. Everything comes and goes. We cling on, ever hopeful, to that which we love. And we long for The Other Stuff to pass. We are as fickle with time as time is with us.
I contemplate writing. And I crawl away from the words. I face up to the brutalities of modern empires and colonising powers and I crumble at the sight and sound of tortured bodies. They buried another young journalist in Gaza, without his head. Ismail was his name. Everyone compliments me on my nails. With my mouth I say nothing - my nails say Free Palestine, from those who endanger the olive trees, the watermelon, strawberry and poppy, the fish in the sea, the kites clinging on to the hopeful fingers of the children in the Gaza Strip.
