Dancing with the Stars

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Venus hangs like a lantern in the sky, clearly captured by our cellphone

“Mama, we’ve been cooped up all day, let’s go to the terrace,” my daughter G said one evening, bursting into my home office.  I hesitated.  It was late, I still had a lot of work to finish that day.  Sensing my reluctance, she immediately said, “ Think of it as your exercise for the day, climbing up all those stairs.  Sitting there, you’ll just get fat!” That hit home.  She knows exactly which buttons to press, this one.  I hid a smile and got up immediately. 

As the three of us – my son, daughter and I –  reached the terrace, the last scarlet glow of the setting sun had given way to the violet fading into black, and one by one, the stars made their appearance.  G grabbed my arm and gasped.  “What is THAT!” she exclaimed, pointing at one glowing light.  It was either a satellite or a planet.  So blindingly bright, it hung up there like a lantern in the sky.  Out came my phone app.  “It’s the planet Venus, “ I told them.   

We stared at the sky in awe, millions of glittering stars showing off their resplendence.  As a child in Shillong, I have vivid memories of looking up at the night sky in wonder – the stars, billions, trillions  of them, pushing, competing  to find a place, seemed so close I always felt the temptation to just reach out and pluck them out, the way we plucked the plums from the overhanging branches of our neighbour’s tree.   One of the reasons I could never be completely at ease in Delhi is that you could never see the stars, shrouded as they always remained behind the thick polluting veil, with only a few valiant ones daring to reveal themselves.  To me, a place without stars was always suspect. No wonder my children – Delhi born and bred – were surprised. They’d never seen a sky like this in their city!  They had no idea what it felt like to be wrapped in this richly bejewelled celestial cloak. 

Then my daughter grabbed my phone and started trying to identify all the stars.  I pointed out to them how to spot Orion’s belt without an app (we learnt about them without an app, I said).  She swung my phone around and pointed out to another star. ‘That’s Sirius, “ she said, reading it out from my phone.  “It’s the brightest star in the sky, “ my son informed, not to be undone.  Somehow, that reminded me of Harry Potter. 

The children were excited as, one by one, they identified the familiar and the not-so-familiar.  We saw the Ursa Major (the Big Bear) and Ursa Minor – but where was the North Star?  To my alarm, my daughter climbed up a precarious-looking ladder to try and spot it.  “I’ve never seen the North Star,” she said.   Unfortunately, too low down on the horizon – it was swallowed up by the glow of city lights.  

A gentle breeze was blowing.  We sat down, side by side, hand in hand, swaying with the wind.  Silent, spellbound, each of us absorbing it all.  Contemplating the irrelevance of us against this vast magical canvas.  Did I imagine it, or was that a hint of mockery in the twinkling lights?  Did I imagine the waft of the breeze whisper, “Where’s the Mighty Man, no match for a virus?”  We sat, stretching out our arms to embrace it all, immensely grateful to be a humble part of this magical universe.  

Only the People Remain The Same

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“My whole life has changed this year,” my pre-teen daughter suddenly announced one evening.  We were all sitting around the living room, as we usually do these lockdown evenings, each of us doing our own thing — reading, doing a crossword, checking messages on our phone.  She explained,“ This is the year I moved house, moved out of junior school, and now COVID is happening.”  Then she looked around at us and observed, “Only the people remain the same.” 

People.  The same people.  The days I stay at home, I see my parents and my children playing Scrabble, and I find my children making word after word that I didn’t even realise they knew.   

I usually spend my time at home telling my history-loving teenage son to come back from some ancient war zone to the 21st century and finish his homework. These days, without any nudge from me, I find him washing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen to save me the effort. I didn’t know he even noticed!

One day, I come out of my home office and can’t find my children anywhere.  I panic.  Did they go out, during lockdown?  No, they’re in our balcony with their grandfather, watering and tending to the plants since the gardener can’t come.  I watch as he tenderly snips off dead parts, waters the roots, all the while explaining to the children why that helped the plants, in his gentle soothing voice.  He explains to them how he learnt about plants in his village in Assam, and how fertile the land is there.  Story after story of his childhood emerge along with the dead leaves and weeds.  My hardcore city brats listen enraptured, and I suddenly have a flash of, not the father I know, but the man he once was – a bright young man from a remote village in a corner of the country, bold enough to dream of the stars, and determined enough to reach them. 

Another day, I come out of my home office to find my mother and daughter chatting away.  My daughter is telling her stories.  Not to be outdone, my mother tells her stories back – imagination pitched against imagination, the old-gentle, traditional grandmother versus the young, brash, teen to be.  As my mother laughs, I see my daughter in her.  I see her, not as my mother, not as the person who fed us soup when we were sick and made sure our lives ran smooth, but as a young woman brimming with talent, who loves good stories and a good time.  It’s still there, that spirit – it takes a granddaughter and a lockdown to bring it out.   

Human beings are like onions, someone once said, you peel one layer, and you get another.  To me, human beings are multi-hued jewels.  You think you know them.  Yet you only see the side you want to see.  It takes a virus and a lockdown to shine and reveal their full glorious beauty.