A Girl Called Battle

Part II The Quiet Arrival of a Pearl

Before we fully descend into didactics regarding magic and metamorphoses, let us return to our heroine, Battle, who we left in the company of her grandfather. Over time, her grandfather, as the designated patriarch, grew weary of his family, whom he regarded as a bunch of louts made useless by leisure and a crippling sense of entitlement, but in Battle, he recognized a mutinous spirit. So as a last-hope maneuver to groom a capable heir, he insisted that Battle should shift residence and live with him.

Her grandfather arranged for a pick-up, late at night, to diffuse any fanfare and overwrought good-byes. While waiting for his car, Battle sat quietly and patiently in the parlor, cutting a small but formidable figure among the shadowy pile of trunks. She pressed smooth the hem of her frock and tugged on her coat, trying her best to suppress the sense of anticipation. After some time, she wandered to the front windows, disappearing among the heavy drapes and pressing her forehead against the cold glass. She eyed the desolate streets at night, her breath clouding the glass, fogging the lamplight and when she wiped it away in a single streak, there it was, waiting for her, as if summoned from from the sleight of her hand---her grandfather's sleek, black automobile.

Her grandfather's building, the tallest in the entire metropolis, emerged from the stunted scenery of stacked edifices like an imperious dark monolith, checkered in windows and tapered at the top as a means to comply with pesky zoning clauses preoccupied with the blockage of sunlight to the underlings below. Though most floors housed the various enterprises that kept the family coffers well-fed, her grandfather sanctioned the topmost floors for his own personal space. It was here, hidden in the geometric arrays of marble, glass, steel and all variants of gleaming surfaces, where he situated his secret study, the one place in the whole austere, over-polished spectacle where he could truly be himself. He shared this room with his granddaughter under sworn secrecy. No one, not even his late wife, knew of this special secret wing. Except for his architect, steward. And solicitor, of course.

Battle spent hours in the evening, in this very room, sitting in a dusty landscape of toppled books, peeling Chinoise wallpaper, bottled boats, unfurled maps, disemboweled toys from curiosity shops, animals skins and relics from extensive travel that her grandfather gently pillaged from natives through feigned comraderie. Her grandfather regarded this room as an education, a rare and real oppurtunity to undermine an upbringing intent on fashioning her into an accomplished lacy bauble and subsequently, unbeknownst to everyone else, he groomed her with a freer sense of destiny.

However, just as soon as could realize a certain emancipation for Battle, he fell ill. He spent his last days in a bed, pouting with a pipe in his mouth, which he refused to relinquish even when his forlorn physician occasionally pressed two fingers on his wrist while eyeing a pocketwatch. Lying in bed for a prolonged period of time, he found, much to his own amusement, that his room resembled a family tomb, with tall dark marble walls, vaulted ceiling, windows composed of large sheets of glass faceted against each other, overlooking the clouds, the sky, the oblivion beyond. It also did not help that the usual entourage of stolid spectators parked themselves by his bed, waiting for the inevitable cue for tears, the usual histrionics, and eventual inquiry regarding assets.

So while he did derive some temporary pleasure in using his illness to emotionally blackmail his family members, he was determined that his granddaughter did not become a part of the farcical moodpiece surrounding his demise. In an act that many chalked up to senility---though those who knew him, knew better---- he sanctioned the construction of a darkwood dory/miniature ship with old sails that his granddaughter could play in during the day and sleep in at night. He enjoyed seeing the people seated at his bedside, dressed in black, frowns on their face, stoically braving clouds of sawdust, hammering and drilling. The project helped dissipate the whole lot of them, so that finally, the only people left in the room were those that were absolutely necessary. And Battle. When the ship was completed, she dangled off the masts, looking beyond at the stretch of clouds from the windows with a telescope and wishing her ship could set sail, with her grandfather onboard, onto the welcoming sky of clouds.

From then on, everything that happened in Battle's life happened in the company of her bedridden grandfather: her lessons, her meals, her manufactured adventures on her ship. For a period of time, it was their own little paradise and it appeared that perhaps her grandfather may have warded off the grim predictions regarding his health. But one morning, he knew it was time. Last words were spoken, but the very last was left for his grandaughter. She was kept aside dutifully by his steward, until she was led to his bedside. For once, he had nothing to say to her, seeing all that he constructed and built left on her brave, little shoulders. He tirelessly made all necessary arrangements to ensure her future and finally, at this moment, he could lay his eyes on her, knowing that it was up to her what to make of these next chapters. He quietly placed the key to his secret study in her palm and slowly raised his arms for a final embrace. As he held her in his arms, she rested her face onto his frail chest, feeling it rising and falling, the muffled sound of his heartbeat beneath, until she felt it all collapse, with his last breath. It was then Battle, who had been so brave through the whole ordeal, who gladly played on the ship he made for her, finally let out a sob. And the tears would not cease. Not the day after, months after. Not a year after.

She refused to leave her grandfather's bedroom, even when his furniture was shifted away into storage. Eventually, her own furniture was moved into the room, while she continually cried, sitting in her nightgown at all times of the day, in her ship, under an over-sized chandelier. Her grandfather's old solicitor who was given the responsibility of over-seeing her upbringing and financial security made sure she had some level of education. So she'd be dressed, fed, and taught in her bedroom, which happened, even through a perpetual syncopation of whimpers and sobs. It almost became like breathing to her, and regarded as such by most who encountered her on a daily basis. The tears, though, functioned as a self-imposed shield by which to preserve the grief, that last moment with her grandfather, keep everyone and everything else away. It was, after all, the last time she really felt love.

One night, Battle slept in her ship, quietly sobbing, burying her face into the white pillows and sheets that glowed in the moonlight, when suddenly she felt something bounce off her quilt and roll onto her hand. It was a single radiant pearl, warm, iridescent and beautiful in the blue light of the night, when suddenly she stopped crying momentarily and her eyes trailed up the ripples of the sheets up to the side of the ship, where she saw the beady eyes of a little brown mouse, perched from the edge of the ship, its fur mangled, its little paws hovering below its face. For a moment, she almost felt she could speak to it, and it could speak to her in plain language, that it came to her bedside as if to comfort her; it understood her tears, her sobs; it understood her; however, realizing herself, her momentary bout of insanity and the inconcievable notion that this residence--this sanitized fortress sealed in marble, concrete, and steel, suspended so high in the sky--- could be suspectible to vermin, she let out a loud scream, that vibrated through the hallways and woke up the entire staff.

From the bottom of her door, she saw the lights darting below, growing brighter, the scurrying footsteps rushing towards the door. At that moment, she felt a cold hand on her own and looked at the mouse and realized, the mouse was not a mouse anymore but in fact a boy. A boy with light brown skin and soulful, jewel-green eyes, soot on his cheeks, shivering and frightened---it was Rust. He had turned himself into a mouse and her scream woke him up from his own self-imposed transformation. He pleaded with her, his hand on hers,"Please! Help! I mean no harm!"

Hearing the footsteps stop at the door, Battle motioned him to one of the long, large drapes by the window, "Hide there!" He slid behind them swiftly, just as the doors crashed open. Her grandfather's old butler stumbled at the entryway, halting an eager army of of maids in nightgowns and shawls, armed with lit candles. "Little Miss, whatever is wrong?"

Embarrassed and puzzled, she wiped away her wet cheeks and smiled, which alarmed the entire staff even more than her scream, as they regarded her perpetual stream of tears as a tiresome yet routine by that time. She assured them, "Oh I'm sorry. Just a bad dream."

"Anything we can do for you?"

"That'll do, " she insisted. The butler nodded, in slight disbelief, unsure of what to make of her suddenly docile, even cheerful behavior, and reluctantly closed the door. When she was sure they were gone, Battle whispered, "You can come out now." When she heard nothing, Battle quickly rushed behind the drapes in search of Rust but could not find him. She looked, wandering around her ship, peering in her wardrobe, lifting the lid of her jewelry box, crawling under tables, yet suddenly she noticed the secret entryway to her grandfather's study was ajar, letting out a cold draft. She walked up the old wooden staircase into the room that she did not have the courage to reenter after her grandfather passed away. The boy was nowhere to be found, but she rediscovered all the knick-knacks, the old books and maps, reentering memories so vivid that they ressurected an old sense of love, and just as her fingers traveled along these objects, she found a hole in the small glass window in the room---the only way by which the boy/mouse entered and escaped. She slipped her hand through the window, her fingers feeling the cold, thin air, wondering if that mouse-boy grew a pair of wings and flew away,yet half-expecting to feel him touch her hand once more, whisking her away into a starry sky, far away from this mythical tall tower inpenetrable to the rest of the world.

When she returned to bed, she found the pearl nestled in the soft, white sheets. It was likely dislodged from a disregarded piece of jewelry from her own collection, some little trinket she must've worn without thinking many times over, yet sitting in her palm, in the dark, it never looked lovelier.

A Girl Called Battle

Part 1 Introduction

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Battle and a boy named Rust, two children destined to meet each other but were gifted with very different yet unusual circumstances. Battle, though an orphan, grew up among people of considerable wealth and oppurtunity. Despite an early inclination towards playful tantrums and kicking good times in mudpits, a committee of remote relatives silenced her to a vast schedule of lessons, forcing her to spend her days with a book balanced on her head while she gurgled french, ate with a salad fork, rode white horses, and played wronged virgins in lackluster balletic performances. She often cried in the evening for reasons largely unknown to herself, but she derived some pleasure reconstructing old war diaoramas in her grandfather's company while he sipped brandy, smoked his pipe and eyed his vast collection of photographs featuring fat Victorian beauties.

Rust literally grew up in the underground, in an abandoned loop of subway track where a large tribe of urban gypsies, proud heathens, and mystical vagabonds set up camp. His mother was a noted clairvoyant who made peculiar candles that could make or break the fortune of those who dared to light them. His father, despite an uncanny resemblance to Rasputin, had a successful career in vaudeville as an acrobat and comic, but he harbored a secret talent for transformation with the help of a magical tambourine. Very few ever witnessed the miracle. Rust himself never saw this particular trick, though he once caught an indirect glimpse of it, seeing his father's silhouette against a bonfire morph into beasts, bird, and curious pieces of furniture.

Needless to say, Rust grew up in an unusual neighborhood, full of communal festivities and obligatory freakshows. But sometimes, Rush would find himself in a nook near the surface, contemplating this familiar darkness in his life and wonder about the mountains and pasture, the soil from which the wicked herbs and mythical flowers grew, the very foliage and blooms that disingrated when they were submerged into his world, becoming merely a a wafting scent from an upside-down, dried bouquet. It was while he was pondering these very thoughts, one day, that the subway track rumbled, and the dust from obliterated cement rained from a sunlit crack above. And Rust gazed at this vision--this cloud of silt suspended in a slit of sunlight--as if it pulsated with magical possibility. For right above lived that other world he only knew briefly while at school or at the carnival, that strange land above where people regarded the sun not so much as a source of romance as much as regularity and routine.

It seems odd to most but it was perfectly normal to Rust, that he developed an ecstatic curiosity for the mundane. Soon after. he toiled over elaborate plans for expeditions. He scaled buildings, crawled through vents, swung on ropes, slid into dark corners just to glimpse a man sip brandy while engaging in stoic conversation over finances with his wife, witness a poor student smell a steaming pie before wielding an eager knife, admire a clerk finger through the crisp edges of paper files, and wonder at artful slosh of suds while a girl from the tennants tended to her laundry.

Rust could not feign invisibility flawlessly, however. Whether it be because of over-inquisitive neighbors or the serendiptous arrival of unsuspecting cops, reports of a peeping tom circulated throughout various neighborhoods.And even though they were uncommonly supportive of their son's hungry mind and strange inclinations, Rust's parents got particularly worried after an ugly incident involving brush with law enforcement and some angry dwellers armed with kitchen utensils, the entire intriguing chase culminating with a showdown on a tower and Rust dangling happily from the hour-hand of a large clock, sixty feet up in the air. Sternly, his father insisted," Due to the boy's inelegant method of mischief, he must be inititated into OUR special way of dealing with matters." So for his thirteenth birthday, both his mother and father recruited his Uncle Boris to give Rust a special present: his first spell.

A Mixed Bag of a Weekend

To say I'm fond of the holidays is a a gross understatement. The Christmas of 2009 was a pivotal turning point, where my Grinch heart grew thrice its size ( and more importantly I was not on call), and I could fully indulge in real holiday revelry. For christmas, Kris and I sat in our apartment in NYC, singing carols, while he cooked turkey and fresh cranberry sauce. We walked on Christmas Eve night at 2 am to look at the holiday lights in the snow, eating chestnuts, and singing songs to Swiss and German tourists with kazoos. Then we had a little Xmas Tree and put up stockings, which Father Christmas filled. We saw plays: George Bernard Shaw, Our Town, Brief Encounter in Dumbo.

Last Christmas was magical because I was here with my fiancee and was married right before I left for India for my wedding. So it had its own little magic.

As for this Christmas, I've decided to embark on finishing an old short story I started at the end of medical school. I scrawled it on a sheet of paper back in 2005 and certain pivotal scenes in it unfolded before my eyes, but yet I could not quite connect the dots in a convincing fashion....until this year. Somehow working as hard as I do, spending late-night hours in the laboratory, it came to me, how it would pan out and more importantly how it would end.

So this Thanksgiving vacation, I went to the River Market Antiques and collected ---for a lack of a better term--a crapload of Victorian and Art Deco postcards, paper dolls, and even an old French Edwardian magazine and an old art Deco women's magazine. From Spivey's, I bought an old Victorian boy's Holiday reader, full of such random, beautiful images---including a cradle-ship which was precisely a picture I was looking for the story. I also bought a copy of Little Lord Founterloy which also had some lovely, inspirational etchings.

My husband also most lovingly cooked all sorts of goodies: the most amazing, freshly made cranberry sauce I've ever tasted, roasted chicken, roasted potatoes, squash and sweet potatoes. He even cooked a variation of a Thai dish with quinoa instead of rice. We watched the most magical film Hugo ( a review of that later) and watched the inspired though flawed Muppets. We saw the lighting of the Plaza, and while some schoolkids tapdanced, we got OCCUPY-ied, which was sort of funny. I was like I hear ya---commercial Xmas is full of corporate greed, but let's not bitch about it while some kids flash some jazz hands at us.

Unfortunately, for me, I fell sick. But I finally finished the second part of my story: A Girl Called Battle.

2011: The year of revelations

I know 2011 has been a big year for me. Over the days stumbling one after another, I acquired a husband, a nephew. And of course the joys of these changes in my life introduced me to nuances of love and basic human existence that is both expected but also eye-opening. But 2011 has also been a pivotal year in my life in another way.

I spent my childhood, loving stories and loving movies. Though there are moments of dramatic emotional peaks in my childhood unlike any other, as time went on, I sometimes wish real life could be as I imagined it, or even as Hollywood Studio imagined it, where everything is manufacted, beautiful and perfect, the swells of inspiration naturally augmented with a crescendo of orchestral chords. You know how it goes.

And then I forgot about how I used to think: that real life, as it pans out, will never be that movie, the feeling one gets reading a perfect passage of literature, such as the last page of the Great Gatsby, or any length of Shakespeare. This year, it returned to me, how I used to think like that, and it was apparent to me: that these manufactured manifestations of emotion, these conjured images can't compare to the real thing. And this was the year, more than any, where I had a multitude of absolutely perfect moments.

It's like that film Afterlife. Which I happened to watch late at night in Bombay the night before I left for Rajhisthan to get married. The people in this film live in limbo where a crew of people recreate a perfect moment in their life, their last flicker of life and memory, that resonates in a deep part of their soul, and single second in the time continuum, where they can reside in forever before embracing an unknown oblivion. And 2011 had many such moments for me. Moments that could never be captured with a picture, a song, a poem, a film recreation with a bombastic soundtrack but yet could linger perfectly as memory. Even while it happened, one second leading to another, fleeting before my eyes, I felt this transience and learned to relish that brief glimpse of pure happiness.

So I've decided to devote the rest of this magical year, 2011, to recalling these perfect moments. Here's a list.

1. My wedding

2. Alinea

3. Recreating Ferris Bueller's Day Off with my husband

4. Kiran and the book I made for Kiran

5. Cultural experiences: a. Frankenstein b. Queen at Play c. Hedgehog d.Lucky Star e. Midnight in Paris f. Jerusalum g. Alexander Mcqueen h. Sleep No More i. Fallen Idol

6. Acquisition of an Onyx Ring with Aditi

7. Hanging out with Lisa and Izzy and Cara in the antiques store.

8. Listening to Beirut's new album late at night in the laboratory

9. Listening to M83's new album late at night in the laboratory

10. Reading Just Kids in an airplane. Twice.

11. Discovering watching old Hindi films with my mother, while in bed, is a wonderful conversational experience

12. Discovering all the tedious work involved in research can reap real revelations

13. Denver, all of it. Teaching Juli how to say hard words, scaring Bola with grasshoppers, and snatching stars from the sky.

14. The Ren Fair!

15. Sitting with my husband, drinking down a fair share of Ramos Gin Fizz

16. My husband handing me a St. Germain spritzer and feeling I've tasted an enchanted garden

I've got my work cut out for me.

dm

Fluidity and Purity.

So post-call yesterday I watched this Film called "Water" for the first time. It took me so long to see the movie because that film and I have a history.

When I was in college was when "Fire" and "Earth" released. I recall finding both films right-in-heart but all-wrong-in-execution. At the beginning of a Partition film like "Earth," can anything be more heavy-handed than a child picking up a pieces of a broken plate and wondering aloud "Can a country break into two, too?" I wanted to bury my head in the ground at that point. With "Fire", I liked the idea of two disillusioned wives finding the love and gratification, that they could never find with their husbands, with each other but somehow the love, lust portrayed on film wasn't quite compelling and a bit over-simplified. So ultimately, I felt that in theory, Deepa Mehta's films were great, but in realty, not at all. On the merit of her stories having a certain ethnic rigor, I felt her films carried a heft and importance that it did not completely deserve.

In college, I had the pleasure of meeting the director herself which was probably, up until yesterday, my most meaningful encounter with her creative psyche. There was a reception at a nearby this South Asian professor's house, and when I arrived, I was shocked to see both D. Mehta and this professor, standing outside in jeans and Converse sneakers, their long, wiry, greying hair down, smoking cigarettes, like two punks outside of a Lower East Side gig, peppering their conversation with curse words,both in English and Hindi. I sat silently next to them, wondering, "Weren't these women supposed to be Aunties? "

( For those unaccustomed to Asian concept of Aunties, it refers to the middle aged women who uphold certain traditional values of the South Asian middle-class, wearing saris during functions, inquiring about the academic status/success of progeny---basically, the epitome of propriety). Needless to say, this was the first time my mind discovered the idea that you could still be a punk at the age of 50. Awesome.

Anyhow, knowing the woman yet being disappointed in her movies, I sort of kept a distance from her other works. I had heard good things about "Water" but chalked it up to the exotic appeal of ethnic lore. But it always haunted me that my cousin had said the ending of the film was amazing.

So yesterday, post-call, I caught my mother watching the beginning of the film and right away, I was quite taken in by the gorgeous cinematography. So tactile, so lovely. I wish Bollywood films could be that lush in texture, allowing the camera to marvel at the flicker of flames, shafts of light sifting through banyan trees, menacing puffs of smoke from a dirty old man, damp hair, the constant negotiation of women with their saris. And through that, I gradually fell into the story about an ashram of widows, the younger ones sent for prostitution to keep the community afloat. It was told through four perspectives: a young six year-old widow, a beautiful widow who is prostituted to men, a middle aged but intelligent widow who accepts the faith and ascetism implicit in her circumtances but struggles with the wrong-doings and superstition that her own religion endorses, and a young, idealistic Brahmin who falls in love with the beautiful widow.

The story is compelling and I won't get too much into the plot. The performances for all involved were amazing, especially that little girl and Seema Biswas, who manages to say so much with only her eyes ( she needs to be in more movies; if she was white, male and American, she'd be called the second coming of Brando). Lisa Ray exudes a quiet poise that only adds to her ethereal beauty. She wears barely any makeup, is draped only in white cloth, yet she hovers in the film as a spectre of tragic loveliness, a young woman still struggling with her lost girlhood.

But what resonated with me, in this film, was the matter-of-fact description of the widows, their lifestyle, and their abuse. The soap-box moments were muted to merely demonstration; the details spoke for themselves. At one point, the six year old girl asks, "Where do the widowers go?" And all the widows are aghast that she could ask such a question, knowing that men, who lose a spouse, have the luxury to move on. But in this beautiful, simple moment, Mehta writes a scene that does display the hypocricy that the women, themselves, reinforce. It is hard for me to believe I was born into religion that allowed this to happen, not too long ago and even today. As my father says, this pervasive level of abuse is not seen in Buddhism, not condoned in the Vedas, but in fact, came from the Sacrament of Manu. For that reason, his own mother, my grandmother, treated religion from a completely pragmatic way, but never believed in its superstition.

My mother, after the film, told my a lovely story about her side of the family. Apparently, when my great grandmother, my mother's father's mother, was on her death-bed, she begged for some chicken soup. Widows were, by tradition, kept to a diet of food without taste and spices and were told to only eat once a day. My mother mused it was so ironic that they were essentially prescribed a lifestyle that was actually healthy and likely prolonged their own life of misery. Anyhow, my maternal grandmother struggled within herself---should she allow her mother-in-law to break her fast that she kept for 40 plus years?

My great grandmother passed away without her chicken soup, but my maternal grandmother resolved after that day that no widow shall be denied. In fact when her own mother and friends were widowed, she took the iniative to not only feed them but feed them well.

I never met my maternal grandmother and I only spent little time with my paternal grandmother but I can't help thinking these women, in their own compelling ways, negotiated with tradition. And arrived at the same conclusion in the end.

That said, Brava, Deepa Mehta!

Love's alteration found.

I recently married. The whole charade was wonderful and touching and joyous and everything I did not expect it to be, but it seems the last film that I would want to watch is one about two people, at different points in their lives: falling in and out of love.

Yes, the movie was Blue Valentine. When I first heard of this film, I thought, shit---a hipster's paradise. Brooklynite and art-house queen Michelle Williams methodacting love and hate with closet grafitti losangeleno warrior ( also known for his portrayal of a Jewish neo-Nazi) Ryan Gosling, with a title named after a Tom Waits album. And Grizzly Bear doing the soundtrack.

I hated the idea of it. It was irresistible.

So finally, despite a schedule stifled in academic tedium, I managed to swerve my Honda through the genteel Kansas City rush hour traffic and catch a show at the gorgeously cozy Glenwood Arts theater ( also with an ice cream parlor, manned by displaced videostore nerds, with flavors named after movies and charmingly sadistic childrens' books---Peppermints in the Parlor). Surprising for a Monday night, there was a crowd.

The film, itself, was insightful, beautiful, not quite as precious or prententious as I feared, with absolutely gorgeous cinematography ( done by half-Indian Andrij Parikh--yeah, a brutha!). There was some beautiful dialogue, that I later learned was improvised. I recall specifically a scene where Dean ( Gosling's character) is talking about love, about marriage, how men are probably more romantic than women----in that they resist the idea of love so much that when they succumb, it's a more complete surrender. Falling in love, but from a higher elevation. The way the romance unfolds is charming, between the tap-dancing, a ukelele, a bus ride, and a lost locket: it follows a familiar plot trajectory in an adoringly visceral way. The love scenes and kisses are also incredibly tactile, though the most graphic of the lot, is actually in the other story----their undoing. It's sad, complex, more tragic as we learn more of the story.

The second part of the story is unbearable. It takes place in a cheap motel tailored for lovemaking. The couple, trying to deal with the death of their dog and their crumbling relationship, buy booze and choose between themed rooms, geared towards fornication. They choose a futuristic setting, with no windows, just a rotating bed, a glow of blue lights and strategic mirrors. It's almost exposing the charade behind being in love, as if the laughs, flowers, chocolate, the high, the platitudes posing as poetry is just a ruse for something far more basic, necessary, something that will inevitably fade.

I am not entirely sure why, but I cannot say I loved the movie, and it may be because it didn't fully realize itself or because I had a baseline irritation with the film's characters (Why does Dean drink and act stubborn? Why is Cindy no fun anymore?). Can the complacency born from that sort of selfless bliss really rot that badly?

Or maybe I know this love story from own life. And I see it unfolding in another person's life. All this may mean that my discomfort and even disappointment with the film is an intended effect. I struggle to articulate why. But the fact I woke up the next morning and felt the need to discuss it with myself, with my guy, with my friends---it probably speaks to the relative success of the movie.

Or maybe I'm just a sucker for a lovestory with a ukelele.

And I wanted it to end happily.