Does Every Cloud Have A Silver Lining?

 

I enjoy the monsoon sky, at the best of times, but more so when I’m tied down by household chores and drained by housekeeping woes. Then its nature and keeping company with her that lightens my heart. The best part of my day is 5.00 pm when I go down to the pool for my swim. It's usually after I've done sixty laps that I walk around the garden and reflect on the birds and ants and other little things that catch my attention. They refresh the mind, allowing it to go beyond the mundane - finding something of beauty, something to cheer about, in an otherwise ordinary and often frustrating day.

 

But today, as I was showering before entering the pool, I found myself staring right up at a grey cloud which had a delicate, silver lining. In that moment, I forgot that I was in a swimsuit in the central courtyard of the condominium where three towers overlooked the pool, and almost every domestic staffer or labourer and driver or resident had a ringside view. I dashed towards my swimming bag in my wet costume and water dripping of my limbs. I quickly wiped my hands on the towel hanging off the back of the chair, and took out my phone. I just had to capture that delicate, silver line behind the grey cloud. And I spent a good five to seven minutes, attired in a wet swimming costume, craning my neck this way and that, angling my phone and head to get just the right view. And with the sun in front of me, no matter that there was cloud cover, getting that silver lining to look as ethereal as it was to the naked eye, was a complex affair. Besides, clouds do not hang around, so the formation changed, the silver lining became even more fascinating and me and my phone-camera were enchanted and fully engaged. It was only later that I realised that it may well have been quite a spectacle for any onlooker. I was too absorbed to have noticed anyone around and hoped that it didn’t look too crazy. But alas, even if it did what could I do about it now?

 

I'd had an annoying day. I've been struggling to run my home and also do some creative work, without my home cum studio support of twenty-four years. In a huff, he'd called it quits and I'd had enough of his threats so I duly accepted without demur. But it's been tough. Today, Laxmi, my maid whose been with me for about three years and is the only one aside from me now, who knows the drill, pulled one stunt after the other and I was all but tearing my hair out. She has this terrible attitude of never really listening when I tell her things. We'd had a good start to the day, because I'd made her repeat the instructions as they were numerous. She handled that part well. It was silly things that she was getting wrong and instead of asking or informing was taking decisions she had no business to. I was right there, just a knock on the door, away, for her to ask, but it's anybody's guess why she didn't. I was thinking about this on my way down and thought that she's terrified at the best of times, it's just the way she is, and in the bargain she's always tense and therefore doesn't seem to get things right.

 

 

As I did my laps, and stroke after stroke in free-style, as my palms sliced into the water sending bubbles towards my face, I thought about the silver lining behind that dark cloud. I have heard the phrase 'every cloud has a silver lining' for the better part of my life - the implication being that there's always light, or wisdom, behind the darker moments of being. But more often than not, in those moments, it's hard to see the lighter side. Revisiting the cloud-view that I had seen as I’d showered, a realization dawned that the cloud itself can't see the lining, but an observer, someone standing a distance away, can. It gives us a better perspective to view things. In that guise, as an observer, I thought to myself, that maybe if Laxmi would just let herself feel her fear, maybe she'd find her way through life in a more constructive way, allowing her innate intelligence to come into play.

 

I swam a few more lengths with this thought, my head bobbing up and down, limbs splayed frog-like as I did a length of the pool using the breaststroke, moving northwest, in the direction of  the silvered-clouds, which had predictably moved on. As the cloud-cover darkened, and grey pigeons hovered around the pool dipping their beaks, the mood turned grey and even the aquamarine waves now carried a greyish tinge.  And in that sombre moment, submerged in an otherwise empty pool – I was the only one swimming at this hour, I voiced out loud “but how many of us really do that” - letting ourselves feel fully every moment, every experience and every feeling. And is it possible to live that way and also lead a productive and meaningful life?

 

 

 

I know that I don't always let myself 'feel' things fully enough. As a child, I'd retreat into my inner space to allow myself to wallow in whatever feelings came up. I would just wallow and the feeling would pass but it was said that I was sulking and too intense, and the implication was derogatory. As I grew up and started voicing feelings, I'd be told, let it be or get over it and more in that vein. So, in many ways, I've trained myself to get past the feelings as quick as I can, using positive affirmations or expressing them through my art or whatever. But what I have discovered, of late, is that it only works temporarily; the feelings do not get resolved in any substantial way. I find the silver lining or think that I have found one or something distracts my attention. But I have realised that trying to find a positive outcome, to a situation that one feels negative about presently, is not always the best way forward. The mood may be raised philosophically but the feeling hasn’t really had its say, so it comes back to haunt me. Actually it never really leaves, just transfers from the mind onto the body in some way. So, I have been wondering if there is a more efficient way, such as sulking – allowing oneself to wallow in the feeling, swim in it for a while, till it passes of its own accord?

 

I lay on my back, doing a back-stroke this time around, as I contemplated this idea, looking up at the large expanse of sky now turning quite dark. There were patches of white in between but the clouds were much darker than the cloud that I had spied earlier on, the one with the silver lining. These clouds just merged into each other and there was no silver lining to them. It may have something to do with the fact that I was now looking South-East and the sun was behind me, but it made me realise something: that it may well be best to just let the feelings be, because not every cloud does have that silver lining.
 

 

 

 

Not every story ends like a fairy tale, happily ever after or with some positive outcome arising from a negative situation. We cannot always find some wisdom to draw on from unpleasant experiences and while it is useful to think positively and try and find that silver lining, it does not always work, does it?  New age ideology is full of positive thinking and I’ve seen the benefits of it too, but the truth is that not all clouds have a silver lining.

 

The promise of rain was thwarted and the dark clouds pulled away and it seemed as though a vortex of white was churning, within the circle they formed around the lighter coloured clouds. Gradually, they too moved apart and an untarnished, unfazed, bright azure shone through. I took that as a sign to say that whether or not we could find that silver lining wasn’t relevant, what is significant is that moments pass, moods change, feelings alter and life goes on. Finding meaning in everything may not always be the most efficient way.

 

 

 

I sat on my favourite bench in the park and thought to myself:  As humans we have many feelings, there is sorrow and pain and there is fear and anger and this is the story we need to focus on, for the narrative to move forward in any evocative way. Our feelings carry meaning for our lives, they tell us how we feel in any given situation and acknowledging them, allowing them to tell us what is wrong takes a lot of courage and requires us to spend time, with the feeling without judging it. I wonder how I could convey this to Laxmi, but in the meanwhile I decided it was worthwhile exploring this for myself. Could I step back from the business of things, the world and connectivity and all that keeps my mind distracted and allow myself to be that child again, and sulk for a while?

Bird-Signs in the sky

This evening in the pool, looking up into the skies, grey and cloudy. I chanced upon the flight of birds, up, up, up and up, flying really high. Black silhouettes against a darkening sky, I couldn't tell which specie of birds they were. They could have been pigeons and more than likely they were. The height at which they flew, however did make made me question the possibility that it was a flock of pigeons. I'm no ornithologist, nor avid bird watcher so, I really couldn't tell and besides, what the species was, wasn't relevant. 

What caught my attention and momentarily stemmed the flow of my breath, making me gasp with delight, was the perfect formation they flew in. It was like the ones we have heard of and seen in videos and photographs of migrating birds. I'd never seen anything like it before - not been a witness to an actual flight. 

The pigeon abounds in the crevices and eaves of my apartment building in Gurgaon and I've often seen them flying around. It's a lovely sight to see birds soaring high into the limitless sky. And very inspiring too! But, I'd never seen them fly in such a perfect formation and one which was sustained, by the flock of birds that drew it in the sky, for a considerable distance and length of time. Like a choreographed and well rehearsed performance, their movements were perfectly aligned and timed to perfection. 

One bird, in the centre, was pointing the way as others panned out on either side, a little lag behind each bird, followed another and another and many more - at least ten on each side. They flew in a near perfect 'V' formation that never quivered in their flight, nor was it disturbed by cloud or breeze. It was a flawless 'V'

I lay on my back, in the cooling aquamarine water of the pool below, watching them intently, without moving a limb. I was mesmerized by this unusual sight, so minuscule to my vision, on the earth, miles below their soaring height. They flew from South-West to North-East and as I delighted in the spectacle, I said to myself: yeah! It's a 'V' for vict.....stopping short of finishing the sentence. Remembering the recent spate of terror acts, adding to the atrocities that are enacted each day, somewhere or other, on some animal, place, person or thing, how could any creature living on this planet signal to alien beings, angels  or spirits that reside in universes parallel to and beyond ours, any sign of victory? 

What has anyone inhabiting this earth got to be victorious about? So, they must have been sending out a warning to everyone out there, above, below and around them. To anyone who was tuned into their frequency, it could well have been a signal to say that it was time to take flight; for this world, or the region of the universe they were leaving, was a dangerous place to live in. Not one where nature in all its munificence was resplendent in victory, but one where her beings were filled with the venomous 'V' of violence.

But, the more I thought about it, reflecting upon what I'd seen and how I'd gasped in delight. I couldn't equate this response as one that had read a signal of distress. Maybe, what the birds were telling us, was that if we rose high, transcending the baser tendencies of our being - that therein lay our victory.

A Season for Tears

It was sometime in the middle of September, a year ago, on a Friday, around 4.00pm. I’d just had a cup of Earl Grey tea, edited some pictures on Photoshop and done some mundane stuff on the internet before I headed down to the swimming pool. I recollect seeing the sky in the far distance looking very dark and grey but it was at the edge of my landscape, in the far horizon and I did not really dwell upon it. The sky had been overcast most days since July but it had only rained in dribs and drabs. In any case, an overcast sky was not something to cause concern, especially not in the monsoon season. 
 



 

The water in the pool looked as deliciously aquamarine as always. It is a colour I am particularly partial to and reminds me of my Caran d’Ache colour pencils, through which I discovered my penchant for this hue many years ago. Zohrawar, a neighbour’s two year old was trying out his new motor-boat. Once I came into the pool he went to play with his toy in the kiddie’s pool, so I had the larger pool all to myself. I did a couple of lengths and then saw grey clouds rush overhead. I paused, hung onto the edge of the pool to watch this spectacle as the sky darkened. I was enchanted by the shades. How many shades of grey can there be, I thought? And for every five that I counted, nature added another two, or so it seemed. I stopped counting and just watched enthralled. 

 

 I wondered if it would rain today. I’d often hoped it would rain when I was in the pool but it always would begin raining only after I had swum, changed and was ready to go back up again. But my luck changed today. The coach and swimming pool attendants ran inside leaving me with the clouds, the now darkened shade of aquamarine water in the pool and leaf green Ficus hedges around the pool, waiting in anticipation. Even the pigeons had taken shelter, hiding in crevices and windows of the building; some, perched on a cable wire suspended high up on the thirteenth floor. Five of them appeared to be either jostling for space under the eaves or to maintain balance on the cable TV wire hanging precariously from one window to the next. 

At first, it just drizzled. It looked like little steel pins were piercing the water, radiating perfect circles around each point of entry, falling all around me. I thought of those days in school when we used a compass to draw circles for our geometry classes; piercing the paper with one end of the angular tool while a pencil took its cue from this and drew a large or small circle depending upon how wide I stretched the two straight lines of the compass apart. But here, there was nothing other than a delicate raindrop piercing the centre. The rest was a matter of course. The circles radiated out and then vanished as each rippled into the other, blending almost seamlessly with the larger mass of blue-green. 



 

And then I could hear loud plip-plops as larger droplets fell from the sky. I watched with delight as the aquamarine around me which, I am told, also represents the colour of the heart chakra, was jumping up to catch the drops. As the rain intensified, the water from the pool rose up higher with each drop that fell into it. And the heavier the water that fell into it or the larger the droplets were, the whiter the rising splashes seemed.  

Then the rain poured out of the sky and a refreshing, transparent, vertical curtain of water dashes fell upon me. It was heavenly to watch millions of pearly drops dance on the surface of the pool. There was no question of swimming now. I could not take my eyes off this mesmerizing scene.

 

The sky grumbled and lightening tore into the layers of darkening greys that had built up in preparation for this downpour. As the sky darkened even more, electric lights were switched on in many apartments inside the building. People, birds and even the stray dogs stayed away as I stood alone in the aquamarine water, watching nature’s tears dancing with joy at meeting each other in the pool. 

I love to cry. No, I am not a manic depressive; I just find tears very refreshing. I’d rather cry any day than deal with the stress of feeling frazzled and angry and all the rest of it. I know that crying is not everyone’s cup of tea but I find it hugely cleansing, especially when the tears flow effortlessly. But sometimes things get very intense and crying seems like such a luxury, so I envied the joy these rain droplets seemed to reflect in their relief at being able to surrender to the inevitable. 

There is lightness in being able to surrender. I have even experienced weight loss when I can fully express myself. There is this wonderful oral folk-tale “Tell it to the Walls” which A. K. Ramanujan has translated from Tamil into English. I first read it in 1993 and have re-visited it many times since. It speaks of the cathartic function of unburdening oneself, even if it is to a wall, and of the relationship between obesity and keeping one’s sorrow to oneself.

As a young girl, well into my thirties, I used to be plump/fat. I would hardly eat. It seemed that if I smelt food or just looked at it, I would put on weight. I was brought up on the ideal that it was not considered good to speak of the unpleasant things that happened to one, especially not to anyone outside the family. The old adage – “laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and your cry alone” - was the mantra one was encouraged to chant. Or, grin and bear it, because someone else had a far tougher life and sometimes it seemed everyone else’s woes were greater than mine. Until one day, about 20 years ago, when I could bear it no more and everything I had been through just started to tell its own tale. I could not stop myself from speaking. I lost whatever inhibitions I had earlier and also lost twenty-five kilos in less than three months.



Everyone was majorly concerned, but I had never felt better. I let the doctors do all their tests and when I was asked to have a CT scan done as they could not find anything wrong in the numerous tests already conducted, I drew the line and refused to go through another test. And then I read this folk-tale and was reassured.

Ever since I have tried not bottle things up again and have more or less maintained my weight. I relish my tears. It is not easy to face the pain one is feeling but I know that it’s better than adding pounds and the dip in my morale when I see this on the weighing scale. I love old Hindi movie songs. The words and music are so moving, and I love singing the sad ones or watch them on TV and cry. When life gets crowded and the pain becomes an ache in the shoulder or back or some other part of the body, it’s harder to feel it emotionally, and at those points, I often resist these measures too. There’s too much work to be done, how can I cry, I tell myself. My brain screeches overload and then the silliest thing will bring it on. I feel lighter and often get a lot more done than when I was trying to be brave pretending that things were under control. There is so much relief in surrender if one can come to that point, and the exultant dance I witnessed was inspiring me to revisit this state. Nature has a season for tears; surely there is something to be learned from this? 

As the rain abated, the pigeons came back to the water’s edge and their dull grey feathers took on the reflection of the pool’s aquamarine. This was an everyday occurrence but when the sun is shining bright, the shade of blue they reflect is different. It’s delightful too but it was this atmospheric, deeper shade of blue along with the greyness of their feathers reiterated by the clouds in the sky, which charmed. I had watched the rain, shared in her joy at finally being able to descend the angry skies. I saw a million liquid pearls dance before my eyes and wondered if this was how the oysters caught the jewels we humans adorn ourselves with. I have often considered my own tears as jewels to embellish my life with. Not literally but through my creative expression; However, while this is refreshing it is not quite the same as being able to cry.

Later, as I walked through the garden passing by the gleaming green bushes, I heard a whispering of relief among the leaves. And the sensuous fragrance of the Champa flowers too had been heightened by the refreshing rain.