PET

 

When you think of a pet, you think of a cute cuddly dog or cat or fishes in a tank or pond… my younger son had even asked for a pet elephant at a point. However, the only thing I could see were fishes on the ceiling. The pictures of the fishes looked almost alive trapped in colourful glass, perhaps an attempt to cheer patients undergoing the scan.

The full form of the PET in medical parlance is Positron Emission Tomography. One goes through this scan to check for various diseases in the body or the absence of thereof if you have already completed your treatment/ surgery as I had…what they called a follow up scan. It sounds like an intimidating procedure as it involves injecting a radioactive substance into your body and then doing a scan inside a machine, much like a futuristic gizmo. Perhaps, it could be a thing for putting the human body to cold freeze and storing it for posterity like they do in Star Wars! But currently it functions only as a scanner.

When I was called in for the procedure, a pink shirted radiologist (all of them wore pink shirts) came and explained the process to me in a PET suite, a little cupboard of a room with an austere bed and medicine trolley filled with needles, gauze and stuff. The radiologist told me about the radioactive stuff and then I asked him if it was similar to carbon dating… you know the stuff they do to unearth the age of Egyptian mummies and Neanderthal men…he seemed a little nonplussed and told me it was nothing like that!

The most intimidating thing for me was the insertion of the cannula (the plastic needle that is used for multiple injections or drips). They could not find the veins in my hands! It took nearly half-an-hour and a few nurses to complete the procedure. After that, I was given the medication and told to relax… again a hard task as I was also told not to move or turn or sing or read or talk. I was told to sleep. I could twitch my muscles and my mind had the freedom to swing. The nurse offered to turn off the light for me. No, I said, I wanted the light. I tried to rest as I felt the radioactive stuff course through my veins. It would have been nice to have some attractive pictures or tiles on the walls and ceiling to assist in making the atmosphere more relaxed, I thought.

Then there was the explosion of the matter and antimatter in my veins… I was drifting… my sons had told me there was anti-matter in the radioactive stuff… but here I was praying for a long life to the Creator of energy, matter and anti-matter.

I could actually feel the stuff coursing through my body while I lay like a stiffened mummy of the Egyptian genre, my stomach rumbled and grumbled. I had been instructed to starve over night for the scan. This time it was for the radioactive glucose to react exactly to the sugar absorption levels in ones body. Presence of sugars would distract the readings.

After half-an-hour, they toddled me off to the scan as the medicine has a short life of only a couple of hours. The medicine chose or chose not to light up during the process, bright lights indicated a concentration of sugar. The lighted-up part could be cancerous.

I had been thinking of going into the machine with my hands crossed like an Egyptian mummy and pretending to be Cleopatra, instead I went with my hands above my head, trapped by straps with Velcro like a captive prisoner… my turn to be nonplussed! I felt like a princess in harem pants or perhaps princess Leia of Star Wars fame, imprisoned by Jaba the Hutt. I tend to analogize with anecdotes from Star Wars and Harry Potter as my sons are addicted to these. But, then, I think that is a good thing as they have positive messages of hope. In Harry Potter, we are taught to dispel our worst fears (embodied in the form taken by creatures called bogarts) with ‘riddikulus’   and in the original Star Wars, the good always wins in addition to John Williams’s upbeat music. Despite all that, I was a little zapped (or taken aback) to have my hands tied above my head.

And then I noticed the ceiling in the room was like an underwater scenario… as much as it could be. So, perhaps, one could dream of being a prisoner in Nemo’s submarine hold! Or, princess Leia captive during an adventure to JaJa Binks underwater world… a new idea for another Star Wars episode, take note Disney films. Actually, I thought of neither. I just looked around because everything was so strange, so different from what I imagined. I was just very glad thinking this might prove to be the end of my medical journey battling with tumours and rumours.

My imagination could have taken flight across the Egyptian desserts and across vibrant blue skies. But wanting really to live, I prayed, I waited, I sighed… hoping this would be my last ride to realms of futuristic fancy under the influence of medication.

Once I was through with it and the radiologist came to free me, one look at him smiling and I knew I was free of cancer. Earlier, before my surgery, the radiologist who did the Contrast Dye CT Scan had looked so sad when she came to release me from my strapping.

It all happened so fast and I was cleansed off the deadly growth in a jiffy. I found that the journey back was not as daunting as I had feared. It was a matter of how you addressed your fears. I have learnt that the best way to overcome anything is a vivid imagination, laughter and support from family and friends. If one gives in to fear as one does to bullying, one crumbles to ashes. You just have to stand up to it, pray very hard and suddenly you are back to enjoying the sunshine, bird calls, children and life in general. It does take time to recuperate fully, but that is not so bad as long as you have hope, friends, love and happiness.

 

 

 

 

Creativity and competition

Country road in Provence by Night,  Vincent Van Gogh, !890

 

Vincent Van Gogh severed his ear when he got into a fight with Paul Gaugin, a friend and a fellow artist. He painted a picture of himself with a bandaged ear and died regarded as a pauper and madman. Paul Gaugin fared hardly any better in his lifetime. And yet now, their art is seen as priceless.

In music, Salieri was better regarded than Mozart… and yet Mozart lives today when the only place one gets to hear Salieri’s music is in Amadeus, the movie on Mozart’s life.

The Great Gatsby by F. scott Fitzgerald was regarded as ‘ tawdry’ and ‘ absurd’ by the media when it was published and Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece, Heart of Darkness, was dismissed as a ‘minor’ work by critics. And yet both of these have later been made into Hollywood films and popularized.

Did these writers or artistes compete for the top billing?

I think not. But they created what they felt from the heart. They created with passion. They had no intention of double spacing or typifying their art forms or giving exams and fitting it into a mold so that it could get the first place or be selected for an exhibition or a book or magazine by a publisher.

Being a person who enjoys experimenting with words, enjoys the rhythm of them, the feel of them, the sensuality of them, the power they possess and the passion they can generate, I want to share why I do not feel creativity can be measured by competitions.

Creating for me is a form of worship. Each time I try to create perfection. And each time I fall short. Each word I write, each piece I write is from my heart. It is an offering to that energy of which we are all a part, of which each star, each planet is a part.

When I write a journalistic piece or a review, it is with a different perspective. It is written to inform. I have an editor who hones it to perfection for me. A piece that is published ceases to be mine.

Creation is different from publication or limelight. Creation is the process of ascending above the existing world and getting in touch with that part of yourself that wants to soar with endless freedom across the open spaces of the universe, that wants to burn like a flame and rise in a crescendo to a world that only can be described as ecstatic, to give a sense of boundlessness to the spirit…I try to capture this ecstasy in words. Sometimes, characters visit me in dreams. I have to write about them otherwise they keep haunting me. Sometimes lines come to me and if I do not put them down, I lose them. Then I feel incomplete and irritable. Thus, the need to create or express can be painful and intense. The outbursts of lines, colors and people happen naturally. They take me to that point from where I can see a world that is different from what most perceive.

When I was in my teens, my friends used to tease me that I viewed everything differently from others… now people tell me I live in a different world far removed from reality. But that is my reality.

Creativity can be seen as a form of madness or delusion that whirls and twirls you around the world, that helps you rise above the mundane and experience a joy that is beyond competitions and exams as well as torture you to perdition if the right words do not come your way. George Bernard Shaw does a good job of putting it in perspective,

“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not’?”

When you try to relate that dream to others, you create an art form or a poem or a story or an essay…

That is why I feel creativity is beyond judgment, beyond competition.

Creativity just happens. Trying to earn ones living buying, selling or teaching creativity can be daunting. You can sell an idea, a piece of information, a painting that someone likes, a novel that many enjoy. These might be the products of the creative process.

When one competes to write a story or a poem for a competition only to win and starts looking for profits in creativity, one compromises oneself. A creative product may not be highly popular when it is born. People may or may not like your experience or the expression that one gives. The world may not be ready for it as yet. But if you can continue practicing the expression for the love or joy it generates or out of a sense of compulsion, maybe the masterpiece will happen.

The famous American writer, William Sidney Porter or O Henry, has written a story called The Last Leaf, which describes the whole process of creativity and masterpiece to perfection. The story is about a failed crusty old artist who painted the last leaf on a tree to give hope to a young artist and help her survive a bout of pneumonia. The young girl was under the delusion that she would die when the last leaf fell. Behrman, the old artist, has been described as such in the story.

“ Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress’s robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it.”

He dies painting what one of the characters describes as his ‘masterpiece’.

And this is what I feel is a masterpiece, the swan song of our lives. Once you achieve it, perhaps it will be difficult to replicate… I do not know. Or, maybe, it can be repeated. Though I must say after reading all the wonderful Harry Potters, JK Rowling’s other books leave me dissatisfied.

Creativity should be viewed as Edgar Allan Poe’s Eldorado, elusive, mythical and enchanting… not for sale but something that many of us seek and do not find, the ultimate source of joy, not of mundane fame. It cannot be trapped into a bank vault. It is a divine union, a gift that fills our being with joy and light. There is nothing before or after. It is the gift that touches the beauty in our being, bringing us closer to the eternal Creator of all mankind. It is the song that flows from our soul, primeval, beautiful and fulfilling.

 

 

 

Parenting… rereading and reading

 

When I see my sons curled up with a Harry Potter for the umpteenth time, I invariably ask them how many times they have read these books. They call these their ‘comfort food’ and the books do cheer them up. We have the complete series at home. I have read each of them four times too but my sons must have reread them a few hundreds or thousands of times! One of their friends can lay similar claims too. His mother left the series behind at her home in Germany but he still found a way to read the books, by borrowing from the library at school!

I have always wondered what the effect of re-reading a book would be on children and then I chanced upon an article by Emma Court in The Atlantic magazine (https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/07/what-rereading-childhood-books-teaches-adults-about-themselves/566261/), which said that rereading is a form of therapeutic activity. Court has written

‘Knecht, the writer and therapist, says of rereading that “when you’re feeling stagnant, like you’ve made no progress, it gives a shape to that experience and suggests it will pass.” In that way, it can be therapeutic because “therapy is about telling your story and having someone challenge you sometimes about the way you’re telling that story,” she says, “until you get it into a shape that you can live with and move forward with.”’

Keeping this in mind, I can perhaps stop worrying. Maybe what happens to the adult psyche, happens to that of youngsters’ too… Harry Potter is their therapy to whatever it is they are facing. And as such is not a bad source for therapy. Court also finds that rereading books give ‘refuge’ to the reader, what perhaps my sons call ‘comfort food’. To me Harry Potter is a good alternative because it imbibes survival instincts, positive values, strength and happy outcomes in a clean, decent story written with a sense of humor and perfect for ages eight to eighty. I had my comfort books too long before the advent of Harry Potter… Susan Coolidge’s What Katy Did, Louisa M. Alcott’s Little Women, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, George Eliot’s Mill on the Floss and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice( in fact almost all the Jane Austens). The commonality I see among all these books that I have reread at different junctures of my life and what my sons reread is that all these are about survivors and are laced with positive values.

Early this year in a panel discussion, I heard a writer say that children do not like to read a lot of text nowadays. And another educator refuted her by saying that it depends on how you bring up your child. To me both the statements held truths that are a modern day reality. Many children prefer other forms of entertainment than books. But then, often, so do their parents. Some see books as redundant in today’s multimedia world. Some feel it is better to read from a kindle or online because books occupy a lot of space and we all live in homes that are shrinking to the exigencies of an ever-expanding population and limited space. Also multi media is a far more attractive way of learning for many.

But is it?

What takes two hours to show in a movie often takes more time to read in a book. I am not referring to lecture notes or a video of the lecture here but to something closer to a novel. A movie can be based on a story or its summation but it cannot replace the whole process of reading the book. Also, books create images with words. We use our mind, our imagination to interpret and understand the book. A movie is the director’s interpretation and understanding of the book… We just absorb what he has shown us, even if it is interactive.

I often review books for an online website, have more than a couple of thousand books at home and cannot stop myself from feeling the rush of adrenalin as I sift through the pages of a new book. Growing up in such an environment, my boys cannot but enjoy reading.

They learnt to choose their own books as they did their toys. I remember my elder son used to love a book called Trucks when he was four. I had to read it to him morning, noon and at night with sound effects of trucks of different kinds. The first entry was on fire trucks and he had the page by heart. Once a visitor to my home told me, my son was an excellent reader because he read the first page without a flaw. Then I enlightened her that he recited it from memory… his reading skills were that of a normal four year old.

Now, I wonder if my kids can recite portions of Harry Potter!

The other thing, which I feel a book does for you, is to help define your values, your principles and your outlook in life. That is why a friend of mine tried to read almost every book her kids were reading… I cannot lay such lofty claims but I did try to read a few books from each of the series they read. Some of the books, I must say, I enjoyed very much myself. J.K Rowling’s Harry Potters, few of C.S Lewis’s Narnia, Madeleine l’ Engle’s series of Wrinkle in Time (I enjoyed them more than my sons did), Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson… These books had the same values that I found in classics that I read during my childhood. Whereas a book from the series by Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, left me feeling that though it was incredibly funny and well written, a child would have to be guided to imbibe the right values from it!

It is not enough to be able to read and write to have a career. That is merely literacy. But it is also necessary to have the right values, principles and the spirit to live with ones passion, to create and achieve ones dreams, which is ideally what most parents would want to see their children do. These are skills that can be developed by reading the right books… and perhaps by re-reading them and imbibing their good values and principles.

“ I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.”

—    JK Rowling.

Hello 2017!

At the end of every year, I feel so many things have rushed by and there is so much more to do. At the start of every year, I feel time stretching out just as at the start of a new day or a birthday…

As 2016 draws to a close, I am filled with a hope that we have reached the end of a dark phase in the history of mankind and now things can only get better! This year has been a year of refugees displaced, of people unwilling to share their countries, of terror triumphing, of partisan deals made by world leaders, of de-globalization and the trumping of Trump. On the brighter horizon, were the demonetization of currencies by India and Venezuela…perhaps the start of a rainbow after stormy skies…

2016 had exciting books and movies…JK Rowling’s two stories around the Harry Potter series, though not her best, rang a note of hope in the heart as I always feel uplifted seeing how against all odds a child makes it in the world and how there are always benevolent and tolerant people who make sure that good triumphs over evil. One had to read the book to enjoy the movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Star Wars returned with a not so star studded cast. It was disappointing to see Han Solo (Harrison Ford) killed by his own not so powerful but villainous son and there was too less of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. That Princess Leia, if at all she features in the next Star Wars, will have to be played by someone else is tragic! The second Star wars, Rogue One, was too violent with everyone annihilated at the end…I would like to see a Star Wars filled with hope and Jedis again.

On a personal note, 2016 has been a most exciting time for me. I turned fifty… completed half a century of earthly existence! This has also been the first year where I was acknowledged as a poet in a gathering of intellectuals…though in my estimation, I continue a mommy and wife who writes for fun…

I am left dreaming that with my writing I will, at some point, bring happiness and hope in the hearts of readers. Maybe, people will learn to think of themselves as part of mankind, part of this universe, part of a galaxy, a speck in the universe … perhaps they will find a new dawn on January 1 st, a magical dawn where a rainbow will encompass the whole world and bring hope and colors.

Wish you all wonderful dreams in the New Year!

My new publication

(In reverie, An anthology, poetry by ten contributors, 2016)

http://www.amazon.in/dp/9383785373?_encoding=UTF8&m=A27OJUQ7QXJ7N6&qid=1482819105&ref_=sr_1_4&s=merchant-items&sr=1-4

My old book

(In the Land of Dragons, prose, humor, about life in China, 2014)

Amazon link

http://www.amazon.com/In-Land-Dragons-Mitali-Chakravarty/dp/1490704337/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394358194&sr=8-1&keywords=mitali+chakravarty

India link

http://www.amazon.in/In-Land-Dragons-Mitali-Chakravarty/dp/1490704337/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1396481959&sr=8-6&keywords=In+the+land+of+dragons

Book Review

 

Title: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Author: J.K. Rowling

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the script of the movie of the same name,  written by JK Rowling. It was released on 18th November, 2016. Rowling’s style is distinctive, racy and clear. I enjoyed it while it lasted.

The book takes you on a journey to 1920s New York, where witch-hunts are still common. The dark wizard, Gellert Grindewald, is supposed to be on the loose and has wreaked havoc in Europe.

Newt Scamander, the protagonist of the story, is on a mission to free a magnificent thunderbird, an enormous magical creature somewhat like an albatross. He found it chained and wounded in an Egyptian black market. Being an animal lover, he rescued the magical creature and was trying to return it to its habitat in Arizona at the start of the story. He has a magical suitcase in which he conceals his astounding zoo with many wonderful magical creatures with the help of an extendable charm.

Scamander travels incognito to America and holds a muggle ( non-magical person), in MACUSA terminology, a no-maj, passport. MACUSA is an organization called the Magical Congress of the United States of America, which is more or less a parallel to Ministry of Magic in the UK. You have an interesting angle brought in with Salem witch hunters trying to hunt out witches and a new dark energy called obscurial found in children who are forced to repress their magical energy.

Grindewald, under the guise of a MACUSA official, tries to harness the energy of obscurials for his own intent. Scamander, with his kind heart, tries to help prevent the destruction of an obscurial. However, at the end the obscurial is destroyed and Grindewald is exposed. The MACUSA, which had put a ban on all magical creatures that Scamander carried with him in his case, viewed him as an offender initially. When Scamander helps expose Grindewald, they become very positively inclined towards him. He also uses the thunderbird to erase muggle memory off these events, thus helping the MACUSA continue it’s secret existence.

There is a romantic angle brought in by the Goldestein sisters, Tina and Queenie. They grew up in USA and studied in Ilvermorny, the counterpart of Hogwarts.

The story is interesting but too short. The script is exactly like the movie. However, It would have been nice to have a little more, both of the movie and the book. More could have been shown of the fantastic creatures created by JK Rowling. There is a whole lot available on Pottermore in the internet if you want to know. Perhaps, it would be nicer if some more of the Pottermore stories had been incorporated into the script.

You could have stories on how Scamander found each beast, on Tina and Queenie, on Grindewald and his ultimate battle with Voldemort, on how all this led to Harry Potter and his gang. You could do a whole series of books based on the lore started in The Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them.

Fantastic Beasts, is definitely a better read than The Cursed Child, but both these books have left readers thirsting for more books before and after the advent of Harry Potter. The book was fun. It would have been better as a proper book instead of a movie script. The earlier book, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them  Newt Scamander, published in 2001, has just got descriptions of magical creatures but not Scamander’s adventures. It would be good to have his adventures told.

Like The Cursed Child and unlike the earlier Harry Potter novels, one would have to be familiar with  Potter lore to appreciate this book fully.

I would like to look forward to a Harry Potter series that stretches out like the Star Wars adventures, making for a good read and written by JK Rowling herself…

 

 

Book Review

 

Title: Harry Potter And The Cursed Child

Author: Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling

                  John Tiffany and Jack Thorne

                   A new play by Jack Thorn

The earlier Harry Potter books make me happy. They bring sunshine into my mind, hope and happiness. But does the new book do this for me?

Perhaps, to an extent it does, though I do feel sorry for Harry’s sons, especially his teenager, Albus Severus Potter. At his age Harry, Hermione and Ron were having adventures of their own, whereas he needs a father to rescue him from the villain, who is really not as powerful as Voldemort.

This eighth story set nineteen years after Voldemort’s death spans a period of about three years, starts where the last Harry Potter, the Deathly Hallows, ended … at the King’s Cross Station.

It has been conceptualized by three persons; J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne. Thorne wrote it down as a play, much less detailed, much more focused on inter-personal relationships (father/son).

Perhaps, that is why, to some Harry Potter fans, it was a disappointment. While familiarity with the earlier stories is necessary to the understanding of the play, it is not as detailed as JK Rowling’s earlier books. Each Harry Potter novel could have been treated independently as a separate story. They were detailed enough to make them independent of each other as a lone book.

There is a new villain, Augurey, Voldemort’s daughter from Bellatrix Lestrange! She battles to bring her father back to life. Augurey is thwarted by Harry Potter’s younger son, Albus Severus Potter and his best friend, Draco Malfoy’s son, Scorpius, who is as bookish as Hermione was in her schooldays. The boys are helped by their parents to overthrow her. There are lots of surprises when it comes to characters. Hermione is the minister of magic. Ron, her husband, runs the Weasley joke shop, which was Fred and George’s baby. So, what happened to George and Percy (who returns to the folds of his family in the last book)? Harry is the Head of Magical Law Enforcement. Ginny, his wife, is a homemaker, a mother of three. What happened to Luna and Neville? We are vaguely told Neville is a professor of herbology in Hogwarts. I was disappointed. I thought Neville would have done better than that, especially after his fabulous performance in the Battle of Hogwarts. The Headmistress of Hogwarts is Professor McGonagall. She is constantly ordered around by Harry, who seems to be rather bossy in the play. He was  humbler and kinder in the earlier books.

Also Voldemort having a daughter seems to be a bit out of character. He had been portrayed as wanting to be an immortal without competition. He would never have let anybody near him neither would he have loved or lusted for anyone. As a villain, he was inhuman in that he had no bodily existence till the fourth book and even after that he was not whole. Remember, there were eight horcruxes made from his soul.

However, despite the inconsistencies, the play is very well written. Independently, it would have been interesting if not for the inconsistencies and the dependence on having readers who are familiar with the earlier books. Perhaps, the next generation could have been given more free play and Harry’s generation should have taken a backseat graciously.

Though it is Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy who travel back in time to try and rescue Cedric and make changes to the future, the situation has to be eventually rectified by the intervention of Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Ron and Draco Malfoy, who in keeping with his earlier tendencies has moved away from dark magic completely. Cedric is not brought back to life as he would have turned into a death eater.

Rowling claimed that the play would explore the previously untold story of Harry’s early years as an orphan and outcast ( Matilda Battersby, 26 June 2015,  The Independent, London) but all we get to see are some of Harry’s dreams involving Aunt Petunia, a few of which Harry says never happened. We do get to see how Harry’s parents died, thanks to the travel in time with a time turner, but the magic spun by Rowling in the earlier books seems to have diminished.

The details are much lesser. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels are very detailed in their descriptions. The play skims over the details. A play format would not allow for the kind of details Harry Potter fans expect of her storytelling. But then, we need to remember that the book is not by  Rowling alone. The concept could be hers but the story is by three authors together. Therefore, it is bound to be different from the earlier books. The villain is less powerful than Voldemort. The protagonist Albus, is more a troubled teen than the hero Harry was. Ron’s and Hermione’s children are only in the peripheries. Many characters, like Tonk’s son, Luna, Bill, the adult Weaseleys, Kingsley Amis, Xenophilus Lovegood, Professors Flitwick, Trelawny, Slughorn etc have been totally left out…not even mentioned…The plot at best seems to be a bit weak.

Perhaps, the Harry Potter series should best have ended with a bang, the death of Voldemort, rather than a whimper, the imprisonment of Augurey. We should have had, rather, a new series about the sons of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy.

 

Towards Driving to a Century…

What was it like to wake up the day after having crossed half a century?

Did I become wiser, greyer, more dynamic or more decrepit?

I woke up looking forward to finishing the new play on Harry Potter co-authored by JK Rowling. It was again a racy read after many days. I also reached a new high score while playing Sudoku on my ipad and started writing this piece.

Many might say what frivolous preoccupations or how childish! But, believe me, nothing could be better than tucking up with a new Harry Potter at the end of half a century of earthly existence.

And an interesting earthly existence I have had over the last half a century…

The last decade I walked the Great Wall four times, wrote and published my first book, fought with publishers (a number of them), decided I preferred being labeled a mom and wife to all things. By thirty, I was a first time mom and by forty, I had two kids. Thirty to forty was a great decade…went frolicking with my twosome and did things with them, for them and appreciated handiwork by them. I tried being a democratic and docile parent and my sons appreciated it by telling me I had the makings of a great dictator! The thing is most kids would not tell their mother that they were like dictators. Mine could, did and still do!

Twenty to thirty was the period I fell in love. What could be more enticing! I also published poetry and many pieces of somewhat immature writing in newspapers, quit journalism in disgust…went to universities, did theatre, travelled on university funding (a profoundly happy experience). Ten to twenty…I grew up…climbed trees, broke rules, had fun, almost got kidnapped once, fell down a number of times, fought with people, made some fabulous long lasting friends who never forget to greet me on my birthdays and wedding anniversaries. Zero to ten… I dreamt, sang (a trifle off scale) sitting on trees with my best friend (who sang more out of tune than me), danced, played games and pranks, fought and generally thought I would turn into a blonde-blue eyed princess when I grew up.

I definitely did not turn blonde unless you can refer to my silver grey hair (which I dye dark) as ash blonde…and my eyes remained a steady brown but I lived my life the way I wanted, the way I thought was right, with personal integrity. I lived out my dreams…a trifle differently perhaps… always wanted to write a book on China and did.

I keep writing … have done that from grade three. I miss writing when I don’t the way you miss a favourite TV show.

Now, as I browse over the old Harry Potters and write about the magical completion of my fiftieth year, I wonder if Nicholas Flamel of Philosopher Stone fame felt as I do. Did he also think that fifty was the start of life? Did he want to learn on at fifty? After all …. I just feel I am at the brink of life in its prime. In some Asimov’s, there are people that are a few hundred years old. So, fifty is really sixteen for them! Even in Hobbits, adulthood starts very late in years compared to our current society. So, life does start at fifty and learning an essential skill at that age is just great! The essential skill that I talk of is driving!

One of the reasons I do not possess a valid driving license is that driving instructors do not quiet appreciate my skills. I am very considerate. I was one of those people who stopped in the middle of a road (in the training school) when I saw a trainee driver driving in front of me. I merely gave way to a newcomer. My instructor mistook my consideration for panic!! He assured me what others achieved in five lessons, I would not achieve in fifteen. He did not appreciate my concerns about the other driver’s nerves.

Obviously, the instructor did not know my father used to get jumpy when I drove at eighteen. I had a valid driving license then. And somewhere along the way it expired and I had my husband to drive me…Finally, when I went for a refresher course, my instructor lacked the necessary attitude to teach me! Then, because I was expecting a baby, the doctor banned me from driving. I think I saw my instructor heave a sigh of relief when I gave him the news. Then, we moved to China where we were not allowed to drive but were given a chauffeur driven vehicle 24/7. Being docile and obedient by nature, I was happy to comply!

The joys of being driven is great! You never need to know the way to anywhere. You do not need to know left from right. This has always been a challenge for me. My husband has his first ride on the bike with me indelibly etched on his memory… He was driving and I was directing. I was saying right and pointing left. He figured out early in life left could be right and right could be right too. And left could be left or right. After all these are all names. And as Shakespeare said in Romeo and Juliet:

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose


By any other name would smell as sweet.

My husband had it all figured out then itself…. more than twenty-six years ago….before we tied the knot.

He used his common sense. There was no right turn and he turned into the only available turning, which was on the left.

Now that I am out of China, I have resorted to taking cabs when I go out on my own. I figured out cab drivers are not familiar with Shakespeare. The problem with cab drivers is that they ask for directions and get angry when you give them your own directions. They seem to lose their calm if you say left instead of right. They get even angrier if you mix up names of places and roads!

It has come to a point where I am thinking of self-reliance as an option. What better age to start at than my present one … fantastic, fabulous fifty!

Surely, despite automatic self-driven cars, my newly acquired driving skills will be well honed by the time I hit a century!