"..and oh, The difference to me !"

There is a blogger in my mind. She has been a part of many of my dreams and in each one I come to know her a little better - through her blog, a common friend, a news flash or an internet message board. Ive never interacted with her personally but I seem to have grown quite fond of her. In my last dream however, she died. And turned what was otherwise a slightly strange but intriguing and pleasant dream into a nightmare that woke me up - not with fear (which is common) but with mind numbing sadness (which is not). This is about her. In trying to capture her in words I will try and put down only what I seem to remember and not embellish or do violence to the delicate impression of her I hold in my mind. But putting her in words is necessary, lest I forget.

I seem to think - but Im not sure - that she was from Chennai. English speaking and sophisticated without being less South Indian because of it. I always imagined her in embroidered long kurtas and jeans, unremarkable but pleasant. She must have been 26-27 perhaps, single and living apart from her parents and family. At least, the impression I got was of a comfortable urban loneliness born out of an interesting but independent life. Im not sure what her occupation was, or even what her interests were. I did know however, that she was HIV positive. And her story seemed to start there.

It appeared that she was involved with activism of some kind a few years ago, and that led to some sort of enmity with the local police. Or was it some form moral policing that got her into trouble with the authorities ? It seems possible but Im not sure. But something dark and traumatic happened and in her blogs it always seems to have remained nebulous. In other sources many different stories were talked about, but my mind never seems to have settled on one. Seeing the darkness of her past that seemed to hang over her always, I was more melancholy than curious. The upshot of it was that she ended up HIV positive and the police were somehow, unprovably, murkily - perhaps indirectly - to blame for it.

Her blogs were about her day to day life which was quite pleasant and independent it seems. I associate no bitterness and anger with her, so she must have spoken about her battle with HIV and other daemons without any angst. Nor is it pity that comes to mind when I think of her so she must have come across as an independent self sufficient person. I respect her immensely for these things. There is little else, save that I felt very tender towards her and wanted her to be happy.

In my last dream, I was walking around with a motley cast from various phases of my life in a dark and cold hill station, looking for something but Im not sure what. I was offered roasted corn at a lonely stall by an acquaintance from college (who was in rough outdoor clothes, he had apparently joined some kind of communist insurgency) who said the tattered 5 rupee note he held came from a stash that a recently departed acquaintance of ours had been giving to him for years, to "finance the next revolution". But he did not really care, "Lets have butta" he said. I politely refused. Later, we were having ice cream which I did not like at a open air restaurant which was full but still eerily quiet while a pretty girl I had known years ago at school was flirting across me with some half drunk friend of a friend who had just joined us. Thats when I received a call from a person who I did not really know. He was some gay student I had never met, and he was crying on the phone. He told me that she had died.

I hung up the call, sank to my knees feeling intense sadness, numb, heavy and dark.
And then I woke up.
Disturbed and lonely at 4.54 in the morning.

All very strange and vivid . . .

Who is she ? Is she inspired by some real person ? Why is she in my mind ? but most of all, Why did she die ?

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways

- William Wordsworth

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
--Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

Pride

India launched the Chandrayaan aboard the PSLV-C11 rocket on 22nd October, and even as the craft was nudged carefully into a lunar orbit by controlled firing of its thrusters watched over by the bureaucratic, modest but surprisingly effective scientists at the ISTRAC down in Bangalore, an old gentleman wearing a tweed coat and well into his eighties poured me a liberal portion of liquid nitrogen from a large pressurized gourd shaped container.

He is almost completely bald and spends most of his time reading sheets of results and other arcane papers in a nice airy sunlit corner of the lab. Its a pleasant lab too, one entire side of the large hall is all windows and it reveals a wide vista, encompassing parking lots, the sea, the beach and the famous Old Course. He looks very dignified as he hobbles around the lab - looking at each of our setups in turn making sure things are on track - always with a cheerful expression and a twinkle in his watery blue-green eyes with which he peers at the world. In our first session he gave us an introduction to semiconductor physics (the experiment is to determine the band gap energy of Germanium) and he obviously knew and liked what he was talking about. Along with the typed out instruction sheet he gave us photocopies of a page of handwritten notes which he said "Happened to be lying around". Notes neatly written long ago by an old scientist for his students, he enjoyed giving them to us and explaining from them.

He can barely walk, but he handled the experiment impeccably, he got us the deionized water from a machine all the way across the hall, he poured us liquid Nitrogen, it must have been heavy in the large insulated container and he walked slowly across to each one of us and poured us our portions from a smaller jar. He never once showed discomfort or expected us to help, there was just that about his demeanor that let us know that offers of help would be unwelcome. I don't know his name and I don't know his background. I hope he has had a distinguished career and many peaceful and healthy years. I cannot be sure of any of those things but I do know this - in the evening of his life he is a happy and proud man. In his wavering but cheery voice, in his slow but purposeful walk and in his wrinkled but innocent smile there was something that warmed my heart and makes me proud to have been taught by him.

He did not tell me anything I had not been told before by other teachers - people and books - but the manner in which he ensured we went over all the basics - punctuated by self effacing "as you probably already know.."s, his small voice shaking but never hesitant, his words measured but never dull - made a deep impression on me. He told us about semiconductors as if he were introducing us to old friends, he pried the equations open to reveal elegant and pleasant pictures full of cheerful electrons and fussy bonds, he told us how when an acceptor impurity is introduced into the semiconductor, an electron is trapped by it to complete the lattice and "plays no further part in the proceedings" while a hole is left in the valence band "and conducts merrily away..". He made things interesting and ensured we listened and he wanted us to learn. I admire him for it. I admire him for not giving up, for insisting on teaching and teaching well. Even as his body was tired and worn, his mind seemed to carry with ease the weight of the years and the memories of three quarters of a century.

Pride. It can mean so many things, it can mean having discovered a comet, it can mean having married the boss's daughter, it can mean having reached the moon, but at its most elevating and touching it means doing one's job with dignity and enjoyment in the face of weakness and vulnerability, to think about the mundane nuts and bolts of a lifetime - the remnants of one's karma and dharma - with love and humor and cheer everyday even when facing the last abyss.