Autumnal Musings

Growing up, I loved the arts, the sciences. I wanted to do everything. I was blessed with a father who taught me talent is not born, it needs to be nurtured, coaxed, moulded into being, needs to be sustained.
And so with his love, encouragement, and gifts of books, books, more books, I read avidly, voraciously, hiding behind the curtain when mum thought I was having an afternoon nap. Dad hid gifts of books amongst clothes in cupboards, under pillows, mattresses, in kitchen drawers.
I painted, I wrote, poems, short stories and he was my critic. No not really, whatever I did, he loved. I danced, I sang, I studied, I roller skated, I dreamed.
I wanted to be an oncologist, in the 70s, I researched various cancers, i cut out articles, papers from the Readers Digest and other journals on melanomas, cancers, I devoured Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Cancer Ward, which made me sad and disturbed, but made life real.
Then, at some point, at a crossroads in my young life, I had to choose between the arts or the sciences. I loved music, dance, painting, poetry, literature. I loved pure and applied mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology.
I knew I would excel in both. But the world as we knew it then did not subscribe to the notion that being an ARTiste was a real profession.
And then, my greatest fan passed away at 40, ironically, with cancer, when I was 15. Mum 35, sisters 12, 6. We all had to grow up, very quickly.
Dreams were folded carefully and placed in the deepest recesses of locker boxes in the soul in an attempt to forget them.
I dabbled in Computer Science – Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Software Engineering, Algorithms and Programming, Natural Language Processing. I found solace in this world where I was in control of objects, programmes, machines and computer code, where at a tweak of a line of code, I would experience a Eureka moment.
I have no idea why I write this. Probably because this group is non judgemental, appreciative, non intimidating.
And because my thoughts are random, I dedicate this post to my father, who drilled into me that one has to work hard to sow the rewards later, that one is essentially, intrinsically what one is inside, that the arts are extremely important for one’s soul, that to not waste energy complaining but to get up and do something about it, that one must dream and dream lavishly, and that one must leave a legacy behind, however insignificant.
A fatherly process of Osmosis over 15 years.
Am draped in a rich deep maroonish brown Kanjivaram Saree with gold stripes on the body, a pallu of mustardy gold with olive green and rust stripes and borders of gold, brown and bottle green stripes.
The colours of Autumn.
The colours of Life.
Rich, earthy, Real.
As real as life, the browns of the soil, the reds, golds of leaves.
Life, when tragedy strikes, should be viewed not as the autumn of dying withering leaves, but in the words of Albert Camus, “a second spring when every leaf is a flower”.
And if it helps, know that the loved ones are always with us.
“Sometimes I just look up, smile and say ‘I know that was you’” – Unknown quote.