Goodness Gracious Grief

Midlife Musings

Goodness gracious me. Everybody is angry. The auto-rickshaws are angry, the Ubers and Olas are angry. Beat-up Maruti vans pack-full of playful toddlers ferrying them to and from playschools are angry. Our ripped jeans-like roads already riddled with random rage are angry -- reacting like a Facebook stripped of its five other feelings. Even Hanuman is angry; are the sweetest Tuesday supplications not sufficient? That I only memorised just under half of the forty quatrains of the Hanuman Chalisa many moons ago, in the molten boredom of a summer vacation at a very pious aunt’s home, means I cannot even chant it complete to assuage this anger. The midlife melancholic in me is colicky at the thought that this all-round anger is a PPP (public-private partnership) punishment for I having ‘well begun and half-done.’

When I first set my driving eyes on artist Karan Acharya’s striking illustration of Hanuman, I was sure my sight was playing up. I progressed to progressives, pronto, but there was now more anger more clearly visible. Till then, my gods may have shown their displeasure at my many faults, flaws and failings, and flailed at many a fantastic pursuit, but they had never scowled at me. Instead, I have been angry at my gods more times than I care to count, up until now.

Up until now, when the world has seemed intemperate and temperamental, I have relied on the good humour of my gods. Despite being mostly closeted in a dark, dry, cool, comfortable place, like all precious delectables are, each of my gods has a story to tell. Of the Ganeshas, and there’s more than a couple, one is extra special. It’s a gift from an aunt, handed over minutes after I entered my new home as a new bride. Then, there’s the gaudily-dressed Lakshmi printed on the thinnest paper, framed in the cheapest metal. That goddess made her home in my first home away from home. Baby Krishna swung into my life on his miniature golden rocker one Janmashtami. He has more than learned to crawl, even walk, but an adhesive keeps him in and upright. And he’s surrounded by mothers. The Nandi wandered in here purely by chance when the office secretary passed on some five-star’s Diwali present to her to me as my Diwali gift. My keen eyes noted she kept back the accompanying gourmet chocolates. The unassuming Ema Emoinu from Manipur is a favourite. A goddess of plenty and of all kitchen skills, I often hear her disapproving tsk-tsk at my absolute lack of them.

My gods are my friends. Like those you don’t have to keep in touch with, but when you meet, it’s like the good old times. They smile wide, laugh loud, and weep unashamedly with me, at me, for me. My gods are not just statues or stickers; they are solid; they stand without support; they are sympathetic. My gods are my strength but not my ‘strongmen’; my life’s lynchpins, no, not lynch mobs. My gods are my celestial police, especially on days the terrestrial police fail me. My gods have no orange-faced scowls or knitted brows. They hear me rant, even when I don’t chant.

That said, who can deny that many in our pantheon of gods are fierce, but they’re not fearsome, not for me. So, it may well be that the angry Hanuman is l’art pour l’art or art for art’s sake. My paranoia may simply be perimenopause getting to me, but surely, the angry Hanuman’s viral embrace is a matter of some wonder -- a search on Amazon shows 690 results, from laptop skins to living room decals. Surely, so much anger is cause for worry. After all, India isn’t quite smashing the right end of the charts on happiness, ranked 140 on this year’s UN report, seven spots down from last year, with only 16 other countries faring worse.

Could it be then that that scowl hides a solidarity in our shared sadness? The brows are knitted in bewilderment about our search for civility and compassion?w The piercing gaze consternation at the carefully constructed cavities in community? Could it be that the angry Hanuman is not angry?

Perhaps its grief. Goodness gracious grief.