NINETY YEARS OF LOVE

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms, And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail, Unwillingly to school...

I am sitting in the conservatory, Bella beside me on her iPad, the two of us knuckling down to a little late afternoon writing... a remembering of our summer thus far. Bella is mostly mewing beside me while I try to tempt her to various strands of 'where to start a piece' about her recent five days at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts. A pigeon is casually clip-clopping on the roof above our heads, a metronomic timer accompanying us as we touch type. Downstairs, three generations of Tayabali men are watching/ listening to the cricket... the tussle between India and England has been on usual historically tense display. Perveen is in her computer corner, working on her third novel, A Sparrow Sings. Her first two novels are still filling her readers from Bombay to Singapore to Canada with nostalgic joy.  

This afternoon, Raf broke a double yolked egg into his noodles. 'Go show Grandma,' I said, knowing double yolks are meaningful to Mum - she broke a double yolk on the morning of her wedding day. And on rare occasions since, always infusing the moment and the day with a touch of ceremonial blessing. Summer in England for the Singapore crew will come to an end in a week's time. The children will go back to school and I will approach another birthday with a mixture of gratitude and bafflement. How do the years coalesce into decades, how are we living the seven ages of man we merely studied, unromantically, at school? Language that was beyond normal comprehension then, and frankly, now.

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;  His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide/ For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes/ And whistles in his sound. 

This summer, my father turned ninety. Ninety years. Is that included in the seven ages? 

Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

No... Shakespeare does not convey a lifetime of love, admiration and the youthful spark that still lights my father's spirit,  humour and wisdom. Perhaps Shakespeare never met such a person as Dr. Chotu Tayabali? What is the worth and weight of a life? Can poetry contain the essence of the human experience? I have been attending poetry workshops since last autumn with the dancer-poet Trivarna Hariharan... each poem I wrote was filled with grief and mourning. So I stopped. In summer and in winter, I am a full time aunt, and find myself unable to concentrate on much other than planning days, moments, activities and meals to make time pass bearably, enjoyably, for children away from their usual landscape of security. 

We painted a fence in candy stripe colours of cream and pink. We drew fish and Pokemon. We watched Fantastic Four at a fancy cinema and in between, wove tales for Chotu of life continued, generations continued. My father always wanted children around him; I have inherited this thread of understanding too. Where there are birds, there is hope and song. So also where there are children, Happy birthday to the original Pied Piper, from the adoring, uncountable, leaves of his tree.