Insatiable need

In the outdoors at 10 years of age

Welling from deep within I find myself filled with emotions bubbling to the surface.  I recall the vivid childhood memories of enjoying days on a yellow rubber boat floating all by myself on Little Cultus Lake in Oregon.  Laid out on my back in my little floral pink bathing suit listening to the softly lapping water on the waters edge with nothing but blue sky, a breeze that became a powerful wind as the afternoon swallowed the day, and mountains standing so proudly as if at attention to the Gods.  Summer vacation was at it’s finest.  These days were so serene, not a care in the world.  Pure enjoyment for the finer things in life that included fresh caught fish fried in a black cast iron pan in our camper and mountain air that smelled of newly dropped pine needles .

Conversation this morning with my mother in India has reminded me of these moments. 

She is in need of a trip to the mountains.  The doctors have given her orders to go to the mountains because of her health.  I would do anything for her to just have a moment of that experience from my childhood.  I feel so helpless sometimes because even if she is not the one who raised me she is still my mother.  That connection is undeniable.  Over the phone she giggles like a small girl while talking about how she used to nurse me and that I bit her so hard she ended up with an infection.  She nursed me until I was almost four years old.  Her dreamy voice while indulging herself in her past recollection of our relationship bores a hole through my heart and fills me with desperation.

We knew each other until I was six and she was nineteen years of age.   She tells me stories about how I always wanted the most expensive saris in the windows,that I begged her for ice cream and that we saw a film about Paris and I said I wanted to go there.  We had a relationship, one that was a mother and a daughter. 

Now as an adult I feel it has almost become the opposite, me wanting to take care of her and get her out of that hell of a life she is in.  Her health suffers from her living standards and she spends her days yearning for time with me. “I only see small face” she says, when talking to me.  It is difficult for her to see me as an adult because there was so much lost time in between then and now.  She dreams of cooking for me and taking care of me but she doesn’t realize that I am such an independent person who has lived in independent survival mode most of my life and would not even know what to do with a mother doing these things for me.  It is easier for me to take care of her and be the strong one who has all the ability to change her life and bring her comfort.

How can I make her life better?  What can I do?  I feel overwhelmed at the thought of all of the things I need to do for her and for the rest of the family.  They never ask for anything but I feel this insatiable need to help them as much as possible. 

The mountains too were my healing.  I spent so much of my childhood exploring the outdoors and pondering life.  It kept me sane being in the outdoors and feeling the power of nature.  I cried for my mother, family and life in many awe-inspiring places.

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© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

Please help me to help my family

With the warm comforting sunlight filtering between the dancing leaves on the statuesque trees outside my window, I feel the growth and expansiveness of Spring arriving shortly and the hope that it brings. 

I ponder on the thought of my mother living in squalor.  In a place of dense population and endless honking horns with not one ounce of greenery or sunlight in her neighborhood.  The sun is diffused by the strangulating pollution that blankets the city of Kolkata.

Kolkata is only second in the world to Mumbai in population density with habitation being over 20,000 people per square kilometer.  New York has only 2050 per square kilometer.

Tears are restrained and buried in the heaviness in my chest as the conversations I have with my niece Pinky and my mother replay repetitively in my mind.  It is a constant reminder of how desperately I need to get them out of their neighborhood.  I imagine what their daily existence must be when worrying for their lives and also dealing with all of the other issues of poverty and living in a slum.  She makes it clear how they have to go “so far” just to get water.   Pinky also tells me stories of people jumping on their balcony and coming into their house to steal anything.  The neighbors have had their entire houses cleaned out by people who have come to rob them.

Pinky says so matter of fact “Aunt, I cannot do my studies because there is so much fighting going on outside.  The people have guns, one of them has been in the newspaper for doing bad things.”  I reply with “oh my god I didn’t know they had guns.”  All of this time I wasn’t aware that these neighbors are actually shooting each other too.  She says ” we think they are terrorists…”.  I am not sure what she means by this but I am really worried about their safety.  It has now become even more of an issue of safety, not only about their  living conditions.  This is my family that is living in this situation, not some actors in a well blocked scene in some film, but my flesh and blood. 

Even though Pinky is only twelve years of age her whole existence is education so that she can “live a more civilized life.”  She tells me that she wants to be a scientist so that she can take care of her family and live a better life.  I want to do anything I can to help her with this dream.  These are things that my thirteen year old daughter never has a thought about.

My mother still manages to laugh and with childlike sincerity says “today is happy day, your phone come”.  She goes on “I miss you my child, I am so proud of you.”  I reply holding back my sadness “I miss you, I am thinking of you all the time.” 

It is difficult to live here with my life of comforts and ease and have a family that is struggling so much and that I miss so much.  There is not one day that goes by that I am not missing them or scheming on how to go see them or ways to help them.

If only I could just get them a house, I could have some peace knowing that they are living under better circumstances.  Then I could rest.  Please help me by donating and telling your friends.  It does not have to be a large amount, it will add up!

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

  

puja in Haridwar

Wedding at dawn on the beach

My senses are elevated to the foothills of the Himalayan mountains as I listen to my CD flooding my office.  The upbeat Indian music fills my ears with an undulating feminine voice praising the Ganges river and the many Hindu Gods.  The language of Hindi that sounds so familiar and the spiritual essence that pours through the tablas(Indian drums) shoots right to my soul and filters through the cells of my body and the core of my being.  I am immediately transformed into the Indian Pushpa who can walk the hills of the Himalayan lake region village of Haridwar and gander at the Ganga River while feeling the pulse of the heart of this world.

The November day in 2002 began with an early morning rising in Delhi.  Three days here began to feel oppressive while a cloud of particles heavy in pollutants hung after the festival of lights of Diwali.  The night sky had been filled with fireworks and celebration for Ganesh and Lakshmi pujas(prayers) to bring prosperity for the new “fiscal” year.  Ganesh removes the obstacles while Lakshmi brings forth the prosperity.  My brother Kamal, my friend Kathleen, the servant Shama and I drank gigantic bottles of Kingfisher beer while we set off fireworks to celebrate this most celebrated holiday.

This next day was a relief.  We were finally leaving the city of Delhi and it ‘s choking smog behind.  We had our black Toyota Scorpio SUV, the Asian version of a Toyota Sequoia but much smaller.  My mother, Kathleen and I climbed in the back while Kamal rode in the front seat with the hired driver.  We happily waved goodbye as we went through military armed guard checkpoint after checkpoint while traveling North towards our destination of Reshikesh.

Six hours of buses filled to the brim, rickshaws made for four people filled with bodies like sardines , bicycles pulling trailers filled with crops, villages of black eyeless birka wearing individuals and  a sea of never ending almond eyes looking in the windows brought us to the holy city of Haridwar.  My stomach was tight from the long, slow and treacherous ride.  Kathleen and I feared for our lives during the ride and were happy to unclench our jaws and get out of the car.

This place was nestled below the foothills of the Himalayas.  The sun shone bright in the early afternoon with not an ounce of pollution to filter the rays.  My mother, once again, was on a mission.  She becomes this indestructible force to be dealt with when a temple comes within range of her.  She lead the journey as we crossed a long bridge lined with emaciated bodies perched to the left and right.  Each one with a small tin pan for money and looking desperately into our eyes in hopes of any change we may drop from our hands for them.  We reached the other side with unbearable gut wrenching pain as I tried not to focus on the skeletal figures in my vision.  There were too many to help any of them…where do you start and how can you leave anyone out?

Shanti charged up the hill to the gondola that would take us high above the village to the temple for a tree tying ritual and puja.  The gondola swept up the mountain while I prayed for our safety.  At the top the spectacular view of the wide crystal clear Ganga cutting it’s way through the valley beckoned me to come back down.  We finished our pujas and rode back down to the village.  Still following my mother we sheepishly walked back down to the river. 

The village was filled with people coming for the rituals and also for pilgrimages that began here.  There were not many other westerners, the majority of people were Indians.  We made our way down by the ghats where people bathe and do more pujas.  My mother purchased three boats made of banana leaves filled with gold marigolds and a candle to place in each vessel.  Slipping our shoes off and to the side, Kathleen, my mother and I carried each of our boats down by the concrete stairs leading into the Ganga.  Shanti lit the candle in the first one and said a puja in Hindi for herself and then gently waded down the stairs into the the water and released the banana leaf boat.  She proceeded to do a puja for Kathleen and waved her to go into the river and release her boat also.  Then she came to me , not knowing what she was saying in her pujas, I just did as I was told.  I waded to my knees in the great Ganges and released my boat.  She smiled and told me “very nice, you have a nice life and find a good husband.”  She could tell by the way my boat smoothly flowed with the river that I would have good luck.

Not only did she know this, but a family of Indians noticed and wanted me to hold their baby and take photos.  I asked my mother why they wanted photos of me and not Kathleen(she being the blue-eyed blond American) and my mother replied, “because you very lucky”.  I later figured out that they hoped that me holding their baby would bring luck to the child.

Three months later in the month of February I met my husband.  Unknowingly, almost to the day, one year after the rituals in Haridwar, I was married.

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content 

 

 

A calling

 Should I have not been adopted?  Who is to say?  At different points of my life I have wondered why me and why was I adopted.  There must be a bigger reason for me to be in America.  I don’t know what the answer to these questions is and I think that there truly is no answer.  Was it fate, destiny, or luck?  Through this blog I have heard so many opinions about my adoption.  I’ve been told that I need to call myself “sold” rather than adopted to I am not grateful enough to be adopted and also the many thanks from people who say these posts are making a difference for them as adoptees and adoptive parents.

 The opinions about me really don’t seem to matter.  What does matter is that our story (my families and I) be told.  There is no possible way for strangers to know what any of us have been through. 

My mother and I at the temple in Reshikesh

  As a stranger on the reading end of my stories you can only “imagine” what my mother Shanti went through when her first born baby girl disappeared never to return for 25 years or how my adoptive mother Shirley may have felt when told that the adoption she was involved with may have been done without my biological mother’s consent and there is no way for anyone to step in my shoes either and feel the loneliness, isolation and emptiness that I share with so many other adoptees.

 Judgment is rampant when looking at someone else in our world.  Why are we spending time judging when we could be learning and understanding how to make our world and lives better through compassion and love for each other?

My adoptive mother Shirley never discriminated on whom she would help.  She helped everybody never taking a moment to think about his or her religion, race or how he or she got into his or her predicament.  There were drug addicts to little old ladies that she embraced.

My mother Shanti doesn’t discriminate.  She stops to pray at every church regardless of religion whether Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim.

Even as an adoptee with my experience, I do not feel I have the right or ability to judge whether someone is “better off” or not because they were adopted.  Who is to say what is “better off” for an individual?

 The matter of adoption is a deep and intricate subject, one that everyone has strong opinions on. 

 The facts are that I was adopted, it was done with carelessness, my adoptive parents did nothing wrong, my mother only trusted a friend, I am a product of circumstances, I love both of my families, and I will continue to tell my story in hopes that it helps somebody in even the smallest ways. It is the system that is broken and needs revamping. One of the biggest voids is understanding of the adoptee and their suffering that occurs without a foundation of familial background.  We all need to know our ancestry and our families regardless of the situations we came from, it is only natural for humans to have this desire. Another problem are the legalities, who is really watching over these adoptions to make sure that they are done properly? 

 All of us affected by adoption are being called forth to help in our own little ways to make a change.  There is no change with ignorance and complacency. 

 

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

  

 

 

 

Ungrateful

passport to America

From Webster’s dictionary; ungrateful-making a poor return, not showing gratitude.  This is a word I heard from Shirley(adoptive mom) for years and years of my life.  Now I also read it on a comment.  Only to remind me of my youth and how I was taught that so much of my relationship with my adoptive mother was based on my returning something to her and being grateful.

A burden that so many adoptees carry.  We are “saved” and taken care of along with being educated by people who chose to bring us into their lives.  We didn’t choose our lives but they did.  Yet we are to be so grateful and owe them our deepest gratitude for what they did. 

I am grateful for my parents and all that they did for me but not out of obligation because they adopted me.  Must an adoptee be more grateful than a biological child to their parents for food, shelter, clothing and education?  Who chose to bring me into their life?  Why the obligation and guilt for what my parents did for me?

My mother spent many years telling me “you should be grateful that we adopted you because you probably would be just some poor starving child, married off at a young age and pregnant as a teenager. You would be living in a country where you would be treated as a second class citizen because you are a girl.”  These words only brought me pain rather than an overwhelming feeling of fortune.  As Shirley constantly reminded me of the horrible conditions of where I came from I grew deeper into self hatred.  There was no ability to love, be thankful, or be grateful when I was self-loathing.

Gratitude comes from the heart, from a true connection to any person,place or thing that lifts me up and makes me feel good.  My adoptive mother at some point stopped saying these things to me and just started being good to me without expectations.  She seemed to realize that her words were not helping but hindering our relationship.  This is when our relationship went to another level and we became the best of friends and only then could I finally see all of the positive things she did for me without the haze of self-hatred, guilt and obligation clouding our relationship.  Then I truly became grateful of all that she did for me.

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

the truth be told

My mother and I

 

What is the truth?  How do we know who is telling the truth in our lives?  This is a question that is a never ending unraveling mystery for me.  Once my mother told me her story I wanted to be fair to all involved in the adoption of me(notice I didn’t say “my adoption”).  I returned with this story and wanted to share it with mother Shirley knowing that she has been one to fight for the underdog, the one with less abilities to stand up for themselves whether financially or intellectually.  She was active in the community helping mentally ill people, the poor, the elderly or anyone that needed her help.  Although she never showed much of a compassionate heart in her verbal expression her actions showed that she wanted to truly make a difference in people’s lives.

That January of 1994 started a year of fact finding, fact checking through every piece of documentation that I had in my house that pertained to my adoption.  I began to search for the truth in every nook and cranny of my life.  Starting with my adoptive mother Shirley,  I made the phone call to her excited and emotional because she would know more than anyone about the details of my adoption. I also knew she would feel that Shanti had such an injustice done to her. 

I picked up the phone from my  townhome in Florida calling Shirley to let her know about my trip to India to see my mother.  She was a two ringer…meaning you knew if the phone rang more than twice she was  not home or outside in her yard.    Just as usual she picked the phone up at the end of the second ring, “hello” in her usual formal voice while answering the phone  with a half of a question mark at the end of hello.

We began our usual formalities about the weather in Oregon and Florida and then I went right to “I am still feeling exhausted from my trip to India and returning to work so quickly”.  She replied with “how was India, I have always wanted to see India.  I love the people from there.”

I replied quietly “it was amazing and you know I saw Shanti”.

“I didn’t know if you were definitely going to see her or not but you did huh?”  “Yes, and she told me her story about my adoption” I said carefully. 

My mother Shirley had a personality that could never deal with anything emotional.  Any deep conversations were not a part of her relationship with me.  She cried if I brought up anything emotional especially if it had anything to do with our relationship.  So I found myself walking on eggshells in most conversations because I wanted depth while she was like a fish floundering out of water contorting with every single word that I spoke.

 This was a good time as any to ask her questions about details that were missing in my adoption papers and also to tell her that she adopted me without my mother’s consent.  As the conversation rolled I gingerly spoke “Shanti told me that she didn’t know that I was adopted.”  Shirley replied with disbelief “of course she knew, Rabeya(adoption maker) told her. Maybe time has made her forget that she didn’t want you.  She doesn’t want to think that she could have left her child now but she did.”  This time those same words I had heard for 25 years that made my heart ache didn’t connect anymore with me. 

“I saw into my mother’s eyes, she is not a liar and she loves me” I proclaimed in defense.  After a few more sharp words between us I hung up and stopped talking to my mother.  A year passed without verbal communication while I searched through every document and old letters to prove to Shirley that my mother wasn’t lying.  I finally gave up while realizing that I didn’t need to prove anything.  Shanti was my mother and I know what her truth is and that she indeed loved me, the details of  how I got sent to the United States didn’t matter. 

Years later Shirley and I had healed our issues and once again had a conversation about this matter again.  This time Shirley stated “I wouldn’t put anything past Rabeya, she would do anything to get what she wanted.”

My conclusion was that Rabeya swallowed the truth to her grave while two souls suffered on continents 13,000 miles

apart.

 

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The healing of my heart

An intense conversation

 

An expansive bright blue sky with billowing white clouds hung over ridges and deeply falling sharp valleys.  The intense bright sun swept through and spilled onto the floor while the open door embraced and framed the striking beauty of the rugged and powerful middle Himalayas.

 

Shanti(mother) and I

    As we sat enjoying the warmth of the sun melting away the chill of the high altitude and early morning, my tiny little mother went on to say “you my baby Pushpa, you always my baby”.  I smiled only in acknowledgment and lacking in emotions.  I still harbored anger in thinking about what I was told all of my life by my adoptive mother, Shirley.  Repetitively haunting my mind just as it did from Shirley’s lips “your mother didn’t want you, she didn’t love you.”  I wanted to just be present to being with my mother instead of living in my past hurts and sorrow.  I studied my mother Shanti’s face and made excuses in my mind that maybe she was too young to love me or maybe she didn’t know how to love a baby like me or maybe I was just such a tempermental baby that she couldn’t love me.  In seconds I searched for every excuse to make this woman, my mother, not guilty of not loving me.

She kept searching for words in Hindi and smatterings of the English language as gigantic tears rolled down her smooth cheeks.  As she began to say “Rabeya, boarding school, Thomas no good” mixed with words that were absolute gibberish to me I became pinpointed in my listening.  The body language, emotions and intensity of desire for communication made it very clear that she had something important she wanted to tell me.  I had no clue what it was but she had my every bit of attention zoned in on her now.  This level of intensity and depth went on throughout most of the afternoon and ending with her story of my adoption bringing light to an incredible inhumane tragedy for her.  Her “baby” being taken from her without her consent or knowledge.  Her years of praying in the cesspool of a neighborhood she lived in while waiting for my return.  Hoping and glancing down the street in hopes of me to come running back to her arms at any moment. And the words “I love my child” flowering from her mouth, began in an instance, the healing of my broken heart. 

The stories she wove together were of deceit and great loss.  One of victim and villain.

This began my search for truth.

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Cobra and conversation

My cousin Cobra

 

The majestic mountains thrusting from deep within the earth, bringing vistas from every turn, gave me reason to appreciate the natural beauty of this place and understand why they affectionately and fondly call this hill station “queen of the hill stations.”  With an elevation of 6500 feet above sea level and located in the middle Himalayas, the China border stood only 50 km away and within eye-shot, a feeling of being above it all swept over me.  Many Tibetans came here when they had to flee and boarding schools of Japanese, Americans, Chinese, Dutch and others dot the steep hillsides, making this a place of nationals from the world over. 

After a long trip to get here I took a sponge bath with ice cold water out of a bucket in a room that had spaces in the ceiling where the crisp frigid December air blew in all night long.  The next day was spent adjusting and finding a new hotel that would be warmer and had a tolerable shower and protection from the cold.  Oddly enough there were no rooms with heat, only space heaters that you could rent.   I gladly paid the miniscule amount and slept in a motel with a warm shower and no air blowing in throughout the night.  It was still cold but on top of the bed lay a blanket that was about six inches thick, once I got under that I slept the entire night…finally a full night of sleep.  I awoke with a renewed energy and a greater appreciation for my home in Florida equipped with heat and a shower.

I was here to enjoy spending time with my flesh and blood, in my birth country.  I felt like I could breathe again with the refreshing mountain air and the eye candy that abounded with every turn.  I was truly in heaven on earth. 

I was still trying to absorb the meeting with my cousin, Cobra,  who was a sophisticated handsome man with wavy shoulder length dark hair.  We had played as children together and tears streamed down his face as he remembered our past as playmates.  There was very little memory for me and I wished that I could conjure up those times in my mind but it evaded me.  After sharing those precious memories he hopped on his motor scooter and off to work with his red scarf flowing behind him while he jetted down the hill as if he were the star of a Bollywood movie.

It seemed odd but somehow my mother and I now ended up alone after the simple and brief introductions with my cousins family.  At my aunt’s house I was sitting quietly in a chair with the front entrance door open looking out at the view while soaking up the afternoon sun.  My mother pulled a chair up and sat with me.  We looked out at the expansive view of the mountains and acknowledged each other with glimpses and smiles.  Conversation was difficult now that we had no one to translate between us but she wanted to speak and be heard.  This was only the second time we were alone together, the first was in the bathroom when I put on the Indian outfit for the first time.  She began with her broken English, “you know Pushpa, you my little girl, my baby”.  This began a difficult conversation that would change my entire perception of my life.

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

From Kolkata to Mussoorie

Boarding schools of Mussoorie

My first visit to reunite with my mother was filled with wonderment, love, mind-blowing realities, connection, and surprise.

After spending the first three days in Kolkata a reprieve was in order.  The smog that hung without a trace of sunlight, the shock of being in the most densely populated city of India, walking through slums and over sewage canals to visit my mother in her house and the throngs of destitute living on sidewalks was beginning to eat away at my psyche.  My mother decided we must go visit my cousin in the extreme Northern part of India, a small hill station that European tourists flock to in the summer and children from all over the world come to for boarding school.

View from Mussoorie

Giri, my stepfather, went to the rail station and purchased the tickets.  Sadly he said, “there are no seats in tourist class” which meant nothing to me.

The next evening at 7p.m. we boarded the train at Howrah station in Kolkata and began the slow and arduous ride to Mussoorie.  I was happily traveling to some fresh air and fewer people I hoped.The chug of the train was slow and monotonous with the calm sway barely moving us through the city, all the while stopping every few minutes to pick up more and more people.  At this pace I thought we would never get there.

The early evening became late night and it was time to shade the eyes until morning.  Sleeping on what was a metal bunk above two other bunks I felt the uncertainty of where it was we were going and at the same time surrendering to what was unknown.  There was an unbelievable trust that I had in this journey, I knew so little about where I was going that I would not have been able to point it out on a map of India whether located…north, south, or due west. Nor did I know it was going to be thirty hours on this maroon metal clanking steam locomotive.  Every stop even through the night was an affair of foreign language sprinkled with sales of food or chai.

As the morning approached, I awoke to looking down from my top bunk to see my mother standing below looking at my brother, then my sister and I and smiling.  She explained in her gestures, facial expressions, broken bits of English and foreign tongue that she was so happy to see her children all asleep in one place for the first time in our lives.  As the man came through the train with chai I climbed down from my bunk to catch a look out the window at the miles of fertile acres of land as far as the eye could see.  Colors of saffron, orange, fuchsia, emerald, and indigo sprawled the fertile fields of land mixed in with robust healthy fields of crops.  These beautiful colors were not flowers but long pieces of fabric when wrapped around a female figure became elegant saris.  They were lying out to dry in the hazy morning December sun.

After a trip to the bathroom, which was a hole in the floor of the train with the miles of tracks flying by below, I came back to my seat and watched the life around me.  Everyone was eagerly enjoying their morning chai and some folks were eating boiled eggs for breakfast while the signs of rural life passed by outside. A few hours passed and we pulled into Dehra Dun where we got a driver to take us to Mussoorie.  This was the ride from hell.  Looking out the window of the car it was nerve-wracking to be riding in a cab inches away from the cliffs edge that dove down for miles all the whilst scurrying up the mountains in a frenzy.  Approximately an hour later we arrived white knuckles and teeth gritting.  We reached our destination where behind us swept the breathtaking deep valleys below. Alas the smog was gone and the air was refreshing to inhale. The crowds were behind us and the feeling of being in a small village without the constant sound of a honking horn seemed surreal.

My mother spoke with a coolie and within minutes all 90 pounds of him with thin rubber flip flops on his feet piled three suitcases on top of his head and began the hike up a mile long hill to my cousin’s home.  We had finally arrived and now I was about to meet more of my family. We were here to spend the next seven days to experience more connections, love and a surprise was coming…

© Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pushpa Duncklee and Pushpa’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Mother Teresa’s visit

Me in my boarding school uniform

At the age of four I began school at the infamous and prestigious Catholic Loreto Boarding School in Kolkata(Calcutta).  With the funds of Rabeya(adoption maker) and later my adoptive parents I was given a “proper education”. 

Behind a gate stood buildings of decades dating back to the late 1800’s.  The grounds were beautiful with large leafy trees bowing over the spacious lawn giving the sense of peace and serenity.  The drive swayed with haunting shadows of ghosts of past students.  To the left a small chapel graced the landscape for student prayers.  In the back stood buildings with classrooms and a large cafeteria lined with tables and silverware perfectly placed in waiting for meal times.

One of the buildings contained the sleeping porches for the girls on the downstairs and upstairs floors.  The older children downstairs and the younger ones like me upstairs.  It was a large expansive room with numerous beds made of a metal mesh with a mattress on top.  Large windows embraced the light into the sleeping porch.

We marched to class, to meals and to the chapel.  Always in perfectly pressed white-collared uniform dresses.  I enjoyed having shiny shoes and a clean dress that I felt so proud to be adorning.  I also liked marching to and fro. 

Learning that English was the only language allowed to be spoken; I quickly had to swallow my Punjabi, Bengali and Hindi to avoid the smacks with the ruler from the nuns.

One day was special.  We were told someone was coming and we mustn’t be out of line at all!  As usual we all marched to the chapel in eager fashion to await this person not really knowing who it was going to be.  We waited, and waited patiently but with the long wait came the urge to go to the bathroom.  I was trying so hard to follow the rules to stay sitting still and wait in our places.  The nuns had me so scared of them that I could not ask them for anything, even to go to the bathroom.  I couldn’t hold it anymore and felt the warmth of the poop in my pants as the smell began to envelope me.  At this time Mother Teresa walked in and was introduced to us when one of the nuns bitterly said “what is that smell, and who pooped in their pants?”  I withered into embarrassment as the girls turned and glared as they said “Pushpa”.  This was my first meeting with Mother Teresa, one I will never forget.

Mother Teresa began her work in India at this school as a youthful teacher and then began taking her work out to the poor in the streets of Kolkata where my mother Shanti came to know her.

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