In the weeks after our friends died, we emailed our friends who were still alive. We offered picnics, drinks, dinners. We said: we must see you soon. RSVP for time with us while we are still here, it felt like we were saying.
In the weeks after our friends took their own lives, we thought about how to break the news to our friends who had lost loved ones through natural causes. We didn't want to tell them: someone intentionally died. Not so soon after they were thinking: the hardest thing is what we are feeling now; at least it's no one's fault; God or nature did this.
In the weeks after our friends committed suicide after being so in love with each other, one, 10 days after he found his lover on the floor of their apartment, we thought about: till death do us part. We thought about ultimate loyalty. What about the widows who jumped on their husbands' funeral pyres in Indian mythology and in the backward communities who still took that mythology literally? What is the noblest response when you lose a lover? We both told each other: don't do this if I ever kill myself. You don't need to kill yourself too. We thought about tragic and famous lovers who died together. We thought: in fiction it goes, it works, like a director might decide that this particular pairing of action and reaction might make for a cathartic ending, or an editor on the cutting floor, or a writer with writer's block might say: yes, that would explain why so and so felt the way he did. It was just not that justified or interesting in reality.
In the weeks after our friends died, who were artists and lovers, both, in every aspect of their lives exceeding the imaginations of their families of origin, we thought about whether art was as meaningful as we had made it out to be, in our open manifestos and secret hopes, in our cocktail party chit chat. We thought about Icarus and we drove along Northern Californian highways in silence, thinking: what do I do now? Will I too become mad if I give everything to art? Will the only way out be what our friends decided – is that the inevitable act once you get that close to they mystery of creation?
In the weeks after our friends took their own lives, lovers, who were artists and who were presumably getting more paranoid about the world around them, we thought about the luxury of being naïve and felt a mixture of relief and shame. We thought about the effort it takes to construct an elegant conspiracy theory and about whether we were mentally healthier or simply lazier in our analysis of world events than our brilliant, dead friends.
In the weeks after our friends killed themselves, I remember listening to everyone more patiently, and at the slightest moment of prickliness about what he or she was saying, the way one gets when someone makes a remark that you simply want to laugh at or scoff at or ignore or roll your eyes at, I thought to myself: let me listen to you, because all you want is to be heard and loved. I can give that to you in this moment, at no cost to myself, so I will. Underneath your coat of armor and your glamour and your beauty and your intelligence and your wealth and your worldliness and your power and your family's name you are just "n" (and maybe n is the number right before infinity) steps away from what our friends did. Let me be kind to you in this moment and let my kindness merge with the kindness of others into a blanket of kindness over the world.
1979
I remember the chickens we killed for the wedding,
and the ladybugs, motionless, on green leaves after the rain.
I remember the goat slain in the bathroom,
and the partridge you shot and the rabbit we ate.
There was the scorpion we captured and hung from a string,
the bandicoot you chased with a scythe,
the rooster call that rose above the city roar,
the cobra that swayed to the vegetable man's pipe,
the shy lizards that ran across walls while fancy guests dined,
the black crows that held court on electrical lines.
I remember the bony cows and the lame dogs
the monkeys on the hoods of cars.
I didn’t know it was poverty or politics.
I didn’t know it was unhygienic.
Then, it was safe for life to brim
and for the unfenced wilderness to spill onto naked streets.
and the ladybugs, motionless, on green leaves after the rain.
I remember the goat slain in the bathroom,
and the partridge you shot and the rabbit we ate.
There was the scorpion we captured and hung from a string,
the bandicoot you chased with a scythe,
the rooster call that rose above the city roar,
the cobra that swayed to the vegetable man's pipe,
the shy lizards that ran across walls while fancy guests dined,
the black crows that held court on electrical lines.
I remember the bony cows and the lame dogs
the monkeys on the hoods of cars.
I didn’t know it was poverty or politics.
I didn’t know it was unhygienic.
Then, it was safe for life to brim
and for the unfenced wilderness to spill onto naked streets.
My Grandmother and Nagamma
Nagamma ground spices
sitting on her haunches
next to a grinding stone
as big as an elephant’s foot.
Her mouth, blood-red from years of chewing pan,
made her look like she had eaten her way through a chili patch
or devoured a small animal.
My grandfather swore she stole from us
and my grandmother defended her
but not necessarily because she disagreed with him.
Nagamma and my grandmother fought about the price of milk,
about who left the gate unlocked,
about overcooking the rice,
about why there was less change than expected
when she came back from the market.
Behind her back, my grandmother would make a swigging gesture,
her thumb pointed toward her mouth.
My grandmother slept alone in the house after my grandfather died.
She would lie awake and listen for the sound
of Nagamma bumping into pots and pans
when she came home drunk in the middle of the night.
When Nagamma left the gas on by mistake
and neighbors suggested it was time to send her away
my grandmother insisted it was something that could have happened to anyone.
I saw Nagamma during her last years,
a bleeding, smiling Durga
my grandmother still making light of her drinking
until it got worse and Nagamma staggered home
stayed in her room behind the house for days and died.
But my grandmother reminded me
in her characteristically even pitch,
at least it was in a home and not a ditch.
sitting on her haunches
next to a grinding stone
as big as an elephant’s foot.
Her mouth, blood-red from years of chewing pan,
made her look like she had eaten her way through a chili patch
or devoured a small animal.
My grandfather swore she stole from us
and my grandmother defended her
but not necessarily because she disagreed with him.
Nagamma and my grandmother fought about the price of milk,
about who left the gate unlocked,
about overcooking the rice,
about why there was less change than expected
when she came back from the market.
Behind her back, my grandmother would make a swigging gesture,
her thumb pointed toward her mouth.
My grandmother slept alone in the house after my grandfather died.
She would lie awake and listen for the sound
of Nagamma bumping into pots and pans
when she came home drunk in the middle of the night.
When Nagamma left the gas on by mistake
and neighbors suggested it was time to send her away
my grandmother insisted it was something that could have happened to anyone.
I saw Nagamma during her last years,
a bleeding, smiling Durga
my grandmother still making light of her drinking
until it got worse and Nagamma staggered home
stayed in her room behind the house for days and died.
But my grandmother reminded me
in her characteristically even pitch,
at least it was in a home and not a ditch.
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