The Hindu Business Line : Grieving... healing

"My mother already carried the mark — there was twisted skin where her right breast had been," writes Kamini Banga in `The Mirror Cracked'. The crack happens when Kamini tells the family of her affliction, causing papa to flee `as if the devil was chasing him'. And the mother, "She cursed herself, cursed her genes and wept," continues the poet in I Promise to be a Good Girl, God, from Penguin .

"When life gets derailed and nothing is where it should be, what does one do?" Her answer: "Have a quiet cry, gather up whatever courage you have left, and start all over again. The path is difficult and sometimes all you have for company are fear, guilt, anger and loneliness."

Writing helped Kamini to grieve, something her loved ones didn't allow her. For, "they are in pain when they see us sad and melancholy." The author thinks grieving is a big healer, having survived cancer over a decade, through "surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and the aftermath of breast cancer."

She tries to hold on `to the cloud, the wind, and this one moment'. Probability may just be another name for hope. `Heads I die,' is the ominous title, therefore, of a poem, with these wry lines: "Every moment of my life it's heads I die, tails I live. But there will come a time for decision... "

You can't fault the simple logic in a statement like, "In a perfect world we would all be just that — perfect." But the topic, sadly, is `past imperfect'. And, to compound things, is `wrong prescription', where Kamini declares, "Nobody needs yoga, Reiki, naturopathy, positive thinking, (you name it) more than I do."

Because her doctor reminds, "Be strong, you are fine, think positive, meditate — it controls the mind."

Kamini wonders: "If it is my bloody mind, why the hell are they treating my body? Tell me Asha."

Poignant read.

dmurali@thehindu.co.in

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