Like Tiny Jewels
Kumi.
Jodhpur, India.
Kumi Chandra 29th March 1952 - 29th May 2020
“Come, walk with me,” Kumi said. “There’s so much more living beyond 4 walls.”
How can I convey the warmth of her voice, how her rounded syllables soothe me?
“My mother taught us to walk on the grass in the early morning, feel the dew under our feet and dab it onto our eyes...like this…” She kneels down and gently places her palms to the moist grass and pats her cheeks, forehead, “and especially the eyes” she urges, closing her own and touching her eyelids.
There are raucous birds, gardens spreading out around us, fruit groves, endless blooming flowers, the smell of fire, and the decayed elegance of this ancient hunting lodge where we have found ourselves for a rare weekend out of Delhi together. We took the train, brought snacks, shared stories, and watched the city give way to ramshackle clusters of tents, fields of crops, random villages, peacocks on rooftops, so much more.
Finally: Jaipur, and then an endless taxi ride here to this outcrop.
Her long kinky hair is loosely woven into an unkempt morning braid, the lids of her deep brown hooded eyes still puffy. In spite of the grey in her hair, her body is nimble, to keep up with her curious spirit.
This is Kumi, my Indian mama (for can't we have several mothers?), who slurps in even the smallest of life’s details because to her, everything quenches her thirst for insight and Life and Connection. Then she serves it all up without ego or pomp, these morsels of wisdom for me to take with me everywhere.
In spite of her wonderful intellect and strong ideas, she moves from her heart first. One day, she will leave the legacy of an enormous circle of friends, a family by blood and endless adoptees like me, who have been helped by her to feel less alone, to feel more loved and seen with compassion. And the hole she will leave will be impossible to fill but we will do our best, bringing more presence to each moment, more gratitude, more generosity, and open mindedness as she has taught us to, and even more reverence for the beauty of this earth.
This morning a rare pale blue sky gives way to pinks and lays backdrop to healthy green trees of all varieties, fragrant flowers bursting off bushes, vines, and rising above ponds of water to stare back so confidently while birds flit and sing overhead.
“The dew is so beautiful,” Kumi announces with a serene smile. “Like tiny jewels. Come here. Walk in the shade where the earth is still cool. Feel that? Just lovely.”
It was.
My time here with her feels beyond precious and I think of the trip I was once invited on with my sisters, father, and our French relatives. A mere few days I couldn’t seem to make time for. I thought, then, that I would have another chance for us all to be together. My father died not long after and I never had that chance. Certainly it is the losses that teach us better how to live.
“Listening is one of the most powerful meditations,” she said after a while of walking silently together. “Just listening fully.”
Later I ask aloud, “What have I come here to do?” Kumi knows without me explaining that what I mean is... as in my purpose, in the greater sense.
She reminds me without delay that, “The purpose of life is just to experience it,” but secretly I don’t believe her.
She brushes my thoughts aside as if reading them. “This is all illusion. We hate, witness, love...but all these things are mere aspects of ourselves, of all of us. Even Hitler,” she declares, her deep brown eyes finding mine, chased by that wry smile. She is smoking, a habit she is not proud of and tries to do so clandestinely around Anil back home. She also knows she shouldn’t, but here she pulls in the smoke extravagantly, celebrating how good it feels, all of it.
I had been holding her free hand. “Look at that tree!” she exclaims, releasing my palm and pointing. “...the way the light hits its different parts, some bits in shadow, leaves browning and falling, others parading their shiny newness, possibility, hope...each tree reflecting so many different versions of so many aspects of life. That is just what I am saying.”
When we return to our room, I can’t write it all down fast enough or write it as accurately as I would like; it’s devastating. Her stories and offerings of wisdom are so rich and there are just so many. Each walk and dinner and expedition through a market we have ever made together. I want to record them all, be able to regurgitate every string of words accurately, each moment to my friends and family back home. I am frustrated with my poor memory and my lack of diligence.
Yet I also know that in recording any of it, I move myself to the observer, rather than being fully immersed in each new experience that unfolds as it is being lived.
Still, I write as much as I can remember in a few pages and some more of her words:
“Stop living life. BE LIFE, Jenny.”
===============
Then one day more recently, she sent me this poem she had written:
A soft yellow petal
Of the resplendent Amaltas
Floats down ever so gently
Almost ethereally
To kiss the Earth
In grateful thanks
For the nurturing
And the encouragement
To be
And to bloom
Has the tree
Gained
Or lost?
This is the silk cotton tree under which the Buddha was born. I have used the Indian name for it. -Kumi
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As a child, people often thought I was adopted from India and asked me or another member of my biological family if I was. That and being taught to meditate at four forged an early awareness of and connection to India that would deepen through yoga, later on multiple trips to India to find furniture, textiles and more for my shops, falling in love with the smash up of chaos and beauty of that place, but mostly, mostly the way I felt home when I walked across the threshold the first and every time I visited the Chandras at Malcha Marg.
When I met Kumi the first time she was seated comfortably, a rum and ice in one hand, and a cig in the other. This was back when she could still brandish a cigarette more openly. She sat braless in a tee shirt, her hair long and wild, and she offered me the sincerest welcome without getting up. I loved her immediately- her authenticity, open hearted curiosity, and easy laugh that was all her own. My father’s close friend “Uncle” Paul had insisted I visit these dear friends who he proclaimed were, “like family too,” and he was right. From the very start.
Kumi, cig and drink in hand.
There was a backdrop of books behind Kumi, small barking pugs weaving between feet, Anil and Mira lounging or buzzing about. Soon others were making random visits through those almost perpetually swinging doors, as more food and drinks were served to whomever arrived and stories flew out til deep into the night.
“There was a time,” Kumi said, “when if at least 20 people didn’t show up for dinner I thought something was wrong... and once, we had nearly 75 people sleep over. You should have seen this place! All three floors strewn with people snoring and farting!” And she hit her knee laughing, then took another swig of drink, and laughed some more.
I miss her.
Her love of animals, even and especially, wrinkly faced, drooling, snuffling short legged ones.
Her love of children.
Her fearlessness in New Delhi intersections as she guided me, eyes clenched shut at times, holding her arm for dear life as we sprinted and wove through the madness and near death experience that is required to procure some vegetables there.
I so miss sharing our writing with each other, her almost purrs of encouragement as I read aloud, the beauty of her own words that she had written carefully in cursive on a pad of lined looseleaf.
I miss her hopefulness, wise reflections, and hilarious declarations about herself like, “Left, far left of center,” and then her peels of hearty laughter.
That laugh.
The way she listened without judgement, with such deep caring.
The way she laughed once, long ago gently at my request for a (much) bigger cup for my tea than the “proper” one she originally handed me at her dining table. Then she magically (poof!) made an uncharacteristically enormous one appear in seconds without scoffing. She simply added more water, and laughed some more in the most loving way.
The day she first taught me how to tie a sari (again?) in her bedroom at Malcha Marg and then gave me one of her own of beautiful red silk, and an enormous red bindi like she wore so beautifully, both of which I wore proudly and that represented her presence at my wedding when she sadly couldn’t make the trip.
The way she loved her family with such complete devotion.
The way she told a story.
Her gratitude and curiosity that stayed with her always.
Perhaps most, I miss having the carrot dangling that she would eventually visit my three sons and I in Upstate NY, to meet her lost tribe, hike the paths I know or sit in the gardens here and witness the flowers and veggies I have grown, the beauty of this sky and mountain, and the sweetness of my two boys who didn’t have the chance to meet her and spend time with her the way my eldest did.
And...yet...
Every day she walks in the garden here with me, smells the heady bounty of these flowers, laughs when my children say funny things, joins my family and random friends as here, too, they drop by unannounced and are nourished and helped to feel less alone...and she is here marveling at the breadth of this huge and changing sky that drapes itself so languidly over our world, in spite of the chaos beneath.
Kumi and Me, India
-end-
All photos besides those of Kumi, courtesy of unsplash.com