Owning My Scars

A few weeks ago, I posed for a photo session with my brother. The plan was to just capture pictures as I was getting ready to attend an event – we had a few shots of me doing my hair & make-up, spritzing on my perfume, screaming at the kids to keep it down… the idea was to keep to the theme on capturing expressions of regular activity.

A few days later as I saw the pictures, many of which I posted, I came across two particularly special ones that I couldn’t bring myself to post on social media – at least not then. I looked at them often and every time there was a different emotion and feeling. There were also those other feelings of anger when memories around the cause of the scars surfaced.

These pictures started off with me fastening a delicate anklet and then went on to show the suture marks on my ankle, the spot on my shin when the fracture had compounded and pierced the skin, the incision on my knee, and the one where my toe nail was healing… scars from trauma, some accidents others intentional…. scars…

Over the weeks, I kept thinking about the scars that I had accumulated over my lifetime. There were scars from the scald on my thigh, a burn on my arm, 4 incision scars on my belly (3 C-sections and 1 open appendectomy), stretch marks, bruises, jellyfish bite, chicken pox memoirs, pinch marks from childhood, suture points, fracture wounds… and then the darker remnants of a body that resisted and defended itself from violence.

Then there are those scars that have gone beyond skin, bones and tissue to sear into the depths of my being – those scars that have made an impression on my mind and soul. Those are the ones that we don’t always see – those are the very ones that I myself don’t always see or even pay attention to.

They are the scars that heal slowly – I’d like to believe they’re healing surely, too.

They are the scars that form the little stitches in the hemline and embroidery on the fabric of my self. The beads and sequins that form the shimmer on the ‘who I am‘ design  and ‘who I have become‘ pattern of me.

I’d love to say that the scars have faded and so has the pain. Well, it has for many of them. But some don’t vanish that easily, you see. They remain where they are and show up in photo shoots that develop into pictures that highlight their intricate beauty that gets a ‘wow!‘ even from me.

I love my scars! Every single one of them holds a story. Some stories of grit, determination and unfathomable awe. Other stories of joyful births, of motherhood and of unconditional love. Whichever way I look at them, there’s nothing to hide! These marks tell a story of a woman who has lived a life for forty whole years and has a body to show for all those years – with marks of failure and over-stretching, marks of endurance, suffering, pain, injury, grit, resilience, love and sorrow.

They’re all there and I own these scars. They’re a map reminding me that I may have fallen down eight times, but I’ll get up nine. They’re a reminder that for all those gorgeous dresses that I’ve worn over the years, these scars… I wear them like my own designer label – that stunning dress, my best attire… like a dress made of hellfire.

The Thorn of Divisiveness

Yesterday, I just happened upon the last 15 mins of the movie, ‘Parzania’. Today, it’s ’31st October’ that’s going on while I walked into the room… Both very painful movies portraying the horrendous riots and violence that our country has seen… the Godhra riots of 2002 and the massacre of innocent Sikhs in 1984… the pain of the marginalised or minority… or injustice one section of our country have been dealt… It hurts… because I’ve seen and heard those very movie ‘dialogues’ (not necessarily towards me, in person)… but about my ‘faith’ and my ‘people’…. sly insinuations intended to sear deep within.

So it all boils down to assuming that the ‘majority’ would value their pride of place and live and let live the minorities…

Or is it that ‘majority’ equated with decimating every minority to assume complete control? And then use petty but incendiary tactics to instigate gullible or sensitive mobs to do crazy things…?

And finally…. we see these pervasive, insidious thoughts in our families… divisive, exclusive propaganda taught by parents to their children… indirectly… making scathing remarks about neighbors of other faiths – refusing kheer from Muslim neighbors or scowling at ‘Malayali Christians’ … yes, even I didn’t know there was a specific section of the community until I heard it…. but, then, maybe… just maybe… the specification was to mollify me as I wasn’t a Malayali??

Or perhaps, and this is more likely, that I was given the label that ‘Mangaloreans are all money minded’ 🤔🤔 Or just the wide brush accusation that Christmas is, after all, a festival of ‘all show’….. so that took care of me, I guess…

But no, no one knew the answers to the symbolism of some of the pooja samagri, or direction of placing tulsi (& why)… or even that 3 Ganesha idols in a house is supposed to be bad energy…. and how does that matter anyway?

But no…..

But yes…..

That pain, inflicted as well as experienced…. nationally, societally and individually, is real…. and the intention to cause another person, community or group pain…. simply because one is capable of doing so…and allowed to… and get away with it because … they have the privilege to get away with it.

Such is life….

I live… I learn…

And… with this, my core, my foundation, my essence only talks about … inclusion…. because to not include is to harbor that thorn of divisive disharmony.

What are we if not one?

In our homes, in our offices, on our streets, in our classes….

Of Scars and other things

I was 3 when I scalded myself with some horribly piping hot tea. I don’t quite remember the details in their entirety – my mom does – but I remember some momentary facts: it being that biting winter of Kuwait in the early 80s, thick stockings that peeled away the blistered skin of a fresh scald on tender baby skin. Yes, it definitely was as nasty as it sounds.

The agony was amplified with daily dressing changes that were an early lesson teaching me to bear wax strips in later years, and the pain of procaine penicillin for as many days. Not pleasant at all.

What etched deeper were neither the dressing plaster that yanked away hair off a toddler’s delicate skin nor the incessant pricking of injections – I think I forgot the recover period of the actual injury – it was the effect of the lasting scar on my upper thigh – the scar of scalded, burnt skin and flesh – the scar of imperfection on an otherwise perfect  child’s body…. and I hated it.

So growing up, I never wore shorts and absolutely hated swimsuits, which was painful as I loved the ocean, water and swimming! I probably could have been an ambassador for the Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini song of the 60s (way before I was born, by the way). It would take me ages to come out of the dressing room to the pool side, wrapped in my towel, and then agonising palpitations to crawl into the pool waiting for a time when the place was either empty or when I felt assured that no one was looking at me. I had mastered the art of faking a love of sitting on the poolside loungers and inwardly crying at missing out on splashing in the water that I so loved.

And I can’t tell you enough about the trials of getting swimsuits with leg coverage – and yes, I even owned a swimsuit with that cringe-worthy skirt attached. I think I even wore Lycra tights under a regular swimsuit for good measure.

Anything to cover the scar! 

In short, I was petrified of anyone seeing it. I felt humiliation and shame and nursed that horrible belief of being lesser than anyone or everyone else – I just felt inadequate, imperfect… tarnished and scarred.

So yes, an entire childhood and teenage that perished under the load of shaky self-esteem and poor body image all because of an accident and a scar that told the story. I was in my early 20s when I finally started forgetting about it.

Somehow… somewhere that happened… and I really don’t quite know about that yet, maybe someday I will figure out what shifted … and how and when..

Anyway, last week, I participated in the Pinkathon – and came back home to sore but euphoric feet. I went up to my room to change and rest. And while I took off my shoes, I took a look at my feet and the length of my right leg – the leg that today bears the record of 6 scars that I acquired last year after my accident.

Yes…scars…

So I spun around on the bed and put my feet up on the wall and watched them – the way I cued my students in class – an exercise to experience a shift in perspective and some contemplative asana time. I actually wanted to save this post for the 3rd of March, the anniversary of my accident – but I think it was time to share the shift now.

So as I lay on my bed watching my feet, I remembered someone telling me when I left hospital after the accident, “Oh! The scar is right next to your knee! So you won’t be able to wear a skirt any more!” My response was an incredulous, “Why ever not?“

As I pursued this observation of related thoughts as they percolated, I was filled with the awareness that unlike my scalded upper thigh, these scars ran deeper, but spoke a different story. I was overcome with emotion that clogged my throat as I attempted to feel and express it – an emotion of witnessing my journey and seeing the trail that I left behind.

The scars didn’t bother me – not these. They were more like medals of honor and symbols of a journey that dragged me and bitch-slapped me through the fires of hell and still had me looking at many more miles of uncertainty ahead but holding space and promise of umpteen possibilities.

I paused long enough while writing this blog to go upstairs and ask my daughter to take a picture of my thigh. Believe me as I share in complete honesty, that I remembered it was my left thigh, but I’d actually forgotten where exactly my scar was!

 

The scald scar

The skirt-deterrent scar

It was also lighter now than I ever remembered it to be. Subtle enough to remain a memory, but also light enough to tickle my daughter when I told her that it was this scar that prevented me from swimming for years!!

As I walked back to the laptop to finish this post, I felt a semblance of relieved realization dawn that, age not withstanding, healing was an ugly process. It brought up all sorts of thoughts, emotions, feelings and the like – but that was the process.

Healing, perhaps, is that hell that we refer to be going through – so we go through it… until eventually, we have come out of the  madness, brandishing scars that tell the story, but keeping us whole enough to tell it without reliving it.