Active Stocks
Thu Mar 28 2024 15:59:33
  1. Tata Steel share price
  2. 155.90 2.00%
  1. ICICI Bank share price
  2. 1,095.75 1.08%
  1. HDFC Bank share price
  2. 1,448.20 0.52%
  1. ITC share price
  2. 428.55 0.13%
  1. Power Grid Corporation Of India share price
  2. 277.05 2.21%
Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Tell me what makes you cry
BackBack

Tell me what makes you cry

Love, innocence, courage, endurance; children playing under flyovers at traffic lights. The things that get under our skin

When we look closely, our tears reflect stories. Photo: Natasha BadhwarPremium
When we look closely, our tears reflect stories. Photo: Natasha Badhwar

I am sitting near the finish line of a school sports day function. I am crying. Cannot stop the tears. I take out my dark glasses and wear them to camouflage my expression.

I am surprised at myself. I was trying to avoid the sun, ready to be bored in a while, when I saw a tall, lean pre-teen girl make that final dash towards the end of a 200m race to make it to the third position.

My tears started flowing. Something about children pushing themselves to do their best. They are in the moment. They are creating something else out of themselves.

I clap for all the children, especially the ones who finished last. After all, they made it through the heats. My palms are red. I wipe my snotty nose.

We forget how much there is in each individual child. We forget our own capabilities and dreams.

Now there is a judo demonstration after the athletic events are over. This girl with the high ponytail who is both a classical dancer and a judo champion. The determination on her face. Her grace and power.

It is time for the medals to be awarded. The serious-faced school trustee is smiling at each child today. Love, innocence, courage, endurance—when we witness them in their purer form, it moves the tectonic plates inside us. We feel something in our skin and bones. It reminds us of a version of us that we have been neglecting.

I have to get up and leave early. I have work to do. Presentations to deliver. I try to switch off my mind. Or my heart. Call it what you will.

I cried a lot before writing this piece. I cried for years, often at places where it was inappropriate. I risked ridicule and smudged eye make-up to get to this moment at which I can blow my nose and start typing.

It’s okay, it was mainly for research purposes. If I wanted to analyse various types of breads or kebabs, I would have to sample them before I would be able to write about them. Just like that, I had to cry a lot before I could come up with these 1,000 words.

My grandfather’s sister was from Faridkot in Punjab and often came and stayed with us in Delhi. Buaji was loving and hilarious. We were at the wedding of my mother’s niece and had reached the final part, the bidai, when the bride leaves with the groom in a flower-bedecked car. There were jokes and laughter, but our Buaji was weeping loudly. I remember being embarrassed and flummoxed. She wasn’t even related to the bride.

“Why are you crying, Buaji?" I asked her. “No one cries like this any more." She was inconsolable. I wondered who she was crying for.

I have become my elderly Buaji much sooner than I could have predicted. I cry at the weddings of strangers and I cry at the sight of children playing under flyovers at traffic lights.

I attend a lot of school functions. I always forget how much I am going to cry when children begin performing on stage. I never have a handkerchief or tissues. I am often wearing kaajal. Memories are triggered. The serious expressions on the face of the tabla players. What is on their mind? The joy of performing, the determined faces of the dancers as they keep pace with the choreography. This is self-actualization.

It is easy to cry in the darkness of the auditorium. I have also been crying in gurdwaras. In broad daylight. I crave to sit in a corner and hear gurbani being sung. I don’t go up to the altar and bow like I have been taught to. I sit and listen to the prayers and try to figure out who I am mourning for.

Both my grandmothers had died before I was 9. I was too young and far away to mourn for them. They come in my dreams now and tell me their stories. My nani was living on an island and listening to the music of the band Indian Ocean in my dream. She told me that she had survived. She was happy. My dadi was a fish in a temple lake. She asked me to look out for her son, my father.

Admitting my despair makes me cry. My tears wash away the delusion that the world my daughters are growing up in is better or fairer than the one I grew up in. Crying makes me let go. Put down the baggage I am dragging around with me.

Bad news makes me numb. It is when the good news arrives that I break down and cry. By then, the more rational ones ask, “Why are you crying now?"

I met a batch of my students after 15 years and my tears began to queue up right behind my wide smile. Was I crying for who I once was? Crying because they had all done so well? Crying because of the nagging fear that perhaps I could have done better for them? You are being self-indulgent, I chided myself.

“What are you writing about?" my brother texted me this morning.

“Tears," I wrote back.

“Real or artificial," he asked.

“Inexplicable tears," I answered. “When we cry but don’t understand why the hell we are crying."

I wasn’t expecting him to respond. I have never known Bhai to cry. He has always been stoic.

“I do it too these days," he wrote back. “It makes me feel better, and then I play music at full volume in my car. Tu kisi rail si guzarti hai…"

“That’s nice to hear," I said.

“Nobody teaches you this. It is better to let our children see the truth now than try to figure it out in their 40s. Let them see our attempts to be a better person."

I sent him an emoticon. Twelve hours separate his time zone from mine.

“Don’t be ashamed and don’t do it forever," he wrote back.

I stayed calm in the virtual chat window. In real life, I was filled with joy. My brother has been crying. He is hurting and healing.

So tell me what makes you cry.

Natasha Badhwar is a film-maker, media trainer and mother of three. She writes a fortnightly column on family and relationships. She tweets at @natashabadhwar and posts on Instagram as natashabadhwar.

Write to Natasha at natasha.badhwar@gmail.com

Also read | Natasha’s previous Lounge columns

Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!

Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More Less
Published: 22 Oct 2015, 06:21 PM IST
Next Story footLogo
Recommended For You
Switch to the Mint app for fast and personalized news - Get App