The setting for the novel is a Canadian international development project unrolling in an African country. Against this backdrop, I plan to tell the interwoven stories of a range of characters from starkly different backgrounds, often with conflicting needs and desires.

My aim is to make overt some of the contradictions, challenges and possibilities inherent in international development, and life! More than anything, I hope that this will be a compelling story and will actually get done!

I started reflecting more deeply on international development and taking notes for this novel in 2007, as I was finishing up a two-year posting with a local NGO in Tanzania.

http://infochangeindia.org/audio-files.html

Here’s a confession: I thought of this title and found it attractive; hence this blog entry! It can happen that way sometimes. One doesn’t always start with substance. Occasionally, form can come first.

The subject, as you’ve probably guessed, is menopaws. No, that’s not a typo. I think this is a more fun way to refer to it, don’t you? It was the title of a book on a friend’s bookshelf; a funny, illustrated book. It makes me think of a wild cat walking around casually enough on her paws, but ready to strike if need be.

Since about a year now, I feel rather hot… No, I am not referring to that kind of heat because I am not given to that kind of confession! I mean hot as in getting into the metro and feeling, oh I am so, so hot. It’s a good feeling, given that it’s so cold here half the year. Welcome, menopaws!

I’m positive about menopaws probably because I’ve never particularly valued my reproductive capacity, so the impending loss does not seem that bad. Interestingly, I also seem to be rather “fertile” in these middle-years. I am writing a lot of fiction and feel generally creative. Perhaps this is perfectly understandable, seen from the perspective of maintaining an overall balance of mind, body and spirit.

I am drawn to the archetype of the Crone, who I see as powerful. There’s this crone in me ready to break out, laughing gleefully, with perhaps just a hint of playful wickedness in her laugh!

Many societies have crone goddesses associated with birth, death, destruction and rebirth like the wild, Slavic goddess Baba Yaga, the Welsh goddess Cerridwen, and the Hindu goddess Kali. Hecate, an ancient Greek goddess, is said to walk about on dark nights, attended by a pack of hounds. She reigns over the moon, earth and the underworld. Ama No Uzumi (Japanese) is the Shinto ancestral Goddess of longevity, protection and psychic abilities, while Elli is the Nordic Goddess of old age, who defeated the almighty Thor. The list goes on.

The idea of an inner journey around the middle years is told over and over, practically in all cultures. The North American, aboriginal, medical wheel has four quadrants – North to East, East to South, South to West, West to North. The first quadrant takes a woman to her puberty, in the second she is maiden and mother, the third is a period of harvesting, ripening and maturity, and the last, which starts at menopaws, is a contemplation of the great mysteries of life. There is also a tradition here that the woman who’s going into menopaws initiates the woman who is going into puberty.

The ancient Hindu cycle of birth and childhood, the student years, the years as a householder and the final retirement to a forest to lead a more spirit-centered existence is not all that different from the above.

It’s a pity that modern societies do not mark rites of passage in any profound way. At most people celebrate birthdays. All the stages of life deserve their share of initiation, reflection and celebration. Imagine a concert with Crone Divas belting out variations of You Give Me Fever in a homage to menopaws!

Change, learning, transformation, breaking through, are part of the menopaws story, if we open ourselves to them. This is not to suggest that is an easy, painless process, but there could be a blossoming and becoming, if given a chance.

In the Western world (and among the middle-class in many countries), women now spend nearly a third of their life as crones. There’s also something called The Grandmother Hypothesis:

“Some evidence suggests that hunters contribute less than half the total food budget of most hunter-gatherer societies… so that foraging grandmothers can contribute substantially to the survival of grandchildren at times when mothers and fathers are unable to gather enough food…” (Wikipedia)

A utilitarian view, that! It made me think of all those African grannies looking after their grandkids and other kids in the community after their own children succumbed to HIV/AIDS or other deadly diseases. And there’s something to be said for grandparents just being around to offer love, support and stories. I enjoy being an aunt, and now some of my nieces have kids, turning me into a granny.

A women’s body temperature goes up and down all through her life, anyhow, in tune with the menstrual cycle. It goes up from 98.6 F to 98.9 F and beyond. I could not find statistics on exact temperature rise during the infamous hot flashes.

Anyhow, it’s hot, hot, hot! You guys are really missing out! (There may be some excitement to be had from andropaws if you were to acknowledge its existence.)

Meanwhile, the Earth’s temperature has alas risen by 0.75 C since the 19th century and expected to rise to 2.4-6.4 C by 2100 AD. (Ouch.)

As we approach Earth Day I am recommitting myself to small acts of kindness towards the planet and easing up on my aging, but fantastic body that continues to serve me so well. Care to join me?

Happy Earth Day! Happy Growing Older, but not Colder! (Remember Pink Floyd, The Wall?)

P.S. Ultimately, older people have lower body temperatures and less of a temperature range. Sigh. It just ain’t hot enough for me!

Since eons, I have been enamoured with something I associate with this season – Shringar Ras – the sensuous mood in Indian art, and life. Shringar Ras is flirtation, playfulness, dalliance, adornment, artistry, refinement, exploration, enchantment; teasing, tasting, wooing, enjoying, indulging. There is love, romance and erotica involved, but Shringar Ras goes way beyond these, and is not directed towards an individual. It’s a mood that can inform your perception of the world and, like incense, permeate your daily life. What really pleases me about Shringar Ras is its inherent light hearted and light-headedness.

It all started, I think, while watching those “Mogul” romances on celluloid, as a child. Set in beautiful, marble palaces, with fountains and well laid out gardens, mosaics, flowers, pigeon messengers, and poisoned chalices, they depicted the lives of suave young men and beautiful women in swirling, silken skirts and diaphanous chunnis and scarves, who cast sideward glances from behind fans, screens and latticed windows. These images drove me into a dreamy, light-footed state where I felt myself floating above the pleasure palaces, not unlike a figure in a Chagall painting!

How gracefully they could sing and dance and move, those seductresses! My favourite is the actress Madhubala to whom Shringar Ras comes naturally, and Rekha too cultivates it with particular charm. I also found Shringar Ras in Ingrid Bergman. I take my many hats off to these enthralling ladies!

When one speaks of Shringar, can Krishna-Radha be far behind? Eternal lovers, both earthy and divine, they have given Indian music, dance, poetry and art an endlessly fascinating subject. Krishna, with his magic flute and peacock feather, his ability to dance with a 1000 gopis (milkmaids) at once, is a welcome addition to the Hindu pantheon. In fact, there’s evidence that subsequent poets in ancient India added human traits to this once remote God, possibly because they needed an icon around which they could weave the spell of Shringar Ras? The same goes for Radha, who only appears in later stories as a well-rounded nayika (heroine).

What’s wonderful about these ancient poems and paintings is that nature is fully integrated in them, and dark, billowing clouds, prancing peacocks, branches laden with blossoms, writhing snakes and curving rivulets are as lovingly portrayed as the human figures.

It has been a pleasure to develop a workshop around Shringar Ras, which I recently presented to a small but enthusiastic group, in Montreal. The format is half the time devoted to a presentation of the various facets of Shringar Ras through poetry, film clips and slides of miniature paintings. Voice work, music and perfumes have also been employed in the past. In the second half, the participants reflect on the role of Shringar Ras in their own lives and how they can enhance it. I have given other versions of this workshop in Toronto and Ottawa.

Having stayed with this theme over many years, I find that I have evolved with it and vice versa. For example, I can see a direct connection now between the idea of being embodied and fully there in the present moment (Buddhism) and connecting intimately to the world through our senses. I can also see clearly the role of breathing, physical flexibility and good health and posture (yoga) as central to the experience of Shringar Ras. Would a wilting flower attract a bee? Could a forgetful lover ever arouse true passion in his beloved? Could an absence of relaxation allow a real appreciation of the colour of the sky?

With Spring here in some parts of the world, or round the corner (a longish one for us Canadians!), nature is springing to its senses and so should we humans, which is to say: be present, be sensitive, get out of your cocoon and look around you with keen eyes, ears, nose, tongue and touch.

Here’s my little contribution to the wakeful appreciation of Spring! It’s a paragraph from my poem “Seasons”, which was published in Indian Voices, An anthology of prose and poetry by emerging Indian writers around the world.

The poem is a humble tribute to Kalidasa, an eminent, ancient Indian poet-playwright, whose words are infused with Shringar Ras:

The sun peeps
through billowing clouds
sending showers; secret epistles
To buds slowly awakening
under dwindling snows
As girls reach for swishy skirts
And men tilt their hats, rakishly

Earth turns to meet the thaw