Fiji, Frangipani & Fraility

Looks like this will be published on Friday the 13th--Oh well....

Frangipanis exist in India as well but I noticed them in Fiji.  It is hard to describe how exquisite they are.  How lovely they smell and how short they live.  Unlike roses or sunflowers or carnations or other flowers that we bring into our house to bring a bit of color and fragrance and freshness, frangipanis do not fit into a vase. Well, they have no stalk.  Often people bring them in and leave them floating in a bowl.  

The garland is made of pink and white frangipani---I found a young girl playing with it at a festive ceremony...

The above two pictures are stolen from the net.  Don't they make a great conversational piece.  This is so common in Fiji, especially at hotels. I used to do it in my house as well, sometimes..

Not only does it brighten the room and bring color and fragrance in, it creates a piece of art, a conversational piece.  

Flame tree, my apartment compound in Fiji, right across from the Government building, very close to the Parliament. Flame tree, which we had in our house in Delhi, produces truly red, flame like trees.  These blossoms have no fragrance but man, are they stunning to look at. I remember looking down at them from my neighbours second story building, and looked like it was a gigantic bouquet.  Like Frangipani though, they are frail, they bring such beauty but last a very short time.  And like frangipani they cannot be brought to a vase.  You have to let them be, and they last longer, and are happier....

This one is stolen from the net.  But see, this is how flame trees can look like bouquets.  Oh to have grown up with this in your front yard?  Yes, that's me!!

Such beauty --such daintiness--and such frailty--Frangipanis wither in a short time.  The fragrance they provide is truly strong and gives you a whiff of heaven.  That is what heaven  must smell like, perfumed with this gentle divine smell that relaxes you.  But frangipani is also frail.  Dainty and frail.  It crushes easily.  Simple, sensitive, and sensual.

I often thought of Fiji that way. I still remember my first day in the country.  I stepped out of the airport and it was ganska värm--quite warm -- I stared at the coconut trees --a very small population rushing about its work. A few cars, compared to scores of them that we saw in Pennsylvania streets.  A gentility washed over me. 

For the first week I stayed on a high.  Another country, another life, now it all starts. 

A week later, I woke up in the middle of the night and asked myself, 'What in the world have you done'.  Library was not that good, I was away from any sort of intellectual, academic community.  I mean there were professors but that conversation about 'ideas and new theories in the field' was missing. Things were substandard and while in general I love developing countries and their gregariousness, it felt like professional suicide. In addition, I was away from everything I knew.  

There was some political turmoil already in the air.  Less than a year later there were talks of a coup.  And then two months later, there was one. It happened silently.  No violence this time. At least no visible one.

A year later I had a burglary in my house.  That left me disoriented for the rest of the stay in Fiji.  A sense of frailty --a sense of fear came back in.  It affected my career, my writing and my living--my attitude towards life.  And a bag of fear was created around my body.   But I kept moving.

I have often thought about my life in Fiji. It was beautiful, perfumed with frangipanis and made me feel like an almost celebrity.  People knew me and would call out my name, even though I did not know who they were. I did not remember them, but they remembered me.  Often so many students who had never taken classes with me would address me by my name.

Having taught in Fiji for a few semesters I earned myself a sabbatical, which I never used.  Till this day I regret it.  But at the time I was almost going to leave academia. Go back to school, do a masters in immersive media and simply move on to another related but highly creative field ---

For reasons that I cannot list here--there are too many--I could not. The one major reason was ofcourse money.  I did have plans though. I was going to return to my MA that I had admission to in Canada, in about two years. Its been 9 years and I am still here.

Money and confusion affected the decisions regarding career. Now at this stage, mid career, it all feels too silly. 

While there are days that I regret continuing with academia, even though I love teaching, and my students nominated me for the best teacher award and I have been given other awards etc. --I also know I have learnt a lot. I could certainly do without all that I have learnt.  That is true, including the language which will be useless to me outside of the country and certainly outside of Scandinavia (Don't get me wrong I love the place and the people here).  Had I gone towards my dream, I would have felt a sense of certainty inside.  And a sense that I had a purpose. Something that having a community, family and ongoing-long term friendships can provide, but nothing compares to having your own family and hopefully in what you consider your own country.

As much as I love that I have so many cultures within me, I also mourn the mono culture that provided a GPS for life.  That GPS saved time --over fretting---why, when, where, what...all those existential questions that linger---

Whenever I get tired and do not want to think--there is a silence that I seek from all the clutter of my mind.  Often times, I have used Fiji has a metaphor for life.  Its Fiji, you know, a place people know to be lovely, like paradise. I am told that souls from beyond want to come to our world, to experience love, life, pain and pleasure.  It all can be performed like perfumed frangipanis.....but it is all still very frail.  I often think of the way Spielberg uses human bodies to show fragility of life. One shot and life goes out of a stunning --beautiful woman whose face could have launched a 1000 ships.

So yes, life's like that. A bit of Fiji, with much of frangipani, precariously hanging on the uncertainty and frailty that is our existence---