life's purpose?

I read an article in the papers today. It was written by a spiritual guru – the reason I actually read all of it was because it had none of that moralizing, holier-than-thou attitude I dislike. The topic was simple enough only the view was new to me. The writer talked about how everyone at some stage of their life ponders the purpose of their existence.

Now I have frequently done that and have never come up with a remotely acceptable answer. I constantly lament the passing years and my inability to find my inherent talent so that I can pursue it and enrich my somewhat (!) incomplete existence. The article started off with the statement that life has no purpose. We have no purpose. Our work, be it big or small does not by itself give life any purpose. Our mistake lies in attributing something consequential to our existence.

Life by itself is sufficient cause for celebration. The reason for it need not be pondered at all. The living of life actively is the true purpose. The anxiety to search for a purpose comes about because we are not truly living our lives to the fullest. He went on to say that sensory perception which is the only way we view the world, is partial and cannot be used to grasp at the meaning of life. If we can view only parts of everything we see such as grains of sand or the road ahead, then how do we view life as it is meant to be viewed? The answer lies in opening the inner eye or in being able to go inward, into our true selves so that our perception is expanded.

I cannot claim to understand all of what I’ve just written – I’ve merely restated what I read but it is intriguing to look at a familiar problem differently. What if we all accept that there is no purpose to life and stop stressing ourselves to go somewhere, be something before we turn 30 or 40 or 50? What if we go through life in a relaxed fashion, the way we would go to a party not obsessing about the reason we are there but just enjoy ourselves? Would we be happier and live our lives better? Maybe we would – its definitely worth trying…

little miss

My daughter is four years old. She thinks her mother is the most knowledgeable human being in the universe. And she tests it by asking me unbelievable questions. When my son was a toddler, I longed for him to display the first signs of a thirst for knowledge hoping he would inherit my love of books and reading. Well it turned out that he was very curious but preferred the “let me see if I can take it apart and figure it out” method of learning. The younger one is more artistic as the psychedelic nightmares on my wall testify. She also loves reading (she can’t yet) and is full of questions.

Now I am fully prepared to answer questions like “why is the sky blue?” or “how do airplanes fly?” but I am not equipped to handle “why is that tiger broked Amma - why no one is taking him to doctor?” (this was after watching a documentary on tigers in India on Animal Planet) or “why is that yucky vulture eating deer - he cannot eat him - vulture should eat only rice -no,Amma?”. I no longer put on Animal Planet for them – too many dicey questions.

She also has a bizarre choice in pets. Now she spends two hours in a daycare (well it’s actually just a lovely lady who likes children, running a daycare at home) and the lady who runs it currently takes care of five dogs, two of which are hers and the others’ assorted neighbors’. So, when the little madam came home one day and asked me “Amma, why we don’t have animals in the house?”, I was sure she wanted a dog as a pet. I told her that dad can’t stand dogs or cats or indeed any animal being in the house and he’s allergic as well. And then I asked her what sort of animal she wanted. She promptly piped up “I want an elephant. It’s my fravrite animal!!” I asked her where the elephant would live. She said our back garden would be fine. Then she added “Amma, you can give elephant one drumstick everyday (I used to have a big drumstick tree in my backyard) and also water but I will not let the elephant run because he will fall and get hurt.” Phew!

She wants to know why her brother is the first kid and she’s not. She takes a lot of offense at that because she likes to be second to none. It annoys her that we insist that Appu is our first child. She throws tantrums, cries, sulks and says she hates us but she will not give up her stand. My husband and I have tried various ways to get her to see reason but there is really no such thing as rational thought for a four year old. So we are definitely stuck and have arrived at a compromise situation by telling her that she’s the first girl and her brother’s the first boy. It is currently working but only if we augment it by giving her everything else first. She has to be bathed first, tucked in first, given a hug and kiss first – even her plate for dinner has to be set first. I am going insane at the thought of what that child will be like when she grows up!! I sincerely hope and pray that she gets a daughter at least ten times naughtier so that I can rest in peace ;-)

being a parent

While actually becoming a parent is easy, being one is not. There are so many things you do not know when you hold your newborn babe in your arms. You don’t know how to feed him, you don’t know how to hold him right or bathe him. It is a terrifying experience and also very momentous. The weight of responsibility is crushing and the fears mount alarmingly. What if you do something wrong? How did God entrust you with a life to take care of other than your own when you are hardly great at managing your own life!

For me the scariest times are when my children are ill. I am really helpless while I watch them lying listless and weak or in pain. Medicines are of course there but sometimes you have to let a fever break on its own – those are the hardest times. It is important to be able to not succumb to easy remedies like antibiotics which the Bangalore pediatricians seem to love irrationally. I let my son be dosed frequently with those till his immunity was shattered. It took a long time for his immunity to restore itself to a semblance of what it would be for a healthy child. I was more careful with my daughter but the guilt stays because I unknowingly harmed my kids with bad choices.

Another difficult thing to do is stand back. I am bad at that. I can’t see my kids hurt. Of course I am not gentle with them but no one has the right to hurt them. I get incensed if the other kids tease my son when they cannot understand what he’s saying. True it sounds like gibberish to them but they are merciless in their hatred of anything that can be ridiculed. My poor son! My daughter rarely needs my protection. The feisty little character can take care of herself and sometimes her elder brother too. But even with her I have had to stand back and let her go through some harsh lessons so that she may learn. I have had to restrain myself from whacking a neighbor who deliberately shows a mean face to her when I am not around (or she thinks I’m not around) – she’s always honey sweet when she sees me. I have had to think up explanations when my daughter asks me why I won’t let her play in that neighbor’s house when her daughter comes here all the time. How can I tell her that I have caught the lady hiding behind the curtains in her house not opening the door to my kids while at the same time sending her kid to my home every day so she can go gossiping to the other houses? How can I tell them to be cunning and not to trust people? It is a scary world out there and I have no idea how to prepare my children for it.

My son hates reading and writing but loves computers and puzzles. I have to figure out some way to instill a love of learning into that boy. My daughter loves learning but has a really stubborn nature which makes me pull my hair in frustration during the times she is not making me laugh. They are a joy to me. I don’t know what I would have done without them. But they are an awesome trust too – in the seven years since I have been a mother, it hasn’t gotten any easier and I doubt it will ever be easy only I hope to better myself at it as I go along.

growing up

Dad always used to sit in his favorite armchair with his legs out in front crossed at the ankles. She loved to climb into the hollow between his knees and hang there with her bottom just above the floor. Dad used to move the ball of his foot to and fro making a rocking motion which she loved. Ensconced in that warm cocoon, only her head would be visible and she could sit that way for hours watching TV along with dad.

She never assumed that things would change. Her place would always be assured. Then one day when she was about to climb in, her dad said “No – your brother wants to sit. Let him.” So she didn’t sit in her cocoon and she never tried again afterwards. Her brother was five years younger and always got the pride of place in the family. So she understood and never complained.

She loved French fries and her parents would make loads of them for the kids. But fries were her favorite snack. The kids would sit in the living room playing games or watching television and dad would send out new batches fresh from the frying pan. Her brother got a whole plate to himself. She and her elder sister had to share. She never could figure out why she couldn’t have a plate to herself. There was always plenty of food in the house – her parents always kept a full table. But anything her brother liked, she learnt not to ask for. He loved drumsticks and though her sister did too, he always got them. He was never asked to take turns or share. She didn’t care for any of that except the fries – if only once she could ask for a whole plateful just for herself. But she never did.


She vividly remembered her ninth birthday. It was the first time she got to choose her clothes. It was the first and only time she had a birthday cake. She got to call her other friends not just her neighbors and she was beaming and ecstatic. Her mother had prepared a feast as usual (well she always made a feast for the kids’ birthdays). She had a real party and she was so proud she thought she’d burst. Then the came the time to cut the cake. As she was about to do the honors, her brother started crying and her parents asked her to let him cut the cake. Her heart broke and she refused. But he had his way and she was allowed to cut too of course but it wasn’t the same anymore. The day had lost its magic. She tried hard not to let her tears show. After all she was too big to cry.

hairy tales

I have lots of thick hair – cascades of it. It is definitely my crowning glory. But it also has its problems. The first being that, like God, it is omnipresent. My husband glares at me whenever he finds a strand on the sofa, in the car, on the pillow or wherever. I tell him testily that it is not by choice that I am losing my once abundant locks, but it seems to be happening and nothing I do is making any difference. He snorts at that and goes back to doing whatever it is that he was working at. I sigh sadly at look at my reflection showing dark wavy hair flowing up to half my back and reminisce over my college days when it was waist length and way thicker as well. Well the glory doth diminish but what the hey – so does everything else.

The second problem is that I never have good hair days. My locks have a life of their own. They don’t subject to the rule of comb or brush but go any which way they like. I pull it into a hair band and am left with a bushy raccoon tail in the back and a suddenly small-sized oval face in front. Not good at all. Now if its wet it hangs comparatively limply and immediately begins metamorphosing to wayward tendrils by the time my hair is half dry. Hairdryers take too long to dry my hair and leave it brittle so I dry it the natural way – by leaving it as is. Not that drying and styling help, my hair is simply too stubborn for that and since I don’t hold with chemicals much, gels are out of the question. On those days I envy the straight, sleek looking hair I see around me and wonder whether I could ever look so chic.

Still it does have its good days when it does all that good hair is supposed to and I can walk about showing it off – but usually that is in winter and late at night so I don’t have much of an audience but it does warm the cockles of my heart when it behaves so. I have had a lot of people over the years ask me what I do to make the hair the way it is – they want to know what oil I use, what shampoo, whether I use henna , curds, chocolate sauce, eye of newt or anything else. I tell them I wash it daily and that’s about it. No one believed me – they attributed it to my being from Kerala where it is rumored that all the women are richly hair-endowed. I suppose I could have come up with a recipe for a fake foul-smelling concoction involving lots of preparation that could then be sold – ultimately it would cause the women involved to wash their hair daily anyway and voila – the results would be there for all to see. But silly me I stick with the truth and get no credit at all…

Lonely lady

“My husband is solely responsible for bringing in $400 million in revenue for XYZ Software every year” said a smug Mrs. M. I swallowed and fixed my polite smile on my face while trying very hard not to roll my eyes. This lady is my neighbor and the mother of my 4-year old daughter’s best friend. Otherwise I wouldn’t be listening to her brag for the umpteenth time on what a success her husband is. Actually I would rather listen to that than to her description of her latest acquisition of jewelry. She goes on endlessly about how great life was in Switzerland where she lived for seven years and which constitutes the highlight of her existence.

Initially I used to run and hide when I spotted her waddling gait far away. Unfortunately the main path for walking has no trees to afford even a shred of cover and crouching behind a bush simply was not elegant and therefore I frequently had to endure the lady’s bragging sessions. I tried sarcasm but it flew over her head. I tried barely veiled threats and they would escape her completely. What I couldn’t do was be downright rude and tell her to can it!

Later, however I began to think about the reasons that could be behind her behavior. She had a husband who was never home – she single-handedly raised two children who are about a decade apart in age. She ran the house and took care of her husband’s parents when they were ill. She, in short was lonely and also left with handling the responsibility of the children all by herself with no help from an absentee husband. So she had to brag to cover her insecurity like she tried to hide her rotund figure behind black clothes always or like she combed over the glaring bald patch on the center of her head. She had to constantly reassure herself that her husband found her good enough and therefore she told us all about how he ate only home-cooked food and thought she was the best cook in the whole world, about how she hardly ate but probably had a metabolism problem else how could she possibly put on weight but anyway she would become slim soon when she joined a gym. Her stories were poorly constructed camouflage devices to hide from the world the sordid state of her soul. Her lack of confidence, her fear that her teenage son’s rebellion would never end, the loss of the beauty that she once had – all of these together turned her into what she is now. I don’t think I can ever befriend the woman, she is still selfish and can be really mean on occasion; but I find her an object worthy of sympathy. Her life could not be very easy and her loneliness was too palpable to ignore. Maybe next time I won’t hide behind someone’s car when I see her walking my way. But probably the day after that I will ...:-)

faith

My father was of the opinion that the intellect is not sufficient to grasp all reality. I was in disagreement with him. I was proud of my intellect and headstrong as well. I told him that if there is no reasoning or logic behind things, how can I accept them? He would counter with the argument that logic and science simply could not explain many of the world’s mysteries and it definitely could not explain faith or spirituality. His favorite explanation was of a pair of tongs. The tongs can be used to grasp an object but can it grasp itself?

I believe I was somewhat wrong and he was somewhat right. There certainly were areas gray enough that could not be reasoned out by me. I haven’t figured out the explanation of faith either. Faith is sort of like believing in advance not asking for proof. I used to have it long back and it has suffered greatly since. But my dad had it till his dying day. He always believed God would help him and most of the time, even to me it looked like he did get help. I wanted to believe completely but something always kept me back from doing so.

My father married me to a man who is very like me intellectually. He does not believe in fate or karma or asking a higher power for help. He doesn’t pray at all but he believes in God. He says that we are each to do the best of whatever we can and must try to be self-sufficient. He thinks praying is like asking for favors and also that faith is like a crutch which could make us too dependent sometimes. My mother and brother certainly take the faith bit to the opposite extreme relying on God to do everything and not doing anything at all but still worrying. So I come in the middle and try to work out what makes sense and I have yet to come to a conclusion.

It could be that we are all instruments of a higher power whose purpose in life is preordained. We have no foreknowledge of it so we move ahead blindly secure in the thought that whatever happens is for the best. It could also be that we are all images of God and are required to use our gifted abilities to make choices and live life in a guilt-free and happy manner. It could also be that we are stumbling along making mistakes and learning from them just like mice in a laboratory and God is watching the fun. I have no answer and have instead a sneaky feeling that finding the answer to this may actually solve the riddle of life ;-)

My chair...

I just finished painting a chair. There's nothing spectacular about that surely. But for me it helped in so many ways. First of all I know nothing of painting or chairs except that you need a brush for the first and a seat for the second! So when I thought I was fed up of the ratty looking old cane chair relegated to the back portico, I decided to just go ahead and do something about it. Off I went to the hardware store where I got some sandpaper, paint, thinner and a brush. The brush was not the absolute right size but that was all they had. The chap didn't know if I would need wood primer for an old chair and was confused when I asked. One obliging customer in the shop told me I didn't need it - and I thought it didn’t matter -at least the chair should be usable for a while longer and its an experiment at best. I wasn't sure about the varnish and reasoned that it could only be applied after the paint and so deferred its purchase.

Then I got home and pulled out the old chair to have a good look. It was faded, bleached a washed out color because of all the sun that hit it. Black discolorations suffused the back of the chair which had intricate crisscrossing patterns. I tried my best to sandpaper out the black mould but most of it still stuck and the back of the chair was too impenetrable to my scrubbing. So I decided to simply paint it as is. I started off and soon began to enjoy myself thoroughly. It took me 3 days to finish one coat since I devoted only an hour or two to it everyday. But already the chair was looking so much better. With added zeal I put on another coat of paint and the chair was magically transformed. I wanted to make it perfect and spent hours making sure every spot; every twist of the twined rope, every crevice in the patterned back was touched with paint. The chair looked absolutely wonderful to my eyes – I reveled in the sight of it.

The whole point I am trying to make here is that the medium was immaterial; it was the action that got me results. I have always been afraid that I could never finish what I started. My initial enthusiasm and passion wanes faster than a sprig of jasmine. I am always afraid of making mistakes. But this time I simply took on a new task without thought of success or failure – I would simply do it. I also finished the task to perfection with not a drop of paint on my portico tiles. It felt very good – a simple thing in truth but an eye-opener for me to let myself be and do anything that comes naturally and to do so without the fear and anticipation of failure.

Me and driving

I am terrified of driving. Its a physical fear akin to the fear of heights. My knees tremble, my heart races and I am short of breath at the very thought of driving. I have driven a few times in my life and actually did not find it bad. But each time I stop for a while I cannot get myself to do it again. The fear kicks in anew like this nasty disease that doesn't go away. The idea of going in traffic scares the life out of me - I imagine all kinds of scenarios where my mind refuses to work and I am stuck on a busy road at peak traffic time!
I do not have a license now - I let mine lapse and never bothered to get another one. I have a driver and have not felt the need to go through the process of re-learning everything just to subject myself to Bangalore traffic. But that being said I have to admit that the expense and my driver's very frequent tantrums drive me up the wall often enough to consider being completely independent on that front now and again. It sounds so silly when I write it down - how difficult can it be? There are innumerable Bozos on the road - why can't I nerve myelf to do it?

Well, for one I ahve never felt comfortable while driving. The car does not feel like an extension of myself but rather like an alien I am trying to subjugate. If I look to my left mirror while changing lanes (ha - in Bangalore no one changes lanes - they go how they want), my car moves left - if I look at the right mirror , my car moves right!! Ridiculous but true. Parking is another nightmare if I have to reverse into a space.I have this weird theory that right and left have the opposite meanings when I reverse - so I have to stop and think what to do before I go ahead - it does sound too awful for words when I write it down:-(.

Also I have no love for the clutch - why in God's earth do I have to deal with that? I never remember to press it when I press the brakes and so the engine shuts off dutifully. I absolutely hate that! My right and left legs simply refuse to work together in coordination which is why I am dance-challenged as well I think. I asked my husband whether we could go for an automatic and he siad if I don't learn to drive a stick-shift, I might as well not bother and why not use the two perfectly good cars here instead of selling one and getting an automatic? He has a point I admit but I can't even bring myself to try :-(

I wonder if there is any therapy for this?

Cooking delights

I love cooking. There are endless ways to do things with a limited set of ingredients. Finely chopping onions instead of coarsely chopping them transforms a recipe instantly. Grinding them and letting them brown over slow heat takes longer and tastes completely different. Fresh coconut can be made into a masala paste with cumin and red chilies and it is miles away from golden roasted coconut ground into a masala paste with the very same cumin and red chilies. I feel free to let my imagination have its way and enjoy the whole process so thoroughly that it stops being a chore and instead is relaxing. But of course that's not for everyday cooking - its for those days when some inspiration hits me and I head for the kitchen to try it out. Sometimes I don't have to taste at all - I can even figure out if the amount of salt is sufficient from just the aroma. Some other times even before I make something I know its going to turn out very well because I feel like making only that dish and nothing else on that day. The best stress buster though has to be kneading dough. I take out all my anger and frustrations on the dough and they turn into the most melt-in-your-mouth parathas in the world (talk about transformations!) My husband must count himself lucky because he not only gets great dinners, he also has a wife who’s not fond of eating and therefore stays irritatingly slim no matter what ;-)

Invisible

The little girl was invisible. She always faded away. No one could see her or hear her because she was so quiet. Her favorite place to hide was under the corner table. The table itself was so small that no one noticed it or thought it big enough to be a likely candidate for a hiding place. She could fit in just right under it. Curled up with her chin touching her knees she would weep silently. Even she did not know why she felt so alone or why she felt the need to hide and test if any one would notice. Her sister and brother were out there somewhere and she was the middle one who lived in a world of her own. She always dreamed and loved living out the stories that she read every day. For her, her life began only after she read her first book. The endless possibilities in a story, the way the words wove together and took you to a place far away, and the way the characters seemed like friends who understood – all of these made reading her favorite means of spending time.

Deep inside she was always a little sad. It was hard for an 8 year old to figure out why she felt that way. What was it in her life that kept her from smiling with all her heart? She had a safe life and she was good at studying. In fact that was her only noticeable trait - the one thing that kept her from being unwanted in her family. She had always felt that her elder sister got a lot of attention because she demanded it and she had a temper to match. Her younger brother was the darling of both the parents because he was the only son. She used to believe that the only thing more unwanted than a middle child was one who also happened to be the second daughter!

So she tried to be invisible. It wasn’t very hard. She was a no-problem child, the kind no one ever notices but simply pats on the head and says “what a good little child” and promptly forgets. She would be remembered at meal times and when it was time to get ready for school. She had no special attachment to her brother whom she thought of as the usurper of whatever rights she had had till that point. She was scared of her sister who could command her to do anything. Her parents were blissfully unaware of her problems. They thought that food was the most important thing in life and therefore if you overfed the kids, you were doing a great job bringing them up. Again her siblings loved to eat whereas she hated it – it was almost like she wanted to distance herself from a family that didn’t understand her. And she continued to be invisible…

a haunting melody

I have this song I love to hear. I cannot say why I like it exactly. It is a song about love but normally that doesn't mean much to me. But this singer's voice tugs at my heart unbelievably. My eyes fill up unknowingly. How can there be so much pathos and passion in a voice? I listen to it and visions of all the romantic moments in my life flash past in my mind - not only romantic moments but courageous ones, sad ones - indeed all the moments when my heart was totally involved. To have such an effect on a person, the song has to be pure and the voice as well. I am sure that if I get to know the scene in whichever movie this song comes from, I will be sorely disappointed. I know that if I know the details of the personal life of the singer I will be disappointed. I want to know nothing but the song itself and I don't want to mar its effect by trying to know more.

I wonder whether others have this same experience - I am sure they do. There must be some song that plays in your mind when you are at your lowest - something that pulls you up and inspires you. There will be some song that can kindle romance instantly. To each his own then and to the power of music :-)

Being beautiful

She was not beautiful but she always wanted to be. She remembered being considered cute when she was small because of her wide eyes, fair skin and curly locks. She grew out of it and was used to hear her father and mother not saying anything about her appearance. When all of her friends’ parents would take pains to help make their children look their best, her parents would tell her to wear whatever fit. They would get her good clothes but her opinion was never asked and usually she was too thin to do those clothes justice. Most of the time she wore her sister’s hand-me-downs and sometimes even her brother’s hand-me-ups because she the scrawny middle child and her younger brother and elder sister were stout kids and outgrew their clothes really quick.

As she grew older, she felt more strongly that her appearance lacked something. Her mother was beautiful and she longed to be like her. Her father frequently said that neither her sister nor she could come anywhere close to her mother in looks. The sensitive little girl took it to heart believing it to be true. Never could she accept a compliment on her looks without doubting its sincerity even after many years.

She blinked at her reflection in the mirror snapping herself out of the reverie and smiled at yet another memory. This was years later when she was in college. She was out walking with a guy. He hadn’t impressed her at first when she thought he wanted to spend time with her for not quite acceptable reasons. Later, she felt he might just want a friend and she gave the guy a chance and trusted him. He never let her down and grew to be a friend whom she could count on. This particular summer day early on in their relationship when they were walking, things were a little different. She had just bathed and was looking as fresh as a water lily. Her hair was her best feature – it was gloriously thick and reached halfway down her back. She didn’t like it when it was left open because there seemed to be too much of it. She patted at her hair distractedly and hoped deep within that she didn’t look too shabby. They walked on chatting aimlessly and sat down on a convenient rock in one of the valleys that dotted the campus. Suddenly he had this funny look on his face – he opened his mouth, choked a bit and said in a soft voice – “you have the loveliest lips I have ever seen”. She jumped up startled and muttered some nonsense before bolting away. Years later she still remembered this because it was the first time she felt beautiful in her life and the memory always brought a smile to her heart as did her reaction to it at that time. In the years that followed her reactions to other compliments ranged from disbelief to discomfort but never acceptance.

Slowly she came back to the present as she sat at her dressing table. She picked up her brush and stroked her hair and wished that perhaps one day she could love herself enough to feel beautiful.