In praise of the ordinary...

Can one be inspired by the ordinary? I used to think that the very fact of existing in a quiet and routine fashion would deter creativity. How much could one write when all around was just normalcy perhaps now and then tinged with pathos or humour! And yet I have managed to write something or the other for years – it doesn’t matter if anyone reads it – the very fact of being able to write while leading a humdrum life is quite a feat. Of late I have been wondering whether I have enough in me to write my dream book however. 

Obviously anything I write would have a basis in fact and the facts I have lived with or have observed aren’t extraordinary or earth-shattering – they are commonly known truths. The characters I see around me are ordinary too – it is only perhaps in the way I can depict them that a measure of interest may creep in. The instances of joy or sorrow in my life too are not unique. What then can I write about that would make anyone want to read my stories?

A recent movie that I saw made me think more about celebrating the mundane. It was quite an eye opener that made me view the little notes I wrote about everyday life in a new light. I always write about the ordinary. I always learn little lessons from them. I always take joy from what to another would seem almost inconsequential. A perfectly made cup of tea, or the appearance of tiny green grass to replace the yellow patches in my lawn, the ringing laughter of my children, the look of appreciation in my husband’s eyes when I drape myself in a sari – simple things to make my heart sing. I write about these – with the desire to celebrate life’s little pleasures. I also write about the pain of misunderstandings, of incessant worry over a child one has failed, of relationships one must say goodbye to. It is after all these nuggets that make up one’s existence.

The reason I loved the movie I saw was the way the ordinary was portrayed and perhaps that’s why I continue to write about regular life – to portray that subtle beauty. My stories or observations may not be unique but my words and the thoughts behind them are definitely different. Maybe I have been ignoring the beauty of simplicity in my efforts to find a perfect theme to write about. I write about reality – not the elevated, convoluted kind – the simple everyday kind. Why then do I see that as something to be apologetic about? Is it possible to be taken seriously when one only wants to tell the world to look around and see the miracles that happen with every beautiful sunrise? I don’t know really but maybe I should start to find out...

Revelations.

Have you ever experienced a moment of revelation in your life? I have gone through a few but they are rare occurrences. The moments I am talking about are ones that provide great insight into a subject that you have up until then thought of only in one way. Of course there are many times when a simple change in point of view is brought about. Sometimes its a friend who makes you see things differently. Sometimes its words uttered by a child that turns your thinking around. Sometimes its the words in a book that jump out at you. I am not talking of those moments. I am talking of a moment when you are sitting quiet and suddenly a thought of such startling clarity and simplicity flashes into your mind that you are astounded that you had never known it before.

I remember clearly one day about six years ago when I had such a moment. I was brushing my hair in front of the mirror and for the first time in many years, actually paid attention to the reflection before me. I couldn’t recognize the colourless creature I had become. I did not seem to care how I looked. I did not have the joy of living anywhere about me. The worst part was my eyes – they were pools of disinterest. They looked lifeless. That’s when it hit me that I was so unhappy and that my days consisted mainly of following a forced routine so that I didn’t get much time to think about my unhappiness even for a minute. 

And just like that I made a promise to myself to start living life with interest and perhaps a bit of selfishness – with the desire to fill myself with joy and to be a better wife and mother by actually allowing myself to be happy. That one moment changed me in a big way. I went out and got myself a job. I made friends after years of being cooped up in a house. I remembered how to laugh, how to go out for an occasional lunch just for the heck of it, how it felt to be part of a team.

Another moment came to me a few days ago. I was grappling for days with the hurt from the fact that someone whom I cared for could leave without apology or even a word of closure. I understood the need for it of course but I prefer always to close the loop with my friends. It leaves less of a bad taste in the mouth and one can actually deal with it quite stoically. I wondered how it was so effortless for some to close their mind to things they didn’t wish to contemplate. I wasn’t very clear-headed about the fact that sometimes there is no point in even trying to figure out what goes on in another’s mind. I was even bitter to some extent that I, who pride myself on being quite smart, made yet another error of judgement. If I was hard on my friend in my mind, I was rather merciless on myself. 

This then was what was going through my mind when all of a sudden I had this revelation. It didn’t matter. My purpose in life wasn’t to keep hurting when I did stupid things. Clearly I would never stop doing that! My purpose in life was to be happy doing the things I love with the people I love – not with the people who perhaps never understood me at all. My purpose was to fulfil every promise I made to my family and to myself. My purpose was to move on always despite any odds and to do so with my head held high. With the revelation came a detachment as well. Only I had the power to make me unhappy and from now on I would forever choose not to. 

I love these rare moments of clarity. I don’t relish the turbulence that my mind goes through before the calm hits it but it is all worthwhile to feel that blanket of utter certainty envelop you. Once you experience these moments, you look at everything in your life with more appreciation, you learn to be grateful – most of all you learn to respect yourself for the new understanding that floods your being. Here’s to more revelations....

Weeding...

I woke up pensive today. I was trying to eject some patently unpleasant truths from my mind – those truths that I was not yet ready to accept. I grew quiet and restless and looked out the window to my front lawn. It had rained the previous night and the grass glowed as though lit from within – the soft greens calmed my too-tense mind and I went out to feel the grass on my bare feet.

I love to walk on the damp and springy grass. I love the way it tickles my sensitive toes. I like the cushioning feel of it – it’s a sensory delight. I noticed that a whole lot of little weeds had sprung up in the last few days and so I sat down determined to eradicate them all. While I was on my knees carefully pulling out errant weeds, my maid and little Riya walked by. Riya muttered something to her mom and promptly joined me on the lawn while her mother entered the house.

She watched carefully as I pulled out the stubborn little weeds and then proceeded to mimic my actions perfectly. She couldn’t pull them out by their roots since they were quite tough despite looking deceptively delicate but she picked the right ones to tackle. We worked side by side with an easy camaraderie – I, as usual, lost in thoughts and she, watching me like a hawk. After a while she decided to change tactics – she picked up and disposed of the African Tulip flowers that bespattered the lawn like blobs of orange paint on the vivid green of the grass. 

That was easier and a lot more fun for her – she could run around happily while doing her tasks. Once done with that, she came close to me and put out her tiny hand palm upwards. I looked up at her and smiled and placed the weed I was currently pulling into her hand. She closed her fingers tightly over it and ran to keep it away in the corner. Each time she would do this and come back with a huge grin. Each time I would hand her another plant I pulled out. We both liked the game and my lawn was looking prettier by the minute. 

I spoke to her in Malayalam and she cocked her head at me like a little puppy. I knew she didn’t follow what I said but it was a comfortable routine and we both liked it. Suddenly she squatted next to me and pointed out something that was growing at the edge of the lawn right beside the hedge. It was a long, ethereally delicate mushroom, with a silver stalk and a golden brown dome. She made to pull it out and I stopped her and simply looked at it for a while. How lovely it looked - slim and sparkling with moisture like a precious gem. “That must be what love looks like” I think to myself – for love is hard to describe and yet when you find it you know what it is instantly. I pull it out and hand it to the discard pile. There is a place for everything in life and in my lawn. And just like that my mind grows still and calm like a pond with no ripples at all in it. No more pensiveness – just an all-encompassing acceptance.

Our job done, Riya and I walk back inside together. Tomorrow we will do this again…

Scars

Wounds heal if the body is otherwise healthy. No matter how jagged the ends of the tear, they do come together. What one is left with, is a scar however. It may be unsightly or it may be barely noticeable but it is there for all time. Sometimes the scar is so slight one forgets the story behind it. At other times, the scar is a ropey discoloration that stands out on your body so that you cannot ignore it for too long. It doesn’t hurt any longer of course but it never lets you forget.

The scars I have are reminders of people I love not being there in my life anymore or of disappointments so severe that they take ages to get over. One is forced to leave friends behind while moving from one country to another. One is forced to leave family behind when going to some unknown place as a new bride. One is forced to realize that people considered to be friends actually aren’t. One is forced into the choice of leaving a loved one because circumstances dictate it. One is forced to lose a beloved parent to death itself. All the scars still exist within me. The stories behind each are remembered – every single one. The curse of having a good memory is that nothing is forgotten.

Having passed through various painful patches in my life, I am a veteran of scarred landscapes. I have a few years of smooth sailing sometimes and then I get hit left, right and centre by strong winds, heavy seas, icebergs – the whole lot. For years thereafter, its one thing after another that doesn’t go my way. And then for a while the seas are so calm and beautiful that all the previous agony is almost forgotten in the bliss of utter contentment. Just when one gets to that complacent stage, lo and behold – there comes another iceberg out of the blue. This is probably every man’s journey but here I can talk only of my own.

Will thinking differently change the way I view my scars, I wonder! After all maybe real life is all the stuff that hits you when you least expect it – the rest is merely a coffee break. If that is the case, it would be more sensible to use the breaks to renew oneself instead of imagining that they are what life should be and then growing soft so that the next storm hits harder than it might had you been more prepared.

Scars build character though. Mine are unique. They make me what I am. I feel privileged to make mistakes and learn that its alright in the long run – nothing is as dreadful as I make it out to be. My overactive imagination and ridiculous ability to take blame makes it very hard for me to forgive myself. I now realize that that is really rather silly. If I continue to blame myself endlessly, I neither get anywhere nor do I gather the strength to surpass the mistake itself. Perhaps scars are reminders to go easy on ourselves. “Look at us”, they seem to say, “we are part of you – don’t regret us”. If I can learn to view my many scars as reminders to be less hard on myself, as milestones of learning, as a testimonial to being merely human, I would not hurt myself each time I see them...

A tricky mind

I have this theory about distracting oneself from the problems at hand. It doesn’t work. I know people who think that avoiding any thought with regards to the issue will mean the issue loses its ability to wound or annoy or agitate and just go away. It doesn’t go away actually – why would it? Instead you relegate it to the deeper recesses of your mind so that what actually happens is that the worms of doubt and fear creep out in the middle of the night and grow into awesome proportions.

 I’d rather think about the issue till I fall apart with exhaustion and then go to sleep as well as I can. By immersing myself in the problem, I think about nothing else and also run out of variations to obsess on thereby freeing myself from further worry about the problem in a certain amount of time, the length of time varying according to the gravity of the problem.

I think my approach is intense but effective. Yes I do look like something the cat dragged in after a particularly nasty night out on town during this phase but I can, at the end of it all, actually move ahead. I get so bored of thinking about the same thing that I just stop worrying on my own. The journey to get to that particular destination however is not very easy. Yet it is better than distraction which smacks of deviousness and leads away from whatever it is that you are trying to get out of.

The mind is a very powerful entity. You can create a reality of your own that is so far from another’s reality that its almost as if you are living on a different planet. If I am responsible for hurting another, I feel miserable and guilty and am very hard on myself for days especially if there is no opportunity to achieve closure. I know people who never feel guilty though – it appears that in their reality, they are the most important creatures in the world and therefore while watching someone get hurt solely on account of them is unpleasant and perhaps even uncomfortable, it does not induce any sense of guilt whatsoever. Their reality is skewed to serve their purpose alone.

Even otherwise the mind plays endless tricks on you. Depending on your emotional stability, it can create illusions of various types. For a few days you are on a high, feeling invincible and unstoppable. Everything you touch turns into gold and every person who sees you cannot help but smile at your radiant effervescence. And then suddenly you find yourself dealing with a bad patch and lo and behold, you turn into a beacon of misery. You feel lost, unattractive and forget how to smile. Why is that? You know you are the same person you were a week ago. You know your strengths still exist. You know that all of life’s important things are still on your side. And yet you feel like a lesser being. 

The key to control the level of either sorrow or happiness is to limit your dependence on what the world thinks of you. Distracting yourself from misery or overindulging in something that gives you a high are both pointless in the long run. Yes it is nice to be lost in a haze of self-indulgence occasionally but you have to clarify and refine your mind and learn how to control your thoughts. It is then that the mind ceases to lead you and instead ends up becoming your biggest weapon. And that is one path I truly do need to explore from now on....