Presently yours...

There is something about acceptance that opens the floodgates of happiness into your life. I don’t talk of accepting anything and everything or being indifferent to painful moments. I talk about simply accepting when things change, when a natural organic transformation occurs and you realize that instead of living in the past you must let the present be the most important thing in your life. For some people and I admit to being one of them, the past assumes too much significance. I look over my shoulder so much that it is a wonder I am not permanently lopsided. All of the looking back did me no good whatsoever. I have not yet learnt to be perfectly in the present but I am trying and perhaps one day it will come on its own.

The future is another kettle of fish entirely though. Even if one schools oneself to let go, at least temporarily, of the past there is yet the worry for what the future holds. Our entire lives, we are trained to think of what we have to do in order to get where we are told we must go. A baby needs to hold up its head, turn over, crawl, babble and ultimately walk and talk to everyone’s satisfaction. Then the child must be admitted to the perfect school with perfect teachers which is more of a fantasy than anything Terry Pratchett could come up with. Then of course the child must do extremely well in school – or at least well enough that the neighbours grow green with envy. Every single moment we are trained to think of how to live for the moments to come. Only children, as a friend of mine told me yesterday, are capable of living in the present but we beat it out of them thoroughly given enough time.

Therefore I get back to talking of the past. No one can leave the past behind them for it is what makes us who we are but we can choose our reaction to it. There is no need for what is done and over with to claim our actions or lead us on to a path of unhappiness. Choosing to let the past weaken its hold over us is the first step to finding meaning in the present alone. You can only control what you are doing right now. Try and do what you do with hope and a prayer on your lips. Try not to wonder if it can be done any better by anyone else or whether you will end up regretting doing it at all. Simply take a deep breath and put your all into what you want to do, your passion, your belief, your being and then you find you cannot go wrong. 

I worry about the future when I cannot envision it. I worry about it for my child even when I can envision it. Worry sours life to such an extent that you would fear to try anything new. And yet there is one thing that I have consciously changed about myself. In the last five years, I have done things I have not thought possible for me to do. Despite feeling visceral fear, I have done them. Some maybe laudable and some not but at least I have felt alive at those moments when I decided to simply go ahead and act. That is why living in the present is so magical - it makes you do instead of dream…

Disconnected...

There are days when you feel as though you are floating on an ocean of disconnectedness - you don't understand anyone and no one understands you and you begin seeing things in a light that is entirely new - revelations are not always pleasant and shadows are sometimes preferable to light. There will always be days when you feel as though you are and always will be alone. These days may not occasion pain or sadness but they do engender a feeling of pointlessness in relationships. You can feel lonely anywhere and at any time. There is no defence against feeling disconnected.

The last couple of days saw me feeling the sense of disconnect very strongly. There didn’t seem to be any trigger or rather the trigger was something that I had discounted. I tried to reflect on the source of the disquiet that led me to feeling detached. For detachment always comes as a consequence of hurt. At least in my case it does.

I feel disconnected with people who have no time for me. I feel disconnected with people who take me for granted and who expect me to be tolerant beyond limits. Most of all I feel disconnected with people who once meant a lot to me and now do not create a ripple in my heart. I never actually believed that better material prospects and a fancier lifestyle would change relationships to such a degree that they cease to exist. But I was completely mistaken. There must be only a handful of fools who believe what they are told and trust implicitly. I am certainly one of those.

Perhaps this is how the world works. Proximity is convenience. Distance brings with it indifference. Even in today’s world where everyone is connected to everything at every single moment in time, distance is hard to overcome. Virtual lives only get you so far. The visceral impact of a real relationship is hard to beat after all.

I think I am an anachronism. Someone who should have ceased to exist a long time ago. The things I believe in appear outdated. The sentiments that I express seem long-winded and a waste of time. The truth is that in today’s reality people want abbreviated versions of everything. Even love is an acronym. Messages need to be only so many characters long. Relationships should have the lifespan of mayflies. More needs to be done in a shorter period of time. Who would understand a woman who appears to be frozen in time watching the world whizz past as she views the flickering lights of passing relationships?

To dance...

I sit on the couch at the end of a long day with the TV playing as I watch more or less unseeingly. I think of this and that while my thoughts slide around in a lazy manner for even my thoughts are too tired to cause me problems. And then I see her, my little sprite, her permanently messy hair swirling about her face as her limbs sway and her body moves in time to some silly jingle.

My girl can dance to anything and everything. Any tune that takes her fancy has her jumping out of her seat and bursting into a dance. It’s a revelation to me that there can be inside anyone this level of joy which needs but a tune to emerge in the form of carefree dance. How irrepressible is the spirit of children! My tired eyes look at her and find fresh energy. I start smiling without knowing that I am smiling.

My day is always long and I am always too exhausted to find energy at the end of it. Its good exhaustion though; the kind that comes from working on something meaningful and necessary. And yet the last hour on the couch sees me asking the kids to fetch me water or some other little indulgence because I cannot summon the energy to do it myself. They oblige and while Appu seems tired on some days, Mahi is bubbly till she pulls the quilt up under her chin and drifts off to sleep.

Today I watch her dance to the theme music of a detective show. Each day she yells “Look Amma – new steps!” and comes up with different steps for the same song. How light she is on her feet and how easily she can dance! I have always been too self-conscious and the weight of that self-consciousness has never left my feet. They appear leaden in comparison with my daughter’s. I think back to my childhood and wonder if I too was as light on my feet once but I cannot clearly remember this kind of happy dancing. I know I did twirl like any little girl would. But I also know that most often I would hold my limbs to myself and sit ever so quiet even when the most tempting songs came my way.

As one grows older, the weight of responsibilities and expectations seems to flow into every part of our bodies till each part feels heavier. Of course I know people who can dance no matter what their age and it is not of actual dance that I talk about. The feeling of lightness that makes life feel like a dance is part of the nature of children. One loses that lightness over time as the deposit of fears, worries and anxieties begin to add up.

My little one dances now. I see her and laugh in delight at the beauty of her childish grace. Beneath the laughter is a prayer – a prayer that she keeps her lightness and her spirit to dance away the blues for all time. Along with the prayer is a fond wish that in another life maybe I too will learn how to dance…

New dawns...

As always another year dawns. As always there are celebrations and resolutions. As always the end of the old year is a good time to look back at milestones and wonder what the year ahead holds for us. What is important though is to look back with gratitude and to look forward with hope for without gratitude for the days we have been given, we cannot in anyway learn to appreciate the days we have ahead.

The past year has seen a series of highs and possibly a record of lows as well but then that is life. The lessons I have learnt are the lessons that anyone would learn from a roller coaster ride of dizzying highs and nauseating lows. The first one is to not let either the highs or lows get to you. If you overly celebrate the euphoric moments, then the lows feel even worse. It is best to step back and take everything in your stride by not letting your inner self get too carried away. You cannot experience great joy without also opening yourself up to great pain. But you can accept and be grateful and you certainly can distance yourself from that which causes you pain. Life is not in anyone’s control but your reactions to pain, to success, to failure, to unfair treatment, to betrayal – these define you. The reactions are yours to take control of. They are the only things you can shape so that you end up balanced instead of tossed madly about in the choppy waves of your creation.

The next lesson is that of balance. I understand the general movement towards positivity and the strength in visualising things as much better than they are but what few people remember is that a constant radiation of positivity is not healthy especially when it does not flow naturally. How long can you fake positivity if you cannot really see the bright side in every setback? Undue negativity is harmful to both body and mind but unrelenting positivity is not beneficial either. As in all things in life what is desperately required in most lives is harmony. A balance in dealing with life’s offering tempered by a large dose of acceptance and a distinct absence of overthinking. Always easier said than done and yet we all can achieve balance if we seek to.

The other lesson I have learnt is that most people in my life lack empathy. They think the passage of years takes away the spearing ache of loss of a loved one. True, there is dullness built up over time but if you have an iota of empathy, you will know that the kind of grief that fills one on such a loss is not something that you forget in a day and it certainly is not something that you leave another alone to face day after day after day. If you only feel another’s pain once you have experienced comparable grief then you do not have empathy. I have learnt that I have it within me to forgive the lack of empathy in another and continue to support those who need it while they are grieving. It is a valuable lesson to know that I can forgive - it is also curiously liberating to know that those I believed were stronger were quite clearly not so. Oftentimes we underestimate our own value and play down our strengths. In the New Year, I will seek to believe in myself more.

In this past year I have seen transformed friends bathe in the waters of vanity to the extent that they notice nothing around them but their selfies. I have seen people try to tear down something simply because they are jealous of the accomplishments of others. I have seen idols fall. I have seen great things happen simply because of hard work. I have lost faith in something that I thought was a truth. I have realized the strength of my roots. And I have found a river of dogged endurance in me that I thought had dried up to nothing at all.

The New Year will continue to teach all of us lessons in faith, endurance, sparing a moment for another, dealing with loss and not losing your head over success. It will remind us to be kind and compassionate. It will try us for a while and see if we can make the cut. But most importantly it gives us 365 more days to choose what we want to do and do it. For all of my friends and loved ones, may the new year be one of good choices, self-belief and the ability to be kind – may you be healed of old wounds – may you find within you the strength to go after your dreams.

To exist ...

It will come to you as a sudden revelation. Or in the case of some people it will probably never come at all. Only the annoying thinkers are plagued with the burden of analysing life and retracing one’s steps or looking over the shoulder endlessly. I am one such idiot and no matter how hard I try to not do any of that, the thoughts continue to flow through my mind – one after the other, ceaselessly battering against my defences. My revelation was simple though this time. It hit me that I have never dared to follow my dream simply because I was too bothered about my duties and responsibilities.

Yes its true that one has to live in this society and do certain things in certain ways. If you are a young girl, you get married off after college. If you get married, you must have children. If you have children, you must look after them. If you are brilliant, you will still put yourself second to every other member of your immediate family. You will push your dream so far on the back burner, that it will cease to exist and one fine day you simply don’t want to go on as you are. My revelation hit me so hard, you could have knocked me down with a feather. My upbringing that was designed to offer little or no exposure, the conditioning that made me  feel constantly guilty, the voices all around that told me to support another for all time but never take a moment out to say that I didn’t want to do it, I simply wanted to live my own life – the one that I was born into alone and the one that I will leave on my own – all of these together prevented me from seeing the writing on the wall. You have one life. It is not to be lived for another no matter how many people say that a real woman always sacrifices.

To write in the midst of myriad responsibilities. To be a lone parent sixty percent of the time.  To teach on days one cannot even lift one’s head.  To break down in solitude over and over again when the days are so hard that you simply cannot cope. To sit and wonder – what on earth happened that made me do whatever was necessary for others’ dreams and do nothing about my own! There lay the path to self-annihilation. There is no excuse for neglecting one’s self so totally that no one else gives a damn or if they do it is for purely selfish reasons. Many women fall into this ridiculous trap. Just as many others piggyback onto their spouses’ glory to boast needlessly. Neither is necessary. Every single human being has a path to follow in life. If it means choosing it against whatever comfort zone you have created, if it means going against the grain, if it means giving up relationships in order to forge a true one with yourself, you still have to do it. Or else it is as though you have never existed.