Not a textbook son?

I am a text-book personality. I don't mean I have a textbook case of neurosis but simply that most of the time I don't have the imagination to think or see beyond a set of rules or prescribed actions. That doesn't imply I am completely inflexible, just that flexibility is a mindful attribute and does not come naturally. Maybe that is why I find it so hard to connect to my son. He is as un-textbooklike as any kid can get. He has very little in common with any other child of his age. He dislikes studying or maybe being taught by me - I am not known for patience. His brain works so differently that it is almost impossible to understand why it is so. Accepting that he has a problem which is forcing him to behave this way was hard because he seemed to be fine half the time and he looks like any other kid his age (only maybe quite a bit cuter ;-)). I cannot focus on anything else because this problem is in my mind all the time. I can be productive but instead i let myself dwell on the problem endlessly without finding a solution. Meanwhile my son gets irritated at me for being stressed. A vicious circle which I recognize and hope to break.

I feel very strongly that today's children must be schooled more in emotional courage than academics because they are so unbelievably smart that studying is no longer a challenge. But becoming good human beings are. I think we are raising a generation of emotionally stunted kids who cannot look beyond themselves at the larger world view. They are also extremely intolerant. How do you think a mother feels when her child is always outside looking on? The soft heart that one assumes children should have is not visible at all. So much anger, competitiveness and a single minded desire to get the best of everything is what I see when I look at my neighbours' kids. Sometimes I wonder whether children like my son aren't aberrations from the norm , rather they are blessings that show us how a child's heart should really be if all thoughts of 'only me' are taken out of it...

Giving

Is it possible for anyone to be truly selfless while giving? I read somewhere that the true giver must give with no thoughts of anything in return not even a grateful smile or a simple thank you. I don’t know how easy that is since I am far from reaching such a state myself. I expect nothing in kind but a show of gratitude seems necessary especially when I am forced into giving (it could be money or even a service or some act to keep up the family status) and not doing so of my own volition. If I give whole-heartedly of my time or money then I feel good but would sometimes still appreciate a thank you (in a look or a smile even).

So I wonder how anyone can reach a stage where the giving alone results in happiness and joy thus removing the need for any response from the receiver. It is a wonderful trait to acquire. I think the closest we come to being truly selfless is when we are parents. I don’t ask for gratitude from my children if I spend sleepless nights watching them when they are ill and that is truly a much more difficult task than shelling out money for charity. No parent would hesitate to exchange their life for their child’s if God or fate demanded it. But we parents do expect returns in terms of obedience or excellence in academics from our children or maybe even conformance to what passes for normalcy in society. So there too we are not truly selfless even if we do place our children above ourselves.

I think for me there was only one time that I was truly selfless (other than after I became a parent). This is when I was sixteen or so. I stayed in the college hostel and there was this other girl who was my roommate. I had three roommates but she was my favorite. I liked her just for herself. I helped her quietly when she needed it and most often she was coldly polite. I did things for her because there was something in her that I felt connected to. One day during the exam season, she fell very ill and lay shivering. Everyone was busy studying. She couldn’t afford to miss the exam but she couldn’t read or hold up a book. So I sat with her to read to her all the stuff she wanted to learn and helped her for hours. I didn’t study my portions that night but it didn’t bother me. She could not believe it and her eyes filled with tears as she thanked me saying “I don’t know why you did it”. I told her to relax and rest. We both did well in the exams. The last day of our stay in the hostel, she called me aside and said she had to apologize for thinking me a snob for the last two years and thank me for continuing to be her friend even when she was deliberately rude. I simply smiled and told her that her reaction never bothered me.

I never repeated such acts later – for my branding has always been that of arrogant and perceptions change rarely. But the weightlessness that lack of expectations brings is a pleasure hard to describe. You simply be good and forget about it. My one experience made me realize years later that it was a small selfless act in my normal existence. The only problem is that I no longer am that naïve and find it hard to open my heart like I could do at sixteen – a portion of loving must accompany the giving for the giving itself to be pure – that is the most difficult part.

Risking it all

“Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death.” – James F. Bymes

I don’t have any idea who this author is or what he was famous for other than good quotes. But I quite like this one. It seems to put an ordinary statement in a new light. Most people, at least most people I know are all against taking risks of any kind. I am not a major risk-taker myself normally but I have tried it a couple of times with decent success. Most of the time though I am rather afraid of doing anything perhaps because internally I am more afraid of success and having to work for it but cloaking it under the guise of a myriad excuses.

Currently I don’t have a job (at least not one that pays!!) and neither does my husband. We are starting a company – actually he is – I am along for the ride. We have plenty of loans to pay back to various banks and we also have two children to educate and any number of expenses (unavoidable and avoidable both). So it did sound crazy to the people we knew – of course they were all encouraging but I could see the non-belief in their eyes – there were similar risk-takers in our circle of acquaintances but none who sacrificed total earning power to follow a dream. Of course my dream is different and I have yet to find a way of following it but I am trying a little everyday.

Following your dreams at the expense of security is not for everyone – not many can afford it but if you can, it is good to try at least once in this lifetime or as the saying that inspired this article implies, you will never be truly alive. Security is an illusion – that we have any control over it is an illusion – that we can plan for any eventuality is an illusion too – sometimes things happen and we have to deal with it as best we can. But it is not the goal of human life to live in fear – ours is a noble nature meant to fly and we are perhaps the only one of God’s creatures who can truly do that.

Seeping memories...

I’ve always taken my good memory for granted. I was an exceptional student who didn’t have to spend time trying to comprehend or memorize anything. All through my childhood, I devised games with rhymes and words which I think helped my retention power immensely. I remember getting this book of dinosaurs one day and my excitement at the lovely pictures in it – I must have been nine or so. The names were long and involved – not your average tyrannosaurus, brontosaurus or stegosaurus – so in order to remember them I made up a song with all the names – I did that to tackle almost anything I wanted to memorize and I loved collecting words as if they were precious stones.

It may be because of this then that I was disturbed after watching a portion of a movie yesterday. The movie was about a well read and intelligent man’s road to self-destruction because of Alzheimer’s syndrome. I won’t go into the details of the movie because I saw only twenty minutes of it but that was painful enough. I have read about this issue in books of fiction as well as in newspaper and online articles but actually seeing a portrayal was shocking. The family’s suffering was horrific. The patient himself was completely unaware (or at least only intermittently aware) of what was happening to him and he remembered only his childhood days and very little of anything else. So he was in fact mostly happy. The family on the other hand was coping with a nightmarish situation in which the primary breadwinner and the pivot of their life was unable to contribute in any way. The children lost their father and the wife lost her husband. Even death seemed preferable to seeing the merciless disintegration of a human being memory by memory.

I shudder to think of what it would be like to have a brain that is leaking memories– where nagging thoughts are vaguely eating at you but you cannot catch them – or worse, where there are a few lucid moments when you know exactly what is happening and yet are powerless to stop it.

Unlicensed but determined

My husband has the nasty habit of selling any car I start to learn driving in. It usually takes me at least two to three years after the purchase of a car to have the guts to attempt driving it. And within a week he will sell it. I do not exaggerate – may I be stricken down with lightning or whatever from the heavens if I lie. See, I’m still typing so you can be assured that this is the God’s own truth.

Why he has the irresistible urge to sell when I am in the process of beginning to get comfortable with driving is a mystery to me. I think in his secret heart, he is afraid I’d destroy his property and hence sells it off at a loss on spying his wife behind the steering wheel. This time it was a month before the vehicle was disposed off. The reason is simple. I got my driver to give me lessons (see the damn thing has a clutch – why would I want to shift gears constantly? – I think I should just move it and the car should reasonably take care of the rest) in absolute secrecy so my husband never knew or saw. But as soon as I shyly confessed to him thinking to make him proud of me because I was driving real smooth, he congratulates me enthusiastically and starts muttering into his phone. Before the week is up – ta- daaa the car’s vanished!!!

Now we have only one car – to me it looks like a truck. I am sure my husband believes I will not attempt to drive a vehicle which (look this is India) can comfortably house two of the average cars on the road. Moreover its diesel. For you neophytes, a diesel engine is a far cry from a petrol engine and behaves very differently. Now today’s technology has created a very smooth diesel engine but its still not petrol. So while I have mastered the clutch (it’s a beauty) on the truck, it still lurches whenever I do anything with it. It lurches when I take my foot off the accelerator. It lurches when I change gears. I make the car look like an old lady hobbling across the street and am heartily ashamed. And tomorrow I take it and go for my driving test. Dear God, what have I done to deserve this? Will I never be licensed?!!

ennui

Nothing deadens me like routine. Actually that’s not correct, it’s not the routine that sucks all life out of me, it’s the meaninglessness of the chores that fill up the routine. I have always thought of myself as a fairly intelligent person and cannot believe I aced academics all my life just to scrub pots. I should have gone around dating instead of actually studying and maybe I would have ended up a more fun person. Instead I have turned out to be a repressed nutcase with severe control freakishness.

How did I get myself in this soup? I had the world before me and I wasted it. A series of bad life choices and now a complete lack of future awaits me. I have tried so hard to be upbeat but I cannot do it. How can I reinvent myself at 34? Where will I find the inspiration to discover a reason for living? I am not cut out to be a great wife or mother – I cannot even fake interest anymore. The kids are not babies and seem to do well enough without my meddling. My husband can lose himself in any activity – what would he need me for? I stayed at home for a family that really doesn’t require me for anything that a maid can’t do. It is beyond comprehension how systematically I have ensured that I become redundant in every sphere of life. I alone am responsible for my present condition but how on earth can I pull myself back from the brink for that’s where I am and it is unbelievably difficult to even want to.

Steaming in Kerala

I just got back from a trip to Kerala. The only way to describe it would be hot. Its not just a plain old heat – it’s a sapping, enervating sort of heat and I wonder how I managed to stay there for ten years but then I used to be a lot more accommodating then. You get up in the morning all in a sweat and it gets worse during the day. Your eyes sting and copious rivulets cause various parts of your body to stick to your clothes.

I don’t know whether it’s only my part of Kerala that is stuffy. Everyone there has a stuffy mindset just like the weather there. Of course I love the lushness of the greenery – the fields are a glorious shade of green that is like nectar to the eyes, the soaring coconut palms are a yet another shade of green and the numerous temple tanks are varying shades of green as well. The part I don’t like is the regressive attitude of the people when it comes to personal freedom especially for women. I don’t drink, smoke, wear revealing clothes or even anything less than full length stuff but I am considered a rebel because I think differently. I don’t see anything wrong in asking my husband to help with the children. I don’t see the point in bending backwards to satisfy the inexplicable demands of society. “What will people think?” is the overriding concern of my in-laws. I understand that both I and my children are a sore disappointment to them. I don’t work or drive (yet!) but when I did work, they were upset that I had to keep more hours than a government school teacher. My children can neither sing nor dance or in any way perform to crowds and I have honestly never sent them to be trained in that fashion. I will if they are interested but I simply don’t like forcing them. So they get no attention through my children and they find it difficult to connect with them which is of course understandable.

Restraint is always taught to the females – all girls should school their features into indifference lest they attract attention and definitely no running about. I find that even during a music show, people have constipated looks and they don’t applaud much or show any expression of enjoyment – of course the youth are different but it still seems forced to me. I’m sure one more generation will take care of that .
My roots will pull me back some day though. I only hope I would have regressed sufficiently to survive there by then!