Give them wings...

The other day, a friend of S’s drops by at home with his wife. They have been out looking at houses because they liked the complex we lived in. The man waxed eloquent about the beauty of the property while the wife said it looked too quiet. She liked being in the middle of noise and hubbub. S was away travelling so I listened politely to their dissensions on the subject of the house. Over tea I asked them why they needed a house in Bangalore when they lived in Dubai. Moreover, they already owned a flat in a posh area of Bangalore so why the urgency?

Then the floodgates opened and they started talking about their only son who was about 19 or 20. He was smart and did well in academics. He got placed in a college in Canada but his mother didn’t want him to leave to a faraway land. Dubai boasts of no higher education prospects so he would have to leave his mother anyway but she wanted some closer option. He got through to REC Calicut which is arguably one of the best engineering institutions in the country. I was suitably impressed. The youngster seemed well set on his way to a good future.

Now the complaints started. REC was not colourful. Nothing happened there. The students were there to study. Where was the fun in college life? His mother chimed in with complaints about the furniture being boring and seemed appalled that he had to share a room with others. I began to understand the nature of their issues. At first I tried to speak with a measure of patience. I told them I had studied in REC Calicut and found it a great experience. I had been in hostels for 8 years. It taught me independence. As for the furniture, that was not really a problem for me – I had better things to do than check the interior décor. We tried making the best of what we had as students. We would put up lanterns or flowers or posters and brighten up our rooms. The convent where I stayed for five years did not have fans in the rooms. Bear in mind that I am talking of a tropical state like Kerala – so while it wasn’t always easy, it was never that hard either.

The benefit of living in a hostel is that you gain the ability to adjust. You try not to read into people by external appearance alone. You hear different viewpoints from those you have been exposed to in your sheltered existence. You learn how to make do with the limited money (at least in most of our cases) that you are allowed a month. You learn the joy of making friends. You read endlessly and find people who share your interests so you stay up all night debating or listening to music or having mad midnight snack parties. 

As the couple continued to talk I realized that they weren’t asking for an opinion. They had already decided to move their son out of the prestigious REC to a private college in Bangalore so he could live it up. They simply wanted to appear to be debating the issue. They were looking for a house to use as a weekend home. The youngster felt that he was no longer a winner the way he was in Dubai. In REC he was not the best, there were too many ahead of him in the game and he wasn’t getting noticed. He wanted to win – he wasn’t used to losing and therefore his parents were running helter-skelter to ensure that his every wish was granted.

I smiled to myself. If you have problems run to mommy. If you cannot work hard enough to be a winner, find a place filled with the mediocre so that you will look like a winner. Fun should be your top priority and if you cannot get a job, well then what’s daddy’s money for anyway? An intelligent young man chooses the easy way out. His parents enable behaviour that is designed to make him less than he needs to be. Did they plan to be immortal? What would he do when he faced one of the many setbacks that is part of life?

It is rather sad that so many youngsters are taught to take the easy route. Parents cast a wide and heavy safety net so that their kids never learn to be independent. I look around at my boys in the autism centre. They overcome unbelievable difficulties just to sit and work. They may never have a chance at an independent life. Their parents will never rest easy. And then I look at all those privileged young men and women who have but to say the word and their doting parents scramble to give it to them on a silver plate. Why are we creating an entire generation that does not know the value of hard work? Why are we teaching our children to be passive? I think it’s time parents take a good look at themselves and see how their all-encompassing cosseting love is keeping their children from growing to their full potential. Else we will be stuck with a generation of whiners.

For the love of money...

I haven’t written in a while. It’s not because I don’t have anything to write about. Rather, I appeared to have too many things on my mind for me to write about any one idea coherently.So today I write about money and the lessons learnt on account of having it and not having it. Life is not only about lessons learnt, it is mostly about how you apply those lessons. I was thinking of the years long ago when my husband was heading a company at the age of 32. We both had attitude. We knew there was money. There was respect. We never had to think twice outside our own bubble of comfort. We never partied or splurged in the conventional sense because our son had a tough time with noise and crowds when he was little. But we also did not save money because we were rather too cocky for our own good.

Fast forward to a few years ahead with most of our savings invested in our own venture. We learnt the value of a rupee in a very real sense. We didn’t shop unnecessarily. We didn’t change our car because it was 3 years old. We didn’t change the furniture that the kids had gleefully left their imprint on. We took the bus to work. We learnt to reuse. We also learnt to manage our finances in a more intelligent form. Of course we were still under the delusion that a few years of this struggle would see our path would become thorn-free again.

Move the timeline again to the recent past and cast the spotlight on what was arguably one of the toughest years I have ever encountered. It tested me mentally and physically in ways I cannot describe. It changed me irrevocably in a way my normal little mistakes in trusting people hadn’t. The lessons I have learnt now have a lot to do with understanding the role of money in life. People give too much importance to money and not in the right manner. I know better than most people around me the value of monetary security but I don’t need money in the way these very same people need it. I don’t need it to prove a point. After this past year, I can now feel gratitude for having the strength to tide over difficult phases. I am not praying for an easy life. I only pray for the courage to face anything head on and to never say no to a challenge. Life can take whatever turns it wants – I have the lessons I need to survive.

Money is terribly important I agree but when it turns out that it is a means of discrimination instead of upliftment; I wonder where the rapacious greed rampant in the world around us will take us eventually. Use money wisely but don’t let it rule you so that it defines who you are. Let your humanity define you. Let people matter more than what they can pay you. Let the change you bring about be the legacy that speaks for you.

To laugh with...

 Sometimes days go by when I keep my mind from indulging in its deepest worries. I can even go a week without letting my fears get the better of me. That is a distinct improvement over my mental state a decade ago when not a moment would pass that the worry didn’t overwhelm me and render me panic-stricken and too anxious to function normally. I don’t recall being able to smile even for days together. But when my baby girl came into my life I learnt how to smile again. The worry was mitigated by the ability to feel happiness.

Today when I look back at the years traversed all I can see is the tremendous amount of pain and hardship my son has had to go through and continues to go through. He is such a happy kid despite all that and that is a huge blessing for those of us who love him. If I had to go through a tenth of what my child had to endure, I doubt I would have survived. And yet this boy of mine is so utterly lovable and such a champion hugger that I know there will always be love in his life in some way or the other.

As a mother however I still yearn for him to have friends – for someone to want his presence in their life, for someone who will call him home and laugh and play and talk with him without regard for time and with true enjoyment. How do I explain to people who tell me not to worry that they will never understand this unbearable agony? It is not the fact that my child will never be considered ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’ that bothers me. After all I am hardly normal myself. It is the fear that there will never be one who laughs with him instead of at him when I am gone. Do you know how hard it is to live with that feeling and that fear every single day? I pray you never will know.

I always write on Autism Awareness Day – not because I need to be reminded of it but because I see so many hopeful messages on one side and stark reality on the other that I cannot not write about it. My friends care enough to tell me to stay positive despite the tough days. And I try but reality has a weight all on its own that drags down one’s spirits during the times when nothing goes well. And these very friends panic when their children have an ordinary fever – would they have been able to bear a lifetime of panic? So yes positivity is great but it requires a foundation of belief. When the belief is torn down and rebuilt painstakingly every single day, it is not always possible to be positive.

I still pray everyday for this child of mine to shine bright. He has his place in the sun. I hope he will revel in it. I hope he will have the strength to be alone. Most of all I hope he finds that special someone who will hold his hand and laugh with him…

Tentacled thoughts...

I have been out of sorts lately. Not unwell. Not in any way inconvenienced. Just out of sorts. It happens to me when I am not writing. It is almost as if the thoughts that hurt me spread their tentacles into my mind and body and hold on tenaciously unless I write. When I write, the tentacle grips of my thoughts release their hold on me and I am loose and relaxed once more. I know not the beauty of total relaxation but I doubt anyone who writes can know the feeling of being completely free of the compulsion to put thought to words and onto paper. So I thought I would write whatever came into my mind or rather whatever has been unsettling me so that I can face tomorrow with a fresh mind and stronger effort.

I was thinking of the inevitability of letting go of certain people who can never mean what they once meant. I have written a lot on the effect of distance on a relationship but the effect of callousness is much greater. When someone decides there is no time to spare or the time spared for a relationship is burdensome, then there is no relationship. When the weight of the words unsaid far exceeds that of the words spoken between two people, there is no longer a bond. I thought of the many people I had known – friends, those more than friends, those newcomers who managed to make a place in my heart and wonder how a moment’s callousness or unwillingness to take time can irreparably destroy something that took years to build. 

Is there a purpose in spending time knowing people and caring for them if it takes but a minute to dissolve the bond that was built? The answer I have come up with it is that it is not the relationship that matters in the end, it is what has changed in you that matters – how many happy moments you have carved out of a life that would otherwise be ordinary, how many lives you have affected, how many times the bond has given you strength to move forward when you never thought you could. Every relationship that has taught you love, hurt, betrayal, hope has also taught you how to deal with all of it – it is in the learning that you grow as a person.

I also thought of a friend who seems to be going through a really tough phase. I can see the hurt and the pain and even the confusion. The answers come to me but I don’t share them. I see mistakes about to be made but I cannot actually stop them from happening. The truth is that there are certain circumstances when even with the best intentions all you can do is stand and watch and let someone make their mistakes. You can also be there when they need comfort. Knowing when to keep quiet is a valuable learning.

My other thoughts had to do with never ending work – when will the day come when our little centre can stand on its own feet and flourish – when all the days of work achieve fruition and when we can sit back and actually smile with relief at a job well done? I worry about being able to visualize my future and that of my loved ones. Sometimes the same thoughts go around in my mind so many times that I greet them as old friends. Sometimes new thoughts come and mingle with the old overpowering them for a while and then fading away leaving me once again with my old friends. If I sit and observe my thoughts, I know they never change in essence but I also know that their tenor changes and the way I view them changes. That is entirely due to the impact of life’s lessons – you may worry or think endlessly about those problems you cannot solve but eventually you will learn to accept them and view them as sources of strength and inspiration rather than issues you must resolve at all cost.

Thus ends my ramblings for the day – an ode to thoughts …

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…