For they may come and they may go, but I love on forever!

I had a very long and a happening day yesterday.  The week had been very tiring and busy, and I was nursing a bad back as a result of all the work and running around.  I checked my mobile for messages halfway through cooking, and saw a lot of missed calls from a friend of mine, who never calls me in the morning as both of us are rushing to work. 

Worried I called her back at once, only to hear her gasping and choking, and crying.  I managed to get some sense out of her, got to call my support system, as I was not in a position to drive because of my back.  I also managed to call a couple of her friends whose number I fortunately had, and we all reached her place. 

The situation was brought under control with difficulty, and meanwhile having constant calls from my place of work, I  settled my friend, arranged for food, promised to visit the clinician with her in the afternoon.  We finished all this by 5 ‘0’ clock and went back to my place, where we hashed out the issue again and again, till we could speak no more, and she left.

The day no doubt left me drained.  The day triggered a memory of another somewhat similar incident, when I was driving back from work one day and another friend called me sobbing her heart out, and claiming to walk out of her marriage.  I turned around, went to see her, brought her home and calmed her down for the time being.  She stayed with me for a couple of days, sharing deep secrets of her life she had never shared with anyone before, and which of course I have not either till date.

They patched up and she went back home.  And after that there was not much to say… she simply dropped out of my life... like the countless others who faded out like a black and white movie.  But like I mentioned to someone earlier, the fading out of these people is not an issue for me. No one stays forever.  It is how the fading out happens that hurts.  Being there for people is a part of being me.  I cannot be anyone else.  But to know that these people who for no reason whatsoever just got up and walked away with not so much as a good-bye, have not managed to change my view  on love and relationships, and have not succeeded in making me cynical, is very very gratifying to know. I thank the universe for testing this fact!

The book I read some time ago comes to my mind now:  The Anthem By Ayn Rand.  There she speaks about how Collectivism gave way to Individualism, in the name of development and evolution.  The novel starts with the pronoun We throughout, but it is very symbolic that the last chapter of the book speaks of the protagonist as “ I”.

We are all catapulting towards the above doctrine today.  Be it in the name of self-growth, or development, or even self-awareness.  But sadly, in this process we seem to lose touch with our core selves, that one point in all of us,that keeps us connected to each other.  In the human sphere, we cannot think of it but in terms of qualifying and formalised relationships.  This kept the structure of the family, community and country together.  As time progresses, we stand stuck.  We are not growing, not imbibing the finer qualities of humaneness, but letting go of them in the name of it being burdensome, and too cumbersome.  Even the labels no longer seem to matter and disconnect seems to be the order of the day, with no time to invest in relationships.    

I remember writing a piece sometime back of a squirrel that visits my balcony every morning for crumbs.  And how the crows that caw for their share of morsel, patiently wait for the squirrel to finish eating, or the squirrel leaves some crumbs for his  companions in eating.  That was about inter-species camaraderie, a sense of belonging. 

But we are so far removed from their world today, that let alone take care of other species, we don’t even resonate with our own.  Individuation at its peak today!

Mankind attempted to keep the social fabric together by making rules and regulations in the forms of festivals, ceremonies and functions.  But he forgot to make the rules with consequences.  Or did he?  I am not sure.  Maybe the consequences are not immediate so we do not really bother.  So we redefine our priorities in attending these rituals and ceremonies, stating unavailability of time, (for we dare not yet state inclination as the cause), social pressures, etc., and beg to be excused from being present.

And when we do face the consequences, of a sense of rootlessness, of a sense of disconnect with the rest of humanity, resulting in pathological diagnosis of depression, anxiety, little do we realise that it is largely our doing;   it is a result of us running ahead so fast, leaving our loved ones behind that when we do turn back and look, we are indeed really, really alone… and perhaps too late.

MOHANA NARAYANAN

JULY 3, 2017 

Antiseptic

When I opened the spices box in the kitchen today morning, I found the turmeric powder had small insects in it. I was very surprised!  I thought turmeric is an antiseptic, and if that itself is getting infected I wondered what the way out would be. That set me thinking on a totally different line of thought, as usual, and almost burnt my toast in the process, but then that is a different story!

They say that the hurts inflicted by the near and dear ones hurts more than the ones by people who do not matter so much to you.  I actually can vouch for that.  How else do you explain the sheer disappointments you handle when you don’t have that one person calling you or being by your side when you need them the most?  You keep waiting for the door-bell to ring, for that one phone call that has the person at the other end, simply calling to say I care, I am here. You are meanwhile also fighting an internal battle, spurred by your latest knowledge of life and the living, gained from your spiritual texts or self-help books which says stop expecting from people, it’s not worth it.  Do your part without expecting anything in return.  All very well to say.  But how difficult to put it into action!

Life can be difficult without us dwelling on the have-nots I know.  And I guess my learning here would be complete only when I allow a little bit of cynicism to creep in when I form new bonds, and foster newer relationships, all the while being aware that once my role is over then whether I move on or not, the other person will, and I need to learn to accept it with grace.  But the problem is, would someone please tell the other person that the moving on also has to be done with grace? The dropping of the hot potato, the abrupt fading away, without any explanation whatsoever, all leaves so many question marks. 

MOHANA NARAYANAN

Date: unknown

Redefining Moments

I was going through my writing of my diary, which is titled Defining Moments. And I found that I had not really chronicled many of the defining moments in the recent past.  And there had been so many of them. The moments when you realise suddenly, like a thunderbolt striking you, that relationships that you thought were important suddenly cease to be so.  Like when someone stops mattering to you, and you stop mattering to someone and it no longer feels strange. Like you suddenly meet someone from your deep past, and you suddenly feel that time had not really passed at all.

But where did all these moments originate from?  They came from the depths of my being, from my threads of existence, where I had been bound by all the thoughts that formed these relationships in my head.  Had I been leading these relationships along in my head?    Were there any rules that structured these relationships and gave them meaning?  Or were they only senseless, meaningless meetings, where one thought the meeting held more meaning than it actually did?

How long can such a relationship really go on, unless it has been given a social meaning, a label from the structure that is called family?  Once you are bound by a formal label of a relationship, there is another invisible contract to it: the concept of forever, always.  And so, we drag it on, smelly, putrid, stale, not knowing how to get rid of it.  Well, I would for one not want a label on any of my relationships here afterwards.  

I divorce all my labels, and have only ‘people’ in my life.  Thus, there is no concept of rules, no concept of justification, unmet expectations, and no formal labels to tag your relationship on to.  You hold it in your hand, and you nurture it, instead of tagging it on a coat rack of a labelled relationship and remove it to wear it when you need the cloak of appearance.

So when a dear child whom you brought up in her infancy gets engaged, and that is the first thought that strikes you when you get up in the morning, and are living moment by moment when the engagement is taking place far away, and you are not there in person to see the possible glow and the tension in the air, and the prayers that all should be well, when that dear child does not spare a thought for you because you possibly no longer matter anymore to her, then that is the time when the divorce paper needs to be signed, labels erased, cloaks of pretences taken off and flushed away.

When you visit the temple to seek blessing for this very same child and slip and fall in the slush in the temple, but take it as divine grace, and the child does not even have an inkling of the thoughts that you are sending her way, then it is time for the cords to be severed.  But when you sever any cord, it hurts, there is no anaesthesia strong enough for emotional numbing.  But it is fine… I will make do with the local available, and soon Tomorrow will be another day….