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….

Vardah

The howling of the wind stopped. But I could hear silent tears the trees were shedding, long after the rains stopped and the winds took a breather. It was pitch dark outside and I tried to get back to sleep though my dreams were full of flying leaves and a war dance that the trees seemed to be doing around Mother earth.

The morning was a different story. I opened the windows and what I saw made me go silent and numb. I could get a clear view of the road from my bedroom window, as all the trees in the line of my vision were lying stark on the road. There were parts of ripped branches still left hanging from a couple of the odd trees that had survived the holocaust, and these branches reminded me of wounded soldiers in a battle, who would beg to be put out of their misery. There were hesitant sounds of birds, who came searching for their nests, and when they did not even find a trace of the tree let alone the nests, the cacophony of grief started. The stray sounds of motor vehicles broke the silence, while people slowly started coming out of their houses, trying to make sense of nature’s wrath. The sense of dismay, shock and helplessness was palpable. Life would never be the same again, without the breeze of the neem trees on my balcony, and the absence of the chirpy birds, who would fight with the squirrels for the morning crumbs. Coffee tasted bitter that morning.

The uprooting of giant trees defied logic. The gaping craters on the roads, ripping the concrete pavements bore testimony to the fact that the roots imprisoned underneath the concrete prison man built under the guise of civilisation and development are way too strong to be curtailed. Maybe the roots could no longer meander around under the earth in search of water, and desperate for survival, they started growing upwards? And too close to the surface, they could not withstand the onslaught of the fury of the slashing winds and just leaned over and fell? Though not like gentle giants, but like huge monsters, in a last attempt to perhaps let man know, that everything has a price: and sometimes, the price we pay is way, way too great for us to ever recover from the bargain.

I am writing this after a week of the onslaught of the cyclone. The view from the window is still clear, I still miss the familiar view of various hues of green leaves of the trees that shielded me from the view of the road. But I saw a new palm frond in one of the surviving tree today morning. My eyes welled up when I saw it, for some strange reason. It made me realise that while nature punishes, she also is very gentle and caring. She understands pain; and maybe this was her way of telling me not to lose hope?

The Squeaky World of Ethics...

I remember penning my thoughts on being a responsible healer.  I think we need to first become responsible human beings. Responsible towards self.  And when I say that, I mean, we need to understand that we all are here to grow, evolve into better human beings, and while we do tend to slip and slide now and then, our larger responsibility lies in leaving this place better than we came in.

That is why, when I see a corrosion of ethics and the way we twist our pattern of thinking to suit our own narrow self-centered ends, I get very agitated and wish I could do something more than just sit and watch.  I am not a coach; I can’t be on the side-lines and watch the game.  But then neither do I know the game to play it the way it is being played!  So what am I ? A spectator perhaps?

A colleague of mine took up an assignment which was ethically wrong; I am not going into the reasons why she did so; I was not looking into justifications. Suffice it to say that choosing what she did totally undermined what I thought she was as a person. It also pained me because her action made me partly responsible for the affected party, and I wish she had kept the communication channels open for me to intervene and help the affected party to make an informed choice.  I know we all have vested interests in the way we think and act, and that I suppose, is the Way of the World as William Congreve says.  But I am not able to digest the fact that a person so dear to me personally, could mess up so badly professionally. And the messing up is not on the grounds of ability but on ethical issues.  

The icing on the cake is the fact that it is not even viewed as a problem that has created so much of turmoil in me!  Maybe I am over-reacting to a situation which is a win-win one for all?  And I don’t stand to lose anything either; except perhaps a teeny weeny bit of faith in humanity, which has led to me gaining a little bit more of cynicism. 

Some stories never end...

The torch on the bed under the pillow. The spectacle case neatly arranged next to the day’s newspaper... The pile of neatly folded laundry. Everything looked just the same, but the silence came from the blank TV screen. The silence came from the stationery walker which now held his last worn dhoti and vest...   I could no longer sense the lingering smell of the sandalwood powder.... It was his trademarked aura. 

The pictures of the divine powers in their myriad forms all looked at me benevolently, and the forms all slowly turned into the many faces he used to cajole, threaten, and worm his way into people’s thoughts and hearts.  

A commander ....... Said one of the persons who clung to me tightly.. he sang away to the nurses, complained about the lousy food at the hospital, but also used his famous pick up line, “I have met you before...”

He had his beatific smile on his face when his pressure fell alarmingly. And when he finally decided to move on, all his grandchildren stood around him and sang that one song that he had made up for their lullaby when they were babies.... Nani ma nani ma nani manni nani ma naani ma ni.... The room resonated with his presence in our hearts... He was around. Some stories have no ending. Neither does this one.

Appa...

When I touch the wet mud to replant my roses I think of appa, for he inculcated in me the love for gardening.

When the light flickers  I remember appa because he taught me to to change a bulb, replace a fuse or repair a plug.

When the tape gets stuck in my recorder, his voice calls me out to use a cellotape to stick the pieces together. 

He taught me to ride a bike.and be independent....
To polish my shoes...
To iron my clothes....

When I see evenly, finely cut raw mangoes for pickle...

When I don't get math sums right...

My knuckles remind me of his stern discipline when it came to math formulae.

He taught me skills. He taught me it's good to enjoy good things and be happy. He taught me to laugh at myself, when he would talk broken hindi, and we would make fun of him. He taught me to love animals, he taught me it's okay to cry...and he taught me to be who I am today. I miss you... But I miss more, the fact that I can never say good bye to you again and have you cry like a baby anymore. But rest in peace appa. You are the angel who is going to smile all the time now.