Friend or Foe ? How do you know ?‏

Along the journey of life our mind is continuously forming judgments and concepts; some are fleeting while some seem to make strong impressions...

Among many people we come across in life, we assume some as our friends and think that they will be by us and may be some even if not necessarily as foes but who we prefer to not even come across....

At a recent incident some such concepts were blown away for me...
One of my Uncle has not been well and when I went to see him, in his feeble condition he asked me or my sister to stay back at their place which we found strange that why he wanted us to stay. Both his kids are in US and in such health condition he & his wife were somehow managing with help from extended family. On his request I stayed back that night and I am so glad that I did.

That night which I stayed up taking care of him was something I will never forget. Although it seemed like I was staying for him in fact he did me a favour to let me experience the profound realities of life. It put me in close quarters to life, death, sickness, ageing, relations and so many such aspects. It taught me many lessons of life in the most practical way that I could have learnt which I will share in another post.

By morning he got really sick and it was just me & my aunt at home with him and when we called the doctor about his condition he said he needs to be taken to the hospital immediately. My aunt was in panic and we called other family members but all of them are at such distances that even though they live in the city, we couldn’t take a chance to wait for them to arrive.

Sometimes you wonder how people just show up as if someone answered our calling for help.

At that instant walked in father in law of my uncle's son. These in laws have been quiet a trouble for my uncles family and his son and it had almost come to a point that they would prefer not to come across them as much. But that morning when he showed up there was no choice, we told him the situation, he called the ambulance and was there the entire time and stayed back at the hospital that night too. He was doing whatever he could in his capacity and but for his timely help it would have been a challenge...

This situation took me by surprise and it left me thinking, my uncle spends a lot of time with his friends, in fact more with them than his own family or extended family and in a situation where he really needed support none of his friends were there. They didn’t show up until a few days in the hospital and here was someone who didn’t necessarily have a good relation with my uncle became a strong support.

Usually in such situations our mind and people around us encourage to form new concepts that these friends are no good, they didn’t come to help in time and some such conclusions but to me it seemed like it was not to form new concepts but to break all concepts. Yes it might strike or even perhaps hurt that those whom you think will stand by you are nowhere to be seen. But if we really see if not those we expected yet someone unexpected does come over to help.

We don't know when or how and who will come & stand by us in the need of the hour ... Friends have a role to play in life. Don't just rely on them and revolve life around them and don't hate or avoid anyone. Along life we form such craving and aversions and when we people we love are not by us it tends to make us averse to them and when people that we think we hate our ego doesn’t seem to allow asking for help. If only that ego could dissolve even that hate can transform to love. In reality we never know who is the one to help us in what situations.

It seems like there is no friend or foe, it is just people sharing life... sharing different flavors of relations and human emotions and while our mind still attempts to reason it out with some logic, at the end of the day we do witness that there is a power that makes things happen in a way that we couldn't have planned our life...

Life has its way of teaching us time and again to break out of concepts and judgments, the question is , Are we willing to ?

Shattered Dreams...

To dream is natural for every individual and perhaps in each one’s life those dreams may have accomplished or on the way to completion or may be shattered beyond expectation and it seems each one of us has a certain way of dealing with it when our dreams come crumbling down.

A recent article in the newspaper caught my attention; a carpenters daughter from a small village studying MTech IIT. For a carpenter what a dream it must be to see his daughter in such good education and for his daughter to have a dream to become something in life ... there must have been so many people inspired by them and set their dreams in that direction that it is possible but some dream of that young girl must have been shattered that she committed suicide in her hostel room.she must have considered that dream or desire bigger than life itself that when she saw no hope in that direction she ended her life, By that she not only ended her life but ended the dreams of many that they had for her.

There was yet another incident that a person who had his dream shattered felt the only way of dealing with it was taking the life of someone that came in the way of his dream. More recently we heard of whole family killing themselves or someone opening fire in public. In the news we hear about youngsters committing suicide or going to the extent of taking others lives and it is often that they resort to that step when some faced with a situation/person that they are just unable to accept.

Somewhere we have forgotten how to handle ourselves when our dreams & desires are falling apart and the road one has taken seems to go nowhere. I wonder how ending one's life or taking others is in what way the solution. It is understandable to have helpless and desperate moments in life, tell me who doesn’t at some point in life. It is in those moments that we need to be careful not to do anything that could impact our life or others in a miserable way.

While we are walking on a slippery road, we look for support be it a wall or a branch of tree or even a strangers hand so we can cross without falling but when we are falling & failing in life why do we hesitate to reach out to someone to hold our hand through...

Sometimes it may happen that the support you are trying to hold on to may not be strong or will let you down and make you fall but you gather yourself andstand up & walk ahead, so why not in the road of life... 

Sometimes the hurt of the fall is there till the end of the road or the end of life but then we don’t stop living...

Every person will have someone or the other to whom their life & living still matters, dreams fulfilled or unfulfilled, goals reached or not reached , there are people who would still love & care for us...

why hesitate to take that support in those helpless moment. If only we have learnt that life is bigger than the ego, life is bigger than a dream and that our life is more valuable than what we think of it to be....

If some hurt can give the reason to take life...
Some Love can also give the reason to live Life...

Strangely, in those miserable moments, we look for love & support in the same place as hurt 

and forget to look for it elsewhere ... 

We may not have learnt to master our mind & emotions but what is there to learn to ask and hold someone’s hand. We did that as a child and so we started to walk but now as an adult we have walls around our heart that don’t allows us to connect freely with others. we have concepts, inhibitions, judgments and unfortunately none of those are helping us live a happy peaceful life but still we carry them.

Sharing is important in life, it doesn’t matter with whom you share but that you share matters... 

Earlier with joint families and more cohesive & belonging society people did this naturally and we had less problems of the mind. Now that people have become more independent and in some way closed about their emotions & thoughts which are fermenting and manifesting as ugly outcomes.

We are ok with formal, casual relations. We may have 1000 friends on facebook and many followers on twitter but we don’t have even a few that we can open our heart and be ourselves. We have forgotten what an unburdening experience it is to have such a company.

If we think we don’t even have one like that better make one, find that one and keep that one... 

and if possible be that one for someone else ..

When our dreams come shattering down it is that one that we need the most..That one will give the strength and tell you that your life is bigger than your dream, so what if one dream is destroyed, live to dream yet another one. you are meant not for just one dream but many along the way of life, Someone that will say, Dream on, I am with you… 

Never be too shy to show that you love and care because you never know who would need it desperately in their life at that time in their life…

It always surprises me we never hesitate or postpone to express our unpleasant emotions like anger, sadness etc but when it comes to showing our love & affection we shy away. We got to be the one to say in words or actions atleast to some people in your life that  I am with you come what may.

You never know what strength this may bring in their life  and saying it to someone perhaps gives us the purpose too.

Life is for Sharing.... not just Dreaming....

Strength of Life .....

There is a tradition in India still followed in the villages mostly that people call each other referring to each other by some relation which in other countries and english language cannot seem to match upto...

There are so many different names for different relations and even the same relation has more than one name depending on the region they are from. Each relation has a beautiful reference, respect and affection associated with it and it was a shocker when I first visited US and saw everyone call one other by names, even kids to their teachers and elders. 

When I visit the villagers the way people are talking to one another it would be hard to tell if two people who are talking actually belong to a family or just part of the village...

One such migrated individual from the village to the city is our vegetable vendor who brings only leafy vegetables in the mornings and goes on the usual route that he probably has been taking for more than 25yrs...

 I used to see him from when I was in school and he, having the roots from the village, addresses people with some relation like daughter, mother, brother... and we reciprocate too...

 I call him "thatha" which is used for grandparent or respectful reference for the elderly... and he calls me "thalli" or "amma" which means mother but is also used affectionately on the girl child ..

 It was yet another usual day of his route calling us out loudly from the street to come & take the vegetables and as he was conversing with me that day, my mom came to the balcony & she called out to him...

She had put aside some of our dresses to be given away to the needy so she asked him do u have any daughters or granddaughters that can use my kids dresses.

He replied unperturbed no ”amma“ (which refers as mother or respectful address for a lady) I don't have anyone.  Our immediate thought was probably it is all boys .. he paused for a bit and said few years back my wife, son & daughter were travelling and met with an accident and none of them survived ...I am alone and I sell these vegetables to afford a living...

Both me & my mom were too shocked to utter any word and hoped that our silence conveyed something that we wanted to...

All this he said while he was still gathering the vegetables for me...

He left and it took some time for me to settle with what he had said...

I couldn't fathom what made him carry on his life with no trace of grief. He is still the bubbling, friendly, caring vegetable vendor that I have always seen him like...

Though I had moved from that place but even my mom did not know in all these years what he had gone through, he never let this tragedy show in anyway.  Was it being immersed in work or was it the relations he formed along the streets he went that he greeted, joked and cared for every morning with so many people... that made him accept what had happened and still move forward just like any other day that even the people who see him everyday never got to see or know about it in so many years.

I see so many educated overwhelmed over the simplest of the situations, people heartbroken, depressed sometimes suicidal for one person or situation in their life. And here I just realized that there is someone who is not educated in terms of society but so wise and with so much strength to move on in life with one of the greatest tragedy of life....

It made me wonder are our kids really learning what it takes to live in this complex world... will just the education as it is seen as academics help them deal with situations, deal with relations... will money & power that we push them to pursue solve all their problems or will that itself create problems.

In society today we see so many crimes the root cause in most of the cases is money… And on the other side there are still many such amazing people as my vegetable vendor living such profound lives in utter simplicity inspite of great complexities....

He didn’t have power, money, position but he had liveliness & not loneliness inspite of what happened to him, he had peace even when his life was torn apart, he had love & caring even if he didn't have that to share with whom he called his own, he made all that he came across his own ....

 That vegetable vendor "thatha" gave me one of the greatest lessons of life.... that Life is much bigger than any tragedy in life and that there are always people to share love & care, you only have to feel belonging....

And in this belongingness is hidden the greatest strength of life....

Juvenile Home ... caged birds don’t know where to fly...

There was a huge gate and a small peep hole window that got opened after the knocking, we were escorted to meet the in charge and we were given a brief about the kids there, they were all boys caught in crimes that they are serving term for. Kids looked so normal and they looked at us as if desperate to see a new face, there were like birds in the cage. They had a small place about 30 of them in bunk bed and a small TV. Facility in-charge was a very friendly person and a new recruit very unlike other government officials I have come across, she was very caring with the kids and was willing to work around our schedule to get the kids started on the class.

Our next visit was within a few days and we somehow managed to be in a small open space. As they sat in front of us they seemed no different than any other kids, an innocence that can’t be denied. I had no idea the world I was about to enter, we were invited to make an impact in their life, they had no idea the impact they were making in my life in just sharing their life with me...

I had a tear in my eye as I saw kids as young as 8yr and I asked why?  I was told those kids parents are thieves and they take the kids along to aid them and a whole family was caught in a theft of huge amount. As others told me the story those boys looked on at me with a smiling face having no idea what path their parents have set them on , having no sense of right & wrong , having no one to guide them ..

Kids got so excited to tell their stories as if it was the first time someone was keen to listen to them without judging them, another 17yr boy was for murder I asked the same why, very casually he said kya karo madam gussa aagaya (what can I do I got angry ...) yes we all get angry and give in to anger and do hurt others and yet there are some whose anger is perhaps so much more that they have no idea what they do when it does take them over ... after the connecting and talking we did some exercise, breathing techniques and meditation of the Art of Living Program. Right after it, we left them in that quietness....

It was day 2 they were looking forward to meeting us. That evening some kids got bail, they were leaving and I could see the pain in those left behind and the restlessness when will it be their turn and also they become friends spending time together so there is the emotion of parting too, it was hard to get them to focus. I let them deal with all these and when all those who had to leave left, got them to start the class. Some of them shared that since they had come to the facility they have never been able to sleep and only after the previous evenings meditation they could sleep peacefully. One kid said madam dil may hamesha darr rehta tha, ab aise lag raha ha kabhi itna sukoon mumkin bhi hai kya .. (There was always been fear in my heart never knew one could experience such a peace in life)

I was more than glad that they could realize & experience the value of it; each day was unfolding for me also as a new experience, this day I asked them what you want to become in life. They all gave me blank faces as I asked again they answered never thought about it and one kid said loudly how will we know madam no one has ever asked this question before ....

I felt sad here in society there are so many kids who are being choked by their parents what they want them to become in life and here there are kids who are growing up clueless about life , about their actions & consequences.

No matter how much I was trying to get them to have a vision it just seemed beyond their comprehension, I prayed for an idea and it came, I asked them when they grow up have kids and their kids have to introduce them will they have to be addressed as mere papa chor hai .. (My dad is a thief…). There was a saddening silence in the hall and the heads bent low as if something touched them, I could catch a tear in some eyes and as if breaking this deafening silence one voice came loud that is why madam I am not going to marry have kids have no relations at all then nothing matters I don’t want to think of any future what is the point anyway ... this was the voice of this one rebellious I don’t care attitude of this boy and the only one like that in the group, he tried to be aloof build big thick walls around him dared no one to enter it ... I told him I will talk to you later and carried on with the rest of them , I left them to ponder on that question how they would like to be known by their kids & family .. That one rebellious one had to stay back & sit with me, I asked him his story, he is just 13yr old, about an year or 2 back he was arrested in context of some theft, he served for it but later in that area whenever there was any small thefts police always came and troubled him and caught him even if he had nothing to do because he got labeled once ... this label I wonder how they will ever get off ... he was so frustrated about life at such a young age, it was a age to dream to aim and here he was aimlessly giving up on life that he had not even started, a life that he didn’t want to know where it would lead to, that frustration and pain came from a helplessness , many times we don’t even know what to tell others when they share their pain perhaps just listening is what they need and I did just that , was there to feel his pain ..

The next day kids were ready & waiting, they asked why I couldn’t come earlier and take their class for longer, and they looked happier and brighter too. They started sharing one by one how they want to be different... I asked them about the label society has put on them as thief what amount of money, influence, force will make that label go away in their life ... It struck them that it is a heavy price to pay in life but what to do life is tough and many times you succumb, yes it takes great strength of character to not loose it when you are in such dire need for even basic necessities.. many of the kids are introduced to some drugs, once they are hooked onto it and in order to get them they have to steal things and sell to the dealer to get the drug... it is like you are caught in a wheel of hell not knowing how to exit and it keeps spinning your life away ... For some kids it is their families and the influence of friends that they tread on such path.. It makes me wonder in life is it destiny or the choices we make or is it that what we choose is destiny and yet we are given opportunities to learn through the pain sometimes it sinks through and at times we defy it knowingly ...

I have seen victims of circumstances in these kids and there was not a day that I would leave the place without a tear in my eye, each one of them seemed like a bud that was being crumpled even before it knew how to bloom ... The only solace I left with was that their faith was rekindled, they felt stronger to brave the circumstances at least decided what is good for them & what not and with a heart full of prayer and wishes for them I told them If ever I would see them again it shouldn’t be this place ...

I am incredibly grateful to my guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar that being an instrument of his grace, vision & service that I get to share life with so many and them with me ....

Special thanks to the dynamic Sravan who is a young engineer with a lofty vision for service, he is the one that introduced me to the place and he is an awesome story of inspiration by himself ...