Randomly rambling...

So many out there who laugh and joke to try and mitigate the searing, gnawing, gut-wrenching pain of  loneliness...it's worse when Nature and the season demand togetherness...and a belief that one loves and one is loved...

Randomly thinking...

There are many people in this world who feel the need to trace their roots – it could be an academic interest, or it could be something necessary to their understanding of themselves, and what they are today. The only equipment needed on this journey, are –objectivity without blame, acceptance without explanations, honesty without excuses, and humor without cynicism…

And…

Forgiveness without strings…first forgive and be kind to yourself, then others…

For...

Our happiness depends only on ourselves. Think someone else is going to make us happy? we'll be waiting forever...because, our life is our life...and our happiness is our responsibility...entirely...we have to find it/create it/make it...

i.e. if one wants to live fully and fearlessly without being paralyzed or stymied…

Randomly rambling...

What I love about Maya Angelou’s writing is that there is no self-pity for all the things that happened to her. She is so wonderfully and brutally honest and frank about her thoughts and feelings. These things happened. She is. In fact there is a great deal of compassion and humor in her narration of her childhood, growing up years, and adulthood. Best is how in the middle of all this she found herself, came to terms with a great deal, and decided she was the architect of her own life. Even now, this is how she views life – with compassion and humor. No excuses, no recriminations, no nothing, no looking back, no waiting for the future – only the here and now, and only the desire to live life fully.

One of those moments...

Sometimes a happy moment springs a surprise...am sure it happens to everybody...happened to me today when the boy who delivers milk wished me a 'Happy Christmas in advance' seeing the wreath on our front door. Charming!!

I put up my wreath - not so much for Christmas as for the happiness of the Season. A wreath somehow, just makes one smile, and I believe it is a good time to smile as the Old Year slowly makes way for the New Year...

It's the same with the Christmas tree and Nativity scene - just a linking of a happy tradition/custom through the generations...

Randomly thinking...

Memories are really quite crippling...

Bad memories cause negative feelings to permeate our whole being paralyzing us...

Good memories bring about nostalgia, which can have us weeping for what was...

But then, we are the ones who create our own store of memories, so what do we do about that? From my readings I learn that the only way to live is in the here and now. Memories belong to the past, and that is where they should remain...the past is another country, remember? we've left it behind - the good, the beautiful, the bad and the ugly...our only responsibility is to create a good here and now...a here and now, the karma of which would yield a future of well-being...

Of tribals and Mrs. Sonia Gandhi...

A news item caught my attention yesterday. It was about the tribals of Madhya Pradesh meeting Mrs. Sonia Gandhi on her birthday. Though she was not celebrating and had refused to meet people, she made an exception for these tribals. As the report says: they came with little bags on their heads and rotis in their pockets...

Since one of my identities is that of a Madhya Pradeshi, the picture of these tribals was very vivid in my mind's eye...they must have taken months to arrive at this major decision of going to far-away Dilli...then the preparation...the excitement of traveling, going by train...they would have packed enough rotis for the whole journey, counting out their money only for tea...then arriving in this huge station, and going to 10 Janpath. Since everything in India is seen in a family context, to them in all probability, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi is Ma...Obviously she features in their minds otherwise why would they make this journey for her birthday. Obviously she means something to them, and is deified according to some obscure belief in their hearts and minds. How like them too, to give her 'advice' about reviving the party in Madhya Pradesh.

How innocent and how charming...

Randomly wondering...

 Mother Teresa: Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

And so, the most miserable and tragic thing about poverty is not the lack of bread or roof, but the feeling of being no-one, 

 the feeling of not being anyone, the lack of identification, the lack of public esteem. 

Questions: Today -

Have I made someone feel that he/she is a no-one?

Have I treated someone as if they did not have the identity of a human being?

Have I looked at the world through the eyes of a no-one?

Randomly rambling...

For the power of music and the sheer force of feeling, can there be anything more profound and moving than Negro Spirituals?

Randomly thinking...

India is so big, that while the ordinary person knows she is on Indian earth, it's hard for her to visualize that the piece of earth she is on is actually part of the bigger Indian earth...so, when I heard this person say that someone she knows is in Bihar, which is faaaaaaaaaaaaaar away in Hindustan, it hit me right between the eyes--- gosh, India is really a big country...(and mind you, Bihar is only 650 kms from Kol!)

I've always liked the notion of India being an idea...thousands of differences, one single whole....and the only way the mind can grasp it would be to think of the country as a concept.

Obviously what happens in one part of this big land concerns everyone, right across her length and breadth, no matter what the differences...or the distance...else why is it that one little girl trampled in the fear stampede yesterday in Varanasi, thanks to some fool person trying to cause terror, should so affect the heart in faraway Kol?

Randomly rambling...

Yehuda Berg says: Life isn’t measured by how you handle burning fires. It’s measured by how you do where there are no fires to extinguish – when there’s no drama. 

It’s true, I guess, because if you step out of a burning-fire-fighting-line, someone else will take your place, but the whole chain of comfortable smoothness of daily life will collapse if you step out of the cheerfully-doing-the-daily-tasks routine...

Dwell on this...cheerful courage...

Recently, my husband interviewed a young boy to fill-in for the dance teacher who had asked for special-just-have-to-go leave. The school is to have its Annual Day two weeks hence, and the kids were being trained to put up a special dance number. The dance teacher said he would give the school a reliable person who would be able to handle the work. 

Faced with this in-the-life-of-the-school-catastrophe, my husband waited for the substitute teacher. 

He came. My husband spoke to him. The story gave me goose pimples, and has me still feeling weepy…

This boy is in class 12 in a local Bengali medium school. Bright, cheerful and sparkling with life, he was asked why he wanted this temporary job when he ought to be concentrating on his final examinations. This is what he said:  Sir, my parents died when I was very young. My grandmother is bringing me up. She has no qualification, and works as a cook in 4 or 5 houses. We live in one room. We have no amenities. Sir, you cannot imagine how poor we are, we do not even electricity. A little extra money would help, even if only for 2 months.

What caught my husband’s attention was the fact that this lad was not apologetic about his poverty; was laughing when he talked about his condition; did not blame life, did not groan and moan at fate, and was very willing to learn. He promised to give of his best. 

Is it surprising he got the job? 

My husband introduced him to the teachers he would be working with. They came back saying they were satisfied and that he would be able to get the kids ready for the Annual Day function. They were so impressed with his sincerity and willingness to work, that they re-arranged practice schedules so that he could coach his group before going to school.

Someone to think about when we groan and moan in our plenty, the opportunities we have, in all that we have, and in our comfortable lives…

What courage and in the face of what adversity…

Randomly thinking...

'Tisn't life that matters! 'Tis the courage you bring to it.
--Sir Hugh Walpole

What a powerful statement—right away it makes you want to square your shoulders, raise your head and look the world in the eye…

And, the thing is that the place where the most courage is needed is in cheerfully doing our daily tasks…those little, sometimes tedious, everyday chores…duties that often go completely unnoticed by the family…routine tasks that just have to be done if the day is to move smoothly…gaps filled and people covered up for at work…there are so many tiny demands that daily life makes of us…nothing dramatic, or earth-shattering or traffic-stopping…but all requiring a cheery smile…

That’s when life really starts to matter…