A tribute to friendships

It is indeed after many moons that I am sitting at my computer to blog away a post. I have been meaning to get back to writing for some time now, but as some of you may know my daughter recently got married, and that milestone de vivre, along with other engagements made it challenging for me to find time to do what I enjoy much, as a recreation – writing.

I write mostly to inspire never to lecture, though my kids will beg to differ, for according to them I am always freely distributing life-lessons to all and sundry. They wisely advise me to refrain from this harmful activity, for they are way more aware of the judgmental and quick to react world today. In their sweetest way, they are trying to protect their mother from being misunderstood in her intentions to do good. They are not alone in this quest; I too join them in these struggles of self-restraint. 

Eureka! Right here I have nailed my problem, and bared my personality to ensure my resilience is further attenuated. Expressing so publicly my one and most complete fault is perhaps a grand disservice to moi. Believe me, I try real hard at being inattentive to such many calls for service, and fail miserably at all times. There are many authentic people in my life who love me and treasure this virtue, though their angst is palpable when they see me struggle with those unmeritorious of my generosity. 

It is pertinent for me to immerse myself in Potter’s invisibility cloak, for the sake of my own tranquility, for my good deeds are not always received well.

Family, unfortunately, you cannot choose, one simply has to learn the art of silence and indifference. Relatives are inherited and mostly entitled characters. I understood so plainly the angst Ms. Markle must have tussled with, and being in the public eye adds to that wrangle. But…. friends one has a choice.

It’s the friends that are a reflection of who you really are. My friends luckily for me, or perhaps through rigorous selection processes over the years are exactly like me in many ways; independent, democratic, bold, beautiful, generous, free-spirited, modern, devoid of clannish behaviour and above all kind.

I invite you to “Judge me not by my relatives but by my friends”. My friends are my most treasured family for they are the ones that I have hand-picked and resonate with. If you are reading it as my friend, feel proud to be that person for you will be treasured by me for life…

My blogs will continue as always to be short, plain and simply from the heart.

Disclaimer: These are my personal expressions and are not targeted at any single person living or dead but just a creative expression of me, as a blogger who expresses feelings not thoughts.

Sibling Camaraderie

Everyone mostly speaks about sibling rivalry, I however choose to coin the term 'Sibling Camaraderie'.  

There are three important questions to ask here:

1. What does it mean? 

2. Does it exist or it is a quixotic ideal?

3. And why is it important?

Let’s start by defining sibling camaraderie;

• it exists when you have each other’s back

• No disagreement is important enough to cause a rift in your relationship

• No outsider is important enough to discuss your sibling with

• All exchanges of harsh words and actions will stay in-between you

• No matter how much you have hurt each other there will always be time to sort out your differences

• It's about not taking each other for granted 

• And finally, no amount of money is enjoyable, if your sibling ain't there to share it with you

As a young girl I often examined, and was more intrigued by sibling relationships rather than parental ones. Parental relationships are no-brainers, manifesting itself as the highest form of unconditional and sacrificial love. On the other hand, sibling relationships harbour years of imaginary slights, rudeness, snubs, a feeling of being taken for granted with a list of never-ending wrongs at both sides.  

Growing up, I silently observed my mom with her siblings, which did provide me with some sort of enlightenment and much amusement. Mind you, they loved each other but they also publicly fought, raged and hurt each other constantly. It was taxing on a young impressionable me and I felt that, economic success would be measured as a dynamic for affection many times, and sometimes it had absolutely no role to play. Such varied dichotomies were at play that my childhood fantasies were driven with a sole vision of my siblings and I, co-existing in a happier place. 

Alas! the dreams of the young and foolish. 

It made me even more determined to find a way to overcome all these growing pains, the rivalry and bitterness, as I matured. My vision of a doting, picture perfect relationship amongst kinship often witnessed in other relationships drove me to be the person who would always be there for my sibling, no matter what. And therein lied the problem, as then perhaps, it may be often that you are the donor but never the recipient or vice-versa, and right there starts the imbalance. 

I was also seriously curious on how other siblings achieved harmony, and yet were so starkly vocal about their ideologies with each other. What drove them to such a peaceful co-existence and love. I tried hard to find the answers, and observed their behavioural patterns with an intense desire to succeed in my quest.

'Schbang' - the eureka moment arrived, "So what really fosters sibling camaraderie, where there is zero rivalry" - and the answer was crystal clear; private disagreements, public harmony, calmness and respect. It is the same guiding principle that keeps you and your partner sane, and together for years to come. You overcome your resentment just as you would with your life partner, and your fights mostly stay your secret and others are never going to be privy to that. 

It is that 'eureka' moment when realisation strikes that no one wins and all siblings lose together. The only thing that should matter is reciprocal love and respect, and it should not be one-sided. Your sibling should enjoy the same love you would extend to your child, as who else will you have to share stories about your mad-hatter parents and family with. 

Your first ever childhood companion, and best friend - is it worth losing them over your ego. If yes, go right ahead sever that relationship for good and be happy in that existence, letting your soul fester in the bitterness for your lifetime. 

My starry-eyed dream is that sibling camaraderie supersedes sibling rivalry, after all it is way more fun to gossip about the world with your sibling than about your sibling.

Just around a corner called 'Life'

Being an empty nester has its low points, like missing the hustle and bustle of younger children, the smell of fresh notebooks during the monsoons as school starts,  the crazy study schedules and soccer, tennis, swimming, theatre training sessions, a full house. I do miss them much.

While you're living it you want away, and then one day when the craziness ends you think - Darn! I want it back. Best advise - keep moving. (Ummmm, easier said than done as chaotic habits, they're hard to break).

Let's look at the glass, half full. You can now pursue your incomplete personal dreams, without feeling the pangs of guilt for spending time away. So this year sees me back chasing my incomplete academic dreams, and has me on a second run at a post graduation, and this time in business administration. I have decided to re-skill myself and re-connect with the new. Disrupt all, unlearn to re-learn and I'm loving every bit of it.

And from re-learning alphabets, arithmetic tables and nursery rhymes, the agenda moves to managerial economics, marketing, costing and principles, and boy, is it fun and like a warm sunshine on a cold day.

This part of my journey sees me totally booked, busy working a full time job on weekdays and on weekends I chase my academic dream, keep my CSR dreams ignited. I also teach 15 children at a shelter for street kids. Keeping busy is the only way to restore the organised chaos that one lives in, for 24 years, and keeps your sanity intact.

Losing my mother has been an eye-opener on how fragile life is. It can end at any moment, poof and its over! So darlings - give, take, participate - Live life as if every day is your last. You don't need to save too much but you definitely need to bring happiness into your life and that of everyone you touch.

Hmmmmmm, easier said than done. Even at a higher stage of evolution and spiritual connection, it is tough. By the time 'Karma' works, you reach a point of no care.  And wonder - Hey, WHY don't I care? Most likely you've moved on and it matters no more. You no longer are at that crossroad.

I can hold a good grudge - sadly. I try to change that but ummmm not happening. I feel like a good ole Brit and to be honest, I have been early taught by them.

Anyhoo, such is living - complicated and incomprehensible. The whole study of the 'Gita' (Hindu book of karma teaching) is all about control of the mind, anger and relaxing it with good thoughts and adding onto the scale of 'good karma'. And peace comes to those who feel neutrality during all human experiences of love, hate, passion, anger, sadness et al. A tough one that.

Me, I just want to be a JEDI - controlled and using a light saber - I am certain that will solve most of my issues with life... Saber bad people out, if only.
Waiting for the next JEDI film or Harry Potter book- George Lucas, Rowling - hope you listening!

Now let's get behind a good film or book and laugh or cry our guts out - That's option no. 2.






 

Revival

Every day since the passing of my Mom, I wake up with a sinking feeling and it hits me she is no more. I feel I'm in a bad dream and all will be fine when I rouse. Unfortunately, it’s the other way around.

A lot of folks tell me I need to move on in my life and get stronger but define strong to me?
Is it - Not breaking down at the thought that you will never be able to share your thoughts with the person who always had time for you? Or accepting bravely, that the person who made you feel fine when everything around you was in turmoil, is there no more to guide you? Or is it realising that, your daughter’s wedding will now have to be planned without her insightful suggestions. The list is endless...

One of my siblings’ believes our Mom is watching us and that she is communicating with her through her meditative encounters – I so wish I could experience the same, but the finality of her death just does not allow me to disappear into the warmth of such a thought.

I am, of course slowly picking up the pieces of my life and there are good days and bad days, with the former exceeding the latter now.  I am happy - yes very, the love and support I enjoy, is an envious state of existence. Indeed, the people who love me have thoroughly spoilt me and, I decide to now surround myself with only those who feel nothing but that for me...

Life's too short - seriously and you do NOT need negative people in. Screw them! They don’t deserve you anyways.

2014 has made me stronger and I know my friends, relentless in their concern, not giving up on me, supporting me, rooting for me and making me happy. I have always been there for anyone who reached out to me - helping find their ungrateful children jobs, providing guidance and welcoming them in my home.  Hmmmm… perhaps it is the right time for me to truly evolve – I wish them well and move on to a smarter me :)

A lot of my friends vocalised their love and concern, engaging me while I was down, there were silent ones too (not all love and care need be vocal; in fact, I value it silent too). 

As I move on to being a better balanced person, I just want to say “I love you all” and you know who you are and I know you better today.

Thank you.

Grace Under Fire

I am so inspired; my love for the American culture just grows with every award ceremony, every film, with every mind blowing original script, every television series I see, with every book I read, with the passion of reporting Anderson Cooper brings to the table… I can go on and on and on. To understand and experience the true American dream one just needs to look at how many Indians travel to the USA never to return and the numbers are perhaps as infinite as the stars in the universe.

I see my friends and relatives who go there suddenly turn their fortunes and the essence of their new persona is visible in just about everything they touch.

Hey wait a second – I don’t mean to drool so much, as America has their share of negatives. The most glaring ones are their paranoia and the arrogance of a super power (invading other countries where they have vested interests). Man! are they paranoid and are they arrogant (especially when they had a monkey yeah George Bush, as their Chief of State in the saddle). But they may be forgiven for only one of these indiscretions,  after all they are some of the most generous people, more so at a personal level and their support for freedom of speech and equality et al is incomparably better than most nations. However, the invasions, they definitely need to re-visit and alter their position on.

Currently inspired; and with this dream to be more patriotic and be a catalyst of change I am actually trying to be a better Indian, and have set out to make a significant difference by starting a small social enterprise to try and positively change the lives of the lesser privileged in India. Learn and contribute, be more giving, more thoughtful and share a little more, every day.

It takes a lot of patience to steer a thought – a movement – from being so used to complacency where we always blame the government for inadequacies, to actually getting off our butts and putting our personal “money where our mouth is” (I love clichés and I love using them – they express your thoughts accurately and without trying too hard to make a point),  and not the money of the company we represent.

I also love my new job as a student but not the dilemma of poverty a students life brings, I love to feel young again – it is exhilarating and un-inhibiting. I enjoy being an entrepreneur as some days I work for sixteen hours straight and some days I work for four, but overall I work the regular average.

The toughest part is to buckle down, snap out of my sorrowful depressed state of inaction to actually making the social difference, I set out to achieve. A dream in my heart, a spirited pace in my step and an opportunity to make a contribution to help the lesser privileged with an incomparable attitude of grace and a whole lot of luck from the universe, on a path fired up by an ambition to succeed, I have set off on this journey of change.

I still miss my mom but I am slowly learning to gain control over the grief and anguish and I have my wonderful and talented family to thank for this.

My mother

I am a moving mass of grieving wreck; everywhere, at every moment, I remember my mother’s loss and I break down right where I am; in the middle of the road, in the car, while speaking of her with a neighbour, a shopkeeper just about anyone. This display of grief intrigues a few interested passers-by, invites furtive yet unconcerned glances from a few others and all my efforts to be brave fail. The fragility of human life and the idea of losing someone so alive just a few weeks ago are too hard to overcome. It’s been two months and I’m still unsuccessful.

My mother was my inspiration, my pillar of strength, my good luck charm, my life and I wish I had told her all this more often and brought more smiles to her sweet face. A single mother armed with only a Hindi medium matriculation certificate from the ‘University of Punjab’, she faced many hardships and overcame each one of them with a brave smile and even braver heart.

At a tender age of twenty-one she lost both her parents, was married at twenty-three and travelled to London where she lived for a decade. The initial years saw her happy and her work made her independent. Her gorgeous Indian looks invited not only the attention but also marriage proposals from many local Englishmen and these anecdotes were a source of fun and laughter at many festive dinner parties. My elder sister and I were early arrivals and we had a lovely life in London till my eldest uncle remarried, and brought a despicable, nasty ‘Cruella’ to live in our family home, her manipulative politics drove my elegant mother to insist on a move, to either a separate home in London or a move back to India.

We arrived in Bombay; traumatic as it was, my sister and I were forced to adjust to the Indian culture. The biggest drawback of the relocation was - the Indian school ethos; from an independent, respectful student existence in London, I witnessed a convent of narrow-minded thought with zero respect for children. The concept of ‘shut-up and listen’ was alien in English schools, as was being ridiculed for expressing a point of view and to top that learning Marathi and Hindi at an advanced level that was the ‘icing’ of our problems… Adapting to the petty Indian convent teachers was singularly the toughest part of my return to India.

As we finally adjusted, there was a new turmoil in our lives, my father abandoned us and left my mother, she was only forty-three at that time. To say this shattered her would be expressing it mildly, her worry for her three young girls aged (eighteen, seventeen and eight) broke her secure existence and for the first time I saw my brave mother collapse. Seeing her anguish and despair, I made a promise to her then that she will never have to worry about anything once I started working and lived up to it. If there is one thing in life that I am proud of, is never letting her down on this count. 

These years of abandonment also brought with it a lot of financial stress, but we had each other and after our initial shock, I saw my mother pick up the pieces and show immense strength of character, loyalty, compassion, determination and love. She filled our lives with fun, adventure and joy, we did not have money but we had each other. She showed us how to be resilient, independent and self-reliant. From her savings, she spared no cost to give us three the best education she could manage after which her economic priorities graduated to saving for our marriages. Ask any parent or self-financing adult and they will confirm that managing one marriage takes the mickey out of you, my mother managed three. She did this with no financial help from any relative, the ones who helped took their pound of flesh (with interest), I realised then, that there are no free rides in this world. The life lesson I learnt was to be kind to those less fortunate and help as much as you can with no strings attached. I believe that people who care for you never need to be asked for anything (financial or emotional); they know it and reach out to you on their own somehow. My mother devoted her entire life to us and her only thought was for our well-being at the cost of her own, and she did all this on her own steam.

The web of support in my personal life has been incomparably amazing (the husband, the children, the sisters, a few cousins, my special friends Ayesha, Mariam and Seemin); all have been so wonderful these past two months. The messages, the letters, the innumerable phone calls, the patience with which they have encouraged me to heal in my own time, their unspoken understanding, care will stay with me forever. I will treasure these relationships always.

This loss of my mother has singularly, been the lowest point in my life, the darkest till date and the toughest to overcome. I know she was happy these past couple of decades and she always maintained that all her dreams had come true and all her wishes fulfilled. Yet she was too young to pass on. It is taking me long to get over the idea of my mother not being around anymore. It’s unimaginably empty without her warm, kind, thoughtful and unrelentingly supportive presence. I cannot envision birthday parties, festivals, celebrations without her. I miss the stories of her fun travels across the globe with all of us, (her daughters and their families)…… I simply cannot stop missing her.

I am also so grateful to this universe, for giving me a mother like her - a kiss to heaven for you my darling mom.

 

How do you say good bye to the person you love !?

Recently I lost my mom, to say that I am devastated and inconsolable is an understatement. Nothing and I mean nothing prepares you for the loss of a loved one, especially a parent who has been your friend, your confidante and your everything for more than 45 years.

All I can think of is whether I gave her all the happiness in the world and whether I told her enough that I loved her and whether I spent enough time with her in these last few years -- if only I had known that she would be snatched away from me so early. If only I had got another decade with her !

The thoughts are never - ending, traumatic and this self-inflicted pain is torturous and pointless... but somehow the melancholia just never sees the horizon of happiness.

Friends and family say time is the best healer. Perhaps with time, I will learn to accept my loss but will the pain ever heal - I doubt it... I will always want her next to me smiling, scolding, frowning and guiding me with her love, strength and determination. I keep thinking of how she was alive and happy just twenty days ago and now I will never hear that sweet voice nor have her frantic missed calls to check if I am okay. She has left behind a void in my heart which will not heal ever...

I miss you Mom oh so very much and really do wish I had a time-machine to go back and do a lot more for you, to tell you every hour that I love you and life without you would never be the same.

As I bid you farewell and share you with the heavens, I pray that you are freed from the cycle of life and death and now abode there, peaceful and happy watching over me, one of your last earthly children who loves you very much and regrets not telling you more often... I love you Mom more than you can ever imagine.