Stupid me

Life has been a a puzzle for me so far. Tried hard to understand and reciprocate but failed most of the times. Guess i dot have the smarts to know one of the most complex thing - LIFE. My fingers constantly trying to access my social network site--am I idle? If not then why this constant urge to knw what's going on? Am I bored? if not then why this delibrate effort to play games and feel delighted at completing some stupid tasks they assign. well, I would say I feel lonely at times and when it is at its peak is when I find refuge in Blogging.
Today I met a child.. he was crying so profusely and nothing on earth could stop him from crying. It was sad to see a beautiful face so sunken in tears and I couldn't stop myself from finding out what made him so sad. Somewhere I felt he too wanted to speak him mind out and was looking for someone who could listen to his sweet little nothings or even his anger. I decided to go ahead and headed straight to him. As we got talking I learnt his name, that he belonged to my country and he was new there etc etc.. so far all this was told to me without giving a break to crying. So one can imagine how difficult it was for me to hear him amidst his loud cries. Well as we talked further, he told me he wished to be back with his family now while almost trying to hug me. I thought to myself may be a cuddle could have relieved him of his worries. May be he would have had a feeling that someone is there to sit down and just be with him. While my mind was still figuring out if I could actually cuddle the little one ( i wasn't authorised to do so in that particular environment), I still held his hand. We were still talking and I felt he was going to tell me all is well and that he is happy and BOOM comes the shocker my way...He told me in the loudest voice possible "mai yahan rahunga toh mar jaunga !!"..that if I stayed here I would die. For a minute i couldn't get over this shock.. the shock that a small child could make such a big statement..to understand that child could have been stressed and nearly choked to have actually mouthed out those words for me. Or was I going through similar feelings and hence shocked to hear it being told to me. Anyways for the child I found a way out and he would have been out of the choking for today but me.. wht about me.. where am I heading for? and who would get me off this choking...for now life isnt having good things to think about..just surrounded by negetive thoughts which have succeded in turning me to ashes.. I shall soon arise like a phoenix like always. Hope is my key and as always I'm hoping

Life is what happens to you while u r busy making plans

Quite true, isnt it? Life indeed is what happens while you are planning for other things. Other things like parents, kids, spouse, friends. So what happens to your life. Is someone else planning it for you. Most of the time yes. Its people around you who are planning things for you.

The other day I went on to meet one of my old friend. She appeared happy and contended with her life. A happy family as it appeared, blessed with beautiful angel. But as we got talking I saw how much efforts she was making to hide her tears. She was going through a lot of pain post delivery and despite all that she is expected to work more and more. Her health not supporting her and her pleads falling on deaf ears. The sight just filled me up with anger.. not against people responsible for her state but, on her for not speaking for herself. The same girl who would have eaten her parents' brains for not listening to her is now all quiet and waiting for some miracle. I feel if you make a doormat of urself, people will treat you so. so i think its time to change. Live for yourself not for others..atleast not people who don't have a substantial role in your life. make yourself heard when there is a need for it.

I hope my friend does speak for herself, get up and act before its too late. The whole incident has just reinforced the same old question before me on why Life changes post Marriage

The Same Old Question

Getting back to books and reading could also mean that Mind will get some more food for thoughts. So as my mind is busy making peace between arguements of its own and that of the author of the book, I decide to give it an additional task of putting it into words for this blog.
So wht's the agenda? Well, I'm reading a book by Deepak Chopra which apparently talks about Life after Death. The bit I read today talked about the story of Savithri and how Ramana inspired her to feel grateful for this life she has and also on how to apparently fool Yama into getting the God in you thereby saving yourself to live for somemore time. And as Ramana told Savithri,"....when Death comes to grab you, let him grab God instead. If God is in you, Yama's noose will always miss. That's the secret for escaping his clutches" It further threw light on the concept of hell and heaven. Now this was an intresting thing to note that my mind had already started the debate on this concept even before the writer could get in there.

For centuries now we have been struggling to figure out on how good heaven is and how bad hell is.. like it has been predefined that Heaven is all good and Hell all scary and bad but to what extend is for time to tell. As if its goodness or wretchedness depends on one's own doings in this world. So what are we actually doing in this world? trying to get a good score either ways and make way to one of these places and being totally ignorant to that the fact that all is here- hell or heaven. Now one thing which I just miss on mentioning here and which keeps ringing in my ears all througout is something that my dad said. He once said that God has being Hi-tech and is now sitting with a computer in his desk so we get more prompt results of what we do here. On the face of it, this statement of dad's, appeared as one of his jokes but if you just ponder over it you will see that there is a lot of depth in that statement. Isnt that exactly what we see around us now? Say for example the increasing population in Old age homes..like people dont have time for thier dear ones.. like its a mad mad rush towards nothingness. Hell or heaven is right here  right now and it is defiantly in the choices you make in life. You could either make right and sensible choices or just get ignorant and keep on making mistakes. It is these choices which make your pathway either to go up in life or go down. So either you could just ignore your loved ones and continue to be on this race to get ahead in life and getting nowhere or you could take time to do your best for your loved ones.

Had a casual chit chat with my friend today, where she was talking about someone she knew who genrally didnt take notice of others in pain and was only focussed on her immediate family and how pained she was towards her last days when the same immediate family members didnt budge or take care of her when she needed them the most.... Classic example of God sitting with the computer. Either she was paying for the mistakes she did or her daughter was actually making her way to either hell or heaven depending on the choice she makes.  My mom keeps mentioning that whenever she has faced troubles people from outside have come forth and helped her and none from her own blood turn in for help. I dont know how to take this statement but to me it means that she is blessed to have good people around who do come in to help and her immediate question does get answered. now either I shud say this is heaven to have blessed souls around or I should say she is in one big hell where her own blood relations dont help her. quite confusing isnt it..
well the point is also about  how you look at things. Either you could look at it through a rose tinted glass and rest assured alls well and feel blessed for all you have or you just keep fretting only to get your peace of mind into the bin. Another passing thought for now is if this world itself isnt a big example  of how good Heaven can be or how bad Hell be? So if your boyfriend has dumped you for someone else either you could feel lucky to be out of the mental torture or just keep getting frustrated and make hell for everyone else around.
So like Emperor Jahangir I could possibly say "."Gar firdaus, ruhe zamin ast, hamin asto, hamin asto, hamin ast." about the beauty of places on earth or I could say "its a hell out here" looking at the potholes, corrupt people. As usual reminded of Guruji's words, "live life this moment, this very moment" and I choose to live a life being compassionate and being delighted and genuinely thankful to God for what He has and has not given me. Being good for my own sake yet not trying to make up my score for my seat in Hell or Heaven :)

Life as a child and as a Parent

 When I was a kid I didn't have a computer, cell phone, iPod, Nintendo, DSi, Xbox, PS3, Wifi or Wii. I played outside till evening.... I ate what my mom made. If I ever told my parents "no" or back answered, I got in TROUBLE! Life wasn't hard, it was BEAUTIFUL & I survived. Re-post if you appreciate the way you were raised.... I do. I love my parents and the childhood they gave me... :)

Well the above message throws light on a lot of aspects of our life then and now. The other day I was talking to one of my friend and I happened to mention how my son dreams of having a Nintendo soon while I quite didnt understand what its meant to be in the first place (yeah I'm quite unaware of such things :D). It also made me think how complicated my child's life is now where he is under constant peer pressure and thinks these things are absolutly necessary in life just coz his friends have it. I don't remember if I had ever undergone this kind of peer pressure.. and as rightly said Life was still beautiful. Thanks to my parents who stuck to "KISS" theory  of "keeping it short and simple", my life was devoid of such complications.
I remember they brought me a Kitchen set and I used to love pretend cooking chapatis made of tulsi leaves and curry made from other flowers n leaves from my garden. I could play that for hours and never get bored of them even if I'm playing all by myself. I think most of us did try a hand at what we called "Teacher Teacher" game where we would pretend to be a teacher trying to teach imaginary students who often had names similar to our friends then. As if our mind didnt want to take additional burden of thinking for new names :). Being a girl I also got to play some girly games like pretending to be a mom to a doll.. I remember desiging dresses for my doll and trying new hair styles. We didnt get tired or frustrated then as we do now..
Going on vacations to Kerala meant a whole new world of adventures. Band of cousins.. We used to climb the rocky hills with a small pack of masala( red chilli powder mixed with some salt) and how on reaching our favourite spot we would try to gather some tender mangoes washed in pond water and relished to the core. We never bothered of bacteria and germs then as we do now...
How we used to invade into other's gardens and rob them of thier produce. I particularly remember this one incident where we had barged into someone's banana plantation to have some nectar which we can generally find in the banana inflorescence and were nearly caught :D.. We weren't bothered of brands and labels then as we are now..

The other day when my son asked me about the things I did as a child, I was quite amazed to see how easy life was for me. Climbing trees, playing hide n seek, watching the birds chirp, following a butterfly while it hopped from flower to flower, waiting for the grasshoppers to surround me before onam time, sheer joy of running around the house trying to imitate the koel bird, waking up to the morning sunshine, Granny giving me a bath in the garden with homemade shampoos and soaps and the lovely fragrance it would surround me with, waiting for grandpa to come home with hand full of sweets and delicacies, the yummy mango pickle and how I would try to get a little pickle for anything and everything i ate :D, the taste of cocunut chutney served everyday at lunchtime and how I could eat all my food with that simple chutney is simply difficult for me to put in words..I'm now missing all those simple things of life. And no matter how much I try I cannot replicate any of the same for my child now. We never bothered of complicating life then as we do now. Well, all this wasn't written to show how negetive things are around. It could be that 20 years from now when my son would be writing/talking about his childhood, he might also have some simple things to talk about yet what would be intresting to see is if those simple things till top the list. Innocence of life which we complicate as we grow...A lot around us is still simple while we are running from pillar to post to complicate us and our life.
It reminds me of this famous quote " Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”