A silent Prayer...

Please click this link to hear the background score for this short, mental, 'film'. Now imagine yourself for a few minutes as if you are in an ocean, drifting along, floating on waves of pure joy... Now read on...

Dearest Daddy,
 I really feel you and Kaka will have a great time together after many years!! I still smile to myself whenever I think of the two of you TOGETHER, as the first image that comes to my mind is like a flash of a fast forward movie- the kind of visuals my mind has always been able to relive of the times Kaka visited us and vice versa. THE BEST image in that 'flash forward' is an imaginary one, of course- !! - it is the image which you 'made' for me!! When you narrated the times you & Kaka were slogging and sweating in Dilli ka Ghar room, trying to make your own water-air cooler as young boys!! The fact that Bapuji and Ba gave you all children ample chance to explore, learn and grow is a testament to the wonderful and well-rounded individuals you grew up to be. It is one of my favourite 'family movies' to 'watch'  when I miss you, Daddy, and its all the more special because in those days you and Mummy consciously decided to keep our lives simple- so we had none of the overwhelming technology (which, at the time meant Black&White T.V's, VCRs imported from Sri Lanka, Radio etc) in short, any thing and everything that was fondly referred to as Idiot Box-   to distract us.
We did have cassette tape players, LPs, 45 RPMs, and other kinds of influences, which one can 'stream' or 'control' by choosing the one suitable for the mood, atmosphere, feelings of others.....Pesky mosquitoes hummed and sang in my seven or ten year-old ears, stinging the legs and arms. We all sat in the IAF home front or back gardens. Being kids, we would drift outside to sit with you & Mummy, and often fall asleep in those chairs! We sat in the semi-darkness as a family and you talked to us. A lot of parents today (and I am guilty of it too) seldom find time to interact with children. We all have our stock of inexcusable 'excuses' like mine- lack of 'time' with kids being at school all day, and me always working afternoons and evenings and returning long after the kids are in bed already... and weekends at work too...)
A whole generation is growing up on iPad Apps and super-fast broadband and we have all but lost the time to enjoy TIME. TOGETHER... Life is like a sherbet drink; keep the flavour basic and simple, stick to what you really like and you will always enjoy it! Mix in too many different flavours and you might end up with something you don't want to drink, but cannot waste, either. Cos its life, and you MADE it- adding the flavours you consciously chose.

 With my own children, I try to give them a positive, lifelong experience of the simple joys. My daughters love walks, and their amazement and delight at all of nature- be it forests, hills or parks, the changes in the seasons, or the frost on the ground, the snow on the streets and the first signs of spring- are wonderful to experience as a parent. My husband plays with them, looks after them and makes us all laugh with glee. He is muscular, and yet makes a mean dish of Potato Curry and rice. One day last week, I was rushing to get things done, cooking alu Parathas for the family dinner before I shooted off to work at midday. I had spent the morning with my daughter's school team, and after an emotional rollercoaster, I was finally home. As soon as Raj realized I was rushed, he started helping me- doing the dishes, minding the parathas and We go for walks as a family, collecting resinous gum off Cherry Tree bark in the Summer and visit the forest in all seasons, really!
 We try to teach them the values we both hold dear- like being honest and kind. Sometimes, we do fall off the path ourselves and we do make mistakes too. I 'react' but the good thing is that I apologise to them respectfully and explain that my 'reaction' was sudden, and just a re-action. That, given the chance, I would ensure that the next time we would both have learned our lesson. I try to talk to them and we interact and spend more and more quality time together as we do things like go fora walk, run, dance, play, sing, laugh. Daily chores like cooking and cleaning become interesting- and Shivangi and Rani help me if I request them to hand me something from the fridge or freezer, or peel garlic, potatoes, and I slice up vegetables and they wash them.... This 'quality' time is the only 'Viraasat' I can give them, as I am enriched by my interactions and learning from you and mummy... Memories these children will carry will shape their whole future lives, existence, emotions and the way they cope with life itself.

See, Dad, the way I look at it is life is a series of events. Some of these 'events'  are not in our control. A bit like a bus where we are a passenger, not the driver!! (The driver, I feel is God!) So, whether the journey takes half an hour of going through heavy traffic that slows it down to take one hour, its not for us to change/ control (unless we get off the bus physically, which is NOT an option!!) Or unless the driver says, look guys, the bus journey is to be terminated here, so would all of you people please get 'off' the bus here??! You can catch the next bus coming in, or ask for a refund and your time wasted is regrettable, but not in MY control either....!
So, like a passenger on THAT kind of bus, I can choose to watch the things flash by, smiling at the good, quirky memories/ places/ etc or choose to ignore things 'outside' the bus, just observe my fellow passengers, maybe chat with them/ respond if they start chatting with me!!? Or, like I do when 'alone' on a bus (i.e, when my kids are at school and not part of the journey with me), I think of them, pray for them, send loving vibes to my loved ones, or listen to music on my headphones!!
So many various 'reactions' to one same, recurrent journey (the cyclical rhythm of birth and death, that a soul undertakes in order to attain nirvaana.... (for example, if I go to town on the same bus on the same route for a meeting/appointment very regularly, I will still meet 'different' people, 'have'  the same old 'different' experiences each time.... but what remains constant each time??! It is the 'I' myself. my SELF.) The journey that the Self undertakes each time may be different, and , that 'experience' of the journey will depend on:
My frame of mind,
My 'inner' peace, and how low/high are the reserves at that moment,(like bhai and you often used to say, life a sinus wave- कभी ऊपर तो कभी नीचे।
आप सोच रहे होगे की मैं क्या बोलती जा रही हूँ।।?? (You must be wondering , "What is she talking about, exactly"??!)
Simply, that events, interactions, reactions from people may have affected how I feel on that day....
but when the journey is going on, or the destination (foreseen or unforeseen, as the case may be!) is near, one prepares to leave to bus. taking their 'I' ness with them, off the bus!
All that, then, remains to be said is a polite and heartfelt Thank You to your driver (God) for the journey...
Yesterday, early in the morning, I woke up and felt like 'talking' to God. After more than three restless, sleepless nights, I was physically and mentally drained and my silent musings had travelled, predictably, on the path. So beginning with " I'm OK, you're OK" (remember imok-youreok, Dad!!??) to, very briefly,I must say-" I'm not O.K, You're not O.K", I had finally reached the realisation that I'm (probably) not O.K, but my I (soul)  is O.K. I was ready to open my arms and say " I'm O.K, You're O.K"  He appeared to me and blessed me so that all my anxiety, worries, stress and fears were wiped out and I was left with a feeling of total peace and resignation to His will, As it says in the Lord's Prayer, worldwide-
...Thy will be done: on earth as it is in heaven.
These days, in my darkest hour, my spirit is revived by prayer and prayer alone.
One day, early this week, when my husband asked me, "What do you want??!" (he was talking about this marriage- whether we should be together/get a divorce... What would be my 'needs' financially, materialistically, emotionally etc)....I said, simply, that I want you to be happy, and our children to be happy. I said and I feel I 'want' nothing other than for the children to grow up 'whole' and that I would not like their innocence to be destroyed, faith to be lost or love to be divided. Because LOVE can never, EVER be DIVIDED... It can only be given and it only multiplies....
O.K, Daddy, I am going to get ready for my 0700 Hrs shift, as the kids sleep silently, contentedly with their Dad, or PAPA WOLF (from Alpha n Omega) as they call him!!
All is Well...
Love and hugs,
yours Ruch

The Stars on Earth

When a child is born, 
the family rejoices, 
when someone you love dies, 
you shed tears of sorrow at the loss of their form,
Is it not true, that we celebrate Christmas and Easter with the same joy??!
When one is the birth and the other is the resurrection of Christ in our hearts, surely the soul's journey is beyond birth and death??!  
     -this is something I wrote (on Good Friday)

As a Child, my ideal was my mother. I loved and admired her with my whole being, basking in the sunshine of the Love she and Daddy shared with each other and our entire family. As I was growing up, my lifelong ambition was to emulate her; her grace, her silence, her wisdom. All I wanted to do was be a mother like her, to my future kids, if God saw it fit that I have them. Losing mummy to Cancer was the hardest, most painful experience of our lives. but as a family, we slowly picked ourselves up. Webecame closer, remembered her Values and all that she stood for. Justice, Equality, Love, Truth, her dedication to her students at the College...I Thank God, today, for the brief time we were fortunate to have her. to love her. She may not be with me physically, and I miss her dearly. I cry bitterly, everytime Life is a struggle, a question, a bitter-sweet pain.... Then I remember what she used to say, do and wrote. I turn to my father, my brother and sister- talk to them if I can, or think about them.... I feel my pain melting away. I thank the Lord for life. All of Life. In times like these, these lines By Gibran are my inspiration, as he wrote-

Kahlil Gibran's THE PROPHET. 

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

-Kahlil gibran, theProphet, On Children.

Taare Zameen Par 

(Stars on Earth)

I remember crying my eyes out, when I saw the film Taare Zameen Par, (dubbed version here, in English, and Spanish) for the first time (and each time since..) The whole film is really close to my heart. Maybe because it reminds me of my mother- Ma.... Maybe because my sweetest memories of it relate to my little girl, then just four years old, singing 'taare zameen par' in her little voice a few years ago...She and I both loved the song right from the first time we heard it, and I waited and waited for the film to release on TV. On another level, as a mother of a child with complex difficulties which are yet to be isolated or diagnosed for certain, (A Special Daughter) I can relate to the emotions depicted in the film. It is a sensitive and heartfelt portrayal of a child's world from his own and an adult's perspective... My little girl is now nearly eight and the film struck a chord within my heart.

It is about a unique, lovely little boy Ishaan (Ishaan's World.) Struggling with his learning difficulties, he now faces the trauma of losing all his family too. The boarding school is no different from most other mainstream schools and Ishaan goes into a shell. One day, a new Art Teacher bursts into class and inspires the kids to imagine, dream and let themselves go!! All the children respond to his liveliness with enthusiasm, except Ishaan. The teacher tries to find out WHY. He sees the child's difficulties, helps him overcome them with love and attention and sheer untiring effort and eventually rescues him from the cesspool of isolation. He blossoms under the specialist, untiring tuition of the teacher and consolidates his strengths. That he also finds a way to negotiate his life and sift through his difficulties, is a credit to his spirit and the teacher's efforts.

When I first saw the film, I was shedding tears not only for the little boy in the story, but also for my little girl, my self and all those who suffer silently as the world goes on around them, unaware that they are struggling to make sense of it...

My little girl loves sand, water and running around the park, sitting on the grass and having a picnic.... So I take her outdoors as often as I can, watching her, one with nature. She may not be ready to write, may find it hard to read, sometimes, but one thing that is certain is her evolution from a child to a little girl has been going on since she was born...She is becoming more aware of herself, her surroundings, people, their reactions and their likes and dislikes. While she sees all this, she also 'files away' the 'right' and 'wrong' things she may have done in the past. She is more sociable, more joyous and much more interactive...!

As things have a way of unfolding, I have accepted the fact that, she will, in time be who she is meant to be. That 'being' is unique; it will not, and should not be expected to be ruled by others' ,idea,  hopes or expectations of her. She is a free-spirit as are all children- a bird, a flower, a soul. She came from God and He alone will mould her into her one true form...

We, her parents, were just the means to bring her forth into this world; what she is is beyond birth and death, age and life, words and silence... For this realization, Lord, I thank thee, and pray that thee remind me, each moment of what I must do is nurture her, nourish her and love her for who she is and what she is 'meant to be'..

The Humane - Divine..

Do you believe you are human...?! Do you know if you really are?? What if I tell you, that I BELIEVE in something different... would that make me less human? ...Or perhaps, more arrogant, if I were to tell you what I truly believe in....
Let me explain...

I have been thinking a lot, for almost all my life, but never really committed it to paper- or keyboard, as the case may be- before. Sometimes, my thought process was so effervescent, like bubbles in a glass of Coke... barely there, and so very volatile, they never were meant for anything anyway... never amounting to anything more, just there for the flavour, if you see what I mean!??
This made me feel as if I should give my thoughts time to mature... like a fine wine; which gains its flavour, its age in itself, its true worth... (pardon me for resorting to coke and wine; I did not do this deliberately and my thoughts are not along those lines, I assure you!)
so, perhaps, now is the right time to elaborate.
...to write, and be read...
...to speak and be heard...
...to believe and be told that it is not baseless to believe in oneself...

If I look at my parents, and the values they've always stood for, I feel proud and confident of their inherent virtue, I feel humble...like a speck of cloud in the azure, expansive skies above; small, and yet larger-than-life; sure of my forefathers' immortality.
Not in form,
not even in words,
but as a school of thought that they came from.
This belief, this surety stems from the profound wisdom, the unshakable greatness of both my grandfathers, the simplicity and yet, the hard-working stock of my grandmothers, who, by performing their worldly duties and standing by their husbands so steadfastly, denoted to me all that was good and right in the world in those days.
When marriages were, truly, made in Heaven, and facilitated, nay, merely formalised by our Elders...
When the Marital vows were strong and robust, when the husband worked hard and provided for his family not only in terms of where their next meal came, but also how, in a home where he was just a presence that was 'felt' rather than 'seen'; 'experienced' and not so often 'heard' it was his principles that flowed in the veins of his progeny.
When the youngsters of the family knew, by the way their mothers spoke of their fathers, not taking their name...just by a whisper of a reference, by the sight of a familiar set of shoes in the place he always left them, by the way a window that was always half-open so she could know he had arrived...from the echo of his footfall...from the sound of the bicycle, scooter or car in the gully below... that HE was home..., that he was, indeed, a palpable a presence in his home. Its spirit, its soul its life-breath.
My Paternal Grandfather,Shri Halubha Shivubha Sodha, was just such a patriarch. He was always referred to as 'Bapuji' by all of us, He was straightforward, a man of high principles, and a low voice. He never did need to raise it, really. his mere presence commanded respect and admiration. All his children looked up to him, and strove to make him proud...
The reverence, the overpowering, overwhelming affection he stirred in his children's hearts...was expressed in the way they cast down their eyes when he was in the same place as them. The seldom spoke at him, but always listened, rapt, to his words, even though, more often than not, youth, age and irreverent recklessness gave free rein to the dreams and desires of their closest friends.
One of the most beautiful anecdotes my father shared with us, many moons ago, was the time when, having returned late in the evening from a movie he went for, with a friend, my father was told by Ba, my gran, that Bapuji was home,
"બાપુજી આવી ગયા છે..મેં કઈ દીધું છે, અજય ના ઘરે ગયો છે."
(She had told Bapuji, when he inquired, that Dad had gone out to a friend's place.)
 Later, when Bapuji asked Dad where he'd been, he looked into his father's eyes and said" I was out with Ajay, to see a film"... At this, Bapuji looked up at Ba....I can only imagine the pride and happiness he felt for his son then. They briefly conversed about what film that was (a WW-II film, if I recollect, something along the lines of those days' epic sagas from Hollywood) and both father and son shared a deeper understanding of each others' true nature.
There are many more incidents, both big and small, that have shaped the lives and thoughts of my father and mother in their lifetime.
So, you see, this is the kind of value-system I owe my existence to. I'm humbled by their solid morals and take immense pride in this heritage of Truth and Respect...

Who am I and what is the purpose of life?
This is a question we all might sometimes ask ourselves at some point in our lives. I often ask myself..and wonder...
Mystics say it takes us a lifetime (and beyond) to find the answer..

I believe, as surely as I believe in God, that, at the time of birth, each and every child is unaware of "I" and immersed in the fluid, all-pervading Godliness.... of itself. Maybe, that is the reason why all babies, at the time of birh have their eyes tightly shut, clenched fists rigid and unrelenting, as if holding on to Him... Their one-ness from God is reflected in the cry at birth, in the lament of a torturous human existence, as if removed from the embrace of a loving mother...
since I became a mother I marvel at the mechanics of the Universe- all the more mysterious, altogether  more sublime...
Mother-hood and miracles go hand-in-hand. Each new day is different...and yet, the same. In the incessant cycle of life we come, grow, go and leave behind us a legacy of memories, memoirs and mementoes. Every Child is divine, at birth; it is we who make them humans....It is only appropriate that we etrive to impart good values to them, so that they may become better human beings tomorrow...
This life, given us by our parents...Bestowed in grace and a gift, if you will, from God Himself...It is meaningful and useful only if we live up to our essence- divinity, and our extent- humanity...