Don't Hope, Work!

This is a personal note. It is on my blog and reflects my very personal opinion. I am writing this upfront because while reading this some may get upset and jump to judgement. That's the reader's choice. I am not writing this to win hearts.

On November 8th, 2016, as I sat watching the results roll in, I was very disappointed, at times distraught. I had my head in my hands, on my friends' couch, feeling that the floor under me was giving way. I could not believe this was happening to America. In a strange way I could compare the feeling to 9/11 when I watched on live TV the second tower got hit. It felt like a personal blow, and took the wind out of me. I was in shock for a long time. And on the early hours of Wednesday this week, I somehow felt the same; a deep feeling of loss and shock and disbelief and surprise that humans can be so self destructive. For a while, I found deep aversion arising from me, wanting to not accept the results, trying to find ways to run away, wishing that some calamity strikes and all this goes away. I did not want this outcome. I came home, hugged my two dogs and cuddled with them all night, sleeping very badly, tossing and turning all night, restless. Next morning I had two very important client meetings and I had to be "on" for those. My livelihood was at stake, I had to get up and do my job.

Few days have passed since. And I have seen the surge of emotions on social media and I can resonate with the anguish being felt by the millions of people who gave Hillary the popular vote win, but not the presidency. There is also a surge of hate speech, of accusations, anger, cries of betrayal, of trying to blame someone or something, of trying to find reasons and answers as to why this happened. And there is fear that is like a tornado sweeping through the nation right now, almost a paranoia - will this become a repeat of fascism, rise of dictatorship, collapse of the economy, what about the environment, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, funding for infrastructure, trade relations with the world, hard-fought LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, race marginalization, religious persecution, apartheid, internment camps, funding for science and technology, education decline, legitimization of sexual assault and rape, women's rights and women's safety... The list is long, people are scared.

Am I scared? Yes, a little. I profess to be scared because I am not so developed yet to have been able to discard all fear and become fearless. I am still human and fear is a basic response. But I also see this other response to fear - HOPE. And I have a fundamental problem with Hope. I think that is the wrong response. Hope actually prevents us from accepting the reality as it is. And it puts a sheen of golden future on our minds and tries to numb us. That is not right. I don't believe in hope. I think it is a useless social construct and because we have been listening to this message of hope all our lives, ever since we were a little child in our mother's arms, we find ourselves going for that bandaid everytime we feel a crisis is upon us. I think we need to abandon hope and learn to accept reality, as it is.

The electorate has spoken. We live in a democracy and it is what we have chosen to be our government style. The candidate has been elected fair and square by the system we have put together. It is not right to whine and cry when I did not get the result I wanted. If we feel the system is flawed then we have to put things in motion to change it. Going on a rampage through the cities and destroying other people's property and businesses is not the adult response, this is akin to throwing tantrums like a two year old. Accept the results as is, America. Don't Hope, Work!

The bottomline is that Hillary won the popular vote by 0.2% (47.7% Hillary vs. 47.5% Trump), that is not a big margin. Accept this truth, even if it hurts, it is true. Also, 44.4% of the electorate sat out this election, they did not care to cast their vote! If you go rampaging the streets and crying foul about the system, I say you are not being in your senses. Be an adult, get to work. You have an energy that has arisen in you, preserve that. Do not waste it on messages on social media, or looting other peoples' properties, or burning the flag or effigies or such things. Don't hope that everything will get better. Control yourself, observe the fire in you, channel it wisely into effective work. How you behave yourself, how you pull yourself together and work moving forward will be what will bring the 44.4% that sat out to the polls. So, control yourself, don't fly off the handle with every incendiary spark from the media! Don't be so paranoid either, after eight years in office, Obama was not able to close Guantanamo, and that was in his 100-day agenda too. So, be smart, be wise, calm down, don't forget, don't get complacent, get to work.

The best analogy I can give is from my business life. We work hard for every contract we win. No one really hands it to us. For every RFP that hits the street, we try to know about it months and years in advance, we work with the client and sometimes help them through the process, we also position ourselves with the client at several levels of the client organization over and over again. Once the RFP hits the street, we put our best effort in it and spend a lot of time and money to create the best proposal we can. Then after waiting for what seems like ages, we find out we lost; sometimes to a vague little firm in Texas who doesn't even have a local presence! We are stunned! How did this happen? Where did we go wrong? We did exactly the right things, and most of all we cared deeply for the client and their vision and had put together the most effective and efficient approach to get their job done. And more than betrayal, we feel extremely sorry for the client to have made such a senseless decision. But we respect their decision, it was theirs to make. If they do not see and understand what is beneficial to them, there is nothing else we can do. Protesting, or crying, or saying terrible things, or deciding not to work with that client anymore do not get us anywhere. We just need to accept the decision as is and move forward. But you know what, we will never again take any little thing for granted. We will be overly cautious with every step forward. We will protect ourselves, we will keep our expectations at check, we will channel the grief and sadness and energy that has arisen in us towards carefully crafting the strategy for the next task at hand, with wisdom, with insight.

Being a political leader is very difficult. I have several friends in local government, and many others who are leaders in public agencies, public servants/bureaucrats. On a daily basis I see them struggle to get the job done, they climb the mountains everyday. It is very hard. Are there immoral and self-serving people who got elected? Yes, there are some. Are they using the system to get their pockets filled, some try and even succeed for a while, yes! Then they mess up, there is a scandal, and they are elected out of office. Are there lazy public agency workers who take their retirement and job as secure and for granted, and do not function, yes there are some. But rarely do those people get to stay for long at the top of the system, they are usually moved over to a position where they are irritating, but cannot cause too much of trouble or be in the way of things getting done. Does the government system work? I say, yes. Is it slow? Most of the time, yes. Is it efficient? Not all the time. Does it work for the benefit of the many? Most of the time. But you know what, the very system that is slow and hard to move and very difficult is what is good at times like this. It can prevent the bad stuff from happening as much as block the good stuff. It is the safety valve. Like it or not, that is what it is! The reality. Do you want to change it? Be very careful for what you want. If you want to punch holes in the fabric of the system to make sure more things pass through, remember the good and the bad will pass through. Make sure you modulate the pore sizes of the punch such that the bad stuff gets held off, make sure you do not punch too many holes too. Work with the system, slowly and surely, and more importantly, wisely.

Focus at least half of your energy to protect yourself. If you are afraid of your safety and of your freedoms being taken away, protect yourself the best way you can. Use the system to your advantage. For every issue, raise a flag. Make complaints, write to officials, stand up an walk, Be extremely aware of your surroundings, don't take anything for granted. There is no space for being stunned anymore, to be surprised as to how someone had the audacity to do/propose whatever they are doing. Have your radar on, and at the first smell or inkling of something that may go amiss, take note, take action. Wise action. Do not let anyone dent your freedoms. That is what America stands for. Do whatever it takes, without resorting to violence, to counter that force. If they are going to chip away your rights, those you have bled to secure, you can't just let them take it away! Like all the great leaders before us, channel the energy and work tirelessly. When they imprisoned Mandela for 27 years, do you think it was a casual walk in the park everyday? He gathered his energy and made his resolution even stronger, and very wisely, one person at a time worked his way through the process. He did not take anything or anyone for granted. He worked every day, breaking rocks and firming his resolution. That's what we have to do. And you know what, the 44.4% that sat out the election is actually looking for a leadership that is wise.

On election night, I was having dinner with a very wise lady. She told me - "People tell you who they are all the time. You have to learn to listen and believe them." It is so true. When I look back at many of my disappointments with people in life, I can clearly see that I did not listen and believe them when they clearly told me who they were, sometimes on the first meeting. It was me who did not want to accept, because I wanted an alternate reality to be true, I had a dream world where I wanted these people to change and fit in. That is the Hope-world, completely unreal. Same thing here. President-elect has clearly told us who he is. We need to accept him, exactly for who he is. Once we can accept that, we know what we are in for. We can then figure our strategies to make sure we are safe, and everything we care for is safe. And do not get complacent, be on guard all the time. At times it may feel that everything is okay, and that may incite you to lay your guard down. Don't do that. Keep on a lookout, be aware of everything going on around you, stay vigilant, defend your freedoms. Make no compromises. What is rightfully yours, it is yours. Don't let anyone take it from you. Some people have pointed out, it took Hitler just two years to turn the country around and mess up everything. That's right. It did. Not only Hitler, every overthrow of every government throughout history has the same pattern. The leaders or the public was living in an alternate reality. When the British slowly broke down the monarchies in India and created the Empire, almost every king in each of India's little kingdoms were thinking that it happens to others, not to me. They were not vigilant, or aware when the first signs arose; and by the time they wanted to protect themselves, it was too late. This is exactly what the US need to be aware of. Be vigilant, every moment, protect your freedoms, and without resorting to mass hysteria and panic, compose yourself. Don't hope, work!

The Pied Piper of Hamelin has taken the rats to the mountain, do not let him take your children too!!

Tiger, my Djinn

I must have been about two or three years old, for it was before my sister was born, I had a djinn. He was a gorgeous tiger. A Royal Bengal Tiger. He was long and strong. His coat was bright golden orange with beautiful thick white and black stripes. His belly and inner side was very soft and pure white like down. He had small perky ears, left one a bit bent at the bottom. His best thing was grand white whiskers that would tickle me to fits. His eyes were small and translucent yellow, always aware. And most of all, I loved his tail, soft and long, orange with black rings. I used to hold it, pull it, play with it, hang by it, and he never seemed to mind. He was my best friend, the only one I had at that age, and he was always with me whenever I needed him.

Photo Credit: San Diego Zoo

Did it have a name? No, I just called him Tiger, just like the neighbor's German Shepard was called. But mine was a real tiger, not a dog! I used to notice from the back window how miserably the neighbor used to treat his dog, but my Tiger was my favorite plaything, we shared everything we had - sunshine on cold floors, the musical plop of water drops in the bucket, the unending expanse of the terrace, the crack on the side of the stair, the long line of tiny black ants going somewhere in a hurry, the smell of Maa's fresh warm rotis, the call of the vendors from the street, and much more. This was long before I had read The Jungle Book, or known about Hobbes, or been to a zoo, or had any exposure to any books about tigers. I suspect he had just popped out of a calendar that hung in our shabby little dining room one fine day and made my world alive and beautiful. No one else could see him, he was my djinn; invisible to all, and visible to me alone. We used to talk in secret language and he used to follow me everywhere I went, especially when I went to the bathroom, as it used to be at the other end of the house across the stairs, and I used to be very scared going there alone. He used to stand outside and keep telling me that everything is fine and that he is guarding the door, that I need not be scared. He was my best friend.

He was by my side almost all the time we lived in our Nibaranpur home, till my sister was born. I was four when my sister was born. Our home was on the second floor. We had to get to the stairs through a small garage where Baba used to keep his white scooter. As we went up the stairs, it would open into the dining room. Baba liked the dining table against the window, so there was only seating for four people. This was the table where my dad's friends would sit when they visited us in the evenings, and there used to be songs of Manna Dey sung by Kamal Kaku into the night over unending cups of tea and snacks. While they all sat on the chairs around the table, I used to sit on the table, with Tiger by my side, and observe and listen to all the things the adults talked about - politics, music, movies, football, cricket, price of daily items, problems at work, weather, the whole lot. I didn't understand it all, but what I did I would explain patiently to Tiger, and he would nod his head and sometimes roll his eyes. The kitchen was on the other side of the staircase, and also was the bathroom. Maa used to spend most of her time in the kitchen, while Tiger and I played on the dining room floor. Leading away from the dining room, there was a small room, it was my room. There was a large tall bed by the window. The window overlooked the street and beyond that to the Mess (a boarding house for working menfolk) opposite our house where my dad's friends used to live. The window had vertical rods, and I used to stand holding the bars and talk to everyone walking the streets below. I had many friends. Maa used to tie me with a piece of string to the bars so that I did not fall of the bed, while she was cooking in the kitchen. Tiger and I could spend all day looking outside, watch the sparrows and pigeons, the stray dogs and cats in the street. We used to talk a lot, I don't remember all the conversations, but it used to be mostly about the people and animals we saw. We used to snuggle together and play. I loved blowing bubbles in his pure white soft belly, and he howled with laughter. We used to tumble about the bed together playing with each other, giggling and wrestling with each other. It was pure joy.

We were poor then. Baba used to make five hundred rupees a month and had to send three hundred or so back to my grandfather for his brothers' education and family rations. Maa had to manage with meager resources. So, we used to have my favorite egg curry only once a week, and meat or fish once every two to three weeks. Dinners used to be roti and a sabzi (vegetable). Now a days I love bhindi/okra, but at that age, I used to hate it. Actually, I did not like any vegetables then, except maybe fried eggplant/brinjal steaks. Baba's strict rules were that you had to finish every morsel on your plate. So on the night that the dinner was roti and okra sabji, it was torture for me. I used to sit on the dining table, for what seemed like hours, with one roti and fried okra on my plate. To teach me discipline, Maa and Baba, after having finished their dinner, used to leave me alone in the dining room, with a tiny ceiling light burning, and retire to the bedroom. I was supposed to call out when I was done, then they would get me down from the table. Tiger was so nice then, my best buddy. He used to walk up and down the dining room, assuring me that there was nothing to fear. Sometimes he would jump up on the table and rub his head in my tummy urging me to eat. And when he did that I would squeal with laughter, and that would often bring Maa over to inquire as to what was happening. Finding me just sitting there and laughing away, she would chide me and go back to the bedroom. Sometimes Tiger and I would plot and throw pieces of roti and okra through the window, or under the table. Under the table was not always a great idea, since next day the remnants would show up when Maa swept the floor, and that meant scolding when Baba got home from work.

Kamma, my father's mother, had come to visit us one time. She was a small lady with a very strong personality. She was not particularly fond of children, nor of my mother. Baba used to be at office all day, so she had no choice but to hang out with us. Tiger and I used to follow her around everywhere, even to the terrace, even if she disapproved of it. I was very curious about her, and found it fascinating to have another woman about the house who was so very different from Maa. I used to observe everything she did, and she did things so very differently from Maa. In the afternoons, when the sun was high, she would take a bath and sit on the stairs leading up to the terrace. I used to sit by her and Tiger would laze on the stairs above us. I remember Kamma smelling of neem from the Margo soap she had just used. She sometimes wore a light lemony yellow colored cotton saree with orange border and tiny black dots. She looked so beautiful in that sari. But Tiger used to get jealous that I liked looking at her, and he would try to flaunt his orange black and white at me on the stairs, sometimes precarious balancing on only one paw, just to get my attention. I would then scold him to keep quiet. She had curly hair that she would oil and comb while sitting on the stairs. I used to just sit and watch her, for she did not like talking much, nor pay much attention to me. She looked very beautiful, with a bright red bindi and sindoor. She'd break into a song or hum a tune sometimes. Tiger used to get bored and sometimes bound up and down the stairs urging me to follow him. Though I knew that Kamma couldn't hear him, I used to scold Tiger and ask him to sit quietly beside me. Instead Tiger used to make faces at me, and threaten to snuggle and make me laugh. A few times he would come very close to me and shout loud in my ears "tickle, tickle" that would unleash my squeals. Kamma would get upset, call my mother and make a big scene. So you know, he was really naughty and troublesome sometimes, managing him was quite a bit of work for a three year old!

One time I developed a stye on my left eyelid, it was a big one. So big that the eye was almost closed shut. Maa and Baba were worried. The stye was very painful, and I used to cry a lot. Tiger thought that if he licked the boil it would go away, I let him, but his magic did not work. One evening, Baba had the idea to burst the stye and let the pus out. So, he set me up on my bed, Maa lighted a candle and handed him a few large sewing needles. The plan was to heat the end of the needle to sanitize it and then poke the stye with it. It was dangerous, if he missed the stye or jabbed too hard, I could go blind. So Maa and Baba explained the procedure carefully to me and asked me to sit still and patiently. Maa was to hold me while Baba did the job. The stage was set on the bed in my room, right beside the window towards the street. In fact, the candle was precariously kept on the windowsill.

Tiger was not happy. Not happy at all. He furiously paced up and down the room while the preparation was going on and kept telling me loudly that he did not approve of it. He kept threatening to eat my Baba if he dared to hurt me, and may be Maa too for helping in this process. I was crying, but I kept urging Tiger to trust Maa-Baba and not eat them. Who'll look after me then? I was just a little girl! So, here we were, Maa behind me, holding me still. Baba sanitizing the needles and then bringing it close to my eye. I was very scared. All of a sudden I saw Tiger grow huge and tall, almost three times Baba's size, and stood on his hind legs ready to pounce on Baba from the back. His eyes were glowing, he was breathing hard, and saliva was falling off his open mouth. His mouth was wide open and as big as Baba's head, he could chomp off Baba's head at one go, I was sure of it. I yelled out with all my might - "No! No! Don't eat him! Don't eat him!!"

Baba was stopped in his tracks - "What? I'm not going to eat you? This will be just a little prick." But I kept crying and yelling. So much so that Baba's friends from the Mess came to their respective windows and also yelled out to us - "Hey Dada! What are you doing to that little girl? Why is she crying so hard?" Baba had to appease them and explain that he's trying to burst the stye on my eyelid. But while all this was happening, Tiger just stood there in that pouncing style as a statue, no movement, fixated on chomping Baba's head off, brimming with silent undivided intention. I was not scared for the stye on my eye anymore, I was scared that Maa-Baba will soon become tiger food!  Anyway, Baba did manage to successfully prick the stye a few times, in spite of my crying and wriggling, he also managed not to pierce my eye. After seeing that I was safe, Tiger got down and looked straight at me, said in his cold deep penetrating serious voice, "I am telling you, I would have really eaten him had he dared to hurt you!!"

Tiger, my djinn, is no longer with me. Only the many memories of him remain. He used to make me laugh, the real laugh with no care, and that mirth came from somewhere very deep inside. As you grow up, you learn to live in a world made of rules, reality, and sharp edges, and there is no place for djinns, soft white cuddles, and secret languages. You learn to be brave the world on your own, venture out in the darkness and stay there all alone through the cold nights. I don't remember exactly when he left me, he probably faded from my life gradually as I got busy with reality of growing up. These days, as an adult, I want him back, sometimes very intensely. I miss him. There have been dark days, and quite a few of them in the last few years. I could have used his company, his softness, his assurance, his love and care, I yearned for him. When I go for long walks on the beach at the break of dawn on Sundays, I sometimes smell him in the mist of the morning as it envelopes me, arising from the sea with the roar of the waves. Maybe he is there, maybe he is gone, he is a mirage. But I want to laugh with him again, for Laughter, the real one, I realize now, had gone away with him when he had left......

Coffee and Chocolate, in bed

At this time I will admit that I have two fetishes. As you might guess from the title of this post, it is coffee and chocolate, in bed.

Morning coffee in bed is the best thing that can happen to me. My ex-husband never got the hang of it, maybe he didn't care, but if he did, we would have still been married. His loss! It is truly a divine feeling for me to wake up to the aroma of a steaming cup of coffee on the night stand. Mornings are very special for me, I typically wake up very early, and if I don't have anything to do or a major meeting to rush to, I lie in bed enjoying the quietness and the softness of dawn, experiencing the night melting into the embrace of the first rays of the sun. A new day is to start, new promise. With the slight chill in the air, the touch of the covers on my skin feels comforting. I usually lie in a trance of half-dreamy-half-awake state for a while, just soaking in the pleasure. And with that, if there is the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, I am in heaven. 

Being single in this regard is difficult, it takes the fun out of lazing in bed. To make a good cup, you have to actually get up and go fix yourself one, which is quite an effort and beats the purpose of the whole experience. Few years back an old friend was visiting me from Australia, and during our many conversations I happened to mention in the offing this peculiar craving of mine, and on her last day with me, she did just that - got me a cup of coffee in bed. I cried. I was so touched. She was amazed how little it took to make me so emotional and happy. Now I have most of my friends "trained", when they stay with me or when I am visiting them, they usually get me a cup in bed. For example, couple months back, I was visiting a new friend in Los Angeles, I slept in a makeshift bed on the floor in her converted garage, it was a very different setting than my own bed. And she surprised me a cup of hot coffee as I was stretching and just waking up; I was tearful again. Later she told me, she was checking on me every few minutes as to when I would start to stir, and as soon as I did, she made me a cup. She does not drink coffee as such, but had gone all the way to buy coffee because I was visiting and made it for me. I feel so blessed to be loved this way!

Coffee and Chocolate

In 2008, we were touring Tasmania. One day driving up the east coast we found ourselves taking a windy road up the hill at Swansea and visiting Kate's Berry farm. As luck would have it, Kate was there. We enjoyed the delicious offerings she had and, true to my inquisitive nature, I struck a conversation with Kate. Her story was fascinating, how she fell in love with Tassie the moment she had landed in Lonnie decades back, that she felt like kissing the tarmac after landing, and  how it took her a while to wrap up her flourishing business and life on the mainland and move to Tassie for good. Little did I know then that Tassie would have the same effect on me, and now, years later, all I dream of is retiring in Tassie. Whether I can afford to do so, who knows? At that time Kate was doing berries very well and she was putting Tassie on the world map for top quality berries, she was often invited as key-note speaker at conferences. And she how also encouraged local housewives and farmers to grow the top quality berries with love and care. I was amazed by her effort and success, and very inspired. I asked her, what's next? She exclaimed, Chocolates! She said that she's been doing active market research. She has been sitting at high end chocolate shops for months on end and profiling the clientele. She noticed that the people who regularly buy chocolates, the high end decadent ones, are single women in their late thirties to early forties. That is the ideal demographic, one with the money to spare and the taste for good chocolates. At that time, I listened in awed silence and filed away the information. I was in my early thirties then, and chocolates were a nice-to-have but definitely not a priority nor special pleasure. I couldn't imagine buying a box of chocolates for regular self-use, I typically bought them as gifts. (By the way, Kate does offer handmade decadent chocolates in her shop now.) So last night, as I selected my little piece of heaven from the box of twenty, I suddenly realized I have become Kate's ideal clientele, I fit the profile!

I keep a box of special chocolates at home. And when I go to bed each night, I carefully select one special piece, like a ritual, and savor it in bed while reading my latest book to sleep. These days my friends are also aware of this special ceremony of mine, and I get boxes of chocolates as gifts. One friend/brother of mine travels to foreign lands often, and without fail he gets me a box of dark delights every time. Yes, I am blessed!

As I grow older I am starting to realize the importance of these small pleasures and how to be mindful and make space for them in my life. Coffee can be had on the go and by the gallon from the drive-thru, and sometimes schedule demands that; but to make it a small mindful ritual heightens the pleasure multiple times. To pause and savor a sip of coffee, experiencing the warmth flowing down the throat, the aroma almost makes you heady, the soft light of dawn with its cool quietness makes it magical. It is like I am unwrapping the day, a carefully packed gift with a pretty ribbon bow. The morning coffee is like gently tugging the ribbon as it unravels the beautiful gift. Same way, as I get into bed to rest, after a day tired from running pillar to post, full of anxiety and busy-ness, having a little piece of chocolate, and you don't know what you will get, is not only a special treat to self for a day well labored and finished, it is also a reminder of the unknowns in life and a sweet way to make peace with them. Life is good, just as it is!

Float Away, Float Away....

"The art of losing isn’t hard to master; 
so many things seem filled with the intent 
to be lost that their loss is no disaster. 

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster 
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. 
The art of losing isn’t hard to master. 

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: 
places, and names, and where it was you meant 
to travel. None of these will bring disaster. 

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or 
next-to-last, of three loved houses went. 
The art of losing isn’t hard to master. 

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, 
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. 
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster. 

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture 
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident 
the art of losing’s not too hard to master 
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster."
 (Elizabeth Bishop, One Art)

This morning, at dawn, on my favorite beach, I sent four boats afloat and away. Each boat signifying the bondage of a relationship I have labored for all my life.

This was a big step for me. I am not into rituals, in fact I abhor them, I find them repulsive even. Growing up in a culture steeped with rituals I found myself very much at odds with society when it came to rituals, but today I made up one of my own, for this period signifies a very important turning point in my personal life. It is the real full stop in a long sentence of my life. A new paragraph starts.

Boats floating away

Some of you know my story intimately, some only know it at the periphery, and some of you are reading this note for the first time. This note is very hard for me to write, as it is extremely personal and I especially do not want to hurt anyone. But it is also very important for me to write, for this note may serve, if it is at all possible, as a sign to others in a similar situations, and maybe give them assurance that they too, one day, can be free from bondage. This freedom is from the bondage of anger, pain, expectations, hurt, desire, betrayal, and the incessant measurement of what is right and wrong, what could be or could have been; and all these emotions are now replaced with only one ardent compassionate wish for the people on those boats - May They Be Happy.

To write a tell-all might make a thick book of tears, and it will not serve the purpose. It is not about the people from whom I separated, nor is it about the incidents that led me here, it is about my emotions and of truly letting go of the past. It has been a long arduous journey - my learning to recognize the intimate truth about the cause my pain and suffering, then of my learning that there is a way out of it, and then of my release. I alone am the architect of this freedom and that is the only thing that matters at this time. Specifics of the relationships or incidents have no meaning in this context. Instead I talk about all the mistakes I made over the years, cues that I misunderstood in life, and the responsibility I take for being so ignorant and misinformed. I put out in the open my naivety, my innocence, and from it the path to freedom that I have discovered, better late than never.

I feel that my mind is like a dishwashing sponge, one that has been used everyday for all these years and has accumulated dirt water deep in its pores. Even when this sponge was placed in clean water, there was no space to soak up the clean. The sponge needed a strong wring. And the last five years served that purpose very well. These years have been really hectic for me, every year brought with it a new seemingly insurmountable challenge. I took the storms straight on and somehow managed to survive, I know not how. I was wrung to the core, trashed many times and wrung again. Then, progressively I have been placed in clean water, and finally I have been able to soak up the wisdom, true life wisdom that has led me to this shore of freedom.

Much of my pain arose from social conditioning and my naivety. As I look back, I can see three distinct flows that intertwined like braids: a stupor/daze of unworthiness, a pervasive feeling of loneliness and hence a deep rooted desire to belong, and a fear of physical and emotional pain. Over the four decades, quite frankly, there has been scarcely a moment when I have treated myself with mercy and kindness. I had an inner judge who was merciless, relentless, nit-picking, driving, invisible but always on the job. This served me well in few walks of life, I am highly functional and successful in my professional and worldly achievements; but it has also left me anxious, driven and often depressed. There has been a pervasive feeling of being not okay and personal deficiency, and it went hand in hand with deep loneliness. As unworthiness and insecurity permeated every space of my being, I have felt alone in my suffering, and that it was a personal problem and somehow my fault. The curtains of ignorance were so thick that I did not see all this. I did not see how I was affecting and hurting myself all these years. Today I see all this. I have lost much time, but there is some time left still.

These four relationships are sanctioned by society to be near and dear to every person, that no matter where the world goes these relationships are supposed to stay true and protect you; and I believed it. My extreme wanting for attention, affection, love, compassion, and kindness led me to keep investing in these relationships, no matter the cost to self. These people took me for granted, I spent the entire time wondering why my investments were not paying any dividends. I was naive enough to not question the norm and my desire was the thick curtain of ignorance which prevented me from seeing the extreme personal loss I was incurring. There have been years when I have cried all night, and then in the morning taken the tear soaked pillow to the terrace to dry it in the sun so that no one will notice. There have been long nights when I felt ripples of anger crawl in my veins, which made me so hot and suffocated, that I had to drive to the ocean in the middle of the night to let the mist and wind cool me down. There have been days spent in daze of restlessness when I felt I was sitting on a bed of scorpions, feeling the painful venom throbbing within and no respite. There have been times when I lay on the kitchen floor writhing in physical pain and then pitying myself for not having a single person around to hand me a glass of water or help me get up, berating myself on how much I have failed in life. I have suffered, very much. As I kept giving, more was asked of me. My delusion of hope let me believe that it was my duty to give, that being selfless, especially for these relationships, is what everyone does, and is my greatest asset. I took the definition of serving to the extreme and became an indentured slave. My inner judge drove me to be good, and defined new standards of goodness every moment, and the little girl in me kept hoping to please and receive a glance of acknowledgement. These people didn't see me as a human capable of sensations, both emotional and physical. For them I was a robot - they fed their needs and desires and I performed like a wound up toy, beating the drum at their command. My attachment was to hope, and every unfulfilled hope further reinforced my unworthiness and led me to try harder, almost always to exhaustion. I was afraid to let go, for I let these relationships define my identity. Letting go meant that I would become a nobody! That was scary. It was all an intertwined jumbled mess of suffering.

Loss that redeems

Today, as I sent away these boats, I set myself free.
Free of the bondage of these relationships.
I abandon all hope, and with it, all the fear of loss.
That is freedom.
I own no one, and no one owns me.
There is a lot of love in my heart, and it is free now.
I am open and willing to share with the world,
        to give myself freely, kindly, and with all my effort.
I do not have to look back anymore, for there are no more strings attached.
I set myself free. Free of all the pain, the wanting, the misery, the suffering.
Today I wish for myself a new dawn -
        may I have patience,
        may I find peace,
        may I be free of desire,
        may I be able to direct all my energies towards wholesome actions,
        may I be able to help others without expectations,
        may I be able to get my volition become purer as time passes on,
        may I be happy.

Vipassana, once again

Yesterday I had a major work deadline, for which I had been slogging 18+ hr days for over a week now. It is typical, life of a small business woman. We have staff to help, but often we have to do every little bit of the work, be it cleaning up after a coffee spill to making presentations on the national stage. So, on last Saturday morning, at 7am, while having my second coffee, I started writing this post. A friend had asked me a question about Vipassana and I wrote her a long reply on email. Then I thought, I should share the same with you all. Why not?

From tomorrow I start my sixth Vipassana course and I am very excited about it. This time I will be serving the course, and my father will be sitting the course. I feel very fortunate that my mother sat a course the year before she passed away, and this year my father is sitting. In Indian culture, there is this belief that it is very hard for children to repay the debt of their parents - to have given them birth and afforded them an opportunity to experience the human world. I am told that this is very opposite to the philosophy in Western culture, where the child owes nothing to the parents. The parents had sex, so the child was born, linked to the "original sin". Here I am, living in the West for almost two decades, with an ingrained Indian philosophy, that is my reality! Here's how I look at it, I have done as much as I can possibly do for my parents. They did/do not lack for money or any major existential comfort, of course they could have flaunted/enjoyed their money a bit more, but they did not, it was/is their choice. When my mother was sick, I left everything in "my world" here in the US, that is my own family, my work, my fledgling business, my home, and spent three months caring for her and my father. Since then, I have looked after my family, the best I way I possibly could with repeated visits and communication. No, I did not carry them on my shoulders, I don't think I needed to. The Indian philosophy on children's duty goes this way - to repay your parents' debt, there are few ways -
if they are uncomfortable, make them comfortable; 
if they are not established in morality, help them get established in morality and virtue; 
if they are not established in sharing and caring, help them to get established in generosity; 
if they are not established in insight and understanding of the world, help them get established in the same.
So, with my father doing this course next week, I feel I will have made my little effort to help him establish in insight. I take the horse to the water, if it drinks or not, it is the horse's choice.

Ready to "open my heart" and let insight come in

Vipassana is about self-observation and learning from that. It is the technique to “see the reality as it is”, and if practiced the right way, it can get us out of misery. All around me I see a lot of misery, people are sad or agitated, or frustrated. There is so much intolerance, anxiety, violence, and fear. We just have to turn on the news and it is full of hyperbole of what is going wrong in the the world, bomb blasts and war. Yes, the common man is also taking vacations to exotic places, babies are being born, there is joy in many aspects, often doused in alcohol and drugs. I may have a very pessimistic view at the moment. And it may be colored by my ability to see the pain in existence. I find most of us constantly trying to hold still in a changing world and finding it difficult. Disease and death is hurting too. As I work with my hospice patients, I notice the pain in the eyes of the caregivers how the anticipation of separation hurts them, and some are just tired fighting the disease.

When I look at my life, and the incessant challenges I had to face especially in the last five years, I feel that Vipassana has been a tremendous tool for me to help me make sense of it all, and often allow me to see various points of view, and grow to accept my life as it is, and not just tolerate it. Last five years have been a constant barrage of storms in my personal life - car accident, sick parents, death, divorce, major surgeries, home buy/sell, moving, building a business, hiring, etc. - and I survived. And this is still a work in progress. That is why I practice, that is why I do two retreats a year, and that is also why I often wish I had the exposure 30 years back and maybe not have to suffer so much. I have had a few people question the value, for they find me more perceptive than I was in the past and hence feel I may be suffering more. But I don't think so. You see, I feel I now have a tool to take temperature as the heat rises and also a pressure relief valve should I need it from time to time. That is good, methinks.

We are all very ancient creatures, with eons of tendencies ingrained in us – the good and the bad. Our cloth is quite dirty, and Vipassana helps us launder it. Leading a life of morality, meditative practice and discipline, with a curious investigative mind that penetrates into insight, I feel, is a good way to live. Hence I practice. Each one of us start at a different place based on our life experiences. The teachers/ assistant teachers at the centers we practice are not enlightened beings, they are normal people like us who have done a few more courses than us. They do not claim to be any different or superior. And they do not have all the answers to the miseries of life, and there is no "guru-dom" going on. What makes this all work for me is that there is no religion involved, that it is pure technique. There is no hypnosis, or any other kind of feel-good mumbo-jumbo. There is no guru, or rituals, or monetary shenanigans, etc. You take the technique and use it in your life the best way you can, depending on the depth of your understanding.

In India, we believe that there are four paths to enlightenment – Karma Yoga, Raj Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Jnana Yoga. Every human is suited for/predisposed to one or a mix of these four. No two people are alike because of the different life experiences and tendencies we have. Vipassana is a tool in the Jnana yoga path, just one tool of many. People who are inclined and resonate more with Jnana yoga will find Vipassana helpful, others won’t. So I am not at all surprised that everyone does not get the benefit as I did. Each person should be free to find his/her own path to wisdom, and use the method and means that work best for them.

For some, chanting matras or singing praise of a god or goddess with unlimited love in their heart creates a cleansing situation and their mind becomes pure and beautiful, they attain enlightenment. There have been many saints like that, does not matter which religion/god they follow.
For some, it is selfless service. They let themselves melt away in relentless service for others. They attain a higher state that way. We all can cite a few such examples as well.
For people like me, with an extremely inquisitive and discerning mind, Jnana Yog is the path, because I need insight, I need to understand, I need to experience to believe. I cannot simply trust other people's words, I need experience the wisdom first hand.  Hence Vipassana works for me.
For some people, it is a mix of all the three above, Raj Yoga. That is what the Vedanta Centers all over the world talk about. They urge people to not waste a moment of this precious life and spend every minute in one of the three practices – Karma, Bhakti, or Samadhi (meditation); and because you are busy with spiritual work, there is no way other “stuff” can come into your psyche, so your mind will get cleaned over time and you will attain enlightenment.

Where I am right now, Vipassana works for me. Five/ ten years from now, who knows? I am changing every day. I may have to follow another path later in life. I am very fluid.
So, for people who ask me, all I can say is that – have an open mind.
Vipassana is a technique, it cannot be learned or be understood by reading books or by discussing. One has to do a course, at the very least, a course. It cannot hurt you if you follow it with an open mind. If you go with a judging mind, it will only multiply your doubt, fear, and anxiety and will do no good.

I lead a very intense life, especially at work. And right now I am looking forward to the course, just one more sleep to go when I can let the pressure relief go off! Makes me happy. Very.

Krishno-Koli, my interpretation

কৃষ্ণকলি আমি তারেই বলি,   কালো তারে বলে গাঁয়ের লোক।
মেঘলা দিনে দেখেছিলেম মাঠে   কালো মেঘের কালো হরিণ-চোখ।
ঘোমটা মাথায় ছিল না তার মোটে,   মুক্তবেণী পিঠের 'পরে লোটে।
কালো? তা সে যতই কালো হোক,   দেখেছি তার কালো হরিণ-চোখ।
    
ঘন মেঘে আঁধার হল দেখে   ডাকতেছিল শ্যামল দুটি গাই,
শ্যামা মেয়ে ব্যস্ত ব্যাকুল পদে   কুটির হতে ত্রস্ত এল তাই।
আকাশ-পানে হানি যুগল ভুরু   শুনলে বারেক মেঘের গুরুগুরু।
কালো? তা সে যতই কালো হোক,   দেখেছি তার কালো হরিণ-চোখ।
    
পূবে বাতাস এল হঠাৎ ধেয়ে,   ধানের ক্ষেতে খেলিয়ে গেল ঢেউ।
আলের ধারে দাঁড়িয়েছিলেম একা,   মাঠের মাঝে আর ছিল না কেউ।
আমার পানে দেখলে কি না চেয়ে   আমি জানি আর জানে সেই মেয়ে।
কালো? তা সে যতই কালো হোক,   দেখেছি তার কালো হরিণ-চোখ।
    
এমনি করে কালো কাজল মেঘ   জ্যৈষ্ঠ মাসে আসে ঈশান কোণে।
এমনি করে কালো কোমল ছায়া   আষাঢ় মাসে নামে তমাল-বনে।
এমনি করে শ্রাবণ-রজনীতে   হঠাৎ খুশি ঘনিয়ে আসে চিতে।
কালো? তা সে যতই কালো হোক,   দেখেছি তার কালো হরিণ-চোখ।
    
কৃষ্ণকলি আমি তারেই বলি,   আর যা বলে বলুক অন্য লোক।
দেখেছিলেম ময়নাপাড়ার মাঠে   কালো মেয়ের কালো হরিণ-চোখ।
মাথার 'পরে দেয় নি তুলে বাস,   লজ্জা পাবার পায় নি অবকাশ।
কালো? তা সে যতই কালো হোক,   দেখেছি তার কালো হরিণ-চোখ॥

Ever since I had heard this song, Krishnokoli Aami Taare Boli, when I was a little girl, I had this image in my mind. Finally this morning, I garnered the courage to render it with pastels. I know not what Tagore had seen on that dark and stormy evening, but every time I hear this song my romantic heart feels pulled into the picture he so eloquently draws with words and and every time I fall in love with the black lily of his dreams, the one with doe eyes. Inspired by the vivid description, and the hooked to the mood it creates, I have spent countless hours with the sensation of melancholic love and longing, lost in the imagined world - The east wind creating waves in the full green rice fields, while dark storm clouds are gathering, and we see this beautiful nonchalant young lady, dark and mesmerizing.

This drawing of mine is an interpretation of the following - 

"Pube batas elo hathat dheye, dhaner khete kheliye galo dheu

Aler dhare dariyechilem aka, mather majhe ar chilo na keu
Amar pane dekhle k na cheye, ami jani ar jane sei meye
Kalo? Ta se jatoi kalo hok, dekhechi tar kalo harin chokh"
I translate it as -
A wind suddenly blew from the east, and it created waves on the rice fields. I was just standing by the lane, and there was no one in the fields. She looked at me. Whether she saw me or not, only she knows (and I know too). They call her dark, that might be so, but I saw her dark doe eyes.

KrishnoKoli Ami Taare Boli

Listen to the song here:

We are lucky that he translated the lovely song himself -  

"Her neighbors call her dark in the village - but she is a lily to my heart, yes, a lily though not fair. Light came muffled with clouds, when first I saw her in the field; her head was bare, her veil was off, her braided hair hanging loose on her neck. 

She may be dark as they say in the village, but I have seen her black eyes and am glad. 

The pulse of the air boded storm. She rushed out of the hut, when she heard her dappled cow low in dismay. For a moment she turned her large eyes to the clouds, and felt a stir of the coming rain in the sky. 

I stood at the corner of the rice field, - if she noticed me, it was known only to her (and perhaps I know it). She is dark as the message of shower in summer, dark as the shade of flowering woodland; she is dark as the longing for unknown love in the wistful night of May." ~ KrishnoKoli Ami Taare Boli by Rabindranath Tagore

Of Pandas and Friends with Ladders

This weekend was a treat. I went to Los Angeles to spend time with a new friend. Though she is 30 years older than me and I only met her in February for the first time, I feel that I have known her for lifetimes. She makes me feel safe, loved, and cared for, which is very special. This weekend I spent a whole day touring the museums where she volunteers, thereafter lots of chatting over dinner, followed by a lovely foot massage before calling it a night. And then today was all about waking up late, having a picnic on this magical retreat in the hills of Rancho Palos Verdes, followed by meditation and talks, and authentic home-cooked Korean dinner with her family. She knew exactly how to make me happy, and how little it takes to bring me to tears - a steaming cup of coffee in bed as I am waking up. My heart is filled with immense gratitude, that I have such beautiful people in my life.

On my drive back, I was, as usual, in a reflective mood. Thinking about life and friendships and how everything works. So here are my musings.

Our life is like this video below - we have the job to clean up the den of dried leaves that just keep falling in. It is the nature of such leaves to fall into our lives, and it is our job to clean them up from time to time, so that there is less chaos and less mess. The den does not have to be perfectly clean, but just enough to feel comfortable. And we all have these cute little pandas in our lives that keep adding to the mess. Their messes irritate us, but we also love them too much, so it is okay most of the time. We accept the irritation, and find it funny even.

Jokes aside, let's talk about friendship now.

As we go through life, our path has potholes and as we hit them, our car feels the bump, sometimes a loud one. Every time we hit a pothole, be it a promotion hassle at work, or an unknown charge on the credit card, we get a bit out of alignment. We still keep driving, and then one day we notice that the tires are all worn out. When we go to replace the tires, we also get an alignment. It is good for the car's longevity, we should do that. So, how do you get your's fixed? A yearly vacation, or a big family gathering, or long hiking or biking or running programs maybe; for me it is silent meditation retreats twice a year. 

But in life, have you ever fallen into pits? Here you were, running along the path, and accidentally you fall into a pit. May be you saw it but could not avert it due to your speed, or maybe it was hidden under those dry leaves and you did not see it. Doesn't matter how you fell in, I am sure sometime in your life you have fallen in. Maybe even sprained an ankle. Some pits are shallow, and you limp out and head home with a bad memory. Some pits, however, are deep and dark, and when you fall you get really hurt. You cry in pain. And you also try to figure out ways to get out and often you don't have tools and are so hurt that it is very difficult to climb out by yourself. That is when friends (and family) show up to help. 

I think there are three kinds of helpers. Type 1 are people who come to the edge of the pit and look at the damage. They feel sorry for you, after all they are your friends (and family), they mean well. But they don't do much, they stand on the edge and pontificate - I told you that you will fall in there someday, you did not care to listen to me. You should have been more careful. Being such an intelligent person and so much in control of your life, how did you fall in? And on top of that you also sprained your ankle? What were you thinking? Getting yourself in such a mess is really a shame. You know what you should do? When you get out, you should start getting stronger and also buy a headlight, so that you don't do this silly thing again, ever. You can't let people make such fun of you! Your reputation as a smart person is really in jeopardy here. Now, let me help you. Why don't you try to see if you have a long stick or something down there. Maybe you can cut grooves on the wall and then climb out. You got yourself into this mess, you have to put effort in getting out. This will build character, it will build resilience. By the way, no matter how much it hurts, stop crying, you fool! You need to show the world how strong you are! Get up and do something with your life!

Type 2 are friends who will come to the edge and finding you in pain and distressed will get very genuinely affected. They will stand there, review the situation, and while giving you comforting words and motivating assurances, they will start thinking of a plan of how to get you out. Once they find you are somewhat calmed down, they will leave you and run about to find a ladder. Typically they don't have one about and have to spend a bit of time looking for one. But they will find it for sure. They will carry it to the pit and lower it down to you. Then, they will encourage you to slowly make your way up, one rung at a time. From the edge of the pit, sometimes lying flat on the ground, they will keep giving you words of reassurance, so that you gain the mental strength to get up, in spite of the pain in your ankle, to get on the ladder, using the last bit of strength you have. Once you are up on the surface, they will get you to the doctor, and look after you as you heal. 

Type 3 friends are very adept. When they find you in the pit, they will in a split second realize the seriousness of the issue. They too will sit by the edge and reassure you, but they have the ladder right nearby in their garage, ready for such situations, and a first-aid kit too. So, they will run home and within a minute be back with the first-aid box and the ladder, lower it down the pit and climb down to you. Then, at the bottom, they will bandage your wound, for they know exactly how bad it is, and then after making you a bit peaceful and secure, they will gently urge you to start climbing. They will not carry you on their shoulders, for there is a danger of both of you falling back into the pit, so you will have to do the climbing by yourself. However, they will be right behind you, with their words of encouragement and assurance, making you believe that you are worth the effort, building your confidence that you can indeed make it up the ladder to safety.

What kind of friends and family do you have? And how many of each kind? If you are lucky, you probably have quite a few Type 2 friends. Type 1 are not bad, but the problem is that they are so restricted in their view (and wisdom) that they don't know what is appropriate. In their heart, they really want you to be better. But their world view is monochromatic and dominated by their own color. It is just how they are, not developed in compassion. Type 3, on the other hand, are very rare. They are very special. It is because they have experiential wisdom. They have been there before, they have fallen in the pit before, probably many times, and know very well how deep it is and how dark. They also know how hurt you can get having fallen in there themselves. And because they somehow survived, they know how to get out, and out of immense compassion in their hearts, they keep the tools ready. But such people are rare, there are not too many out there. To have been through the pain and experienced it, is hard, a very difficult growth process, and not everyone who faces it survives either. They did not just read about the pain and the pit in big fat books, they have been there; they know what the first aid is and keep the ladder ready for such rescue missions.

If you have a handful of Type 2 friends, and are lucky to have even one Type 3, consider yourself very fortunate. You will be able to run through life and not have to be scared. By the way, do not expect Type 3 behavior from your Type 2 friends, they will not be able to get down in the pit. They are scared, they have not fallen there enough times to build resilience. They are afraid that they do not have the strength to go down there and then get up again. It is okay. They are still your friend, they brought you the ladder, and encouraged you to climb up. It is good enough. Be very thankful!

It is also very good if we can also reflect on how we are when our friends have fallen in the pit. Are we Type 1, Type 2, or Type 3?

The last five years, since 2011, my life has thrown me in one pit after another. For five years, each year has been a new life-wrecking crisis. When 2016 came along, I just sat down and said to myself - will I be able to take another year like the last five? I don't think I have any bone left unbroken, I am so tired! At times I have felt I am like a trapeze artist, barely hanging from the ropes of life, and a deep dark scary abyss below, no safety net of any kind to break the fall, just darkness. And I hung on, as tightly I could, to survive, while being in extreme pain. But then, on days like this, when I am showered with so much love and care, when I am made feel worthy of attention and affection, I thank my stars and the powers that be, I feel I am very blessed with few Type 2s in my life. They have held my hand through the trauma, spoken words of encouragement, put the ladder down into my deep dark pits over and over again, and helped me resurface each year. Yes, my life is not perfectly clean, there is still a mess of dry leaves here, there and everywhere. I will never be able to get it all sparkly clean, and I don't care. Life is too short and precious to spend all the time cleaning, I want to play with the pandas too!!

A Glass of Water

I have heard scores of talks by Ajahn Brahm over the last two years. In a few of them he talks about "A Glass of Water", referring to how people hold on to stress and why they need to learn the art of pause. While I understand it intellectually and it also seeped into my consciousness over time, I have not been able to effectively practise pause. Then, this Sunday, on my four hour walk on the beautiful Torrey Pines beach, I had my own aha-moment. Such realizations are very personal, and I am not sure if I can effectively put in words, but I'll try. I know these essays are extremely intimate and raw, and sometimes it brings about strong emotions in people. I am very sorry. I write for two reasons - one, to express and share the development of my understanding of how the world works, just maybe someone else may benefit; and two, it seems that there are a small group of people who seem to wait for these essays, which I find very odd but I oblige anyway.

Through the mist, where the land, sea, and air meet, there is an understanding that penetrates

When we hold up a glass of water for five to ten seconds, it is fine. It does not hurt, it is just fine. If we try holding it for more than two minutes, the arm starts to hurt, we need to prop it up with the other hand for support. If we try holding it for more than five minutes, even with both arms, it starts to hurt. Try holding it up for over fifteen minutes, and someone will have to call the medics! And you will be named a raving mad person to have tried to do so, fit for the asylum. But, in reality, many of us do this all the time - hold the tasks we need to do and relentlessly keep doing non-stop, without a breather or rest - and it makes us sick, stressed, tired, and creates a lot of issues - emotional and physical. So, we should put down the glass from time to time, let the arm heal, gain its strength back, and then lift the glass again. The glass is going nowhere!!

"Holding a glass of water" analogy is kind of accurate in a little different sense for me. When I told a new friend about my childhood and adult life and the struggles, she said - "Soma, it seems like you were carrying the world on your shoulders like Atlas. You know you did not need to do that!!" That is right! I did not need to do that. I could have chosen not to even lift up the world, to refuse, to walk away. But I did not. And for forty years, I carried it on my shoulders, bent over and tired. When I look back, I feel very stupid, very ignorant, and very naive. I had complete and total disregard for my own well-being and it was pathological neglect of self. We can go into deep analysis of why it was so - there was this desire to be acknowledged by the people I loved who withheld love as a means to get what they wanted, then there was this intense need for affirmation coupled with having low self-worth, and the list is long. All these years I thought that "there is something wrong with me, I need to fix it". And as a result, I have been leading a very intense life. To the outside world, I seem to have done quite well. For example, I came to the US with only $800 and two suitcases, and today I am quite okay financially. I have lived in four continents, and move 21 times in my lifetime. By my mid thirties, I was capable of leading a $300+ million program of works with five teams working round the clock in four continents, and I played it like an expert orchestra conductor and I thrived on it. Today I run a growing engineering consulting business that has its own challenges. Even my hobbies, i.e. cooking, I do remarkably well because I am passionate about it. I used throw parties that had expertly crafted near-perfect entrees that my guests said gave them "foodgasms"! Yet, I have this strong inner judge that was invisible to everyone but myself - and she is merciless, relentless, driving me to exhaustion, anxiousness, and depression. This feeling of being not okay goes in perfect stride with deep loneliness. No matter if I am with family or friends or in the middle of a big conference of my professional world, deep inside I feel that I do not belong. There has been this deep undercurrent of personal deficiency. That is the glass of water that I have been holding up for all these years.

Last five years have been very difficult, I went through a series of shockers, one almost every year. First I had a near death experience in a car crash; then my mother passed away after a short painful battle with cancer that I witnessed from her bedside everyday for three months; then came the realization that my marriage had been indeed failing for decades but I was not prepared to let go, and which eventually led to our divorce after an anguished and frantic struggle; and with that came a cancer scare from a large watermelon sized tumor in my uterus which led to two major surgeries. It was hard, it was intense. But then, it was like this for almost all my life, really. When circumstances did not create hurdles that required Herculean effort, I created them for myself. For example, in late 2005, my immune system broke down and I was going blind as my eyes were being "rejected" by my body. After managing to baffle five top doctors in North Carolina, it was decided that I be put on strong immune suppressant drugs, like the ones they give to kidney transplant patients, with the hope that it will work. And what did I do? I trained and ran the Chicago Marathon in 2006, just to prove to myself that I can beat everything that comes my way. Yes, it might seem a commendable achievement to run a marathon while being sick, but truly, it was not required. It was as if I have been living in a trance, enveloped by this toxic gas that was constantly wanting me to strive for more as the status-quo was never good enough, and despising myself for not trying harder every time. And while I was striving hard, a part of me wanted to put the glass down. I watched others doing it, and envied them, wishing I could do the same. But I dared not. What will happen if I put the glass down? I didn't know. I didn't want to find out. It was scary. I feared the silence, the quietness. What will I do with all this energy? For me putting the glass down meant losing control. What if I do not have control on my life? Then there was this thick layer of self-imposed responsibility - to make my parents happy, to make my husband happy. I told myself the same story over and over again, that thought process kept conditioning me. If I become an engineer, my parents will be happy. If I came to the US, my parents will be proud. If I got a job, I could buy my husband all the cool gadgets and cars he likes, and afford for him the lifestyle he so desires. If I stay in my jobs I'll secure the green card, and my husband's career will take off. And on and on it went. I lived for the next thing that was just outside my reach and strove towards it with all my might, with the relentless effort I was so very capable of. I lived to make others happy, and too scared to allow myself or my needs to even surface. I had suppressed my desires so much that I didn't even know what they are or could be.

Today on long walks on the beach, I reflect. I see the futility of the incessant running without a break. I realize how important taking a break is. To rest. But how does one do it? I did not know how to rest!! I never stopped to find out! Even when sitting still, my mind is running million miles an hour - into the past and into the future, it can't seem to pause, it is afraid of pausing. The conditioning since childhood is strong, very strong. I have been swimming against the current all my life, letting go and letting the current take me along is very hard. To rest, to put the glass down, and tell myself that it is okay, is not easy at all. My mind is still addicted to the speed - what next hurdle to cross, what next mountain to climb, how to draw the better picture, more colors, more vibrant, etc. While my body is also so used to being exhausted, wading through molasses, it does not know how to rest either. Restlessness comes up like a bed of a thousand scorpions.

That is why I am learning to meditate. That is why I go to "self induced prison" twice a year, ten days of Vipassana boot-camp. To sit quiet for almost twelve hours a day, with no speech, no interaction, complete shut down of all external stimulation except the bare minimum that is required to live, and focus all my attention internally. I watch what is arising, and I slowly train my mind not to get scared, to feel comfortable and at peace with every sensation that arises. Learn to see the fine line between tolerance and acceptance. In meditation, I have seen extremes come up from deep inside - sadness, grief, passion, lust, restlessness, bliss, ecstasy,  jealousy, desire, greed, envy, pride, tiredness, pain, fatigue, the list is long. I have so much bundled inside! We all do. Who needs entertainment from outside?! Look within, and it is better than any soap opera/reality tv show you can ever imagine or any sports arena or exotic vacation or race! You only have to learn to pause and watch as it plays out. This has been the most fascinating journey of my life thus far, and I know I have barely scratched the surface - it is to learn to watch my mind, to see the epics it spins. When a deep rooted sensation pops up, I can now sometimes watch my mind pick it up and create an avalanche, complete with a palpable juicy story-line that is so very irresistible. My extremely logical and analytical brain finds the story and its arguments so convincing that it builds even bigger mountains of it, and together we roll in it for hours, sometimes days and weeks; and then one day it pops. Woof! Gone. I get up and start again.

I got exposed to this technique in 2010, but my understanding and appreciation of the benefits of this practise did not hit home till about 2014 when I was in the thoes of personal loss, and since then I am learning this skill, at snail pace. It is not a pursuit of bliss, not even make-believe resting like a vacation, this is "real" resting. Learning to let go, put the glass down, effectively, allow everything to stop and learn to be comfortable with it. And over these years, my awareness has grown quite a bit, my equanimity is developing too, very slowly. On the cushion, or off the cushion, the clarity is developing and it is really a treat to watch the change. Mindfulness is developing too. It is like deep scrubbing, it hurts, but it peels off and new supple cells come up, fresh and young.

And to all this, one wise friend said - "Why hold up the glass of water, silly! Drink it!"

My Sketchbook of Life

Every year I go on retreats. I realized few years back that if I do not forcefully separate myself from the daily life, I cannot truly relax and reflect. Owning a small business, I often work 12 to 16 hour days and also on weekends. So to take a break that I truly deserve, I usually do a ten-day silent meditation retreat couple times a year, and then squeeze in few three-day retreats in between to decompress and get my footing in the present moment. This month instead of a silent retreat, I went to serve on a Pali workshop where I cooked to my heart's content for the students. It was a great experience, I got to live in a luxurious ranch in Temecula, cook in a very modern and efficient kitchen, had couple helpers slicing, dicing, washing and cleaning after me, and most importantly, I was surrounded by kind, generous, and loving people who genuinely cared for me and everyone around me. It was a soothing balm for my heart and soul. I met some very wise women, we talked a lot, about life and everything else, and I also had quite a bit of time to reflect.

My Sketchbook Of Life

My life thus far can be divided distinctly into two phases, each lasting about twenty years. For the first twenty years, it was a very rigid discipline with no room for improvisation. I grew all right, because you cannot stop growth, but it was within very strict restrictive boundaries. There were no gaps what so ever. Ever seen a square watermelon? The next twenty years were different, yet same in many ways. When an elephant is shackled for most of its childhood, it grows up to believe that it cannot break the chain. That was kind of my case too, I was molded in a specific form and I did not know any different even when I had the opportunity. This is very hard for people to understand, so during this little time-off last week, I thought of an analogy. 

When we are little, we have often worked with sketchbooks. These come with pre-drawn pictures with color codes; 1= red, 2=blue, 3=green, etc. Kids are asked to color within the lines using the key, as precisely as possible. I too was given this sketchbook and box of colors. The sketchbook came from my environment - my family, my school, my culture, my society, etc., each drawing a picture of what is expected of me. And the box of colors, I might say, was my inherent talent and qualities, the specialties I was born with. They come in various colors indeed, there is anger, there is love, there is perseverance, there is effort, there is frustration, there is excitement; the list is long and varied. Each color has many shades too. In those first twenty years, however, the sketchbook was very rigid with specific scenarios drawn in each page with thick black lines. There was no allowance for experimentation. Everything was prescribed and not subject to change or negotiation - my career, my role as daughter/sister/student, my friends, my daily routine. Not only was the picture pre-drawn with clear dark lines, the intensity of the color in each space was also specified with a number. Each page was a year in my life, distinctly pre-configured. My only task was to read the legend and follow the rules, color within the lines and to the specified intensity. No trying out different colors other than listed, no mixing of colors allowed, not even accidental bleeding of color outside the lines. Any transgression from the rules had serious consequences - both physical and emotional, with plenty of tears in its wake. So over time, I learned not to rebel or go astray, mostly because of self preservation. It was too painful to flex a color that was not in the schedule. And because I did the same thing over and over, following the instructions so well, my sketchbook was really pretty. It showed exactly the picture as it was intended, perfect hues, no mistakes. Towards the end of the first twenty years, I started to see the beauty in the perfection, and slowly developed a resigned appreciation of the situation. Everyone admired the perfect pictures in my sketchbook, so it must be worth something. I wanted to test out a little, but the skill and training was in coloring to the key, so there was little confidence or courage to do anything else than the prescription. And I also learned to successfully suppress any such desire to experiment as well.

In the next twenty years, my sketchbook had pre-drawn pictures as before too. But I had somewhat of a choice in selecting that sketchbook - it had the pictures I thought I wanted. A beautiful home with a garden on an island with happy birds flying over it, a conference room with important people making important decisions, a relaxing bench on a hill overlooking the cityscape, wilderbeast migrating on the Serengeti, an elaborate feast set on the dining table, and so on. The drawings were beautiful, intricate, and very well defined with dark lines and fine lines.There was no color key, I could use any of the colors I wanted. There was no one there to monitor the intensity of the colors, that I was free to choose the shades and apply them to the intensity I desired! And I was ignorantly happy. I thought that this sketchbook was totally original, just because I could color it the way I wanted. Never mind that it was pre-drawn, I was just happy about that little freedom I had to choose the colors. And I had plenty of practice coloring and doing it right, so I did well. I colored with all my might, with all my passion, such that every picture was big and vibrant. Every line was clear and visible, every color was intense and bright. Anyone who would have to review the sketchbook would admire the perfect job I did, not a color gone astray, not a smudge anywhere, everything within lines, just as it should be. And there was a lot of praise on how good I was in choosing the right color for each box in the picture. There were many pats on my back and words of commendation. It did make me feel very accomplished and successful.

Today I stand at the edge of the next twenty years. And circumstances are such that this time the sketchbook has no pre-drawn pictures. It is blank, with clean white pages. There is not even an impression from the last forty years that remain on this sketchbook. It sits on my lap, pristine and clear. As I look at my color box, due to the heavy upheaval and intense agitation in the last five years in particular, many colors are bruised. They have been used with great vigor in the last two books, so some are spent. Some of the colors have gotten mixed up with the others and have lost their purity, they are smudged. Some colors are broken into bits, some are blunt and don't have their sharp edges anymore. They are all mingled in the box and no longer aligned clearly in neat rows segregated by their hues as they used to. But the box is still mine, and they are still my colors. I can take a neat cloth and clean them up. I can spend the time to align them according to their grades, should I choose to do so. All that is not hard, it will take time to do, but it is not impossible and can be done. Whatever is left, long or short, dark or light, the colors can be sorted and cleaned up. What is daunting for me is the blank sketchbook. I am being told that I can draw anything I wish, it does not matter what the drawing is, and I can go crazy with the sketches. There is no right or wrong way, or even a right or wrong picture. Each picture I draw will be just fine, as it is. There will be no one checking for proportions or content or match. I can draw a little house in Tasmania, or the Torrey Pines seascape, or a stadium full of people cheering. It is my choice. And, as I sit here with the blank book on my lap, I am not sure what my pencil will sketch. I am scared, apprehensive, not confident, and somewhat clueless. For forty years I have lived with this intense training to color within the lines, to mold to the pre-drawn pictures and do so with perfection; and now when faced with a blank page I am feeling as if I have been pushed onto the stage to get up and speak and all the bright light is on me and the eyes of the audience too, and I don't know what to do! My improv training tells me to just stand up an say the first thing that comes to mind, trust my "gut" and it will weave a new story-line. There is no expectation to worry about, no voice to listen to but my own. But there is doubt, and there is fear. There are ideas breezing through my head, yet it is also very blank. What do I want to draw? What do I have to say?

Our collective existence

This morning at about 1:06AM my bed shook, pictures rattled. There was a 5.2 earthquake in Borrego Springs, some 90 miles away. It was a shallow quake and the waves took a whole minute to arrive. The rattling came first, then came the rolling waves. We lay in our beds and felt the earth and our world shake and roll. Then we all got on social media and chatted for a while about the quake. It was funny, we southern California residents are used to such shakes, we constantly hear "The Big One" is coming, so each minor quake we go through, we joke about it.

When the quake came, I was sleeping. And in my sleep I dreamed that my Ozzie was just doing his body shake before he got down from the bed to drink water, which he often does in the middle of the night. Ozzie and I share a pillow and read together before sleeping. My other baby, Freo, nestles at my belly. He doesn't move all night, and sleeps in perfect button formation, like a warm pillow for my tummy. Having these two by me at night is a great pleasure. But I don't have that privilege every night. They live with my ex, and when he's out of town, they come to stay with me. I love having them over, and absorb the happiness with my heart's content. Lately, I had them for two long weeks and was just getting used to having them around when they went back. Which is fine! So when the earthquake hit, my first thought was of Ozzie, even before I was awake and realized that it was an earthquake. Then, after it was over, I texted their dad asking how they fared during the "event". So you see I am very attached to them. I have motherly instincts towards them, a very strong bond. Yes, they are dogs and technically they might not qualify for the human motherly affection I bestow on them, and in the eyes of some of my friends and family, I might be going overboard loving them so much. And I often wonder, if I had human kids, would I have felt anything more for them? I don't know. I will never have any, so I will never know. But isn't it all about how much we let our heart to get attached to a thing, or person or, as in this case, couple dogs? I really do not know.

Ozzie and me, at bedtime, reading...

The earthquake did wake me up in the middle of the night, but it did not shake me. I thought about my babies, and then went back to sleep. What shook me this morning was this video (see below), which I watched early morning at work while sipping coffee. I sat there just stunned for a while.
Will I feel like this lady, who held her son's corpse and walked around not accepting that he is dead. Will I mourn like these two brothers? In their case it is very harsh. They were playing, innocently, when the bomb dropped. It was not supposed to happen. But it did. It was sudden and shocking. It is impossible for me to fathom the abrupt change in their life - one moment they were playing and the next moment their brother is wounded and then dies. I am yet to experience the loss of a child. I know very well that my Ozzie and Freo will die. And in all probability, I will be alive then and I will have to hold them in my arms, dying or dead. It will be hard. I have seen few of my friends go through that pain. I will face that too. One day.

But after watching this video, we start thinking, did that little boy have to die? Why? What did he do? Where is justice? The two brothers might just get so shocked by this incident that they might pick up arms and blow themselves up in a few years? Can we blame them then? Where is the end to this? Who is doing this? Why don't we stop?
But you know what, we will not stop. For this violence is not new. Ever since we have walked this planet, we have been killing each other. The vices are not in a particular group, righteous or otherwise, it is in each of us. On one hand, we form a human chain to save a dog from drowning in a canal, and on the other hand we drop a bomb on a little kid. The good and the bad sits right side by side in our heart, and we all are responsible for them to flare up. And we have done both for the eons we have lived and walked on this earth, and will keep doing so. Each generation's actions is a bit different but their quality remains the same. Whether we kill by swords and arrows or by gas and gunpowder, does it make a difference? We have killed before and we will do so again. Today it is Syria and Nigeria, yesterday it was native Americans and Aboriginals, and tomorrow we will find another reason and another group of people to kill.

This particular video reminded me of the stories my mother told me of the Partition of India. When the British left in the late 40s, they split the Indian subcontinent into three pieces and till this day we are suffering the consequences; almost similar to Israel and Palestine. My grandparents had to leave a very prosperous business and family home back in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). They traveled to India, just as the Syrian refugees are doing today, with not even a box full of clothes. In the fear of young girls being abducted and raped, these people had their daughters packed as goods in trunks as they crossed the borders. At border crossings, there were gangs of mad people who were thirsty for blood and would butcher entire caravans at one go. These killers and the killed spoke the same language, and may have been very happy neighbors once. In peaceful times, they would have joined hands and saved a dog from drowning. But not when anger and revenge took over their brains. They became ruthless killers. Trains came from Pakistan to India with every passenger killed, butchered, the trains bathed in blood. And when trains left India for Pakistan, the relatives of the passengers from the butchered train, would in turn kill the ones that were leaving. This went on and on for weeks and months. Was that any different from what is happening in Israel and Palestine today, or in Iraq, or in Syria, or in Lebanon, Paris, Nigeria, and everywhere else in the world?

I am not pessimistic. I am just trying to see the truth as it is, that this tendency to be violent exists in each of us. And we do not have control on our hearts and mind as much as we think we do. I am only just getting to realize that the only way out of this is self realization. I cannot change the world, all I can do is make sure that best to my ability I do not mess it up any more. Will there be a better future where we do not kill others anymore, I don't know. I really can't say that there will be. I don't even hope for it. There was rape, incest, homicide, prejudice, incarceration, and all such actions - physical and emotional - in the past for millennia, and I don't think it will change. The wrapper will change with every generation and it will evolve into a new form. As long as hated, anger, lust, craving, fear, anxiety, jealousy, etc. exist in the human condition, we will be committing these actions. This is how it is, the brutal reality.

And in the midst of it all, I also have the obnoxiously smelly licks from Freo and Ozzie, the wag of their tails, the excitement in their eyes when they see me, the nudge from their wet noses, and the warmth of their body against mine. I take that in as a brutal reality too. Residing side by side with the vices. Here I have compassion, patience, kindness, wish for others' well being, sympathetic joy with others' successes, caring, etc. It is also an equal part of the human condition as I have come to realize and recognize.

So, I don't hope for anything anymore, or at least practice not to. Much to the agony of several of my friends, I have a note on my refrigerator "ABANDON HOPE", that constantly reminds me of the reality as it is. If there is joy at this moment, it is just so, not good, not bad, just so. And if there is anger in this moment, even righteous anger, it is also just so, not good, not bad, just as it is. They exist side by side in reality. These days I train myself to look at fear and hope in the same vein, both have the same expectation. Fear anticipates a negative outcome in the future, and hope anticipates a positive outcome. Both are not happy with the present. If I have to be at peace, the only way is to abandon both - fear and hope. In our society, we are trained and applauded to be brave, to conquer fear. And we are taught to hope, because we are told that the present is not good enough and something has to be better than this. Why? Why should we live in dissatisfaction? And when that good time comes, one that we are hoping for, it does not last, we spend all that "good" time fearing for the bad time that will soon be upon us. What good is that? This constant pendulum of hope and fear? Since fear and hope are inseparable, I cannot let go of fear and hold on to hope. This is my understanding at the moment. I have had a lot of practice over coming fear, life gave me that opportunity and I am grateful, I am strong and brave, they say. Hence, my practice these days is to abandon hope!!