A wife's diary

Whether or not it happens with other couples, my married life sometimes rocks. Umm, rocks as in, the boat. Being a grasshopper, I am often tempted to jump the boat when it rocks. After all, I know how to swim.

But what if there is a storm in the deep blue sea, and I drown? But how can I stand the heat in the frying pan?

So I ask God to send me a parachute, and I hover over the boat.

Instead of going to a counselor, I go to google. And I interpret one of my favorite poets.

Here is Kahlil Gibran, on Marraige.

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.

Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

---- There is no point in asking what on earth made you marry this guy. Because right now, you are such a mess that you probably cannot remember that love is a reason, greater than reason itself----

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

---Make a discipline of giving time to yourself, let go the ideal, 'a family HAS to have fun together'. If fun has to happen, it will happen when the kid is in the toilet, you are in the kitchen, he is on his comp: why not?---

Love one another but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

---a bond of love, if you must have, make of a blue ribbon, not a legal document. Let him yell at the kid, let the kid yell back, why not trust natures vagaries in the process of bonding? ---

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

---I got this the last time. We now have multiple sources of income, different bank accounts. Then why does the little girl within, still want daddy to look after all her needs?---

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

---Meditate. Sing. Dance. Blog. :) ---

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

---Don't say, 'This is not a lodge,' every time he comes home late. ---

And stand together, yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

---If I am a pillar, and if I am standing straight, the weight on me is less if I can trust the other pillar. Move over, expectations. Welcome home, acceptance. ---

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

---Yes, now square those shoulders, cut the strings of the parachute, and get back to work---

Don't blame the Congress

More than the inflation, what worries me is the result of next years polls. The way everyone is going on and on about the rise in prices, Congress might get ousted by the BJP.

Manmohan Singh may not be a flamboyant Prime Minister, but he is a good man. The Congress has waved tons of loan of the farmers. Where are they going to get this money from? All they have done is to remove the governments subsidy on oils.

Every few years, inflation has to happen. Our earning capacity is also increasing, so why blame the Congress?

I am aware that it might not be as simple as this. But I really hope that the Indian public does not swing to vote for the saffron party just because they don't want to spend more on necessities.

If we want India to shine, why should the farmers stay in the dark?

A word aint enough these days

'Ai, can I take my football to school?' asks my little boy.

'No.'

'Please?'

'Ask your teacher. If she says yes, then you can take it. If no, then not. Okay?'

'Okay.'

Cut to, evening, bus stop.

'Ai, I asked my teacher if I can get the football to school. She said yes, I can. Then I asked her if she will write in my diary that I can get the ball to school. She said no.'

She died in the open, under a tree

How does one prepare for death? By reading stories on how some of us die happily?
This is Sandra, a cancer patient who died in the open, under a tree.
I found this post via this blog, which I came across on this blog.

Ramesh Balsekar is back home

This is the third update on my ninety years young sweetheart.

He is back home from the hospital.

There are no talks yet, though he does meet people on request.

He picks up the phone, but I haven't called him.

I love him to bits, but its not personal.

It's good enough to know he is safe inside his nest.

It's good to know that the shoe rack outside his door is not empty.

If I do call him, I will say,

I don't know for sure if you are a Buddha, and it matters not.

If we never meet again, you are the one person to whom I have nothing more to say.

For I have had the privilege to say to you, over and over again.

I love you.

And yet, its not a personal love.

I don't want to own you.

Maybe, I already do.

For a moment of clarity

I was in a car, on my way to the railway station, getting a lift to get out of Ahmedabad. My train was two hours away. We planned to have dinner in Swati, let the brat ride a small car or play a video game, maybe a coffee, and then the station.

So we were in no hurry. And my eyes were wide open.

Nirali was explaining to Pavan why he should sit on the backseat, when I saw a man raising a big bamboo to hit a woman sitting on the roadside.

I closed my eyes.

'What the hell is that man doing?' Nirali asked.

'Oh, thank God, he is just threatening to hit her.' I said, when I saw the bamboo still in midair.

'Can we do something?' Nirali asked.

'Stop the car. I will get out.'

'Be careful.'

A sparse crowd was beginning to gather. The man, who I later learnt was a guard at a building nearby, was hurling obscenities at the woman, waving his stick in the air. The woman was in rags, and matted hair, holding a plastic bottle to her mouth and looking back at the man. Although she seemed to be almost cowering, she did not look scared.

I was behind the man. I gently touched his shoulder, and got him to lower his stick.

'She is completely mad!' he kept repeating. I nodded.
'She throws stones at people. She threw a stone at me. On my back! For no reason! She threw stones at that auto rickshaw! Ask him. She is completely mad!'

I looked at the lady in question. She had a semicircle of stones near her feet.

I assured him that we will get rid of her, got him to leave the scene, and told the crowd to get lost.

Then I sat near the woman on a bench and called Nirali.

'Do you know any institution that would take her in?' I asked her.

'I think I do. Meanwhile, why don't you get her something to eat? She might be hungry.'

I went to a shop next door and bought some dhoklas and a bottle of water. But to give them to her, I would have to risk those stones.

The semicircle of stones had closed to form a circle. That must be a good sign, I thought, and sat next to her to offer her the food.

Huge black eyes looked me over with suspicion. Then she took a bougainvillea flower, put it in a small plastic glass and put it in front of me. I took the glass and said cheers.

And then she attacked the food. Boy, was she hungry. No wonder she was throwing stones. I stood up and saw my friend smiling at us.

'I have called someone who knows someone who will come,' said Nirali.

'Cool. Where is Pavan?' I asked.

'I have locked him in the car. You better go and sit with him. I will wait here.'

'Ai, what is in the glass?' the brat asked me as I opened the car door.

'This is a bougainvillea flower.' I told him.

'Who gave it to you?'

'A moment of clarity gave it to me.'

'I see.'

Let life flow

This is the second news update on Ramesh Balsekar's health.

And this time, it is second, not third person account. Sanjay Inaamdar just called me from Mumbai to say that he just met Ramesh in the hospital and he is doing very well.

He is out of the ICU, he was sitting on his bed, walking about, and he talked with visitors for about twenty minutes.

And when the nurses came in and asked him how he was, he asked them back, 'That you should tell me. You know my reports.'

And a couple of minutes ago, I got an SMS from Rupa, saying 'Ramesh is doing well and will start talks by month end.'

Here is another video of Ramesh, a western rendering of one of the bhajans we sing at the end of the satsang.

The comrade

This is an acknowledgment to my friend, who I met briefly on a traffic signal.

Doing my bit for the Tsunami victims, I had gone with a group of friends to collect money from the public. After getting the checks (from relatives, mostly) and having exhausted all the known resources, tin boxes in hands, we hit the streets.

'I don't want to see any pairs. Each of us will take a separate corner.' I said, with more courage than I felt.

I found a safe corner at town hall square. I would walk into the traffic when it slowed down for the red light, and jump out just before it turned green.

'Tsunami mate!' , I would say, jingling the box. ('Mate' is 'for' in Gujarati.)

Those who looked back at my face, my eyes, more often than not, reached into their pockets. The box took in coins, even some ten rupee notes. I always said a cheerful 'Thank you.'

After an hour, I realized that the auto rickshaw passengers were more eager to put cash in my box. The car drivers avoided my eyes. So its true, I thought. The middle class is much more generous than the rich.

And then, horror of horrors, a real beggar joined me. A middle aged, dirty, if-he-could-beg, he-could-work kind of beggar. If I started on one end of the road, he would follow me. I was getting extremely hassled. Should I confront him or should I take a tea break? What will I say if I confront him? More important, what will he say to me?

The lights turned green suddenly and I stepped on the square.

I turned around to see the beggar smiling a 'hello comrade' at me.
'Tsunami mate?' he asked me.

I nodded, slightly unnerved by his sweet smile.

He took out a five hundred rupee note and slid it in my box, and walked away!

Thank you, comrade. Thank you for the donation, and for the dignity you awakened in me for all beings.

The progress of the toothpaste

Once upon a time, when I was a green college student, during a film appreciation class in the Film Institute, I told Professor Chabria,

'Sir, I don't think advertisements have any effect on the masses.'

'I see. So why do you think advertisers spend so much money on ads?' He looked pained. I think he was planing to talk about effect of colors on the subconscious mind or something.

'I don't know, they are wasting their money, it seems to me.'

This post is a belated, written apology to Prof Chabria.

This morning, the pre-school bedlam is like any other morning. Me shouting at the brat to hurry up every two minutes as I cook and pack his lunch.

'Ai, come here for a minute!' he shouts from the bathroom.

I take his towel and go to the bathroom. He is full of soapy bubbles.

'See my stomach, Ai. See how it is smelling.' he says happily.

'Very nice. You applied shampoo?' I asked.

'No, I put toothpaste. Now my whole body smells nice. Good idea, no?'

Where death is a friend

Sometimes, when I am all alone, I think of death. My death. I feel sad, and sometimes, a little scared.

If I take life for granted, why does death not yet feel like a true friend? For surely, He is all that is waiting, at the door. There is no other way out of here.

Although I am a confirmed Ramesh (read Advaita) fan, I admit I have gone out shopping for death. In other words, I did not buy Ramesh's take on the end of life being end of book, not just chapter.

Among the stuff I read, what appealed to me most were the near death experiences, NDE, where the patients come back unexpectedly from nearly dying, to tell us how beautiful it is in heaven, and how they just did not want to come back. How they met Jesus, how they flew with the angels with a body so light, how they met their old dog (ok, this one I have added, but why not? ), how they were told that they have some work left to do, so they had to come back, etc, etc.

So a couple of years ago, when I was transcribing a book for Ramesh, when I was alone with him, (it wont look good for an old timer to ask questions during satsang, right?), I asked him about death.

In fact, I specifically asked about the near death numbers.

'Do you think all of them are mind woven?' I asked him.

'The point to reflect upon is,' he said, 'that most of them, did not want to come back!. Which can only mean one thing. That the process of dying might be painful, but the moment of death has to be a moment of utmost freedom.'

There, I got it straight from the horse's mouth.

His eyes twinkled in his old face and he said, again, ' Old age, ill health, the process of dying might be a drag, but the moment of death, Grasshopper, has to be a moment of utmost freedom!'

And he is talking a lot!

This is a news update on Ramesh Balsekar's health.

I have been wanting to put up this post since a week.

Ramesh has had a laser surgery a few days ago, some problem with his gall bladder. Though he is still in the ICU, he is much better.

It seems he told Heiner, an old timer, 'I am not going just yet. I am going to be around.'
The report is, that he is up and about, and, he is talking a lot!

Here is a recently updated video of his, from his daily talks in Mumbai.

'I am old enough now',

said my seven year old, as we walked back home from his school bus.

'I am old enough to cross the road by myself. You don't have to drop me to the bus stop every morning. All we talk about is how to spell August and how to spell September. As it is, I spend all day at school. Why should I study when I am not in school? I like to look around, at the different yellow buses that take other kids to school. I like to look at the other kids waiting for their buses.'

'Yes, you are right. These things are also important.' I said. 'Even I like to see yellow buses. Can I come with you to see the yellow buses?'

'If you must come, we should talk about things I like to talk about. '

'Ok, done. We will talk about things you like. So what did you do in school today?'

'I picked up these dry wooden pieces from the forest near our school.'

'Yeah, they are nice. What are you planning to do with them?'

'I will paint them, then give them to my friends.' he told me.

'Good idea.' I said.

'Ai, do you know how to cook food in the open?' he jumps to the next thought.

'I know, but you tell me.'

'Well, first you take three bricks, and put them like this, like this and like this, and then you put some wood pieces in between the bricks, pour some petrol over it, and light a fire. Simple!'

I stopped in my tracks.

'Don't tell me you lit a fire in the forest near your school?'

'No, Ai, we just talked about it.'

'Talk all you want. But don't ever do it without adults, ok?'

'Ok.'

'And what happened to your cough?'

'Its gone!'

'Good. Where did it go?'

'I don't know where it went, but I know how it went'.

'Ok, Tukru. How did your cough go?'

'There is a puppy in my school. I touched the puppy and my cough just went.' he explained.

'I see. It was a divine puppy was it?'

'No, it was black and white.'