Next Tuesday i.e.7 February, 2006, Nidhi by this time would depart for her new home! This feeling overwhelmed me the moment I opened my eyes today in the morning.

I am greatly disturbed these days as a part of my being is being torn. I am reminded of the day she was born, a small bundle of joy that we all welcomed. It was 25th of July, 1980 and as I was with my mother at that time, I was able to analyze my feelings as a daughter and a a mother as well.

I must acknowledge honestly at this stage that I had always been very close to my father but not as close to my mother but Nidhi's birth changed it all. I just started having a revaluation of my feelings and felt the real warmth of the deep love that a mother has for her kids though outwardly she may appear to be a strict mother.

That was the day when I suddenly felt so close to her as I was myself a MOTHER now. That day I had two relationships, one the newbond with my child and the revival of the another one with my mother!

Now at this stage when anothr new relationship in the process of being made and an existing one on the verge of sapped(?), once again I am experiencing the pangs of pre-birth labour pains and am a bewildered person. Do we all go through the same process of uncertainty before such a "New Start" or I am being unduly anxious?

I look forward eagerly to the new beginning and am equally uncertain about the new beginning. I just hope that the way Nidhi's birth made me usher into a new relationship with my own mother, her marriage would also initiate me into a new bond of love with the new entrant to our family!

Nidhi will be going away in some days. She has become very quiet these days. It seems to me as if she has mentally distanced herself from us. Is it good for her?

How strange is the marriage system? You just have to accept not only a person as your life partner but you willingly go to his family and become one of its members. She seems to have accepted all the members of Vikrant's family as her own. But I am really worried as to how she would cope up with all the expectations that all members of Vikrant's family would have from her. It is really strange that in Indian marriages it is not only the boy and the girl who make a new start in a relationship but also two new families also initiate a new relationship. Suddenly, the people who were strangers a few months back, seem like related to us and the moment someone says something about them in negative manner, I feel like protecting them as I would do in case of my own people.

I think this is how the feeling of love and brotherhood spreads across which makes it possible for us to accept and make new relationships in life. There is always a scope for bringing more people to your close circle but we human beings have become so self centered that it seems as if we put "NO Entry" sign outside our hearts and let no other enter inside. But marriage in family has brought me to this reaization that this "No Entry" sign is just a sham and from inside we always welcome new people in our life but the reason we pretend to be not accessible to new relationships comes from human beings sbasic instinct of not trusing others easily!

How friendly the human life would be if we trust and believe in the universal values of brotherhood! But that brings to my concern another point, we as persons are vunerable to distrust and being taken for a ride and this fear of being hurt, is behind all such actions that make us avoid new relationships. We want to avoid being hurt and looking for an easy way out, just avoid getting into new relationships.

But nidhi's marriage has made me see the point of making new relationships from a new angle where the positives outweigh the negatives and thus we make a new initiation in the world of unknown. Atleast in this new relationship, the fear of getting hurt has taken backstage and I look forward to meet new relatives who would be as concerned for us as we would be for them.

A new bond in the making indeed!

Reading my last post has brought out a memory that lay dormant in my mind but came up surging forward today. It was January,1982 and we had gone to Shimla as my personal interview for Himachal Administrative Services interview was sheduled at that time. It was very cold as it had been snowing outside. I along with KS and Anshu, who was just 4 months old at that time, reached Public Service commission's office. As I breastfed my all kids till a stage that was possible for me to, I had to take her alongwith. I entered the building and went to the official checking the testemonials and once that was over, I ran to the window and looked outside where KS was standing with Anshu in his lap and it was snowing. My heart wept for both of them and I cried out to him to come inside but anshu would start crying and searching for me, hence he had taken her out.

My turn for the interview was about tocome but my heart was divided between a natural urge to run out of the building and the more practical urge to go to the interview board with a pleasant smile on my face. How many times I had to play the role where my inner and outer self were at loggerheads with each other. I listened to my practical self and relegated all other issues backstage.

Later on, after the interview was over, I ran outside to take hold of my daughter and hold her close to my bosom but they were not outside. Alarmed, I searched for them and sudenly someone, an employee at this office, came to tell me that KS was in someone's home! It so happened that an employee who found a small infant in the lap of a man just invited them to take rest in the cozy environment of his home to save the child from the bitter cold. And there I found them both. Even today, after such a long time, I am reliving the feeling of relief that I had when I held to my bosom my dear daughter and the look of love on the face of my husband was what gave me strength to face all that might come.

And it has been the same ever since!

Being married for a long span of 27 years and still being in "love" with each other! I don't know what is love? But I do know that I still care a lot for the person whom I married long back and who was a complete stranger for me.

And the reason I am writing about it today is that my very observant daughter remarked that "you and papa seem to care a lot for each other." She is right as we both care a lot about each other. We have come to accept each other with all shades of grey and black and this is so comforting to live with a person who knows and accepts you for beig what you are.

I know one thing for certain that when he comes on the weekends, I am happy and look eagerly for him to come home. Though the other fact that we may have an argument within 5 minutes of his arrival is also equally true. So being in love doesn't mean to go along with the line of thought of another person, relegating backstage your own feelings and thoughts. It rather means to respect and give space to other's felings as well.

Mutual respect is another aspect that goes into making of a successful marriage. We both have mutual respect for each other. I know for certain that KS doesn't like it a bit when someone treats me as a woman and has always respected me as a person. He wants others also to treat me as a person and not a "lesser being" as a woman. Now such a concern that comes from a man who has no interest in the Feminist theories comes only because he treats me on equal footing. Now give it any name you want to.

KS has always been a pilar of strength for me and has seen to my personal growth as a person as well as a professional. He has been always prroud of my achievements even more than I myself have been. I wonder at times wehat I would have been, had not it been for his support to me at every stage of my life? Is it love?

I cannot even imagine my life without him. Though we have our qon quota of quarrels, arguments and at times fight too but is it not an integral part of life? The most important part is to be able to see the other's point of view and to accept the modalities that would help both of us to come to a consensus. If this is something that is called love?

In our culture the word "Love" is used with two extreme connotations, either it is the supreme love that a devotee has for the object of his/her devotion or it is the physical love that most of the youngesters fed on the staple diet of bollywood dram ascribe it to.

But I think it is a feeling that has to be felt and cannot be described in words and being an abstract word, we look for something concrete to be substituted for this pure feeling.

I think it is this feeling of togetherness where we feel that life without the other just could not be possible, that makes us live happily and makes us look forward to many more years of togetherness, caring for each other. It could be "Love".

Anshu is a disturbed person these days. Even I, her mother whom she looks for all answers, have nothing to offer her at this stage. I am concerned about her as it is not her nature to be so very engrossed in such a development but she seems to be really in a state where even she is not very certain about herself. She asked me the other day—what is all this called love? I wish I could give her some answer! Is it a feeling of concern for someone that is different from the concern that you have for others? No answer. You have to find your own answer this time.

So, should it be first to fall in love and then marry or to marry a complete stranger and then fall in love with him? The question needs an answer but could there be just one answer for the same as the answer would be subjective. So all said and done, we all have to find our own answer to this question. What baffles me is the situation where both of my daughters have started having a new feeling in them but the origin of this feeling is different in both the cases. But what really matters is the end and not the means, as it is making your peace with your life and spend it happily with someone you really love and care for.

Sunday, 22 January 2006

The final countdown for Nidhi’s marriage has started. It really fills me with a mixed feeling, on one hand I am sad that my first-born child will be going away from me and on the other hand, I am also filled with happiness that she has got a life partner she looks forward toshare her life with.

How strange is the fact that Nidhi, such an introvert and quiet girl, has developed an affinity for a boy she hardly knows. Throughout the day she keeps very reserved but in the evening the moment Vikrant calls, her face has a shine and eyes a sparkle that we never saw earlier. Is it love that is plane and naked on her face for everyone to read?

The other day Anshu read to me a portion from Vikram Seth’s “The suitable boy” where the concern of the bride for her groom whom she hardly knew, was depicted, and we discussed about the feeling of love coming without any pre-requisite to the heart of the newly-weds which helps them start life with aplomb. It seems Nidhi has developed the same feelings for Vikrant. It really feels so good for a mother to see that her daughter looks forward to marry a boy that we have selected for her and do so with happiness.

Yesterday we started with the making of “Kaliras” for Nidhi. Ashu was the one who was so immersed in making them that I wanted to take a shot of the him. With thread and needle in his hands, he so very swiftly was weaving the Kaliras or was it the brotherly love that was being woven along with! I cannot understand why the marriage albums don’t have the real pictures in them that depict the behind the scene episodes. Had I a camera in hand, I would have captured a picture. There was a touch of humour also as the bride-to-be also was fully engrossed in making the Kaliras!

My kids wondered about the importance as well as relevance of putting Kaliras in the wrists of the bride and I just could not give a satisfactory answer to that. I know I have to find an answer to all these questions so that they know something about the marriage rituals and just don’t perform them as everyone else does like a zombie.

These days Ashu has become very concerned for Nidhi and cuddles her at times like a kid sister and showers love on her which is so uncharacteristic for him as he is not the one to show his emotions. But this is what it does to even a boy as giving away a part of your life to someone relatively unknown is not an easy job. He slips inside her quilt and pats her and speaks in a loving tone. I was really surprised when like a “mom” he started directing her to be careful about her looks as well. I just wondered—do I really know them or is it only a part of them that I am aware of! It is an aspect of his personality that is new to me. He is caring and emotional but when it comes to Nidhi, he has never been very expressive.

I am very happy that all my kids are here these days when Nidhi’s marriage is so near. At least they all are enjoying each others company a lot these days. Perhaps these sweet memories would be the ones that would remain there in their hearts long afterwards and make them invest the same kind of emotions in their future relationships.

Anshu is a disturbed person these days. Even I, her mother whom she looks for all answers, have nothing to offer her at this stage. I am concerned about her as it is not her nature to be so very engrossed in such a development but she seems to be really in a state where even she is not very certain about herself. She asked me the other day—what is all this called love? I wish I could give her some answer! Is it a feeling of concern for someone that is different from the concern that you have for others? No answer. You have to find your own answer this time.

So, should it be first to fall in love and then marry or to marry a complete stranger and then fall in love with him? The question needs an answer but could there be just one answer for the same as the answer would be subjective. So all said and done, we all have to find our own answer to this question. What baffles me is the situation where both of my daughters have started having a new feeling in them but the origin of this feeling is different in both the cases. But what really matters is the end and not the means, as it is making your peace with your life and spend it happily with someone you really love and care for.

The charm of living in a small town cannot be described by any words. One has to experience living in small towns to realise the feeling.

Yesterday evening, we sat at the bus stand waiting for a bus to come from another station. It was a long and a futile wait as the bus didn't turn up and we had to trudge back to our home. But the wait was not futile as I had a wonderful experience at the bus stand.

Among other passengers waiting at the bus stand, was a quite young boy about 18 years old, who reminded to me of my own son, as Ashu i.e. my son had also left for his college in the morning. That boy sat there with head phones in his ears, listening to music. Then after a while he came to me and asked me to watch his belongings when he wanted to go somewhere. And after a while when he come back, he smelt of cigarette as he might have gone in search of a packet of fags. I really felt sorry for the young boy as whenever I watch young boys smoke a cigarette, I have an urge to stop them.

All my three kid are back home. Except their papa who because of his outstation posting cannot be here with us, we all make a complete family. When my second daughter arrived yesterday, her happiness could give anyone a signal about the state of her mind, on being back home, where she sincerely believed to belong to! Her generous revealings about how she misses all of us when she is away, make me wonder ahat exactly makes a "house" a "home"?

Is it the mere physical proximity of the members living in the house that makes it a home or there has to be something else in it to be qualified as a Home? She stayed at two places during her short visit and missed her home the more, when she closely watched the relationships among the members of those two dwelling places. Her stark views have made me more concerned about the declining value system in the society and also the sham that people put on even in front of their own near ones.

Her very honest question about whether it is the people who are wrong or we are wrong that the feeling of uncomfort is generated while closely watching the changing trends in the social circle around one's ownself? As a "participant observer" she made some very pertinent observations about the changing values and attitudes among young girls and was particularly concerned about the value system that these girls would carry over to the most important and basic institution of society i.e. FAMILY!

Though, we elders are always critical of the changing or degrading values among the youth but still I laugh it off as passing fad, prevalent in the urban areas and not to have anything to do with our kind of life. But her observations have made me wonder and a bit apprehensive also about the kind of society these values would usher us to? Having critically watched the girls with rural bases, the girls with urban roots and also the girls who were under transition from the rural to urban modes of life, a pattern that was unmistakenly common, was the declining respect for all that we hold as precious, the family bonds.

Is it the preference for the life of ease and of comfort that makes these young girls sacrifice all that the "home" used to stand for? As all these observations have come from my daughter who is young and ready to take upon a new social role in near future, makes me question whether it is the world that is at fault or we, the so caled old-fashioned" people,who still value clinging to old world value system.

I am thankful to God that all that what people adapt in the name of modernity, has still not touched my kids but when she questioned me "Why did I feel uncomfortable watching the general trend in relationships, and why I love running back home?", made me wonder how would my kids make their peace with the world if they would be all the time critical of the trends that they find suffocating? And more so when the average multitudes of people constituting the world around us, seem to belong the this particular group.

Life is making adjustments. I made adjustments in my own time. But, fortunately, these were very small, and we were able to raise a family based on mutual respect and love that formed the very basis of our "Home". Though, apprehensive of the future, my optimistic self believes that the values imparted to our kids would help them sustain all outward pressures and they would be able to raise a family of their own and would have a "Home" where their kids would love to return, as mine come to regain strength, so as they go out to face the world at their own terms and conditions!

So what are the things that bond us together as a family? The question is something that baffles all those people who have the need to be bonded together. My son, who is final year Engineering student, is home these days and just watching him these days gives me the answer to the question that I posed at the very beginning of this write up.

As soon as he reached home at 2:30 AM, instead of getting inside the bed that was kept prepared for him, he just chose to snuggle in my bed and when he held me close, I felt him to be like the samall infant that once he was! Thank God, he still has the fragrance of innocence and freshness of youth in him. Some people may find it odd but this is the way it is with my kids. My daughters too, though one of them is to be married off in a month's time, snuggle inside my quilt, just to hold me close. And very honestly they confess that it helps them recoup the strength that they might have lost during the average hiccups of life that they face.

I, on the other hand, am thankful to them for the trust and confidence that all my kids repose in me. Don't I have the same need sometimes? When I too, like a small kid, would just long to be in the reassuring arms of my own mother. But I feel shy and a little awkward to snuggle in her bed and hold her hands or to put my head in her lap to receive sustenance from her. But her mere presence around me, when I need her the most, is something that cheers me up.

I really wonder, as to why, as adults we behave in a different manner when all of us understand the basic fact that the things that bond us together are easy to come by and are within our approach. We put on a mask of independent, confident creatures capable to face the life as it comes to us and in the process are really robbed of the little joys of life that make us human beings, weak and in serch of support, at times.

I want all my kids to grow and become independent, as they are even today, but I would also wish them to keep the fragrance of childhood intact in them so that they maintain a perfect balance between the "world of innocence" and the "world of experience"!

The second day of the year 2006. I was able to keep up the resolution of getting up early and doing some constructive work in the mornings that I earlier wasted(?).

Anshu called yesterday from Shimla and wanted to talk to me and it was all about her miseries. Her glasses fell down and were broken. There was nothing to fix it up. But could I help her, sitting so away from her? NO, but just talking to me gave her some moral boosting and today in the morning, she again called to tell me that the optician was not able to fix another glass and she had an appointment at 11AM and moreover it was at a faraway place. Could I help her? Of course, No.But she felt like talking to me although both of us understand that she alone is responsible for taking decisions and managing her life without me.

Does it give me a sense of remote controlling her life even from such physical distance? I would rather put it this way that somehow I seem to sense that something is bad whenever any of my kids is passing through a rough phase. The question again remains unanswered, even if I know something is missing and needs to be fixed, I am in no position to do so, then why they trust me and feel relieved unburdening their sorrows and worries?

Perhaps the same thing happens when I, too, look toward someone else to help me find a solution to all that makes me unhappy. I look towards GOD and pour all my laments in front of Him. I feel relieved as if someone more capable than me is now aware of my problems and would see to them. But ultimately, the fact is that I myself have to find a solution to all thattroubles me.

I just have so much to learn from you Anshu. But thanks anyway to have this unfalling trust in me.

As usual I wasted time yesterday evening planning a new list of resolutions that I promised myself to follow through the coming new year.
The first resolution, of course, was to get up early as the author of the book "The Monk..." has mentioned that the people who sleep a lot haqve nothing in life to look forward to, and I didn't want to be someone like a loser! But did I get up early in the morning? Of course No. So many excuses my fertile mind came up with when a portion of it urged the body to get out of the warmth of the quilt and to go for a morning walk. I never knew that when it came to finding excuses, my lazy mind would suddenly become hyperactive! Though, I was not able to fulfill the first resolution taken up by me but the secret that it opened in front of my eyes was worth the guilt of not fulfilling the promise. About some other resolutions and how I will do everything in my power to put them backstage, in some other post.
A very happy new year to all of you!