Day 4 : Life lessons – Companionship

On By Indu PatikkalIn Blessing, Children, father, Friends, Happiness, life, life lessons, opinion, Random thoughts, realizationsLeave a comment

Companionship is the ultimate requirement, objective, end state of all relationships. I have seen this in my own life and in people whose paths have crossed mine over the years.

Yesterday I was talking to my dad who has been living alone for over three years now after my mother passed. He was telling me that when he sits alone and reminisces his earlier years with my mother, he wonders why he did the things he did or why he said the things he said. He added when we are together we just want to prove that we are better than the other, it’s when you lose the companion you truly understand what companionship meant.

I read a literacy contest winning short story – Mrinalini. A lady leaves her family, children, grand children to find her old self. After several years her family finds her. When her husband sees her, he asks her if he could spend a few days with her. To which she replies – the loneliness is wonderful but one still needs a companion to share it.

There is my friend who got married to a guy from her college, one year senior. I have always marveled and watched in awe, their companionship after sixteen years of marriage. I know for a fact that they are the couple who will grow old together, sit on a bench by the sea, many years down the line, laughing about their early years. They talk to each other probably three to four times a day. He calls her at lunch or she calls him at lunch. It’s probably not lovey-dovey messages after sixteen years of marriage, but the need to talk to each other AND the need to listen to each other. That is marriage, love and companionship.

I have seen companionship in my children as well. The older one walks in after school and his first question everyday for the last so many years is “where is Kevin?” The things they share with each other, the constant talking, discussions makes me feel blessed. There are many things my older one knows about the younger one. It’s not my unavailability, but that’s the companionship they share.

There are friends, there are acquaintances, there are relatives, there are siblings, there is family, but there is only one companion. This is the person where you have no filters, you step in and out of their soul like your own. This is like wine that only gets better with time.

Companionship is probably just another word for soulmate, the one who complements you, completes you. These just get better with age, life experiences, life lessons and so on. For my companion, my husband, I am truly blessed. Having him with me, physically or mentally means, I am home.

Day 3 : Life lessons – People in our lives

On By Indu PatikkalIn Blessing, God, life, life lessons, opinion, Random thoughts, realizations, The signs, WomanLeave a comment

This is a quote by Mother Teresa and I totally believe it. There is a rhyme and reason for every person in your life. Even the sales guy who drops in once in a while selling things in their goody bag. Recently, when I was in a mental turmoil about my job, my friend, my family, my father, one late evening there was a knock on my door. When I peeped through the glass window, I saw a young lady standing there smiling with a stack of books in a hand. I opened the door and left the door half closed, half open because I didn’t know who this person was and it was pretty late. She told me, she was studying and selling books to help fund her education. Because it was a woman and because she mentioned education I decided to buy a book from her. I paid the money, got the book and out of nowhere she asked me, “is it okay with you if we pray together?” I was caught by surprise. Nobody has come to my door with this request. I said okay. She stood there outside my door on a dark night and prayed for me, my children, for my happiness. It could be a sales gimmick, that’s what you would think when you think from your head. But I tend to think from my heart in such situations and felt a strange calm after she left. I did not get the answers to my issues in life immediately but I got the assurance the God is seeing everything, He is watching over me and He will show me the way just before the turn.

She came to me with a purpose. She was a blessing.

I have been blessed many times over with the presence of women who have taught me “what not to be”. A certain member of my extended family thought it was her primary responsibility to domesticate me. I was Katherine the shrew she had to tame. At that time I was naive and took a big hit on my self confidence, self respect. But in a few years, He jumped in, held my hand and walked me away. Through the whole ordeal I learnt more about myself. The levels to which I could be downgraded, how I would fight such situations and come out a more confidant, self respecting woman. There were other women who through experiences taught me very well, to the comma and to the dot, what not to be. Those were exemplary life lessons.

Life teaches you everyday the purpose of each person and whether they are a blessing or lessons. God tactically places them in your life so that you can evolve into the person you truly are!

Blessed!

Day 2 : Life lessons – Invaluable when gone

On By Indu PatikkalIn Friends, life, opinion, Random thoughts, realizationsLeave a comment

Recently a friend of mine resigned from his job. He was good at what he did. He accomplished tasks in half the time another person would take. Everyday morning he went into the office and delivered his best. He knew he was good at what he did. He was assigned various projects over his tenure of twenty three years at the organization. No doubt he grew within the company as he delivered. He believed in the core principle that if he does his best the money, the recognition, the adulation would come his way.

Nobody can do something alone. There are a lot of people who influence a person’s work, behavior, attitude, work product. So he had various people around him who kept changing over time and influenced the work he did. The output remained constant, however the inputs changed, guidance changed, processes changed. He sailed through them all, because at the end of the day he felt he had done something. He had touched somebody’s life in any small way. He had helped put that tiny stone there to grow the organization.

All people around him didn’t see him the same way because their perspectives on diligence, dedication, work output were different. For about a year now he was doing odd jobs at the organization. That’s what he was told to do. After months of deliberation he decided to call it quits. He found another job and quit.

Once he quit, various people from the organization who recognized his talent tried to persuade him his to stay, they pleaded, gave him time to sleep over it and rethink his decision. He was adamant. One might think it was because his new job was too good a deal. Maybe yes, maybe not. But he had given up inside. He felt hopeless for the way he was treated after twenty three years of dedicated and excellent service to the organization.

At the end of the day it’s “job satisfaction” primarily, that keeps or loses an employee. That made me think about all the people who had resigned on my team. Why did they leave? It is because they were not happy about something. They may convince themselves that it’s the money. But no! I don’t agree. It’s the feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day, day after day, everyday. Period.

It is unfortunate that supervisors fail to understand this. What irked me about my friends situation was the umpteen requests he got to reconsider. The value was understood when he left. Like I told him “they don’t deserve your service!” He moved on.. nothing happened to the organization, nothing would and nothing will. One person doesn’t make a difference in any company, but that moment of realization on the part of his supervisors, that the situation could have been prevented, is satisfaction enough!

Day 1 : Life lessons – calm and polite

On By Indu PatikkalIn Children, growing up, life, opinion, parenting, Random thoughts, realizationsLeave a comment

I was cleaning the fridge today. A yellow microfiber cloth in hand I set out for the daunting task around 3pm. There were a number of expired bottles of various shapes and sizes. There were some frozen circles of milk glued to the shelves, some masala rings, rotten vegetables and what not. I know you must be thinking yew!! What an untidy woman. Thank you!

The shelves wiped, the trays wiped, the cheese box wiped, the trays on the doors wiped, the huge vegetable tray wiped! Phew! Why can’t this be just one shelf?

I scrub away for one hour, two hours and finally open my lower freezer door. Chocolate frozen from some chocolate cookie dough glued to the bottom of the tray. I bend down, sit down and wipe away. This stubborn partition piece of rotten plastic refuses to budge from its place. I snap it out and think – I got you sucker ! After I finish wiping for another twenty minutes or so, oh how much I hate chocolate cookie dough by now.. the rotten dough comes off nicely and my trays are as white as snow ❄️.

So this sucker plastic piece needs to go back in. I try to push it in, just like it was and the sucker decides on a revenge game with me ! Me ? Me ! Just as I thought I put it right back in, the suckers heinously snaps in place with my thumb inside.. OOOOOOUUUUUUCCCHHHH!! The sucker really got even now. I yell and yell and my kids come running asking “Amma, are you ok?” The perfunctory question kids have learnt watching misleading movies. My wiggle my thumb out and let that sucker die inside the freezer to deal the rest with my husband. This is a man’s job after all!

While I clean the rest of the freezer, my fingers going numb, I crib about everything between the sky and the core of the earth. I go yada yada yada and even bring in how irresponsible the kids are about taking a bath. I really don’t know the connection, but I got choked up as well. I rattle and rattle and make so much noise. Both my kids very intelligently, stay away! Just as I lift the washed tray to go back into the fridge, I hit a glass and it shatters! Wow!! My elder son comes running and asks “What broke?”. He fetched the broom for me, silently watches me clean up. After about ten minutes he asks – what should I do? I tell him to clear the trash. He does it ever so obediently and promptly (on other occasions he needs a minimum of five reminders).

He comes back and waits another two minutes and extremely calmly asks – is there anything else I should do? I say no. And he asks so politely, “so now can I go back to doing my project?”

And I am stumped! At that precise moment I feel the growth of my baby into a mature youth who knows how to handle the situation.

Life lessons I learn everyday.

The turn

On By Indu PatikkalIn Random thoughts, realizations, TranquilityLeave a comment

The turn

One day we will all make that turn

For today

We are lucky enough

To pass by

That day

Someone else

Will drive us down

That road

We will not return

With them

We will join our loved ones

Who before us

We left there

A place sans pain

A place sans expectations

There we will be

In our purest form

The way He created us

Until we assumed bodies

Developed relationships

Built expectations

Failed

We will leave all of this

One day

When we make that turn

#metoo

On By Indu PatikkalIn Random thoughtsLeave a comment

I learnt about what #metoo means when I looked up a Malayalam actress’s post. She is a celebrity and can put it. Nobody would care because she is famous and not married. But what ties all women who have had a bad experience to narrate is that they know the feeling, the agony, the umpteen times they have tried to put it out of their system. But it stays like rotten fungus, etched in her memory. The bastard ( I have no lesser word for them) forgets it like eating breakfast that day. 

How many Indian women from middle class families would admit that they were at some point in their life sexually assaulted or abused or whatever crap one wants to call it, for fear of the reaction of their immediate families? Even if the woman has an open mind does her partner or family have an open mind to accept without contempt that the woman close to them went through a harrowing experience which they can’t even begin to imagine? Many men probably attach behavior patterns of the woman with this past experience as if she had a say in the act. She was probably less than ten years of age when she didn’t even recognize her body parts. She was probably a woman with dreams that were crushed because of the bastard’s whim. She was probably a woman who has sons the age of the bastard. There is no particular age that a woman is targeted which exponentially increases the horrendous crime. 

The basic question anyone can ask these bastards is – don’t you have a mother. There is no other way you could have been born and this act is an ultimate insult of her. There is a vast generation of men who are negatively impacted by pornography. They probably don’t have basic sex education or are deprived of sex itself that they launch what they see on the one they can land their hands on first. This is the only part where I don’t believe in karma. It was not her karma to be subject to such a heinous act. Everyone remembers the woman, nobody remembers the bastard. The best example is the Malayalam actor abduction case. Justice is delayed to a celebrity who has the connections so what will happen to a common man. At the mention of her name there will be more perverts who will say with lewd eyes – wasn’t she the one who was abducted and assaulted. There will be few who at the mention of the bastards name will say – wasn’t he the one who harmed the modesty of many women? Somehow he becomes the hero. There is a whole generation of men waiting to get their hands on the videotapes of the assault to satisfy their whatever..

There is a layer of rotten bastards living in today’s world. They should be dug out and killed to stop this menace. Everyone keeps shouting slogans about equality, more power to woman and all that bullshit, what every woman needs is her basic human right to exist as a human being without fear – even if she is a baby. The situation is so disgusting that the only place safe for a woman is in the womb as a foetus. Everything else is risky.

I am in support of the recent movement of educating our sons. Yes they are the ones who should be taught to respect a woman, every woman! 

Sex education is a serious thing and should be taught in schools so that children don’t have to find out what vagina means or what sex means hiding under blankets browsing books they sneaked or googling behind closed doors. It should be talked openly in homes so that they learn to think that sex is a natural phenomenon and not a taboo.

All this while it’s the women who have been fighting, when will the men come down to fight for and protect the women? Why don’t we have more men in the streets raising slogans about keeping her safe? It doesn’t mean women shouldn’t fight for their rights but if there is vast majority of men who believe that women should have their human rights why aren’t they trying to fight the minority of men who resort to such dastardly acts? Why are they opinionated in silos? Why can’t they conjure up forces to pressurize the governments to fastrack these cases, and ensure the bastards are gravely punished so that the next guy who wants to commit this crime thinks atleast for a second before doing it? 

Change still seems like a very distant dream. But I sincerely hope that there is hope. If we do our part today maybe there will be a better tomorrow.. 

With prayers…