Tag: Children

Sunday musings…

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

Is there one person in this whole wide world who knows you inside out? Maybe not. Actually it is not maybe, it is definitely no. And the only person who knows you entirely is you. All the acquaintances we make have a piece of us. As we meet new people, they take a slice of us. It is almost never the complete picture. We become a combination of what they take from us and their presumption of us. The less they perceive, stronger will that relationship be.

In a lifetime we meet so many people, most just look at the cake and walk away. They may admire the structure (pun intended), some the color, yet a few like the icing. It is only when you and the other person have a genuine interest that you share a piece. You slice and dice yourself and give a portion to every person you hold dear to you.

We are a piecemeal of many such relationships.

If you think of it, it is impossible to give the entire cake to any one person. For one, each one is carrying their own cake and second, there are just so many relationships. In the end we are all this infinite set diagrams partially intersecting with other sets, every day. Math applies in such weird ways, one would think!

We float in this infinite space with these innumerable intersecting sets all the time. These intersections build up those blocks of expectations. Some of them are so high, that they make the intersection very heavy. You are something to someone all the time. So then when are you, YOU? When are you just that single circle, with no strings attached, floating in space, and the stars shining down on you. Very rarely, for most people. There are those stolen moments from your own life, when you can put down the weight, walk around in your circle, floating under the sky.

Our social system is so pathetically morose that it bombards us with this constant need to intersect. We are taught from when we are born about relationships, expectations, bond and all such crap. Are we ever taught to carve out our own path?

My friend brought in an interesting perspective recently. She said, why should I tell me son to do anything about working, marrying, and all that circus? Let him decide what he wants to do. If he doesn’t get married, he doesn’t. Big deal. It is his life and he has complete authority over it. Well, this is one of the reasons why, she is my best friend.

Can we really change the current norm of pressurizing our loved ones into forming intersections. Let them lead their way, let them live their life. Maybe that would increase the happiness quotient eventually. The number one killer of happiness, I believe, is expectations. These expectations stem out like mushrooms from relationships and people go crazy over it. Only if everyone lived with the feeling that, ‘I’m here for you if you need me’. Come to think of it, that is all, that’s required. There is no need of, you need to behave one way, you need to talk one way, you need to emote this way, you need to think this way… Give me a break! See where stress comes from, followed by depression and what not.

Why does any relationship “have to” be a certain way? The only true relationship (in its absolute sense) is that of a mother and child. Even in this one, when the mother thinks, “I will lead you for the first few years, then I will guide you, further on, for the most part, I’m here for you”. It is that simple.

So should you start easing out of the heavy ones? I don’t know. Maybe the trick is to make your circle strong. I don’t know…

If we keep it simple for the next generation, maybe the sets of the future will be lighter….

Day 5 : Life lessons – God provides

On By Indu PatikkalIn Blessing, celebrate, Childhood memories, Children, God, growing up, Happiness, life, life lessons, opinion, Random thoughts, realizationsLeave a comment

Like the past few weeks, today evening again I got an invite from a good friend of mine to attend bible study at her house. She was kind enough to call me again today, in spite of the fact that I declined a few of her earlier invitations, because I had something else to do. This was the first time I was attending bible study and I asked my kids just before heading out of the door, if we needed to carry the Bible. My younger one promptly said, “Amma, God provides!” As I thought about what he had said, I realized that his timely statement had such greater and deeper meaning. God was going to show it to me in more ways than one later during the day.

At the bible study I met a couple of other families. Honestly, it felt so good interacting with people who were not from my company or from my state or from my country. The four families gathered in that house, or whom God brought together were from four different countries. It was amazing to see how people could gather from different spectrums, different lives to talk about God. It was a group of people who genuinely wanted to be nice to each other. Only if this message could be passed to the whole world.

Anyways, so I met a young woman, single, mother of four children, who had recently relocated to Bentonville. She was working towards establishing her own housekeeping services company by starting out small and was in need of more clients. I told her about the Nextdoor app, which was new to her and how it could help her. I got her visiting card and put out recommendations in Nextdoor and the Indian community on FB. I don’t know if this will help her or not, but it was a channel that God provided to her to help her. And as I thought back to what my son has said before we left home, “God provides”, I realized how soon He teaches us.

As we progressed through the Bible study which was about quick listening, slow anger, doing (James Chapter 1:19-27) I was thinking about how God has provided for me. As I grew up, my parents lived from paycheck to debt to paycheck to debt. Most of my school and engineering fees was loans given by kind-hearted people. God didn’t provide us with a spacious house, a car, bank balance, jewelry, fine clothes, and all the materialistic things that money could buy, but He provided my parents with ideas to keep the money flowing just enough to educate their children. God provided my brother and I with enough intelligence to do well at studies. He provided my brother and I the wisdom to understand the meagerness of resources and use it well. He provided my brother and I the will to overcome, to study, to get further in life, to provide for our parents in their old age. All gifts don’t come wrapped in packages. The most valuable ones come as blessings, when God provides!

Truly, truly blessed!

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 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.

Random thoughts

On By Indu PatikkalIn Random thoughtsLeave a comment

In the end, what school you went to, what degrees you earned, what jobs you had makes no difference. Were you surrounded by people who love you, were you able to return that love, during this whole process were you happy is all that matters. If not, then all you are left with are meaningless numbers and letters printed on paper which can be easily torn.
The people you choose to surround you is the key. If you choose the right people, you have a chance at happiness. If the people you chose are not right but you hold the courage and wisdom to walk away, you still have a chance at happiness. But if you choose the wrong people and cannot walk away, you are screwed.
Life is precious, we don’t realize it till we near the end or see a loved one near the end. You have to see death at 15cm normal vision distance to appreciate life. It’s funny.. This whole thing called life and all the unnecessary complications we build around it..

Tamasha

On By Indu PatikkalIn Random thoughtsLeave a comment

Compromised lives – that’s the movie Tamasha in two words. This post is not a movie review, but an insight into the life that a lot of people live. As depicted in the movie, we are all running a race, we don’t know what the race is about, or what it is for, everybody is running, so we are also running. Are we first or second, or ninth or tenth? We don’t know. Choose your own race and ace that.
How many of us are really able to do that? Stop running everyone else’s race, and run your own? I don’t know, maybe because my outlook is small or because I am surrounded by lots and lots of people who are in the rat race, that I feel that this percentage of people who run their own race is very small. However, something inside me, makes me believe that I am part of the small population that lives compromised lives.
Be yourself – that’s the movie Tamasha in two other words. You don’t have to change for the world, or do things to please people around you. Believe in your wings and fly.
Like one of those forwards, the birds trust it’s wings not the branch of the tree it’s sitting on..