Tag: overcoming fear

Riding the waves

On By Indu PatikkalIn life, Nature, opinion, Random thoughts, realizations, TranquilityLeave a comment

The waves come lashing

One by one

There is a small one

Then there is a big one

As I look out

There are so many

Everyone is looking out

Everyone is watching

At their small waves

At their big ones

Unknown is every course

The strength to ride it

Comes from heavens above

Can I choose

Me thinks

There comes a big one

With a resounding no

I could be submerged

Under it’s magnanimity

Or I could struggle

Just a little bit

With all my strength

Ride over it

The more I think

The more easy it is to be submerged

When I let go

I realize

I’m riding the waves

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!

#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…

“Apprehension” – a big word

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

I fear a lot of things. I don’t know if others are like this, because I cannot get into anyone else’s mind. I am not scared, but I fear. Scared I feel is a word of present or past tense. Fear is associated with the future. So what am I fearful of? Oh many things. Like, my kids will fall sick, I might have an accident, I may never become a successful writer, the curry I am cooking will go bad, my kids will be late to school (this is my every school day fear), I may become very poor one day, and so on and on and on.. Constantly feels like I am sitting on the tip of the iceberg and the ice will melt anytime, plunging me down into a deep canyon. Oh! and my biggest ever fear, one I have carried all my life, is associated with my father.

I have thought about, why do I fear all this? What is to happen, will happen. I know this, I mean yes, I know this for a fact. I accept it, but the apprehension of what ill may come constantly lingers on my mind. Although when the ill thing happens, I am the bravest person around. I can handle situations which are a real pain in the wrong places, extremely smoothly. There are many people who know me and will vouch this for a fact. But the anticipation or the wait just kills me. Does that sound like a paradox? No, I am not crazy. Am I waiting for something bad to happen or am I cautious about it? I think its mid way.

Maybe the word is apprehension. I remember taking a personality quiz in the 7th grade at Bishop Cottons, organized by Times of India. At the end of the long set of never-ending questions, a complete stranger looked at my answers and told me I was apprehensive about the future. Honestly, I had no idea what the word apprehension meant. It looked like a good word to play the find-simpler-words-from-a-long-word game.

Now I know. Did that stranger have a magic wand, or was I extremely truthful on that personality quiz. Whatever it was, it was damn good a quiz!

So yes, I am apprehensive – anxious or fearful that something bad or unpleasant will happen. Are a lot of people like this? Sitting on the iceberg? I guess not, rather, I hope not. Its not a very nice place to be, with the tip poking at your bottom all the time, making you feel like you are walking on a stack of needles or shard glass all the time. In this phrase lies the truth “walking on shards of glass”. You can never cut yourself whilst walking on shards of glass!! Yes, I’ve done it (as part of a team building camp out from work), nothing happened. I reached the other end of the ground, tears running down my cheeks, exploding with happiness, that I had overcome my fear!

So much for apprehensions?

I have probably reached the mid point of my life, or maybe a little past mid point. There are moments (sometimes minutes) where I delve into life, its meaning, where we come from, where we are heading. In these lapses of self-digging, I realize that at this point in life, I am going through a churning, a reflection of sorts on yesterday, today and tomorrow. There is a crossover that is happening from youth to the next stage, where we start looking at things from a higher altitude. Not 360 degrees yet, maybe 180? Through this looking glass, the apprehensions become clearer, through this knowing, building defense mechanisms becomes easier, through these defense mechanisms, life becomes simpler!

Cheers to this wonderful, blessed yet convoluted creation called life!