The Prince’s Awakening

Another beautiful Zen story from  Osho, courtesy my friend Anand Zen.

Monk

I am reminded of one of the most beautiful stories that I have come across in my life. A king in Japan sends his son to a mystic, to a master, to learn awareness. The king was old. And he said to the son, “Put your total energy into it because unless you are aware, you are not going to succeed me. I will not give this kingdom to a man who is asleep and unconscious. It is not a question of father and son. My father has given it to me only when I attained awareness. I was not the right person, because I was not his eldest son, I was his youngest son. But my other two brothers, who were older than me, could not attain.

“The same is going to happen to you. And the problem is even more complicated because I have only one son: if you do not attain to awareness, the kingdom is going into somebody else’s hands. You will be a beggar on the streets. So it is a question of life and death for you. Go to this man; he has been my master. Now he is very old, but I know that if anybody can teach you, he is the man. Tell him, `My father is sick, old, can die any day. Time is short, and I have to become fully aware before he dies; otherwise I lose the kingdom.’”

A very symbolic story too: If you are not aware, you lose the kingdom.

The king’s son went to the old master in the mountains. He said to the master, “I have been sent by your disciple, the king.”

The master was very old, older than his father. He said, “I remember that man. He was really an authentic seeker. I hope you will prove to be of the same quality, of the same genius, of the same totality, of the same intensity.”

The young prince said, “I will do everything.”

The master said, “Then start cleaning in the commune. And remember one thing — that I will be hitting you at any time. You may be cleaning the floor and I may come from the back and hit you with my stick, so be alert.”

He said, “But I have come to learn about awareness….”

The master said, “This is how you will learn.”

One year passed. In the beginning he was getting so many hits every day, but slowly slowly he started becoming aware. Even the footsteps of the old man… he might be doing anything — howsoever absorbed in the work, he would become immediately aware that the master was around. The prince would be ready. After one year the master hit him from the back while he was deeply involved in talking with another inmate of the ashram. But the prince continued to talk, and still he caught hold of the stick before the stick could reach his body.

The master said, “That’s right. Now this is the end of the first lesson. The second lesson begins tonight.”

The prince said, “I used to think that this was all. This is only the first lesson? How many lessons are there?”

The old man said, “It depends on you. The second lesson is that now I will be hitting you while you are asleep, and you have to be alert in your sleep.”

He said, “My God. How can one be alert in sleep?”

The old man said, “Don’t be worried. Thousands of my disciples have passed through the test. Your father has passed through the test. It is not impossible. It is difficult, but it is a challenge.”

And from that night he was getting hit six times, eight times, twelve times in the night. Sleep was difficult. But within six months he started feeling inside himself a certain awareness. And one day when the master was just going to hit him, with closed eyes he said — “Don’t bother. You are too old. It hurts me; you are taking so much trouble. I am young, I can survive these hits.”

The master said, “You are blessed. You have passed the second lesson. But up to now I have been hitting with my wooden staff. The third lesson is that now I will start hitting, from tomorrow morning, with a real sword. Be alert! Just a moment of unconsciousness and you are finished.”

Early in the morning the master used to sit in the garden, just listening to the birds singing… the flowers opening, the sun rising. The prince thought, “Now it is becoming dangerous! A wooden stick was hard, difficult, but it was not going to kill me. A real sword….” He was a swordsman but he was not given any chance to protect himself; only awareness was going to be his protection.

An idea came to his mind: “This old man is really dangerous. Before he starts his third lesson, I would like to check whether he himself can pass the third test or not. If he is putting my life at risk, I cannot allow him to do it without checking whether he is worthy of it or not.” And these were only thoughts that he was thinking lying down in his bed; it was a cold morning.

And the master said, “Come out of your blanket, you idiot! Do you want to hit your own master with a sword? Feel ashamed! I can hear the footsteps of your thoughts… drop the idea.” He had heard. Nothing was said to him, nothing was done to him.

Thoughts are also things. Thoughts also, while moving, make sounds, and those who are fully alert can read your thoughts. Even before you have become aware of them, they can become aware of them.

The prince was really ashamed. He fell at the feet of the master and he said, “Just forgive me. I am really stupid.”

But because it was a question of a sword, a real sword, he became aware of everything around him, even his own breathing, his heartbeat. Just a small breeze passing through the leaves, a dead leaf moving in the wind, and he was aware. And the master tried a few times but found him always ready. He could not hit him with the sword because he could not find him unconscious, unalert. He was just alertness. It was a question of death — you cannot afford to be anything but alert.

In three days’ time the master could not find a single moment, a single loophole. And after the third day he called him and told him, “Now you can go and tell your father — and this is the letter from me — that the kingdom is yours.”

Awareness is a process of being more and more awake.

Never allow a cat in your life

A great saint was dying and he said to his successor, a young man, “Remember one thing: never allow a cat in your life,” and he died. A big crowd had gathered to listen to the last statement of this great saint… and what a sentence! “Never allow a cat in your life.”

The successor said, “My god, why should I allow a cat in my life in the first place? And this is the whole religion?”

But an old man — who was also a disciple, but was not chosen as a successor because he was too old; he was himself going to die within a year or two — said, “You don’t know, there is a long story behind it. He has just given you the punch line.”

He said, “Then I must know the whole story.”

The story was that when the saint renounced his wife and children and his home and went into the Himalayas, he lived near a small village. Otherwise, from where will you get your food? But the villagers were happy that they had a saint of their own, so they made a small bamboo cottage for him.

The Indian monks used just a long strip of cloth called langot. They were allowed to have only two langotis. But a trouble arose: some rats came into the house and they started chewing on the langot. The man was in a great difficulty; he had only two langotis and soon they would be gone. So he asked the villagers, “What to do? because my sect does not allow a saint to have more than two langotis. That’s the only possession allowed.”

They said, “Why don’t you take a cat from the village? She will kill the rats.” It was a perfectly rational solution. So the villagers gave him a good cat, and the cat killed the rats. But the problem was, now he had to beg for his food and the cat also needed something to eat, because the rats were finished. So he had to beg for some milk for the cat.

The villagers said, “This is a small village… the best thing for us is that you have a cow. The whole village can contribute some money and purchase a beautiful cow, and in that way you will become very independent. You can have enough milk for yourself and for your cat.”

It looked right, so a beautiful cow was brought in. Now the problem was that the cow needed grass. So every day he had to go to the village to beg for the grass. People said, “This does not look right. A great saint asking for grass? In fact no saint has ever asked for grass; it is not conventional.”

He said, “But what to do? My cow, my cat…”

So they said, “A simple solution: we are villagers, we don’t know much about your philosophy. One woman has become a widow; her husband has died, and she has nobody. So we will persuade her. She will be really happy to serve a saint and then you don’t have to come every day. We will clear some ground by the side of your hut so she can grow grass, she can grow wheat… and she will take care of you in sickness, in illness.”

The idea was right — it was always right. It was not much effort to persuade the woman; she was alone and the saint was young… there was a possibility, a hope. So she immediately agreed. She started taking care, and you know how things grow….

Basho says, “The grass grows by itself.” In fact many things grow by themselves. So grass started growing, they fell in love… the woman was beautiful, the saint was young. What more is needed? They worked in the field, they started growing wheat and they started growing grass. The cat was very happy and the cow was very happy, everything was perfect. But then the ultimate — children came in, and then he thought, “My god, that’s what I had left behind! I have renounced the world — this is the whole world again! It grew so slowly that I was not aware until the children came.”

Now, just because of the cat the whole world came in. The old man said, “That was the punch line. He told you, `Remember not to allow a cat,’ because behind the cat the whole world comes in. He was talking about his own life story, how he again became engaged in the same world — taking children to the school… and people started laughing at him: `What kind of saint are you? You are keeping a woman! You have fallen down from your greatness.’

“But what to do now? Once you have fallen, you have fallen; it is very difficult to rise again. He thought many times to renounce again, but he thought — what is the point? Those rats are everywhere. Again the same story will start. It is better to be silent.”

What I did and do for a living

I breathe–that is a super achievement for me, Conrad!

I have been a homemaker all my life! I have also been a caregiver to various elders in the family. The rest that follows is my spiel that I dish out to people interested in knowing about me.

Writer and story teller, columnist and contributor of articles, blogs, poems, travelogues and essays to Chennai newspapers, national magazines and websites, I review and edit books for publishers.

I am now working part-time with Hikeezee.com–a travel website and I am focussing on providing content about Indian temples, culture, art, heritage and history.

I have been working with EZ Vidya, a Company involved in various aspects of Education. I have been Content Writer and Language editor for the past 9 years. This too is part-time on a need basis.

Interested in Indian mythology, stories and culture, I have designed and taught Vedic Heritage to 3 to 5 year olds based on the Vedic Heritage program of Swami Dayananda Saraswathi. I have been chief MC, editor and writer of skits and documents for Kalavardini Trust that nourishes living, loving and leading the Hindu way of life. It provides an orientation to different generations of a family about the principles and practices of Indian Art, Culture and Heritage. This is not for remuneration, but surely for enriching my ‘living’!

I have specialized as a Culinary Editor. I have explored the lives and kitchens of the Tanjore and Palghat Brahmins and contributed content, edited and collaborated on Cookbooks.

The cookbook called ‘Classic Tamil Brahmin Cuisine’—co-authored with Viji Varadarjan has won the Gourmand  Special Jury Award on July 1, 2009 in Paris.

My interest is to connect the social milieu and the stories of the community to the rituals, recipes and practices of women in traditional and modern homes. I am now writing a monthly column called Holistic Cooking in Tattvaloka magazine.

My other major interest is acting on Tamil and English stage, Indian cinema and TV. I am a wordsmith, a voracious reader, crossword buff and teach children about India’s heritage, culture and traditions.

I am interested in Vedanta and spirituality.

Welcome to the Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where Anu, Ashok, Conrad, Delirious, Gaelikaa,  Grannymar, Magpie11, Paul, Maria the Silver Fox, Rummuser , Will Knott, Shackman and I write on the same topic. Please do visit the linked blogs to get  different flavours of the same topic.

NATIONAL HEALTHCARE vs PRIVATE MEDICAL CARE

Welcome to the Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where Anu, Ashok, Conrad, Delirious, Gaelikaa,  Grannymar, Magpie11, Paul, Maria the Silver Fox, Rummuser , Will Knott, Shackman and I write on the same topic. Please do visit the linked blogs to get  different flavours of the same topic. This time my husband Prof N Natarajan takes on the topic!

Health care means maintaining good health and restoration to normal health when something goes wrong with it. The causes can be many. Smoking, drug addiction, bad eating habits and alcoholism are self inflicted causes. Others are due to hereditary factors or societal /work related factors or diseases contracted by immunity deficiency, by contact or aerially spread or water borne and food borne diseases. For a woman, conception, child delivery and post delivery period are critical events having impact on her health and logically health care must cover these periods.

Medical care kicks in when health fails or in the case of accidents and health deficiencies from birth. Maximization of health care will lead to minimization of medical care. Thus the two are inversely interrelated. Medical care does not necessarily mean restoration to good health. In a large number of cases medical care is more concerned with prolonging life, without delivering substantial quality to it. Today chronic pain and suffering is simply managed medically by administration of palliative drugs on a life-long basis. Often surgical interventions too are followed by prolonged medication as are blood pressure and diabetes,.

Any informed debate on ‘National vs Private’ must recognise the above distinction between health care and medical care. One is preventive in nature while the other is corrective or palliative. For health care, the biggest responsibility is that of every grown up individual himself. He has to look after his own well being, health-wise and fitness-wise, to enjoy a reasonable quality of life. He has to refrain from abusing his body and to be able to listen to its needs, complaints and protests. He cannot afford to take his health for granted. As regards children initially their well being is in the hands of their parents. As they grow up, gradually the responsibility for their health shifts to themselves and finally they have to take full ownership of their health.

While an individual and the family unit must have primary responsibility to maintain themselves the secondary responsibility for good health of the citizens devolves on the state and the society as a whole. The responsibility cannot be abdicated to profit motivated private enterprise. The state has to ensure clean and safe environments, free from noise, dust and toxic pollutants. It must provide safe drinking water supply, sanitation and drainage. It must ensure that garbage and waste disposal system is effective and that there is no stagnant water. It must frame building regulations for a healthy environment and ensure strict compliance. It must also constantly educate the community about the best practices for maintaining a clean and healthy environment.

When the family and community individually and collectively ignore their responsibility and also fail to elect a responsible municipal administration capable of good governance and fail to pay taxes and rates honestly, it results in a multiple organ failure of the society. This is what is increasingly happening in many of the urban settlements in India and many other countries. Instead of reflecting upon the root causes listed above and addressing them effectively, the municipal Administration and society tries to find escape routes to duck admission of failure through privatization of health care. The problems are palmed off to profit driven third parties, whose primary concern is for the health of their business! This solution is expensive without being effective.

Bad health care management transfers the burden to medical care management. For example contaminated water supply results in wide spread diseases. The dictum, ‘prevention is better than cure’ finds its uppermost relevance in the case of health and medical care management. When it comes to medical care, unfortunately affordability is a big problem for economically weaker sections of a society, even as the cost of medical care is soaring to the sky. Medical insurance has only aggravated the problem.

Opacity is a big problem in the medical care industry. It all starts with very high prices of drugs, on the pretext that the manufacturers of patented drugs have to recover their research cost. Generics are blocked by IPR. This creates monopolies, where medical companies prefer to make astronomical profits by selling a very limited quantity of their product at a huge margin rather than putting in efforts to manufacture more.

Corporate hospitals too charge steeply for their services on the pretext of providing world class medical care. In line with such high charges the physicians and surgeons are paid high fees. Many expert consultants are lured by the assured high compensation. Increasingly, most patients have come to the state when they cannot afford the high cost of medication and treatment in corporate hospitals. This opened wide the concept of health insurance. But it has not worked.

Neither private medical insurance, nor government sponsored insurance has worked. It has created a nexus between insurers, hospitals and doctors and in some cases the patients are also unfortunately part of the unholy alliance in the belief that he is getting all the treatment free, never mind the adverse side effects. Unnecessary medical investigations are ordered, expensive avoidable surgeries are performed, unduly expensive medicines are prescribed, even when cheaper generic substitutes are available in the market.

In countries such as India, the Government has virtually stopped building good hospitals to treat the poor. The excessive reliance on the private hospitals has made medical care unavailable to the majority of the poor. Private medical care alone will never be the solution. It is absolutely necessary to set up a large number of government hospitals.

My conclusion: Health care must firmly in the domain of the national sector. Medical care may be shared by the government and private sector, with the Government playing a dominant role.

Prof N Natarajan

Not Over Yet!

Not Over Yet! Goodness gracious! What can you write on this Will Knott?

The internet came to my rescue!!

‘Not Over Yet” is a song by Grace, released as a single in 1995 peaking in the UK Singles Chart at #6 and topping the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in the United States. The song was originally released in 1993 under the alias State of Grace. Lead vocals and backing vocals on the track were performed by Patti Low. The lead vocals were replaced with the new Grace front woman Dominique Atkins’ vocals for the release of the Grace album “If I Could Fly” in 1996, although Low’s backing vocals remained in place for the chorus and adlibs. This Atkins / Low combination of vocals remained in place for the subsequent re-releases and remixes of Not Over Yet.

Sometimes I don’t make it to the LBC….Today I made it as my involvement is ‘Not Over Yet’!

Welcome to the Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where Anu, Ashok, Conrad, Delirious, Gaelikaa,  Grannymar, Magpie11, Paul, Maria the Silver Fox, Rummuser , Will Knott, Shackman and I write on the same topic. Please do visit the linked blogs to get  different flavours of the same topic.

Tomorrow

When the great Sufi mystic, Hasan, was dying, somebody asked “Hasan, who was your master?”

He said, “I had thousands of masters. If I just relate their names it will take months, years and it is too late. But three masters I will certainly tell you about.

One was a thief. Once I got lost in the desert, and when I reached a village it was very late, everything was closed. But at last I found one man who was trying to make a hole in the wall of a house. I asked him where I could stay and he said ‘At this time of night it will be difficult, but you can say with me – if you can stay with a thief’.

And the man was so beautiful. I stayed for one month! And each night he would say to me, ‘Now I am going to my work. You rest, you pray.’ When he came back I would ask ‘Could you get anything?’ He would say, ‘Not tonight. But tomorrow I will try again, God willing.’

The thief was never in a state of hopelessness, he was always happy.

Kabir (1398-1518) was a Mystic Philosopher and is considered among the world’s greatest poets. In India, he is perhaps the most quoted author. Kabir has criticized nearly all the existing sects in India as he spoke without discrimination for the good of all. He is thought to have lived longer than 100 years. He had enormous influence on Indian philosophy and on Hindi poetry.

His birth and death are surrounded by legends. He grew up in a Muslim weaver family, but some say he was really son of a Brahmin widow who was adopted by a childless couple. When he died, his Hindu and Muslim followers started fighting about the last rites. The legend is that when they lifted the cloth covering his body, they found flowers instead. The Muslim followers buried their half and the Hindu cremated their half. In Maghar, his tomb and samadhi still stand side by side. There is a famous poem called a ‘doha’ by Kabir:

Kaal Kare So Aaj Kar, Aaj Kare So Ub
Pal Mein Pralaya Hoyegi, Bahuri Karoge Kub

Do ‘Tomorrow’s work today, do today’s work now
If this moment is lost, then the deluge can happen in a second …

‘Pal mein Pralaya Hoyegi’ actually translates as the setting in of a deluge or destruction of the world.  Given the idea of poetic license, Kabir, who was an optimist and believed in the eternal may not have meant actual doomsday or the apocalypse occurring in a moment of procrastination.

Kabir is trying to explain the human tendency of laziness and procrastination that all of us are familiar with. All of us tend to postpone action and we seem to be indecisive about many matters. We also like to pass the buck and expect somebody else to do ur jobs and chores. (Raju, please answer the phone, the doorbell is ringing…..).

When it comes to our turn we hide behind the cool answer “I’m very busy, no time right now!” The poet is talking about this moment that is important. The Power of Now is a book by Eckhart Tolle in which he expounds his practical philosophy based on Buddhism, relaxation techniques and meditation. He shows us how to recognize human beings as the creators of their own pain. He teaches how to have a pain-free existence by living fully in the present. Accessing the deepest self, the true self, can be learned, he says, by freeing ourselves from the conflicting, unreasonable demands of the mind and living present, fully, and intensely, in the Now.

My greatest grief is that kids are not allowed to dream their own dreams. They are chosen to fulfil family, school and college managements’ and society’s dreams. Have you recently seen a kid just standing and watching the world go by? Have you seen a child pick up a shell, a stone, a piece of something or the other and just look at it with wonder? Have you seen a youngster look at a rainbow in the sky with wonderment or think whether the thick bank of clouds will bring rain or weave myriad patterns in the sky? (It is another matter that their hands and mouth are busy interacting with their mobiles and their vision is concentrated elsewhere with alarming consequences like accidents sometimes!)

The current mind set is to talk about tomorrow and ignore the present forgetting that this very moment is the most valuable moment of our life. Let kids live their dreams and lives in the now. The big, bad world is awaiting them anyway!

It is in the now, in the spontaneous moment of action that you can be energized to do, to achieve, to realize the ultimate truth called moksha or liberation.

Today’s topic was chosen by Grannymar.
Welcome to the Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where Anu, Ashok, Conrad, Delirious, Gaelikaa,  Grannymar, Magpie11, Paul, Maria the Silver Fox, Rummuser , Will Knott, Shackman and I write on the same topic. Please do visit the linked blogs to get  different flavours of the same topic.

A Time to Let Go

Kamala opened the door and entered the house. It had been a long day and she was tired. She worked with the local centre for dyslexic children and today there had been a new admission – a small boy, 5 years old and very shy. It had been difficult trying to bring him out of his shell and she suspected it was not going to be easy dealing with him. She walked over to the answering machine to check for messages – this was a new addition to the household ever since the children had left home and there was no longer any need for full time househelp.

The machine was flashing away in a rather desperate manner, willing someone to listen to all it had to say. Four messages – one of the children must be calling, Kamala thought. Maybe it was Navin reporting that his long job search had finally met with some success or perhaps it was her newly married daughter Sharada asking for a recipe because she had guests coming over that evening. Or was it their youngest one Vinita, homesick at her hostel? Kamala pressed the play button and was surprised to hear her husband’s voice. “Hi Kamala. It’s me. I need to speak to you urgently. Can you call me please?” Message two: Vinod again. “I see you’re not back home yet. Can you call me as soon as you return.” And the other two messages were also from him. Kamala wondered what the urgency was. Probably yet another piece of paper gone missing and needed as of yesterday. She picked up the phone and called Vinod’s office. His secretary told her that he had left already and was probably on his way home. He would be there in about ten minutes – that was the best part of living in Bangalore. The house was close enough to the office for Vinod to be able to commute without any problems as all. Kamala went into the kitchen and put on the kettle.

Kamala heard the bell ring. She could never understand why Vinod never used his keys – he always rang the bell and waited impatiently for her to open the door. She walked across the long marble lobby to the door, designed specially to display her wonderful collection of lamps put together over many years. “Did you not get my messages?” Vinod asked. “I told you that the answering machine is no good. You must get yourself a pager. This is crazy, I just can’t get in touch with you when I need to.” Kamala sensed that it was going to be one of those days when she would have to argue that she needed her own time and space and should not be expected to be on call all the time. “I just got back and called your office, but you had left already. Why don’t I get us some tea and we can talk about whatever is making you this impatient?” “Okay, why don’t you do that. I need to make a quick call to the New York office anyway.”

Kamala went into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with the tea. Vinod was still on the phone – typical. Kamala settled into her favourite seat in the house, the swing on the veranda facing their little garden. She loved their house and although now it seemed a little large for just the two of them, it had been perfect to bring up the children and look after Vinod’s ageing mother. “You’ll never guess all that has happened” Vinod said, breaking her revelry. “Do you remember Krishnakant, the guy who was sent out to the New York office about two months ago? He’s quit since he found a better job. Simultaneously the company has received an offer for a merger from an American company. Sunder called from New York earlier today. He wants me to fly out immediately to handle the negotiations. I am leaving this evening. That’s why I wanted to let you know”. “Should I start packing your suitcase right away?” Kamala asked. “When does your flight leave?” She was used to this – Vinod was always flying off to some place or the other at short notice given that he was the head for legal matters in the company.

“That’s not all Kamala” Vinod continued. “Sunder wants me to stay on in New York for about two years. We are going to have to move there. I’ll be moving right away and you will have to join me shortly after. The company will be sending in packers tomorrow to look at shifting our stuff. They’re going take the house on rent for one of the guys so that we don’t have to worry about all that. But you’ll have to look at disposing some of our stuff. The apartment in New York will no doubt be much smaller than this.” Kamala was dazed. Everything seemed to be moving far too quickly for her. The next two hours passed in moments with Vinod’s things to be put together and packed and before she knew it he was gone.

Kamala then started looking around the house wondering where to start. Vinod was right, they would have to discard quite a few things. She walked into what had been Vinod’s mother’s bedroom. They had preserved it intact ever since she had passed away. Her puja shelf was cleaned every day and flower garlands continued to adorn the deities. Amma’a little radio stood on the bedside table along with a torch and her box of medicines. Her cupboard still held her simple cotton saris and the one or two silk saris. It seemed almost as if Amma was still alive, perhaps just out in the veranda. Kamala left the room, not wanting to disturb its peaceful atmosphere.

Next she walked into what had been the children’s playroom. In stark contrast to Amma’s room, the playroom was completely chaotic. Sharada’s needlework set was strewn across the chair while Navin’s Lego set was lying all over the floor in bits and pieces. Kamala could also see Vinita’s dolls thrown around, some without arms and other without legs, a rather gory picture after all. Kamala had kept all their toys thinking that one day her grandchildren would use the room as a getaway from all the adults, just as her three horrors had done. It was probably there that Navin had decided to become an engineer, playing with the Mecano and Lego sets that Vinod brought back from his various trips. And Kamala truly believed that sitting in that chair Sharada had dreamed up the beautiful designs that she now created as a fabric designer while the dismembered dolls clearly showed that Vinita had the makings of the orthopaedic surgeon that she was studying to be.

Kamala climbed up to the girls’ room on the upper floor. The bed was covered in a patch work quilt that she had painstakingly made. She opened Sharada’s cupboard. Although she was now married and had a home of her own, she had not yet collected all the assorted gifts she had received. Kamala would have to remember to send them across to her. The study table was full of Vinita’s college textbooks while her cupboard had all her going out clothes that she only needed when she was home, preferring to live in jeans while at hostel like most other girls of her age. It was hard to believe that her little Vinu would soon be a qualified surgeon. Would they be able to come down from New York for her graduation, Kamala wondered.

The study – a treasure of books. They had every book they had ever bought – children’s books, her own special education books, encyclopaedias bought for the children and f course Vinod’s legal books. She supposed that he would want those with him, but what was she to do with the rest? It was in this room that her children had learned to read and that she herself had studied to get a higher degree to be able to teach dyslexic children, starting with her own Sharada.

Kamala bypassed Navin’s room, not daring to open the door, for she knew it would be complete mess. She entered the master bedroom. Her eyes fell right away on the giant dressing table that Vinod had ordered to be made for her to hold all the trinkets she had. There were places to store the semi precious stones he brought back for her from his trips – pearls from Japan, garnets from Kathmandu, Corals from Italy, the list was vast. He had also made the carpenter design a special area for her to store her glass bangles – some 100 dozens in various colours and designs. She never used them anymore, believing she was too old for them and neither of the girls had wanted them either.

Kamala sat down at her dresser and thought about all the rooms she walked through. They really had accumulated so much in the ten years that they had lived in the house, not just possessions, but more importantly memories. How was she going to bring herself to leave the house and all the sacred memories it represented? She thought of her children growing up and leaving home, Sharada’s marriage, Vinod’s increasing success professionally. The dreams they had all seen and then watching them come to fruition.

The reflection in the mirror of all her bangles caught her eye again. Of what use were they to anyone? Just a shadow of her youth, material objects representative of her experiences. Kamala picked up a pair of green bangles – she had bought them to match the sari she had been given at her brother’s wedding. The sari had since become threadbare and the bangles did not fit her anymore. Kamala threw the bangles into the bin – there. They were gone. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the day of her brother’s wedding and it all come rushing back as if it had been only a few days ago, rather than the 25 years that had passed since. She opened her eyes again. Was she attaching too much sentimentality to material objects? She did not need them to help her keep her memories. Her memories would live on anyway, notwithstanding the trinkets that were associated with them.

Kamala walked over to the phone and called her friend Veena. “Hello? Veena? It’s Kamala. I wanted to ask you – you know the mobile crèche scheme you run for children of mobile construction workers? Do you accept donations in the form of toys? I have boxes full of the children’s’ toys and I was thinking that perhaps you could use them. I was also wondering if you might know of an old people’s home where I can give away Amma’s saris? No, no. I’m not suddenly spring-cleaning. I just haven’t got around to doing these things, you know how it is. But then today I thought that I really must get going…It is time to say goodbye!”

Welcome to the Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where Anu, Ashok, Conrad, Delirious, Gaelikaa,  Grannymar, Magpie11, Paul, Maria the Silver Fox, Rummuser , Will Knott, Shackman and I write on the same topic. Please do visit the linked blogs to get  different flavours of the same topic.