I Love You..... Thank You!

My Mother-in-law studied Kannada Medium, and hence not very well-versed in the English language. Her first granddaughter, that is my daughter, grew up the first six years of her life in the United States, and hence the English language came naturally for her. Often times, my wife and I played the part of translators so that they two could understand one another. But at other times they managed themselves. It was quite a sight to watch these two far end of the spectrum of generations communicating with one another, and sometimes hilarious. 

In the local language Kannada, the letter "L" has two variations - one where the tongue just touches palate (usually depicted with lower-case "l") and another where the tongue rolls inwards and uncoils (usually depicted with upper-case "L"). In Kannada, the word "HeLu" means "to tell", where as "Helu" means "to poop"! So there is a ton of difference when the pronunciation changes even a bit! And, since English has no mastery on tongue-rolling antics, my daughter at that time always asked her granny to "Helu" while she meant her to tell and this used to set us all into splits, much to her chagrin as she used to wonder what wrong she said!

Likewise, whenever Tontu used to say "I Love You" to her granny, my MIL - without much knowledge of how things work usually - always used to reply back "Thank You", and this caused lot of laughter. And then, my daughter used to explain that instead of 'Thank You', she should say "I Love you too".

Cut to the present. My wife and I came across number of articles and videos where Sadhguru talks about love. One such article is about True Love. He mentions clearly here that "Love is not something that you do; love is the way you are". If you are in such a state that you can be loved unconditionally, or you have become so lovable, and because of that someone says "I Love You", then obviously the response should indeed be "Thank You"! 

Perhaps my MIL might not be an English literate but knew this all along, inherently. 

The last laugh was on us, the educated.

Welcome to Teenage!

Tontu turned Thirteen today!

Its amazing how a child grows up, in fact, sometimes almost magical. It is even more amazing to watch this phenomenon of Life. It feels like just a few days ago that I was giving her bath, with a nice religious accompanying Shloka (which almost gave me the feeling of bathing an idol) and somewhere, sometime that process logically ended and she is managing all that herself. I just have to wake her up once, and in a few minutes I can hear her in the bathroom, humming to herself! How did that happen?!

She used to sleep with us for a long time, hugging her mamma....and now she cuddles up with her toy on her own bed in her own bedroom. How did that happen?!

There was a time (long, long ago) when she used to run out of the kitchen, scared of the pressure cooker when it was about to whistle, and now she is able to light matchsticks all by herself. How did that happen?!

We never used to go anywhere without her for a really long time. Where we went, she went with us. And then we started going to the market without her, and she was fine being with her friends. And, for the first time, recently, we went out of city for a weekend without her, and she was ok to stay with her grandparents. How did that happen?!

Its not that the connection has reduced or the love has weakened, and yet, it is fascinating to see the small child grow into a young gal now, where she can manage things by herself, is responsible, able to handle the pressure in the school, work on projects individually, be creative - and do things in general without supervision or prodding or even support from her parents. 

In the process, she has expanded her wings and is able to judge to what she likes, what she does not:  Badminton class - no; Singing class - yes; Dancing class - yes; Chess class - no; And thanks to us being a nice community with its ample share of friends, lots of activities such as learning how to cycle, how to skate, how to wave board were taught by her peers themselves without us having to run alongside!

Coming to the part about singing and dancing - it amazes me what wonders she has achieved! I mean I still remember the early days when I used to teach her Sa-Ri-Ga-Ma and now, she has successfully cleared her Junior exam with great honor, and has performed on the stage on many occasions. I remembered this pic as she was sitting in the exam hall writing the exam!

Regarding Bharatanatyam - thanks to her Gurus, she has had nice opportunities in performing on stage with large number of audiences, and this not only has removed the stage fear but has given her the confidence of about expressing herself openly and in any situation.

We were extremely pleased when her book The Mystery of Strange Hill got published on Amazon when she was just 10 years of age. We were overly proud when she was the only person from her school to attend the National Spelling Bee competition in Kolkatta when she was just in her First standard. 

Add to this, the number of awards from her inter-class co-curricular activities - we are running out of space to keep the trophies! Some of the competitions which she excelled and stood first were areas which she challenged herself - such as doing a book review, advertising a product, etc.

She even made a small movie using just the mobile phone during Covid days. She has mastered making deco pics using apps on the smart phone. She has composed a huge collection of poems. And thus, her accomplishments go on and on. Proud of you, Tontu!

And now, looking forward to the next phase of life. Presenting this blog-post as one more Birthday gift...!!

Have a wonderful Birthday and a memorable Teenage Life!

PS: Quick Links for previous Birthday Posts: 

First
Third
Fourth
Tenth

Summer 2023

April 3rd: School Books distribution and Sadhguru Darshan at Sadhguru Sannidhi, Chikkaballapura

April 8th: PTM and Trichur Brothers Carnatic concert at Ramanavami Music Festival, Fort High School

April 9th: Colleague son's Birthday Party

April 15th-16th: Birthday at Tirumala

April 20th: Sivasri Namasankeerthana concert at Ramanavami Music Festival, Fort High School

April 23rd-28th: Vaishnodevi, Golden Temple, Kurukshetra, New Delhi

April 30th: Abhishek Raghuram Carnatic concert at Ramanavami Music Festival, Fort High School

May 6th-14th: Informatica world conference at The Venetian, Las Vegas and Brother's place at Detroit

May 21st: TCS10K

May 24th-28th: Bhavaspandana at Coimbatore 

Jun 4th: Colleague's Gruhapravesham

Being in India

My daughter's friend's younger sister, about 5-6 years old, who stays close to us just returned back from Australia. She had been there with her mother for a short onsite stint for about 2-3 months. 

So, our first question (when my wife and I met her) was, "Which do you like better - India or Australia?" 
Pat came her response: "India!"
"Why?"
"Because they use tissue paper."
"Tissue paper?!"
"In the wash room. Instead of faucet."

We burst out laughing! Such a nice honest and innocent response! An entire country's popularity dropped just because of washroom habit!

Soon after that incident I was talking to my brother-in-law who resides in Dubai. As of now (could be changed soon), there is no citizenship granted for Indians. So he was narrating how his fellow Indian friends who stay in Dubai do everything possible to immigrate to either Canada or US just so that they can get that country's citizenship. For some reason, upon hearing that, I felt a pang. Its not as if that this was the first time I was hearing this, because when I used to stay in US, this was an everyday office hallway discussion - about Indians waiting for GC and US Citizenship. But after settling down in India for the last 7 years, the very thought of losing out such a privileged citizenship - that of being "Indian" - seems so appalling to me now. 

And then a few days later, a friend of mine in US called me and informed that she got Citizenship. A few years back, my response would have been "Congratulations" but this time, somehow, that never came out from me. I was more like matter-of-fact "Oh ok" while inwardly thinking "How sad." 

It is hard to express the immensity of being Indian in India. Keeping apart the apathy of politicians or untidiness of places or civic sense of general public, when it comes to spirituality, there is no place like India. It might also be so that now that I am on the other side of 40 or maybe influenced by Sadhguru's talks that I am more spiritually inclined now than I was before, and being so, any other country of permanent residence just doesn't make any sense anymore. 

But, to be fair, it is true that Indians are spreading spirituality across the world by settling down in various parts of the world. In fact, when we were in US, we were exposed to lot more Indian festivities' grandeur than how we used to experience when we were in India itself, thanks to the enthusiasm of few members who used to amplify the events and create an atmosphere conducive to be Indians while not being in India.

In India, I have visited so many religious places already and yet there seems to be so many more to visit. Some of them even deserves a second or even third visit, while I know that many visit places like Tirumala annually once. The spiritual cleansing that one feels upon such visits is invigorating & soulful than a beach-side vacation that one might crave for in other parts of the world. 

There is always some thing or the other that is happening in India. A cousin's wedding, another cousin's son's naming ceremony, another cousin's in-law's Sahasra Chandra Darshanam homa, an aunth's death ceremony, a yagna at an uncle's house, a musical saint's commemoration ceremony, a religious saint's Pontification day ceremony, a communion of spiritual seekers to celebrate night-long festivity singing hymns of the Lord, a special day to take river bath to cleanse oneself from accumulated sins, a day for fasting to welcome the birth of the Lord, and the list goes on and on. If you notice closely, every event above is conducted spiritually and involves divinity. 

To be away from India is almost akin to be away from the Divine.

Mutt Fiestas!

Jan 26th: Naming ceremony @ Seethapathi Agrahara Mutt

Jan 28th: Purandara Dasara Aradhane @ Konankunte Mutt

Jan 30th: Madhwa Navami @ Konankunte Mutt

Feb 5th: Pavamana Homa @ Madhwa Narayana Ashrama Mutt  Had to forego another function on same day @ Uttaradi Mutt!

Feb 11th: Kanakabhisheka @ Konankunte Mutt

The Subconsciousness Conflict

Off late I have become conscious of the water that I am drinking, thanks to many videos (experiment) and articles (Isha, Neerukku Nandri) that I have come across. I might not bow down every time with gratitude to the glass of water before I drink but I am automatically closing my eyes before & during the drink. This has now become a regular practice.

Last week when I was driving, I felt thirsty and started drinking water from the bottle. While I was drinking, I could sense a state of unrest and I was wondering why. It then flashed to me that I was actually driving with my eyes closed! And if closing my eyes while drinking water has become one part of my subconscious, there was another "driving" part of my subconsciousness which always ensures my eyes are open while driving, and in this case it was raising a red flag that I was doing something which I never should.

It was a very strange experience indeed: Two parts of my own subconsciousness conflicting with one another!

The Ball in The Game

It was more than a decade ago, sometime in late 2011. The place was Fidelity office in Boston. I was attending a talk by a distinguished Executive-level employee on the nuances of Money, stock market, retirement funds, corpus, defined benefits, defined contributions, etc. all of which are centrally linked to what Fidelity deals with. It was a huge gathering and almost 200-300 people were in the auditorium and I was amazed at how well this person was speaking - so fluently and so fluidly that even the person least knowledgeable could easily understand. 

He started off his speech with a reference to a famous game that had been played just the previous weekend and the home team had come out victorious. He indicated that we all could appreciate the game only because we knew the rules of the game. If there were no rules, or if we did not understand those rules, then one would just see the ball being passed from one person to the other. We would not even differentiate from one team to the other, from home team to opposition. The point being - understanding of the rules is so important in a game without which one cannot fully appreciate the victory. 

He then correlated that sports game to this game in life which we are all playing with Money. If one does not understand the rules properly, then how can one excel, how can one create a surplus which would lead us to financial freedom which could, in turn, be considered as being victorious in our own lives. This analogy I felt was very powerful and what he said made absolute sense.

Now, cut to the present. Jan '23. I was doing some household chore and was listening to Sadhguru's speech. He was mentioning how we all are stuck in this web of transactions and that, in itself, is the cause for us to not get liberated from this cycle of birth and death. This constant urge to make profits, more profits, from small car to big SUV, from small house to mansion, etc. gets us hooked more and more into the rat race making it so difficult to get out. 

Finally, he said this - 

"You think you are playing a Game. But in the end you find out that you are actually the Ball in that Game."

🙄 

Fast, Feast, Birth, Death - The 4 days in 2023

Jan 2nd: Fast - Vaikunta Ekadasi. Absolute fasting - nothing eaten and bare minimum water intake.

Jan 3rd: Feast - 'Breaking of the fast' by way of Dwadasi lunch at Raghavendra Swamy Mutt. Also happened to be Raghuttama Tirtha's Aradhana. Hence the feast.

Jan 4th: Birth - News of my maternal cousin's son's birth. Finally a 'boy' born in the family after 26 years.

Jan 5th: Death - News of my paternal cousin's death. First amongst us cousins.

The Mystery of Moist Lips

I came out of the restroom one day in office, and just when I was exiting, I washed my lips, or rather I made them wet. For a moment, I stopped in my tracks and wondered why. The next shocking revelation was that I had been doing this for as long as I could remember! I mean, it had almost become habitual for me to wet my lips when I was exiting the bathroom. Almost like - I would as if feel I am walking out of the bathroom naked if I didn't wet my lips. Or the other way round, if ever someone saw me coming out of the bathroom with my lips un-wet, I would get caught.And there, incidentally, lay the answer to my unusual habit...

Back in my childhood days, I used to visit my maternal granma's house for summer holidays. During those times, the houses were designed in such a way that the toilets and bathrooms were outside of the main house. Which means, you had to get out of the back door of the house (if the house was big enough), walk a few steps and you can then enter the toilet. In case the house was small and there was only one door, still, the toilet was away. No matter what, the ablutions could not be carried out under the same roof as where you ate and slept and did pooja, etc. So, in the dead of the night, if you wanted to relieve yourself, yes - you had to open the door, go out in the dark amidst cockroaches, lizards and other-what-nots (thieves included!) and come back in quickly cursing why your bladder was incapable of holding up till daylight. And in case it was raining, God save you. 

Despite all this, toilet inside the house was a strict no-no. In fact, this at that time was a 'modern' house. Because a majority of Indians (which was rural then) did not even have a dedicated toilet or bathroom, and Nature was where everything happened. Now compare this to the current generation where we have a bathroom every few steps. Each bedroom will have a bathroom in addition to the common bathroom which is closest to the living room. 

But of course, I believe there was some science behind how the houses of the previous century was constructed in India. Daily ablutions purges the body system from all possible toxins, unwanted bacteria and viruses. The complete set of wastes in our body gets thrown out. The obnoxiousness in the air associated to such wastes obviously needs to be far off from the other parts of the house where we usually spend our time during the day. In fact, the outhouse-kind of toilets did not even have roof or shelter so that there is lot of free air flow to eradicate the obnoxiousness. But nowadays we are stuck inside a small bathroom, completely packed like a matchbox and totally relying on even small exhaust fan to suck out that air. 

And not just that, we spend a lot of time in that same toilet thanks to the "ingenious" new design of bathrooms containing wash-basin (toothbrush), mirror (make-up, grooming, shaving), shower (bath), etc. in addition to the water-closet. Oh, add some more time - I forgot  to mention the mobile phone! No wonder, it would seem, diseases for humans are ever increasing, newer and newer hospitals are sprouting up in every corner of the society, more and more pharmacy stores, etc. Such did not seem to be the case with a typical 'Indian lifestyle' back then.

But lets get back to the topic now. So, my mother's mother was a strict authoritarian. What she says, has to happen. So she made me cultivate a habit of washing my mouth (yes, like how you do when you brush your teeth with mouthful of water, roll it around and spit) every time I came out of the bathroom. I guess she rightly felt that the foul, disease-filled air inside the bathroom (despite being far away) would somehow get into the mouth and hence one had to wash the insides of the mouth whenever one exited. This is personal hygiene taking many notches beyond imagination.

For me, it just didn't make any sense back then as to why I should wash my mouth (of all places) when I relieved myself. So I used to happily ignore my granma and come out, but she would rebuke me to a great extent and, worse, she used to make me go back in and get it done. And so I invented this ingenious way of making my lips wet so that when she saw me coming out of the bathroom, she would know that I have washed my mouth! Ta-da!! And that's how this tradition of mine started. It then became so much of a routine that even when I now go to bathroom just to wash my feet, still I will exit with making my lips wet! The subconsciousness habit of mine will ensure that my dead granma even if she sees me now exiting a bathroom will still think that I have washed my mouth! Strangest thing is that I never realized this strange of habit of mine until now, and used to blindly do for the last 35+ years!!

So next time if you see my lips moist when I am exiting a bathroom, you know the story...!

Goodbye after 17 years!!

 

The first house that you own will always remain special....

Dec 10th, 2021