My own parents' journey

Couple of weeks back I was watching a Kannada movie in which actor Ambareesh acted. The name of the movie was “Poornachandra”. The movie is about an elder son in the house struggling to get his younger siblings settled in life by his hardships. He will be trying to educate his two brothers and a sister. Also, tries to settle down his sister with a marriage. He along with his wife try to save each and every penny without using for themselves but for his siblings. But in the movie his siblings do not value his sacrifices but look at it as his duty. What if he had abandoned them without doing anything or what if his wife had not allowed him to take care of them? They would not have imagined what their lives would have been. Not all siblings are like that. They will remember what their brother or sister have done to them.

One such story I am going to tell is of my own father. Yes, I have seen it live. He struggled throughout his life to get his brothers and sisters get settled. My father was only 28 when his father passed away. His two younger brothers were studying. His younger most sister was just 15 years old. Imagine the burden of the family on him. My grandmother was also dependent on him.

In spite of all this he got married because he himself wanted to settle first and someone to support him. My first uncle got a job after a couple of years. In the mean time I was born (a girl child). My dad and my mom struggled so hard to accumulate money for both his sisters’ marriage. Everyone was living in the same house!! Not only that the alliances have to be searched for his sisters which took a lot of time and energy and money from them. Not only for sisters, for this younger brother also my dad has to search a bride. Again lot of energy and patience involved.

Meanwhile my younger sister was born. After five years of her birth my last aunt (youngest sister of my dad) got married. I clearly remember how my dad was just not accessible to me during this time. He was so busy in marriage preparations. Our house was filled with so much marriage materials that we could not sleep in the ground floor at all.

After one year of that my youngest uncle got married. Not only this meanwhile my grandma had fallen sick many times. My mother and father have toiled in the hospital too.

Even after my dad’s sisters were married, they came for their childbirth to our house for care. For five months too my mom used to support them along with my grandma.

But one good thing is my dad’s sisters and brother acknowledge and respect that my parents have taken care of them.

In spite of all this my dad also had two daughters. He educated us and also saved for our marriages too. In the meanwhile he got issues in his office too because of which he did not get his pay for 6 months in the year 1997. Imagine how he would have run the house?!

Not only this, my mom and dad used to support my mom’s sister and brother alliances too for quiet some time as my mother lost her parents early. They got my mom’s sister’s marriage arrangements done. Of course mom’s brother took care, but searching task was hugely on my parents. I can think of many of my dad’s relatives and friends during their times just looking after their spouses and kids and leading a comfortable life.

In total my parents have taken care of 5 marriages of their respective siblings and two daughters’ marriages.

All this I must say they handled quiet well and with lot of patience. Anyone else in their place would have got restless and disturbed. Now any difficulty whether related to money, health, emotional or any matter does not seem big for them because they have seen it all.  If feel it is easier to talk philosophy than acting in real life.

All this when I am writing, I can clearly make out the hardships they went through. In this journey what I have seen is nothing in our lives we have faced the hardships like that. It gave us strength, resilience and inner strength to deal with difficulties of life more than anything. It is about not just valuing money but also handling responsibilities and people!!

Nowadays it has become rare to even visit your own relatives or friends houses!!

But one thing I have stopped doing is explaining or telling all this to anyone these days because only people who have empathy or who can relate how things would have been taken care can relate to what I say. Others just ignore or do not want to listen. I just wanted to record my experiences but necessarily not share it with anyone deliberately.

Hope a good read for all who read this and hope you can relate to!!

Best wishes It's TVR..

Dealing with 'N' in our lives

The 'N' in the title stands for "Negativity"..

Two great epics of Indian soil – Ramayana and Mahabharata are un-matchable in the way the stories are told and the life’s lessons are taught. While watching the Mahabharata recently on television during recent lock-down, one aspect that greatly struck me was about how even if you are good, obedient and following the dharma may not assure of living peacefully or allow you to live with grace.

In Mahabharata, the Pandavas are synonyms of dharma and grace. They themselves do not want to nor get into any trouble or want to trouble others. They will never harm anyone. But what happens to them throughout their life everyone who know the epic knows. They will go through lot of hardships just because their cousin is Duryodhana who is selfish, adamant, greedy. To satisfy his greed and adharma, which puts Pandavas’ lives in danger, they will face humiliation (especially in dice game) and have to face lot of hardships (during time spent in forests and in agnatvasa). What was their sin? What mistake they did? Nothing!!

Just because of Duryodhana’s greed and cunningness they had to suffer so much in their lives. Even after the Kurukshetra war I do not think they could have lived peacefully because they would have lost all their kids. What an immense pain they have to go through. Throughout life they suffer because of their inevitable acquaintances! ☹   

Sometimes even if you want to be peaceful, the people with whom you get associated with, people with whom you live, your neighbors, relatives or friends, you will end up in sorrow unnecessarily. So you being good or right many times do not matter in your own life.

Take the recent standoff of India with China. There is nothing our beloved country India has done for China. But China is trying to create tensions at LAC and across the borders. It is just not allowing to be India to be itself. Also, there is no need of special mention of Pakistan doing the same.

Whether we want or no, some events, people affect us very badly in a way which we do not want. There will be a lot of negative vibes they bring, from which you want to run away but you cannot because of the events or people being inevitable.

Recently I watched a Bollywood movie “Jab we met”. I have watched it many times earlier also. But this time when I saw, the female lead in the movie by name Geet will be so full of life, so much energy and enormous love towards life and she just wants to be happy. But the person she loved betrays her during the journey and refuses to marry her. This takes a toll on her and she loses all her energy and enthusiasm and starts living away from her very loving family too. There was absolutely no mistake of her!! She will just be herself. But how she loses interest in life, I just could not take it.

Similarly life is like you come across so many people, events which will change your personality for not so good and also you try to change yourself to pretend to be good. But earlier you were good! Which others misused.

Hence I would say many times in life things change for people in their course of life for no fault of theirs and they suffer and they turn against the tide or they become silent or try to ignore the circumstances or try to pretend which they are not. These they do not intend to, but happens.

As far as coming across such instances, I feel at-least we should not hurt or de-mean or look down someone intentionally. Because you should not become Duryodhana for someone, so that you hurt the Pandavas in others or affect someone who are like Geet or come upon someone who are like India who never invade other countries. Ofcourse one cannot avoid people with negative vibes because of nature of the relationship but at-least try to learn the negative vibes affecting you, still you cannot do anything but suffer. Sometimes it’s just our fate!!!

With Best wishes It's TVR..