meenu mehrotra

my son has turned 15 and it feels it was only yesterday when he was born. a tiny, fragile ribbon of life whom i was even scared to hold . he is now taller than me and talks as if he could give me a lesson or two on how to be cool.

time has a strange way of coming full circle and making us go back in time. of getting nostalgic about our own teenage years. of how we used insist on proving ourselves right to our parents all the time. of how we thought that life’s problems could be easily solved and wondering why our parents found everything so tough? why they couldn’t chill like us? why were they serious about things we found trivial? why staying out late was such a big issue? why meeting boys raised so many eyebrows?

i understand now being on the other side of the fence.i am a much open parent compared to what my parents were. i can talk about anything under the sun with my son and treat him like an adult, allowing him to make mistakes and not run to save him from every fall. i realise being bruised is part of growing up and that you can only guide your kids but in no way live their lives.

but the most valuable lesson i have learnt is not to grudge my own parents for what they did or how they behaved coz whatever they did was the  best they could do given their understanding and exposure. because no one can really claim to being a perfect parent just as no child can claim to be a perfect child for his parents.

till next time

take care

that’s what i feel as my life moves ahead. It seems as if i am shedding the old bark of my soul and entering the new phase of my life. It is as if a force more potent than a hurricane is pushing me towards my destiny and nothing can stop it. not even me, myself. and the more i resist it, the more it persists. i feel myself standing at the threshold of a bigger, beautiful, fulfilling world that is awaiting my presence.

i feel so blessed and lucky to be able to fathom these feelings and emotions within myself. to be able to decipher the jigsaw puzzle of my being. my inner world is blossoming slowly but surely , breaking the mould that makes me up,  re- moulding it, renewing it, resurrecting it  into a new, more evolved soul.

my creativity is peaking , leading me  surely to a  watershed in my life. the book that i am presently writing about  will take all i have inside me to write it. its going to be a part of my soul and a journey of self discovery- a book i will always be proud of.

as the jungle of my emotions gets cleared, the sunlight peeps through the haze of uncertainity and doubt and the path lights up to make way for the journey ahead- the inevitable march of the soul.

i remember a quote from nietzsche-” you need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star”

i am relishing and revelling in this chaos for i know it is through this chaos that the watergates of my soul will open and finally emerge…

till next time

take care

the countdown has begun. relocating is a cathartic experience and it opens up a whole new world of opportunity and makes you have a relook at your life- adding a new dimension to it.

as i prepare to shed a part of my dilipidated past and embrace the future, i feel that is something we all need to do from time to time in order to emotionally grease our lives. to reinvent it , to upgrade our dreams and discover what lies at the core of ourselves. because only when we are able to confront our deepest desires and tune them with our present while being totally true to our selves that life turns a new leaf and shows us what we are made of.

the decisions one takes in life can be painful and shocking but painful decisions are the real test of our character and courage.  otherwise its so easy to live in a rut , to be in a comfort zone where life passes you by and maybe later at some point in life one realises that if one had seized that window of opportunity to evolve, perhaps destiny could have been different.

each to his own really.we are what we think and that defines our destinies ultimately.i cant resist quoting from the upnishads-”you are what your deep, driving desire is- as your desire, so is your will-as your will, so is your deed-as your deed is, so is your destiny”

till next time

take care

?

as it pours outside, i wonder when was the last time i experienced the wonderful rains of delhi? and i realise it’s been more than a year now. a long time considering i now live in the dry land of muscat in the middle east where such luxury is absent.

i now realise what i had missed in this one rainless year.the sheer delight of the rain drenching the trees, streets, cars, people and houses…the stoning of terraces and car’s roofs with that persisitent sound, the smell of rain water , the loud thunder of the clouds as they announce their arrival, the chaos on the roads, life coming to a temporary standstill and the swelling appetite for chai and pakoras. oh! how i have missed these all in the time i was away.

delhi in monsoons is another place. of course the chaos,the muddle, the broken roads, the potholes, power failure are all a part of it but i choose to associate monsoons with lush green, washed plants and trees,the cool breeze and the evocation of a thousand desires  as kishore kumar sang…rim jhim gere sawan, sulag-sulag jaye mann..bheege aaj is mausam mein lagi kaisi yeh agan…

i am loving it.

till next time

take care

it was a feeling i had never experienced before but one for which i had waited too long.

the birth of my brother’s child and to watch my parents become dada-dadi(grandparents) after so long. to have a niece and become a bua(aunt) was a never-felt emotion.

so now as i watch her play, myriad emotions run through me. joy, laughter,pride,affection…tears -the collage just keeps growing, fitting in the various feelings seamlessly.

a tiny, fragile creature becoming the centre of everyone’s universe. even my fourteen year old son and eight year old daughter respond to her with a seamless affection i had never seen them express.it fills my heart with pride and joy undoubtedly to see the compassionate and loving side of my kids. to watch them shower all their love on the little bundle of joy and react to her tiniest smirk,faintest smile, loudest cry for hunger or attention ,the instinctive opening and closing of her eyelids and the soft gazing through her dark, black eyes…oh! it all makes us swoon with happiness.

and i wonder how the entry of an angel in our lives have affected us so deeply.the way my parents enjoy her and just to watch them play gives me a sense of deep relief. their old age has been lit up bright with yashita and it makes me love her even more.

her presence has also made me look at my brother as a father. my kid brother is now a father and it amuses me to see him play with his child as  if he always knew how to like the back of his hand.there is no inherent awkwardness of a new father; either in his affection nor in his responses to the child’s changing moods. it seems to come naturally to him.

little tender hands and feet,  innocent eyes, gurgling sounds…the world of a child brings alive the world of us adults, re-shaping it with a new flavour and leaves it changed forever. isn’t it?

till next time

take care

 i can now sense her spirit growing feeble- my mother’s.

 talking to her is like conversing with a vanquished soldier whose physical body is giving in inspite of a valiant attempt to carry on the battle. as the disease grows so does the pessimism. its a sharp contrast to what she had been all these 6 years when the ailment was first detected. i can clearly see and sense -a fall in the optimism, a dying spirit which was so militant earlier and the lack of physical energy…but what is one to do ? how is one to fight the demon in the light of  diminishing will power , a shrinking spirit and a weak body? how does one fight the hopelessness of a heart; the acknowledgement that its the beginning of the end? that she’ll not be around for a very long time?

one can only fight a disease until its meek but what is one to do if it grows monstrous and threatens to eat up your body like a scavenger? what is one to do? be optimistic? resign to one’s fate? prepare for the inevitable? or just be stoical about the whole damn thing?

no, its difficult to be all of these or any one of these.

its tough for a child to know that her mother is on her way…its difficult to accept the going away of one’s parent even if you know that death is the only truth of life… its impossible to embrace the harsh facts of life as plain, simple reality…

its not easy to stare at death everyday and hope it never knocks…

the fear of loss grips you tightly - it’s like  hanging on the edge of a cliff with a deep ravine below and one loss of grip …can alter its course forever.

although the physical body can disintegrate but the umbilical chord between a mother and child can never be shorn…never. she will remain alive in spirit and soul…forever.

till next time

take care 

?

 what is pain? have you ever wondered? is it a block of stone that fails to lift itself from the heart, crushing its weight on the bearer or is it a black hole through which even a thin flicker of light refuses to pass? may be it is a shriek in an empty house that echoes back blatantly or is it a long , lonely walk through the woods?

what about the color? black or white? perhaps colorless; a morbid identity that distinguishes itself clearly amongst the other colors of emotions and paradoxically fuses itself intricately in the collage of  myriad intense emotions…

a never ending chasm that divides our inner selves , a thick fog that  brings the cruel facts of life in sharp focus or the ground beneath our feet that threatens to collapse any moment.

whatever it is, it tears a part of our soul - the bloodied, bruised part of us that reason  cannot justify.

so pain remains as red as our blood, as blue as the waters of the deep sea, as white as the face of a dead person and as translucent as a view from a frosted glass window…depending upon how intense one’s pain is?

you decide the color because it belongs to you and it can either make you or break you. it can uplift you as a human or leave you down in the dumps as a crawling insect. the call is yours. whether you allow your pain to render you emotionally rich or leave you emotionally bankrupt.

till next time

take care

15 day of may 1992- the day i got engaged to be married . its been 16 years since that day when my life turned a new leaf and like all changes, altered its face forever. a slow metamorphosis of a 23 year old girl to a woman and a mother.

time has an intriguing character.the reality seems to skim over the tides of struggle and joy with an almost eerie ease.what was is now the indelible past and what will be is the unknown future and we seem tied to our present by these fragile threads of consciousness however militant we are in escaping from its entangles

they say we are primarily what we are conditioned to be since our childhood. most part of us is our memories and i feel thats true to a great extent.of course we change as we grow and we grow as we change but somewhere our basic core remains untouched; a part of our soul remains unsullied and still inspite of life’s experiences.

the past entwines with our present clumsily and colours our present distinctly. Doesn’t it?

 just to give you a crude example- if your short temper has caused you embarassing moments in the past, you do consciously try to eliminate it in the present. the memory of the past is a cruel reminder which compels you- to be careful.

similarly there are so many bitter and sweet memories which influence us in our present. and then there are feelings which we have experienced in the past , which considerably affect our dealing of the present situation.  our minds are programmed in such a way as to store our experiences and make use of them when the present demands it. just think how does a child know that  touching a cup of hot tea might scald him? the memory of burning his hand in the past is enough to make him careful in the future.

life winds its way through the  terrain of pleasure and pain irrespective of our responses to them but its what we are ( our thoughts ), what memories we have clung to, what we have chosen to discard on the way, that will decide the altitude of our flight eventually. what we discard is what we don’t deem important but what we retain through the filter of our understanding , perception and experiences is what remains .

think about it.

till next time

take care

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