meenu mehrotra

 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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