The Life and the Viewpoint

[manmeetkaur-posts]

Plans and Fate

From the corner of my teary eyes, while lying on my tummy, I saw her quietly came to the room, sat cross-legged on the sofa-cum-bed by my head, picked up my head gently while saying, “come here… come here Mamma”, trying to put my head in her lap. Tears rolling down my cheeks without a break, and I just couldn’t bear her watching me like this. Getting up from the head, holding her hand, I led her out, saying “Please go out and play”. She didn’t resist, I saw me pain, surprise, confusion, love in her eyes, little eyes about to shed tears.

Couple of minutes later, she came in again, holding my mother’s hand. With a heavy voice and teary eyes my mother said, “see, she called me to say Sorry to you… come on, do not cry, I’m sorry, will not force you, come on get up”. And she couldn’t hold back her tears any longer…she went back.

With her tiny hands she wiped my tears, I smiled, while tears kept rolling down, I am trying to stop them, but they just keep coming. More now due to the pristine love of 6-soon-to-be-7-year-old. I manage to stop them to an extent. She sat by me, trying to talk to me, distract me by asking some “Why or How” question I can’t remember now. I had no energy to talk so I distracted her and sent her to the lobby to her Maamu on the pretext of going out to play.

How do I explain the inner battle to this innocent child?

After first trimester finished of the long awaited second pregnancy, me and my husband had decided, we are not going to call our respective parents. My mother had been through hell of a year, she was almost bedridden for 2 months, unable to walk properly, work properly for another. She had turned so fragile and weak. I didn’t want her to go through the trouble of taking care of me after delivery this time. So many plans I had made, Jaapa Maid, 6 months maternity leave, then half-day work for another 6 months, Nonu being so happy on having a sibling, dreaming about their bonding, the kids room and what not. The excitement was doubled or tripled as it took long for this happiness. It gave us hope. But He had other plans.

Here I was, tied between, the pain of losing a 5-month-old foetus and the pain of making my mother run around for me due to that. Our house of cards, our plans, our dreams, trashed in a single day, in a single test. My Mamma, came running, worked day and night again to take care of me, and then out of love, out of care “eat this, eat that, eat more, sleep now, lie down”. And then in my frustration, me getting irritated at her and then the battle of pain of loss, the pain of “why”, the pain of “can’t-do-anything”, the pain of seeing my daughter become so wise, the pain of seeing my husband become so quiet due to me…ughhhh. I didn’t wish for this Waheguru ji.

But who got all what they wished for? We make plans, but only He knows their fate or our fate. He knows the best, they say.

I dedicate this mind to you. Please, show me the Path to God. I have come so far, seeking the Protection of Your Sanctuary. Within my mind, I place my hopes in You; please, take my pain and suffering away! (Page 763 SGGS Ji)

To move-on is life. Can’t look back and walk forward. Accept, Smile and Walk... Keep walking ;-)

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Our trust! Don't betray

Hello Mr. Kejriwal

You have brought upon yourself a humungous responsibility. I am not sure how you will handle it; rather I am scared and I am praying hard that you do not mess up anything and all goes well for the common man who trusted you. I was your strong supporter, a phenomena called “Arvind Kejriwal” that happened in 2013. But like many others, as the 49-day rule ended, I thought that phenomena was a false impression. Just a shadow but nothing concrete. I was hurt like many indians sitting in India or abroad who were waiting for new dawn, eagerly. Our hearts that had swelled with pride and hope with the support you got were shattered. But then, whoa! come 2015 and its all changed. It has happened again and this time a clear mandate.

I am not a historian or someone who keeps track of each and every political move in the country but I am a proud Indian,a loyalist who does get affected by the changes in the political scenario of the country. And as far as my knowledge goes this historic win is like ‘never-seen-before’. Where people have voted not for “Greed” of some quick-money or some bottles of liquor, rather their “Need” for a just and all-inclusive progressive society, where income, jobs, security, food, water and all basic needs of a ‘human’ will all flow naturally. A hope for a society where people live and let live.

As I see the results, my eyes swell-up with tears of joy, hope and fear alike. My heart is pounding as I write this, a request to you that please do not break our trust. Think about the people, to whom you might be a messiah, please please please, do not break their trust. Because if you do, they, at least in this generation will not be able to trust anyone. The faith that they have shown in you is equivalent to the one they have in God, their saviour. God forbid, if this faith is tampered with, then anything can happen, a bad so bad we will not be able to fix it. I do not want to even think about it lest write it.

Although I am no one to give you any advice or suggestion, but since the time I stepped out of my home, my comfort zone, I have learned one thing, never shy away from asking anything that you do not know, because it is for our own good. People might ridicule us, make fun of us, but if our focus is right, all these are nothing. I say this because running a government is different from being an IRS officer. And you might not have the experience to do it, but you have the focus, so seek help from every quarter to effectively manage. Managing is not a piece of cake, it is tough, so tough. Other than our goals, we have to deal with humans, their aspirations, their good/bad points and utilize them for the greater good, Our Goal. Let your work speak for you and all will be well one day. One day, our Delhi will be secure, safe, healthy, all-inclusive. I will be proud then, every indian will be.

On a signing note, there is a great dialogue from the English movie Spiderman, “With great powers, comes great responsibility”. It is so true. You have been bestowed upon with the powers, now its your turn to show us that you are indeed responsible. Good Luck Sir!

[manmeetkaur-posts]

Food for Thought!

With the icky-Sticky hands and kitchen-shelf from all the trying-to-make marshmallow fondant cake by myself...i was standing puzzled and irritated in the warm afternoon. I had wasted my 1.5 hours of free-time(all that I had when my daughter sleeps) and in the end created a messy kitchen as an extra burden to clean! Two days later I was reading news and my daughter was watching this cartoon 'Daniel Tiger's Neighbourhood'. Suddenly my attention was diverted to a song they were singing...'think about what you are gonna do before...' And Bamn! I had the answer for the disaster in my kitchen couple of days ago. I had read the recipe once but even without giving it a thought in my mind that okay...this is how I will do it...I just started-off with it. After the golden words, I did next time successfully made it by planning the steps in my head carefully giving each a thought. But aren't we humans hard learners when it comes our basic nature in everyday life? Or I am the only stubborn one? ;) Though I learnt that lesson from a very unexpected quarter but I remembered it by heart and even elaborated as an example to my brother. On implementation of it though, I am still messed-up. I do not always remember it, and after the mess is over and out its me and my guilt taking over ...that Why...Why the hell I did not give it a thought. How many times ??? Ugh! And today I am writing about it because I have learnt a lesson(I hope now I will follow it). Due to my 'always-in-hurry' or 'lets-do-now and think later' nature, I have created problems that might haunt me forever or for quite a long time because it not me who is impacted this time rather my brother's career who for no fault of his has bore the brunt and I hope, I so hope this impact is short-lived. How stupid I was...ummm...but lets see how smart I become after this. In the end one advice for my brother and others like him who might in their respect for elders or the people they love or their lack of confidence or for their lack of judgement, might just agree to some things that may not be correct always. Taking a stand is very important in life, very difficult too but we must if we are convinced its for our own good. The pain that might be caused at that moment, is nothing compared to the joy of accomplishment for which we took a stand. (I have another story on that...for a later time though)

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The world we live in and wish to live in...

I do not remember since how many days reading the newspaper is constantly making me sad and to ponder over when will this stop? Israel, Gaza, Libya, Iraq, Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Taliban, MH 370...daily something or the other. Just finished reading a story about a Singapore Citizen leaving his job and home to fight alongside Islamic State...37 year-old, educated, wife and 3 children...why would he go an choose a life where one has to breathe air swelled with blood, dead, hatred, and all the negativity? I always believed and still believe, I guess, a common man/woman wants nothing more than a settled, healthy life for himself/herself and his/her family, equal opportunities for his/her children, safe environment for them. What else would you need for happiness? Do we check for someone's religion/caste/color before making friends? Its kind of hard to believe in an educated society. May be I am wrong and have not met enough people to understand 'something else' that matters to them or may be all what us enough for me is not for many others? Or just that these are just exceptions and in regards to all this negativity there is some greater good happening elsewhere in the world. Because I do believe there is always a balance in nature...just like in a classroom, where there are front-benchers, back-benchers, intelligent, not so intelligent, i-do-not-care kind-of students, everywhere else there is always a mix, to balance it out. And I do hope this is true in this 'world-classroom' too. And there is one thing that I would like to make a note of here, parents/teachers can help their children understand that God created no such boundaries, we are all his children, how can we judge of who is good or bad. Let the Lord himself decide and we just tread on the path of righteousness and thank Him. Now this 'righteousness' or 'goodness' is a vague term that can be distorted according to one's own beliefs. So what is our reference point? Although this question is debatable and would love to hear thoughts on this but I think that reading our religious texts ourselves, researching ourselves, not to blindly follow what someone says, will help us find the right path. Because politicians will play politics and reap the benefits and the common naive man will give away his life and lose everything. Its the game of power and in this the power of common man dies! In one corner of the world far away in my home, someone at this moment is praying, in one corner, here in Chicago, someone is partying in this short summer season, in another someone is being waited for to be born, and another someone might have died, but its all natural, circle of life and death, our duties, our obligations, our faith...this will go on and in all this I just wish for peace and smiles in place of tears and sorrow where there is hatred and revenge right now. Amen!

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Good Luck India!

And here comes the 16th Lok Sabha Elections of the world's biggest 'Democracy' and yet again I will miss voting. But even if I would have been in India whom would I have voted for? Ummm...As my father reminded me other day this time we have an option of 'None of the Above', I think I would have chosen that. Same question asked 2-3 months back, I would have answered AAP. But the debacle in Delhi has changed not just my view but many others like me who were looking forward to Mr. Kejriwal being the torch-bearer of Indian Democracy. I even went on to have arguments to support him, but alas he kind-of betrayed our trust our hope that we entrusted him with direct/indirect support. So what went wrong with AAP? He lost the opportunity that was given to him as an agent of change by the people of Delhi. For making a government by taking outside support of Congress, he carried out Reach-out-to-the-Public Campaigns; but to put his resignation and thus decimate the government why didn't he think of asking the same set of 'Aam Admi'? Corruption or for that matter Jan Lokpal Bill is not the only problem with this country, what about the root causes of the problems that are pushing the so-called 'Aam Admi' also to be part of the same corruption? Poverty, Unemployment, Security for women in the capital, Healthy pay-scale and facilities for the police-force or other sections of the society to name a few. And then came the revelation that AAP government had not allocated funds for the so-called sops it announced for the Delhiites. That high a power in your hand, squandered away just that your ego was hurt. Mr. Kejriwal, Sorry, those who Quit so easily, how can they be agents of change? So who next? BJP? Since the time '84 riots happened my family and the relatives we know, have always voted for them, before that no idea and I never asked. But today, I would personally request each and everyone Never vote for BJP. Reason is obvious for many, the leader that they have chosen, just the thought of him becoming the PM, instills fear in my heart for the peace in my country. In a casual chat with one of Gujarati friends over tea, we stumbled upon the 'Modi Topic'. And he was trying to justify him saying 'arre tumhe pta nahi kitni buri halat thi hindus ki, muslims problems karte the, usne to sab band kra diya'. That was enough to get me annoyed and red with anger. I argued how can we justify killing someone on a mass scale to take revenge or teach them a lesson? Not everyone might have been at fault, who tried to find the real problem? Do we praise Hitler or remember him as someone we do not want anybody to be like? We cannot justify wrong-doing just to stop some wrong? Did we try other options? Trust me, I am a total supporter of the theory that evil should not be tolerated? But to spread evil to kill evil? No man, that wont solve problems, only create more. And on a scale we cannot imagine. And to emphasize, not all gujaratis think he did the right thing. Okay, lets look at other aspect of Modi, which his supporters are using as mantra for Campaigning, Development of Gujarat. Oh really? Did they even go beyond Ahemadabad? There was a documentary run on NDTV few weeks back on the so-called development model of Gujarat, but what was shown did it look like a developed state? Oh! A Big NO. Such apathy towards some parts of the same state, reasons? And how many new channels did show or report this? :) I wish, I so wish, for the peace and equal progress of my country, that Modi should not become the PM. Lastly, Congress, with the scandals and scams I doubt I would have chosen them or anyone today would entrust them again, apart from one factor, which I guess is applicable to each party irrespective of its national image or leadership. The local leaders sometimes do good for the people of the area, and people vote for them irrespective of party, caste or creed. I did see such an example in my area in Ludhiana city. Some people are honest and genuinely work for the people and may not have a larger role to play in the higher game of politics, so should we vote for them? We can and should I guess. At least on our part we will have the satisfaction of voting for right candidate. We will do our bit. At least we have the 'none of the above' option, which if utilized properly, may give a no result, and put parties in a thinking mode to change their candidates. I just hope for the best, for the people of my country. Good Luck India! Lets do and hope for the best :)

[manmeetkaur-posts]

The Guardian Angel

It was mid of December’13 in this Windy city of Chicago. Preparations were on for Christmas, decorations everywhere, everywhere of what all we could see in the winter;). That day we were coming back from somewhere that I don’t remember :D, when while taking a casual and quick look at the reception for some new stuff ( advertisements or free newspapers) my eyes went on a silver coin lying on the desk. I was already past it running after Jasmeher, but out of curiosity came back to check what it was. I just touched it up and was only able to read “Free Guardian Angel Silver Coin”, when the Receptionist said ‘oh no! that one’s not for you, you are not catholic right?’ Startled I just said ‘No :) was just having a look’ and walked away towards the elevator lest he might grill me for something wrong I might have done by being a non-catholic and touching thar coin.

First thought that came to my mind while walking up to the elevator was ‘Isn’t this discrimination? Why did he say that? America, the country of equals? Really? Here also people are so superstitious or what?’ I narrated the incident to my husband as we were waiting for the elevator. Though expecting a reaction, which he did not give anyway, rather just gave a half-side smile(like is this at all important?), I ignored it and got busy with Jasmeher.

Still the incident hovered in my mind for many days and as I thought about it with a calm mind and heart I realized may be my first set of thoughts were not correct. I do not know what a guardian angel is or what does the coin symbolize and the person thought I was going to take it, so he just told me not to take it. And I was infact feeling guilty of being a negative thinker. We at times, when encounter something different from the pre-conceived notions in our mind, react in a negative way so suddenly. And our whole viewpoint is on the verge of U-turn. Is it fair to change our mindset per one incident? Or to rather think it from the other person’s viewpoint. He is a nice old man always saying hello, smiling, chit-chatting with my daughter, sharing chocolate with her at times (okay once). No, I cannot or rather should not change my view of regular american people on one incident or at-least on this one, it will be unfair. I have till now met all good people and hopefully will continue that way.

By the way, on the Guardian angel, I did some research, as per catholic belief, its someone we get when we are born, and which guides us in finding good things, good people, helping us in doing the right thing, our communication channel with God. It is a deity that stays with us and can be reassigned to someone else when we die. Well I think it sounds similar to our conscious or soul, that all of us have :). Also, in Hinduism, we have the concept of ‘isht-devata’ and ‘kul-devata’ which is same as guardian angel. Similarly many other religions have this concept.

The guardian angel coins are generally distributed or sometimes brought to bring you good luck, wealth etc. In older times such coins were rubbed over the body to get rid of diseases and kept always closer to one to reap the benefits it was supposed give;and so the tradition continues…

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The little JasMeher 😊

She will be turning 2 in a month...time really flew by...not really if I see from a different perspective... But when I think about her it really did...she was just born yesterday :). When she was born I had the habit of measuring her face with my finger...her face was as big as my biggest finger ...lol...and I happen to still do that just to make sure she is growing and to see how fast. She was barely seen awake then...giving us sleepless nights though...lol...and whenever she was awake she would just choose a point in the room and look continuously there... And just rotate her eyes. Her Naani called her "Buttano" coz of that. :)) We got the letter 'J' during the namkaran ceremony on the 13th day...and I was so happy to name her JasMeher because at-least the second part had my initial ;). I remember during one of the nights when it was 4 am and she was up since 12.30... I was so irritated and sleepy I scolded her...she was in mumma's arms...she was barely 40 days old...but the way she took out her lower lip out and formed a spout to show her anger...I was moved to tears! Me and my brother took so many pictures of her...even when she was doing potty...lol...oh god she is going to kill us! The first smile she gave me when she was wearing a pink dress...her cheeks were pinkish that day...so fresh in my mind...like yesterday 😍 that lovely toothless smile. Due to my so many issues...I was never totally fair to her...often she bore the brunt of my anger...still she has loved me the same way...but I am so sorry...so sorry. So foolish I was and I am; to check if she still wants me and loves me...i used to hide and see..if she will come crawling and looking for me? And she did...she really did. Never punished me. The most difficult part was leaving her. I came back fine...but as soon as I felt the emptiness of the house...of my life...I broke down. But now I feel it was good for her and I am glad we too that decision. I felt so jealous when she said "papa-papa" always and not mumma...😁but she said it finally... I was on cloud nine and so proud!!! When it was the time to go back to her she was so grown up...she spoke...understood almost everything...amazing...they grow so fast. Once we were reciting path and she got up, came to my face, with her tiny hands tucked the hair coming onto my face to the back of my ear...oh my my...i couldn't stop my laughter. The touch of those soft hands doing such a lovely thing...priceless!!! She would wipe my face 😊...hug me so tight that I was not able to breathe...kiss me so hard to leave marks of her teeth 😉....I can write a book!

But what drove me to write about all this is one little fact...these kids...sometimes called angels...sometimes..bundle of joy...at times impression of God...yaar they make you feel so special....they offer unconditional love...no matter you scold them..you pull their cheek or slap them...why why why...they are so innocen to still love you...they come and say sorry...and hug you...forgive you...make you feel that you are the most special person in the world. No human can give you this pleasure... make you feel complete...content...on-top-of-the-world...such a boost to your ego...i fear of becoming arrogant 😜 I just want to thank her for showering so much love on me and to keep on doing that...and I promise to become better parent. And last but not the least...I would like to thank my friends for life...who gave my life(JM) so much love and care...that I never imagined...Ravi-Sukeshi, Sai, Rekha, Hitendra, Barkha...In tough times of course Jaideep was always there, but you guys..never ever left our side and were always there...I cannot imagine...how I or we would have survived in Bombay without you.so a BIG thanks you to all of you! Thanks infinity times 😛! Love you all!