MOTHER: The Creator Who Cannot Tailor Make

She was soft like silk and harmless like a feather quilt. There was a glimmer of innocence in her eyes and her soft voice reminded me of the delicate sound of the wind chimes. Carefully etched fingers would clasp round my grown up finger and she would, joyfully play in the air with her arms and legs.

A miracle of God, healthy and bright, a bundle of happiness, called –CHILD. I am amazed to see how beautifully we have been given the power to create life. But the strange part is that we might be endowed to create life but God did not give us the power to customize it. To all the mothers out there, you have given birth to life but have been fortunate enough to be blessed with a happy, healthy and normal child.

I sit down and think about those mothers who gave birth but were not blessed with normal children. Some born with deformities and with mental disabilities are permanently handicapped to lead a normal life. The happiness of giving birth clouded by the sadness of seeing your child leading an incomplete life is heart wrenching.

While we get the power to give birth but it is mysteriously shrouded by forces unknown to us. Call it past karma or destiny. We can create life but not define its composition.

THE RIVER AND THE SKY TAUGHT ME…

The water in the river was gushing with a passionate fury. The bright blue water, running down continuously with the same force and pace.  From where did the water come?  No one knew. I looked up at the bright blue sky; it enveloped flora, fauna, me (the mere human being) and my race. Where did it originate from? No one knows.

Under the bright blue sky, I sat on a rock near the river, the water hits against the rock and softened it too.  I looked at the rock, the sky and the river and realized that the most bountiful things in life have no source no origin and yet are so powerful that they can soften a rock.

Love, compassion , strength might be mere words but  if you really think are as vast and as bountiful as the water gushing in the river and the bright blue sky that encompasses us all.

Strength again is just like the river, which has so much power that it can help us overcome any rock like obstacle that comes our way. The power of the water is such that it overpowers and subsumes.

And finally the amalgamation of all. Strength to give love and compassion despite all odds continuously and passionately. As bountiful as the skies and as consistent as the everflowing water in the river. Where it comes from no one knows, where it goes too is unknown, but in its journey from birth to final conclusion all it does is GIVE!!

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GIVE THAT ONE MOMENT OF HAPPINESS

Ever thought about a simple action, innocent and pure, with effects that are universal? 

It was a bright winter afternoon. The sun mischievously playing hide and seek from behind the clouds. The breeze was gently warm, heralding the onset of spring. Lost in my thoughts, I was walking towards the park, when my eyes stumbled upon a beaming face. My reverie was shattered, my eyes widened with surprise. In front of me was this strange lady, flashing a warm million dollar smile at me. Strange because I didn’t know her. Surprised because the 1^st thought that came to my head was, ‘she doesn’t even know me and she is smiling like she’s known me forever?’  In my lost and found state I just looked back, and before I could realize, I had a warm smile on my face too.

Sometimes in life you come across these unknown angels who without knowing you touch your lives in a strange way. A friend of mine says, it’s all about the energy. An energy that surrounds you and the same you exuberate. The smile of that lady touched something deep inside. The warmth of her being was transmitted by her smile. The vibes she gave not only comforted me but made me reciprocate as well.

I come to believe that a happy person emits happiness not only to people he knows but to everyone around him. Something as harmles as a smile can make someone’s day, can communicate without words and in a flash of a second can give happiness which is priceless. 

Between the devil and the deep sea

I walk down memory lane and stumble upon these lines I once crammed

“How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought
And simple truth his utmost skill!”

The tranquility in me is perturbed by a question in my head ‘ if you were to choose between professional success with fame and recognition for the work you do and a simple life of a middle class person who lives with a utopian belief of simple living high thinking what would you choose?’
It is easy for most of us to say ‘simple living and high thinking’ but the truth is quite different. The urge to make it big in life is so powerful that sometimes it can drown the simplest and basest of values we used to read about.

This urge, which some people define as ‘my dream’ and some say ambition is by far one of the most powerful tools our mind has that drives our lives. ‘I want to be a star performer in my company.’ ‘My business is my life. I want to be the best in my profession and I want to be a name, people recognize and swear by’

The adrenalin rush to get somewhere to achieve something in life sometimes saps out the simplicity we are born with. The simple core that all of us have is not just hidden but somewhere is lost by the hardened layers of ambition.

Success is intoxicating. Especially when it is in its nascent form, it bedazzles you. The appreciation, the love and the recognition that you get from this newly found audience is overwhelming. The glare of success sometimes blinds you and you are unable to see or remember those moments when you struggled. Those people who held your hand when you were struggling. Simple values of humility that we all know and supposedly believe in, get faded.

Hence passages from a poem that we all crammed at one point in life sometimes emerge like a blast from the past and we all get stumble. Pull the reins, do a reality check, the passage of the poem you once crammed mindlessly will eventually make sense.