Shilpa Roy Kota

Last few days, I have been involved in talking to some close friends about problems they have been facing lately. I have essentially not done anything to help them but just heard them out. 

It is amazing how just hearing others talk about problems and issues, can make you learn so much more about life, people and different perspectives everyone has towards the same set of facts. I learnt that many times when we think we are in a problem, we tend to become extremely judgmental. We tend to assign blame on someone or something, so that we can rest assured that the problem did not start because of us. I find this behavior very paradoxical because –

1. If the problem is not created by us, then we have no way solving it. So essentially by blaming someone else for the problem, we are accepting that it cannot be solved by us. This attitude works well for problems like – Inflation, Wars, Global warming, etc. but not for our personal relationships, jobs, health, etc. In fact, many can argue that the first set of problems are also in our control and we should actively participate in controlling them.

2. We seem to know so much about how others can make mistakes but so less about how we ourselves make mistakes. We know exactly why someone deliberately tried to harm/hurt/deceive us but we never stop to think, why would someone want to harm us in the first place. I find it very odd to imagine that someone would dedicate their life to make someone else’s life miserable. I am sure everyone has better goals to be achieved in their own life.

I am still confused why we humans always have to judge people and classify them as good or bad, clever or foolish, beautiful or ugly, hard working or lazy and so on. After all, how much do we know about anyone to be able to judge them? Then again, what does it give us by mentally classifying anyone? If anything, we lose the opportunity to learn about them more, once we have stowed them away in a labelled shelf in the racks of our mind. 

I hope the next time we are trying to judge a person, we remind ourselves that we don’t know what we don’t know and give a little more benefit of doubt. After all isn’t everyone supposed to be innocent unless proven guilty. 

Dreams I once dream as a child came true

I went to England, got fancy dresses and made some good friends too

I didn’t know how, or when or why

But they came true right in front on my eyes

Now my dreams are larger, much larger than myself

They live and breathe inside of me

If I was to die today, the body would still live

Through dust, soil and trees, it would still breathe

The only thing that would die with me are the dreams I used to dream

For I didn’t have the courage to share them outside of me

Being a parent is never easy. While you can afford to make wrong choices for yourself and take responsibility for your actions, you can never afford to go wrong when forming the million impressions on the mind of your child. For it is these impressions which more or less will form their character as they grow up. 

My latest dilemma stems from a situation at school. Each new day at school brings home a new story to be told. This boy threw water at me, that girl punched me, that boy hit me with his water bottle, and some boy pushed me while I was standing in line. In all stories there are some things which are common – I didn’t do anything to ask for this, I am terribly injured by this action and Yes, I told the teacher and she didn’t do anything.

While she is not complaining and I know it is nothing serious, yet I sense the need for a solution for these daily problems. The choices seem simple –

1. Follow restraint – It is not good to hit others. If someone hits you and acts bad, it doesn’t mean that you should act bad too. Ignore them and move on. I am sure they didn’t mean to hurt you on purpose.

2. Eye for an eye – If someone hits you, go hit them back. You are strong and you can show your power. Once they know what they are up against, they will never try and harm you again.

Both these choices are right and will stand good in the world of today. The question then is – which one do you recommend to your child? Of course both options come with their side effects –

1. She might be branded as a softie and will continue to get hurt because others will think they can hurt her and get away with it.

2. She can be branded as a bully herself and get reprimanded by teachers, principal and the society.

After thinking about it for a long time, I realized before my daughter reacts to the situation, she needs to be aware that she posses a strong, fundamental power within her. This power is not the power of strength, her Takewondoo belts give her but this power comes from the knowledge that she has a choice she can make. I call this power – The Power of Choice. She can choose to ignore or she can choose to punch the teeth out of anyone she wants. I am pretty sure she is physically and mentally capable of achieving both. Once she realizes she has the power to choose, she will no longer feel the victim in the situation and will be able to stand up and react to the situation not the way I want her to but the way she decides fit.

Since each situation whether at school, on the road or at home is bound to be unique and in all likelihood she will be in the situation alone herself, the sooner she learns to make her own choices and learn from them, the stronger her power will become. Amen!

I am officially a walkoholic! Can’t go to sleep without wishing the dust, the road and the breeze good night. My music has always given me good company in my expeditions but having heard the same set a trillion times now, I was getting really hard to please. I tried new downloads, even tried getting used to Telugu radio, but nothing could last more than a few days. 

Just when I had almost resigned to giving up on my favorite companion, I discovered the feature – ‘Shuffle’. Since I have started using this feature, my walking life has transformed. I have been enjoying the same set of music (shuffled up) for more than 6 months now. 

One day, I wondered how a simple feature like that could make a transformation happen. The only thing Shuffle actually does is remove the predictability of what song was coming up and the genre of that song. I used to think, humans like predictability. In fact we spend so much time in putting systems and processes (both at home and work) to ensure that life is predictable. Then how come randomness seems so appealing?

I realized, not only humans but nature by its own virtue strives on a combination of randomness and predictability. While the seasons pretty much follow the same cycle, the duration, the intensity and the timing of each season always varies. In fact, nature also likes to surprise us all the time. That is what adds excitement to life. 

While we humans still have to work Monday – Friday and work harder over weekends, I am sure we can add enough randomness in the smaller elements of our life and keep that freshness alive.While predictability works well when we are striving for results, randomness works better to make the journey towards the results more fun! 

We recently completed 10 years of married life and I have been itching to write about it. Anyone who is or has been married even once, would know that marriage is the most complex relationship. All other relationships are either tied by blood, or have the freedom to walk out easily when things get rough, but marriage is different from all of them. Our marriage has been no different and hence it took me a long time to put my thoughts together on it. 

To start with, we had a love marriage, in an age, where it was not very common. Both side of parents graciously accepted and we landed together under the same roof having no clue about relationships. All we had common in between then (and now) is immense love for each other. Since then, we have been on a roller coaster of emotions and have survived without killing each other. At the same time, as we put each new misunderstanding behind us, our respect for each other has grown immensely. 

In difficult times, I have many times questioned, why the hell did I have to love him of all the people. Was it looks, was it the mind, was it the money/education/the family/the heritage or was it the fact that there were three other girls fighting for his attention? What was it that made me take the big leap? Honestly, I never found a reason why I fell in love with him and having known him for 13 years now, I still don’t know. 

In a way, I am glad not having the answer. If there was one reason to love him, the love would be dependent on that reason. Good looks, intelligence, money, compassion, passion, heritage are all so transient and can disappear in seconds. I would never want our love to be based on any one or a combination of them. The best thing is, I know he has also never found (perhaps he didn’t even question) the reason why he fell in love with me.

So having completed ten years of marriage (which qualifies me as the expert on marriage/love) my one tip for those trying to find their true love –  “Love thy for a reason, let the reason be love.”

I was fortunate to be part of a great session with a spiritual guru and have had quite a few takeaways over the last few days. I am sure some or most of them will figure in this blog sometime. However, this one stands at the top of my head right now because most of us have at some time asked this question and the answer provided by Sadhguru was truly profound.

Question: What is the purpose of my life?

Answer: We try and find a purpose to our lives when we think our life in its current form is not worthwhile. We are unhappy with what we are doing, or where we are headed and hence we try and find a purpose to be alive. The true purpose of life is to be 100% alive at all given times. If one is truly alive, we will never find the need for this question. To be 100% alive means to be completely conscious about your life and respond to it, actively, making the best possible decisions for yourself. If we are passive about life, thinking someone else is driving it for us, we will always try and predict where he is trying to take us.

I was out on a long drive today, a long list of to do items in my head and my favorite music on the air. I was in no hurry to get anywhere fast and was thoroughly enjoying the drive in the light traffic and the warm sun. 

Suddenly a large white van started honking from behind trying to find a way to get ahead. I was myself stuck in between some cars and had no option but to continue driving where I was. I tried to ignore the honking, but it got to me in some time. As he literally pushed some cars out of the way and cursed loudly at some others, I started feeling the blood rising in my head. I too started speeding trying to make sure he realized something… (looking back, I can’t even recollect what I was trying to make him realize).

Anyhow, after 2 mins of racing between cars and feeling the adrenal rushing, I suddenly realized I had lost all of the following – the song that was playing, the warm sunny afternoon and the happy mood that I was in. It then struck me, that I was being extremely foolish to get caught up in a speed chase, when I had nothing to gain at the end of it, but a lot of things that I could lose. 

As I slowed down, I realized life was also pretty much like driving a car. Even though we might not be in a rush to get anywhere fast, the entire traffic around us, forces us to pick up speed, run and push each other along the way. I wondered, what was the point of rushing through life, when in the process we lose the happiness of the journey itself? The end goal might be glittering in diamonds but it can never be more precious than the entire journey that brought us to it. What I learnt today – Drive slow, drive safe and remember to enjoy the journey!