Shilpa Roy Kota

As we see the world changing around us we constantly put up measures to protect us and our loved ones from physical harm. We build stronger walls around us, put bigger locks on these walls and try and learn some basics of self defense. My daughter goes for Takewondo classes regularly. For her it is a sport, for me it is future protection for her and hopefully myself.

In spite of all this, we still never feel secure enough. As I step outside for a walk, I am constantly wary about anyone passing too close to me. Sometimes, in spite of all my defense mechanisms, I have been subject to bad behavior on the roads.   Initially, it stopped me from going far but then one day, I stopped to think – what was I afraid of? What could someone possibly achieve by passing a lurid comment or slapping my bottom and running away. They cannot physically harm me in broad daylight amidst 10 other common folks on the road. Yet, I was still scared – why?

One day, I found the answer. Behavior like this does not harm us physically as much as it harms us internally. When someone calls me names, I am in no way hurt physically, but I am hurt much deeper. It hurts the soul and scars it.  But then, no one can touch our soul – it is so deep inside us. How can it get hurt, unless we allow someone to get inside us and touch it? Our soul gets hurt not because someone said or did something bad. Our soul gets hurt because we allowed that someone to get inside of us and hurt us. 

While we constantly work on protecting ourselves physically, we let our soul be open to getting hurt from small remarks, visual obscenities, and physical encounters. I am in no way advocating for those who subject others to such behavior. It is in no way justified and it needs to be punished. At the same time, I believe, the answer to protecting oneself does not lie only in physically guarding your body. The scars on the body heal much faster than the scars on the soul. The good news however is, that no one can hurt the soul, unless we let them.

The million dollar question that I still have is – While I know how to protect my soul, how do I teach it to my child, for whom the world still consists of fairies and princesses and everyone is a friend unless proven to be an enemy. 

I have been going for walks for months, perhaps years now. I consider it as one of the best time of day when I am alone with my music and the breeze. A few  days back , I became aware of something new which has decided to become an integral part of my walking routine – The Moon. I don’t remember when it happened, but I noticed it day before yesterday, just a day before the full moon night. It shined so bright, in the deep, cloudless night, as if, calling out to me. Since then, it has been there each night, looking at me, shining at me and telling me it’s there. 

I realized today that I was getting used to looking up to it and talking to it. I chided myself for thinking I could trust the moon to be a friend. After all, it will be gone in some days. Either the clouds or the sun will take it away and I will be alone again. When the moon heard my thought, it burst out laughing! 

It said “O Dear, how can you think I will be gone. I was always here and will always be. It is you, who was discovered my presence now. You might again forget me or chose not to believe in me, but I will always still be here. The clouds and the sun might hide me, but it doesn’t mean I am not there. “

This made me think something much deeper – I wonder how many blessings of life I have missed to see around me till now. How many more I am yet to discover. I am sure, they are all around me, have always been, but I in my ignorance, anxiety and rush of life, I have failed to meet them. I thank the Moon for teaching me this important lesson.

Another important lesson that the moon taught today – It is not always important to see something to believe in it. Sometimes, just knowing it is there is enough.

It all started as a school project, trying to understand different religions and what they mean. No matter how hard I tried to explain who is a  Christian and who a Muslim, my little one could not picture the difference between a Muslim, a Christian, and a Hindu. Sikhs were easy to remember because they wear turbans. Honestly, I could relate to her confusion. In the modern world of today, none of us, actually, look much different from the other in the way we look, eat or behave. The only difference amongst us is perhaps the fact – who we worship and where we worship. 

So the next logical step in to increase our understanding was to visit the places of worship. We started with a visit to a temple late yesterday evening, for the simple reason, I knew how to get to the temple and more importantly how to behave while in there. On the way to the temple, we stopped for a while outside a Mosque and listened to the evening prayer. We chose to visit the Church  this morning, as I have heard stories of Sunday service and in the end stopped over at a Gurudwara.

I have been to all these places before, at different times and in different cities, but the experience of visiting them all  together was quite remarkable, as it helped draw parallels in the mind.  While inside, any of these , I felt transformed by the grandeur, aura and  devotion that surrounded us. Each place was so unique in its construction, its form of prayer and the entity being worshiped and yet the end effect on me was exactly the same. I felt at peace inside, could experience  the passion and beauty of the religion outside and could thank God for having us see him.

While driving back home, I tried to analyze if the mission of understanding had been accomplished? I asked her – So do you remember where Hindus (thats us) go to worship. Her instant answer was “Anywhere – Church, Temple or Gurudwara”.

She might fail her school exam this time, but I am sure this is a lesson that will help her pass in life. 

Today as I got ready to attend a family get-together, I was looking forward to meeting family, who is very close to heart, but yet far from a perspective of how often we meet each other. 

I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with people across generations, full of life, energy and love. However, to be completely honest, what made my day absolutely incredible was the fact, that amongst family I had the fortune to find readers who follow my blog. As we exchanged pleasantries and sat down to talk, they shared their appreciation, views and thoughts about some of my posts. 

Honestly, there is nothing more gratifying to a writer, than the knowledge that their work is not only read but also appreciated. Each day, readers have a plethora of information to choose from – jokes, news, FB updates and blogs from  thousands other professional writers. Truly, it is an honor to know that someone chose to read your blog, along with all the other stuff out there. 

Thank you all, dear readers, who continue to bear my blogs and laugh, scorn and think with me. I write because I love to write, but honestly all my writing would remain incomplete, if it were not for you the readers who chose to read it!

Teaching history to a seven year old can be a daunting task because you have to extremely careful of what impressions you are leaving on their clean, untouched  mind. Let me take an example to explain.

History Books says: We celebrate Independence day on 15th August each year. This is the day that India got Independence from the British rule.

Teacher explains: Britishers were extremely bad people who robbed our country for many years. Indians fought the battle for Independence and finally threw them out of the country on 15th August, 1947.

Seven year old at home: What does Independence mean? Who were Britishers? 

Mom: Britishers came from a country called Britain which is up above on the globe. They came to India to do business and earn money. The Indians hosted them very well, but did not know how to do business. Slowly, Britishers figured that they could take all the riches of India to their own country. Slowly, the Indians realized they had to change this and we started fighting with them to stop it. Finally, on 15th August 1947, Britishers left India and India got it’s Independence. 

Seven year old: Wow, Britishers were such bad people!

End of Lesson

Is this truly the way we want our kids to remember history? Today’s world is shrinking day by day, not physically but virtually. In this world, Britain is no longer thousands of miles away but just our backyard. Given this reality, do we want our children to remember Britishers as extremely bad people who robbed our country or as talented Businessmen who were very successful in our country because as a country we were divided and ignorant?

When our books are unbiased and realistic, don’t we as teachers and parents have a responsibility to explain facts as facts to our children? Why do we tell history lessons as fairy tales full of demons, brave kings and beautiful queens. In an attempt to make the lesson interesting and worth remembering we add to it the mirch and masala that leave these lasting negative impressions on our children.

It is no surprise then, that all peace talks fail and each country looks upon the other with distrust. Our generation, thankfully, has not been witness to world wars and invasions, but we still don’t trust our neighbors. If we leave this legacy for our children also to follow, how are we expecting them to live in peace. As the world becomes smaller, we have to make our minds and hearts bigger. Teach our kids what they can learn from, not just what they will remember.

It is Childrens Day today and many adults are reminding each other of the good old childhood days and how they wish they would come back. To me, this sentiment is amusing, as I would never wish those days back. The biggest, foremost reason for not going back into childhood – my only one wish as a child was “To Grow Up!!”.

I am an adult now – intelligent, beautiful, rich, and blessed (some may not agree with me on some or all of these, but it doesn’t matter. I still think I am all of these.) All my childhood, I prayed to become big, so that I could make my own decisions, have my own money, live my own life and not worry about school grades. It would be a nightmare for me to go back to those days to become a child again.

As for the attractive components of being a child – cute, innocent, fun, carefree, easily trusting, can go to sleep whenever and wake up whenever; I think I can chose to be all of the above, all the time or some times, whenever I wish. That is the power of being an adult. I would never trade it in a million years.

It is fun to be a child, but it is even more fun to be able to feel like a child when you are actually an adult. Here’s wishing all adults a very Happy Childrens day! May you find the child within you before you are too old!

This question has been popping up so often in my conversations with others lately, that it sooner or later had to pop up in my blog as well. Be it work, play or personal chores, we do so many things daily, just because we know we have to do them. We no longer question their need or the way we do them. How we wake up, attend to natures call, drink our tea, send children to school, are all activities that don’t, any longer, need us to use our intellectual self. We just do them, without asking – Why am I doing this, or could there be a better way of doing it. 

Slowly this routine (with the lack of Why) starts to seep into more important areas of life – work, education, love. Areas which need attention, deliberation, questioning, thought, and lots of Whys. Without asking the objective of a certain project, we start executing the project. Without communicating the reason behind a certain task, we delegate the task. Without understanding the reason behind a persons behavior, we start judging the person. Without knowing the need/prospects/interest for certain education, we go ahead enroll because everyone else seems to be doing it.

If only, we stop to question and understand why we are doing, the what we are doing, we would be much better equipped to do it right. While we can sit happily on the toilet seat without asking why, if we bring the same seat and the same mindset to our work, we are pretty likely to produce the same result as well – shit!

Just completed a great book about a prophet who is guided by the voice of angels. These angels used to bring him the word from The Lord and ordered him to carry it out. After doing so for years, he develops a close bond with The Lord and is considered one of the Lords favorite prophets. However, in the process, he loses everything that he had ever loved including his job, his respect and his country. Finally one day, in an attempt to carry out the orders of The Lord, he even loses his lady love.

 His faith by now has become the source of immense pain for him and he refuses to listen to The Lord anymore. He questions the very existence of The Lord and the purpose of the orders that he had fulfilled for so many years. It is then that The Lord provides him the answer.

The Lord explains that this is what he wanted his prophet to do right from the start – not follow orders just because they came from The Lord, but understand them, question them, fight against them and finally understand the purpose of them. Only when he had understood this purpose, would he be able to fulfil them earnestly.

The Lord provides our destiny, not so, because we are bound to follow it, but because he wants us to challenge it, to fight it and understand the deeper purpose. Most of us, like the prophet, accept Gods desires and call it destiny. We see ourselves small, insignificant and helpless, to be able to make any change, in the bigger scheme of things. If only we knew, that God made destiny so that we can fight against it and become stronger and wiser in the process, would we still accept destiny as we see it?

P.S. This book (The Fifth Mountain by Paul Coelho) is based on true stories from the Bible.