A Mother is born only after the Child is born….Before that she herself is a child!

It’s 5.30 in the morning. I am awake, as if to a new fresh start. Sitting on the couch in my balcony enjoying my morning tea.

No rush to send kids to school, no lunch boxes to pack, and no laundries left to be done for the day. Summer vacations started as a big relief! Feels like I am on holidays, at least in the supposedly busy hours of the day.

My kids are deep in sleep, probably dreaming of how to insist mom to get that new toy on their wish list..;-)..

This is one of the Golden moments no mother gets to live every day.

My mind was blank. Suddenly I found myself smiling on the very thought of travelling into a time machine to revisit my childhood..:-)..Secretly wishing my husband was a scientist!

I started digging through my memory box as the time machine had gone for repair..;-).. I could see the little girl ‘I’ once was - shy, scared and always nervous. I had friends, but only handful. It was enough for me. I remember playing all day. I was stubborn, edgy, hated control freaks. Being the eldest in the family and the first girl child, I was devotedly pampered.

The memory flashes were so fresh as if I was present in the past. I was reliving my own stupendous, naughty and playful experiences.

From playing cricket in the streets to cycling in the rain, from making ravan on dushera to playing sinful holi, from morning walks with friends to getting proposals from the hot boys on the block. Bit by bit, inch by inch, I remembered it all.

Sipping my tea, I thought to myself, I have lost that little girl somewhere on the journey of life. I was born to live and yet I had forgotten how to live. I was born to dream and make them come true. Yet I had forgotten to sleep. I had forgotten to envision what I believed in.

I was not the same little girl. I had changed the day I was reborn, when I became a mother for the very first time. Now, it was the baby first. His needs, his cries, him, him, it was all about him. I was new to the concept of motherhood. The new arrival wasn’t planned but was welcomed with open arms. I learnt the life hacks of new birth of me. It seemed both interesting and tiring at the same time. There was happiness overflowing in the family. Everyone rejoiced.

I came out of the memory lane with the shouting and screaming of kids playing in the park.

I realized how fast age had taken over me! I may have passed as a new mum today. I may have made the best of my rebirth as a mother today. But somewhere deep down I know, I have betrayed the little girl, the little child, who still stays in me. Longing for me to hear her cries and waiting to be free.

I have a long way to go. I have promises to keep.

Lucky as most of us are, not all women are. Some of them are never born again. For either their baby is killed in the womb or she dies giving birth to a baby or becomes the target of domestic violence leaving no room for becoming a mother in her life. Reasons could be many. And such stories are found everywhere, every day.  But the need is to understand that a girl is also a child. She needs to be nurtured with love, care and understood so that she has the strength to face all tests of time.

Needless to say, only a mother can feel the death so close and be rejoiced to be born again. 

Only a mother can bear the pain to give birth to a new life!

Salute to all the mothers for the transformation they go through from being someone’s adorable child to becoming a mommy to love their own child!

Happy Mothering!!

My Liberation came from the Silent Retreat

It took me a while to realize that everything can be said in A Silence!

‘Words’ I had always felt were the gateway to communicate. Not just our feelings of love but also our agony, our disappointments, our failures.

Mistaken as always I found myself in situations incurable!

Tracing the words back to the days of my rearing, now I could relate. There were screams and shouts; fights and arguments. Kind words were not heard often in the house and were a delight to hear on occasions. I was a child yet wanted to run away in a far away fairy land. Thanks to the wandering mind that discovered day dreaming..:-)..As it always came as the biggest respite.

Time and again I felt I lived in a mad house. Not a perfect family, I used to think to myself. But the very fact that I have a family, glued me to them. However broken it seemed at the brink. We still lived together. At times, laughed together. There were days when I hated them all!

Yet they were the ones I felt secured with. They were the only ones I wanted to feel one with. I tried too hard. But I could never fit in. I was always the odd one in the family who stood out.

Something definitely seemed wrong with me! Probably, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Was the destiny fooling around with me? Or I was really born dumb. Dumb enough to understand the rules of life.

Happy, sad, laughing, fighting, caring, arguing we made it to our teens and eventually adulthood. The 2 most beautiful people in the family had also started aging gracefully.

I was thrilled for us to have made it till here..Together! Almost like an achievement considering the number of broken families in the time we live by.

Forlornly, nothing much had changed. For change comes from with-in and from acceptance that something’s not working and needs to be transformed.

No one in the house believed that some opinions or attitude that we carried over the years were deformed and needed immediate attention wef Now. Life moved on. People in the house moved on. I stayed where I was. In a shell of assumptions, dreading to come out. For view from there was far better than getting close to living with it. No one noticed. As if I had ceased to exist.

I was swimming in the ocean of my past as still could not find my way up to the rescue boat. Mistakes were made. It could not be undone in all space and time; because I had been a part of that undesired and undeserved journey. I now grew desperate to reach my soul with the help intended.

With the aim of change enlightenment came along. I read somewhere that only forgiveness can heal the ailing soul. My past would rest in peace and my today will start a fresh. Only if I knew how to forgive someone when they do not seek your forgiveness.

Wired with attachment I decided to cut myself off the entire drama of life. I closed the doors to the world I so much wanted to be a part of; and remained unwanted throughout and now even felt unwelcomed to.

My soul stepped back in silence. So be it!

Days went by. Forgiving myself; forgiving the ones who did not ask for my forgiveness, forgiving everyone from the past.

And came the day, I felt at peace. It was my first hand experience with peace..:-)..I learned to respond than to react. I was grounded enough to find my roots.

Astounding as it may sound but I was not worried. I was not anxious. I was not intervening with anyone’s life.

I was as free as I was detached.

I was ready to live. I was ready to love.

I was ready to move on; leaving behind, without a guilt, what does not belong to me or where I do not belong.

I found myself only when I found the courage to let go!

The ‘Monk’ he never wanted to be!

Chasing the sadness in his eyes, we followed him as he directed. He welcomed us with a cup of warm herbal tea. We chatted for a while before he showed us through different rooms of the monastery.

More than I heard the guided tour, I heard his silence. He was polite in his manners. So poised and composed, that normally anyone could miss out on the emptiness he carried with in.

Draped in a mono-color costume there were many monks roaming the premises. One could see a variety of boys and men, ranging from age as young as three years to as old as sixty years, staying under one roof. The attire was not clean, as if one set of clothes was used over and over, for days at a stretch. Some of the monks, the young ones especially, were wearing torn clothes.

I wondered...what kind of parents have a heart so stoned to send their little ones away from their nest, to grow in an unfamiliar environment among strangers.

A glimpse of their face was enough to tell their stories of sadness and loneliness. Many of them did seem homesick. They were allowed to visit their families only once or twice a year. They had no access to the world outside except for a few visitors like us. In winters even this interaction became impossible as the monastery and the roads to reach there gets covered in deep snow.

Unlike the life a few of them must have desired, they lived a life so disciplined that it not only took colors out of their life but also seemed to lock them in a no-smile zone. I hardly remember seeing the older ones smiling. For a fact, they understood the seriousness of the life they entered as a child's play in tender years.

Now sitting in my car, on our way to the next stop of our journey, his words kept playing in loop in my head; when he said, 'My parents sent me here when I was quite young. I had no choice'. He definitely missed his family I thought to myself. But would he still feel the same love for them that he felt years before! I doubt! For now he realizes the depth of betrayal from his own blood. Denying him the chance to choose his own destiny was too much for him to handle at the moment.

To me, as a parent, the whole incident dawned as an eye-opener. Since the day the baby is born, we become the remote control of her life. We get addicted to drive her crazy by deciding everything for her. Beginning from what to wear to what to eat to what subjects she should study in high school to even choosing her friends. We become so obsessed by living our dreams through our children that we forget they are individuals on their own journey. They seek our guidance not decisions!

It is hard to say how much time it will take for us, as parents, to unlearn the controlling patterns we have embedded deep in our flesh.

Meanwhile, I can bet that the monk we met today, had built some dream castles. Quite aware that his dreams may never be able to see the face of reality. He lived in a hope of tomorrow that may never come!

Out of the hundreds of monks who inhabited the monastery, meeting this one in particular, was truly fate.

Without saying much he taught me one of the greatest lessons of life - 'We cease to exist the day we stop dreaming!' How else could he stay so calm in a place he had never wanted to be in!

Happy Dreaming!

Menstruation: An Untouchable Reality

What is Menstruation?

Don’t think I am crazy! It’s a simple question. But I guess answering it has never been that easy.

I knew it!

Growing up in a society that considered (in many parts of the world, still thinks) women as impure and dirty during those four crucial days of every month, was harder than I had imagined.

In simple medical terms, ‘Menstruation is a natural part of the reproductive cycle in which blood from the uterus exits through the vagina’.

Living in 21^st century and believing the spiritual teachings, spreading these days like fire, I supposed it was okay to be not ashamed of your body; whichever part one may be referring to. After all, as per many religious and spiritual leaders our body is a sacred temple.

My myth was broken soon after I entered puberty. Restrictions followed me like a ghost every month for the four untouchable days. Staying aloof, no entry in the kitchen area, not touching the idols, even worse, not being able to be a part of any family worship rituals; soon became a routine. As if I get cursed every month for a specific number of days and suddenly I am purified later. No reasoning..No explanations! I rebelled to the heights of orthodox thinking...but to no use! My words fell on deaf ears who had stuffed them with the cotton of blindly followed religious values.

I guess that’s the routine of 99% of girls and women around the globe.

Generations after generations; era after era; rituals were passed on as legacy. Blindfolded people followed them and the end product was the birth of superstitions.

If I may ask, how many of us questioned our mothers about the norms that we followed during our periods?

Including me, none I guess! We were either shy to ask or feared the outcome. But it never ceased my curiosity as to why talking about it was considered a taboo.

Now nearly 40, I started to research on the topic; much out of curiosity and a little out of frustration. Living life on my terms has simplified my monthly torture…:-)... Also, I have a daughter, and kids grow at a much faster rate than our imagination. I don’t want her to suffer because of some irrational belief system that our great grand mothers have been passing on. I would like to pass on correct and logical information to her on the subject.

Most of the knowledge came through Time travelling..:-).. Virtually! Putting internet to good use!

Apart from a few embarrassing rituals I had been through during puberty, I found a list of ongoing practices in different cultures. To name a few,

Not attending religious functions, visiting the temple and not touching menstruating women; Avoiding cooking and eating with others during menstruation; Avoiding sex during menstruation; Avoid swimming or washing the hair during menstruation; Avoid eating certain types of food during menstruation; Believing that menstrual blood is impure; Taking time off during menstruation; Restricting menstruating women to seclusion huts.

After probing further into the reasoning of these practices I found some logical explanations. After all, our ancestors were not fools like us to believe anything because someone had told them so. Everything is energy and vibrations. And the older scriptures decoded so far have proved that most of the knowledge they gathered was scientifically based. Glad to know that this planet was also inhabited by some no nonsense people.

So here we go...

Ayurveda is a science of life and a natural healing system with a deep understanding of human body; it dates back to be as old as 7000 years. It is based on the principles of three primary life forces in the body, called the three doshas. Doshas are the bio-energies that make up every individual, and help in performing different physiological functions in the body. The three types of Doshas are Vata, Pitta and Kapha, which correspond to the elements of air, fire and water respectively. Each dosha has a primary function in the body. Vata (element-air) is the moving force responsible for communication, perception and cognition; Pitta (element-fire) is the force of assimilation and is responsible for metabolism; and Kapha (element-water) is the force of stability.

According to Ayurveda, menstruation is closely linked to the functions of the doshas. Menstruation is regarded in Ayurveda as a special opportunity enjoyed by women for monthly cleansing of excess doshas; it is this monthly cleansing that accounts for female longetivity as the blood gets purified each month adjusting for any imbalances.

There are precise reasons for every act or practice that women go through during periods. They were secluded so that men could respect their need for space during the times their body was going through hormonal and emotional energy up rise. That was the time the women needed to go within to balance their energies rather than spend time doing outer chores. Menstruation blood is supposed to be very powerful. In some traditions the need to not let a menstruating woman enter the temple or touch the idols was that they were so pure during those days that they were seen as a walking Goddess. It was believed that the energy of the murthi or the idol goddess will move over to her (menstruating woman) while the murthi becomes lifeless.

Food intake during periods has also been a topic of constant argument.

Diet is important during these days. Emphasis should be on taking more yin (feminine) foods, and fewer yang items. So, more rice, less wheat, more yogurt/buttermilk, less milk, more melons and broccoli. Preferably light and warm meals should be eaten during periods. Ancient practices came from an understanding of the influence of food on menstruating women and were created with the intention of helping relieve menstrual discomfort through the right diet.

Knowing, it is a subject in itself, I have touched only the essential parts of the topic in this article; the ones that I personally felt girls and women in today’s time have to deal with every month. But as much you dig further in the history of the topic, one will find some logical reasoning to why the practices came into existence.

Sadly, these practices began to be followed blindly. And in no time it deteriorated women’s condition across all cultures and traditions.

Many girls and women are still subjected to daily life restrictions; are excluded from many socio-cultural life events as they are considered impure. Such taboo on women’s life not only affects their emotional state but also disturbs their mental and physical health.

Whenever I look around and see people still following such practices, I fail to understand the fact, how can one live all their life imprisoned in the chains of superstitions.

With so much awareness on the subject, there is still a need to literate the women of the house to put an end to other girls and women suffering. The male members of the family should also be taught to respect the space of menstruating women and not look down upon them to make them feel ashamed or embarrassed of a biological occurrence in their body.

Last but not the least, it should be a personal choice of the menstruating woman to follow any such practices and not an imposed restriction.

Happy Awakening!