Openness to Life

The young couple from Orissa, who travelled with me from Chennai in the train, looked happy and cheerful; they seemed to care for each other, and listened to songs from one mobile phone. They had too much of luggage, two cardboard cartons, and three other big bags, and was wondering what they were carrying. On the top of the cartons, it read sweets, pastries, but I was not sure if there were something inside. The man should be about thirty, and the lady in her late twenties. It was quite late that I overheard the lady sharing with another senior lady about one thing which had been a matter of concern for her and her husband: two years since their marriage, they were childless.

With expert look and demeanor, the senior lady seemed to have understood the gravity of their problem, and soon jumped in to help them. As I listened to their conversation in Hindi quietly, I came to realize the pathos that was bothering the young couple. While the young man seemed quite indifferent to the topic with the senior lady, his wife was quite enthusiastic to get the help of this senior lady, who hailed from Bihar. The ladies found something common that they went on chirping for quite some time, and at the end of their conversation, the senior lady was kind enough to give the young lady her contact number, and from where they could get medicine to “purify her blood”.

It is hard to tell if the senior lady was really trying to help the young couple, or just trying to show off that she was smarter than the young lady. Something in the appearance of the senior lady looked a little suspicious to me, and I would not trust each of her words as Gospel truth. But for persons who are frantically looking for solutions to the problems which are haunting them night and day, any person who gives them hope of a remedy is a God-sent, and they would believe them blindly, and be prepared to do whatever they may ask, even spending thousands of rupees, just for nothing. The problem is more severe in the case of educated couple, who would do anything possible within their capacity to get the malady reverted.

In the recent past, I had come across another young couple, who also had the same problem, and were meeting every doctor someone said is good. They tried alopathy, ayurvedic, homeopathy, herbal medicine, and yet were not satisfied with the remedies. The problem was with the man, it was found out, low sperm count, and therefore the doctors had to give him medicine to increase the count. Luckily the lady is expecting, and the doctors had informed them that their child would be born sometime in early August. But then they are too careful not to do anything which will deprive them of the child God had given to them.

Every child is a gift of God, and a popular adage says that every time a child is born, it is a proof that God still loves the world. If there are young people who are not able to be open to receive this great gift of God, the problem is not with God, but with our times, which is making us closed to receive children in life. The kind of life style we lead in the present days, does not allow conducive atmosphere physically, mentally and psychologically to receive this gift. We should have a proper disposition to receive any gift, otherwise it would be tantamount to insulting the giver of the gifts. Unfortunately the modern generation has to learn this bitter truth through the hard way.

Unique Gift of Life

Maybe I will never be able to realize what D&R have gone through in life, and if only I know how each of their days pass by, I might be more empathetic towards them. Now what is this D&R? Dinesh and Reshma or Dravid and Rani, or David and Reena! Maybe these are some of the commonplace names, but behind these names are individuals who are "made for each other", but are left to grope in darkness with no child they can call their own. The number of childless couples is growing, and medical science is helpless to make them not only rear, but also bear a child! Pro-creation has always been one of the primary goals of Christian marriage, as we hear it from our catechism classes!

When the couple finds out that one of them is incapable of cooperating in the bearing of a child a few years after their marriage, all troubles start. The husband may blame the wife and the wife the husband; and the couple may blame the parents, and every other person they can think of! Unfortunately their problem of bearing a child does not end there. They try to undergo any kind of medical treatment, even the witches and the ojhas, with the hope that one day they would be the proud parents of a child. What happens when all of these costly attempts fail is what I dare not imagine.

I have seen so many couples who belong to this category; how nice it would be if the angel Gabriel visits all the houses of these couples and announce the birth of a child through unusual means, through divine intervention. Even angel Gabriel does not seem to like visiting our planet. But when their attempts fail, the bond of union that had kept them together all these days, begin to be brittle; men may indulge (if they are still young enough) in extra-marital affairs, alcoholism, smoking, bad company, and anything which can make them forget the harsh fact that he has no child of his own!

If men are able to give vent to their feelings and frustrations externally, women may do just the opposite. They may keep everything within their hearts, and may one day explode. Often such feelings may find expression in obesity, all sorts of diseases, gossipping, backbiting, suspicion and finding fault with the husband, jealous of their friends having cute little babes. The unhappiness of men and women often find some concrete expression, and it may be dangerous if these people are not able to find some sort of outlet for their emotions. Ideally the husband and wife should be able to find an outlet in their spouses, but when it fails, they should find adequate means.

We live in a world, where moneyed men and women are discovering newer formulae to manage life; some years ago, I have come across people who felt having a child was a nuisance, and so would love to be by themselves. The care of a third person, for whom they may have to give up all their comforts and pleasures, might appear too much for these kind of couples, and many of them decide not to have any children, even if they are physically fit to bear and rear a child. The gift of a child is a great gift; nothing on earth can equal this gift; but if someone is deliberately refusing to have this gift, then we can only assume that these persons do not know the value and worth of the gifts. Maybe they would realize what it means to have a child, when they feel old age fast catching up with them!

Living by Gods

The story of Avinash Nayak is quite unique. He is only 12, but he knows how to make a living. He is making a living in the name of gods. He can be spotted at one or another street corner in Kolkata’s busy street. To tools of his business, if we may call it so, are tiny pieces of chalk and charcoal, with which he draws the pictures of religious leaders and symbols. He has more than enough number of people to admire his art, as he makes for his ‘canvas’ one or other busy street corner, where more number of people pass by. And anyone who may pass by his ‘masterpieces’ is sure to stop for a while to take a glimpse of the combination of gods and religious symbols he draws so meticulously on the floor.

But Avinash is only 12, and he does not hesitate to declare that he had never been to school. However on the top of his drawing he does write artistically ‘God Jesus, Help me’. One may wonder if the boy understands what he writes. Most probably he does not know the meaning of these words; who knows he may not even be aware that he is invoking the name of a ‘Son of God’, or God Jesus, who came to proclaim good news to the poor. It does not require any proof to know that Avinash is poor, and very poor, given that he wears only a dirty vest and short pants, and does not care to keep his hair neat and tidy. Since he lives in a slum with his parents, he cannot be any better, one might think.

There is something strange about Avinash, who does not smile, and his face is as serious as that of any angry young man. Even when he speaks to anyone who might ask him his name and whereabouts, he answers them without even looking at their face. There is an unknown fear, preventing him to look at the face of the people standing around his art work with much enthusiasm and wonder, and seems to show himself as a typical business man, who is only interested in completing his drawing, so that that might bring him more money, through the generosity of the bystanders.

Whom do we blame for the plight of this lad? His parents, who make use of this ‘child’ [according to Unesco, anyone who is below the age of 13 is considered a child], and force him to earn a living to support the family. It is true, the father of Avinash, who also does drawings on street corners of Kolkata might not earn as much as his son, given the fact that there would be more people who would willingly donate a few rupees to a child-artist than a middle-aged man. But in the meantime, one may justly ask, who is to be blamed for this situation. We do not know if Avinash likes this way of earning a living; and even if he likes it, is this justifiable to force him to work at the age, he should be attending classes in a school? You ask him, why he did not attend schooling, he is mum!

Often in life, we are left with no alternatives; we may have only one way, with all the other paths closed. Even if one desires dearly, there might be no way. Should God be so cruel with Avinash, that his childhood is robbed from him, and he is lifted away from a normal childhood, which is life-promoting and in conformity with human dignity. Or is the fate of Avinash human made, the handiwork of a handful of selfish, money-minded, greedy people? It may be hard for us to know who actually is to be blamed, but we cannot shirk away our responsibility. Even if there is one child on earth who is deprived of its childhood, the whole humanity can be held responsible for it, and no one, however holy and pious, can ever be left out!
Kolkata Airport

Pat on the Back

While discussing with friends about one of my very senior friends (a 75 year old nun, who became very affectionate towards me over the past year), one of the common comments I hear is that she was in need of a pat on her back every now and then. She needed exclusive care from the other nuns, who lived with her; she would be delighted if the Superior of the house were to visit her a couple of times during the day and enquired about her health. She felt sick when the other sisters did not seem to take special note of her! That is the reason why, when I visited her during my monthly visits to the Sisters, she was more than joyous, to get the much needed attention, and she was very different during the few hours I spent with the sisters.

But she is not the only one we can blame for seeking this kind of exclusive attention of the dear ones. As we grow old, we in fact return to our childhood days, and we behave exactly like children do. It is a proven fact that children look forward to the exclusive care and attention of their parents, or relatives or even siblings. When they do not get it, then they do all pranks to get the much needed attention. All of us go through this stage at sometime or other! Sometimes when this psychological need becomes compulsive that we feel life so meaningless and dry without the attention of others, then every hour may turn out to be a hell.

Today while talking to a neighborhood bishop, I heard a similar story about a middle-aged priest, who began to find a hundred and one mistakes to blame the bishop, until he was given an office which is respectable, and now he is more than normal; he does not find fault with the bishop anymore and has even begun to find some good things to appreciate the bishop for. But once these people become addicted to the pat on the back, they may not do anything, until they get the pat! It is an addiction, just like addiction to smoking, or alcohol, or any kind of compulsive behavior. One may do this even without being conscious of it.

Many of us stop growing, when we are halted by such things as this compulsive behavior to get recognition from those who matter in our circles. This happens largely because we have not adequately recognized ourselves, what we are, what we are capable of, what we have achieved through sheer personal charisma. If I look for recognition from outside, that only implies that I had not boosted my self-image and worth, by asserting my strengths. When I feel the need to get recognition from others, I may as well ask, what has stopped me from giving a pat on my back, all by myself?

It maybe time that I begin to look for recognition from outsiders, but start giving a pat by myself. All that you need to do is to put both the hands across the shoulder and gently pat the shoulder. Use any sweet sounding words to accompany this action.Those who are tied down by recognition from others, may stop living, when others begin to show their attention to someone else, or something else. When I recognize myself, I begin to recognize the Inner Self which is dwelling deep within me, and that is my God, that is my true Being, that is Brahman, that is the Spirit! When I recognize myself, I recognize God, and the world then may look so very different in my eyes!