Nursing Parents’ Wounds

It is quite disheartening to even imagine that parents after about twenty years of blissful marital life could think of separation; whatever be the cause of family discord, it is hard to think of a situation where the couple feel quite incompatible, even after the two girl children, both of them quite grown up. At a time when the elder daughter is old enough to become a mother herself, it is next to impossible for her to think that her parents were contemplating seriously about separation, and she herself would do anything to stop that happening, but then she feels that she is helpless, at least in this situation.

Which child would think of his or her parents being separated; the modern world has seen many such cases, where the children are asked by the court to choose with which parent he/she would like to live, but as everyone is aware it is not possible to make a decision, that a child would live with the father or the mother. A child’s heart is too tender and soft to be torn apart by two parties. Granted that the two girls are grown up, that is not the reason for the parents to think of separation, and it is doubtful if the couple had exhausted all the possibilities of keeping the light of their marital bliss alive and blazing.

Parents are expected to nurse the wounds of their growing children, to stand by their side when the storms of life shake them from the root, but here is a situation where the children are called in to nurse the wounds of the parents, and the children just beginning to see the true color of the world are forced to witness yet another harsh reality of life, and they could hardly accept which looms before them. But would the parents who had been having stormy sessions on regular intervals down the years, think of giving another chance to the spouse to amend and get the family ties going? If the personal peace and happiness is what matters most to the couple, then it would have been better if they had not married at all!

For the elder daughter, who had offered her life to the Lord, it is more than her share of suffering the Lord had given to her, and every time she remembered the situation back at home, her eyes are filled with tears, but is it possible to leave behind the family, parents and the relationships and concentrate on her own personal call! As an individual who had grown nourishing the love and care of the parents, she feels she cannot afford to let this thing happen to her parents, but she is also aware of the crude reality, which reminds her, what if they do not care to listen to her plea! She would not have any one to appeal to!

It is not that my parents have peaceful life after about 45 years of their marriage; they have their own share of misunderstanding, quarrels, but I know one thing for sure, they could never think of separation, and even if they fight, we know for sure they would be back to talking terms after a couple of days. But times are changing, and if married persons were to think only of their personal freedom, happiness and peace of mind, then the family is bound to go to pieces and it would be impossible for anyone to save the situation. It is only God who can intervene to stop the couple breaking away, because their breaking is sure to affect the lives of the children too, and that is the reason why the daughters have begun to storm the heaven with their prayers.

Spying Sherlock Homes

There are many in our society, who would defeat even Sherlock Homes in spying, and in attempting to resolve the mysterious riddles. Spying on innocent men and women, tapping their phones, and reading others mails are some of their trade secrets, and it is hard to stop them from doing it, either in public places or in their private circles. It is sickening if they try to do it when they are living with others. Where there are parallel phone connections, as soon as the phone rings, they would rush to the other set, and wait for the person concerned to start talking, and they would quietly pick up the other set and eavesdrop all the person speaks, so much so they do not feel even a qualm of consciousness to do such a dirty job.

I have come across quite a few people who enjoyed doing it, though a good part of these people belonged to the fairer sex, though I would not overrule the other sex as well. What is at the root of this kind of attitude which impels them to spy on others is more than obvious: it could be looked at on two levels, one is that they would like to know the ins and outs of other persons, so that they would be in a better place to blackmail them and therefore force them to do what they want; the second reason is that they have certain emotional needs and wants, which they wish to fulfil through passive pleasure. This is in straight forward language a perversion, and they take pleasure in such a perverse thing, and there is none to question them.

Unfortunately the people who do such a thing are those who have not received the kind of love and attention that the younger people receive these days, and they are all full of jealousy, and cannot tolerate this happening. But if someone were to confront them and ask why they pick up the phone when another person is talking, their answer would be more than innocent: oh, I wanted to make a phone call, and so was checking if the phone is free! Everyone knows that this is just an excuse for them to continue with their eavesdropping. But it is another matter, if someone else were to do the same when they are on the phone.

Phone tapping had been a big issue on the national level some months ago, and it had been said that it was undertaken by officials under the direction of the Ministry of Home Affairs, but when ordinary men and women spy on their brothers and sisters, what pleasure do they get. When children become unruly and disobedient, some of the parents do spy their children, to catch them red-handed with something they can accuse their ward of. But in such cases, spying is done with all good intentions, and sometimes it does good to the children too, but not in the case of adults, where it can only create bad taste in the heart of the members involved. This is a reality many struggle with silently, and there may not be a solution in the near future.

Every information that I share with another person is purely private and no other person has the right to eavesdrop; such a person can be taken to task, but we do not do this, because we do not want to create problem unnecessarily. When younger persons are victims of such vile tactics of some senior persons, the juniors are helpless victims, who cannot do anything to stop such a menace. Life has to go on, and they most often tolerate such senior persons, though the juniors have all the right to pull up the senior and teach them a lesson. In a respectable society, such a thing may not happen, but there may come a time, when such senior persons may be confronted squarely, and then people may relate to one another freely and without fear.

Painful Parting

It was hard for me to leave home this time; I had been going home for brief stay over the past 25 years, each time spending just a few days to one full month, but have not felt so emotional and sentimental while leaving as during this time. I know there were more reasons for me to feel emotional this time. My sister had not been keeping too well two days before I left the place, and I felt sad about her situation; aging parents and her too young daughter. When she is sick, it is painful to see her, helplessness writ large on her face; this is a reality she has to get used to, and that has been affecting me.

It is of late that I have come close to my family, especially my sister, niece and my parents; the others - three families of brothers, all of them well settled, and earning fat salaries - had not been my concern. After the sudden death of my brother-in-law, I felt it part of my responsibility to stand by my sister and niece, and help her cope with life. What I could do to her is mighty little, however that had been bringing cheer in her and her daughter. I was happy to see that she is able to face life now fearlessly, and support parents in their old age too.

Over the past 25 years, ever since I left home, I have realized that the poor and the needy do not expect money or riches from us sannyasis, what they do look up to us is, our compassion, our love and time. On more than one occasion, my sister had made the same appeal to me, that I stand by her side, and she would be able to face life boldly. I may not be able to realize how hard it is to face life in real life situation; we live in artificial surroundings, where everything is taken care of; it is not so easy to battle with the odds of life and still retain one's sanity.

Though she knows for sure she has to put up with so much of inconvenience in order to bring up her daughter, and to support the aging parents, and adjusting to their idiosyncrasies, one thing is sure, she is not the one who would easily give up hope. The strong determination to keep striving has brought her up to this point, and I feel happy and proud for her. First it was the deadly cancer which bounced on her, some 10 years ago, and when she came out of it victorious, life could not bear her victory, and thus came a bigger shock, the loss of her husband. Now she has shown that she is a victor in every way.

My way of life does not permit me to keep close contact with her, or in that case with anyone else. However I know the little I do to support and stand by her side will not go in vain. I felt sad while leaving the house, because my presence at home could bring smile in her face, and she could rely on me for any kind of emergency. As an elder brother, this is my responsibility and privilege, and I feel I am not able to fulfill this, and that was bothering me. But deep within I know for sure that my invisible presence will help her to lean on me when needed, and gain that encouragement and support, which can keep her going.

Nursing Naturally

Being in a religious house, I understand, I am spared from much of pain and agony that my family members go through every now and then. After a few days, my father is not well again, and every time when one of the family members falls sick, it becomes a matter of concern for all the members. He had eaten only in the morning, and says he does not feel like eating; there is a sense of nausea, so typical of those who are sick for some days. But the fact that he has not eaten has worried my mother, sister, and niece. Each of them have their own load of worries, and when my father falls sick, all of them are deeply worried, and do what they can to get him alright.

I felt the words of my mother hard to digest; she finds it hard to see my father, who for the most part of his life had been quite healthy, lying down helplessly. My parents are used to fighting constantly, especially when my father goes hiding with his bottle, but at a moment like this, my mother is all caring. I had experienced her care when I was sick many years ago. I might have been some seven years then, but still remember quite clearly how she nursed me and made me healthy. She feels sad that my father is not able to eat, not able to contain himself. My sister had bought a loaf of bread after her school hours, so that he could eat something before going to bed. But he refuses to eat even that.

We become quite different when we are sick, especially when we are down with a relatively major sickness, including malaria, typhoid, pneumonia and the type. On the one hand, we become quite helpless, and require the help and assistance of people around us; on the other we feel sad to bother and disturb others to help us. While we may feel hard to swallow even the liquid food, especially when we lose appetite, others may think that we are just staging. Pretence is the last thing that any sick person would resort to, and what can work wonders is a greater dose of understanding and support to the person who is sick.

Sometimes I feel the importance of having a family, friends and relatives, when I am sick; there were times when my companions in the house did not even know that I was sick, even as I did not join the meals or other common community programs. Loneliness has haunted me at such moments, but I realize this is part of our cross. Some communities are lucky to have such a motherly person as ‘minister’, who would go out of his way to take good care of the members under his care. But such persons are only rare and exceptions. More than at other occasions, we need the love and care of community and companions at the time of our sickness, because those are the moments we feel ourselves so very vulnerable and helpless.

I know one thing for sure, that my father would listen to me, and that is the reason why I spoke to him a few words to encourage him to eat and go to bed. Knowingly or unknowingly we also like the little attention of other family members when we are sick. I remember how one of our senior fathers was so very delighted to have a cup of soup every day, during his 20 days of stay at a nursing home, and I would not be surprised that it was the soup and the loving care of sisters and friends which had restored his health so soon. More than medicine, what is required when we are sick, is the loving care of the companions and friends. This alone can do miracles when we are sick and bring us back to health.

By What Name?

Names are sacred, because they are associated with the very identity of a person, so much so the name is equivalent to the person. We no longer hold the theory that the names have something very significant to tell about the nature, characteristics of the person concerned. Some (numerologists) go to the extent of finding the link between the name of a person and his/her qualities, characteristics and even foretell the future of the person. But one thing is true that most of us have no choice of choosing our own names! We are given names.

There are very few in our society, who are privileged to choose their names. Most of our names are given by our parents, relatives, and in some cases even elder siblings. Once a name is given, it is hard to change; even as adults if we wish to change our names to something better sounding and reasonably more intelligible, we have no choices, except to make an affidavit in the court of law about the change. But even then we cannot be sure that all the people whom we know would call us by our new name.

Whatever be the name given by our parents, there is bound to be some reason why they chose these particular names. There are cases when for Catholics, illiterate parents would ask the baptising priest to give a name on the spot, and the priests who had a host of their favorite names, would be only too happy to name the children as he liked. Given a choice to change our names, at least half the humanity may prefer to have a different name. If that is the case with our official names, there is more problem in store with our pet names, how we wish to be called! Because as we grow older, the pet names might become just obsolete and new names have to be invented.

We live in a society, where juniors are not expected to call their seniors by their names; there are folk traditions in many parts of the country, where a wife may not be permitted to utter the name of her husband, and so might refer to him only as the father of her son! That is a taboo. But what about addressing a senior person, at least a few years elder! If the persons are advanced in age, then we might address them as uncle, aunty; or too senior, then grandpa, grandma. The ones from college or English medium school may address as Sir or Madam. But still the problem does not end there.

Sometimes friends who are working in the same firm or office, but one a higher post, and another junior post, how would they address each other? Often the senior post is looked upon as a respectable one, while not the junior one, but among friends, should they follow these formalities? Ultimately the pet names are to come from the heart; those who are in love with each other are able to find creative and meaningful names, and either of them would love to be called by the partner with that name. The name, however stupid it may sound to others, is the sweetest of all names, when there is love and admiration!

Salvaging the Savior

Often in life, we wish to be saviors, redeemers, and don the mantle of patrons, parents and trouble-shooters. We are on the lookout for people, whom we can adopt in a psychological sense, and help them come up to our expectations, and these are the people who are vulnerable in one way or other, and wish to come to terms with their own dreams and aspirations. There is a greater amount of selfishness in any patronage and desire to “help” someone in need; the parent in us pops up at a moment when we find a scope to exercise certain amount of control over the vulnerable, and what a joy it is to have someone who listens to us with ears and heart wide open, and even promises to follow our roadmap to happiness.

When we sincerely seek to help someone who is in dire need of assistance, counsel or a helping hand, subconsciously or unconsciously we are trying to help ourselves, even though we may not accept this fact easily. But how do we test if our spontaneous help to another person in need is genuine or it has a reasonable dosage of selfishness? The criteria is rather simple: if the person we seek to help is someone we do not know, one with whom we do not have longtime association, one who may not remember us after the help is rendered, one who may not even say ‘Thanks’ for the valuable help we provide, one who does not ask for our mobile phone number or address, one who may not even speak kindly to us after receiving help, then we can say with certain amount of certitude that our help had been genuine. Needless to say, if it happens to be otherwise, then there are all the chances that it is our need and not that of the other person.

As an average human being, we all of us are born with same amount of selfishness and self-centeredness, and what makes us different is the tactics we use in order to fulfill our ego. Human mind is capable of devising any amount of ways to “trap” others, especially those who are in some way vulnerable and limited, and most often we may not even be aware of the fact that we are on the prowl looking for a victim. But the tragedy takes place, when the victim begins to seek his/her own selfish needs, and we are caught unawares. We realize the sheer futility of our “sincere and genuine” desire to help others, when the recipients take advantage of our generosity, and ultimately make us suffer in the end.

But does that mean I should not be prepared to reach out to others in need? Of course not; that is not the point. The point is that I need to be conscious of the fact, while I am trying to help someone in need, I am trying to help myself too, and the other person is also going to make use of me (either positively or negatively). The tendency to be saviors and redeemers can go to a higher level, when on realizing that I had been taken for a royal ride by the victim I was trying to help, I begin to console myself saying that it is alright even if I lose, so long the other person is happy! That is the savior-syndrome entering through backdoor, while we let the ‘victim’ has his/her final laughter!

I am surely not against reaching out to others in need; we all of us need to strengthen the bonds of cooperation and collaboration, and it may not be possible for us (human as we are) to completely overcome selfishness, which is mixed with our blood. Even an eternity may not be enough to remove this dosage of self-centeredness from us. So, let us not camouflage ourselves as doing good to others, while in fact we are trying to do good to ourselves. Being conscious of this tendency in us can make us reach out to those who are in real need of our help, and if we are there to give a helping hand without counting the wounds or the cost, not even the psychological satisfaction of doing good, then we can be proud that we have climbed yet another difficult step towards divinity.

Haven of Peace

We are so used to a certain kind of mathematics, that when some one comes with a solution which is quite out of the blue, then all our calculations are disturbed. We live in a world, where the senior citizens find very little place; the married children try to build their own families, and may not want their parents to have a role in it. The in-laws may stand against anything the well-intentioned parents might say, and ultimately in order to let peace prevail, the aged parents may be forced to remain in seclusion, away from their children and their grand children. This is the reality we are used.

But the modern generation has also found a way out of this problem, of handling unmanageable old people. Homes for the aged is an institution today by itself; those men and women who could afford may make arrangements with a Home to keep their parents away. Everything here is taken care of, and there will not be any more nagging or uninvited intrusion into the private and personal matters of the families. Even when the old men and women may not wish to go to homes, situations may force them to seek asylum there.

Think of old men and women who have been thrown out of their own homes, and have no where to go! Think of persons who have no strong social security systems, which may take care of them when they are old! Luckily we have a group of women, in fact they are all religious sisters, who look after the elderly, and care for them specially. The beauty of these sisters is that they do not admit into their homes anyone who has enough money to find a way. Their doors are open only to the senior citizens who are helpless, have no one to care for, and therefore there is no monthly fees.

In today's world, it would cost at least rupees five thousand a month to look after a senior person, including the daily medicine they may have to take. This however may not include payments for a separate person (aaya), to keep a watchful eye of them. But then how do these sisters manage to look after the old? Through begging! Every day some sisters are appointed (often by rotation) to go begging from house to house, in order to feed the elderly. In a world which condescends begging, these women are not shy of begging for the sake of the elderly. And what is more surprising, there are more people who offer monetary support to the sisters to look after the old men and women.

What do the Sisters, who are known as Little Sisters of the Poor, gain in return for their services to the elderly? Nothing. In fact, their services cannot be adequately compensated by any means, because even their own children may not look after the old as well as these committed sisters. Then why should they do this kind of works? It is their charism, to reach out to the helpless poor old men and women; if they don't look after the old, then what would happen to the hundreds of such men and women. Thank God for them, today many of the helpless men and women find shelter and peace of mind in these havens of peace!

Of Human Bondage

In the recent years, I have realized that blood relations need not be the best relations for a person; I don’t know exactly how others would value and esteem blood-relations, but at least in my case they come only secondary to the so-called non-blood relations. It is possible when we are young, we feel the need to depend on our siblings for the fulfillment of our basic necessities, but as we grow in age and dependence, the fabric which keeps us together slowly gives way, and suddenly we may realize that we are not as closely knit with our siblings as we were years before.

Sometimes I feel that the bond of love and understanding that existed between we brothers and sister in the family is no more palpable; there is a feeling that things are falling apart, ever since the other siblings got married, began to set up their own families, manage their own affairs. It is natural that they begin to stand by themselves without depending too much on the other members of the family. But in the process, we could notice something was missing. We all are aware of it, but something is blocking us from really taking a good look at it.

Probably a man, who has not married, will not be able to realize the responsibilities levied on the part of the partners in a marital relationship. There are restrictions for them from all sides, from friends, neighbors, in-laws. If the attention of my brothers is turned towards their wives and children and not to my parents, or least of all to me, they are not to be blamed for it. Sometimes my parents grumble that the sons do not care for them, as they were doing before their marriage, and it may take them some years to realize that they are now on their own, and that has to be respected.

Human relations is an art, and not many people master it; there are some who are able to keep a healthy balance between their private life (together with their wives and children) and their wider family life. I understand the situation of handling human relations vary from place to place and culture to culture. Probably families are closely knit in the rural setup, because there is need for greater dependence on one another there than in a urban setup. Having grown up for some years in a joint family, I realize what we gained and what we lost.

Among several other things, what gives meaning to our human existence is the web of relations we weave day after day; while some links in the web get snapped, others are woven, sometimes even without our being conscious of them. And luckily the web of relations does not depend on the centre, which has given birth to the web. Wider this web, happier are we in life. There may be people who help us widen this net, and some others who wish to destroy this net. Possessiveness and excessive dependence in relationships try to curtail the widening of this web, and attempt to bring the web to a close, which can only sound the death-knell of human relations.