Need more Helping Hands...

Every day we see many things but we observe only few of them. There is a big difference between ‘To See’ and ‘To Observe’. When we see, various things flashes in front of our eyes without any effect; but when we observe, that thing flows from our eyes to our mind by creating thoughts and from mind to our heart by creating feelings. In this post I am going to share such an observation of mine which has touched my heart and I am sure it will touch your hearts too.

                Many times while travelling for office or else where I have seen little beggars nearby university road signal, in Saras bag, at bus stops and many such places in Pune. But when I started observing them I found most of them without cloths or in dusty torn cloths, their bodies like never had bath since many months, hair like never oiled or combed before. They used to stay on footpath. Not sure if they have parents or not. What kind of their life is?

            With those sparking thoughts I opened my cupboard which is full of various colorful fashionable cloths. I have more than enough still I can’t stop myself buying new dresses. I am kind of possessive for my cloths. I always take care that all of them are arranged very neatly by maintaining the color combination. But today I was feeling very different. I started sorting the cloths which I have never used since many months and not interested much. After almost 1 and 1:30 hour of confusion I got 7 dresses, some kurties, Panjabi dresses and t-shirts. I packed all of them and buy some chocolates. I headed to the place, university road signal, where I always see them while begging.     

                I saw 3 girls and 2 boys were sitting nearby the bridge, not sure they were playing something or were having some talk. All of them were seems to be between 2-6 years old. As I went nearby them a girl came to me and started begging. I smiled to her, which was very much unexpected to her. She didn’t smile back to me but gave me a strange look. I asked “What’s your name?” she replied “Rani” while staring at me. I said “That’s a nice name”. Isn’t it great that People living at footpath also want to call their child ‘Rani’J. I handed over the carry bag of those cloths. She took it with great surprise and started checking what it is. As she saw those colorful cloths her face glowed with a big smile. I never have seen such a glow in my eyes while trying the branded dresses in show-rooms. I gave her some Dairy milk Cadburys as well. She just jumped with great happiness like she has never seen such a big chocolate before. She opened up that chocolate; I was expecting her to start eating it immediately. But she turned back and ran towards her gang and shared it among them. I was looking to them with amazement. I couldn’t stop the little tears along with a big curved smile on my face. I never felt that satisfaction while buying gifts for my younger siblings. I am unable to express that feeling.

While returning back I memorized another incident of my life. 3-4 years back I had a very different experience. That evening, I was in Saras bag, Pune, waiting for my college friends as we decided to meet that day. I was sitting on a bench alone. Suddenly a boy, almost of 5 years, started begging. I gave him a coin of 2 Rs. He went but within 5 minutes he came back along with 6-7 other beggars like him. All of them gathered around me and started asking for more money. I scared a lot, with no idea what to do, how to respond them. They started to be rude. For my good luck, Shital and Pallavi, my college friends, came there and helped me to get rid of them. That time we scold them a lot. But now I think what was their fault, what they are doing in with their life? Those were hardly of 5 years old children, very much unaware about life. They are what they learnt from their situation or parents.

 And those thoughts started carving my head. What I did today, is it enough for them? That gang of beggars was just a face of a

big crowd of people like them. This is absolutely not enough. These people don’t know anything rather than begging. Despite having all physical and mental capabilities, they are beggars. I won’t blame those little children or their parents. It is all their situation or mentality. All need to do is to make them aware about their self-esteem, their capabilities. I am not sure what can be done, but I feel deep inside me that I have to help them. Dear friends, I need your helping hands, your suggestions about what can we do. It is not like we want to do something different for which we need lot of money or facilities; all we need is generous love within our heart along with some courage. I have such inspirational examples in front of me. I had a colleague in SQS (where I work), Vishal Pawar, he is mentoring an orphan child; he looks after all his needs, his education through ‘Mentor Together’ trust, despite having his own children. There is another example of two young starts, Ajay and Vinay, my classmates of engineering. These guys also gather donations for orphan institutes. These people are not someone special or with special earnings, they are one of us. Only difference is they have a generous feeling of love within them and they dare to work for it along with their other duties. They are giving a value, a meaning to someone’s life. These guys are doing a great job, an inspiration for me. Hats of you.

I want you try this once, you will feel great. If you start searching your cupboard with a wish to help someone, you will definitely find at least one spare dress and once you find that you will definitely find those hands as well who need it the most.

My Wish-List

          ‘Dream’…The most pleasurable part of everyone’s life. Each of us has different dreams, wishes and we strive to complete them. I do also have dreams and here I am enlisting the topmost entries of my wish list:

                         The first entry is my sweet, simple and beautiful Home. I wish to have a lovely home in Kokan. I always wanted to live in Kokan. My grandmother was from the Kokan and she always used to tell me fantastic stories about her Kokan. I have a beautiful picture of it in front of my eyes, which takes me closer to the nature. So, I want a home in Kokan, which should not be very large, but good enough, surrounded by many trees and flowers, where I will have my own garden… Bloomed with different types of colorful, vibrant flowers. There I will have a ‘Tulsi-Vrindavan’ and sufficient plane surface of ground where I would draw attractive ‘Rangolis’. With those various colors of Rangoli I want to compete with stunning colors of God made flowers. Frankly speaking, both of them are unbeatable. It is very difficult to choose one of them. I wish to have a home where I will wake up with the first ray of Sun and will sleep while looking at sparkling starts in the sky, where a cold breeze will comb my hair and charming birds will sing along with me. I can see the same home with my closed eyes, where I am serving a cup of hot tea to my husband who is reading newspaper while seating on a wooden swing in the porch. I can see the white hair on his head too ;) Isn’t it amazing to have such a retirement life?

            Second entry of my wish list is ‘My Library’. Yes, I wish to have a Library room at my home. Where I will have a big shelf for all my books and I will arrange them properly. In my current flat I have very little place for my books. Most of them are put inside the bed store. I always want to see all of them at one glance. They always have been my best friends, they drives me crazy. I want to date all of them at same time.

                          And the third one is to be a Yoga-teacher. I believe ‘A sound mind lies in a sound body’.  As we need to have food to be alive, our body and mind needs exercise to stay fit and healthy. We must have minimum half hour daily for exercise. Yoga is my passion; I want to make people aware how amazing it is. If somebody offers me to choose between being a ‘Software Engineer’ or a ‘Yoda Teacher’ I will surely choose to be a Yoga teacher without any second thought.

      Authors Note: Dear Friends, it would be great if you would also share something about your dreams to at this platform. 

Be the change you want see in your Family…

            This post is regarding a mental battle which almost every married girl in India faces at her in-law’s side. This harsh period of my life taught me a lot about human nature and made me more patient. Sometime all we need to do is to be calmer and still to resolve the conflicts, when things seem to be cluttered. Here I don't want to escalate or highlight anything, I have a pure intention to make others realize that we can handle situations in better way by changing our perspective.

That day, I woke up at 5 AM due to the annoying tick-tick of alarm, but was feeling very sleepy, unable to open the eyes. I thought I need more sleep and started giving excuses to myself… ‘Only 10 minute more and will get up soon. I can manage this much’. But another mind was warning me ‘No, you can’t sleep more now, you will be late today’. And finally I decided to have 10 minutes nap. Next when I woke up it was more than 10 minutes. Oh my God, it’s 5:45. I ran out of the bed with lot of work in my head. I was trying to pacify, it’s alright, you’ll manage, just speed up more. As I went to kitchen a rude voice woke up me hard. “Have you seen the watch? It’s too late. Can’t you set up the alarm before going to sleep?” Ohhh! I just didn’t want to listen it. My mother-in-law was telling me that I am very carelessL.  I was feeling very bad, why she doesn’t understand being a woman that I am tired, along with household work I need to work whole day in office, 4 hours of travelling and take care of my 9 months old daughter even all through the nights. My hands were running and my mind too. I was very angry and missing my mother a lot. But I didn’t have any option. I was working alone in the kitchen, trying to finish all the work and getting ready to catch the office bus. I was very late; about to miss the bus, I hurried. While seating in the bus I just tried to relax. But those harsh words were hammering my head. I puzzled, why I am running since morning every day, why I cannot have some quality time for myself, for my daughter. No one cares if I can’t get a sleep, if I can’t have time for breakfast. No one notices every day I wake up at 5-5:30 in mornings and go on working whole day. Everything at home was suddenly changed, I was feeling like not to go home. I cannot bear this more. I need a change. 

But how can I change this? I had a talk with a close friend regarding this and got a suggestion that I need to separate from family. I thought this is absolutely right. I can manage the whole work, and if sometimes not, at least no one will scold me. It’s really great to be alone. No responsibilities... No tensions. But is it a good idea to separate a son (my husband) from his mother, when the parents are getting old and they need their son the most. How can I separate my daughter from her grandparents, which is the luckiest part of anybody’s childhood. Only because I cannot manage the work and cannot bear the harsh words. I don’t have this option. So what would be the next option? It took two hands to clap. I need to find out where I am wrong. I was expecting others to help me little bit or compliment me. I wanted them to realize my efforts without conveying to them. I should have to understand that my Sasuma is getting old and whole day she takes care of my daughter. Children are very tiring. She must be feeling exhausted. If I want her to treat me like daughter, I must treat her like mother. I need to be the change which I want to see in my family. I need to be more lovable and patient. Usually whenever she gets angry I used to be quiet, preferred to ignore. But it was not the solution always. I understand I have to convey my problems. I discussed with my husband but it was useless.

                And once again same thing happened with me. Again I was late, again my Sasuma was ready to scold me, but this time I was not ready to listen again. As usual she started. But as soon as she finished up I said “Sorry Aai…” It was unexpected to her. I continued “I had set the alarm, but I was feeling very tired. Yesterday I had a very hectic day at office, then 4 hours of traveling, and Krishnali (my daughter) was playing till 12:30 PM. I hardly had 5 hrs of sleep”. I was speaking very calmly without being rude. She didn’t reply anything. But for my surprise she stared helping me in the kitchen. I was stunned. It worked. Yes it worked. I was happy. I started to have a good chat with her to change the mood. And from that day I don’t work alone in the kitchen J.

                We work at offices as our husbands do, still need to do all household work. One day I asked my husband if he would do his own work like to have a glass of milk for himself and pack up his own tifin it will save some time of me in the morning. I was not asking him to cook or to clean the house or to wash the clothes and not even to pack tiffin for me which I do every day. Still my mother-in-law felt bad that I don’t care for her son. But I clarified I would definitely do this for you when I am having time, but don’t expect every day. You should manage this. Any mother-in-law cannot see her son working in the kitchen though his wife is a working woman. Changes won’t happen suddenly.  

I started to be clear, to convey the things, to care more and started to feel good about all work. It was really magical. Previously while cooking I was thinking like I need to finish this work soon. But now I cook with more interest. I try new recipes and get very good complements from my family. On the day of fast I prepare milkshakes or something special for my Sasuma and she also pack up tiffin for me sometimes when I am getting late. They are happy and it’s building a new bonding among us. There are many such incidents where I just needed to change my perspective. In any argument we have to be calm, need to understand and most important is to speak with right person in a healthy way. I used to be very shy and sensitive type of girl, with an assumption that we must always respect our elders and should never speak against them. But I needed to change it slightly. We should respect our elders but also need to speak out about our thoughts and problems without being rude whenever required. Now I work with zero expectations and I feel very good when someone helps me or admires for the work.