monday reloaded

monday returns! what will this mondays' email be about? even i wonder about that every monday morning! it's fun, this weekly 1monday morning mystery! so what will this monday's theme be? not sure! how about some continuity for a change, a little longer walk on a cool summer morning with last week's theme? this heady "not-sure" journey called life.

"sure, i am 'o-negative'," or thats the way the relationship between that warm punjabi blood that courses through my veins and myself has always been. till i went to give blood last month during the blood donation drive the students had organized. "o-negative? no, you're o-positive, i've checked your blood sample twice!" and with this simple pronouncement the smiling nurse with that glint in her eyes forever altered both my past and my future. life hasn't quite been the same ever since. so many questions, so many possibilities! are our blood groups unsure too?! are they like the stock market, varying according to our moods? or could it be all these "spiritual" books i've been reading. maybe they're even more powerful than i suspected ("o-negative, be positive!")

last week's theme of "not sure" sure touched a chord! i think a probable reason is that we're truly living in unprecedented times where everything seems to be happening in "real" time and nothing is certain. religion, politics, psychology, science, financial markets, photography, literature, sports, entertainment, jobs, family ties, personal lives - one by one, all certainties seem to be betraying us, and the pace of the betrayal is indeed heady. maybe the world has truly become one "reality tv" show- and they're watching us breathlessly on another planet, transfixed, utterly absorbed!

it's an eternal truth of course, this "not sure" and the more you explore it, the deeper its implications run. the uncertainty of the world and its phenomenon is the easy part. how about the uncertainty of ourselves, this personality that we cling so passionately to? how much does it take to acknowledge how insubstantial the basis on which we have staked our all is - our body, our thoughts, our feelings - they're in a state of constant flux, never stable, and certainly not following our bidding! (ask my hair!). acknowledge this instability, let go of the stubborn clinging to our personality and its opinions ("this is how i am, and that's that!"), and a completely different life emerges :-)

there is a lovely passage in the book "stillness speaks" by eckhart tolle. a beautiful illustration of the power of "not sure". he takes three ordinary commonplace thoughts that probably have occurred to all of us:

"What a miserable day."

"He didn't have the decency to return my call."

"She let me down."

what if we stripped apart the facts from the opinions and let them "not sure" judgements go?

"It is raining."

"He did not call."

"I was there, she was not."

wow, what a different day it would be! "liberation," says nisargatdatta maharaj, "is not of the self, it is from the self." you're the man, maharaj!

liberate yourself from any expectations and you get a great return trip too. so we found ourselves once again on the kerala express last week, this time heading in the opposite direction - back to ettimadai. and found our time and hearts filled with the stories, the hugs, and the antics of niranjani and her tam-bram family. niranjani (all of eight years old), cousins, respective parents, and grandfather were just coming back from a two week "summer vacation" discovery of northern india - agra, delhi, jaipur, chandigarh, kulu-manali, and rohtang pass - all in less than two weeks! and yes, ghaziabad too! sun, snow, mountain, desert, monument, mall - they'd drunk it all in, and in less than two weeks. now thats a holiday! and all thanks to "panicker travels" who had, sitting in kerala, organized and delivered everything to the last "t" - tourist home, taxi, thaali :-) mr panicker, you're the man too. how happy you made one family :-)

jumping in and out of our berth the two days of our shared journey, niranjani and her two hair locks made a "quick" entry to our heart. scampering about, quick to laugh, quick to cry, quick to share ("my parents moved to coimbatore in 2000, but without baby. i was born two years later!") quick to observe ("you have a hair sticking out of your nose!"), quick to make friends, quick to fight, and quick to give that hug and kiss too, niranjani was life in its glory - warm, unpredictable, and very lovable :-)

niranjani's observation powers also bring us finally to this weeks poem - yet another ode to the few certainties that do remain in life :-)

Be Glad Your Nose is on Your Face

Be glad your nose is on your face,

not pasted on some other place,

for if it were where it is not,

you might dislike your nose a lot.

Imagine if your precious nose

were sandwiched in between your toes,

that clearly would not be a treat,

for you'd be forced to smell your feet.

Your nose would be a source of dread

were it attached atop your head,

it soon would drive you to despair,

forever tickled by your hair.

Within your ear, your nose would be

an absolute catastrophe,

for when you were obliged to sneeze,

your brain would rattle from the breeze.

Your nose, instead, through thick and thin,

remains between your eyes and chin,

not pasted on some other place--

be glad your nose is on your face!

- Jack Prelutsky

on that certain note, and trying not to be too nosy about the week that lies ahead, heres to yet another week in life. may we live every moment!

much love,

d&s