The waves lapped gently at my feet and I saw crabs scuttling away from the vicinity as I stood early morning at the beach, marveling at the different sounds of silence. The visitors were few at that time. Though the sea was rough, I felt an underlying calm that somehow resonated with what I was feeling.
A woman approached me and giving me a hesitant smile, invited me to visit her shop at a shack a few furlongs away. For want of anything better to do, I started chatting with her. She seemed to be only too willing to share her woes with me. She was widowed eleven years ago, and lost five of her seven children to the sea. She was now taking care of two of her grandchildren, along with her daughter-in-law, and struggling to make a living. She did not know how to sell fish, she said, and all she could do was to sell souvenirs to the foreigners who came to the resort. But there too, she felt at a disadvantage, as she was not a very good salesperson! After sharing her life sketch, she declared that there was no God: he went out with the tsunami! But in spite of all this hardships, she had a smile on her face. No, she said, she never thought of moving to the city; city life has no values, according to her. Here, in spite of the hardships, people could be trusted, they were human and dependable. The bonding was something that made up for all the hardships. In a city, you only had to look away for a minute, and your baggage would be taken away under your very nose! The girls in the city too were very fast, she opioned. That is why boys prefer girls from a village as their bride… They may not be very smart or even even well-educated – but they were sound in their values. Her basics were very clear!!!
After eliciting a promise from me to visit her shop, she walked away, leaving me musing on her simple views on life. Here we were, all running a race for I don’t know what, working 24x7, chasing dreams that we had no real faith in, but went along because we lived more of a fictional life than an authentic one. Now and then, we find our authentic self calling, like it happened to me, and that is when we head for the seas and the sands, to the mountains and the hills, in the hope of a reconnection with our true selves. I am not very sure it happens, but it does provide a much needed brake in the race. It did to me; I realized how much I had lost myself in the daily chores of life, and the reconnections did wonders to my spirits. In some way, this woman made me talk to myself, to that part of her in me, who still believed that there are joys in relationships, in connecting with people, and restore faith in the fact that in spite of a lot of misfortunes, we can continue to find joy, and count our blessings.
She did wonder though, what made her talk and open up with me so comfortably, share so much of her life when I had hardly known her for five minutes: I did not tell her that though I may have been wearing the invisible halo of a counselor that I was, I had been counseled by her for a change! At a time when I was skeptical about human relationships, her strong faith in humanity more than in divinity, gave me a much-needed anchor. I hope I keep my promise though, and visit her shop tomorrow morning before I head back for the humdrum city life. If I do, that will be one more person who would prove her belief in humanity right! And just for that sake, I will visit her shop: I will keep my promise: both to her, and to myself….
Mohana Narayanan
Sunday, October 18, 2009
THE HEALING BREAK
The stress and strain and the daily drudgery were wearing me down. I realized that somewhere, I had lost myself, and the ability to think rationally. I recognized I was ready for an overhauling!
On the eve of diwali, the festival that ushers in all that is new and auspicious, I decided to head out of the city to a quiet resort. I know there were questions in my friends’ minds; on diwali day, you would not be at home? Don’t you have to greet your friends and relatives, do the usual things that are normally done on a diwali day, so that you fall in with the age old customs and systems?
But I was in a state of mind that entertained no such questions. I was no longer available for receiving advice from anybody. I was ready to ‘do the new’! I was tired, both in body and mind and wanted a break.
I checked in at the resort, about an hour’s drive from the city I lived, and was just in time to catch the sunset. Even as I checked in at the counter, I could feel my nerves untangling… the sweet smell of the jasmine garland that I was welcomed with was heady to my olfactory senses, and the small roll of wet tissue offered by a smiling receptionist cleansed more than just the grime collected on the drive. I was tuned in to the atmosphere, even before I walked to the beach.
The twilight was serene. The beach was deserted and I did what I had wanted to do for a very long time in my life; sit under a coconut palm very close to the water and stare through the leaves at the stars while the waves played music for me. It was therapeutic; and I realized how much I had missed just living. I had let matters that did not really matter that much, take on gigantic proportions in my life, and had missed out on such beautiful moments that were simply in tune with nature.
It is so very easy to lose our perspectives when we are into an issue, so much so that we even are unable to find our normal insight into affairs of the world. We get caught up in matters of consequence, and we are no longer able to sift the chaff from the grain.
Can we all treat ourselves to such bountiful, available therapy time and again? For I believe there is no better doctor, therapist or counselor than nature. She is there available for each one of us, for when in tune with her, the doctor, the healer or the therapist that is there in each one of us awakens and comes alive. Life is no longer a burden. The expense of the resort does not matter anymore; it is what you get in return that more than makes up for the expensive service or the money you dish out.
I am at peace today. At peace and relaxed and completely unwound. I hope to carry this over the next couple of days too, and when I do drive back, I hope I am carrying this extra luggage! This gift of serenity that I have borrowed from nature, till such time that the cloud of daily living coats it with its dust, is one luggage I won’t mind paying extra for!
Mohana Narayanan
On the eve of diwali, the festival that ushers in all that is new and auspicious, I decided to head out of the city to a quiet resort. I know there were questions in my friends’ minds; on diwali day, you would not be at home? Don’t you have to greet your friends and relatives, do the usual things that are normally done on a diwali day, so that you fall in with the age old customs and systems?
But I was in a state of mind that entertained no such questions. I was no longer available for receiving advice from anybody. I was ready to ‘do the new’! I was tired, both in body and mind and wanted a break.
I checked in at the resort, about an hour’s drive from the city I lived, and was just in time to catch the sunset. Even as I checked in at the counter, I could feel my nerves untangling… the sweet smell of the jasmine garland that I was welcomed with was heady to my olfactory senses, and the small roll of wet tissue offered by a smiling receptionist cleansed more than just the grime collected on the drive. I was tuned in to the atmosphere, even before I walked to the beach.
The twilight was serene. The beach was deserted and I did what I had wanted to do for a very long time in my life; sit under a coconut palm very close to the water and stare through the leaves at the stars while the waves played music for me. It was therapeutic; and I realized how much I had missed just living. I had let matters that did not really matter that much, take on gigantic proportions in my life, and had missed out on such beautiful moments that were simply in tune with nature.
It is so very easy to lose our perspectives when we are into an issue, so much so that we even are unable to find our normal insight into affairs of the world. We get caught up in matters of consequence, and we are no longer able to sift the chaff from the grain.
Can we all treat ourselves to such bountiful, available therapy time and again? For I believe there is no better doctor, therapist or counselor than nature. She is there available for each one of us, for when in tune with her, the doctor, the healer or the therapist that is there in each one of us awakens and comes alive. Life is no longer a burden. The expense of the resort does not matter anymore; it is what you get in return that more than makes up for the expensive service or the money you dish out.
I am at peace today. At peace and relaxed and completely unwound. I hope to carry this over the next couple of days too, and when I do drive back, I hope I am carrying this extra luggage! This gift of serenity that I have borrowed from nature, till such time that the cloud of daily living coats it with its dust, is one luggage I won’t mind paying extra for!
Mohana Narayanan
Thursday, October 08, 2009
The real dream
The hissing sound of the pressure cooker and the smell of cooked rice woke me up, and I jumped out of bed. I had overslept, and would be inexcusably late to work. I had to finish cooking, packing lunch for all, and leave instructions for the maid.
Added to it, I had oiled my hair the previous night and had to have a hair wash unless I wanted to go to office looking like a plucked hen. These thoughts ran in my mind at breakneck speed, along with the thought that some fairy godmother had taken charge of the kitchen… that is where I was getting the smell of food from. Could it be true? Or was it a holiday - was I allowed the luxury of wallowing in sleep for a while without running to catch the bus - was it a lazy Sunday morning?
The boundary between dream and reality was very thin. I heard the shrill ringing of the clock over the sound of the pressure cooker, over the olfactory sensations of food and over my racing thoughts… in my half-awake state. I had been dreaming… dreaming that things were being taken care of while I was running behind schedule. The first rude awakening was that I was not: I was not allowed to run late, by the grace of the alarm clock which promptly put me on auto-pilot. I could look forward to oversleeping, perhaps on the day the alarm clock fails to wake me up. But till then, fairy godmother remains a dream!
How many women of today, who are juggling their home and career, go through these thoughts day in and day out, balancing between running a home to perfection, yet managing to line the family kitty? When a woman goes to work, there are no excuses in her mind as far as the home front is concerned. And, of course, because of the glass ceiling effect, there is no excuse at work either, where she has to prove twice over, her capabilities.
When I went back to work after 12 long years of being a home-maker, I was very apprehensive: not because I had doubts about my ability to deliver; but about how the home front would cope. My daughter had been used to seeing me at home whenever she would come home from school: her day diary would run non-stop while she changed and had her snacks and milk. To whom would she chatter to when she came home?
I need not have worried; she may have missed me, but she coped. So did my husband, and my father-in-law. But then, I realised, their life had not undergone a metamorphosis: they still had their meals on time: my father-in-law still had his routine unhampered. The only one whose life had undergone a change was mine. I was the one who was juggling home and career, like I was juggling dreams and reality: the demarcation seemed to be fading…
When circumstances necessitated me to take up a job, little did I realise what I was letting myself in for: not that I had any choice. But the dust on the centre table,or the uncleaned bathroom or the bundle of clothes from the cleaners waiting to be put away, never seemed to bother anybody else but me when I came home from work. But by then I was so tired, it somehow did not seem to matter anymore. I somehow could not muster up enough energy to see if my plants had been watered, or they had been kept out in the sun.
When a woman goes out to work in the world, somehow her whole perception seems to undergo a change. I met people who are forced to work, and each one had a story to tell: stories about unattended children, people working because they needed the salary to pay their loan the next month, or people who have to escape from the confines of home.
Whatever the reason, when I woke up the next morning, I realised: whether a dream or reality, going out to work has to be out of choice: otherwise each step one takes seems one of lead.
So today, I have made a conscious choice not to let the dust on the furniture bother me, or the drying plants catch my attention. Today, I have decided to change track and join the rat-race: for if I do not, I will be constantly living a life of dreams, where one wakes up to the smell of cooked food, of timely help at home, and when I do wake up I will find stark reality staring at me in the face: when the alarm clock runs dead and I am behind schedule…
Ruminations from the kitchen window
At sharp 8.30 the crow caws away at my kitchen window, demanding his morning meal. In the midst of rushing between lunchboxes, breakfast, getting my daughter ready, I manage to keep something for him at the sill.
Of late, I had noticed that if I keep a slice of bread he glares at me and flies away to the nearby coconut tree and watches me from there. I feel uncomfortable, like the feeling you get when you are in a marketplace and you feel someone is staring at you, but you don’t know who.
On some days, the flurry of activity is too much for me to even pause to think; on the days I do, I change the menu for the crow, give a piece of roti, or idli or dosa. Anything is okay: but the slice of bread brings out the animosity in him!
On days I don’t give anything else, after about an hour or so he comes and flies away with the piece but letting me know in no uncertain terms he is doing it only as a favour to me and not because he wants it. Ah, yeah, I forgot, toasted bread is a definite ‘no no’.
Recently, I left a slice of bread, as usual broken in two to facilitate him to carry it away.
He came, saw and flew away to the coconut tree, leaving the bread behind. I took out idlis to serve my husband, and feeling guilty, as if we were having a good meal and leaving left overs to the crow, I left an idli on the sill. Before I could turn away, he was at the window, giving me an approving look after tasting the idli.
He then flew away to the coconut tree, his dining table, and holding the idli with his claws started cawing away. I was wondering what was wrong now: maybe the salt was not enough? Or it was too hard? I stood there watching. He took a couple of pecks, left the idli there and flew away. I understood then: he was calling out for his companion, who failed to turn up so he had gone looking for him/her.
Meanwhile, the squirrel that lives on that tree came out for a quick nibble of the idli. The crow swooped down and the squirrel darted back to its nest, peering out from between the palms, waiting and watching...He probably does not mind leftovers...
The crow made another trip around, but came back alone. The bread was still on the sill and he came and took one half of it away, and left it on the terrace of the next building, all along keeping a watch on his idli, and watching out for his friend. Maybe his friend preferred the bread, and would perhaps come?
More pressing matters of the day warranted my attention and I came away. After a while when I went to the kitchen I happened to glance out - the piece of idli had disappeared: and the bread on the terrace and the windowsill remained there - who had taken the idli? Did the crow finally eat it, not able to resist his hunger, temptation, giving in to his baser instincts instead of his more social leanings?
Or did the squirrel win, proving the maxim ‘survival of the strongest’ wrong, but instead that perseverance and cunningness win?
I would never really know; but I do know one thing. Man would chase away his own kind, if he were to be threatened by want, and hoard all that he wants for himself, even hoarding what he does not need.
The crow only chased away another of the species, saving up the possession for one of his own kind. Maybe there is more altruism left in the crow than in man. Otherwise, how would one explain the rioting and waylaying of relief measures for the tragedy-stricken by a few strong men, who want more than their share???
Denial: a step to discipline
When we see children who misbehave, our ire is directed at them, and there are times when we feel like spanking them! Well, we need to pause and think; children owe their behaviour to their elders. We have two sets of them: one, who have a sense of bursting pride on their faces, when their children act smart alec: they need a basic course on parenting! and another who do not know how to handle a situation when their children misbehave or show-off in public. Though I don’t claim to follow Bill Cosby on parenting, I can definitely guarantee that a lot depends on the value a parent places on discipline in their children.
We need to catch them young. I have seen children who throw tantrums in restaurants insisting on having a particular dish, (or not having one and indulging in waste) or rolling on the ground insisting their parents give in to their demands which they do out of sheer embarrassment. This only reinforces the behaviour. It becomes a convenient tool in the child’s hands and as he or she grows up, we find that they expect the sun to rise and set for them, and them alone!
There is nothing that cannot be taught to them when young, or in other words, any issue that is of worth and value needs to be talked about with them and the pros and cons of the issue explained to them. I am sure they would understand, for example , if one explains tight finances in the family and how if they cut down some of their demands, they would be contributing to the family resources. I know of a child, whose father is out of a job, and though they are not hard up, they are careful about spending money. And never have I seen the child once demanding week-end treats or insisting on buying anything in particular. This is the result of a frank discussion the parents had with the child, who is just around 10 years of age. The fact that the child is being denied certain wishes does cross the parents’ minds, but they also realized that the child has to understand how to handle a crisis. I am sure, when she grows up, she would have known what want is: and that is not something what most children would do so of today’s generation. There are ‘well-wishers’ who advice the parents against this, saying they should not deny the child anything etc., but fortunately for sensible parenting, these parents are too wise to take heed. They know that denial is something everyone has to face in life: and if one learns how to do so as a child, life would be so much easier for her when she grows up. Today, life is made so simple and easy for this generation, everything is available before they even ask for it: I am sure they have never asked for the moon as yet, for parents today are so placating, we might one day find it is no longer in the sky!
So, let us understand that denying a child what he or she wants is only a step towards letting him or her know how to handle life better: and who would not want this for their child?
My daughter's mother
I read an article in the media, about how today’s generation is so very technology savvy that the parents might end up having an inferiority complex! Well, to a certain extent, it might be true. I speak from a first-hand experience. I have a teenage daughter who is a whiz at the computers and also other gizmos which I keep getting fascinated at… A music player, for example, which can store all my favourite songs, running to hundreds of them. I am amazed at the way my telephone can sing different tunes personifying the caller. I am struck with wonder at the way my mobile which suddenly acts funny, listens to one single command of my daughter, when I go running to her helplessly, like a toddler running to his or her mother, with his or her nappy strings untied!
Then of course, when she gets together with the younger generation, I am an antique piece and they have good fun at my expense – at my supposed ignorance of the function keys on the computer, the old model of my mobile and so on. I play along, and even pretend to act dumb at times, and I enjoy the sheer exuberance on their faces when I ‘apparently’ fall prey to their jokes directed at me and my ignorance…
So, contrary to what one might think, not all parents feel they are behind times and have an ego problem, when they are confronted with technology they cannot handle. I have come across more adults however, who feel they have no need to ask for help since they are so very confident of the knowledge they possess, and the rightness of it. Take the instance of this person who would rather go round and round in circles in an unknown area, rather than ask for directions! Or, for that matter the novice who is learning cooking, who insists on doing things on his own, rather than ask for short-cuts or tips his wife is willing to offer. He would jump in with ‘yeah I know’ and ‘I was about to do exactly what you saying’ comments that tend to infuriate the willing adviser, who decides to step back and watch the fun! The sheepish look on their faces after being faced with a dismal result (low on fuel, and a mess on the dinner table and the kitchen counter) is no comfort to those who were willing to help.
What prevents these people from accepting help? Is it a wrong notion of displaying helplessness, or is it that their ego is hurt when they have to ask for help? This gentleman who is learning cooking would rather pore over cookery books, than ask his wife for a tip! Any knowledge is difficult till it is mastered; any art is something to be looked up at till one tries one’s hand at it. With guidance, the level of confidence is maintained, and sometimes, it helps in faster learning. I’d rather my daughter teaches me how to operate the system rather than seeking from the ‘Help’ column. It does not offend my sense of prestige and does not increase my sense of being ignorant in any way.
I have also seen, that the older one gets the more difficult it is for them to even ask for help, let alone accept the proferred hand! This octogenarian that I know, would rather stumble, trip and fall, than been seen using a walking stick. When on an outing, his well-meaning daughter asked him to use the walking stick and he started on a loud conversation with her, demanding to know why was it that he always had to listen to everybody else!
She got so fed-up with Mr. Know-it-all (that is the name she had given him, he would never accept either information or advise from anybody) that she promised him she would never travel with him again! He was fine with it, rather than use the stick…
Unfortunately, not many of us think that learning from others or accepting help is in no way a reflection of the level of intelligence one has; on the other hand, it speaks of a high level of emotional intelligence, if one is able to learn from others either younger or older or one’s equal and do so with grace and equanimity. So, coming to the beginning of this article, I think basically it does not matter whom you learn from - it is your willingness to expand your knowledge, and understand the spirit in which knowledge is offered. Age or generation has nothing to do with it.
Marriage: why is it not a joint venture?
The bride was ready by 4.30 a.m. we reached the marriage hall by 5.30 as the boy’s party was to reach before 6.00. As soon as they walked in, the father of the boy wanted to know when we would give them coffee. I told them it was on the way. As it had rained heavily the previous night, there was water logging and the cook was delayed. “We have not had coffee since morning” he grumbled as he walked off. The boy wanted to know if the hall has been rented since 5.30, why the AC had not been switched on.
The boy’s aunt wanted to know why the rice balls for the ceremony were not prepared earlier; apparently, they would keep them ready the previous night! Their pundit insisted on the girl’s mother washing the boy’s feet and wiping it only with a silk cloth!
The father of the boy wanted to have the sweets and savouries reached to his room; it was not enough that they were displayed on the stage. He wanted to know whether the pappad would be served after he finished eating….The women in their side would have to be provided flowers to bedeck their hair.
Do you have a safety pin – My daughter needs them…
Could we have some plastic bags to carry our clothes in?
Could you give us some hair pins? The women need them to put flowers on their hair…
I was amazed at how creative and demanding a boy’s family at a marriage turns out to be!! Mind you, this was an intercaste marriage and though the boy did not want to go about it the traditional way, the girl’s family had insisted on meeting the boy’s family and at least attempt sorting out the issues amicably. They succeeded in getting the boy’s family to agree to the alliance. But then after this, every step of the way, they did not let the girl’s family forget the fact that they were ‘one up’ on the girl’s family.
How do we expect the next generation to believe in the equality of the sexes, sharing of running household, respecting the girl child etc., when we have people who insist on hanging on to age-old beliefs of the boy’s family being the one to be looked after in a marriage, they are more important, and are the VIPs in the function? Why it is that marriage is solely the ‘responsibility’ of the girl’s family? Isn’t their also son getting married? Is it not a life event for their son too? The girl’s family is supposed to supply them with even the sweets and savories which they can distribute to their families! Till the last minute they kept changing the number of people who would be present at the reception and at the lunch, resulting in anxious moments for the girl’s parents.
Of course there are families where the boy and his family insist on sharing the responsibility and even the expenses of a wedding, but I think this is more an exception than the rule. I know of a gentleman, who insisted on footing the bill for the dinner at the wedding of his son. His explanation was simple: your daughter is getting married, so you are spending. But my son is also getting married! You cannot deny me the pleasure of spending at my own son’s wedding! That is class and culture for you. Not because he agreed to spend; but because he believed that marriage is a union of two families where one is not servile to the other. May his tribe increase !!!
Monday, October 05, 2009
Driving class Vs Real life situation........
I had undertaken driving classes last week. The instructor did not know the languages I knew or understood, and I barely managed to make sense of his directions. In spite of that, I learnt driving. I also learnt much more, something that I had not bargained, nor paid for.
Like I told the instructor, along with the driving lessons, I was also learning another language: free of cost! He found my logic very amusing, and wanted to know how come I was not upset that he was not fluent in languages other than his mother tongue. Well, I did not have a choice. I had to learn driving: he was equipped to teach me. I could not afford to complain. To his credit, he knew certain basic words in English, and the rest, I could decipher.
What I learnt was much more than just learning to drive. I learnt how much control it gave you to be behind the steering, but I also admired the fact that he was willing to trust a novice with his life (The vehicle did not have supplementary controls). This confidence that he had in my ability to steer the vehicle without ramming into anything or anybody, obviously made me more cautious and alert.
I also learnt the fine art of balancing the clutch and the brake, for movement control of the vehicle while starting. His instructions of ‘half-clutch, brake, one point accelerator’ keep ringing in my ears even now! How simple it sounds; yet how difficult it is to achieve that one-point control! It taught me how to balance feelings and thoughts in my mind. It made me reflect as to how important it is to think before we feel, to avoid jerks, to tide over speed-breakers and to make sure the people we are travelling with in our journey do not feel the pressure of riding with us.
I guess we need to reflect that in our relationships. When to press the issue, when to let go, how much to pursue something, and when to draw the line… It is after all, about balancing. When I remove my feet from the clutch too fast, the vehicle stalls. If I remove it gradually, but then simultaneously accelerate, the vehicle moves forward smoothly.
He took me into lanes I would not have dreamt of going, if I was driving on my own! I would have parked the vehicle and walked it. But no, he insisted on putting me through a sheer torture of maneuvering through narrow lanes, in between huge contraptions of heavy vehicles, all the while urging me to be careful, to pay attention to the aspect of judgment and speed. Like how we form relationships, which are turbulent, and sometimes give them up halfway just because we do not have a person by our side guiding us through the stormy days, or simply do not have the mental or the emotional strength to see it through successfully..
Life is full of ups and downs. Climbing uphill requires much more dexterity than going down an incline. The former requires us to apply pressure on the accelerator; the latter, perfect control over the vehicle so that we do not lose control of the vehicle.
Isn’t that true of life too? When things seem to be going smooth, we tend to lapse in our efforts to be in control of a situation, and when the going gets tough, the strain we put ourselves through, trying to sail through taxes us and wrings us out emotionally.
How much simpler would life be, if we had an instructor with us all the time, with supplementary controls, telling us what to do! But we need to learn some lessons on our own… and the analogy of going for driving classes helped me to identify my own instructor : My thinking, rational self, who is more often than not lost in the crowd of unhealthy, irrational thoughts, which serve no useful purpose than being speed-breakers.
Mohana Narayanan
September 26,2009
Like I told the instructor, along with the driving lessons, I was also learning another language: free of cost! He found my logic very amusing, and wanted to know how come I was not upset that he was not fluent in languages other than his mother tongue. Well, I did not have a choice. I had to learn driving: he was equipped to teach me. I could not afford to complain. To his credit, he knew certain basic words in English, and the rest, I could decipher.
What I learnt was much more than just learning to drive. I learnt how much control it gave you to be behind the steering, but I also admired the fact that he was willing to trust a novice with his life (The vehicle did not have supplementary controls). This confidence that he had in my ability to steer the vehicle without ramming into anything or anybody, obviously made me more cautious and alert.
I also learnt the fine art of balancing the clutch and the brake, for movement control of the vehicle while starting. His instructions of ‘half-clutch, brake, one point accelerator’ keep ringing in my ears even now! How simple it sounds; yet how difficult it is to achieve that one-point control! It taught me how to balance feelings and thoughts in my mind. It made me reflect as to how important it is to think before we feel, to avoid jerks, to tide over speed-breakers and to make sure the people we are travelling with in our journey do not feel the pressure of riding with us.
I guess we need to reflect that in our relationships. When to press the issue, when to let go, how much to pursue something, and when to draw the line… It is after all, about balancing. When I remove my feet from the clutch too fast, the vehicle stalls. If I remove it gradually, but then simultaneously accelerate, the vehicle moves forward smoothly.
He took me into lanes I would not have dreamt of going, if I was driving on my own! I would have parked the vehicle and walked it. But no, he insisted on putting me through a sheer torture of maneuvering through narrow lanes, in between huge contraptions of heavy vehicles, all the while urging me to be careful, to pay attention to the aspect of judgment and speed. Like how we form relationships, which are turbulent, and sometimes give them up halfway just because we do not have a person by our side guiding us through the stormy days, or simply do not have the mental or the emotional strength to see it through successfully..
Life is full of ups and downs. Climbing uphill requires much more dexterity than going down an incline. The former requires us to apply pressure on the accelerator; the latter, perfect control over the vehicle so that we do not lose control of the vehicle.
Isn’t that true of life too? When things seem to be going smooth, we tend to lapse in our efforts to be in control of a situation, and when the going gets tough, the strain we put ourselves through, trying to sail through taxes us and wrings us out emotionally.
How much simpler would life be, if we had an instructor with us all the time, with supplementary controls, telling us what to do! But we need to learn some lessons on our own… and the analogy of going for driving classes helped me to identify my own instructor : My thinking, rational self, who is more often than not lost in the crowd of unhealthy, irrational thoughts, which serve no useful purpose than being speed-breakers.
Mohana Narayanan
September 26,2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
The battle between the flexible thumb and a strong will
The husband, a palmist by pure interest took a look at his wife’s firm thumb and declared: you are stubborn. Comparing it with his own supple thumb, he categorized himself as being eminently flexible and thus took the credit for even the success of the marriage.
He went a step further… It is because you are so stubborn that you have so few friends… Look at me. And your daughter. We have so many friends, simply because we are not as stubborn as you. The one friend you have must be having a thumb which indicates that she is very flexible that is why……
The presence of the daughter prevented her from telling him to go take a hike.
It was not that that the prediction was the dictum of the Gods, though at that particular moment it hurt. It hurt to know that he would make such declarations without giving a thought to the making of the person.
Twenty years of togetherness may have instilled some ability to sense that all is suddenly not well. He tried to mend the damage, maybe sensing the undercurrents of the hurt, as she continued reading her book. Sensing her withdrawal, he commented again, addressing his daughter: maybe that is why she is so persevering, has such a strong will power compared to you and me. (I think he initially meant being strong-willed, when he said ‘stubborn’)
She could see no connection between being stubborn and having a strong will, though she was too tired to analyse, explain or even defend her personality traits! The child went to sleep. So did she. But somewhere the hurt filtered into her dreams, and she had a fitful night’s of rest.
Come next morning, and glancing through the paper, she happened to look at a column which spoke of enduring friendships. Relationships built during college days, during one’s career, and then finally about broken relationships which are not worth the sorrow it brings, because they do not justify the beauty of the relationship.
It set her thinking again. Were relationships lost in her life because she had been stubborn? She could not think of a single person whom she had dropped on the way, simply because of her inflexible thumb! On the other hand, the few people she had in her life, were there to catch her whenever she fell. How many people do you need to support you when you stumble? If the pair of hands is strong enough, just one will do.
I think we have very different measures to judge people’s emotional successes.
If you are able to spend the whole day simply clicking away at a mobile phone with that flexible thumb, sending messages to your countless ‘friends’, you take credit for the success of the relationship. Because the longer the list of people you have in your life, the better you are as a person! Thus spake one wise man, for whom there was apparently success in numbers!
Yes, this lady has very few people in her life… because she did not believe in excess baggage. She does not believe in superficial relationships. People feel threatened when they interact with her: threatened by her firm thinking, her clear thoughts and expression, and her persona of assertiveness (which people, for lack of a command of the language, and ignorant of the nuances term it aggressiveness).
But they also reach out to her when there is a crisis, when things were to be just done, no matter what the consequences, when they were like a lost herd of sheep… And just because she was the kind, who pitched in and just went about getting things done, she never attached any value to such actions of hers…. It was not done because she wanted accolades, or appreciation. As a part of society, as a weave in a large pattern of life, she did her share. This no-nonsense attitude of hers unnerved some people- simply because she had no time for soft-pedalling. Was it stubbornness I wonder, or just a strong-will?
This very lady stood like a rock beside her husband when he underwent terrible personal and professional tragedy…. drawing on this very quality of ‘stubbornness’ in her, which I choose to call a strength of the mind and an indomitable spirit. A strength which refused, and still refuses to buckle under pressure. She has sifted the chaff from the grain in her life, and she is happy with the ‘few meaningful relationships she has’ rather than collecting a crowd like a politician who has lorryloads of paid people coming to listen to his speech. She has company in other forms: in the form of books, music, the flora and the fauna, in her very own private thoughts and in forms which people who are flexible may never understand!!!
He went a step further… It is because you are so stubborn that you have so few friends… Look at me. And your daughter. We have so many friends, simply because we are not as stubborn as you. The one friend you have must be having a thumb which indicates that she is very flexible that is why……
The presence of the daughter prevented her from telling him to go take a hike.
It was not that that the prediction was the dictum of the Gods, though at that particular moment it hurt. It hurt to know that he would make such declarations without giving a thought to the making of the person.
Twenty years of togetherness may have instilled some ability to sense that all is suddenly not well. He tried to mend the damage, maybe sensing the undercurrents of the hurt, as she continued reading her book. Sensing her withdrawal, he commented again, addressing his daughter: maybe that is why she is so persevering, has such a strong will power compared to you and me. (I think he initially meant being strong-willed, when he said ‘stubborn’)
She could see no connection between being stubborn and having a strong will, though she was too tired to analyse, explain or even defend her personality traits! The child went to sleep. So did she. But somewhere the hurt filtered into her dreams, and she had a fitful night’s of rest.
Come next morning, and glancing through the paper, she happened to look at a column which spoke of enduring friendships. Relationships built during college days, during one’s career, and then finally about broken relationships which are not worth the sorrow it brings, because they do not justify the beauty of the relationship.
It set her thinking again. Were relationships lost in her life because she had been stubborn? She could not think of a single person whom she had dropped on the way, simply because of her inflexible thumb! On the other hand, the few people she had in her life, were there to catch her whenever she fell. How many people do you need to support you when you stumble? If the pair of hands is strong enough, just one will do.
I think we have very different measures to judge people’s emotional successes.
If you are able to spend the whole day simply clicking away at a mobile phone with that flexible thumb, sending messages to your countless ‘friends’, you take credit for the success of the relationship. Because the longer the list of people you have in your life, the better you are as a person! Thus spake one wise man, for whom there was apparently success in numbers!
Yes, this lady has very few people in her life… because she did not believe in excess baggage. She does not believe in superficial relationships. People feel threatened when they interact with her: threatened by her firm thinking, her clear thoughts and expression, and her persona of assertiveness (which people, for lack of a command of the language, and ignorant of the nuances term it aggressiveness).
But they also reach out to her when there is a crisis, when things were to be just done, no matter what the consequences, when they were like a lost herd of sheep… And just because she was the kind, who pitched in and just went about getting things done, she never attached any value to such actions of hers…. It was not done because she wanted accolades, or appreciation. As a part of society, as a weave in a large pattern of life, she did her share. This no-nonsense attitude of hers unnerved some people- simply because she had no time for soft-pedalling. Was it stubbornness I wonder, or just a strong-will?
This very lady stood like a rock beside her husband when he underwent terrible personal and professional tragedy…. drawing on this very quality of ‘stubbornness’ in her, which I choose to call a strength of the mind and an indomitable spirit. A strength which refused, and still refuses to buckle under pressure. She has sifted the chaff from the grain in her life, and she is happy with the ‘few meaningful relationships she has’ rather than collecting a crowd like a politician who has lorryloads of paid people coming to listen to his speech. She has company in other forms: in the form of books, music, the flora and the fauna, in her very own private thoughts and in forms which people who are flexible may never understand!!!
The right to live: Life: a fundamental right.
As a counselor, I get to handle a lot of clients who come with a problem which can be primarily traced to upbringing: dependency. A quality which, unfortunately, the parents are responsible for inculcating in children, when they insist on tying the shoelaces of a child who is quite capable of doing so on his own, when they insist on feeding the child when the child wants to eat on his own, explore, either because they do not want to clear up the mess later, or simply because they feel the child is not ‘old enough’. Such children grow up expecting the world to wait on them, and are unable to be effective problem solvers or decision makers. The parents continue to decide for them, the child keeps riding on their shoulders, thus perpetuating a dysfunctional family when he grows up and has a family of his own.
The parents fail to realize that every child is an individual in his own right. Right from the moment he chooses to be born. Yes, it is now widely accepted that a child chooses his womb, and his choice is based on a variety of lessons and experience that he needs to learn in this lifetime. When a child that is not even born into this world, who, when he is just a soul incapable of even bodily functions, is able to choose, what right do we have, as mere mortals, to decide or override this choice? What is the basis by which we decide whether the child lives or not? The child, like I said earlier, even chooses his parents. And we, self-righteously, decide to reject this; and the child. I remember seeing a film sometime back, when a child overhears his father, who is a police commissioner, declaring to the kidnappers of the child, that he would refuse to buckle to their ransom condition (release of a terrorist, I think I am not very sure). The child manages to escape from the kidnappers and comes back home, but grows to be thoroughly dysfunctional, carrying a chip on his shoulders against his father, who has proved that he chose to reject the child over his principles, and who is perplexed to see why his son has shut him out. He spends his entire career chasing his son who has become an anti-social element, not realizing the role he played in making him so.
What is the thread running here? The right to choose. The right that we deny to our children. The right that is being denied to a young foetus, just six months old. Simply because we decide the foetus does not have the right to choice. The right to decide. And the right to live. I dread to think what the child would go through, if he chooses to live, either with a disability or with all his abilities intact, when he comes to know that his parents rejected him even before he was born. Is he going to become a child with a conduct disorder, or carry with him a feeling of rebuff throughout his life? Will his parents be able to make up for this initial rejection? Just because one of his organs is malfunctioning? Do the parents realize that when they appeal to the law to allow them to abort the unborn child, they are tampering with a higher law? A law that sees no appeal, no petitions in higher courts? We pat ourselves on our back when a test tube baby survives for three decades and do retrospective living. Won’t the child do the same? What will he live through then? The society going down on bended knees before him will not erase the hurt in his mind then, unless he turns out to be elevated souls, and then we will have enough more to contend with!
Can we include an eighth fundamental right in the constitution? A Right to Life…
Mohana Narayanan
August 5, 2008
The parents fail to realize that every child is an individual in his own right. Right from the moment he chooses to be born. Yes, it is now widely accepted that a child chooses his womb, and his choice is based on a variety of lessons and experience that he needs to learn in this lifetime. When a child that is not even born into this world, who, when he is just a soul incapable of even bodily functions, is able to choose, what right do we have, as mere mortals, to decide or override this choice? What is the basis by which we decide whether the child lives or not? The child, like I said earlier, even chooses his parents. And we, self-righteously, decide to reject this; and the child. I remember seeing a film sometime back, when a child overhears his father, who is a police commissioner, declaring to the kidnappers of the child, that he would refuse to buckle to their ransom condition (release of a terrorist, I think I am not very sure). The child manages to escape from the kidnappers and comes back home, but grows to be thoroughly dysfunctional, carrying a chip on his shoulders against his father, who has proved that he chose to reject the child over his principles, and who is perplexed to see why his son has shut him out. He spends his entire career chasing his son who has become an anti-social element, not realizing the role he played in making him so.
What is the thread running here? The right to choose. The right that we deny to our children. The right that is being denied to a young foetus, just six months old. Simply because we decide the foetus does not have the right to choice. The right to decide. And the right to live. I dread to think what the child would go through, if he chooses to live, either with a disability or with all his abilities intact, when he comes to know that his parents rejected him even before he was born. Is he going to become a child with a conduct disorder, or carry with him a feeling of rebuff throughout his life? Will his parents be able to make up for this initial rejection? Just because one of his organs is malfunctioning? Do the parents realize that when they appeal to the law to allow them to abort the unborn child, they are tampering with a higher law? A law that sees no appeal, no petitions in higher courts? We pat ourselves on our back when a test tube baby survives for three decades and do retrospective living. Won’t the child do the same? What will he live through then? The society going down on bended knees before him will not erase the hurt in his mind then, unless he turns out to be elevated souls, and then we will have enough more to contend with!
Can we include an eighth fundamental right in the constitution? A Right to Life…
Mohana Narayanan
August 5, 2008
Friday, March 13, 2009
children: your joy or challenges?
The boy with his mother and grandfather shot across the road at the signal lights, hoping to catch the light before it turned green. Halfway through the road, the boy slipped and fell, and the grandfather who was following them, picked the boy up like a rag and slapped him tightly across his cheek. The screaming boy was dragged along by the mother. After reaching the end of the road, the boy sat down mutinously, refusing to move, and continued bawling.
The lights turned green and spurred by the honking traffic, I moved ahead. But the boy’s sorrowful face kept dancing in front of my eyes. Here was a boy who was hurt; and the grandfather, in his anxiety to cross the road, and perhaps for the boy’s safety, gave in to his anger and vented it out on the already hurt boy. Was the boy at fault? Did he fall on purpose? For that matter, were the elders doing the right thing, darting across the road like that?
Children have a reason for their actions and their thoughts; and these reasons spring from their little minds’ logic, which is just based on their feelings. If the feelings are negative, their actions show it, and vice versa.
Rudolf Dreikers, a social psychologist and an authority on handling children and their behaviour, is of the opinion that there is an underlying cause for the child’s misbehaviour, and has firm faith in a child’s rationality. However, if the child’s behaviour is based on misplaced goals, adults need to intervene. He lists out four reasons for a child’s misbehaviour:
Attention Getting: If a child cannot get attention for their positive behaviours, they will seek it with inappropriate behaviours. If your reaction is feeling annoyed or irritated, then this is the child’s goal.
Power and control: This is normally indulged in by children who feel inferior. Once the behaviour is repeated and catches the adults’ attention, the defiant behaviour escalates. This results in a power struggle. If you feel angry when your child misbehaves then power is his goal.
Revenge: This behaviour results from the thought of getting back at adults for the way they feel they have been treated (mistaken thought: unfairly). This usually happens after the first two methods for getting attention and power have failed. You will probably have feelings of hurt when revenge is your child’s goal. Do understand that the child is acting from a platform of being hurt.
Helplessness and Inadequacy: At this stage the child no longer cares what happens. The child acts passive, lethargic, rejects social control and refuses to comply or participate, and may even request to be left alone at this juncture. The adult also feels inadequate or incapable at this stage. Your feeling helplessness, escape or avoidance may be your child’s goal.
Having listed out the goals of misbehaviour, he also points out the ways by which we can handle misbehaviour effectively. Once we recognize the inner goal, we can help the child learn more appropriate goals. We need to thus understand the child’s goal by observing the behaviour in detail. We need to confront the child with the four goals. Use “Could it be questions…
Could it be that you want special attention?
Could it be that you want your own way?
Could it be that you want to hurt others as much as you are hurt by them?
Could it be that you want to be left alone?
We need to use Logical consequences, rather than reward and punishment. Logical consequences are results that a child faces when it immediately follows an action by the child.
It is a consequence that is directly linked to the action and the connection is perceived and experienced by the child.
He learns to perceive that he has a choice, and accepts the relationship of his choice to what followed (consequences).
It is different from punishment, in that the latter portrays the power of personal authority.
There is no element of moral judgment in logical consequences, and also allows a child to choose whether he wants to repeat an act, based on the consequences he experienced.
Encouragement is also vital to make the child aware that he is good and acceptable as he is, and not as he should be. We need to keep improvement in mind, not perfection.
We need to understand the difference between praise and encouragement. While praise recognizes the person, encouragement acknowledges the act.
Bringing up children is a lifetime commitment: if you decide to grow with them, there is no limit to the heights you can reach on the mountain of joy; but if it is a chore, then, the depths can be equally deep: the choice is yours...
Mohana Narayanan
January 2009
The lights turned green and spurred by the honking traffic, I moved ahead. But the boy’s sorrowful face kept dancing in front of my eyes. Here was a boy who was hurt; and the grandfather, in his anxiety to cross the road, and perhaps for the boy’s safety, gave in to his anger and vented it out on the already hurt boy. Was the boy at fault? Did he fall on purpose? For that matter, were the elders doing the right thing, darting across the road like that?
Children have a reason for their actions and their thoughts; and these reasons spring from their little minds’ logic, which is just based on their feelings. If the feelings are negative, their actions show it, and vice versa.
Rudolf Dreikers, a social psychologist and an authority on handling children and their behaviour, is of the opinion that there is an underlying cause for the child’s misbehaviour, and has firm faith in a child’s rationality. However, if the child’s behaviour is based on misplaced goals, adults need to intervene. He lists out four reasons for a child’s misbehaviour:
Attention Getting: If a child cannot get attention for their positive behaviours, they will seek it with inappropriate behaviours. If your reaction is feeling annoyed or irritated, then this is the child’s goal.
Power and control: This is normally indulged in by children who feel inferior. Once the behaviour is repeated and catches the adults’ attention, the defiant behaviour escalates. This results in a power struggle. If you feel angry when your child misbehaves then power is his goal.
Revenge: This behaviour results from the thought of getting back at adults for the way they feel they have been treated (mistaken thought: unfairly). This usually happens after the first two methods for getting attention and power have failed. You will probably have feelings of hurt when revenge is your child’s goal. Do understand that the child is acting from a platform of being hurt.
Helplessness and Inadequacy: At this stage the child no longer cares what happens. The child acts passive, lethargic, rejects social control and refuses to comply or participate, and may even request to be left alone at this juncture. The adult also feels inadequate or incapable at this stage. Your feeling helplessness, escape or avoidance may be your child’s goal.
Having listed out the goals of misbehaviour, he also points out the ways by which we can handle misbehaviour effectively. Once we recognize the inner goal, we can help the child learn more appropriate goals. We need to thus understand the child’s goal by observing the behaviour in detail. We need to confront the child with the four goals. Use “Could it be questions…
Could it be that you want special attention?
Could it be that you want your own way?
Could it be that you want to hurt others as much as you are hurt by them?
Could it be that you want to be left alone?
We need to use Logical consequences, rather than reward and punishment. Logical consequences are results that a child faces when it immediately follows an action by the child.
It is a consequence that is directly linked to the action and the connection is perceived and experienced by the child.
He learns to perceive that he has a choice, and accepts the relationship of his choice to what followed (consequences).
It is different from punishment, in that the latter portrays the power of personal authority.
There is no element of moral judgment in logical consequences, and also allows a child to choose whether he wants to repeat an act, based on the consequences he experienced.
Encouragement is also vital to make the child aware that he is good and acceptable as he is, and not as he should be. We need to keep improvement in mind, not perfection.
We need to understand the difference between praise and encouragement. While praise recognizes the person, encouragement acknowledges the act.
Bringing up children is a lifetime commitment: if you decide to grow with them, there is no limit to the heights you can reach on the mountain of joy; but if it is a chore, then, the depths can be equally deep: the choice is yours...
Mohana Narayanan
January 2009
The flip and the flop!
Scene One: It was her daughter’s sixteenth birthday. It was right in the middle of her board exams, but the stress level was manageable. So she decided to host a party with a few friends. But her daughter’s best friend refused to come. The reason: she was prone to falling sick, and she did not want to take any chances. She offered to call her mother and ask that the friend be sent for just a while, but she was not allowed to. It is her decision and I need to respect it, she told her mother They have a right to decide, she told her mother.
Scene Two: It was her good friend’s fiftieth birthday. She was uncomfortable attending the party, as her friend’s family treated her like a pariah, and she no longer felt tolerant enough to accept this unwarranted treatment. She gave her honest reasons for not wanting to attend, expecting her friend to understand the indignity she suffered every time, and asked her to attend a party she wanted to throw for her at her place. The friend took first-hand offence! She was accused the mother of being self-centered, of not respecting her best friend’s wishes, of ‘punishing’ her for all the past misdeeds that had happened in the relationship! She was asked for proof of the relationship: attend the party…. So that I do not have my family gloating over your absence! She offered to clarify this issue with her family later (after being pushed to a corner? When she had not done it all this while??)
Whether she attended the party, or whether the daughter’s friends came over, is not the issue here. What comes to mind is the start difference in the attitude of respect of boundary and validation of feelings in the relationship. Here was a teenager, who chose to respect, albeit her disappointment, her friend’s decision not to attend an important day in her life, even though the reason given was something that could be worked around. And yet there was this matured, grown-up individual who took absolute offence, choosing to weigh her friend’s disturbing state of mind and feeling absolutely awkward, against her own feeling of happiness at ‘reaching a milestone’ in her life. To ice the cake, the proof of the friendship would be her presence at the get-together, swallowing the uncomfortable feeling of being treated like someone the cat brought it, with the one-liner: they do not matter–I do!
The nurturing of a relationship depends on the acceptance level of both the parties, in allowing space in the relationship. I hope this little girl maintains this respect in all her future relationships: after all what else is there in a relationship if respect for the other person is missing, if the hurt of the other is not validated?
Mohana narayananan
March,2009
Scene Two: It was her good friend’s fiftieth birthday. She was uncomfortable attending the party, as her friend’s family treated her like a pariah, and she no longer felt tolerant enough to accept this unwarranted treatment. She gave her honest reasons for not wanting to attend, expecting her friend to understand the indignity she suffered every time, and asked her to attend a party she wanted to throw for her at her place. The friend took first-hand offence! She was accused the mother of being self-centered, of not respecting her best friend’s wishes, of ‘punishing’ her for all the past misdeeds that had happened in the relationship! She was asked for proof of the relationship: attend the party…. So that I do not have my family gloating over your absence! She offered to clarify this issue with her family later (after being pushed to a corner? When she had not done it all this while??)
Whether she attended the party, or whether the daughter’s friends came over, is not the issue here. What comes to mind is the start difference in the attitude of respect of boundary and validation of feelings in the relationship. Here was a teenager, who chose to respect, albeit her disappointment, her friend’s decision not to attend an important day in her life, even though the reason given was something that could be worked around. And yet there was this matured, grown-up individual who took absolute offence, choosing to weigh her friend’s disturbing state of mind and feeling absolutely awkward, against her own feeling of happiness at ‘reaching a milestone’ in her life. To ice the cake, the proof of the friendship would be her presence at the get-together, swallowing the uncomfortable feeling of being treated like someone the cat brought it, with the one-liner: they do not matter–I do!
The nurturing of a relationship depends on the acceptance level of both the parties, in allowing space in the relationship. I hope this little girl maintains this respect in all her future relationships: after all what else is there in a relationship if respect for the other person is missing, if the hurt of the other is not validated?
Mohana narayananan
March,2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Rewind and delete...
Certain moments in your life
Certain phases – certain pauses
Need to be wrung out of your existence
Like water off a wet sponge…
Like unwanted letters and old calendars.
Otherwise,
They would corrode your tomorrows.
Of what use are bitter rememberances –
Except – a punching bag
For newer circumstances.
Mohana Narayanan
Certain phases – certain pauses
Need to be wrung out of your existence
Like water off a wet sponge…
Like unwanted letters and old calendars.
Otherwise,
They would corrode your tomorrows.
Of what use are bitter rememberances –
Except – a punching bag
For newer circumstances.
Mohana Narayanan
The untitled creation
“Write”, said the mother
“Create”, said the tutor
“Produce”, said all the genii.
You are full of potential.
You need to justify your existence.
You have to leave your mark on the sands of time.
The casualty was pushed against the wall
He did not have a choice -
The choice to think, create and outpour.
Like an automaton, he reached for the implements—
For the paper and the pen
For the chisel and the hammer
For the canvas and the riot of colours
To give form to his thoughts – or so he thought.
When he sat down to act, he was frozen, cold and solid.
The poet, the sculptor and the painter in him
Was dead.
“Create”, said the tutor
“Produce”, said all the genii.
You are full of potential.
You need to justify your existence.
You have to leave your mark on the sands of time.
The casualty was pushed against the wall
He did not have a choice -
The choice to think, create and outpour.
Like an automaton, he reached for the implements—
For the paper and the pen
For the chisel and the hammer
For the canvas and the riot of colours
To give form to his thoughts – or so he thought.
When he sat down to act, he was frozen, cold and solid.
The poet, the sculptor and the painter in him
Was dead.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
A different battle
I am sure enough and more has been written, rewritten and spoken about the terrible massacre by the self-styled protectors of religion, and the inhumane acts committed in the name of being the harbingers of the rule of the ultimate power on earth. The price that we pay each time we are plundered is something that cannot be measured, either materially, or psychologically. As mute spectators, we wait and watch, wondering when the next strike is coming…. Is there nothing we can do, to make at least passable peace with ourselves? The war that goes on within us, the sense of anger, angst, helplessness, and the sheer, quiet desperation, as Thoreau says, wrings my heart.
It is not a blame game, but let us face it, we as a nation are very complacent: be at the macro or micro level, we would act only after or just before a crisis. Take the current case on a global level for example. I read somewhere, that recognizing nuances of facial expressions, in fleeting seconds, for example, is a sign of social intelligence.
Forthrightness, according to Daniel Goleman, is our brain’s default response. Any attempt to be anything else does bring about a cognitive dissonance, however much a person tries to mask it. The conditioned and learned response shows. He talks about a man who had come to an embassy for a visa. The interviewer noticed something strange about this person as they spoke, and when questioned about the reason for a visa, there was a fleeting expression on the man’s face. The interviewer was alerted and asking the applicant to wait, went to check the data bank. He trusted his gut feelings; he used ‘social intelligence’ in reading the expression: something is not quite right here. He was listed as a fugitive, wanted by the police in several countries.
Now I wonder whether, if any of the Indian public, when face-to-face with a nameless, faceless radical, would draw on this inherent gift, this non-cognitive aptitude that we all have, and draw up a red alert? Imagine how safe we could start feeling, if each one of us had this preprogrammed antenna always ready to receive warnings of any untoward mishap, and take proactive action?
This gift for primal empathy, the ready ability to sense the emotions of another is one weapon we can use against the more tangible weapons of mass destruction. Forget about sophisticated weapons; forget about bullet proof vests and hi-speed jets, or boats. Can we start fighting this war on another level altogether? We can get our resources together on educating public servants on developing this innate human ability to read the human mind, which is reflected on the face. It could be a kind of mental x-ray, an ability that has been dormant and is coded in our genes, and can be developed through conscious effort and training.
It comes under relationship management. When we learn to manage our core associations and relationships, we need to go a step further and develop this ability to hear the unspoken, to see the finer nuances of expressions that the other person expresses: and learn to read it right. It helps in fine-tuning our relationships. It should not be difficult, considering we are programmed as a species to do it.
Once we are successful in doing this in our day to day relationships, we can extend it, I am sure to read it in a stranger’s ( read that as a terrorist’s) face. And build a fortress around all of us, where our only ammunition would be this ability to scan out one who has no respect for humanity, and our common bond would be the will and the desire to live: peacefully, in harmony, and in the beauty of life.
Mohana Narayanan
Nov 30, 2008
It is not a blame game, but let us face it, we as a nation are very complacent: be at the macro or micro level, we would act only after or just before a crisis. Take the current case on a global level for example. I read somewhere, that recognizing nuances of facial expressions, in fleeting seconds, for example, is a sign of social intelligence.
Forthrightness, according to Daniel Goleman, is our brain’s default response. Any attempt to be anything else does bring about a cognitive dissonance, however much a person tries to mask it. The conditioned and learned response shows. He talks about a man who had come to an embassy for a visa. The interviewer noticed something strange about this person as they spoke, and when questioned about the reason for a visa, there was a fleeting expression on the man’s face. The interviewer was alerted and asking the applicant to wait, went to check the data bank. He trusted his gut feelings; he used ‘social intelligence’ in reading the expression: something is not quite right here. He was listed as a fugitive, wanted by the police in several countries.
Now I wonder whether, if any of the Indian public, when face-to-face with a nameless, faceless radical, would draw on this inherent gift, this non-cognitive aptitude that we all have, and draw up a red alert? Imagine how safe we could start feeling, if each one of us had this preprogrammed antenna always ready to receive warnings of any untoward mishap, and take proactive action?
This gift for primal empathy, the ready ability to sense the emotions of another is one weapon we can use against the more tangible weapons of mass destruction. Forget about sophisticated weapons; forget about bullet proof vests and hi-speed jets, or boats. Can we start fighting this war on another level altogether? We can get our resources together on educating public servants on developing this innate human ability to read the human mind, which is reflected on the face. It could be a kind of mental x-ray, an ability that has been dormant and is coded in our genes, and can be developed through conscious effort and training.
It comes under relationship management. When we learn to manage our core associations and relationships, we need to go a step further and develop this ability to hear the unspoken, to see the finer nuances of expressions that the other person expresses: and learn to read it right. It helps in fine-tuning our relationships. It should not be difficult, considering we are programmed as a species to do it.
Once we are successful in doing this in our day to day relationships, we can extend it, I am sure to read it in a stranger’s ( read that as a terrorist’s) face. And build a fortress around all of us, where our only ammunition would be this ability to scan out one who has no respect for humanity, and our common bond would be the will and the desire to live: peacefully, in harmony, and in the beauty of life.
Mohana Narayanan
Nov 30, 2008
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Desiderata
I guess it is only natural that mankind craves for approving nods for his thoughts and actions. The social stamp of approval goes a long way in increasing one’s performance, and also his self-image, which in turn boosts his self-esteem. So it is no wonder that when, as a practicing counselor, my clients call me back to tell me that they were on the road to recovery and that the simple external and conscious measures they were following was helping them immensely, it gives me a wonderful sense of satisfaction.
As counselors we never give advice; that is left for the domain of ‘well-meaning’ friends, spouses and relatives, and why, even the shopkeeper at the end of the road! I mean, what else is available freely if not advice? (Not taxable either!) We as counselors believe in the client becoming responsible for his life and actions, and help him in coming up with suggestions for solving the issue on hand. This way, they are also responsible for the outcome. We gently prod the thought process of clients who come so wrapped up in the issues that bog them down that a dispassionate outlook and a rational line of thinking is practically impossible for them at that stage.
The questionings and the lessons of self-analysis and behavioural changes through various therapies sets them going on the road to a better life. Obviously then, no miracle happens; it is a combined journey that they take together, and the therapist and the client decide when the latter can walk on his own, without holding the hands of the counselor.
This lady who was coming for counseling sessions to me for the past six months called me this morning to find out whether she could come and meet me for five minutes. It was not a counseling session she said, she just wanted to see me. When she came, I expected her to start from a negative position, which was happening all along. However, I was in for a very pleasant surprise. She had been away for more than a month, and during this time, the fact that she was able to hold fort on her own, without breaking apart, and the fact that she was able to confront situations head-on, gave her a tremendous sense of confidence and well-being. “Maybe I never did all my homework you assigned, but I found that whenever there was a situation that I used to buckle under earlier, now I found that I was able to rationalize issues and arrive at a decision based on the actual event, and not read anything excess into it,” she said. She sounded so proud of being herself, that she had started loving herself all over again! I was glad for her: glad that a person who had initially been so full of worries, playing blame-games, unable to handle issues that were of earth-shattering magnitude to her, and one who was ready to be a door-mat rather than stand up for herself and love herself, was today able to stand in front of the mirror and tell herself: “I love myself for what I am, I respect the person that I am now, and I have a right to be here in this world!”
All of us need to realize this: I am a very important person in my life: It is not being selfish. Only if you love yourself enough, will you take care of yourself, physically and emotionally. An emotionally healthy person will live life to the full, will be happy being in a state of acceptance, and thus spread this spirit around. Imagine what the world would be like then !!!
As counselors we never give advice; that is left for the domain of ‘well-meaning’ friends, spouses and relatives, and why, even the shopkeeper at the end of the road! I mean, what else is available freely if not advice? (Not taxable either!) We as counselors believe in the client becoming responsible for his life and actions, and help him in coming up with suggestions for solving the issue on hand. This way, they are also responsible for the outcome. We gently prod the thought process of clients who come so wrapped up in the issues that bog them down that a dispassionate outlook and a rational line of thinking is practically impossible for them at that stage.
The questionings and the lessons of self-analysis and behavioural changes through various therapies sets them going on the road to a better life. Obviously then, no miracle happens; it is a combined journey that they take together, and the therapist and the client decide when the latter can walk on his own, without holding the hands of the counselor.
This lady who was coming for counseling sessions to me for the past six months called me this morning to find out whether she could come and meet me for five minutes. It was not a counseling session she said, she just wanted to see me. When she came, I expected her to start from a negative position, which was happening all along. However, I was in for a very pleasant surprise. She had been away for more than a month, and during this time, the fact that she was able to hold fort on her own, without breaking apart, and the fact that she was able to confront situations head-on, gave her a tremendous sense of confidence and well-being. “Maybe I never did all my homework you assigned, but I found that whenever there was a situation that I used to buckle under earlier, now I found that I was able to rationalize issues and arrive at a decision based on the actual event, and not read anything excess into it,” she said. She sounded so proud of being herself, that she had started loving herself all over again! I was glad for her: glad that a person who had initially been so full of worries, playing blame-games, unable to handle issues that were of earth-shattering magnitude to her, and one who was ready to be a door-mat rather than stand up for herself and love herself, was today able to stand in front of the mirror and tell herself: “I love myself for what I am, I respect the person that I am now, and I have a right to be here in this world!”
All of us need to realize this: I am a very important person in my life: It is not being selfish. Only if you love yourself enough, will you take care of yourself, physically and emotionally. An emotionally healthy person will live life to the full, will be happy being in a state of acceptance, and thus spread this spirit around. Imagine what the world would be like then !!!
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
The Shoe On The Wrong foot
I think that as long as a woman does not support her kind, she will be always in the shadows. How much ever we shout from the rooftops about equality, about man’s ill-treatment of women and the lack of empathy towards her, unless woman herself changes her stance there is no hope for her. We will still have a mother-in-law ill-treating her daughter-in-law, or the other way around, and will will still have lady bosses in the corporate world who pull down competition in the form of women. We would have healthier serials on the television where we are not fed vamps decorated with all the jazzy clothes and bedecked with jewelry fit for a advertising campaign for a jewellery shop, arranging for pregnant woman falling down the stairs, or having cars ramming in to the heroine. Life overall would be pleasanter!We had some people visiting us, and during the course of conversation, the talk shifted to marriage, and arranged marriages and proposals. One lady in the group remarked about how her cousin’s wedding got cancelled, just because the girl wanted the boy to shift base, instead of the other way around. The reason was something which happens naturally in every family, in Indian society; only difference being, it happens in the boy’s life! Yes. taking care of the parents. It is the accepted norm, and why, even the expected norm that the girl leaves her parents’ house to set up home with the boy, and almost in all cases, with the boy’s parents. But, today, when a woman asks the same of the boy, the society is scandalized. Well, after all who accepts change willingly? But the sad part is, that the women are scandalized! How can a girl even think of saying something like that? How can she be so presemptous so to ask the boy to shift base, leaving a lucrative job? (The girl is having an equally lucrative job , but that is besides the point!) So, though the girl is an only child, and she would like to keep an eye on her aging parents, the thought is ludicrous; so the proposal fell flat. Given the closed door attitude of our society, there are chances that the girl may remain single, just because this one condition or option of hers may not be accepted by a prospective groom. Or if she is lucky (?) she may find a boy in the same city, and they can live happily ever after!We all talk of global changes; yet deep-rooted within each of us are certain basic socially fed norms, ideas and conventions that refuse to give in. The change has to start somewhere. Why can’t it start at our generation? Why can’t we accept that the girl who wants to take care of her parents has an equal right to do so, as the boy, and be open about it? Why do we feel it is below the boy’s dignity to shift base, just to accommodate the girl’s wishes? I personally think, that if he did this one act of consideration, the basis of the marriage would be rock-solid; the girl would meet him more than half-way, simply because she would have realized that here was a man, who accepted a girl as a person in her own right, with her own set of ideas of how the world should be. He may not agree with all of her views, but there would definitely be respect and commitment which are the solid foundations of marriage.
When Puddles Become Rivers
HOW PUDDLES BECOME RIVERS
I had to go out on an urgent call from the office, and after dealing with the crisis, I decided to walk home. However, half-way back home I was caught in a sudden downpour and sheltering in a nearby alcove, called my husband to come and pick me up. While I was waiting for him, I was idly looking at the puddles being formed on the road, and noticed idly how they were becoming larger by the minute. In front of my very eyes, one little stream ran into another, till it became a little rivulet.
I guess that is how life is. One thing runs into another, till suddenly, what you are facing is not just a routine affair, but a crisis that you perhaps just don’t know how to handle. Small issues have this niggling characteristic of troubling you but you are able to shove it aside and get on with your daily life. But somewhere it still exists; and when you least expect it, you find it looming up in front of you as large as a river, threatening to break the dam. You did not realize it would grow and multiply; what contributed to its growth? There they are, like little mushrooms, one growing over the other, like little toadstools in a rainy season under the forest tree. What fed it ? Our attitude to issues that we did not bother to handle, thinking they are small ? Our lack of attention to matters that should have been sorted out then and there, so that the issue no longer remains an issue, but dissipates into thin air and ceases to exist ? Or, is it because the dam has not been fortified, so that even if the large storm breaks over it, it could have withstood the assault?
If only we are able to handle issues at source, I am sure the world would have less of crisis management teams. We would need less life-saving drugs, less counsellors, less divorce courts, and less heart-aches. For what are minor irritants do not cause these; major ones do. And major ones are minor before they catapult into catastrophes.
I had to go out on an urgent call from the office, and after dealing with the crisis, I decided to walk home. However, half-way back home I was caught in a sudden downpour and sheltering in a nearby alcove, called my husband to come and pick me up. While I was waiting for him, I was idly looking at the puddles being formed on the road, and noticed idly how they were becoming larger by the minute. In front of my very eyes, one little stream ran into another, till it became a little rivulet.
I guess that is how life is. One thing runs into another, till suddenly, what you are facing is not just a routine affair, but a crisis that you perhaps just don’t know how to handle. Small issues have this niggling characteristic of troubling you but you are able to shove it aside and get on with your daily life. But somewhere it still exists; and when you least expect it, you find it looming up in front of you as large as a river, threatening to break the dam. You did not realize it would grow and multiply; what contributed to its growth? There they are, like little mushrooms, one growing over the other, like little toadstools in a rainy season under the forest tree. What fed it ? Our attitude to issues that we did not bother to handle, thinking they are small ? Our lack of attention to matters that should have been sorted out then and there, so that the issue no longer remains an issue, but dissipates into thin air and ceases to exist ? Or, is it because the dam has not been fortified, so that even if the large storm breaks over it, it could have withstood the assault?
If only we are able to handle issues at source, I am sure the world would have less of crisis management teams. We would need less life-saving drugs, less counsellors, less divorce courts, and less heart-aches. For what are minor irritants do not cause these; major ones do. And major ones are minor before they catapult into catastrophes.
THE VIEW FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER
I guess mankind, when he discovered the usage of coins, made two sides for it, keeping in mind the universal law, that every creation has two sides: including issues. This is very true of personality issues, where one has got to admit that any argument, confrontation, etc. is impossible without have two sides. The world thrives on the adage that every coin has two sides; I had the opportunity to view the mother-in-law daughter-in-law coin recently in this aspect.
Yeah this relationship is as old as the oldest creation; yet it has survived. For each mother-in-law there appears a daughter-in-law, a contra force. The exceptions to it not being a contra force are so few and far between, that they simply don’t seem to matter. Yet again, mostly we would find only the daughter-in-law
perspective highlighted. I wonder if it is because the younger generation are more forthcoming, are more ready to open up and talk about the whole thing. They do not think that it would be a betrayal of family confidences, if they discuss their incompatibility with their mothers-in-law! Mothers-in-law are apprehensive of going public on this issue, are wary of discussing it except in closed circles. Generation gap? I don’t know.Recently, I had the opportunity to get to see the point of view of a mother-in-law. They live in a joint family. The daughter-in-law is modern in her outlook, to the extent that she ‘does not believe in rituals, so would not light the lamp, would not celebrate her child’s first birthday in a traditional manner’. The mother-in-law, though not very traditional is hurt by such blatant denial of preserving certain family traditions. I would like to mention here that she is not a cut of the typical mother-in-law mould as an archetype of a mother-in-law exists today. She is persuing her doctorate at this age, doing voluntary service at an organization for the upliftment for the blind. Now here, I wonder where the problem arises from. The normal grouse between two individuals, who are tied together in this relationship, would have been one of modernism and traditionalism. The mother-in-law is a good mixture of both. But the daughter-in-law does not see it this way. She chooses to live life her own way, without giving in an inch, if not for tradition, at least for the fact that her mother-in-law is ready to meet her more than half-way.
I think there are no bad mothers-in-law, or no bad daughters-in-law; we need to approach this relationship too, with an open mind, and not have preconceived notions attached to it. I have a feeling this daughter-in-law must have fitted her mother-in-law into a round hole, and found to her surprise that she does not fit, but now does not know how to handle a ‘different mother-in-law’! I too had a mother-in-law who was not the one who would fit into the round hole, but fortunately for me, I did not try to fit her in, and so both of us had no major hassles, god rest her soul…
The Mental and Emotional Differences
The phone ring in the midst of my workshop was insistent, and finally, excusing myself, I attended to the call. The young girl at the other end of the line sounded very worried, and upset. My mother is mentally disturbed, and I would like to bring her to you for counseling, she said. I debated whether to correct her, on the usage of the term ‘ mental disturbance’ then thought better of it, choosing to talk to her when she came to see me in person.
A lot of us make this fundamental error in differentiating between mental and emotional disturbance. As a counselor, I have come across many who say that they are scared to tell people they are visiting a counselor, for fear of being labeled as ‘mad’.
I think the difference starts from a very academic point of view. Our brains are divided into two: the right brain, which is emotional, perceptive and intuitive, and the left brain which performs the logical, rational and thinking functions. According to personality traits, people are either predominantly left- or right-brained. This is not to say that one part of the brain functions less than the other, it simply means that one is more dominant than the other. So we have people who make decisions based on logic and reason, which might make them appear very business-like and cool and collected, as they use deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion. On the other hand, we have the emotional, highly excitable individuals, who make on-the-spot, sometimes rash or hasty decisions, based on their emotions and on purely what they feel.
There can be no judgement on which way is the better way. Certain situations warrant a left-brained thinking, and certain issues, right-brained actions and decisions. A balanced working of both sides of the brain results in a healthy thinking individual. However, if a person always allows the right brain to dominate, he or she will end up being a high-strung, easily excitable, edgy and impulsive individual, who would act first and think later. At the other end of this spectrum, we also have individuals who would be low in spirits, be low in self-esteem, who would be global in his or her approach, especially when it comes to negative events in life.
It is important to understand this difference, to know the distinction between a ‘mental’ problem and an ‘emotional’ problem. People who are more right brained will be more emotional, and thus are better candidates for manifesting emotional problems. Now, emotional problems are connected with feelings, thoughts, and mind-set of an individual. When we say a person has a ‘mental’ problem, it is more clinical and medical in nature. It could be a pathological problem, which may require medical intervention, and possibly a consultation with a psychiatrist. A mental problem could manifest in the form of, say, delusions, hallucinations, personality problems, or obsessions.
An emotional problem, on the other hand, is more concerned with how the individual views the world from his or her angle. This would be very subjective, and may result in a distorted view of a situation, especially if the person is the injured party! A continuous series of events in this vein may result in an emotional issue, of say, low self-esteem, depression, self-effacing thoughts etc., further leading to relationship problems. Here, if
the person is predominantly right-brained, the problem is compounded, for he or she would refuse any logical arguments or reasoning on his own for a situation.
A right-brained individual would also be interested in fine arts, be intuitive and very sensitive to larger issues of existence. However, these positive traits maybe clouded because of the emotional problems he or she may be undergoing.
This is where external support would be of help. If one approaches a psychological counselor, who is trained to handle emotional problems and ask the right questions and gently probe issues in the person’s life, it would help the person look at the problem from a different perspective. A counselor would not have ready-made answers to questions, but she would help the client think in the right direction.
Just as one would visit a General Practitioner for a physical ailment before going to a specialist, say a cardiologist or a diabetologist for a specific problem, so too, one can visit a counselor, who would be able to identify whether a problem is of an emotional nature, which can be resolved through a series of counseling or ‘talking’ sessions, or whether the client would require psychiatric or medical intervention.
It is important to mention here, that counseling is not the same as advising. In fact, that is one thing that a good counselor never indulges in. A counselor does not provide a solution to a problem. On the contrary, he or she helps a client tap the inner resources to help the client arrive at a solution on her own. It works on the principle of : Give a man a fish and feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Most problems are emotional, before they turn out to be of a medical nature. Maybe that is why some healers claim that most ailments are psychosomatic in nature. What is to prevent us then from reaching out to specially trained people who are willing to listen to us, without being judgemental, who would help us cope with the daily stresses, resolve issues, and help us lead a better and healthier life ?
A lot of us make this fundamental error in differentiating between mental and emotional disturbance. As a counselor, I have come across many who say that they are scared to tell people they are visiting a counselor, for fear of being labeled as ‘mad’.
I think the difference starts from a very academic point of view. Our brains are divided into two: the right brain, which is emotional, perceptive and intuitive, and the left brain which performs the logical, rational and thinking functions. According to personality traits, people are either predominantly left- or right-brained. This is not to say that one part of the brain functions less than the other, it simply means that one is more dominant than the other. So we have people who make decisions based on logic and reason, which might make them appear very business-like and cool and collected, as they use deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion. On the other hand, we have the emotional, highly excitable individuals, who make on-the-spot, sometimes rash or hasty decisions, based on their emotions and on purely what they feel.
There can be no judgement on which way is the better way. Certain situations warrant a left-brained thinking, and certain issues, right-brained actions and decisions. A balanced working of both sides of the brain results in a healthy thinking individual. However, if a person always allows the right brain to dominate, he or she will end up being a high-strung, easily excitable, edgy and impulsive individual, who would act first and think later. At the other end of this spectrum, we also have individuals who would be low in spirits, be low in self-esteem, who would be global in his or her approach, especially when it comes to negative events in life.
It is important to understand this difference, to know the distinction between a ‘mental’ problem and an ‘emotional’ problem. People who are more right brained will be more emotional, and thus are better candidates for manifesting emotional problems. Now, emotional problems are connected with feelings, thoughts, and mind-set of an individual. When we say a person has a ‘mental’ problem, it is more clinical and medical in nature. It could be a pathological problem, which may require medical intervention, and possibly a consultation with a psychiatrist. A mental problem could manifest in the form of, say, delusions, hallucinations, personality problems, or obsessions.
An emotional problem, on the other hand, is more concerned with how the individual views the world from his or her angle. This would be very subjective, and may result in a distorted view of a situation, especially if the person is the injured party! A continuous series of events in this vein may result in an emotional issue, of say, low self-esteem, depression, self-effacing thoughts etc., further leading to relationship problems. Here, if
the person is predominantly right-brained, the problem is compounded, for he or she would refuse any logical arguments or reasoning on his own for a situation.
A right-brained individual would also be interested in fine arts, be intuitive and very sensitive to larger issues of existence. However, these positive traits maybe clouded because of the emotional problems he or she may be undergoing.
This is where external support would be of help. If one approaches a psychological counselor, who is trained to handle emotional problems and ask the right questions and gently probe issues in the person’s life, it would help the person look at the problem from a different perspective. A counselor would not have ready-made answers to questions, but she would help the client think in the right direction.
Just as one would visit a General Practitioner for a physical ailment before going to a specialist, say a cardiologist or a diabetologist for a specific problem, so too, one can visit a counselor, who would be able to identify whether a problem is of an emotional nature, which can be resolved through a series of counseling or ‘talking’ sessions, or whether the client would require psychiatric or medical intervention.
It is important to mention here, that counseling is not the same as advising. In fact, that is one thing that a good counselor never indulges in. A counselor does not provide a solution to a problem. On the contrary, he or she helps a client tap the inner resources to help the client arrive at a solution on her own. It works on the principle of : Give a man a fish and feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Most problems are emotional, before they turn out to be of a medical nature. Maybe that is why some healers claim that most ailments are psychosomatic in nature. What is to prevent us then from reaching out to specially trained people who are willing to listen to us, without being judgemental, who would help us cope with the daily stresses, resolve issues, and help us lead a better and healthier life ?
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