Me, The Mother's Anguish

So we are done with six lovely long weeks of summer break. We did a road trip, which was mostly awesome, because I ♥ drives, but the boys not so much, so it involved a lot of whimpering after we hit the 2 hour mark in any of the legs. However, all said and done, the trip was lovely. The PM was on leave for a long spell, so we basically had a full house, with no schedule to stick to, for most of the time. Lovely I say! And thankfully the weather has been kind, in that, it is not crazy hot this summer. And this week, the school of the BB and the kindergarten for the Smallie has opened, and off they have trotted happy and excited. Hopefully they enjoyed their vacations too!

And as they leave home, and I get to be home alone, I realise, I am totally and completely institutionalised. If you have watched The Shawshank Redemption, you know what I mean by that word.I am too used to being a mother with a noisy home, and barely anytime to think,being pounded with non stop questions, comments and more, to be able to live in any other condition. It has been getting hard for me since the end of last year. I began dreading getting back home after drop offs. I hated the stillness and silence the home offered in the absence of my babies.I am not a social butterfly, but I am not an alone person either. I think when I fell in love and later got married, that was one of the things I was most happy about, I would never have to look for company. And then growing into a family, has been wonderful. Been over nine years now, since I became a mother, and I have loved the journey each moment. What I don't enjoy so much though, is the boys growing up and going away.

The home feels so lonely and empty, that I want to flee, in those lonely hours. There is about as much time as I can loiter about, or run errands, or shop. I get back and I miss my boys, their presence, their noise and more. I have in many ways started envying the mums who truly enjoy the peace and quiet they get when their kids are away, when they get time for leisure or just to get their jobs done. I hope to get there, or hope to get back to work, or even just start to adjust to this new idea of being by myself, but till I do, there are some lonely empty days ahead of me, and I just hope they don't get to me as much as they had been, and I can learn to appreciate the me-time, my life that I had been seeking so hard for some years ago. Just as in the movie, I did not wish to give up those things, but I did, and I have for so long been bereft of them, that I am now institutionalised, and I no longer know, what to do with them, now that I have them back for a bit. The curse of motherhood, or maybe just an indication that I need to sort out my life and find a more to do with it!!

कोशिश करनेवाले की हार कभी नहीं होती

नहीं मिलती है मंज़िल बिना कोशिश के ,
कोशिश है अधूरी बिना मेहनत मशक्कत के,
मेहनत में जब मिला हो जोश का जज़्बा ,
खुदा  भी कहते हैं वाह वाह मेरा बच्चा ।

हर पल साथ देता है मेरा वह मेरा दाता ,
चाहता है वह मुझसे बस  थोड़ी सी  कोशिश,
कहता है वह बार बार मुझसे यही ,
कोशिश करने वाले की हार होती नहीं कभी भी ।

बना रहता है वह बापू मेरा सहारा हर पल,
कहता है तू लगा दे कोशिश में अपना सम्पूर्ण बल ,
बाकी सब संभालता हूँ मैं तू रह निडर,
बस डटा रह तू सदा अपने ही  पथ पर |

त्याग और बलिदान से ही होती है मेहनत सफल,
जाना है मैंने यह बापू के पथ पर ,
नहीं मिलता  है खुदा  उस बन्दे से ,
जो भागता है मेहनत और कोशिश से |

प्रयास में है बल पत्थर तोड़ने की ,
ताकत है उसमे खुदासे मिलाने  की ,
तू बस जी जान से कर कोशिश बन्दे ,
बापू दिलाएगा तुहे तेरी मंज़िल कसम से |

जिसका  मन सच्चा और इरादे बुलंद हैं ,
नहीं डरता है वह किसी भी चुनौती से ,
पार कर जाता है हर बाधा  हर रूकावट,
जीत देती है उसके दर पर ही दस्तक |

पर यह बात मन में तू ठान ले बंदे ,
रुकेगा न झुकेगा न, न तू ख़्वाबों में डूबेगा ,
मंज़िल है तेरी, रस्ते पे तू चलता ही रहेगा ,
हो आंधी तूफ़ान या हो खाई गहरी,
चलता ही रहेगा तू हो छाँव या भरी दुपहरी |

मंज़िल भी ढून्ढ तू सोच समझ कर,
बापू को ही बना ले तू मंज़िल ज़िन्दगी की ,
सबसे अच्छी बेहतरीन है वह मंज़िल ,
रास्ते में भी साथ देगा तुझे, तेरी यह मंज़िल|

कभी अगर तू डरा, रुका या गिरा तो ,
वोही उठा के देगा सहारा तुझे तो ,
हौंसला जब तेरा टूटने लगेगा,
तेरी मंज़िल ही तुझमे जोश से भर देगा |

बस तू कर अपनी कोशिश ऐ बन्दे ,
कभी न नज़र हटा अपनी मंज़िल से,
चलता जा तू हर पल हर घडी  में ,
बापू ले लेगा तुझे अपनी पनाह में|


बापू का हो साथ तो हर बुलंदी तू छुएगा ,
उनका हाथ हो सिर पर तो क्या तू न करेगा ,
बस कोशिश अपनी तू करते ही रहना ,
क्योंकि बापू ने ही कहा है, यह याद रखना ,

कोशिश करनेवाले की हार कभी नहीं होती।

New Beginnings, Welcome Changes

Happy New Year to all the readers here. Wish you all a blessed, prosperous 2016, filled with love and happiness.

This article is going to be long, and has been in the making in my mind for a while, after reading a rather lovely and enlightening article on the true intolerance in India at present by B.Jeyamohan, which was circulated on Whatsapp, and I went out searching for its origin online. The article made sense to me on many levels, simply because I agree, and feel the same about many things mentioned there. I have never been in contact with the 'power circles' in the capital, but having spent a large chunk of my life in New Delhi,( infact, till date that is the only place I have lived in the world, for the longest period of time), I can relate to each and every word mentioned there. The psychophants he mentions are present a dime a dozen in the power capital of India, as are the pseudo-intellectuals and big fat show offs.

But then our world today is that way, filled with pseudos and wannabes in every field. The wannabe cool 'n sexy, the wannabe rich 'n famous, the pseudo intellectual, is it not? How many can you spot in your current environment? The one thing I detest, always have and always will is dishonesty. Honesty may not always be diplomatic or nice, but it is the only thing that works for me, whenever I have tried anything else, it has either suffocated the life out of me, or backfired on me in the most horrible way. Of all the dishonest and fake people, the ones that are unpalatable to me are the pseudo intellectuals.They are the very scum of the world, if you ask me. The wannabe fashionista, would be fake in her appearance and attitude, something superficial to herself, and absolutely not affecting other, but the pseudo intellectual deceives others, infact the kinds, mentioned in  the above article, deceive and manipulate public opinion in a huge way. They are, to put it in plain simple English, cheats and cons.To quote the article above -

The snobs that make their living are draw their power by licking the boots of power centres.

But these are the people who decide what is culture for this country. They can talk about every thing in the world for one hour in colourful English with the right number of jargons. But on the 61st minute, the colour will start fading. Actually they don’t know any thing in the real sense. Almost all are like the little boxes we find in attics which held hing a long time back.

Oh! Just perfectly, eloquently and beautifully put. These people remind of the frustration in Ayn Rand's novels. They are all fake from within and without. Most of the big names in the Indian Media today,  fall big time into this category, names like Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai. Namely because they are paid pawns of the Congress, and believe themselves, in their greedy( remember the Radia tapes???),power hungry quest to keep the lies alive, to be a source of ultimate power. But then just like them, there are hundreds of names I am unaware of ofcourse. These people now claim, there is an environment of intolerance in the nation all of a sudden, which is infact intolerance to corruption and exploitation of government resources and money.

People who have lived for years in posh bungalows in the poshest colonies of Delhi, without paying a penny, definitely don't wish to lose their free-loading lifestyles. The Congress government, with no core competency, but just living off lies and borrowed surnames, has surrounded itself with such pseudos, because they can come together and feel safe in each other's company.  Its a common rule for incapable people, that they need company of similar people to feel powerful and safe, more so to massage their fake egos. And that is the exact story of Congress and its cronies. Is Modi going to change it all? I don't know... I have seen too many sacks of sh!t politicians in my lifetime, to actually expect any better.  But hope is what we live on. If Modi is causing a stir in the corrupt Congress team, it is definitely a good sign for me. The man has the smarts for sure. I love how Internet savvy, and aware he is. He knows the problems facing the country, acknowledges it and does not push it under a carpet of lies and deceit like his predecessors on the same post. 

The Congress is an expert in maligning others. I saw this happen when Vajpayee was the PM. The only thing INC did was bad mouth him, personal attacks and worse, till they got to the people and brought down the then BJP govt. The same expert tricks are at work yet again. Ask them for a single constructive POA of their party, they have none, all they have is statements and attacks against the ruling party. It is sad and pathetic, and what is worse, is, that they are really good at it, from years of practice. They have no morals, and no limits to how low they can stoop. Look at their stooges Dutt and Sardesai as examples. So they can stoop to every unimaginable levels and play this filthy game.

But this time, there is a change of pace. And a wonderful one at that. Social Media, and a net savvy Modi. While the media sells it soul to the corrupt, the government interacts directly with the people, the people whom it governs. That brings in much needed transparency, leaving less scope for media manipulation, and also give people a good way to express their own opinions and share ideas, halving media's influence on the thinking junta. Transparency is the cornerstone of a good democracy, and I love the Modi government's efforts to implement it.(P.P. Bapu implemented the same, by putting all the sanstha's work online, and open for everyone to see and know through official channels, no lies, no fabrications) So while celebrities and media can scream their cheating lungs out about intolerance and more, the Modi government is working , and working hard and showing results.The media fell on its face when Modi was elected to the PM's seat with overwhelming majority, inspite of all its efforts to the contrary.

It is appreciating those who work hard, and it is also kicking the backsides of those who do not. A friend who has been teaching classes 10-12 for the last decade or so, received a letter of appreciation, personally signed by the Union HRD Minister for having students performing consistently well under her tutelage. And just to be clear, she teaches at a private school. Policies are changing, slowly but surely. It will be foolish to think that dirt and rust accumulated in the system over years can be removed in a day, but as says the doha of Sant Kabir

रसरी आवत जात  के सील पर पडत निसान ।

करत करत अभ्यास के जड़मति होत सुजान ।।

Which basically means, the rope on the bucket at the well, creates a mark on the heavy stone, by constantly rubbing on it. Similairly by consistent, steady efforts even the fool becomes an intellectual.

And so I have hope that these consistent efforts will bring about the much desired improvements in India, under the brave and capable leadership we now have. Let the scumbag politicians and pseudos tremble in their boots, let them be chucked out of their luxurious lifestyles funded by the hard working tax payers money. Let the poor sportswomen and men in villages who really make India proud, be privy to these benefits. Let the changes and come and stay. Let the intolerance for corruption, inefficiency, dishonesty and incapability grow exponentially with each passing day, and let these people squirm in the media limelight, as their true colours are exposed through their own statements in their current condition of fear and insecurity. Hail an India intolerant of hypocrisy!

Jeyamohan however end the article with a worry. He says,

Even for a man as strong Modi, I think he has touched a wrong nerve. These elements are too powerful. They can destroy India through the media worldwide. They can create a picture that rivers of blood are flowing in India. They can make businessmen around the world to halt. They can wreck the tourism industry. The truth is there is no other power centre like this in India. Tolerating them is unavoidable for India. And Modi’s intolerance of them is extremely dangerous – not only for him but for the country itself.

And that is the only point I disagree with. Not because his logic is flawed in anyway, at all, but because, the world scenario is not what it was. A war is coming, infact it has already begun. And when people are fearing for their own life, across the world, very few will have time or interest in the crap spun by these pseudos. And India will simply shine as a beacon of hope, under capable leadership and dedicated ministers, just as it did in Yemen recently, when it evacuated, not just Indians, but also people of other nations from the war torn zone in record time. And I have, thus nothing but hopes of real good for India in the years to come. 

Jai Hind!