Sunday reflections 12- On the lighter side!

There is competing to be first and then there is the other kind. I am sure you have done it and can relate. But can you guess? Ok here is a hint. It is a competition you have with people at home, generally your spouse. Still no clue? Here is another hint. It is competing to not be the last one to do certain things so you can escape doing other things. Come on you know what I am talking about. How often have you cursed when staring down an empty tube of paste? Tell me you have not squeezed the last of the shampoo in the bottle or bitten on the toothpaste cube to get the final remnants out, so you are not burdened with replacing it? Here's another one - pressing down the garbage so you don't have to replace the bag?

It's not because you need to fetch these items from the store. Not that. It's having spares in the cupboard, but not bothering to retrieve or not wanting to step out of the shower to take item out of the bathroom shelf or cupboard when you realize with irritation your spouse did not bother to replace after him. It's one of those things I dare not complain about because - not only will I be accused of being the pot that called the kettle black, but also will have thrown at me random statements to the effect "And who buys them every time? When was the last time you did?" All of which is rightful and will require me to bite back, for the sake of peace and harmony "but you won't replace an empty bottle or tube in the bathroom - never ,,,you will just wait for me to...however long it takes...what's the use of stocking all this stuff when there is none when you or I reach for it?"

About two weeks ago, I decided to change the rules of the game. I did not replace the body gel but decided to use a combination of baking soda and a natural product from Lush, both anathema to the significant other who loves the traditional soap with lots of foam. I wanted to see if the bottle would be replaced. And two days passed and still nothing. The bath gel bottle was by now nice and shiny, so thoroughly had it been cleaned out for the last remnants of soap, and this, after two long showers everyday! Given his very high standards of personal hygiene I grew suspicious and was wondering, horror of horror, if he had been using my expensive shampoo as a soap substitute? To rescue my shampoo, I immediately capitulated and replaced the bath gel. I then confronted him with my accusation. He turned and giving me an incredulous look and said "Why would I use shampoo in the place of soap? I am actually using that disgusting soap you have there." He might as well have said "check-mate" since he had gotten me to give in and replenish his gel.

Any lessons learnt? Only that if you are with someone as lazy as you are, just know that they will outsmart you in ways you never believed they could to put off doing the work - every time! How do I know this so well? Because I make my clean underwear outlast his so as not to be the one to take on laundry. So who has the last laugh now?!

Sunday reflections 11 - Finding that sweet spot

Uttara was at her MBA school alum meet (Tuck at Dartmouth) in Verbier, Switzerland recently. There were alum from the 70s to the present day, but a relatively small group. Most were super rich, white and mostly male. The exception being the three of them from her class. Being at the bottom of the totem pole and of modest means, they were hosted at the home of one of the alum who just happened to be a billionaire. His was an opulent 14 bedroom chalet with 3 elevators, pools and jacuzzis, liveried help and ski off and on in the famous and tony Verbier ski resort, the residence and training ground of the world's premier skiers. Uttara was surprised at how her group members were all super athletic, skiing down 3000 metre glaciers and even attempting ski jumps. She said to me "mom I was the worst of the lot, but with their pedigree they must have been skiing since they were toddlers". When I asked her about her host, she relayed that his grandfather had made his money in insurance which the grandson had then parlayed into business ventures and real estate investments in the coolest places around the world. Having put their four kids in the world's premier boarding schools, he and his wife divided their time between their homes on islands and cities worldwide, besides sojourning at the homes of Buffet (which they said was "comfortable") and Gates ( which they said was "magnificent"). Uttara made particular mention of the wife's 16 carat diamond ring. "However", she remarked, "they are pretty disconnected from how you and I live", and then she asked me "do you think they really happier than us?" and she added "it did not appear to me that they were? " "Well" I said "I have not really met anyone face to face who is that wealthy, but do believe it is all about finding that sweet spot where you actually know what you want, and have the financial ability to exercise that choice?”.

After that conversation I read an article in Bloomberg on the movement to increase the minimum wage in America from $7.25 per hour. Obama has suggested the magic number of $10.10. The libertarians who believe in doing away with minimum wage altogether are arguing that businesses will do better and employment numbers will be higher if wages are lower and people get paid what they are worth. They go so far as to say that in such a regime, people with low intellectual ability will also find work at $2.00 an hour. What this does not take into account is how much money one needs, to live. According to an MIT study the living wage in San Francisco is an ideal $26 per hour. A cleaning woman who makes $8 per hour is at about a third of that wage. She needs two full time jobs to eat and have a roof over her head, albeit under unsafe conditions. She cannot afford to fall sick and has to live in a perpetual state of anxiety about paying bills and staying afloat, while ensuring her kids, if she has them, stay out of trouble. This woman, I thought, will have greater difficulty finding that sweet spot provided by the choice that money can engender.

As for me, a conflicted middle class entity, I secretly covet wealth but am burdened with guilt over my secret desire when I know that a lot of it will come out of perpetuating the disparity between the super- rich and the desperate. So where is my sweet spot? From a sense of superiority over the thought that wealth is morally suspect, comes at the cost of exploitation and will get us into a state of depravity and apathy? Just saying..

Sunday reflections 10 - Glamorous dezi girl?

I distinctly remember the evening I returned from watching a matinee show of “Aap ki Kasam”. We lived in sleepy Trivandrum at that time and Mumbai seemed aeons away. I experienced deep melancholy as I came down from the “high” of the movie. There seemed such a great divide between the actual lives of Rajesh Khanna and Mumtaz and poor little inconsequential me. I remember looking down at my cotton dress and Hawai slippers wondering how life could be so unfair. Little did I know that the demystification and democratisation process would happen in my life- time. Or that Bollywood's ubiquitous quality would make it a choice noun/adjective in many languages, spicing up our lives and adding colour to it in so many ways.

So its no wonder Indian weddings are the stuff of Hindi movies. Readily available and mass produced quasi- designer clothes make us all look like heroines and the parties mimic movie sets replete with the glitz and glamour of beautiful people in their authentic Indian haute couture. Long gone are the benign wedding scenes where we wore silk sarees, repeating over and over the maroons and mustards for the wedding ceremony and the more daring blues and greens for the evening reception. Now our fabrics range from Tussar silks to rich velvets embroidered with expensive crystals and semi -precious gems. The outfits are imaginative and range from dresses and Ghagra Cholis to Sarees with a twist. No one wears sterile blouses airhostess-style with the back fully covered and a respectable high V-neck in the front. All the vogue are halters with the back and arms naked, off shoulder creations with one sleeve and blouses tenuously held together with strings knotted at the back. Accessories include armlets, chokers and hair ornaments that defy the imagination. Also, older women dress much younger making for great homogeneity in clothes between the young and the old. Having thus adorned themselves these beautiful women are ready to take on the dance floor to gyrate to the latest Bollywood hits for an eye popping spectacle. There are no dance parties today without the more recent “Bathameezi Dil” or “Chu nanana chu nanana” or vintage “Om Shanti Om”. Then there are the bhangra numbers and remixes set to a fast beat. Everyone knows the lyrics of the songs. As they lip sync and imitate Prabhudeva or Farrah Khan dance- moves, they look pretty authentic. Who knew life could imitate art in such fashion and Bollywood could fuel the imagination in this way.

Augmenting the celebrity experience are mobile devices which come with high-end cameras and immediate upload capability. So every wedding party has a post celebration twitter hashtag to crowd source all the pictures taken by the cameras around the room. Also, there is no telling where these photos will surface. Published on blogs and social media they could go viral just because they tickle an idiosyncratic fancy of an ADD challenged public. Long after the fad has faded the pictures remain. Bottom-line, the investment in all the finery is well worthwhile because memories no longer languish in a fraying photo album at the bride’s parents’ home. They are now dynamically available to be immortalised in technicolour and shared infinitesimal times to all and sundry.

I am sure with a twitter following of real people and zombies, appropriate hashtags to commemorate events and topics, picture uploads, we can all mimic the lives of the people we would have idolised in yesteryears. Who said we are not all celebrities? Tweet me at #glamorousdezigirl to find out more!

Sunday reflections 9 - The art of storytelling

Cartoon by Uttara Sukumar, Year 2000 (or so)

It is Oscar night and although I am indifferent to award shows, I love the movies and love a good story. But the best kind are the ones I share in person. Both my parents were great at sharing them. And more than myths and fables from ancient Hindu epics, we grew up listening to family stories. Amma's always had a feminist theme about oppressed women's subversive acts in the little village of Sattanadapuram, Tanjore, where she grew up. There was always a moral about showing courage and forbearance to triumph in the end. It featured women who slaved at home making and selling pappads while their husbands squandered away their manhood in their mistress' homes. Amma never minced her words. She embellished for effect, delivered with punchlines often reducing us to tears and rousing our passion to take arms in solidarity with women-kind. No story was too adult for us. I knew about sexual molestation of widows in joint families and the taboo topic of marital rape early in my teens.

Appa on the other hand had goofy stories which had us in splits. I really could not get enough of his sleepwalking misadventures, his near drowning experiences and his embarrassment over emoting as heroes did in the movies, when he was asked to sing film songs in public. There were always tales about men who over-ate at weddings, uncles who failed exams and went to great lengths to hide the fact at home only to have some busybody break the news in front of all and sundry, sibling ribbing and rivalry. They were coming of age stories all light-hearted and entertaining.

My parents made me realize the power of the narrative and I have always used it to illustrate a point when interacting one on one or when making presentations. Even when confronted with a problem I ask myself this question "I wonder how this story will end?" No wonder I loved my solo practice in law when I had it. I would invite people into my life to share great stories with me. And I was actually paid to listen. Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction got it right. You could not make up some of the real life experiences people shared with an unflinching straight face. A particularly poignant one was from a blind woman who was accused of uttering death threats to her blind partner on the phone after he changed his mind about marrying her following a hysterectomy that she underwent on his bidding!

Since Uttara spent all her summers in India, till she turned 16, she enjoyed her grandparents' stories. I carried on that tradition at home so much so that even today when we cuddle in our "mommy- daughter" moments she will bid me with " Amma kadhai chollu" ( Amma tell me a story). When she catches me embellishing for effect, she will roll her eyes in disbelief but not stop listening with rapt attention. I am so glad that storytelling was not considered gossip and banished from our home for being in poor taste. I have to admit that it gave us license to wag our tongues and kept us immensely curious about everything and everyone around us. We were always on the prowl for a good story.

Sadly that wonderful tradition of plain old listening to stories for fun has been lost due to the distractions from electronic devices. Staring at our hand helds, we just do not make eye contact and share tales from our heart and mind that excite, entertain or exhilarate us.

Let's park our devices, kindle our curiosity about everything and everyone around us, for a short while everyday, so the people we interact with and love, also bear witness to life as we see it through our utterances!

Sunday reflections 8 - The bright side of winter!

Yes there is a bright side! We are watching the Canada Sweden gold medal Olympic match up today and I am itching to get my feet into a pair of ice skates and zip across the ice. Oddly enough, I learnt to skate in Dubai in 1984, smack in the middle of a blistering summer at the Al Nasr Club ice skating rink. I did not even have an inkling then that I was Canada bound. I rented skates and persisted day after day over the 8 weeks I spent there. I took to the ice like a fish to water even surprising my niece's trainer.

After we came to Canada, my husband and I bought ourselves skates but were too embarrassed to stumble on the ice. So after a couple of tentative tries, we carted them from house to house, as we moved around, finally donating them to goodwill. Likewise with cross country skis which we used a little more, over a couple of winters on the beautiful wooded trails close to our Blind River home. Our move to Toronto saw us gravitating towards all things Indian in an attempt to create a comfortable cocoon for ourselves and introduce our child to her heritage. Luckily for Utta she took to winter, having moved here when she was just 18 months. As a toddler, she loved playing in the snow and would refuse to come inside while I froze watching over her. She learned to skate, play ice hockey and ski downhill. It's no wonder she does not complain about winter!

My favourite pastime in the winter is complaining about it. And yet we live in a nation whose tag line for the Olympics was "we are winter" and where the winter scenes just take my breath away! I love the hush of a snowy day, walking on a crisp cold day and recall with fondness a well deserved hot chocolate after a couple of hours of exhausting but exhilarating cross country skiing. Like everything else it's always that first step. Rather than recoil and cower inside with confused thoughts about winter - all irrational and learnt - I am determined to tackle the great outdoors. Skating maybe? I am sure there is a rink around the corner from me and a pair of rental skates available for a song. I just need my brave face. What greater motivation than making my daughter proud and perhaps one day skating with her. I hope to blog about my skating experiences which hopefully do not include tales of broken bones! (Ok ok - no more negative thoughts)

And how about those Canadian athletes!!

Sunday reflections 7 - 3 Epiphanies

It is 4:30 am and I hurry towards the meditation hall. The two hour meditation leading up to breakfast has it's highs and lows depending on the previous night's sleep. It is a striving to embrace that elusive experience of Shuniya, the point of stillness, which ironically cannot be achieved through effort but comes from totally letting go of the conditioning that everything comes with effort. There are no great aha moments, just the excruciating drag of time from minute to minute. I try to be fully present through the aches, pains and tingling as well as the vastness of time as I observe each breath, gently forcing the mind back every time it runs into the future with craving for the hot oatmeal, toast with tahini and the piping hot cup of tea that awaits the close of the meditation or to past Chennai experiences of decoction coffee. Anything to occupy it. With eyes tightly shut, and determined to make an honest effort, I focus, mildly distracted by the footfalls and the rustle of clothes of others who have dragged themselves from bed to settle on their spots. By the second day I realize I can tell who has come in. I am particularly tuned in to a young man who sits along my row, with a fully shaven head, white and gleaming. He wears a hoodie in a dark colour to go with his light coloured pants and appears the keenest of the lot. I cannot see his face and would dare not make eye contact, breaking the precept of noble silence. I play a little game of making up his story in my head to test how close I have come, when the silence is broken on the last day. He is clearly married but did he still flirt with the idea of monk hood, I speculate because of his ostensible intensity?

Anyway, I anchor my practice to his, since competition is what I know best. I will out meditate him. Stay motionless, while he shifts positions, remain glued to my spot eschewing the need for washroom breaks and outlast him past the breakfast gong. It works. I barely know how the first hour has passed heralding the soothing chants that mark the second hour. The next day when the gong strikes the wait does not seem long at all. Odd. Now I cannot wait to get back in the hall to meditate. I have an incentive. I want to outdo and outlast this young man. Although the meditation itself is great, and even unbeknownst to myself I am quietening the mind, it is only on day 4 or 5 that I wise up to the egocentricity of this incentive whereby I am treating meditation as a competitive sport! I then begin noticing this habit pattern that underpins decisions I make in life. This is not to say that competition is bad. However, there are times when competition does not engender the best outcome. In those instances, alternatives may include finding a middle ground or withdrawing so as not to cut one's own nose to spite a competitor. It may be a while before I am actually able to alter my reactions, but at least now I am noticing?! How interesting! This is one of three big epiphanies I have.

The second one relates to my need for purpose in everything I do. Here, there is the realization that there is "no pizza in nirvana" (Sharon Salzburg) and no outcome to look for on a cause -effect linear scale. Transposed to everyday living it is the idea behind karma yoga where you don't look to the end but the reward is in the experiencing!

And the third epiphany? Well it relates to my romantic ideas on everything including spirituality. Oh how wonderful that this young man may be on his way to becoming a monk. For starters, fresh out of 10 days of practice, I do not indulge my curiosity to find out. It really does not matter if my speculation is right or wrong. After all this is about his life and his journey and not fodder for my entertainment.

Silence and Sensation

Equanimity just looks on and observes, while calmly settled in composed neutrality. It is manifested as the quieting of both resentment and approval. Gautham Buddha

I am back from my Vipassana retreat in Alliston, Ontario where nestled in the wilderness of Canadian conifers is Dhamma Torana, the Centre where I strengthened my meditation practice while observing ten days of noble silence. This could have been the lower Himalayas in the winter, so pristine the snow and serene the beauty of the land. The only sounds I heard till we broke the silence on day 10 was that of the gong to herald wake up, meditation and meal times. With 60 other enthusiastic meditators I trekked from the women's dorm to the meditation hall and the dinner hall in a cozy triangle, between the hours of 4:00 am and 9:00 pm never otherwise venturing much outside. The days consisted of long hours of observing my breath and sensations in complete silence, in the large Dhamma Hall or in my individual cell. The first two days were challenging with aches from sitting cross legged on a meditation cushion for 11 hours. However, except for a few rocky moments from emotional upheavals brought on by the intensity of the practice, on days 4 and 6, it was an extremely comfortable and natural state for me to be in. The quiet of the winter just deepened the inner silence I was able to scale.

Besides the sheer experience of delinking from all sensory stimuli, there were some marvellous benefits that I enjoyed from this retreat.

I main lined with the Buddha and my heart brimmed over with gratitude for his contribution to bring real peace and harmony with a non sectarian practice that just involves observing breath and sensations to eliminate past conditioning and habit patterns. Pure Vedanta with "how to" instructions. I am committed to continue on this path to bring greater detachment, unravel old habit patterns and to live without the reactivity that comes when the the mind and body are out of sync!

I met amazing young women who on day 10 just stunned me with their wisdom and purity. There is such a thing as an old soul. One 20 year old's experiences on the spiritual path since age 17, simply floored me. Another young woman said she did not have any place to go to after the retreat, but that it had brought her the clarity to understand what she wanted to do. Her husband was there, of course segregated from us, and she told me, with unbelievable serenity, that he might decide to become a monk! I wondered how these women have such courage to be so detached and uncompromising in their life choices,

Another "benefit" came from deepening my practice by volunteering to clean up washrooms and public areas. These are the "privileges" that an old student can sign up for and I did.

A further benefit was re-learning how to live life by strict rules. In a world of silence, systems and adherence to rules is of paramount importance so you don't get in people's way while taking care of your own needs. There are those of us who are rule bound and others who keep shifting the lines. I have assessed myself as belonging to the second category. So such reinforcement was really useful for me! I am replicating some of it at home with instruction lists and weekly menus! Let's see for how long this lasts!

Living the life of a nun has its advantages in that you get by with the basics, live off the charity of others and simplify life to limit it to few activities. I ate the wholesome breakfast of oatmeal, fruits and toast and lunches of rice, pasta or couscous with cooked veggies and salads with great relish and made do with just herbal tea at dinner time. I was present in everything I did, from showering to washing to walking on the snow, without the distractions of sensory clutter and choice.

I hope to do a ten day retreat every year and longer ones in the future.

We all know the benefits of meditation. Here is one of myriad scientific articles coming out on this topic. (http://www.stonehearthnewsletters.com/mindfulness-meditation-causes-specific-molecular-changes-in-the-body-uw-madison-study/meditation/ ). If you want to get established in a daily practice within an environment that is non-religious/sectarian/cultist, I highly recommend Vipassana. Also, if you are intimidated by the austerity, don’t be. There is so much love and compassion in the environment there that you are allowed the privilege of sitting on a chair if you cannot cross-legged on the floor, or if you wish to meditate in your room, rather than in the hall. You are also provided a meal in the evening if you cannot bear the thought of going to bed on a hungry stomach. Most amazing off all are the changes that you will see come over you and their positive impact on your relationships, productivity, focus and overall well being. If you are able to set aside 10 days, give it a try. It's free and works based on the pay it forward principle! You will come away enriched and become part of a wonderful community of volunteers who run the Centres worldwide! Check out www.dhamma.org.