Pain and Prayers...

Last night I couldn’t sleep. My daughter is having problems at school. Every time she thinks she has made a friend, the friend turns around and says she doesn’t want to play with her. Recently she started playing soccer at recess with a group of her classmates and now this one girl won’t let her play, and everyone else is going along with this. So here I have a sad girl with tears brimming in her eyes, who has no clue what to do next. And I have tried giving all sorts of advice on making new friends but they seem to work for only a day or two.

 

We both are at our wits’ ends. But to see her yesterday, crying because noone will play with her broke my heart. I was so upset to see my little one in pain that I couldn’t sleep at all. I can do only so much for her. Outside she will have to fight her own battles. It doesn’t help that she doesn’t have friends in the neighborhood (as we are new and in an apartment rather than a house), nor any siblings.

 

While I sat the whole night feeling miserable, anxious and hurt, sometimes blaming my misfortune over the miscarriage of my twins, I had no clue today would bring a whole new definition to the word “pain”.

 

With shock, and tears I read the news of the shooting in Newtown, CT. This is insane, in-human. What can drive a human being to mow down sweet young children the age of 5-10 years? What??? I wish this monster hadn’t killed himself but had been taken alive to see the damage he has inflicted upon the families and by extension to the whole country.

 

Nothing can justify his actions. Nothing! But more than this sick monster, our thoughts should and are turning towards the parents of the sweet children killed, and the families of the victims.

 

My God! How horrendous they must feel, how angry that some stroke of luck hadn’t protected their young ones and made them survive this insanity. Nothing can ever prepare a parent to lose a child. And to a mindless, selfish, completely avoidable evil! I can’t even begin to imagine what their heart must be feeling right now. I know this will scar them forever. Time doesn’t heal wounds, it only makes them dull.

 

This is even more horrible because Christmas is just round the corner. I am getting goosebumps and tears simply imagining the parents looking at their kids’ Santa letters, and the cute holiday crafts they would have left their parents. Dear God, how do you justify this inanity?

 

Our prayers are with the familes and the kids and teachers of the school. May God give them the enormous strength they need to pull themselves together for the sake of themselves and their families. They have a long and very tough road to go. The wonderful people of Newtown will rally together and give support to the families of victims but they need our prayers for when they are alone.

 

Rest in peace little ones! And the teachers and staff of Sandy Elementary! May you rest in peace!

Getting there...

Still not my promised post on the road trip across Texas, this is more my journey into self-realisation and ambition. Big words but very very deep meaning.

 

My entire youth, I was focussed on my self, my career. I had it all mapped out. Very clear-cut. I knew what I wanted to do with myself. Where I wanted to reach..and How I was going to get there.

 

I spent about a year and all of my vacations trying and crossing out various professions until I zeroed in on Human Resources. I loved meeting new people, listening to them, getting to know them better and so on.

 

I learnt I derive my energy from people. No matter how tired I am or how down, talking to someone, recharges me better than the Eveready battery bunny. I knew I wanted to go into HR Management, not though what was practised in India (more like exploit the working class) in the name of HRM.

 

When you genuinely want something, the universe has a strange way of delivering it to you. I got this sudden opening in an IT firm and so began my journey. I had mapped out the courses I wanted to do, an MBA from a good but not world-famous institute. An institute that would teach me the real tools of the profession, not just feed me with the jargons and assembly-batch me out to waiting sharks hiring companies.

 

I wanted to reach the peak. In my mis-guided youth, I used to think having a career and reaching the very pinnacle was what Buddha realised under the tree.

 

Until life hit me big-time. Or was it destiny or God or karma…No clue. It just changed my life so drastically, and with that I had to change simply to survive. I can not recognise my own self. Recently when a friend was talking about relaunching my career, gaining self-respect or dignity by chiseling my long-forgotten career, I just had to smile indulgently like a mom does to a child performing somersaults and move the topic to something more real.

 

Past 15 years have changed my thinking so much that I can not recognise myself. I no longer crave the pinnacle, do not even want to get into the rat-race ( I call it the hamster wheel), and treat money like a clump of dirt.

 

Those who are closest to me in mind know why. Others can only guess. And I am not about to break the crazy like a bat mysterious aura around me.

 

After spending all my 20s running behind an illusion, I suddenly found the real thing. The act of doing something for no personal gain. Except satisfaction. I have written earlier about how much the USA and some of its people have inspired me to turn outwards in my ambition rather than inwards. I have, like everything else in my life, taken up volunteering with a passion. Given my whole 100% of it. The reward has been priceless.

 

I get no money. Indeed I have to spend from my own pocket. But the satisfaction and the happiness is immense. And all the rewards that I always ran after, recognition, designation, achievement and all that jazz…are all falling into my lap without my even trying.

 

My school PTA board selected and offered me the position of Vice President – Press Release. They are also honoring me this month as the Volunteer of the Month. Honor, title, achievement. Outside the school, none of this is of any value. Indeed many Indians sneer when they realise I don’t get paid.

 

Yet I feel blessed. Finally I have begun to think I am on the right lane.

 

This is so much more meaningful than anything I would have ever done in the corporate world. I am still in that world but in a way where I get to pick only the positives. No politics, no bickering, no race. Nirvana!

 

I am honored and humbled. And am beginning to glimpse what the Buddha might have seen with his eyes wide closed.

 

 

Disclaimer – This post is by no means looking down on all those who work hard at their careers. Indeed I would encourage everyone to be good at their job (can’t erase the Management trainging, can I?) and reap ample rewards. This is my journey, my life. To each his own!