A little girl's freedom

 For I am a little girl scampering barefoot

On the crunchy sandy beach

Toes squeaking in moist delight, 

Shallow foot prints, breath-long each

Disappearing beneath a foamy accordion

Behind the bay, a turquoise tide pool

Sea turtles lay basking in the sun

They slide into the waters, silky, cool

The soft sand at the bottom of the pool

Glistening like melted innocence.

 

I race up the cliffside rocks 

Weeds, thickets and thorny brambles

Up and up I reach a mountain tarn 

Cobalt blue enzians rim its edges

Buttercups and fireweeds, poppies and bellflowers

Teasing the wind, swirling in ecstasy

On the  eastern horizon, a grey hut of stone

Lone, silent, dark and alone

Tonight I sleep beneath the glorious sky

My head resting on the grassy knoll

Moments from now, the stars will emerge

As the spilled cherry cream of the setting sun

Sinks into the depths of the ocean's whorls

Tonight I will sleep with the naughty stars 

Winking, dancing, wild and untamed

Peaceful, rested, free and unclaimed

Cradled by the cosmos' demulcent glove

Enveloped in an infinite gossamer of love.

Of feelings and fragrance

 

What do feelings and fragrance have in common?

My short answer is that with both feelings and fragrance, what you perceive is not the essence. Rather, look beneath the surface: where did that sensation come from? Go find the source and do more.  

Yogis would advise you to take note of your feelings at any given moment and then let it pass. Live in the moment. But what about strong sentiments which humans feel are legitimate enough to warrant life-changing actions? 

Perhaps it is time to recognize that all emotions are fleeting. They may be as delightful, yet as capricious as the heady scent of a wild jasmine. 

Would you be silly enough to lament the loss of "that feeling" upon which you made a life altering decision, only to regret it years later? Anger, sorrow, shame, are all impermanent, unless you allow the sentiment to morph into an ugly monster without addressing the source.

If you "feel" that a career in Medicine is right for you, and you act upon it, you have allowed that feeling to transform into action that sets your life on a different track. But is it fair to expect that the same feeling  to remain constant years after your career has taken a life of its own? So why do we expect feelings to last in romantic relationships  after navigating life's rough waters?

If feelings were like fragrance, isn't it silly to mourn its loss ?

Mother's Day when you are not sure whom to celebrate

My random thoughts on Mother's day weekend:

Celebrating mothers everywhere: single mothers included

 A very Happy Mother's Day to all of you: the women who have worked hard to raise children and their supportive families. Some women may disagree with the second half of the statement. Many may be legally or effectively single mothers soldiering on with parenting responsibilities after being excluded from the crowd and relegated to the fringes of society. To these mothers I say: the tough get going when the going gets tough. It's an aphorism I learned as a kid, and it has helped me live my life on my terms.

What if you have never had a loving mother?

All over the world, children grow up without a loving mother figure. And it does not matter if your birth mother is alive or not. It's whether you received that special warmth and how it has affected your ability to nurture your child. What do you feel on Mother's day? Anger? Loneliness? Forgiveness?

Mothers and sons: how should daughters feel about mothers day?

Growing up in India, we did not have a specific day to celebrate mothers. Mothers were revered in general, especially by sons in Hindi movies. 

In real life too, I noticed mothers were openly partial to their sons. I wondered if that would be so if their daughters brought in dowry and not sons. If a family had to pay money to get their son married off, would they have rejoiced as much?

It helps to have a Goddess to pray to: God is not always a man

In Hinduism, devotees pray to Goddesses for beneficience. Goddess Lakshmi for wealth, Goddess Saraswathi for knowledge and Goddess Durga as the mother Goddess. And it has nothing to do with feminism. It's been this way for tens of thousands of years.

What about evil mothers? 

 Call it history or mythology, Hindu texts have several examples of evil women as mothers too. 

Here are two examples:

1.  Kaikeyi: Lord Ram is one of the most venerated Hindu gods. Kaikeyi was his father's second wife. She had been fond of him, but as it dawned on her that her step-son's ascension to the throne would deprive her of her influence on the throne, she conspired to send him to the forest for 14 years while crowning her biological son. This is the inciting incident in the epic story of Ramayana, one of the two best known Hindu mytholgical and religious epic stories ( the other being the Mahabharata). The space is restricted to detail the disaster that unfolds. But  you can find it easily online for those unfamiliar.

2. Lord Ayyappa's story:  Lord Ayyappa is a popular god in India' southern state of Kerala. He was born out of a union between Lord Shiva and Mohini ( Lord Vishnu in the form of a desirable maiden). The childless king of Pandalam adopts the infant boy ( Ayyappan) he found on the river bank. As he grows of age, his step mother conspires to get rid of him. She sends him on a dangerous mission: to get the milk of a tigress. This she hopes would lead to the boy's death. Not knowing that the boy is an incarnation of God, her ploy fails. Ayyappa returns with tiger's milk as his step mother desired, riding on the back of the tigress. The twist in this story is that Ayyappa punishes all women of child bearing age from entering the shrine dedicated to Ayypappa atop the Sabari hills.

And yes, dads do it too. But that is for another time. If you are curious, look up King Dhritharashtra, the blind king whose devotion to his son led to the horrific battle of Kurukshetra in the epic of Mahabharata.

As a mother, may your motto be: I will do my best by doing what is right for humanity. By allowing my offspring to grow to its full potential. Not by assuming my child is the best but by giving it my best. It's  a hard thing to do. But as these enduring tales have shown us, securing our kid's future by ANY means possible can perpetrate evil. 

So I leave this mother's day with one thought: do you as a mother ( or a parent) feel justified in doing anything if you think it will help your child? Even if it harms another? Even if your child is not the most deserving candidate for the title? 

Leaked documents in Mughal India

 It's been over three years since I published The Final Puzzle.

The main antagonist was an Islamic cleric by name Badauni. He was inserted into Akbar's close network by the clergy to thwart Akbar's permissive and tolerant religious views. Upon his arrival however, Akbar tasked Badauni with translating Hindu religious texts to Urdu, a task he considered heresy. 

Akbar was never swayed by Badauni. In fact, with time, Akbar abandoned Islam and embraced his new order of faith called Din-i-Illahi which incorporated the best tenets of all faiths in the land. Unfortunately, this religion did not survive Akbar.

Badauni kept a secret: a frank and critical account of Akbar's reign. It was published only after Akbar's death in 1606. Although Akbar's son Jehangir acceded to the throne after his father's death in 1606, Badauni knew that Jehangir did not much care for his late father. There were even rumors that Jehangir may have fatally poisoned Akbar.

Knowing Badauni's dislike for Akbar's religious views, one has to interpret his account with a sack of salt.

In light of the recent document leaks case, I searched JSTOR website for leaks in history and could not find any. It is probably because any leakers in a kingdom invariably "disappeared" for good.

And just for kicks, here is something I found about educational curriculum in 16th century India.

"Every boy had to read books on the following topics: morals, arithmetic, agriculture, house management, the rules  of government and medicine."

Which brings us to the question: what about the education of girls? What jobs did they do?

I am reading an interesting article called " Middle Class Women in Mughal India" by A Yasmin.

I will write about the salient points from this interesting paper in my next post.

Chemo Day

 The lake outside my corner room

shimmers in the morning sun.

Rays of hope, they seek their way,

piercing through the naked glass.

Glistening drops of liquid drug

pause, then down the tubing flow.

Rush of warmth around my neck,

Flush, a tingle, soon I lapse

through misty shafts of time gone by.

Listless brittle falling hair,

Sore and flaky, dry, cracked lips,

No spit to smooth my peeling palms,

Or lift those achy arms and hips.

Stay positive, my doctor said,

Chemo’s old, take a pill instead.

Thrilled I was to move ahead,

Not so fast, my head it said.

Wrapping pressure, fluffy clouds

Circling softly around my ears,

Blurry eyes, listless stare

Vexing, stippled rash that spread

Stay positive, my doctor said.

An extra pill, then close my eyes

With care I tread, a foggy path

through rocky cliffs.

My team I trust, they cheer each step

Up or down the cryptic vale,

Words like cure I’d love to hear,

The doctor, tense like helpless deer

Trapped in poison nettle vines

Sighs and says, I’m not divine

Months, perhaps another year.

No magic orb I have my dear,

Stay positive, my doctor said.

My spirit, tenacious, gracefully glides

On the rink of hope, fear subsides.

Straddling life and afterlife,

Peaceful now, let go all strife.

P.S: A poem I wrote a while back.

How does exposing one's upper body indicate respect to others?

 2022 was the year of the woman. Dictionary.com's word of the year is "woman."

In the United States, arguably the wealthiest country in the world at any time, the year's events, including elections, highlighted women's rights as a core issue at stake. Halfway across the globe in Iran, women have risen against the perceived oppressive practice of keeping their hair covered in the name of a different religion. But we all know the issue is bigger than reproductive rights or God wishing a woman to keep her head covered. It is about using religion as a pretext for one half of the human race to control the other. Therefore, I found the story of the upper garment revolt from southern India fascinating: how Christian missionaries helped women of lower castes gain the fundamental right to cover their breasts.

Please take a moment to read Maddy's blog linked here https://maddy06.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-breast-tax-and-upper-cloth-movement.html about a sordid aspect of history from my home state of Kerala, India.

Although the caste system was never intended to be rigid when initially conceived in Vedic India, it became an immutable barrier to progress over time. It was the norm in medieval India in southern Indian princely states for only women of upper castes to cover their breasts. Women of inferior castes had to keep their breasts exposed in deference to those above them in society. Those who dared not comply received humiliating punishments.

The East India Company and Christian missionaries assisted these oppressed women in fighting the system, but on condition. They had to convert to Christianity.

Some argue that women in these areas had always chosen to walk around half-naked. That the British were doing them no favors. The Brits forcefully imposed their morals and standards on the natives. Maddy's blog article and other articles make the same argument. There was no shame in keeping the upper body exposed until women were ridiculed by their sisters who had converted to Christianity and started believing in the modernity of keeping one's breasts covered. 

So is flashing one's naked body insulting and therefore punishable by law as we believe it now in civilized society, or allowing women to walk around half exposed, the more advanced way of living? What we believe is decent and acceptable changes with time. And every society probably believes ( perhaps mistakenly) that they are the most advanced humans alive.

Judging any individual's actions from another era is challenging because humans are guided by existing societal norms.

I would argue that this discussion would be moot if a core issue were not at stake: a woman's right to choose what to do to her body.

As long as that choice is compromised or even up for debate, we are no better today than we were centuries ago.

 

Is honesty important in close relationships?

 Does " I want you to be honest with me" conflict with the sentiment " I want you to support me unconditionally"?

This is the crux of the debate in Stephanie Murray's piece in the Atlantic on Dec 12th titled: Should friends offer honesty or unconditional support? It is a worthy read.

She argues that while some advocate for complete honesty, we have a culture of passivity. Friendship is a choice and, therefore, expendable. In other words, people tend to hold back on being forthright with their friends even where red flags are abundant, justifying silence by offering the alternative: being there for your friend when their bad choices blow up in their face, and they need support.

She ends with this sentence: ( she is referring to being honest if you are looking only for close friendships)

"But if it’s friendship of the closest sort that you are after, it’s a risk you’ll have to take."

I will be honest. I like honesty to the point that I wonder if my obsession with the truth comes off as brutal and unsupportive. It has been a challenge for me since childhood. As a cancer doctor, I have been trained to use professional but compassionate language at work. 

It is part of my daily work to discuss how much time someone has when diagnosed with advanced cancer.

 I don't use the crystal ball analogy some doctors use ( " I don't have a crystal ball to predict") because I find it incredibly patronizing. Of course, the patient knows you are not a tarot reader or some gypsy lady. So I keep it short: "It is hard to predict, but in my opinion, based on how you are doing now, it could be...."

I grew up with intensely critical parents.  I have fine-tuned my ability to distinguish between constructive feedback and gaslighting from envious individuals. This has resulted in an inbuilt lie ( or B.S) detection system. So it was surprising to recognize that most people find it hard to accept unpleasant truths. But then I realized: most folks do not have overcritical parents. Our need for societal acceptance has decapitated our instincts-- that embedded GPS within our souls meant to guide us away from danger.

Which is where good, honest friends should come in. But if our friends too are motivated by acceptance, what then protects us from the dangers of our blind spots?

Are we facing this barrage of disinformation because of our culture of passivity that focuses on the listener having a "pleasant "experience, even if ultimately harmful? One can point fingers at this culture in the emergence of social media and the internet to provide ratings to people and businesses. 

I was once at a yoga class where the participants discussed one of the core principles of yoga: non-attachment, something I knew of, growing up in India.

A lady in her mid-forties openly acknowledged that she had issues because of her relationship with her son, which others, including the boy's dad, had described as unhealthy. The concept of 'non-attachment 'triggered her. Her opposition to this ancient principle of living was forceful and passionate.  

When this woman completed her oral arguments in defense of her excessive attachment, she had forgotten why she was in a yoga class.  But what I found disappointing was the yoga teacher's passive nodding as if in agreement. She did not challenge this woman or tell her that the core principle of non-attachment was not up for debate. Rather it was her choice whether to adopt that principle. And the reason for this passive and dishonest approach was simple: it was a business. The yoga teacher may have wanted the participant to write a good review about the business, so she did not feel the need to expound on that topic, even though a yoga teacher or guru has a fundamental duty to impart knowledge. Or the teacher was a product of the culture of passivity, preferring instead to let the participant take as much as she wanted from the class.

This was, of course, a class in the US. I wondered if a guru in India would have passively accepted a student arguing that attachment was an acceptable quality to practice en route to attaining a yogic lifestyle. Probably not. Don't get me wrong: anybody is welcome to have an opinion. You can believe that ivermectin cures COVID and that attachment to people and material objects makes you a yogi or even a yoga teacher.  Your beliefs may make you happy in the moment, but they won't get you where you want to reach.

One of my former colleagues told me about his two daughters, aged 8 years and 4 years, fighting and how the younger one seemed adept at gaslighting.

Half in jest, but probably coming from submerged childhood pain, I laughed and told him:

" Make sure you are fair to the older one. Don't let the younger one get away because she is cute or small or whatever justification parents use. Or else your older one will turn out like me. A rebel who speaks her mind."

He laughed and said: " I would not mind a daughter like you. There is nothing wrong with standing up for what you believe in and speaking your mind. With you, I know exactly what I am getting. And I would trust you any day over someone who keeps quiet when things go wrong."

I was surprised at his remark because no one had ever seen my honesty as a strength. Or at least said so. For that one friend who felt this way, probably a hundred have moved away because they have no appetite for that kind of bluntness.

But because it is friendships of the closest kind I am after, that is a risk I have always been willing to take.

P.S: This article has nothing much to do with history or medicine. But history has taught us that passivity among the majority unknowingly contradicts honesty in those few willing to speak. It can compromise large chunks of society when faced with existential threats.  Just look at our recent pandemic!