Awesome Blossoms: Horn OK Please (24 page)

Then one day, it was time for my sister to go to school as well. My parents decided to get her admitted to a pre-nursery and I would go daily with either my mom or Praphulla akka to drop her off at her school. It was Uma Matriculation School in one of the adjoining bylanes of Chakarapani Street. Not sure if the school still exists. But I was so happy to take my sister to her school. My li’l sis would cutely call it `Upma' Matriculation School. She would look like a doll and was a favorite in the school. But she was very adamant and would refuse to sit in her class. Her reason was that her teacher was black skinned. What a racist baby she must have been. She would cry so loud that her teachers thought it was a better idea to make her sit in some other class, and alas, she would be sitting in standard V, where the teacher was much more beautiful and my sister would be very happy to be there. As long as it worked, it was ok. So when we went to pick her up after a couple of hours, we had to fetch her from class V, and my mom and Praphulla akka would be very apologetic to her pre-KG class teacher.

Soon Praphulla akka got married to one of my mom’s cousin, N. Venu Rao, who is the closest uncle. I still remember the heady days leading to Emergency. It must have been 1974 when we were travelling by train to Kerala for the wedding, and the train had come to a halt in the middle of nowhere. I remember by dad, a railway officer, getting off the train and coming back with some food for us. We had to reach Ernakulam a few days before the wedding date. And we lost an entire day in the middle of nowhere, not knowing when the train will move next. Somehow, the next day, the train moved, and we managed to reach Tripanithura in Ernakulam district, well in time for the auspicious time, muhurtham, as South Indians call it.

Venu mama was sporting a huge mustache. I and my little sister, she was four then, were checking out this Venu mama. It was perhaps the first wedding that both of us attended. Soon after the muhurtham was over and Venu mama had tied the knot to Praphulla akka, and lunch was served, my sister and I went up to Venu mama, and told him to take care of our Praphulla akka. My sister went one step further. She told him in no uncertain terms – that if he didn’t take care of Praphulla akka, she would cut off half of his mustache.... Till this date, none of us have forgotten that episode, and for Venu mama, my sister and I remain his most beloved niece and nephew.

I lost my dad in November 2007. Praphulla akka died in 2009 in her second son's house in Switzerland a day after she landed there, and just a month after her mother Manorama, my dad's only sister died.

Life for us changed forever. But the memories of Chakrapani Street have never gone away…

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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

By Jansi Rani Murugesan

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Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.

― Albert Einstein

Kaleidoscope

T
he present portrays a world that is entirely digitalized. When the concept is nascent, ‘digitalization’ is the term used in business and the field of information technology. It is actually defined as the process of using disruptive technologies to innovate and increase business success. But slowly this seeps into our everyday life.  Human invented technologies are digitalizing everything that they can lay their lands on; nothing is out of the domain.

Speak of technology and its applications you’ll get many options. But in this digital era, how do you rate our human values? Are they getting evolved under the spectrum of digitalization?

Do we follow with our hearts or we go with the brain? Do we see our growth as perfect human beings to the extent that is comparable to our growth in technology? Are we happy and at the same time, comfortable?  With the increased knowledge, do we become more tolerant?  

Very
recently I got an invitation to attend a short motivational talk in Singapore. It had a minimal entry fee associated to it which anyway would get virtually reimbursed by the goodie bags that would be offered upon the arrival.  Because the venue was near to my workplace, I managed to arrive on time, collected the goodie bag and made myself comfortable. Slowly the crowd reached peak as the event was about to start. Because of so many people present at the venue, I was not able to hear the speaker clearly. So, I decided to help the staff at the registration desk.  When I went there, saw a long queue of grumpy people. They were annoyed because the goodie bags at the desk got over and hence the last lucrative offer which would have provoked them to attend the lecture had been thwarted. I looked at my goodie bag, it had nothing special. It only had a notebook, a pen, a can of soft drink, some chips and of course pamphlets.  

I tried to explain some of the people to not to waste their time on materialistic things like goodie bags and to focus more on value addition from learning that they would get out of the talk.  Very few listened, most of them still put up a fight. I finally gave up and decide to attend the talk, but by that time, the lecture had already got over. 

Clearly, human capacity for tolerance is already on the path to declivity. In which direction were we headed? After such a shameful incident, how could we claim that we have succeeded?

The most disturbing incident was being a part of a peace rally where the emissaries of peace started fighting with each other with weapons.  Certainly, peace wouldn’t spawn in the cardigan of violence! 

Another time, it was a Monday morning and the railways station in Mumbai was crowded. People boarded train now and then.  Hari Hasan was one of them. Every morning between 7:10 and 7:15, I would see him at the same platform, waiting for his train without any diversion. And this continued for almost three months. Because I was involved in many social projects like collecting funds for cancer patents, I always had a strong aspiration to know more about people and their lives. Hence I decided to speak to him. Within a few minutes of our conversation, I came to know that Hari was a special person; he suffered from Autism.  He had Asperger syndrome.

Out of curiosity I decided to find out his destination.  When I learnt that he was working in a reputed software firm as
a Testing consultant, I was shocked. But more than that, I was truly inspired. I felt a deep sense of respect for both Hari and the company who hired autistic people and used their highly analytical mind, an excellent memory and extremely high stamina in an efficient way. 

This is possible only if we can build positive working environment through understanding people’s needs. To deal with people like Hari
, counts. Because one can trust him with his words when he says that everything is okay, not just for the sake of saying, but he really means that things are all right.

I later came
to know that Hari was very liberal; he enjoyed cracking jokes. He was a person who could laugh at himself. He knew his capabilities well and he had learnt to accept them in a very positive manner.  This was a great lesson for me.

I asked Hari about the working environment in his company. He beamed with pride when he said that his colleagues truly understood the meaning of diversity and inclusion and practi
ced it as well.  

In another incident, I was a counselor at one of the meditation centers as I
am a certified meditation trainer. Vasanti, a mother of two boys, was my student. Within two days, we became good friends.  One day after the class got over, she came to me and told that her younger son, Kumar, was a special child. He was mentally and physically challenged. She shared with me the challenges that she faced day in and day out.  After listening to her story, my respect for her increased manifolds.  I asked her if I could visit Kumar one day to which she agreed. So, I visited her house and gifted Kumar some toys.  Happiness reflected on his face as he held my hand and tried to pronounce my name “Jansi” as “Nsi”. It was sweet. In his eyes I was not a stranger as he formed a mental connection with me the moment I looked into his big, black eyes. It was evident that he enjoyed meeting people. He took his leap of faith and trusted me instantly. I had a very good time with him that day. We shared jokes, watched cartoons and had dinner. When I turned back to wave him goodbye, Kumar’s smile revealed the importance of altruistic love.

It was definitely an eye opener for me.  In our modern Era, we don’t even have true faith in God, either we make business out of him or we make business with him
.

Kavit
a was my hostel mate and a very close friend. We stayed in working women’s hostel. She worked as a cashier in one of the super markets while I worked as a software engineer.  And somewhere down the line I let the pride creep in, because of working in an air-conditioned office, nice pay, etc. Though Kavita earned much less than I did, she had high self-respect for herself and her job.  She always cared for everyone and was always full of happiness.  After I met her, her satisfaction in life made me change my attitude towards life.. She often used to quote that one should never allow money to control oneself, it should be the other way round and that one can be happy even with just two small pieces of bread.  If our stomach can’t digest the ten years of savings all at once and can digest just two pieces of bread, what are we fighting for?

If you notice, most of the time people reject jobs because the payment doesn’t meet the expectation.  But Kavita has showed me the positive spirit towards life with her positive attitude.  As someone has rightly said ‘You can change the world only by
initiating that change in yourself first’.

Thought I am an extrovert, at times I prefer not to be
disturbed, as I like working at a stretch to complete some of the assignments.  And this causes a major upheaval among my peers because they think that they need to work harder to get a good appraisal.  But age takes toll; our body can’t cope up with our mental strength all the times. Even I get a headache often.

One day, I suffered from migraine and I was in severe pain. I was about to have a medicine to control my stress, when I saw some kids dancing at one of the podiums.  As they sang and danced, happiness oozed out of them.

And lo! Their lovely smile drove away my migraine. I felt very relaxed. I went downstairs. I could hear the kids singing ‘Rain rain go away’ poem.  And as an impulse, I sang to myself “Stress, worry, anxiety go away!” And in my heart of hearts, I danced like never before.  Those kids had taught me the meaning of being carefree. I longed to get back to my childhood.

But let me tell you one thing, though the childhood as a phase would be a thing of the past, but the child in us never dies.
Childhood innocence disappears with designations and pay-packages.

These titles are actually ruining our originality. Ajay Gupta was good programmer; he owned various prizes for the competitions that he had won while sti
ll in college. He was hired by well-known IT Company, earned great money and everything was going perfect, until he got promoted to the position of a Manager. As soon as he became the Manager; he was given the responsibility of under taking twenty people, he was stuck. He couldn’t cope well as a Manager; slowly he lost his programing skills and his genuine nature and had become more of a reasoning type. 

Titles encroach your life! My mother always tell me that no matter who I am and who I might become in near future, no matter how many titles I might possess, at the end of the day I would always be her daughter. And that is absolutely true! Whenever I come home, I leave all my titles back in the car before entering home. When Jesus got crucified, he asked God, the almighty, to forgive all the people who had tormented him as according to him, they had done so in ignorance.  But if we look deeply into it; even during his last moments, he was feeling proud of all his accom
plishments instead of seeking mercy and he blessed all and prayed for the thieves who died along with him.

Kannan is another busy auto driver in the city of Chennai. Whenever I land in the city, I always book him for my travel inside the city. One day he was very sad , I noticed that his face was glistening with joy and when I enquired about the same, he told me about a monk had refused to pay him money and had asked for a free ride.  After listening to the entire talk, I politely told Kannan, that it was a good practice to serve others who served the world. But abruptly, he interrupted my talk and told me that he di
dn’t want good fortune but a twenty-rupee note to have his morning breakfast. I was shocked. But that was the reality. We don’t need mercy in words, but actions after all; actions speak louder than the words.

If you look at the Monk, he had already renounced all the worldly comforts. In my eyes, Kannan earned stripes when he gave that monk a free ride because by doing so he had given out of his poverty and hence he moved to the next level. Kannan also provides free ride to poor children, physically challenged people and the old people. I was impressed by his noble thoughts. 

Ten years back when I had just started working, I used to take public transport. And the condition was pathetic. Those used to be extremely crowded. Some of the people who were blessed enough to get seats to sit on would continue doing so for the rest of the journey oblivious to the fact that some elderly person would be standing. But one person looked cheerful in that crowd, the bus conductor. He exchanged pleasantries with people and offered them tickets. I was impressed by the way the dealt adversity and looked forward to learn from him in life.

Ravi is my neighbor;
he is physically challenged. He can’t walk and is a very poor learner. He always scores very less in academics. He doesn’t like it when his mother compares his marks with that of mine. But he knows his inner strength and takes everything easy. At one time, I and Ravi both applied for one of the professional certification exams, we paid INR 50,000/-, which was an exorbitant money for both of us. And as usual Ravi was cool and relaxed. But thinking of money and fear of failure, I was getting worried. Hence, I couldn’t study well, even on the day of the exam.. I didn’t have the courage to read the questions. But Ravi was taking exam, all in a happy mood, with a smile.  Though none of us could clear the exam, but our behaviors were different. I felt heavy and I sobbed for days altogether.  Whereas Ravi was cool as ever, he didn’t have any worry. He told me that money lost could be earned again and for once I agreed with him. Because Ravi couldn’t walk, he had never been to the Meenakshi temple. So I made it a point to get offerings from the temple for him whenever I would visit the temple and he would humbly accept it. 

He saw God in
the offerings unlike the others who didn’t even see god in god himself! Ravi is the perfect role model for me, he never ever regretted or felt sorry for anything. He is now well settled in UAE, he recently shared his photograph with me.  I was very pleased to see the same smile on his face.

In nutshell, we don’t need to undergo training to become perfect. It is an iterative process.  We don’t need to search, but we need to practice.  All the virtues, values and powers lie within us.

If you want to be loved, spread love. If you want to be respected, give respect. Don’t only look at the beauty in drops of dew on a rose, but also look at the beauty of the similar droplets on the edge of thorns.  Let’s set a goal and “Digitalize our Values”.

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