Easier Said Than Done!

Easier said than done

Couple of days ago a close friend of mine, N, came to me looking upset. I could guess that he had some relationship issue in his family that was troubling him. Before we proceed further, we are close friends for over 50 years, right from our school days. We are as good as members in each other’s family. Normally, he takes my shoulders granted for leaning on and crying, especially over sensitive issues that he could discuss with neither outsiders nor any other family members. I asked my wife to offer a cup of coffee to him, allowed some time for his cooling down and then took him over to my study for hearing out.
On seeing that I was ready, he blurted out,”RRG, Dhamu Anna has become so negative in his talks. I am unable to have any useful conversation with him. I feel like shifting out of the house for good.”

Before I proceed further, Dhamu Anna (DA) is 80 years old, with no children. His wife has umpteen health issues and it is N (around 70 years old) who takes care of them. They live in the same house, DA down stairs and N upstairs.
Even though DA gets a decent pension, it hardly covers his monthly expenses, given his wife’s expensive medicines. Almost a year back when DA met with an accident, it was N who spent around Rs.2 lacs and took care of him in the hospital also, day & night. After this accident, DA & his wife have become more demanding, presumably due to DA’s incapacitation.
Recently, N had lost his wife. He still carries the grudge that it was due to DA’s incessant demands that he couldn’t look after his wife, to his satisfaction, in her last days.

Now back to the story.

I enquired of N the reason for his current provocation. It appears DA had asked him to urgently get some medicines from a particular Ayurvedic Stores. For this N had to travel a good distance on his two-wheeler and sure enough got the medicine. When he handed over the medicine the conversation went like this:
DA : “Did you get 10% rebate for these medicines”.
N : “No, the shop did not give me any rebate”.
DA: “How do you expect them to give without your asking? You should have asked. They normally extend it to me”.
N : “I never knew that the shop gave any rebate to anyone. If you were getting it, you should have informed me in advance, not later like this. Even earlier, many a times I had bought these medicines for you from there, but never did you care to inform me of the rebate”.
- In the process both parties raised their voices.
DA: “Why do you get angry and raise your voice? I asked you whether you got rebate. You had not. You should say that and keep quiet. Why do you raise your voice for this?”
N found it would serve no purpose to discuss the matter further and left the scene.
His grievance was that despite his taking trouble of going a good distance and getting the medicine forthwith, DA had no courtesy to even thank him. Instead he only tried to find some flaw in his actions.
N: “RRG, this is not the only case. It happens almost daily multiple times. I just cannot have any useful conversation with him”.
I tried to calm him down.
RRG: “Look N, I could very well understand your feelings. He could have thanked you and be more positive in his communication on rebates. But, does it mean that he loves you less? Let’s look at it from DA’s perspective. Yes, he has taken you for granted in not even thanking you. Have you forgotten what hardships he had undergone in bringing you all, his younger siblings, up? You may have had high regards for him even then but did you keep thanking him for each and every thing he had done? He did it as his duty then as you are doing your duty now. That’s about it. You have high regard for what he had done for you when you were small. That’s why you are ready to run around for him even at 70. Similarly he had such a great love for you that he went through enormous hardships for bringing you up. It is out of that love he is expecting services from you. Who else does he have? Try to get over your hurt and get going”.
N: “It is easier said than done. Thinking on these lines only I went on doing things all along for them. I was at their beck and call, at times even ignoring my wife’s needs. Look, now my wife is gone. I wish I had spent more time with her than these people. Wasn’t it my duty?”
RRG:”Please don’t live with hurt feelings. You did your best for your wife. Still we couldn’t save her. It is not that if you had ignored your injured brother, she would have recovered or you would have felt better. No point in feeling upset about the happenings that are beyond your control. That is karma. Learn to accept it.”
N : “What is my karma? Having a brother like this or having to undergo such pains”.
RRG : “Good question. My answer will be both. Similarly for DA having a brother like you as well as the trials and tribulations he underwent/ undergoes are karma. Whenever something tough happens that is beyond your control, take it that you have overcome a good amount of negative karma. If not anything, such thoughts will at least keep your stress under control”.
N: “By the way, what type of karma is mine? Sanchita, Prarabda or what else?”
RRG: “Oh, it is called Elder Brotherly Karma”, I laughed.

Yesterday, my own octogenarian brother (OB), phoned up enquiring about the historical story I was planning to work on. Being a history buff, he was keen on knowing. Right from my starting the outline of the story, he was effusive with his criticisms, claiming my home work was terribly incomplete. This berating went on for full 15 minutes, despite my explaining that I did have supportive research references by famous historians for all my claims.
Then I asked him a couple of questions from the supportive research works from where I had drawn those references. He was neither aware of those works nor the answers, which compelled me to say that when he had not even read those later day works, what right he had to criticise them. He became furious.
OB: “How dare you say I have not read history? Don’t you ever talk like that. I had been a student of history even before you were born. That you have read few of the recent books make you feel you know everything and others are fools? Useless fellows” etc etc. All my explanations as to how high a regard I had for his knowledge on History and that my remark was limited to these later day researches which he himself agreed that he had not read, fell on deaf years. The diatribe continued.
I thought no useful purpose would be served by continuing this telephonic discussion. So, I said,
“ Anna, neither you nor me are in a position to discuss this issue dispassionately over phone now. Let’s discuss some other time in person. Why don’t you disconnect for now?”
I could hear him saying to himself, before putting the receiver down
“கண்டகண்டகதையெல்லாம்படிச்சுட்டுஎவனெவனோசரித்திரநாவல்எழுதறானாம்; தலைஎழுத்து” (Nowadays people after reading all kind of rubbishy start writing historical novels. Unfortunate).
So much for my karma.

N was right. It was easy when I advised him, but tough when I had to accept it.
Now I am looking out for ways to work out my Elder Brotherly Karma.


Anbudan,

RRG

22/10/2018

 

Thanks Rgs for your visit.
Pleased that you liked the post. And thanks for your comments as well.
You are right. A relationship stays healthy only when there is interaction and two way communication.
That my elder brother criticised me doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like me. I find at his age he has a tendency to take the opposite stand in anything you discuss. In most of such interactions, we agree to disagree and move on.
In fact many of my such karmas I seem to enjoy in retrospect. Otherwise, I would have penned this story, you will agree.
Cheers

 

Thanks Meena madam for your feedback. Pleased to note you enjoyed my post.
Thanks for sharing your household experience as well.
Cheers,

 

Thanks madam.
Pleased to note you enjoyed the post.
சொல்லுதல் யார்க்கும் எளிய அரியவாம்
சொல்லிய வண்ணம் செயல்.

As regards ego, it does affect the relationship. However, in my experience, in the case of close ones like a brother or sister, things settle down in a couple of days and normalcy returns.
That’s what happened in mine as well.
Cheers