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My Mother departs...

Discussion in 'Cheeniya's Senile Ramblings' started by Cheeniya, Oct 9, 2009.

  1. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Meenakshi
    Knowing how traumatic the passing away of a mother can be, all I can do is to offer my heartfelt condolences to you on your bereavement. Life has to move on, Meenakshi. We now have the added comfort of our mothers guiding us from above. Let us lead our lives the way they wanted us to.
    Sri
     
  2. Kamla

    Kamla IL Hall of Fame

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    My dear Cheeniya sir,

    I don't think I need to spell out my discomfort to you. I am extremely embarrassed for not being here in the hour of your need.

    These past few months, I have been only a brief visitor to IL and my priority has been my own sub forum. I was unaware of your big loss till recently. When in India, it was Lalitha Shivaguru who informed me about it and later Chitvish. I tried calling you twice with no luck.

    From your earlier posts, I know your mother had a very special place both in your house and your heart. I know of your high esteem and regard for elders from your thoughts expressed in the post regarding old age homes.

    The demise of your dear mother must have left a great void. Right words fail me. But knowing you, I am sure you have let go of your sorrow a little with the knowledge that she is in His loving Abode.

    I cant help but feel that she was a fortunate woman who seemed to have enjoyed not only the love of her family, but also earned their respect. You too are blessed to have had the pleasure of her company for so many years and fortunate enough to be close to her during her last minutes.

    Reading this post brought tears to my eyes. My heart is very heavy as I miss my mother very much. I am not as lucky as you. I am not there for her in her hour of need. All I did was to bid her a farewell as I once again got ready to lead my own life in the shores afar. Yes sir, even with her departure, you are still fortunate in my eyes. There are worse separations one endures. Sorry for being so egoistic. I know, this is not about me, but somehow it has become my loss too...!

    Take care sir.

    L, Kamla
     
  3. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Kamla
    I entirely agree with you Kamla. I am still fortunate even with her departure. Death, after all, is only a physical departure. When death has no effect on the moral and spiritual association that we continue to have with the dead, we can understand how highly evolved souls consider death as an event that has no serious consequences. Today we had the 45th day ceremony of my mother's departure and throughout the offerings, we could feel her presence very strongly sitting in our midst and participating in the entire ceremony as she always did.

    I am beholden to you for your kind words. I am highly indebted to all the ILites who came rushing to my forum offering their heartfelt condolences.

    I too tried to call you three times but in vain. Then I gathered from a 'usually reliable source' that the telephone was stationed at such a place in your sister's house where it would be possible only for guys like Usain Bolt to answer the call before the ringing died down! Maybe that is your way of paying tribute to Graham Bell!

    I missed seeing you again but this time, thanks to Lalitha Sivaguru, I could at least see the pictures of you revelling at the ILite party. If people had not informed me of the event in advance, I would have been led to believe that it was some kind of a Beauty Contest!
    Sri
     
  4. arshi1611

    arshi1611 New IL'ite

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    dear Cheeniya sir,
    I read ur post and came to know about your mother.May her soul rest in peace.My deepest condolence to you and your family.
    take care
    arshi
     
  5. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Arshi
    I am grateful to you for your condolence message. I have no words to express how the ILites stood by me in this hour of great calamity in my personal life.
    God bless all of you.
    Sri
     
  6. ojaantrik

    ojaantrik IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Sri:

    Recently, I received an address change notice from Kamal. And how can I think about Kamal without remembering you? You found your way back into my conscious world from the subconscious depths of my mind. I knew immediately that I wanted to be in touch with you even if it turned out to be a short parley.

    Yet, I postponed the visit. I know why I postponed, but I will not speak about it, especially so after I read the line: "Greatness is inherent in everyone but it can become visible only if we restrain unbecoming thoughts and negative emotions from covering it and making it invisible." Rarely have I heard a counsel as wise as this.

    In my personal life too, I have found the need for restraint. Not only should one not speak to others (I realized) about people with whom you don't agree. One should not even think about them. Think of beautiful things instead when ugliness invades your world. You will end up with the knowledge that there is no ugliness in the universe at all.

    I recall having read you mentioning your dear mother on earlier occasions. I know what the event means to you. I may not be able to feel your emotions, but I do understand and respect them. I would have loved to know your mother, but that was not to be. I don't know if I shall ever see you either. All I know is that seeing you would be bliss for me. There is no way it could be otherwise, because from day one, we shared the same wavelength. This does not mean that we believe in doing the same things, but it does mean that we appreciate whatever it is that the other one enjoys doing.

    To tell you frankly Sri, I have not been able to write much since I stopped contributing here. I have revised my earlier pieces of course, over and over again. But I have written very little that is new. Not that I didn't write anything at all. I translated a love poem recently and wrote some haikus. Wrote a story too. But I am missing the zest I felt when I was here. What makes it more difficult is that I cannot make it back here either given my fundamental disagreement with the organization about a writer's right to revise his work. I spent some time in Sulekha too and then left, erasing most of the things I had put up.

    I am sure that I wrote some of my best pieces while I wrote for IL.

    How contradictory, isn't it?

    This comment doesn't seem to have much to do with the subject of your post -- being orphaned! Yet, there is a strong link. It is simply one orphan writing to another. I have been orphaned too. My muse has left me I think. And the pain is unbearable. I think I am lost forever. This is all the more reason why I have been able to follow every little nunance in your post. I understood you almost completely.

    I have nothing more to say, except that I am lost in the wilderness. How lost I am I tried to express in a haiku I wrote recently. Here it is:

    Caterpillar

    in search of the sky
    up a tall eucalyptus
    caterpillar creeps

    Please do accept my condolences.

    I do not know when I shall be back here again. So, even if you respond to me, I may not find out about it for a while. After all, I am a gypsy.
    oj
     
  7. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear OJ
    For a long time now, I have been looking for an appropriate word to describe a classy, ethereal, highly creative, sulky, self-deprecating, poetic person who can tower over others in scholarly demeanour and now I have got it! It is ‘ojaantrik’! Sorry for being so brutally frank!

    How right you are! You are indeed a creeping caterpillar crawling up a tall eucalyptus tree in search of the sky. Caterpillar is a classic example of the fact that having too many legs is indeed a handicap. With two legs, a man scales the Everest but the caterpillar walks only to satisfy all its numerous legs forgetting its Mission in the bargain. Your loneliness is caused by the numerous legs that you have. Just shed them save the essential two and see how they take you to people and be with them.

    I have noticed this from the beginning. Too many things pull you in different directions. Much of the success in life particularly in the area of banishing your loneliness depends on how simple you can be. If you create a strong fortress around you, how can you expect to be anything but lonely? I agree with you that a man should live on his own terms but if those terms are going to alienate you from people, are they worth the trouble?

    When I saw my mother dying and thereafter, I was amazed to see how intensely she was missed by a wide spectrum of people from the cleaner of the house to the most honoured friends and relatives whose lives she touched in some way or other. It was then I realised the meaning of life. Living a life on one’s own terms may pamper his feeling of self esteem but it will make him a kind of cocoon. Only when a cocoon outgrows its bond, it flies free as the most spectacular of all God’s creations, a butterfly!

    I am extremely envious of the kind of literary capabilities that God has blessed you with and all God’s blessings are meant to be shared with others. Instead of using His blessings to reach out to people, you run away from them! I have told you time and again that what you are doing is unfair. You deny us the pleasure of letting us watch your genius on some highly untenable and personal grounds. If ever I come face to face with God, I’ll surely question Him on this- How can He bless a person with so much of talent and simultaneously make him a recluse?

    I wonder, as you yourself say, if you will come back and read my reply but I hope you do. Thank you very much for sharing my grief of losing the most important and the most influential person of my life, my Mother.
    Sri
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2009
  8. Kamla

    Kamla IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Cheeniya sir,

    Thanks to our Chitvish nominating your reply to Oj-da, I got to read the parlance between the two of you.

    I cannot better her words, it is indeed a dialog that no one should miss reading.

    Your words are gems and no one can better them to convince Oj-da to change his mind if these don't. Let's hope that he is reading and thinking!

    Like Chithra says, you are indeed generous and the same God has gifted the penmanship to you too. Thanks for sharing it with us so generously.

    Hope you are getting used to the changed circumstances at home. You will only have to remember that she is always beside you, wherever she is.

    L, Kamla

    Thank you for your very kind reply to my own fb. It is always a pleasure to read you. I am richer in thought and pleasure whenever I read your blogs.
     
  9. Cheeniya

    Cheeniya Super Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Kamla
    Thank you for your words of appreciation but I'll feel more rewarded if this causes a change of heart in oj da. He is a writer of such calibre that it is a pity that he holds himself from sharing it with his hungry readers like me for very personal reasons. It is like Pt.Ravi Shankar refusing to play for an eager audience merely because the ambiance of the hall is not good.

    I do hope he chances to see all these exchanges here and gets a change of heart!
    sri
     
  10. sundarusha

    sundarusha Gold IL'ite

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    Dear Cheeniya sir,

    I read the parlance between you and Oj da and your reply to Oj da yesterday itself and I was in so much awe that I could not find any words to describe.
    We are all fellow caterpillars in the journey to find our potential in becoming a beautiful butterfly. Hence Oj da should not feel that he is lost in the wilderness.

    The example of the caterpillar is just too good. This applies to all of us, youngsters as well as grown-ups. Just as the caterpillar, we want to have it all and in the process lose our goal.
    I was reminded of the movie city Slickers. When asked about the meaning of life, the cowboy says that it is just one thing and that it is for each one of us to figure it out. Instead, more aptly,it should be what life means to each one of us.

    You must have written a lot of Sriramajayam in your previous birth, words just flow as a river in your posts, each one of them a gem.

    Like Kamla has rightly said, only your words can bring Oj da to share his wonderful writing here with us.

    Kamla,

    You are not alone, I too feel miserable every time I bid farewell to my mother and not being able to be there for her to give comfort and solace.
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2009

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