I Was Hurt! I Am Fine!

Dear Janani,
Yes I am back after a break (of heart?, I don't know). Peaceful death is a blessing which is conferred but on very few. In Mahabaratha we hear of Bheeshmar having the boon of icha mrthyu. That is he can choose his moment of death.That's why he waits for the birth of Uttarayanam and in that period is lying in a bed of arrows.
But to die at the hands of God, well, that should be a great blessing, whether or not one is aware of that. What happened to Soorapadman? Though he was killed he is with Lord Muruga for all time to come.

Thanks for the fb. And thanks for the boni, Janani.
regards,

 

Dear Lalitha,
Thanks for the nice words of welcome and which makes me feel quite at home. I am happy to see that you like the poem. In fact the poem was inspired by you. The first few lines of the poem appeared in my reply to you, which I later made into a bigger poem. Whatever there is and there would be and there was, all are Her blessings.

You are right, Lalitha. But unfortunately I have a very average emotional mind.As you rightly said my ego swells to Himalayan proportions on hearing words of praise and because of this it gets deeply hurt when well-aimed brickbats come to it from unsuspecting quarters. But, Lalitha, ego is one of the ingredients of worldly existence. Gita lists ego as a constituting element of a human being. As long as it is there it can't escape being hurt. That's ok, friend. This incident has taught me several things. Not to enter any other thread except to appreciate is the first lesson. The art of living encompasses living amongst brick bats. This is the second lesson.

Thanks a ton.

Why should you be? The serial is going to come. In fact I have finished most of the ground work. Curtain-raiser is under consideration now. The outline has been drawn and I plan to start writing the first episode quite soon.
Stay tuned, Madam. I'll never disappoint you.
love,

 

Dear Brindha,
Feedback like what you have given is sure to boost my ego. And in this context it is a soothing balm.

Right, Brindha. But after this the thing I have coined for my guidance (to paraphrase it in your own words)
Maturity gained has to be directly proportional to the experiences gained. Otherwise the experience gained has no practical value.
Once I worked for an old company where there were many oldtimers doing the same work, day in and day out. When one of them was interviewed by an outside consultant for a promotion, the employee boasted "I have 15 years of experience."
The consultant went over whatever work he did during those 15 years and told him,
"No sir, you're wrong. You don't have 15 years of experience.You have 1 year of experience repeated 15 times."

Well said, Brindha.

Defined that way I am the most imperfect man possible. Once when someone explained Gita to me and told about being like a stone during times of happiness and distress. He was so emphatic about our not being affected by joys and sorrows. I told him if that's the meaning given, then Gita is and will never be my cup of tea. What he was saying was insensitivity, a really-stone like quality, which would undo a few billion years of evolution from being a stone to a man. I want to go on record that I am happy when people praise me and would be deeply hurt, if I am criticised. There are some writer friends who argue that their work is independent of what the people think of it. But for me my work is what my readers think of it. So it hurts all the more.


prayer for love and not petition for relief.... Fabulous words...

Thanks Brindha. Thanks a lot.
love,

 

Dear Devika,

More than you and others in IL missed me, I missed you all. I missed writing a new post once a week, at times even twice a week, and even more than that I missed reading your fb and responding to them.

At no point of time can we be even a millimetre away from Her feet. But we do not realise it all the time. In times like this, when our egoes are hit and our pride hurt, we become acutely aware of Her presence and then we get the required relief.

Words like these are life-giving nectar to a person who has been wandering in a waterless desert for weeks.

Thanks, Devika, once again. My next work will be a serial story. Please stay tuned for the announcement and the curtain raiser.
love,

 

Dear Shanthi,
Thanks a lot for the welcome note.

You have not written like a fellow ILite, not even like a friend, but like a mother who advises her son when he complains of the class-bully.
Every word you have written here is so very important. No wonder Kamla quoted them in her reply. I even had an urge to nominate this reply for the FP; but had to restrain myself, because your advice is at a personal level and it concerns a bitter incident of the past. I do not want to draw attention to that.

I am even more pained to know this. Let me pray for the peace of all those who are involved and concerned.

There is a rule in the law of torts (remember that I am a half(baked) lawyer and the letters BGL sit behind my name) which says that your mere act of visiting a place where some dangerous sport is going on implies your tacit acceptance of the risks involved. I just have to console myself remembering this golden rule, which got me good marks in the final law examination about 24 years ago.

You are right once again. Life is a great teacher and when it teaches through pain and suffering the lessons are never ever forgotten. And you are right again about friends hurting. I just have to remind myself that I also might have hurt others. So I was just reaping what I had sown earlier.

Thanks for those kind words.

It is not by default, Shanthi, but by design. You cannot assign a gender to God in as much you cannot assign a name or form to him. But traditionally (read chauvinistically) we have always been thinking of God as HE. I wanted break that and hence used the feminine gender there.
When it comes to the poem I followed the path of Azhwars and Nayanmars who always think of themselves as women and God alone as man.
Once a great saint had come to the town where the Lady Saint Meera Bai was living.
Meera went to see the saint. The saint sent word to her that he cannot receive a woman in his camp. Whereupon Meera laughed aloud and told the messenger, "In Lord Krishna's presence, can there by any other man?" Meaning that he is the only man of whom all of us are the lovers.
And Nammazhwar concludes emphatically.
Aanallan Pennallan alla aliyum allan
Neither is God a man, nor a woman, or an eununch...

Thanks once again Shanthi for the wonderful fb which was like Soframycin to my wound.
love,