The last
of post of January confessed that I was participating in the #WriteAPageADay
campaign of Blogchatter which entailed
writing a page every day of Feb. I managed to complete the campaign
successfully though there were three days on which I could not write anything
for various reasons. Such days are also part of the campaign, thanks to the
magnanimity of the Blogchatter team.
I avoided
politics as far as possible during the campaign. I wrote posts which were more
interesting, in my reckoning, during Feb. But some of my regular readers seem
to have abandoned me in Feb. I don’t know the reason. Maybe, many of them were busy
with the campaign. Maybe, my ricocheting from one subject to another didn’t
amuse some of them. Maybe, it’s time to take stock of the very relevance of
traditional blog posts in the world of YouTube and podcasts and others.
As I’m
concluding the Write a Page campaign with this post, it is quite natural that
some sort of self-assessment struck my meditation today. This contemplation
took me back on the memory lane and I found myself as a young man in his late
thirties squatting on the carpet inside a prayer hall of a Hindu ashram somewhere
in Kasaragod district of Kerala.
I was in
Kerala on the usual annual vacation from Shillong where I worked as a college
lecturer. The college had made my life miserable. I’m not blaming the college.
It’s just that I lacked the qualities required for surviving in the kind of
game-field that existed in that college at that time. My own immaturity coupled
with my hubris and other vices made life a pain in the posterior of others and
in all possible parts of my own being. Thus I decided to go somewhere without
any aim hoping to step on the solutions to my problems somewhere. The ashram
mentioned above was one such place.
The ashram
turned out to be just the opposite of all that I was looking for. Every half an
hour or so, somebody will enter the prayer hall and start singing a bhajan.
What I wanted was absolute silence. I left the prayer hall and returned to the
dorm where I was given a bed in the midst of a lot of holy-looking people with
long hair and longer beards. One of them looked into my eyes, as I was packing
up my travel bag, and said, “There’s something that’s seriously troubling you.
No one can solve it but yourself.”
I carried
that counsel in my heart. But there was no sign of any solution anywhere in
sight as I sat in a KSRTC bus that took me to the union territory of Mahe.
Alcohol was highly affordable in Mahe as it is even today. That was some
solution!
It took a few
years for me to discover the solution which was to stop carrying my self as a
baggage. Let it go. I realized that I was nothing worthwhile. I reached a stage
of mind that was just the opposite of the previous one. From a gargantuan ego
to a stunning emptiness. That was my journey.
There was something
that amused me even in that painful stage of horrifying self-awareness. It was
the attitude of my college principal and a few of my colleagues. They were
delighted by my utter lack of self-esteem. It was as if they had accomplished
the mission that they had set on.
I couldn’t
continue in such a place anymore. It’s all good to feel very humble, egoless,
empty… It’s good only if you are a really enlightened person. I wasn’t. I had
just allowed the circumstances to shatter my ego. Nothing more. That didn’t
lead me to the discovery of anything worthwhile within me.
That’s how I
left that place.
The new
place, Delhi, did give me a chance to discover whatever goodness was there within
me. To my surprise, Delhi taught me sooner than I expected that there was
indeed much to be loved within me. But I had already internalised the lesson to
never let my ego rise above that goodness.
The
real humble self-awareness is not seeing you as a worthless person. It is being
aware of your worth and to use all those qualities for the welfare of the
people around you. Genuine self-awareness is a relationship with fellow human
beings.
I live a very
happy life now in a village in Kerala. But I know that my relationships are
very limited. I stay aloof from most people. It’s not because I don’t want
relationships. It’s because I’m afraid that my spiritual journey so far has not
accomplished a fraction of what I wanted it to. There’s a long way to go before
I can extend my arms in a gesture of welcome to the world. That’s why my
profile descriptions have always proclaimed that I am a constant learner.With my unfailing companion along the way that wasn't always romantic
PS. I’m taking a brief
break from blogging for a few days. Feb has been too hectic.
Hari OM
ReplyDeleteI shall miss this daily visit!!! Have greatly enjoyed the eclectic mix - you know it is my habit also; in this we match. Enjoy your blog-break and come back strong; there is still place for this traditional communication. The written word can do what the spoken word or the visual cannot - if the minds are open to it. YAM xx
Your daily presence here was a great support and I'm highly obliged.
DeleteEnjoy your break! Return rejuvenated!
ReplyDelete👍
DeleteEnjoy your break!
ReplyDeleteI'm back in action 😊
DeleteYou should know you are making thousands of students' school lives worth living !
ReplyDeleteThat's a huge compliment and thanks dear Anu. The students are a changed lot now, thanks to the online classes of Covid days. But I'm still optimistic, some changes have taken place in the classrooms after I wrote this post. For the better.
Delete