Set your heart…. To hope…

We all like to be in control of various situations in our lives; especially the situation of being alive. Meaning we all like to live and we expect all our loved ones to remain alive with us. We like to have a full preview of our lives with all the pit falls and highs and lows. Many of us don’t even start new projects because we don’t have the entire blue print. We go nuts trying to figure out how to make a project successful.

The truth is we can only set our hearts to believe in the best and expect good things to happen if it is in the will of God. There is a dialogue in the movie – Left Behind part 3. The hero and heroine say their goodbyes before going into their respective mission fields in the middle of World War 3 and the hero encourages his new bride enthusiastically saying “Honey we cannot die until God decides to end our lives!!!” (to which she responds, with a half humor half pain look, “Thanks honey that is so romantic”).

We all are part of the generation in which Tsunami became a household word in India. I know personally a family which suffered loss during tsunami. They were a couple from North India on their holiday trip to south. And their only child wanted to see the beach before catching the train back home. They were there when the first monstrous wave hit. The father and child survived. The mother died. How do we explain why they were in that particular place on earth at that particular time? And what should we conclude from this? That the best way to stay alive is not go to the beach???

The other day I was at the beach.... men on horses, young couples strolling, children playing, parents fussing over their wards and a plane flying overhead. Just like all the people around me I too looked up at the flight making its way slowly across the sky. Then I suddenly realized I am just part of the landscape to the people on board the flight. We usually wander around with a unique sense of self. We see ourselves from within. All our thoughts are about me, mine, or something concerning I. On that day I relearned that We can live our lives wanting to make ourselves unforgettable, important or we can accept the fact that we are part of the landscape and try to be a beautiful human just to make the world at large a beautiful place.

Invariably, the ocean brought me memories of our dead comrades. I have seen navy personnel for many years. They always seem so much in control, strong, valiant….. I cannot imagine them dying. They are larger than life men. How can they die? How can superheroes die? When I called my husband after hearing the news he was so level headed. (or at least he sounded that way). He sounded 100% sure that nothing bad would have happened.That is how men in the Armed forces are trained; hope for the best and have an ability to digest the worst. Always ready to forget the risk they are in and give assurance to civilians. That is what a man should be.

Shakespeare said “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.”

An unknown someone gave this answer in 'yahoo answers'.....

I love this answer. This person has so succinctly described what you and I should strive to be – A hero/heroine; not a sniveling coward whose one aim is to stay alive along with his/her family for a long time. Instead we must hope, we must do our part and not complain, we must get up each day and thank God for it, we must live each day to the fullest so we have no regrets and we know we have given it our best. 

I have set my heart today to live a full life. I don’t know how that is going to get done but I expect God to teach me. I choose to face the unknown and say “Bring it on!!”. And I hope dear reader that you will join me if you are not already there. God bless.

August 15th

I salute the crew and families of INS Sindhurakshak

I had a fun and quirky message lined up for the Independence Day which I might write in sometime……maybe next year.

I have always loved India and I always explained that this was India’s Birthday to my small child. Due to security state being high during I-day my husband would never be around at home to celebrate it with us but never the less we dance, we bake cake and rejoice, I mean rejoice  just like it were a family member’s birthday. That is the day I look back to all the people who died for our country’s independence. I look at them with gratitude and pride. I thank them in my heart for the free air I breathe in now. Being in Navy I have even visited the cellular jails. I have touched the loathsome cells and tried to imagine how horrible it would have been to be there. I always try to keep their memories alive in head so they are not dead as a matter of fact but alive in us. 

Every Naval wife, no matter what hardships she goes through will stand proud when she remembers where her husband is working. She more than anybody else in the world remembers how dangerous and yet how soulfully rewarding is his work. It is not like any other job. Defence jobs are very meaningful. Very very meaningful. You are not working to feed yourself and your family. Your work is to ensure that others can live well. You go sleepless so others can sleep peacefully in the country; you go without food so others can sit in restaurants without any threats; you stand in snow and rain so others can go about their lives without the fear of being attacked. Defence Life is THE life. To me each defence person is a savior in his/her own class. There is a pride and a sense that life is more than just me in the hearts of every person associated to our defence family. 

I never thought I would wake up on Independence Day and cry like that. When I heard the news one part of me was thinking this is not happening and the other part remembering the cramped quarters of a submarine. I used to feel so claustrophobic being inside them. Going through those submarines raised my level of respect for the men in uniform. It is something not everybody can do. Sitting in 6x5 rooms, not seeing the sky for months together, no entertainment, same few faces to speak to – the mental strength needed to endure these conditions is TREMENDOUS. In a sub the space is so constricted you have to watch each step so you don’t stumble. One fall means you will definitely get a painful blow from some heavy metal equipment. I cannot imagine having to experience multiple blasts in such a small place. I cannot imagine. I cannot.

I know how the general public looks up to the Armed Forces with certain awe and wonder. But the story on the other side is known only to the wives. The missed family time, dangers involved in the work place; waiting for 23 hours and 58 minutes to hear the voice of her husband for two minutes over a sat phone from the middle of nowhere. This tragedy that the families of the people on board are facing now is unimaginable. No one can truly understand or alleviate the suffering of these brave people.

This is just the recent disaster in many such work hazards in Navy. There are so many brave souls that lost their lives trying to save others, going on routine flight checks, on safety inspections. I remember and thank God for each one of them. I see them par with all our freedom fighters. Our national heroes died to give us freedom. And our defence heroes give their lives to keep India independent and formidable. 

All of us are born  to die someday. But losing some of the best men in our country is not easy or meaningful in anyway. I remember the words in the movie Troy that the mother of Achilles speaks to him just before he leaves for Troy.

“If you stay in Larisa… you will find peace. You will find a wonderful woman. You will have sons and daughters, and they will have children. And they will love you. When you are gone, they will remember you. But when your children are dead and their children after them…. Your name will be lost.

If you go to Troy…. Glory will be yours. The world will remember your name. But if you go to Troy… you will never come home. For your glory walks hand in hand with your doom.

And I shall never see you again.”

The Art of Helping Others

Many times I see women helping others quite willingly. They sacrifice, they reach out, hug and comfort and cook and clean just so things can become a little easy for the other person. But I wonder at what point they deviate from being helpers to……… I am unable to get the right word……. High handedness, maybe. They assume somehow that they have to be treated nicely by the person they’d helped. By nice, I mean that person should not mind having them over at his/her place any time of the day, should be willing to do whatever they ask them to, sometimes even expect to be hero/heroine worshiped by this person; Makes me feel so bad when I see such people.

The only valid reason behind helping a person must be – “I am in a position to help so I help”. It cannot be “Oh this person will like me more/ I will look nice in front of others/ I feel like a BIG person when I do this/ I am a super achiever I can fulfill everybody’s needs”. It is strange how much junk people carry behind their seemingly simple gestures of help. All this junk comes out when they start cribbing about the person they'd helped. Whenever I have to listen to that all I can think is – “Why do they get so emotionally attached? And what is the meaning of their ‘selfless’ gesture if they are expecting something back?”

I was a culprit too in a different genre. I always felt that when I was so truthful to people they should be truthful to me too. But lately I have begun to understand that’s not the way the world works. I do have my family and a few friends who are point blank and straight forward with me and I respect them a lot. But there are also people who have layers and layers of deception upon them and I have learnt to recognize it (albeit a little painfully). I am slowly learning to maintain emotional distance from the second category.

Coming back to the original point, help should always be done with no strings attached. If the people you helped were benefited because of you – great. If they said thank you – great. If they appeared to have forgotten you the next time you see them – be a big heart, shrug and say “No Problem”. :)

I have heard that a good relationship must have mutual trust, concern and respect. Such relationships are what we all should strive for. And these relationships begin and continue only between people who are like minded, have the same set of principles and approach towards life. Such relationships don’t always happen between givers and receivers of help. So in case you helped someone and they left you don’t run behind them. In case you were greatly helped by someone, then look for opportunities to help them but don’t feel that you are attached / obligated to them. 

Simple concept; saves a lot of time and emotional energy. God bless.

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By the way on a totally different line - I realized that I am not actually writing a lot about Navy life for the brides to be. Lot of my writing has shifted to what my friend correctly put as - Creative Writing. :) So I am going to write something about Navy and weddings in my next post. Just a heads up. God bless. 

The Eve Story

One day I happened to see a huge mobile poster. It contained a mobile and it vaguely resembled the Wrist Watch Ads. You know how watches are advertised showing 10:10 to show off its features; this mobile ad also showed everything. I mean everything. It started out with time, date, Dow Jones index, Gold rate, Facebook update, Twitter update, message from someone, missed call from another, post update from a blog, reminder for a meeting ………. Oh oh information overload ! All this on a single screen! Imagine the state of your brain if you had this screen sitting on your palm. 

After slowly reading through the content all I could think was – “Lord, Do you really want us to think so many thoughts?” What is the point of having everything in the same one minute?? And the people holding the phones were striking a partial runner’s pose and with cool heavy duty running shoes on. Meaning – You got to be doing everything and going somewhere. THAT is life.

When I was a little girl I read an excerpt of Gandhiji’s interview. He’d said “I hate this mad rush for constricting space and time”. I dint quite grasp then what he’d meant but now I do! The world always gives an impression that we have to be something else other than what we are now and doing something other than what we are doing now.

I relate this aspect of the world to the snake that spoke to Eve in the Garden of Eden. The essence of the speech the snake makes to Eve is this – “You deserve better. Look at you.. you got a dull life when you got to be doing something exciting. You are being cheated by not having all that you can have. What you have is not enough. You got to make something happen for yourself.” Every human being still hears these horrible words whispered in his/her ears again and again.

IF we yield to this we’ll end up like a circus clown juggling bricks and plates and balls and dolls while feeding a toddler on a high chair and laying out a dinner table for a distinguished company of visitors. We will be doing a lot of things but to anyone who looks at us – we’ll still be a clown; Doing MANY “important” things but basically a clown. :)

Among the mistakes Eve did, in the most important real life story ever published, two can be highlighted in context.

1) She was not enjoying or rather intently savoring what she already had. She failed to recognize the value of what she had and also failed to see that she already had everything. I mean look at all the people going on top of mountains, standing upside down and starving and going through tremendous pain to try and achieve what Eve already HAD to begin with. She was communicating with God Almighty and then tosses it off in a whimsical act of disobedience. It is scary to see people lose out on something precious just for the heck of it.

Sometimes we need real wisdom to understand that we already have what we need. And the right response to it is – Be thankful always. I developed this seemingly crazy habit of saying “Thank you God” for everything. Even if my car conks out on the middle of the road I say “Thank you God that my car stopped”. I trust God that something bad would have happened if I had driven on without any problem and that I had been saved from it. A totally new perspective opens up if we simply determine to be thankful.

2) Eve wanted something more with a blind assumption that that something will give her more happiness and add meaning to her life. 

Many times we want some things so badly that the lack of it hurts us in our mind, soul and body. But through the years if I have been learning one thing over and over again; it is this – God does not allow you to have some of the things you want because He knows if you get it, it will destroy you. And He takes some things out from your hands because if they remained with you they will harm you.

So….. to sum up :) Eve was tempted by the snake; now for us temptations come in through TV, Ads, Friends, even Facebook. But despite what the world tells you, be determined to LOVE your LIFE and savor every single moment of it. The joy may be simple but it is permanent and the rewards are peace of mind and prosperity of the soul that is very different and way too richer than the prosperity of the World.

God Bless.