Grace marks

Have you have heard of grace marks ? Fills you with memories about school days doesn't it ? You have an exam. You are trying hard to cram all you can for it. You have no clue what you are going to get in your exam paper the next day. You make calls to the (otherwise ignored) first benchers. You forget to eat lunch, dinner and breakfast. Your parents and your nasty older sibling go "tch tch" at you when they see you cramming formulas at 3 am. And the D-Day arrives and the question paper looks like its in a foreign language. Well. You press on give it your best shot and fill as many extra sheets as you can. Making up with quantity for the lack of quality.

You come out of the exam hall and run away from all the first benchers who have this smug look on their faces and take refuge in your "gang" who make you feel better by giving a thumbs down sign with a "king of the world" look on their faces. :) 

You decide to have selective amnesia about the exam until Mrs. XYZ  revives your memory with a bundle of sheets containing more red circles than blue letters on them. Now, you walk to the teacher's table with real trepidation anticipating something less than 50. And your fears become a nasty reality - 49/100. Teacher gives you a loud voiced reprimand that would scare even a bull dog. Then she calms down (more to control her BP than out of any pity for you) and looks at the paper one more time HOPING to find SOMETHING worthy. Then for reasons unknown to all humanity she puts a +2 near the 49/50 and hands you the paper. 

That is grace marks. 

Once you grow up you hardly ever think of grace marks. But you get it all the time ! 

You deserve to have died under that bus for over-speeding yet you dint. You deserve to have not had your dad/mom/child/hubby/wife/friend come back and kiss you after what you did but they did. You get grace marks all the time. Grace is getting what you don't deserve. 

Getting grace marks is fun. It gives you hope and relief and you resolve to do better next time. But GIVING grace marks. Oh THAT is another thing altogether. We'd rather keep account of all the things done wrong to us. We'd rather hold the grudge than let go. We'd rather think through over and over about the close friend who betrayed us or that stranger who hurt us. We'd rather be bitter and think all possible negative thoughts about that person than just let go. 

Life is simpler when we give grace marks. People are always measuring relationships. Has he given me this much when I have given him that much? Has she done this when I have done that? How can he/she do that when all I have done is only good ? We can easily fall into the victim mentality. Instead, be the teacher and give them grace marks. Don't try to cut them down, level them up. Ten years down the line they'd still remember you as one who showed them grace. 'Cos grace is a seed sown in love. It will bear fruit in the person someday.

And don't forget to count your grace marks. You'll be surprised how much you have scored more than you deserve. 

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.”