The other day I was caught in a downpour or maybe I caught it. I could have walked back into the office but then there is something I would have missed. The feeling of being stoic and vulnerable together. Of not being insulated from experiences that make us human and real. A long time ago, I had bought a photo album. The old-fashioned kind with plastic sheaths to display photographs. It had caught my eye in a bazaar in Patiala in a roadside stall selling plastic knick-knacks. The laminated cover had the snapshot of a European street with the words emblazoned on top, “Don’t pray for an easy life but a meaningful one. ”
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Through many things..births, deaths, losses and rewards, that frayed album remained as a reminder of a message that I think, came from some place beyond. I wonder at times if I always choose the most difficult situations to test my endurance or if they choose me. Both ways, life has never been anything but an enriching journey.
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With time though, I have also learnt another lesson. That it is necessary to simplify things as well. To not always go down the convoluted road to solutions. I have come to appreciate honest short-cuts that save time and energy. So why chop onions when you can grind them with spices in a mixer? Why shop at super markets for the monthly supplies when the chatty kiranawala can send everything home with an extra packet of the bhujia, he thinks, your guests will like?
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Why worry all the time about the undone vast? Things get done, imperfectly maybe, but they get done. The child that you ferry today with three bags to a creche and then leave for work with your heart in your month, will grow up too one day and forgive you for all the parenting sins you think, you are committing.
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The house does not need dusting everyday. The drawers will not explode in your face if you don’t sort them every week. It is okay to live in genteel disarray. To give yourself the permission to take time off from everything. From people who don’t always deserve your attention, energy and kindness.
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It is okay to invest in your goals or to just laze if you so want. And to get drenched for no particular reason at all when you have the option to be safe and dry.
It is okay to invest in your goals or to just laze if you so want. And to get drenched for no particular reason at all when you have the option to be safe and dry.
with Reema Moudgil works for The New Indian Express, Bangalore, is the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, an artist, a former RJ and a mother. She dreams of a cottage of her own that opens to a garden and where she can write more books, paint, listen to music and just be.