The trip to my Village!

The trip that changed a few things for me: (philosophy)

I was off to my home town for a function last week. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it before I left, for I wanted to finish off a few things in office; did not want to break my routine and lastly, I did not really think I would have an exciting time in my village. But things turned out to be so different. Life does treat us to pleasant surprises. The pleasant surprises that I encountered were to do with nostalgia and learning.

I reached my village (Ponnamaravathy) at around 7 AM in the morning and was chased by a dog on my way home to start with. (What is it about me? Is it my face? :)) I wonder what he was doing running around at 7 AM instead of claiming his 40 winks. Went home to some of my near and dear relatives. Met two amazing people. One - my mom's cousin that I know very well and the second - a person I met for the first time – a construction worker who was helping us with the household chores during the function. They taught me a lot. Not in the lecturing sense but with their deeds and character. ‘Hear’ this out. You’ll be amazed.

The first person – my mom’s cousin - VM – is probably in her late 30s or maybe early 40s. VM is perhaps one of the most beautiful ladies in my extended family. She was married to her cousin (dad’s sister’s son) at a young age even though she would have had a very promising career had she studied further and gone on to work. He was a handsome doctor. They made such a pretty pair and were the talk of the town. Life does come up with the most unexpected of things; doesn’t it? True to its reputation, the googly that life threw into this particular situation was like this - It was only after the marriage that the bride and bride’s family realized that the doctor was a drug-addict. To say that he made life extremely difficult for VM would be an understatement. Anyways, he would disappear for years together and then make a sudden reappearance to her utter bewilderment and confusion. To add to the intensity of the situation, VM is the only child to her parents and was born after a lot of prayers and a number of years. She doesn’t have any children as well. So, she’s a loner with her old parents. VM’s parents did a lot to get their daughter’s hubby out of his habits and the word goes that they’d succeeded as well. But the current situation is that he’s been missing for 6 years now. We don’t even know if he is ……. But VM continues to live with the belief that he is alive and might chose to return someday. But I am giving you this story only because it will help you understand what I am coming to. The heartiest of laughs in the whole crowd of people that was there in the function was VM’s. :-) Not only the heartiest, but also the most frequent. One of my aunts has a brilliant sense of humor and VM and I were laughing our intestines out on every joke that she cracked. But I couldn’t beat VM’s laugh! The rest of the folks who probably crib their heads off even if they don’t get to see their daily TV serial could only muster a smile at times. Oh, the irony! Does this tell you what joy is? It told me. To my mind, the happiest person is one who can laugh her heart out. - Definitely not the one with all the so-called pleasures and luxuries of life but the inability to laugh/smile and admire nature. And guess what? VM goes to meditation classes. But her laugh has been there ever since I remember, as a school going kid, long before she went to meditation classes. Suffering does make a person better. Better in terms of character and better in terms of helping her/him understand the value of life and enjoy it.

Talking about meditation, there was this man sitting behind me in the bus I took from my village to Trichy on my way back. And what he was telling his friend was interesting. Shows you what’s happening to people in the villages as well. He was telling his friend that he was an extremely shy character and ever since he started attending meditation classes, he has become a frank person with very little inhibitions! He has started speaking his mind. That was interesting. I have reasons to believe that he is probably a teacher at the village school.

Before I go back to talk about this second amazing person that I met, let me recount two other things that captured my heart. The bus I took went through many tiny villages on its way to Trichy. On two occasions during the trip, my eyes encountered amazing visual treats. One was that of a lush green field above which there was a flock of pure white birds (geese?) flying home in a beautiful formation. This was when the day was bright. Another was when it got darker post 6 PM. A flock of dark coloured birds flying across a dark field and tall coconut trees against an orange and grey sky! How I wish I had captured these on camera!!

The second person that I want to talk about is unbelievable. She is a construction worker and goes by the name Nagu. Probably in her early 30s. Single. No known relatives. I have no idea about her childhood days. I have no idea if she lived with her parents or was all alone. Within a few minutes after I reached my home town, I noticed my mom and my aunt speak to her in a very kind and loving manner. It was clear to me that there was something about her that my folks liked. I did not have to wait for long. I heard her story from both my mom as well as my aunt before the end of the day. Nagu is an extremely quiet person. She is slightly hard of hearing. She rarely talks unless she wants more clarifications on the task that she has been assigned. She does anything that is asked of her any number of times without even reacting to it with the slightest of irritation which is most of us are wont to do. She works tirelessly. She would even wake up at 2 AM if she were asked to help out without so much as a murmur. She eats very little and just twice a day and doesn’t ask for anything in particular. She desires almost nothing including money. She works but doesn’t ask for the money. If she is given money, she takes it. Else, she just continues to work as if she was born to do nothing but work. She would very quietly go and sit near my aunt’s feet when she did not have anything to do. There’s a lot more to this lady but I just could not find that out since my trip was a short one. I know only what I observed and what was told by my folks. What an amazing lady! What a peaceful life! I hope to meet her again. Hey, and read this stuff that I got in my Thought for the Day mail a couple of days ago – how very closely related to this lady’s character this bit of philosophy is!

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A Thought for the Day From Sri Eknath Easwaran
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February 11

To be a Sufi is to cease from taking trouble; and there is no greater trouble for thee than thine own self, for when thou art occupied with thyself, thou remainest away from God. - Abu Sa'id


Do you want to be free? Most of us are held hostage in life by our likes and dislikes. We are bound hand and foot by countless little preferences in food, clothing, decor, entertainment -- the list goes on and on.

For example, the person with rigid tastes in food is likely to have rigid tastes elsewhere as well. He will probably enjoy only one kind of music, she will appreciate only one style of art, and when it comes to people, he has very definite allergies. In any case, he is conditioned to be happy only so long as he gets everything the way he likes it. Otherwise -- which may be ninety-nine percent of the time -- he is unhappy over something.

The way we respond to small matters reflects the way we will respond to the larger matters of life. So, if we can begin to release ourselves from our little likes and dislikes, we will find that we are gaining the capacity to weather emotional storms. Then we can try to face whatever comes calmly

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OK, a little more about my beautiful village before I wind up. I went down memory lane and it all felt so very nostalgic. I visited the good old house where my grandparents lived (they don’t make them like that anymore. Yes, I clicked a few snaps of the house), went to some of the temples that we (grandparents, aunts, cousins) used to frequent when I was a kid – what a feeling that was! As kids, my cousins and I used to wait for the yummy prasadam (Food made in the temple and served to God before being distributed to the local devotees) to arrive home from the main village temple – Puliyodharai (Tamarind Rice) and Sakkara Saadham (Jaggery Rice). I saw those two lotus-filled ponds in the centre of the village. The one with a temple in the backdrop is a marvel. Also visited the small Ganesha temple right in front of the pond. The old tamarind tree next to the temple. The small and quiet Murugan temple with a flock of screeching parrots on its trees very near my house. The village bus stand had undergone a complete transformation since I last saw it 6 years ago. The Big Ben like clock though is still there. There are more shops, more vehicles, more houses, and more pukka roads…

One another thing that caught my eye was a mobile operator’s transmission/reception tower right next to my grandparents’ good old house. As I stood poised to click a snap of the narrow pathway to my grandparents’ house from the road, a thin dog came and stood in front of me and let his tongue out as if to tell me that he couldn’t understand what in the world I was doing standing there on that hot day and anyways, whatever it was, I could think about it only after giving him some water. Life is beautiful. My village lures me. It teases me into abandoning the city. It is interesting how one begins to relish and value things more when they can’t be taken for granted.
When did you last go to your village?