Mother & Child.

The lazy Sunday afternoon was being spent at home. Standing in the balcony sipping a mug of coffee, I witnessed that lovely moment.



Two sparrows, one of which is a baby, nestle in the neighbouring compound. The older sparrow carries some fodder in its beak. She surrounds the younger one, waves a flutter, and carefully monitors for any harmful predators prior to feeding the baby. Her demeanor suggests her to be the mother while the baby waits patiently with her yawning beak. Then arrives the moment which is to be cherished. The mother pushes her own beak inside the baby's, depositing the food.

I continue to observe, and as the baby apetite is abated, the mother waves yet another a flutter! .. Pure love !!


So in the case with us humans. Children being nurtured by their mothers. Love in its purest form !!


I too know a mother who radiates love just like that elder sparrow.

The greatest blessing I've ever recieved.

And I call her 'Amma.'

Love,

Balu

The Equation of Love.

The evening was lovely. Had been to the audio release function of Changampuzha's evergreen 'Ramanan,' the musical interpretation done by renowned Carnatic musician Dr. Sreevalsan J Menon. The operatic form of the poem rallies upon love between the protagonist Ramanan, a shepherd, and his lover Chandrika, who hails from an affluent family.

Love!!!

I'm not narrowing it down to romance alone. The often talked about simple concept of unconditional love at times seems not too simple to adopt.

"I" love "You": The equation here is initially balanced by the nature of "I" and "You". The incidence of a sharp difference in opinion between these two entities "I" and "You" often results in the dilution or diminishion of the "love" in between. Here the "I" and "You" continues to exist, but not the "love" which once connected them. It just takes a split second to turn the scale from "love" to "hatred". Or from friends to being back to strangers again.

The proper application of the concept of unconditional love should have ideally resulted in the reign of "love" regardless of the nature of "I" and "You". Without any expectations nor any desire for reciprocation.

Love for parents and siblings get diluted in the world driven by economics. Love for one another loses out on mistrust. The romance between a man and a woman so often bases upon expectations, acceptance from the society and future prospects. Bonding between individuals often depends upon the social classes they are in. You often show your companionable side to only those whom you feel are placed within the perimeter of your social status, ignoring the ones below your existence. Or only those from whom you believe you could draw a balance sheet out of. Everything dependent on and driven by necessity.

In another perspective, its not the absence of love. It could be the incertitude about the acceptance of love. That being self obsessed, you see others thru the prism of your own prejudices and insecurities, tending to look upon it from a skeptic angle, and hence failing to recognize love when been given. I recall learning a poem long way back in school, where the poet describes the panic of a little bird that trembles in your cupped hands unknowing that you have picked it up only to tend it; which can be compared to that of the tendency of the human mind to look at everything from a skeptic angle.

Love which was once an emotional aspect has now swung a bit more on to the practical aspect of life, and had the poet been alive today, I just wonder whether he would have chosen to write about love between a shepherd and an affluent girl.

-Balu

To Elisabeth, with Love

After my engineering studies, I started off my career at a call center in Cochin where I worked for few months. There I was into an Aussie telecom campaign where the job required making calls to residents in Australia, canvassing them to switch from their current telephone provider to ours. A particular call which I made to one Ms. Elisabeth I can never forget.



Elisabeth is a 75 year old woman who lives in West Australia. She had access only to incoming calls and was above 65 as well, and both these conditions disqualified her for my offer. However, she was glad that I placed her a call as her elder son’s name was ‘Brian’ which incidentally had been the pseudo name I was using those days while dealing with the Aussies. I was touched by the way she opened up to me despite me being a stranger. The broken labored tone of her voice clearly indicated the agony and loneliness that was creeping in to her. Though she was a mother of two sons well settled in some other part of the country, she led a lonely life in some part of Western Australia. They would send her money regularly, but hardly paid her any visit nor did they make it a priority to call her up over phone. They provided care, but not concern.



In these days of rapid movement, one may not be able to stay with parents due to the nature of work or other unavoidable reasons, which is understandable. One may not be able to travel back home everyday after work and spend time with parents, but that can't be taken as an excuse for not spending a couple of mins daily over the phone with them. The advent of technology and internet has made things even easier. When the mother in Cochin tells her son in Delhi about the heavy rain in Cochin, there is nothing that the son who lives in Delhi could do about it, but it reassures the mother's mind which yearns for her son's presence in her old age. That though 1000 kms away he is still close by, within earshot, to shower her with love and concern.



My mom and I used to talk over phone almost on a daily basis when I had to stay away from home during my engineering studies in Coimbatore. A phone call was incorporated in our daily routine regardless whether we had any significant matter to talk about. But those few minutes of conversation made a lot of difference to our lives. Those days I have often felt that there exists a kind of telepathic connection between my mom and me. Whenever I was not in the optimum, I would instantly get a call from her. And my calls, as she has often told me, usually arrived whenever she thought of me.


In childhood, one craves for love and attention. Its the same with oldage, often called second childhood. Little kids are often told to be careful not to stumble upon objects and fall down. We say the same to our parents when they walk in to their second childhood, when they become kids again. Their minds too become like that of children when they revisit their childhood and would crave for love, care and concern. When time doesn't stand as a casualty in spending hours over the phone with your partner, definitely atleast a few minutes everyday has to be kept apart for parents. When loneliness creeps in as one gets older, a few mins of talk everyday over the phone would be a great relief.


Now that I live and work in Cochin, we no longer have to depend on telephone to talk to each other, but I hope the telepathic connection which my mom shares with me gets on to my kid(s) as well. That I have their daily presence, at least over phone, when I grow grey haired.


And as I write this, I hope Elisabeth receives proper care and concern she craves for.

In fact its not just a hope, its a prayer.


-Balu

God's own country, Kerala – the state has often been described thus. Now that the self proclaimed human Gods lurk around every nook and corner in the state and every other local news channel shows a ‘God’ being unmasked, the description couldn't have been any better. God's own country, or rather, human Gods own country!

I write this piece risking my life – in the fear of being turned into a frog by any of those powerful human gods who might be reading this thru their sixth sense!

In 'The Alchemist,' Paulo Coelho writes about the boy who travels all over the globe in pursuit of hidden treasure only to discover in the end that it lay in his own abode!
What a beautiful and simple tenet, that peace and happiness is to be sought inside one's own mind! And the world would have been a better place if we could assimilate this. Decidedly there is a force or an entity called ‘God’ and prayer does make a difference. When you pray, you remain focused, not allowing any distractions to enter your mind. Jealousy, greed, anger, no such yellow feelings occupy your mind while you pray. Its like a submission into oneself. Prayer is a kind of medium to converse with your inner being where the real God resides. Hence you feel calm and relaxed. A secure feeling, like that of a child in the mother's womb. And this feeling emanates from your mind. Hence, your mind is the key to happiness. How deep you look into it is the deciding factor to happiness. For many of us, we submit into our inner being only in those few moments while we pray.


Many of us fall prey to these self proclaimed Gods because we somehow need more virtues with lesser efforts. We tend to seek a substitute to hard work and diligence. We face obstacles in life and approach a 'human God' to wave a magic wand and straighten it out instead of finding out ways to overcome it. You wish to score high marks at school and seek human Gods and the ‘sacred threads’ they give. You suffer a loss in business and seek the same ‘sacred thread.’ The more number of threads you have more marks you get, and the more number of threads you have more money you make! On doing so, you actually confine your abilities to just that thread. A defeated person needs solace and motivation, not threads.


Most people, when they seek spiritual gurus, they do so to overcome the obstacles they face in their lives. Many of these ‘gurus’ may have wrong intents and take mean advantage of the weak while few others are genuine. Unable to control their emotions, I have seen people weep before Mata Amritanandamayi when she hugs them. I have utmost respect to her and I believe in the love she spreads. When you feel defeated in life and someone offers you a consolation, even if it comes from a stranger, let alone Mata Amritanandamayi, it helps you to muster a bit of your lost energy. When a student fails in an exam and the teacher starts to criticize him severely, it just adds to his sorrow. Instead, if the teacher walks up to him and consoles him saying that the failure doesn’t reflect his ability and a better performance is surely possible the next time, it helps him regain his confidence and motivates him to work again with a positive attitude. He would instantly feel a bonding towards that teacher and would make it a point to study hard (atleast that subject). Love can inspire, motivate and bring a change in anyone. Here the love that radiates from the teacher causes that transformation in the student. I believe Mata Amritanandamayi is one such teacher who spreads love to all those who need consolation. Sri Sri Ravishankar is another. Neither of them claim to be Gods, but they are, in the sense they spread love. Infact every human is capable of spreading love!



It is human mind which worked behind the mass destruction at Hiroshima in Japan, and its the same human mind which later formed the driving force to see the country rise to become the leaders in technology. Its the human mind which spreads love in the name of God, and it’s the same human mind which sets out violence in the name of God.


There is a force, decidedly. An infinite unique force, call it Jesus, Krishna or Allah, rests inside the temple, the temple being our mind. Good and evil, peace and war, love and hatred, God and devil, everything emanates from the human mind.

Anybody who radiates love is God. Its up to us whether to be Gods or devils.


-Balu