Monday, August 31, 2009

Bhakti...Love...& My Grandma


I was talking to serendipiduous about me and he mentioned two things which struck out -

1. I have a very masculine view of life
2. I am blindly/unconditionally in love with KT, which he finds inspirational.

About the first point, perhaps I will talk in a separate blog.

About the fact about blind love for KT, again I will talk about in a new post. Infact, I would ask KT to make a post about it too, or better we could do a post together. Because, amongst my very close friends in Hyd, I have known a lot of people who adore the fact that we have stuck with each other so long and love seeing us that way...and a few others who pretend they like it but abhor it at heart.

About the second again, somehow while talking to serendipiduous, I was reminded of mymama (a word for grandmother in oriya/chattisgarhi) when he said he might never know what love is.

She is somewhere between 80-90 years old and still insists on following all the rituals that her body allows her. Being the one, who used to accompany her to temples and the one who read out the Bhagvad Gita, The Krishna Puran, The Mahabharat, The Ramayana, while she could not read it herself, I generally have had a lot of time to talk to her about religion, rituals, and all the fasts she keeps, etc. Obviously enough, seeing her old and struggle through all her rituals and fasts, I have advised her innumerable times to skip them and take care of her health instead. That there is no need for such rituals and sometimes even tried to push my half-modern, half-formed views of atheism or better say lack of religious rituals or religion that I try to follow. She always resisted my attempts saying, it is important for her to do all those things, that Bhakti is the state that she wanted to attain, that is the only thing keeping her going at her age. It was hard for me to understand what she really meant by Bhakti. For my ignorant mind Bhakti most often than not translates to being religious and for me my grandma was infact very religious. Epitome perhaps.

Last time when I visited home, she wasn't keeping that well, so I spent a lot of my late morning hours with her helping her with her pooja and other stuff. Once, while I was reading out the Geeta to her, she asked me if I really understood what she meant by Bhakti. It was no use showing my malformed intelligence to her, she would have seen through it in a jiffy. So, I just nodded my head for a no, perplexed at having her read my mind. She very nicely explained, Bhakti was devotion, complete submission of the self, unconditional love....and many more synonyms followed. She said, when me and all my cousins were kids, she saw un-comparable bhakti in each of us, bhakti for our parents & grandparents, bhakti for our teachers, bhakti for our older siblings/cousins. And curious enough, I asked, doesn't she see it in us now? She didn't answer that directly, but instead said bhakti can be attained only by simplicity and you need a simple heart, mind, and soul for it. Fair enough, I thought.

While writing all this, I was visualizing mama in her bade bhittar (chattisgarhi for big inner room) with the new fan, I replaced this time I was home, making slow circles over her head, she staring at it, perhaps thinking about all her clan, about her childhood, waiting for one of us, one of her grandchildrens to return home, packing some of the goodies she always has hidden for us. Its funny, but she remembers how each one of us is fond of a particular delicacy only she makes and would bring it out from her wooden almirah, when we go to meet her even today. For me it was always, the sweet n sour aam papda she makes during summers :)

15 comments:

myriadmind said...

Look forward to 3 new posts...
2 u committed to here and 1 about the book buying spree u went on with meister/potato (based on which side of the bed he woke up)

Runa said...

yah sure...

Priyanka said...

So true. They really have an uncanny knack of knowing and remembering every little thing.
Lovely post :)

And like myriadmind I too am looking forward to a few posts now :)

Runa said...

@priyanka - thanks for your comments. Sure would do a new post soon, rather being the absentee that I have been all this while from the blog world...just out of curiosity do I know you?

Unknown said...

hey, there is no bed, and even if there was I wouldn't share it that moronic Muppet called Meister

Priyanka said...

lol...I highly doubt that :P

Black Swan said...

I love how you transitioned from unconditional love to Bhakti and intertwined your younger days into it.

Anonymous said...

Loved this post!

Anonymous said...

definitely one of your better posts in a long time

Runa said...

hey thanks guys...I know this in a long time something more like me...all this while I was meandering with things I didn't feel for very strongly.

Harsha said...

Hey,

your blogs are real good. Keep going!

and just tell me something, why you spend for adwords to promote your blogs? I am surprised!

usually people selling or marketing things would go for adwords, but why you...? I really like to know this.

Even you can write a blog on that!


Harsha

reethu said...

girl, just go and do some useful things!

Runa said...

@ harsha - hi harsha, I am not advertising with AdWords for my blog. Very frankly being an employee of Google I cannot really do so. But if you are looking for information on AdWords I can help you.

@reethu - thanks for the advice reethu. But I really like as per you 'wasting' my time in my blog. I really wish you all the best in doing all the useful things available. Have fun!

Benny Sumer Yanthan said...

Nostalgia is beauty!
Keep writing!
Benny.

Runa said...

Thanks Benny :)