Wednesday, July 23, 2008

To each her own

As I lay on bed, I kept thinking of the conversation I had with mom in the evening. Mom had recently attended a function at a relative’s place on the occasion of Guru Pournima. It was to pay respect to some ‘Swamiji’. She was narrating the incidence to me. About 30-40 ladies of different age groups gathered and recited Mantras and sang Bhajans. My mom felt out-of-place. Each of them seemed to have forgotten about their daily worries and sat there completely absorbed in the mantras. There was a sense of devotion, a sense of contentment while they sang ‘Shree Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram’. They all seemed in a happy place. My mom on the other hand was completely bored. She felt weird that when most ladies of her generation enjoyed spirituality why then did she find no pleasure in it. She asked me “Is something wrong with me?”

Incidentally, the very next day she was invited to her sister’s place for lunch. After lunch, my aunt asked her to stay a little longer as her Rummy club members would be arriving soon for an afternoon session of rummy. My mom agreed. All the members of this club really enjoyed the game. Amidst all the packs and paplus, my mom felt an uncanny similarity between what she saw yesterday and then. Here too, they all seemed to be in a happy place.

When mom told me about this, my thoughts went back to a couple of years when my sister was visiting me in the US. The dual purpose of her visit was to stay with me and also meet her fiancé who was studying in the US. He had managed to take a small break and had come over to my place for just about a week. On the day he left, naturally my sister was very depressed, since they would be meeting next, only after a year. She wanted to buy some clothes, so we went out shopping. We shopped like crazy, probably that’s the only thing we did the whole day. In the evening we came back home, extremely tired. My sister slept as soon as she was on the bed. She seemed to be in a happy place; or at least I felt she was.

Swamis and gurujis may appear bogus to many. People might look at a group of rummy-playing ladies with a frown. Being a shopaholic doesn’t do much good to your husband’s credit card. But every person has his own way of dealing with stress and the worries of life. What one chooses may not necessarily befit the other. In the end, it’s all about happiness.

With that thought I went off to sleep. I was in my happy place.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

what ever may be your stress buster,be happy. & for that look at what you have than what you don't