Log Kya Kahenge

We go through our lives in this rat race, trying to live appearances so that we might impress others with our outwardly projections and manifestations of wealth, prestige, power. We all are driven by one motive or desire. That is the reason for waking up, the reason to get up and face the world and to make it through the day. No one, just lives, it’s this force that makes us do things, to achieve milestones, goals and to carry on. In the Sri Guru grant sahib, there is a particular line that says,” Lok Patiyaare kachoo Na paiyee (Page 736). Look =people, Patiyaare= please, Kachoo Na =nothing, Paiyae=obtained. 

Trying to please people, nothing is obtained.

We go through the motions of life trying to please and fit in to the expectations of others so we may be perfect in their eyes. Whatever, we might do, we will never ever be happy or make others happy as they will expect and want more. IT is, the very nature of humans to expect. A mother does so from our child, she rears him up so he may grow up and take care of her in the old age, and she rears the daughter to marry her off to another home. She lives, and expects from her husband to provide for her and the family. The husband keeps on working, trying to fit into his or her expectations trapped in the image that has been formed by someone!

These expectations are what trap us into not enjoying life. Man gets up, rushes to his office, trying to work with deadlines, meetings, budgets and office wrangles and trying to meet projected aims. At home, his wife nags, asks for a better car, a newer appliance, things for the children, the newer purse. It has been beautifully illustrated that today we will buy a new purse for an exorbitant amount but the bag would be empty and not have any money to spend! A very simple line that haunts people in India drives this false spending; log kya kahenge?

If someone asks them, who are these people, it’s the name less society who is of no help at all. A billionaire will buy a car worth millions. But if you earn in thousands and buy a car worth millions just to show other people and get empty accolades that are empty weightless words, it is an expensive lesson 

In the end we spiral ourselves into a debt situation and get sucked into EMI’s. Our lives that started out to be simple, just get more complicated leading to a serious ailment that is affecting everyone. Don’t think its cancer, aids or Ebola; it’s the ordinary, deadly stress, tension. Humans, more than ever are being affected, stress, tension and its repercussions. High blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, and other life style diseases are affecting more and more younger age group. I am also guilty; I just used the word so coined, life style diseases! But that’s the fancy schmancy term so prevalent. 

We all are guilty , of trying to fit in the outwardly projections so demanded of us. To say, we are not affected , or have risen above is wrong, its all encompassing and embracing us . To worry about what others say is the reason we all are in this state of affairs. 

On a lighter note, it is what is driving the nation to , we all are in search for the elusive, utopian Ache din , and trying to propel ourselves forward to tell the world we have arrived. 

Why don’t we just compete with our own values and standards to become better in the way our Gurus wanted rather than the modern , fast forward spiel sold as Yoga these days?

If you have an answer, do tell , as I am also guilty of Log kya kahenge.

Ravneet Sangha

        

Who Am I ?

I am a human being. Sadly enough, man made divisions that are not visible but are etched so deep and are so prominent that if I don’t confirm I don’t fit anywhere divide me. To start with I am a woman, that itself is such a drawback in this country. At least I survived all the turmoil and lived to reach this age. That itself is a boon, as the society makes sure to test us at all stages from the moment we are born and then at every step to keep on testing through the years, to being checked when we are at school, from evading boys at every step and also acid attacks, shooting by some loonies . During these years, a woman looses her for her family, putting herself at the back burner, rearing a family, nurturing children and being supportive to her husband.

However, this is not what I am. I was born a Sikh girl, who embraced her religion with complete ease, accepted the Gurus, their teachings, the path laid by them to be a true seeker and in the times I was born, it was just natural to embrace all festivals. We were never told distinctly that this was a Hindu festival or a Muslim Eid, or Christian X- mas, it was just a festival and the Gods were ours. The 14-day Ram Leela played out by the mohalla actors were watched with enthusiasm, love, excitement and the pitch and fervor of every day has made many a memory for me. The build up, to buying of small toys, baubles are unmatched to all the games of today. We enjoyed all the festivals, and no RSS bhakat or a Hindu Shiv Sena could stop me, as I was a Sikh and couldn’t participate.

No, hardline hardcore Muslim organization could stop us from enjoying the Eid, or listening to qalaams that all speak of universal love and brother hood. How can I explain to another that the spiritual uplifting sound of Nusrat moves me more these days to greater heights? It’s been four months and I’m still stuck in understanding Allah, Mohammad Char Yaar. A friend, across the border who is from the family of Sultan Hazrat Bahoo of Multan still sends me lines from the Koran that are on the same plateau as the SGGS. How did, we come to this where we mourn humanity who are killed just because they are Hindus, or Sikhs or Muslims?

Why can’t we all just be humans? Killing a lion, Cecil for sport by an American dentist has made more headlines than anything, where as kids, women, men, elderly are killed more than before by the relentless ruthless ISIS. That organization is a sorry excuse.

The last quarter century has seen more horror , more killings, divisions based upon religion. Why cant we just accept the beauty and the love that is there in universal brotherhood and not to feel segregated by these divisions that are not based on color , caste or by sex but by religion that no one has seen? The scriptures were written ,handed to us as teachings to live our lives dictated by a code so we may be humans, good humans with compassion and empathy to other human beings and nature.

Begin to live life as humans and not as rabid dogs ready to bite and kill anyone who comes in front of you .

 And , question yourself in the mirror , and see who you are? Not the person you project and present to the world. Look Hard.

Happiness , khushi

Happiness

This does not read as a sermon, nor is it a capsule of gyaan that I am going to unravel so you get Happiness 101, nor is it an app one can download or an introduction to a series of lecture where by the end would read as, to tap more into the happy space send Rs 500.

Just a rambling, as always that I type here thinking some one somewhere would read. It’s the holy month of Ramadan, its the moth where perpetually all the village folk are attending some mela, travelling to “ jagahs” and taking part in the seva of the pir sahib. All this is to be happy, khush as they say. Talking to a laborer yesterday, I asked itni garmi mein chutti, so he replies kya farak padta hain, baccho keliye (what difference does it make, if I miss a days work; its all for my children’s happiness).

Such is the story of our lives. Be it anyone, rich or poor or old or young. We all keep on looking for the next step in our lives, thinking the next turn, the turning or the next year or the future is going to bring us happiness. For a simple layman, happiness is thought as good life, prosperity, freedom from suffering, well being, joy and pleasure. We, humans keep on searching for this elusive emotion from others, we get married, thinking the partner will fill the void, the new car, the bigger house, the fancier clothes, the children we have. They give us joy and we face numerous obstacles along the way. We tell ourselves, it will get better when they are older, they will look after us and we will be happy. Then we get frustrated with adolescence years, and how we must deal with them, the societal pressures, peer pressures that the kids face, the competition, school, colleges the rat – race, but we console ourselves thinking that all will be fine, when our spouse gets his /her act together, when we have a nicer flashier, swankier, bigger car, or the next vacation, or when we will have time to pursue our interests when we retire.

The truth is  that there is no better time to be happy than right now.

You will shake your head, smirk and make fun and say yeah right, how does she know what kind of battle I’m fighting or what my problems are. They all are momentous, they all seem to be collapsing on your head, and the fragile house of cards you’ve built seems to be tumbling down. Every obstacle, every pitfall is there to make us stronger and I sound like those inspirational positive hogwash gurus sprouting everywhere. Vaise could start one of those Bibi ashrams, on second thoughts, but amassing wealth or unaccountable property isn’t what makes me happy, books and coffee do!

Happiness isn’t the Leprechaun gold available at the end of the rainbow, its in every step, every minute of the day. Its your prerogative how to tackle what life dishes out to you. They say revenge is a dish best served cold, so why give the advantage to life to better you and to dangle happiness as the prize at the end of the day.

Bliss, contentment, happiness, peace the by words of modern life, which has spawned a billion dollar industry is all with in us. Stop waiting for school to end, to lose that extra weight, for you to get a job, to get married. To have kids, to wait for them to grow up to deliver you happiness. Stop living from Monday to Friday elusively waiting for the weekend to blow your steam, do it on a Monday, banish those blues, don’t sink your self in the coffee. It’s an ongoing process and by downloading an app, or by reading the new how to get happy in ten steps book just off the press is not going to make you happy till YOU decide to be. Its not in anyone’s hands nor is going to be given by as many gifts, they all are transient.

Ultimately, it all lies in your hand.

Do not wait for spring to come, don’t be the happy prince, love the fall, embrace the winter, welcome the cold, revel in spring and yes enjoy the summer (however killing it is!). I probably whine the maximum about garmi, but being in this sultry heat makes me appreciate the comforts of the air conditioning.

An eight month old lying on the gunnysack plays in complete gay abandon, happy and blissful, while his mother works nearby in the shed.  She is happy, he’s in the shade, and safe; that is her nazariya. But ask someone in the city they would want a baby monitor, a maid climate controlled temperature and color sensitive toys, to hone the child’s mental faculty plus the latest soothing Disney tune to lull him or her to sleep. Who is happier?

Here is where we need to thank what we have and to enjoy rather than look for utopia that is elusive and no one ever captured it.

The Two Blue Ticks

It just started with what life has just become a whatsapp message. Increasingly, I see my friends, family members, my siblings and even my own children communicating via these messages instead of picking up the phone and calling. My life has been reduced to sending a message and waiting for seeing the ticks changing to two blue ticks. I actually am also guilty of sending messages via this and keeping in touch with everyone. It’s my lifeline to a teenage son in college where I try to monitor being a brown mom and using my magical innate helicopter parenting skills (every Indian mother has them and if you’re Punjabi; you are blessed and armed with magic to zero on your child). Its like being a mother makes you a super combative drone to monitor your child. A DP (display picture for the unmitigated) with a girl makes our antennas buzz and half the clan will call and congratulate you on your daughter-in- law and the rest will say munda bigad Gaya!

It just doesn’t end here; status updates on smart phones are also subject to debate, speculation more than basmati prices, rain causing havoc or just the state of affairs. The only thing that can cause all this to stop but leads to another kind of satsang and non stop calls is when the maid says, Bibiji I cant come to work.

However, some days bright, meaningful messages are sent and one such was by my sister who started posting these messages, one lines from the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, and explanations by a Thai Sikh gentleman who have explained them in clean, simple languages what the essence of the lines are, thirty lines and they are so spot on. Here, I marvel and salute the power of communication that how a person sitting in Thailand sends lines and the meanings to a lady in Chandigarh and she then shares with people in England, US and the heart of Punjab. But, the best part is I still like keeping them the old –fashioned way, by printing them and keeping a hard copy. As, easy it is to forward to people in bulk, it is easier to delete and to erase.

Life has been reduced to this s, making friends, adding them on our list, messaging them and then reducing them by one unfriend button. It’s this virtual adding on and deleting people by a stroke that has led to lack of emotional quotient in the children, society and everyone around us. Its been reduced to this only. Another one, is when they forward inspirational messages as it is the Chinese year of the tiger, rat or mouse and forwarding it will give you seven years of good luck otherwise, misfortune will follow. Every God / Goddess has special powers, prayers need to be forwarded to at least seven people, and money bags will follow and if you don’t, that anyways gets me worried. My friends make fun of me, as I forward the chain to not break it. Also, the medical information passed on to save a dying person in far off place and I sit in a village whose name they can’t even pronounce is beyond comprehension.

This can go on and on, I have made innumerable friends, have got in touch with them, here and across borders.

However, as the song goes daakiya daak aya , my life is reduced to seeing the two ticks go blue.  

Same/Same /to you

We live in the oldest civilizations of the world, proudly flaunting the 56”inch chest and proclaim to the world that we gave it the number Zero, infinite and yoga and astronomy, astrology, spirituality is our domain and we also are the cradle and the cusp to the oldest four religions of the world. I cant even begin to enumerate what we give or we gave to the world or what we can offer in terms of economic wealth, investment opportunities or the fact that we have the largest concentration of brain power that is multiplying ever year.

Never has the Sone Ki Chidiya looked brighter and bolder in the recent years even if the signs of Global Depression have been announced.

Two days ago was a historic day in the US, the Supreme Court in a landmark judgment has allowed, sanctified and solemnized blessed same-sex marriages.  The landmark ruling has parked off rainbow sparks everywhere, face book has gone viral and the colors all tell us about freedom, freedom of choice. Why has it taken us so long to accept this? Men and women have been prosecuted, hounded just because of their preference of a partner, how does that matter to what they are? Why are we afraid? Why don’t we accept this?

These questions are inevitable, answers are skewed and the radical hardliners all quote the scriptures prophesizing blasphemy, sorry my God doesn’t believe in this.

He is all encompassing, forgiving and, loving.

Coming closer home, India is a country where forget about same-sex, we kill just because they are not from the same religion, same caste! The lines drawn are so deep, etched into our psyche that we kill, maim, strangulate and leave our daughters and sons to die in ditches, roadsides, hang them by trees or even hunt them down three states across the country and avenge the so called invisible izzat.

The same sex /LGBT doesn’t exist because it is a direct challenge to their manhood. The men think that it’s a matter of shame. In the last few weeks, horror stories have surfaced where sons have been made to have sex with mothers to ‘cure them’, babas and tantric give powder to cure homosexuality, or sometimes the social pressures to be a straight man are so much that depression sets in ultimately leading to suicide.

As parents of the children who will take control of the earth and will probably save it from the Sixth extinction we need to teach them skills of not how to make more money but how to be more compassionate and have empathy. Tolerance of another human being is what will make us survive! Do not make them into little monster copies of yourselves where they are afraid to embrace their sexuality do not blame them. BE understanding.  A week or so a Punjabi mother embraced and accepted her sons homosexuality in plain loving words, we need more of this acceptance.

What is personal is personal, why don’t we adopt the nonchalant famous saanu-ki attitude when dealing with sexual preferences? Why do we have to poke our noses in others business? Who appointed you judge and custodian about what he or she does? We don’t bother about drugs, rape, or environment degradation or deterioration in every food product? But we worry about Sex!

Double standards and hypocrisy to the core, we are a nation that is so entrenched in hypocrisy it’s a cloak that sits well on our shoulders. Progress and modernity is not by wearing the western clothing or getting an Ivy League education or sporting the newest handbag and wearing a dress. Its about the progress and development of mind. Mind is what matters rest is as they say is bull shit ! And we have enough of that lying on the roadsides and everywhere.

My friend sent me a funny one when we were debating about same-sex marriages ‘ Don’t get what’s the big deal about same-six marriage is? Almost all married people have always complained that their sex is always the ‘same ‘.

We need to accept, tolerate and move forward, and that is the way of progress. We gave freedom and that word coined by Mahatma is now the by word of all the world leads but sadly this concept of freedom, liberty has vanished from its birth country.