Goa

The last week I was at Goa and visited Margao once again. Goa for me is deeply immersed in nostalgia, the sweet and pleasant memories of childhood. We have stayed for about ten years in Goa from 1968-69 to 1976-77 and I did my primary schooling till the 5^th standard at the St Josephs Convent, Aqen Alto, Margao. In August 2010 also I was there and at that time I went to my school and residential locality. This time I visited the city park and market place. The flight to Mumbai from Goa is at 2.40 in the afternoon and on both the occasions I had the entire morning at my disposal at Margao.

Goa of my childhood is a rugged, humid and mountainous place generously sprayed with the red Chira stone, dense with cashew, coconut and mango trees, traditional houses of stone and tiled roofs along with modern apartments, colorful tribal Gawdas and fun loving local Kokanis, sunday church goers and evening temple bells, public transport buses and my fathers’ jeep, boys crazy about football and gilli-danda, all my Christian and Muslim friends, nuns and fathers at school, popular festivals being Christmas and Diwali, the traditional beheading of Narakasur by Krishna and the Durga pujo by the Bengali diaspora, incessant rains for five months but no water stagnation, hot oven fresh bread and grated coconut Hooman curry, my on demand Phantom and Amar Chitra Katha comics, going for Tarzan movies with father and Rajesh Khanna’s with mother, my special friends Purshottam Patel, Anil Apte and Munaf, Purshottam and I had a fight and didn’t speak for a month; one day he followed me with his bicycle apologized and we were friends again (we were tiny kids of 5 or 6 years age), strict sisters (teachers) at school and the caring beautiful Neela didi at home, going with my mother to the city park and eating south Indian dosa at Kamat hotel, walking long distance (due to my tiny legs) to reach a friends place but the school was next door, participating in annual dance and drama in school competition under the direction of Manik teacher, other special friends Baaja (Shubhadra), Chandrakant and Girija, the Illustrated Weekly and the Sunday Standard, the smell of bangda, tarle and pomfret fish, popular industries being the saw mills and ore mines, the sadness in my heart due to my father’s regular heavy drinking and my mother unhappy crying, their constant quarrel loud and bitter, the fun moments of climbing trees and playing marbles, the very unhappy times when I got beatings with a belt from father and with her boney hands on my back from mother, the carefree roaming in the jungle for cashew fruit, the great achievement when regularly standing 2^nd in final exams and receiving big picture books as gifts from the school, I could speak three languages fluently Konkani, Hindi and Bangla, pocketing small change when sent to buy grocery and using it for collecting stickers, match box cover and lozenge, the loud Chatterji uncle and his small wife - their son was a good friend, my brother Biki was born in Margao, the simplicity innocence and confusion of my sister Soma, travelling by train during December to Raniganj for a month holiday, Mankurad mangoes which tasted better than Alphanso, bombing scare during the Indo-Pak war; as soon as the siren sounded all lights were shut off and we went under the bed; car and jeep headlights were colored black upto the middle, tortoise flesh was sold in the fish market, plates filled with sweets used to go from house to house during Diwali, we used to sleep in the afternoon for an hour after school listening to Hindi songs on the Vividh Bharati.

Incidents, occasions, events, feelings and emotions; of various colors and magnitudes pass through my mind whenever I think of Goa. These memories I cannot forget. The smell, the sound, the sun and wind are still very real and they bring up a smile, sometimes a laugh, and sometimes a tear. Those days have long gone but still they remain fresh as if new. On this occasion I sat in the city park for some time, remembered my parents and thanked them. Structurally the park still remains the same but now there are more trees and flower plants. Margao has done well to keep the park alive even after thirty five years and pressure on urban space. A lot of things have changed but overall everything still remains the same. I observed my attachment towards my memories, my craving for the tension free days of childhood. I realized how much I have changed and yet still I wished to remain the same Suman of the past.

WHAT AN EGO!

I was in Penn, Khopoli, and Alibagh the last week on some audit work. The client has a small office there looking after some infrastructure project along with guest house for their staff. I had stayed in the Penn guesthouse before and therefore when they asked what arrangements to make for me I told them that the guest house would be fine enough.

However when I reached the guest house I found that it was full and I was given to share a room with another staff member. Two parallel thoughts were going on inside me. One track said that I could not possibly stay in a room occupied by a stranger, I am the auditor and deserve some privacy and an independent room, how could I share the room with people who I am supposed to audit, if I stayed with them then I would become one of them and they would not listen to me, the staff will laugh at me if I degrade myself like this and stay with them. The other track in my mind said that, I have not caused this to happen and if it has happened on its own then there must be a good reason which I should accept quietly, I am not going to become less of an auditor by staying with common client staff, whatever happens always happens for the good, this is only a temporary arrangement and I have to leave the next day so why make an issue of it.

I could observe and hear both these voices. Both were trying to tell the other to give up, both were telling the other that it was more powerful. I said to myself that “Look I am a Vipassana student, so such temporary things do not affect me”. I told myself sternly that I am going to stay in the guest house without any fuss. The moment I reached the office I found myself tell the Accounts Manager that I would not like to stay in the guest house. He rearranged my stay at a nearby lodge but in the night when I reached there I did not like the look of the room. Finally they shifted me to a better hotel which I found acceptable. Oh what an ego! How difficult it is to overcome the grip of ego! I lay disturbed that night and am still not able to believe what I have done.

On the last leg of the tour I was at Kalyan and was required to reach the airport by 5.30 pm to catch the 6.40 pm flight back to Nagpur. I started from Kalyan which was at a distance of 60 kms from the airport at 3.30 pm with a comfortable margin of 2 hrs to reach. On the way there was a massive traffic jam and I could reach the airport only at 6.30 pm and thus missed the flight. All through the way I found myself irritated and agitated with the way the journey had turned out. One part of me was saying that, “how does it matter, even if I miss the flight I can catch the next one, or possibly take a hotel room for the night and catch the next morning flight. The client would foot the expenditure and I am not going to lose anything.” But the agitation inside did not stop. I received a phone call during this time but told the person to hang up since I was in no mood to talk. I was observing the antics of my ego and was helpless in front of it.

Both these incidents left me feeling very weak and not man enough. I could see my ego but could do nothing to control it. I have learned a lot from this episode and hope to gather the courage to face it the next time around and win. Mr. Sudhir Soman said that if I had not bothered about the delay taking place and just had accepted the turn of events as normal, focused on the scenery or on meditation; I could have decreased its strength and could have been in time for the flight. Dr. Aniruddha Gurjalwar says that Tapasya means to do exactly the opposite of what your mind tells you. To be able to fight off the overtures of the mind with faith and belief is essential to extinguish ones ego and move towards liberation.

Anicca - Anatta - Dukkha.

Impermanence, Substance less and Misery, these basic tenets were highlighted by Gautama Buddha to explain the natural rules of existence in Samsara (life in the time and space perspective) so as to inspire and guide his followers in their pursuit towards liberation. All phenomena in this world follow these principles and there is nothing that exists beyond or is not bound by them.

Life that is visibly apparent in this world in all its various forms like plants, animals, birds and humans follows a regular cyclic pattern. There is a symmetrical rise and fall which can be noticed both at the macro and micro levels. At the micro level every individual plant, animal, bird or human comes into existence, occupies its space and dies in its own time. At the macro level even the species rise and become extinct like the mammoths and dinosaurs. In the million year’s history of the planet, humans who currently appear as homo-sapiens were previously Neanderthal and something else previous to that. Life has been living on this planet since ages but its form and structure has been changing. Maybe even the planet has a life of its own. Therefore the difference is only the time and space criteria which keep changing from specie to specie. Everything is Anicca or impermanent. Even the thoughts of individual life forms have certain limitation of space and time within which it arises to soon pass away. In this ever changing and never resting world to cling on to anything whether a form or some abstract idea is an unprofitable effort.

Dileep Kulkarni a renowned environmentalist of Maharashtra quoted, “more amazing than the phenomenon of growth, is the cessation of growth”. Growth ceases after a point, always. To maintain equilibrium, nature has its own ways to curb the growth of every species, its own unquestionable methods and irreversible process. All life, grow to a permissible level where it balances the use of available resources like air and water with all other life forms and then ceases to grow only to wither and die. In this natural play of growth and cessation, we do not have any say; our opinion does not have any consequence. It is all anatta, impersonal and substance-less. From the words of Gautama Buddha we understand that existence is only a series of becoming. Each new arising is because of our desire our craving our reaction pattern to the world of change which we observe through the sense organs. When we continue to pamper ourselves we only choose to continue the process of becoming. Each becoming comes to an end and the new one arises. Humans would like to continue with innumerable desires but nature has to look after a balance. Therefore the process of becoming continues. A new life follows a death.

Human enterprise of greed of craving and aversion is therefore naturally fated to be dukkha oriented. Fear lurks behind every such desire because they have to end. When such an end comes it always lead to sufferings and misery. In the scheme of nature nothing is forever. Everything that grows has to die, where ever there is an excess activity nature forces a balance. Nature is impartial to all life forms and humans have no extra significance in its view.

Swami Vivekananda has said that the purpose of human life is to attain liberation. It is humans who have the ability to understand the laws of nature and work their own way out of this illusionary world. Liberation or ‘Nibbana’ was not meant to be an escape from life but it was a joyful existence without sufferings within the realms of Samsara.

IDENTITY NEED OF THE EGO

My brothers’ wife gave birth to a baby boy on the 1^st of February and it being a premature baby was placed under incubation. She was recuperating herself in the hospital and I was visiting every evening. One day it so happened that I went to the hospital in the afternoon itself and found the room empty. I asked the staff and was told that she was given a discharge in the morning. I phoned my brother and he said that he forgot to inform me. I was hurt and angry for a moment. Why I was not told? I was visiting everyday and all of a sudden I find that I am not important in the scheme of events. Oh, what a painful let down. That too by my own brother.

I learnt something from this episode. What did I learn?

Ego does not like to be cold shouldered. It wants to be known to be someone and if possible someone well known. It likes to be acknowledged, accepted, recognized and respected. It wants to be pampered and loved. It has an image of its own and spends most of its waking hours in projecting and protecting that image. Should anybody try to ignore or humiliate that image, the misery is immense. Its sphere of influence could be small and could be even one single individual, but never the less it desires to be considered as important. In this life it is very painful to be alone and not having someone to shower love and importance at you. Everyone wants to feel needed and have a place for himself or herself in this world. The two locations where everyone expects to be loved and respected are home and work. If your parents and siblings don’t give you the importance then atleast your spouse must. If your boss or seniors do not give you the importance then your peers and colleges must. Atleast someone has to be there to accept you as you are with all your rainbow characteristics. Thus the ego needs an external support to believe its reality.

Why does this happen?

The ego by itself is fragile. It is a bundle of feelings and emotions, all work of the mind. It is the nature of the mind to cling on to these feelings and to perpetuate them. The ego for its existence depends on one the self ego itself and second on other egos. When an event happens, for it to be classified as good or bad, the response or feedback of the other egos are evaluated. If the response is not immediately available then it is imagined on the screen of the mind. When others do anything by which one feels happy then the event is marked as good and its repeat is craved. When others do anything by which one feels unhappy then the event is marked as bad and its repeat is avoided. One uses every tool, technique and emotion for such a repeat and avoidance.

How to treat this?

All feelings rise and pass away. To try and perpetuate it is an exercise in futility. To depend on others for ones’ own happiness is madness. To feel needed and loved by others is to perpetuate or prolong the ego. It will always lead to misery some way or other. Therefore one has to look at events that happen with detachment. My brother or his wife had no intention to humiliate me. They love me for sure. That morning probably the doctor unexpectedly decided to give her the discharge and in the process of taking her to the baby for feeding (at another hospital) and then home, they somehow forgot to inform me. It happens. I myself forgot so many important tasks of course all unintentionally. If I am now going to imagine that my brother does not consider me important, then I would be making my life miserable for years to come. And then so what if he has really snubbed me. Thanks to him I have learned about my ego in this process. Whatever happens happens for the good.