
Surrender and let go!

Within three weeks, I was changing schools.
My parents were living in Gulbarga (Karnataka) then and I was staying with my paternal grandmother, while studying at PSBB – KK Nagar. As they collectively discussed my academic performance, I recall my class teacher telling my parents that perhaps “I was homesick”. Then my parents were taken into Ms.YGP’s room. They emerged from it looking very disturbed. My mother kept maintaining for the longest time that Ms.YGP had ordered that they take me out of ‘her’ school because I was never going to be ‘brilliant’ at academics. This, my mother felt, was a big let down for her and my dad: you see, we didn’t have a strong story to “cover up my academic inefficiencies in a family that prided itself with brilliance in every academic discipline”! And so, I was treated as the ‘black sheep’ and was ridiculed for bringing disrepute to the family!!
It was my first experience with the Big ‘F’ word-label – Failure – being stuck on me.
For the next few years, I carried that trauma within me. Of being expelled from school for poor grades, of being shamed by my own parents for not being ‘good enough’…but interestingly, as I got out of my teens, this trauma turned into anger, ambition and raw aggression. A lot of what I achieved all the way till my late-30s was because of the anger in me over this one event from September 1979 – somehow, everything that followed by way of how I was looked at by my parents had its genesis in this one event!
Resultantly, I worked very hard at whatever I did. I wanted to prove to the world, particularly, to my parents, that I wasn’t a Failure. And, in more ways than one, I did prove myself – at least to me!
But that’s the thing with Success. When you get to that point – “your own peak or summit” – that you have lusted for, toiled for, you feel so shallow, so vain. So, by the time I was 37, my spiritual quest had led me to the practice of observing daily silence periods – mouna. In my early morning reflective, meditative, mouna sessions, I began to realize that had it not been for that expulsion from school in 8th Grade, I would never have been so ‘successful’ – despite my poor academic qualifications. I would not have traveled so widely across the world; I would not have experienced so many people, places or things; I would not have learnt and unlearnt so much! Soon, as I discovered much to my amazement, the anger in me gave way to a deep sense of gratitude for that event of my expulsion, for that label of “Failure” that had been stuck on me.
In 2006, when I was 38+, I read a report in The Hindu that Ms.YGP had turned 80 (in Nov 2005) and that Lakshmi Devnath had written a book on her – ‘A Class Apart’. I bought that book. I read it. And I had my secretary call and fix an appointment with Ms.YGP.
I met Ms.YGP at her home in T.Nagar. It was a beautiful, hour-long conversation we both had.
Here’s what I wrote in my journal that night: “She was so full of Life, cheerful, and exuding positive energy. Radiant, in fact. I wish I had taken a picture of her and me! But am bad at these things. She recognized me when I introduced myself. She had a sharp memory. Knew that CS was my class teacher. Knew that she did not see me pass out in 12th. I didn’t want to remind her that she was partly instrumental for that. Instead, I placed my head at her feet (literally) and sought her forgiveness for carrying so much hatred in me for her for so many years. She placed her hand on my head and blessed me. She said, the work I am doing with Vaani (she had enquired and so I had elaborated) would help a lot of people, all over the world.”
I am not so much into scriptures or religion or shlokas. But one particular verse from the Brahadaranyaka Upanishad always resonates with me:
asato ma sadgamaya
tamaso ma jyotirgamaya
mrtyorma amritam gamaya
om shanti shanti shanti…
I learnt that verse at PSBB – without knowing the meaning then. Today, I have grown up to know its meaning and its relevance. And, thanks to our enduring bankruptcy, (Read more here – Fall Like A Rose Petal – and here) there are times when I do reflect on this verse to instill a sense of surrender and prayer in me. At such times, I often do picture Ms.YGP leading the school assembly on some days…inviting us to recite this verse!
Over the past decade, since my meeting in 2006 at her residence, Vaani and I have met Ms.YGP several times at cultural events in the city. Even when we have not stopped to talk to her, we have always admired her sagacity, her sharp intellect and her zest for Life from a distance.
She surely touched my Life in more ways than one: I learnt the relevance of Failure and Success in Life, and learnt, quickly, of their irrelevance and impermanence too; I learnt of the essence of Life through that verse from the Brahadaranyaka Upanishad; I learnt the value of staying youthful and relevant even when you are old and, important, every time I saw her she reminded me of this unquenchable thirst to stay alive!
Facebook reminded me yesterday, December 29th, that it was the fourth anniversary of a very painful incident in my Life. In the wee hours of that morning, after several rounds of drinks at a school reunion, I had prevented my chaddi-buddy from riding his two-wheeler back in a drunken state. Besides Vaani, I had a driver with me, so we offered to drop my friend home. He refused to take our advice and rode away. However, at the kerbside outside the club, where we had met, he was stopped by the cops. I saw him trying to deal with the cops. So I got down from the car and implored the cops not to allow him to drive back home in that state. The cops seized his vehicle. My friend slapped me in a rage of fury. And grumpily took an auto-rickshaw home. Later that day, without naming him, I posted on Facebook that people of my generation, with teenaged and young adult children, must avoid drinking and driving; we must set an example. Some of my class fellows took objection to my post as a. it washing school group linen in public and b. I was interfering with the personal Life and choice of my school buddy. I tried explaining my point in the school group. But I was shouted down. It was this post that Facebook threw up yesterday as a memory!
My friend, whose vehicle had been impounded, pinged me the next day saying that he had spent Rs.3500/- on getting it released. He said my ‘over-zealousness’ had, apart from causing him emotional hurt, apart from intruding on his privacy, also cost him a princely sum. There was not much money I had, we were struggling as much then as we are today, but I reached him Rs.3500/- to compensate for his financial loss.
That was the last I interacted with my friend. We did meet here and there; he would barely acknowledge my presence or disapprovingly look away. He also unfriended me on Facebook.
When I looked back at the incident after I re-read my old Facebook post, I smiled to myself. What a powerful lesson this painful episode had taught me! Which is to move on, to emotionally free myself from an incident and its fallout. This is how I have remained without suffering although the pain from it all sometimes comes back trying to stir my emotions – as it happened when the Facebook post resurfaced yesterday!
My experience with my friend may appear unique. But it is not.
People often do things to us because of how they see Life. We see Life differently so we don’t quite appreciate or agree with what they are saying or doing. The best way to deal with such situations and people is to simply move on. It may not always be possible for us to forget whatever has happened, but we can surely forgive ourselves and others for what happened. The more you cling on to a hurt, an insult, an abuse, a betrayal, the longer you will suffer. Interestingly, unless you “allow” someone to hurt you emotionally, you will never suffer. If you treat people with the view that everyone is entitled to their opinions and behaviors, you will never be emotionally disturbed no matter what people do to you. I am sure my friend had reasons for the way he saw the episode and my involvement in it. And I have my reasons. Through this experience I have learnt that, no matter what a context is, you must never “wish” you were treated better. It is this wishing that causes your suffering. And never really the person or the event that has upset you.
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