Happily Harmonic!

Balances work well for everyone. Keeping one in my life has been something which has come naturally to me. I have never had had anyone tell me what my ‘responsibilities’ were in any phase of my life – both personal & professional. The motivators for everyone are different. Some like appreciation and recognition. For some it is fame and power. For others it is position and authority. For some it is selfless work and humanism. Either way, it is the choice of the motivators which define a person.

My choices in my life may not have been always perfect – initially. Except without exception my hubby – there I excelled! But I learnt from my mistakes and learnt well and fast. There has not been many an occasion where I have made my mistakes twice. It has helped immensely. For by avoiding making mistakes again – they signified that they would have caused either a heartburn or a heartbreak or some amount of pain or discomfort. By not repeating them again I have saved myself those agonies in repeat.

Yet one area remains which I have not been able to conquer so far and that is in reading individuals, who seemed different in the beginning and then changed. And I do not mean those who are mere acquaintances, passersby in your life, I mean those who keep coming and kept coming several times for several years and who cared enough for you but then could not value your worth. It hurts but after a few such episodes, I now just do not care. I still do stuff for people I like or those who ask for help but with a dispassionate passion and more for those I care for with a passionate passion. But yes, I have stopped going out of the way for those who have the means to help themsleves in any way. When one’s virtuousness and decency is construed as a weakness, I classify the person interpreting it thus as uncivil.

With deletion of toxicity, one can reach the harmonic happiness. One may go anyway but it is Home where one finds peace.

HOME is my abode where I get peace and my family thrives; it is also a place where I create, live, enjoy and be ME, all the time; it is also a place where I bake and relax, paint and reflect, write and express!

Mine comes from behind the main door of my home. I enter here and then I am oblivious to the nuttiness, impoliteness, vulgarity, uncouthness, boorishness, asininity – you name it or thesaurus it (!!) – it is all left behind. I meet those who celebrate being alive, enjoy being themsleves without masks, delight in engaging with like-minded people, think straight, act right and are always fair.

The rest do not matter.

All my professional life, I think I made my impact. Not in classrooms: for here I know I did!! On people. I have often heard people say I was “unforgettable” – Thank you, folks! But I say that I have had my moments with some unforgettable people. All of whom make my being ‘unforgettable’ more cherished. Anyone would be if one kept such august company!

Years ago, a demur and soft-spoken lady was part of my jumbo team of teachers in a school I headed. It is always a very warm feeling of ease when you have members on your team, while in a high stress position, whom you can trust blindly. She had many qualities as a person. The one which shone through always, event after event, day after day, year after year, was her attention to detail and her steadfastness to given rules and instructions. While handling her class, subject, events, or my favorite Newspaper in Education (NIE) coverage of our students work and events – Ms. Harika missed nothing, and nothing could escape her discerning eye. I was not surprised when she mentioned that the greatest influence on her life was her parents and after marriage her extremely supportive husband.

Ms Harika – a valuable team member and a most wonderful human being who says she wants t “remembered as complete woman – a perfect manager of her personal and professional life balance who has taken over role of mentor and teacher apart from being Mom to her primary school going daughter.

She describes herself as: assiduous, sale-satisfied and hardworking!!! I couldn’t agree more!

The picture on the right corner is (Ms. Harika in farthest right in a black sari) from a conference I helped organise for a friend and when I needed teacher volunteers as I wasn’t a part of any school at that time – I asked for help from my own small but trustworthy group of individuals who do not say ‘No’ to me and on whom I can bank blindly for work to be done perfectly!

Needless to say, Ms. Harika was amongst my first three choices of people I can bank on

Lucky were her students who learnt from her and fortunate the parents who did not have to bother about their child while he/she was with her throughout the academic session. “I really wonder about the thinking of people who take admission in a prestigious school for their children and decide on giving them the best throughout their life and think that it is the best way to an entire upbringing. However, as a parent I feel that making our children understand what values are, how to balance highs and lows in their life which will make them to live independent lives and make them sufficient enough to sustain through the hardships and still carry-on their lives living it with morals throughout their life” is more important and sustainable. Sound parenting advice. Birds of feather flock together – well, Ms. Harika says that she loves to be “stick to what I believe. No matter what the consequences might be. I always try to understand people through their heart & not by their words which turns to be right most of the times as that is what they exactly are.” Same pinch then!!

Magic of any relationship lies in the respect and the extent to which one goes to sustain and nurture it. I have kept in touch with people who I have been impressed with and most of my friendships are based, much like my father’s out of a deep respect for their professionalism and work ethics. Ms. Harika takes that place hands-down!

Impressions of a different kind help one to weather the vagaries of life. Those make everything so bearable and worth it. For it takes an immense effort to live life for the protracted period maintaining dignity, ethics, happiness, and harmony. I’ve lost quite a few hair and greyed significantly in the process!! One summer, our only holiday till date without my son, who was busy with his year end submissions and could not join us, was to Hobart, Tasmania. Was our recce trip for a future family vacation and my what an amazing morning I had the day after we reached!

Everyone would have seen sunrises, but this was one of its kind in every way. The rest of the trip was sheer enchantment!

After roaming the world, myself and through the eyes of my father and brother too, who circumvent the Earth for their work like few others, one thing which stands out from the rest of world as juxtaposed with our country is the huge, humongous range of unbelievable Handicrafts found in every state of our country.

The states – East, West, North or South – have such a charming range of locally made handicrafts that it is charmed!

The Khaziranga Rhino Sanctuary brings alive the endangered Rhino thru this realistic artifact – love this sanctuary though I prefer the much less frequented Manas Wild Life Sanctuary from Assam ; the Mediating Monkey as I call it, carved out of a whole coconut from Kodiakanal, Tamilnadu; The lovely birds on the tree from Nirmal, Telangana; The brass Khorai from Assam; The enamouring wood carving Ganesha from Srikalahasthi, Andhra Pradesh – the list is endlessly long and the Handicrafts fascinating – my favourite topic when we talk of our country!

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