An act of Nature

Yet another Act  happened in my life. This time it’s by something that’s available in abundance; that’s available to everyone; its everywhere. Just that in present day we stopped to respect it. It’s Mother Nature.

I always wondered why it’s called ‘Mother nature’. Nature nurtures you like a mother. It’s eco-rich. We need to learn to respect it, accept it, follow it and enjoy it. Everyone talks about the nature and about what it gives and how it gives. It’s not a new lesson that I have learnt  today: Nature gave me an opportunity. An opportunity to experience its galore!

My interest in gardening  seem to be growing by day and I decided to something about it. At this point I need to thank two people who always encouraged me. My dad and my husband; they always added fuel to the fire.  A few knowledge transfer sessions with an expert is what I want to do. While I was searching for one, I got an email from Gopi, an enlightened soul, working in software from California who dedicated his life to nature and helping people around him to enlighten themselves. I enrolled for this 4 day workshop--- which means away from home for four days.

I didn’t know what to expect out of this workshop. All I knew was that it’s a gardening workshop and that place has just solar power. No Laptops as there may not be enough power to charge them. Charging phones may be just about ok. One big hall and no beds – their website pictures portrayed this image. No beds! No power! It’s going to be interesting.. ‘carry salt. There may be leaches’ -  Was a friend’s suggestion. This added to the panic. The day of leaving finally came! My friend and I were ready to leave.

There we go...The Navadarshnam farms. 

                                 

 As we reached....In the dark and the wilderness, we hear stories of wild elephants come into the living part of the farm! There are leopard’s too!

The only breather was the real fresh air! It felt like the air was untouched.  It smelled very old fashioned, a very rare smell for city dwellers. It was unbeatable. Dinner followed with rotis and a very different kind of sabji. It’s cold and a tired night for all 30 people who came for the workshop.

I was woken up by noises. It must be around 4:30 in the morning, pitch dark outside, but very noisy! The old fashioned air is crowded with birds to which life is full of songs. The singers of the paradise came out of their nests to enjoy the light breeze, the swaying trees and awaiting the first rays of the Sun God.

Its a luxury to be awakened by the chirping of birds early in the morning. The freshness in the mind, the clarity in thought; happiness that lasted all day; this is something that needs to be experienced! Welcome to the Nature!

Lazy habits die hard!!! I continued to sleep till I heard some other noises. A lady came to light a fire so that we can have a hot water bath. It’s a cement construction to hold water with a metal lining. There is a separate tap connected from this cement tank into the bathroom. This is the source of hot water. Steaming hot water!

The rule of Navadarshnam: breakfast at 7:30am, lunch at 1;30pm, dinner at 7:30pm. The schedule has gotten into me easily. We were also doing a lot of work.

The theory and practical classes were fun! Practical’s were more fun! We became the children of dirt! The dirt that we need to be proud of! Four days just passed by. I made some good friends. We danced at night (we had a dance leader J teaching us dance.), giggled and laughed a lot. It was a lot of learning from every one. Learning from the lessons, learning from experience and learning from the nature.

 

What an irony life has to offer! This is where we should be living; Living with the nature; Living like free birds letting the breeze take us into a world of happiness and health. At the end of these four days, we are forced to leave this reality and go back in to the reality, which we think is the reality! We have to go back to the reality of stress and pollution. How Sad!

I just penned down a few of my learning’s and observations about the four days with nature:

1.      1.  Eating healthy: 4 days of eating healthy! Navadarshnam cooks only from what they grow. They source very minimum stuff from outside. Healthy eating included eating red rice, ragi mudde, sprouted pluses and millet s etc. Absolutely no snacks. No sugary juices. Only herbal tea. Interestingly, the food was very tasty and was made with very very little oil. Eating at home is healthy but surely not to this extent. Hunger happened on time here. I had lot more energy. We were doing a lot of field work and it was tiring but the strength in the mind was still there.

2.       2. Sleep patterns: Regular times it always felt like I needed more sleep. Of-course I was tired every single day of these four days but I slept amazingly well at night. With the nature, the amount of sleep needed was less  and the little sleep was happy and deep.

3.      3.  Limited healthy eating and Lot of energy: Its now a week since the workshop. Just 4 days of healthy eating and I can still see the effects of it. I still have a lot of energy. I wake up reinvigorated, I exercise better, I do a lot more things than I did before. It could be the food and the fresh breathing or a combination. But I see a difference. If four days can do so much, imagine a life time!

4.       4. Happiness in mind: Away from the hustle and bustle, cute chirping of the birds will definitely bring happiness. But surprisingly, it continues. I’m always happy but this happiness that I experience now is the happiness with energy. Happiness in-spite of stress. Clarity in thought!

5.       5. Ego: The trees, small and giant sway for little breeze. Eco system, economics, wild life, food, healing, spirituality, breathing everything is dependent on trees.  If trees show ego and stop responding to any of the above, imagine the state of this world! Ego is something that’s killing. Its already killing us internally and now came to a point of killing each other. Think about it! Think about all the killing and greed that’s happening in this world and if just there was nothing like Ego! This is my biggest lesson from nature.

 6. Calming effect: Staring into the nature, into the green always left a calming effect. These four days of course created calm waves inside me.

      

      Namratha.

      photo courtesy: Prabeena, Eera, Ramya, Sapna. -- Thank you guys!

An act of Love

 I was always loved since childhood. My parents, my sister, my husband, family, every one.

But I have never experienced this kind of love, an unconditional love! It amazes me that with this act of her, the guilt that I have been carrying all through about my work, career, entertainment etc. Has just gone! For just this moment, giving up all that for my child was 100% worth. All the dissatisfaction has turned into pride of being a mother.

Mommies out there I tell you, these little children have so much in them that we just can't except. They keep surprising us. All the anguish that we go through because we have not achieved something is just gone! You have achieved it! You are responsible for another life in this universe. And this is not just an achievement. It’s a conquest. Not everyone is good at this. If they are, then there won’t be so much crime in this world.

This happened very recently for my birthday. Between my husband, daughter and me, we have a policy. We ask each other what they want to do for their birthday and then we do that. This time, I chose to travel for my birthday.

My 5 year old daughter was very excited about my birthday; she said she is going to make some surprises for me. She planned this a week before, got all the materials and asked for stuff that she needed. In all this she never told me what she was doing and I was not allowed into her room. She got help from her aunt and two days later, she was ready with the presents.

We planned to drive to Pondicherry on Friday morning and return on Sunday. Sunday, the 24^th of July was my birthday. We were all busy with our usual routine and suddenly  she comes to me and says ‘amma, you know something’ and she continues...She says that she doesn’t like to travel if we are going to return on Sunday itself. It took a while for me to understand her thought process. She says, Sunday is your birthday and birthday’s are to be celebrated in nice places. Not in the car. Car is not a place to celebrate a birthday and also how will we cut a cake in a moving car? That too when naana(Dad in telugu) is driving, he can’t also participate in the celebration! We are a family and we have to do everything together. So she wanted to leave on Saturday and come back on Monday. That was hard for my husband as be pushed all his meeting from Friday to Monday.

She discussed with her father to get a cake and how to present the gifts to me. She packed her own suitcase (which she never did before!) with the gifts. I was instructed not to touch her suitcase ‘coz there is something inside which I can see only later. The excitement that she showed the whole time was worth a watch. She practiced how to present the gifts to me. She assumed my reactions. Importantly, in the process where I was not allowed into the room and was not allowed in the discussions with her dad, she treated me with at most care making sure I don’t feel bad any where!

I was astonished! It was too much for a 5 year old to plan and think so much. At that moment I felt that she was  just my reflection.  Is this why daughters are so cute! Her thought process flabbergasted me.

For her to understand the sense of money, we give her jobs (some work in the kitchen, gardening work, etc. These don’t include her duties.) and pay her 10/-  when she is done with that particular job. This time it was her turn. She owned my birthday celebrations. She took the responsibility of making sure I get everything i wanted. She paid her father from the money she earned and she told him Thank you for driving for amma’s birthday. I think for her brain size it was the cutest gesture. Its true that children are a shadow of their parents. She also told him that she is unhappy that we spent the actual day in the car. But she is ok ‘coz amma is happy. I haven’t done anything extraordinary for her in last 5 years. Why does she love me so much?

Isn’t this a true act of Love?  I have never felt so much love from any one.  This is the day ‘m proud of my daughter. Not because she did all this for me. But because I know she is very compassionate and considerate. She thinks of other people. According to me this is a very important quality one should have to live and let live.

I feel she is hinting me in which direction I have to bring her up. She is the apple of my eye. My respect for her has increased by many folds. I’m very lucky to have her as my daughter and I pray that she grows up to be a very good individual and a responsible citizen.

People say that the best gift humans have is forgetfulness. I don’t want to forget this incident and when she is big enough to understand life, I want to tell her that this little act of love touched me. Lots of love, Namratha