Resilience needed indeed

 A week back, when a top leader in my organization talked extensively about 'resilience' to a leadership forum, I didn't realize I would be requiring those so badly today.

After a sleepless night, and confronting my worst nightmares, I did what I believe is the most mature and benevolent way to deal with an otherwise highly toxic behaviour by someone close to me. It almost means the beginning of an end of things being the way they are.

It was difficult to come to terms with the observation and its immediate implications. But thinking of future possibilities makes my heart sink at times, and boil my blood at others.

But now, after having having spoken openly and concluding the brief exchange in a seemingly civil way, I feel I am on the higher plane at all levels. And I badly needed this assurance, as in many other counts, I am on a slippery slope. This is indeed a shock which gives a well needed signal to the fragility within these systems that I believe I am part of.

Multiple paths lie before me. Not all cross paths, but many do.

One is to painstakingly re-envision my world outside this system.. I also need to seek ways to keep myself afloat and come back to salvage what is important for me from the ship wreck that is to come.

But the most delicate one is to seek ways to limit the damage, or even use these signals to fix the fragility. This is something I'd like to see myself doing and the resiliency would help here.

 Lets go through the basics:

a) Relaxation response: It is a struggle to bring oneself into a composed mindset when beset by confusing and contradicting emotions, each calling for extreme reactions which are toxic in nature. But do not give into your emotional whirlpool and hold steady using your own value system and morals as a compass. If it is an interpersonal conflict, it is important to not focus on the adversary's observed actions and possible reactions, but own our own. Similarly, if dealing with an organization, the same needs to be done.

b) Resolution response: Once the storm dies out for a while, use the calm to work out your priorities, solutions, and best case outcomes expected. It would be wise to leave out the worst case scenarios as they would only act as emotional triggers to take you out of the relaxed state.

c) Keep moving/ perseverance:  Easy to say but hard to do when dealing with cyclical thoughts about future and perceived insults/disappointments etc. But make it a point to try to check if after a session of thinking, you are moving ahead or getting back to same points. If you find yourself in a cycle, you need to find the cord that attaches you, and most likely it is an emotional one. Take your time to sever it and find replacements.

d) Know thyself: This is where any amount of prior experience in dealing with your own emotions comes in handy. Especially during significant positive and negative moments in life, if you know how you tend to handle yourself on autopilot, it helps a lot. You might either need some isolated moments, some actions etc or require help from friends/family or even professional help. Identifying this correctly early on makes a huge huge difference. For example, going on it by yourself for life changing decisions, when you have no past experience can be suicidal (literally too, unfortunately in some cases).

e) Growing out of it: If you got yourself to this point without significant mental harm, congratulations. Now you are looking at using this event in growing yourself either by fixing the problem by direct or indirect means. This is important to fix the scars and go the long mile in life. You would need all your tools and contacts to do this satisfactorily.

f) Take care of yourself: The most important, but often neglected part is to take care of your own health. Indulge in good physical activities, social interactions with compassionate and positive minded people, pursue hobbies that exert your creative muscles, and get a significant amount of water and good quality sleep.

Take care, and take time to be grateful, and be kind to yourself.

Reflections and Refractions - Part 2

With the ink flowing, one must quickly commit the thoughts to paper.
Otherwise the ability to think and judge would catch up with those words and dry up the ink as well.

1st June 2019:

In movies, before we jump into the new frame, new location and start the action, we need a break.
So did I and my family. So we set out to the very old frame, my hometown.

One might imagine a visit to ones hometown as a regular affair. But if the house is locked for almost a year, and visits are only 2-3 days long every year, one generates quite a lot of yearning for the old, dusted and capped memories and emotions.

Boooring...

Anyway, to not lose the focus of the story, I will just cut short by adding that it was a welcome break for my family. For me it was nothing but pure oxygen after surfacing from a deep dive. I needed it badly because I knew I had to go for another deep dive soon after.

With the razor sharp schedules of professional commitments and the house shifting, I didn't waste whatever time I got to recreate my life, one day at a time.

Once back to Bangalore, it took a couple of days filled with 12hrs of meetings at office, followed by packing to actually shift out. It actually took another month for some sort of relaxation and sense of settlement to arrive at our new doorsteps. In spite of such fluctuations, the new house gave a lot of joy due to the cleaner locality, better safety, conveniences, and presence of lots of open soil to work upon.

Maybe it is in the genes, but there is nothing like a walk among greenery to climb over any adversities in life. What else could one ask, if there was also a piece of soil to give life to? We all enjoyed the activities involved in cleaning up the yard and setting up a working garden in a matter of couple of months. Most hard at work was my father who saw this as a replacement for our now neglected garden back home, which he severely missed while being at Bangalore.

Before

 

Once the new schedules, routines and rigours were set in place, accompanied by crazy timings at the office, .. short pause.. there was still no time to relax. It was time to take life to the next level, and preparations were afoot at office and home on the professional and personal fronts respectively.

Soon with the crab having its tummy filled with one victim and having decided to let go of another for the time being, we started having more bright days. This was in spite of the wet and bone-chilling season. We too having been hardened by the events, decided to move on. Some very old support roles were withdrawn and it was time for the real responsibles to take over without dependencies. It was time to grow up, spread the wings and jump out of the tall tree nest.

So far, so good. That's what I can say about things which are in progress, and can take years to get a proper hind sight. Rays are still in the process getting bounced around like crazy, creating reflections,refraction, mirages and sometimes even hallucinations. One shouldn't take a judgemental view at this stage of life.

I badly want to squeeze some more events in here, but the paragraph above filters out most of the content. But let me cryptically add my appreciation for myself for taking some right decisions based on some random whims, and keeping those habits alive to date.

Now I should be allowed to shift my focus to more abstract expectations for the upcoming year based on reflections of this year.

First of all, the hard events have hardened the expectations and one only needs to guide the mind into accepting new responsibilities. So those should be relatively easy to accept if pushed upon.

The next thing is that events have shown that whatever happens, there are certain things in my primary responsibility. I cannot hold any one or any event accountable for not doing what I myself expect of me. So clearly, I need to spare quite a lot of time, passion, efforts and attention to do my best in the upcoming year.

There might be some boomerangs for short cuts taken this year, but as long as the mind is ready to accept it and walk over, there is no use crying over a swollen temple.

Gonna be a fun year ahead.
15th Dec 2019

Have a couple of weeks ahead, but for me the year is actually over for some weird reason :)

Reflections and Refractions - Part 1

Even though hind sight is perfect, all sight is based on reflected rays.

Some are reflections of what happened, but most of them are refracted at multiple surfaces before it gets reflected back to the eye.

There is no real way to know which is the case.

2019- The year that began just like 2014; With a broken leg, bedridden, dependent on others, biting down the pain and humiliation.

Anyway, as months passed, the pain of lying down gave way to pain of attempting to learn to walk, whereas the humiliation of depending on others just reduced as self sufficiency crept in slowly. It was a mix of self-sufficiency, self-pity, new hope, forgiveness and gratitude.

Through the year, as life always promises, events weren't simply monotonous or predictable. They weren't even in shades of white,grey or black. Each revisit and reinterpretation could give new colours, hence making the activity useless if one is only interested in painting them statically. As mentioned in the Kannada movie "Lifu Ishtene", those are DVDs worth watching again and again, giving various aromas & tastes at various stages of life.

One judgemental aspect is that those days give me a good idea of people around me and how the relationships are structured. On the other side, it also cut me off social connections & activities, isolated me from the buzz of work place & sent me into a personal disarray.

I even managed to catch up on my reading with some crazy reading schedule, having nothing else to do for couple of months. I was able to squeeze in a couple of months worth of reading into a couple of days.

But overall, I could say that my pain subsided and limited itself to some weird set of nerves, strength regained, dignity rebuilt & overall outlook towards myself & people around me transformed. This feat required the constant support and patience of my parents, my wife, my son, the household help, my physiotherapist, my books, the doctor, some friends and my physical trainers later on at the gym. Anyway, with me able to do mundane activities without support, 'officially' I had recovered, though I knew there were miles to go before I really recovered or made up for the incident.

But,  short pause.. ,( there is a always a but and a short pause ) before the pain reduced and recovery started, whatever hopes I had that things could only get better, were shown to be misplaced. This was done by a series of inroads the great crab made into my family, coming uninvited as it always does. With my own flesh throbbing with pain each day, I could really not accept the full physical and mental agony of those whose flesh was being bitten off daily, bit by bit. Even more difficult to deal with was the inability to extend a helping hand or leg for that matter.

My family, who had accepted the task of patiently taking care of me while dealing with my absence from key responsibilities, were dealt a double and triple blow with these culinary habits of the crustacean. Those were tough times when the days looked gloomy, but most importantly that was also a reminder for me to speed up the recovery cycles and stand up to face the new invader.

Needless to say, weakened already by physical and mental agony, the new invasion led to many sleepless nights sunk in gloomy thoughts and dealing with apprehensions. It took quite a bit of distractions by office work, physical exercises, and social visits to break out of this labyrinth. Those were one of those moments where only action can generate enough break the chains that can restrict even a mighty elephant.

Looking back, one can always paint even the smallest of struggles with glorious adverbs and comparisons to give a self satisfaction. So I might be giving myself too much credit where undeserved, but maybe some credit is due, I let such statements be.

It was in this condition that I turned my focus to the minor yet irritating affairs of the rented house in which we were living. I could easily make a list of problems like dirty water, cockroach infestation, crowded & dusty surroundings, absence of clean parking space, regular spikes in maintenance costs, arguments between residents, a case of theft etc. These are just regular matters in life in affordable rented apartments in Bangalore, and I would have let it be. But given the many problems we were facing, this was one that was under my control to address. So I jumped at the opportunity to make a difference.

So we quickly, without much preparation set up a plan to shift the house to somewhere 'ideal'. It was stressful to negotiate with the owner who didn't like the idea of a breaking of the agreement along with with neighbours who had tentatively agreed to take over for a relative, and finding the ideal home in the ideal location with 10s of filters. But I must admit, those involved planning activities with my family were rewarding distractions from the otherwise gloomy days. We really enjoyed the activity with even my parents who built networks with elderly people in the locality were able to identify lots of key properties and localities.

Needless to say, within a month, under a hectic set of negotiations, we were able to make a withdrawal with minimal losses. What awaited us was a refreshing new location and a new way of life. I was and am still thankful for the decision to move from that muck ( actual & imagined being merged here for creative purposes ) at that critical point of time.

30th May 2019

*INTERMISSION*

how we are part of the system that expects us to spend carelessly

Please read the following article first.

http://www.filmsforaction.org/news/your_lifestyle_has_already_been_designed/

I must admit, I am blown away completely by this guy's revelations. They make a lot of sense. Its fun to think if we all had jobs that were of shorter period or different time, how would the world around reflect it? Think of it like residing in an area with everyone working in same industry. All the industries around would adjust their offerings accordingly. Similar is this person's realization that after his long break from routine profession, he finds many old habits which seemed normal to be quite abnormal.

But what caught my interest is the possibility that the "life" that we live outside our office, is also just a by-product of it. And probably we are constantly involved in buying things we don't really need. And it might just to keep in line with others, or rather basically keep the dissatisfaction at bay. The same dissatisfaction brought about by the huge span of our time taken away by our professions. Its all connected! But still why do we want to buy stuff we know we don't need?

I see that in the past, there were the rich or the poor. The rich had too much wealth and too little to do, ending up doing exotic stuff or throwing their power around buying stuff, taking over , fighting wars etc. The poor had hardly any time to think beyond basic amenities and surviving the hurdles put up by the wealthy. Dissatisfaction was an entirely different ball game back then.

But the modern middle class person who earns enough, still finds himself truly in the middle of new problems. He earns well enough to pay off debts and serve his future generations. Duh, sounds stupid. Doesn't it? Which middle class person can claim he can serve future generations. Well, actually that is kind of true. If you change the perception what is needed for future generation, that is. We always tend to compare our goals to that of super wealthy fellows who end up saving empires for their generations. If only we knew and were assured that we have now is just great, we could stop the craving. Well, knowing what one really wants is an elusive treasure, ain't it? So we just would have to live with not knowing that, and occasionally pursuing things that attract our heart and mind.

We know we like the money we earn(admit it), but we aren't quite always happy with it. Ah, buying that expensive gadget/dress/vacation made life so fulfilling, but again we need to keep buying the seemingly unnecessary goods we see at the market, because the money will grow back, and what good do we do by stacking it up anyway? Isn't it? Add credit cards on top of this to make an excellent argument for spending unnecessarily. :)

I find our lives going around approximately in this cycle, with only slight variations.

While its perfectly ok for human beings to wander and lose track of what they want, I feel petrified by the thought of a huge industry, backed by our governments and people including us, who feed and survive on our inability to find what we want and stick to it. That means not only is our hunt for our satisfaction incredibly tough, we are also fighting a system that involves almost the entire humanity, that can keep evolving to make you stick to your negatives. Make the ads more colorful, mix those sensitive content, talk about stuff that makes you keep turning your hear, every single time. So each time I am fighting my laziness or craving for junk food, I am actually fighting millions of intelligent salesmen, scientists, business tycoons, corporate executives, engineers, and so on who have engineered perfect products that human beings, owing partially to genetic makeup, and partially to effective cultural and economic constraints , can never stop paying for it.

While all that sounds scary, none of these mean that you have to get pissed at things and walk away. Its more about realizing how macro economies rely intensely on our bad habits of laziness, procrastination and unhealthy choices of spending and consumption. Knowing that you are being taken for a ride with flashy advertisements, one should be keen to avoid stepping into this vicious circle when a choice falls through. Taking informed decisions is always better than ignoring the risks and stepping in, and lamenting later.  And in return for not stepping into this vicious circle of dissatisfaction, what you gain is more confident and resilient perspective of you own needs.

If you feel your life sucks, stop yourself the next time you are tempted to buy something you don't really need. You are just feeding your dissatisfied soul with foul fuel to just keep it burning. If it helps, take a break. Don't buy stuff. Create new things. Write about something, talk to people, take time to create new ideas, help people with things you are good with. These are real concrete things that help you solve problems with lack of time, not knowing what you want, being under pressure etc etc. Buying is just buying more trouble if not done with the right intent :)

regain the step

the pen is drained
the mind is sprained
the leg is draped
and the wings are clipped

I breathe no air
I gasp in despair
there is no fear
but only this nightmare

its a time for patience
and to stare at patients
to be blatant
and to sit as another patient

to bring in the energy
I need to find the synergy
i don't need any swamiji
but I need to regain my chi

the road might be tough
but the roadie is rough
it ain't about being buff
but about regaining the hoof

Health is Wealth

Health is wealth. I grew up hearing these words from my father. I saw this being put to practice by my grandparents too.

But I never knew how valuable that wealth was, until I saw the pains that people had to go through when they lose it. Every time a friend or a relative falls sick or gets hospitalized, I had to witness the agony and the distress that they suffered. The worst happened when I myself get hospitalized. It feels horrible to have to lie on a bed for as long as the disease persists.Obviously, a sick person in the family affects everyone detrimentally in some or the other manner. Many such disturbed families leads subsequently to a weak nation and society.

Thinking about it, why do people fall sick? And there too why do some people frequently fall sick, whereas some rarely do? The answer lies in one word - Immunity. The dictionary meaning of this word is "the ability of an organism to resist a particular infection or toxin by the action of specific antibodies or sensitized white blood cells." It fairly translates to "your natural capacity to resist diseases". Though various other factors also contribute to the onset and spreading of diseases, from a personal point of view, immunity is what makes the most difference between a life of receiving help and sympathy from others, and a life where you can help and support the needy. And immunity is not something you can gain by any drug that you get over the counter, or by switching to healthy food and habits once the diseases start swamping you.

Immunity is a natural property of your body and your genealogy has a lot to contribute to this. But there is a major portion that can be gained purely by practising some time tested habits from childhood. Though they do work on adults as well, its most effective when inducted from childhood, when the body and mind are at the weakest and the most flexible state alike.

Hence, when I saw that Dabur has started a campaign for "Immune India" in Indiblogger, I marked in my mind to sit down and write what I think is required from parents to nurture their kids with good immunity.

Here are a few things that I learnt by observing my elders and a few by my own experiences which I believe helps in maintaining a healthy body and mind. I have tried to acquire sources to substantiate my claims that I put together from what I know. Please check those too for more information.

1) Take bath in cold water every day
I found this as one of the most refreshing tip when I was in Kochi, where temperatures rise upto 35 degrees in the summer and the constant humidity makes it a very pleasurable activity to take a cold water bath every day. But after moving to Mysore and subsequently to Bangalore, I found it absurdly difficult to follow and had switched to hot water. It was only three months back that I finally got back to the habit of taking bath only in cold water. Needless to say, the effect was obvious. The constant colds, headaches, tiredness and lethargy that plagued me for the last four years were instantly replaced with highly energetic days where I can concentrate of tasks more easily and overall I found myself disease free and happy.

2) Drink lots of water
Again, something I didn't realize while living in the hot and humid climate of Kochi. You needn't be poked in such a climate to drink enough water. But in the colder climates, I forgot to keep this up and effect was very bad. Acne, hair loss, dry skin, improper metabolism, tiredness and even kidney stones plagued me until I went on a water crusade to regain what was lost, only partially succeeding though. Every health article talks about drinking a lot of water, but not many people follow it. I paid for the ignorance, and I wish my readers don't have to.

3) Play hard
Play hard under the sun, sweat and get dirty. Its fun, its healthy and its mandatory. Make sure kids get enough time outside and are not stuck inside with homework or video games instead. The psychological and physical benefits of playing outside is immense. I can't stress enough on this.

4) Watch what you eat
These days, a bag of chips, burgers from big names and other fast food items are the main highlights of every kid's diet. Make sure these things are limited, if not absent in your child's diet. Such foods are known to be high in saturated fat, sugar, artificial colours and so on which can affect all functions of the body ranging from the heart, liver, brain, skin etc to the functioning of the taste buds even. A cue for identifying such foods is to not purchase any food item that has a TV advertisement for it.

5) Meditate everyday for 10 minutes
The benefits of meditation to memory power, concentration, creativity, patience and stress handling is very well studied and documented by science.

As kids rarely like to sit still, it would take a lot of effort from parents to instill this practice in them. Many households insist that the entire family sit for a prayer together. This is the time to teach your kid some hymns and make him/her sit still for a while chanting those. My mother did the same with me until the age of 9 when I was initiated to the Vedas which gives ample practice for a lifetime if followed strictly.

one more reason

6) Get adequate sleep
Make sure kids get to bed at regular times and they get enough sleep. These days even young kids get to spend time outside watching movies late night or going for parties. Such activities, while being fun and in line with modern lifestyle should not hamper the need to get enough sleep. Especially for kids, when the brain is the growing stage, sleep is what makes it grow faster and stronger. It can make a huge difference in the overall immunity level of kids.

couldn't resist this one :-)

7) Enjoy vacations and time with family
These days, even young kids are bombarded with loads of homework, tuition, exams and what not. All this stress severely inhibits their abilities to grow up psychologically and physiologically. A healthy, stress-free environment has to be created within the family for children to grow up in, giving them space to expand themselves as individuals with a healthy attitude. Regular vacations and outings with family is one very effective habit that boosts family bonding because kids get to enjoy along with their parents and share happy moments.

8) Read to them and Teach them to read
Effect of a healthy reading habit on overall health and attitude of a child is something that is often not considered in studies. I have personally observed major effects in families I know of where reading habits have boosted overall wellness in children.

Reading not only improves concentration and trains the brain in grasping concepts, but also reading many of the classics and award winning books have proved to improve the emotional quotient of children. This has been observed in various studies. A healthy attitude and outlook towards will go a long way in making champs out of your children.

9) Oil everyday
I recall a line from one of the slokas I learnt in school - "Murdha shrotha ghraana paada tailanityam syat", which translates to an instruction for "Oil the top(vertex) of you head,ears,nose and feet daily". This line is part of a sloka that talks about steps to maintain health, with a guarantee of 100 years of life. I have seen this technique being applied successfully by any octogenarians that I know of personally and via popular media. Various oils can be used for this, popular ones being Coconut, Gingelly and some Herbal concoctions.

10) Go the natural way

 Even with all these steps taken, there would still be a few things missing owing to the deviation from the natural techniques that modern lifestyle has taken. A regular habit of taking Chyawanprash is one technique that we used to follow when our household. Hence I can vouch for the it. Even regular drinking of Amla juice, Brahmi juice etc boosts immunity and improves memory power respectively. These are relatively easy habits to inculcate into a child's life.

What about experiments with some raw veggies? Studies have found that raw consumption(after washing) of many vegetables can supply a significantly larger quantity of nutrients to the body than the cooked variant. It used to be relatively easier in the older days with all vegetables being produced organically. Nowadays you have to take extra precaution to avoid effects of harmful chemicals and fertilizers. Hence, do this only if you really trust your source, or even better if you grow your vegetables in your kitchen garden. I personally have experimented with a few vegetables from our kitchen garden in my childhood and there are a few favourites even today.

11) Life is not a bed of roses
Last but not the least, please don't make the lives of kids too easy. Don't provide too many facilities and protection. Not only does such pampering affect the social behaviour of a child, but also the psychological and physical growth gets inhibited. Immunity is a natural property and it grows against the harmful elements around the body. So don't stop your child if he wants get drenched in the rain or play in the dirt or help you in the garden. A few stumbles initially will go a long way in creating world class citizens who won't be defeated by ill health, both physically and mentally.

Enjoy a bruise :-)

This is my vision for an Immune India. Thank you for taking your time to read through. Please let me know your thoughts on how we can build a very healthy society in the comments section.

This post has been submitted as an entry to the "Immune India" initiative in Indiblogger, an online blogging community.

the lil champ

Last month my elder brother got married. A lot of my cousins had come for the marriage and we had a nice time after a long time.Some of my elder cousin sisters who were married placed official invitations to me to visit their cities. I reluctantly nodded to all of them at once.

Finally the Navarathri festival was upon us and I was wondering whose requests to address first. One of my cousins in Chennai had given birth to a baby boy a year ago, and I hadn't even visited them yet. Feeling bad about that, I decided that I would spend my Navarathri weekend with her. Also, there were already comments that the boy was of the same birth star as mine, and people were talking about how he would now follow my path. This was the fourth such instance in the family and so far the cousins and nieces of the same birth star were strikingly similar in nature. So, I too was curious to see this new avatar nephew of mine, wondering how he would fit the gang...

Dream nephews

I promptly booked tickets and made it to her home on the morning of the Saturday of Navarathri. I was spoke to my brother-in-law for a while. My cousin was nowhere to be seen, as she was bathing the baby. I decided to go inside and talk to her. One seeing me, she waved to me and talked while massaging the  baby who now lie on her feet, with some smelly oil from a red bottle. She seemed to be rubbing and massaging quite strongly. I was worried seeing that and asked her whether it was safe to handle a baby so roughly.

someone was enjoying it..

To that, she replied with a wink- "This will make him strong. How do you think he will be strong like you and climb mountains and ride up the Everest?". I nearly fell for that flattery but making a late detection of mockery, made my escape to the kitchen for a bite. I kept thinking of how a small baby could take such rough handling and what she had meant. I decided she was just pulling my legs, glancing at my 2 year old 'IT' tummy. Automatically my hands took the cue and dropped the biscuit packet, which I was half way through. My legs dragged me to the guest room and I went to get refreshed.

After a bath in the cold water and a hot breakfast of 'Infinite Dosa', I washed the plates and with a burp dragged myself to the drawing room for some TV. Karan, my nephew was now all freshened up too after his rough bath and a tummy full of cerelac(or whatever it is that babies eat these days). He started following me around on his knees. I ignored him for a while, walking at a normal pace that I was sure babies couldn't keep up with.

a jolt to bolt..

But soon I found him crawling between my legs or obstructing me again and again. To play around a bit, I started moving zig-zag making him play catch up. I was sure he wouldn't make it, so I moved around slowly, calling him to me. But I was surprised to see him catch me even before I could finish calling his name. Though it was a 25 yr old adult against a 1 year old baby, I decided I should win at least a round. But he didn't let me and I was tired after a while. Frustrated, I went out for a walk and on returning, I was glad to see him asleep. I somehow spent the rest of the day without going head-on against him. "This wasn't happening!!!". The Leo in me was clearly depressed.

My brother-in-law had the night shift and left for office by evening. The action movie we decided to watch on TV was quite boring. Karan was lying next to my sister who was beginning to doze off halfway through. I noticed that Karan was awake now and was playing with some stuffed toy. My phone rang suddenly and I jumped up startled to check it. My hand must have hit something heavy and it hurt. I pulled back my hand and looked around to see what I had hit. To my horror, the heavy cupboard was tipping over and it was gonna fall straight on top of Karan, who seemed busy kicking his toy out of his cradle. I wanted to scream, to kick my sister awake, and pull Karan out of the way. But my feet seemed frozen to the floor and I couldn't feel even a squeak come out of throat. I closed my eyes and tried not to think what would happen, praying to all the Gods whose pictures hung on the wall behind me. "Why Oh Gods??"

innocence is bliss

After a second, not hearing even a sound, I opened my eyes to see that the cupboard now rested on the cradle. I found my feet were stuck no longer and ran to Karan to check whether he was OK. He seemed to be perfectly OK and in fact was overjoyed and lay there giggling. A wave of relief passed over me. I didn't notice until then that his legs were held high. My eyes followed his legs to see what he was doing and I almost had my heart in my mouth seeing what he had done. The cupboard rested on his tiny feet and he seemed to hold its weight. I was busy rubbing my eyes several times to check if I was dreaming, when he kicked it aside and it landed with a loud THUD on the ground.

Next thing I know, I was wide awake staring at the TV which had started playing some Teleshopping programs and I looked up to see my sister standing above me with a rolled newspaper in her hand. Her expressions told me all that I needed to know. But feeling the dry throat, I craned my neck to check on Karan. I was glad to find him rolling in his cradle, giggling loudly. As I got up and examined the red bottle from which my sister had taken the oil for massaging him, I couldn't help feel something uncanny.

The 'Tail' expert

This post was written as a part of the Indiblogger contest "Traditional Knowledge, Natural Growth".