To be Attached or Detached?

Long ago I read Vi’s Of Sylvia, Echoes, and Empty Rooms. That post made me get too nostalgic and I wanted to write so much in that comment space of hers that I realized I need to write them down as a post than a comment.

Eventually, I did start writing this one, the very day that I made that comment (18 September 2007 at 3:49 pm), but then, some how I got digressed in my daily rush of activities that it lay forgotten amidst all my files. Guess today is a day to get nostalgic. When I was clearing up my folders, I stumbled upon this incomplete write-up and said, let me make some logical conclusion to the fragment idea of mine.

Vi’s said post made me rewind and go back in life to the times when I was at high school. That was the time when I was starting to understand the world around me. I was kid who had been very reluctant to grow up. Even now, when I think of high school, I still think of myself as a kid. I was a kid for most part of my school life, and in fact got out of the cocoon to spread my wings very late in life. But then, even now, I haven’t grown in the real worldly sense, I doubt if I would ever grow up.

The idea of not getting attached to things that Vi talks about in her post, did sound too close to me. For with or without my knowledge for a long time in my life, I had lived a life that way, except that I had been attached to a person way too much and it did hurt real bad when that person had to leave me and go. But this person had been my real life example who taught me with her life, not to get attached to anything in life. I was learning to comprehend the world around me. Like how every kid first comprehends the one that’s closest to him/her, (mostly the mother) I started looking at and asking questions of whatever my granny did.

She never had anything to her, when I say anything I really mean it. All she left for us, when she died were 2 worn out sarees which actually is a treasure beyond measure for us. She never collected anything in life. Not that she had a great cushioned life where she can go collecting stuff. But even when she did have a cushioned life towards the last 2 decades of her life, she never collected and discouraged us from adding stuff too. Whatever I am today or I have made of myself as of today, is all because of her. Not that I have done anything great; but what little has been possible, has become possible because of her. She is the reason and the person who is mostly responsible for whatever I am today.

Everything I have today, right from my values, to my knowledge in cooking, to my attitude in life, to my attitude towards anything in life, the basics were learnt from her. She instilled pride in me. She instilled the attitude to aim at perfection in what little work I do. She instilled in me that there is pride in washing utensils and washing clothes and in mopping the floor. No work is less or no work is great. She laid the foundation in me and my brother when we were kids and made us get to wherever we are today. I cannot say that we have achieved anything great, but I do know she was proud of the human beings that she created in us. She taught us to be ourselves and most important to be comfortable of who we are. Above all, she taught us how to be both ambitious and contented.

All she had was another nine yards saree that she would need the next day to wear. She lived a life with nothing else to call hers. She did have a lot of people around her. She had her son, her daughter and 7 grandkids. But things, she had none. As we started growing up, me and my brother realized that she did need a 3rd saree and she was denying herself. Sometimes, during rainy days when we used retunr from school and hug her, we would feel that her clothes were damp. The few days that it rains in Madras, can many times leave a 9 yards saree remain damp even after the 20 odd hours it had had to dry.

Oh, I still remember how much we had to force her to have a 3rd saree. Even then she complied more for our sake than her own. She did not want us hugging her in that dampness for fear of getting us sick. As I said earlier, there were days when clothes would not dry in Madras because of rains; of course they are just a few days in a year, but with just 2 sarees in place and they being 9 yards, you can imagine, how difficult it would be to find a dry one in rains.

I can easily visualize the color of her saree and feel the smell of her in that saree. It always used to be the same colors with the replacement happening in the very same colors again. One of them would be a dark green, one a dark blue and the other a dark maroon and all would have some kind of thread work done for 1/4 inch as a border on both ends of the saree. Every year she would replace them and discard the old ones. For that, dad would pay the money to my aunt to get them, for then dad did not know much about sarees. But even way after, that became a habit and it was aunt who always got granny her sarees, but mind you, dad has to pay for it. Grannies and their idiosyncrasies :-)

I remember asking her many times, 'why do you always wear the same color and why is it that athai should buy it to you?' She would give that beautiful smile of hers and say ‘Oh, it started because, your appa did not know what to look for in a saree when buying and athai did not have that kind of money to spare then, but now that it has become a habit, I don’t want to change it. Plus, it is your dad who pays for it anyway. And I enjoy it that my daughter gets it for me from the shop. So both of them together take care of their mother’s need. Moreover, all you need is some clothing to cover yourself up. What is there in a color? It should be clean; that’s all there is to it. Why give it too much of importance. Get too much attached to such mundane things they will start ruling you.’

Many times, I wish I learned to live a life like her. She knew to find joy in simple small things around her. Unlike many granny’s whom I have seen, she knew how to laugh. For a woman who was widowed in her late 20s she sure knew how to be happy. I am still learning and I know I have a long long way to go ahead of me, not that I am a collector of things, but still :-)

I still feel this is incomplete, but in part this is complete, in a whole sense incomplete though. Writing about her will always be incomplete for I can never get words to express what I feel for her to my satisfaction. I am named after her, though that name is not my official name, in my family circle, I am known to carry her name. Hope she blesses me to carry on her attitude towards life too. Is it this that they call detached attachment?