God’s Gift

“An older sister is a friend and defender - a listener, a counsellor and a sharer of delights. And sorrows too.”

“A sister is a gift to the heart, a friend to the spirit, a golden thread to the meaning of life.”

“Sisters are blossoms in the garden of life”

“I have been told by men, who had passed unharmed through the temptations of youth, that they owed their escape from many dangers to the intimate companionship of affectionate and pure-minded sisters”

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          I come from a family which was very rich and that had stumbled and tripped into horribly bad times and lost almost all the possessions. My father was a Zamindar(landlord) and a freedom fighter during India’s struggle for independence. He was a great philanthropist and a great scholar and helped families of freedom fighters who were jailed by the British and post Independence he had lost all the landed property due to various reasons. He was thoroughly shattered and absolutely had no clue as how to recover from the misfortune. My mother who was embodiment of virtue and love gave tremendous courage to him but was not adequately equipped to help him tide over the great misfortune. We are nine children. I am the youngest and have three elder brothers and five elder sisters. My parents only wealth was their children.

     Fortunately, before the catastrophe struck, my eldest brother and two elder sisters were comfortably placed and had family of their own. But others were in their teens(studying in colleges and schools) or kids who needed resources for their education and other needs. It was testing times for all of us. None of the relatives were of great help and our parents, I guess, never sought any help from them, for obvious reasons. This has all happened between 1955 and 1960. That was the time two of my elder sisters (Jalaja and Naamu, who were in their early twenties) bravely shouldered the responsibility of putting the family back on rails and made tremendous sacrifices. Later on another sister(Nalina) also joined them. Of course, one of the married sisters (Kumuda, she is a graduate in mathematics, first woman graduate in the family in 1953) also chipped in to help, to the extent possible. I consider these two sisters as GOD’S GIFT to me. Whatever I am today, I completely owe it to their selfless service, dedication and devotion to the family. I will be failing in my duty if I do not mention the unstinted support of other two elder brothers( both were brilliant in their studies), who took to employment at a very early age to enable the family a decent living. But the sufferings undergone by those two elder sisters and their selfless service are matchless.

      They encouraged me to pursue higher studies that enabled me to rise to a decent position in my career as a scientist in a research organization. There are two incidents that are permanently etched in my memory. While I was writing my M.Sc(Mathemetics) final exams in March, 1970, I wrote first two papers very satisfactorily and was not very sure about the third paper and I was sulking. In the evening my sister, Jalaja, noticed my gloomy face and asked what was wrong with me. I told her about my not so satisfactory attempt in the exam and told her that I planned not to write other papers and would prepare much better for the September exams. She was furious and scolded me. Eventually she cooled down and advised me to boldly face rest of the papers. Come what may she strongly warned me not to miss the exams. And during that whole night for which I was preparing for the next day’s exam, she and my brother-in-law took turns to be awake and served me tea and snacks. Thanks to her advice and support I could pass my M.Sc with good grades.

      After my selection to a post graduate course in Statistics in New Delhi( thanks to my eldest brother), I was to proceed to New Delhi for joining the course. Delhi winter is not very kind and requires sufficient warm clothing. My sister, Naamu, came to my rescue and took personal loan from her office and provided me with good quality woolen and cots-woolen clothes. I was keeping them with great love and care for nearly five years till I had overgrown subsequent to my employment.

      The times I spent with them are memorable and enjoyable. They were disciplinarians (though not very strict) and forgave faults very easily. They have a deep attachment with the other sisters and brothers and sometimes go out of the way to help them, often landing them in trouble and misconstrued of their intentions. Both were highly talented (music and sports) during their college days and very popular and terror to rowdy elements.

     Thanks to my sisters, our family is now fairly well placed, both economically and educationally. Now, God gave them good families and thanks to Him. Both of them( in their early seventies) are well settled and leading a peaceful life immersed in religious books and happy with their children and grand kids. I pray to God to give them strength and long peaceful life for all the sufferings they had undergone in their youth.

PS: Quotes not mine

Mindless violence in Orissa

Entry for August 27, 2008 Recent outburst of violence in Orissa following the brutal and cowardly killing of an Octogenarian Swamiji demonstrates once again how inhuman humans have become. Conversion to Christianity was the alleged cause of the violence. The deceased Swamiji , was against such conversion and dedicated his life for the cause of Hinduism. Who killed Swamiji? It is still a debatable and contentious issue. It led to wide spread violence across the State and a hapless Hindu girl who was a Volunteer Worker in a Church was burnt to death. Such brutality deserves strong condemnation and our great Hindu leaders are silent. They donot value lives of common and poor people and I also condemn the mindless religious conversion under the guise of upliftment. But, the question we hindus (and so called great Hindu leaders) should ask ourselves is that what forced or are the reasons for such conversions? Our social structure is such that the under provileged or tribals are sledom accepted into the mainstream and mostly branded as unwanted or undesirable. This has been going on for centuries and still it continues, rather covertly. First of all, are any of the tribals aware that there is a religion called Hinduism? or do they know that they are also Hindus? My guess is that they do not know. They have their own customs and practices which the Hindu religious practcises may not accept. The concept of religion, as we understand, would have been unknown to them till they came into contact with the modernity. Unfortunately none of Hindu acharyas ( except perhaps a handful) did ever try to bring them to the mainstream Hinduism, for obvious reasons. This was taken advantage of by the Churches and indulged in mass conversion without due regard to the sentiments of the Society at large. These conversions were a rude wake up call for the Great Hindu Leaders and the selfish politicians took full advantage of the situation to flare up communal feelings in the name of religion and community. In this sordid game of one upmanship, the developement and upliftment of downtrodden was neglected. It is high time the leaders of the nation, including the religious leaders, think beyond petty religious issues and concetrate on nation building. Of course, I do not advocate religious conversions if they are done with the motive of populating their religion and done without taking consent of the people involved nor telling people the merits of their religion(not monetray benefits) over their existing religion.