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I had earlier posted the letter I wrote to G. Gautama on my blog. I received his reply yesterday and it was one of the best things that happened to me in a long time.
Please look at my earlier post to understand the context.
I am publishing his reply with his permission. Although the whole mail is full of gems, I have highlighted some of the most beautiful lines. His words are lucid and genuine and his thoughts are so well accommodated in words. I am indeed lucky to have approached him with my questions. I am posting his reply because his message could make a difference to all of you.
Dear Matangi,
It was a surprise to receive your mail. The few paragraphs that you have written express your position, your questions and your thoughts. I must say that you write beautifully and express yourself very aesthetically. This is a rare gift!
Each of us in our life has certain abilities and capacities. What is not clearly seen most often is that we are all disabled as well. In most of us these are concealed and permit us to cope with life. We are conscious when the disabilities are physical. Someone may need a crutch to walk, a wheelchair to move around. Another may need a pair of spectacles for reading, like I do, a cane for walking, hearing aid for listening clearly. Less visible are our disabilities with language and mathematical operations. These are the ones most used in schools, unearthed so to speak for evaluation … Even less visible are our disabilities with music or dance, movement, people and communication, understanding of space.
It would not be wrong therefore to say that each of us has disabilities. You must have heard of artists who paint with their mouth because they do not have hands. Or people who paint with their foot. The finished work of such artists evokes a great deal of admiration and wonder. Rarely do we give thought to what must have been the first attempt of such an artist. Would the first swabs of paint have been artistic, beautiful?
It is quite apparent that whatever efforts human beings make, if we get to hear of them, or if we draw satisfaction from them, they are the product of persistent hard work. There is the famous story of an accomplished violinist. At the end of a concert a man came up to him and said “I would have given my life to have been able to play like this”. The violinist said “I did”. Could this violinist, as a budding musician, when he picked up the violin of the first time, could he have been adept or skilled? Would he not have fumbled many times to get the right note, to get the right combination of notes?
I say all this to place in context your own situation, renal failure at a young age necessitating a renal transplant. Surely a difficult situation! I’m sure you must have felt very sad about this on many an occasion. However you must also have felt that you’re luckier than many others. If you do not misunderstand me I would say all of us are in the same zone — some things to celebrate, some things can be better.
On the other hand life is a design opportunity. I never tire of using this expression. There are cards we have been dealt, there is a time we have been given. What we do with this time is the question that life poses for us. Often we are overwhelmed by the difficulties, the problems we see and the disabilities we encounter. We do things which others expect us to do, often halfheartedly. We do things which take our fancy. And then we drop them, disappointed, unsure, dissatisfied.
There is another dimension to our lives. We are also wounded children as a priest I know mentioned. We carry wounds from our childhood encounters with the larger world of adults. These wounds do not heal that easily and the painful memories are stored in our being. The violence, the exploitation, the harsh words, the agony of near and dear — all these we carry, mostly unconsciously.
So not only are we defined by our abilities and disabilities but also by these wounds and the memories that we carry. These define the things that we choose and those that we adamantly reject.
But then the question remains. Given who we are, disabled as we are what is it that we could be doing with our time on earth. This is not terribly clear to most of us and that only intensifies our agony.
Some of us are lucky because there is a deeper intimation of things. Something inside draws us to certain things. It is almost as if we have no choice. Some of us do not see clearly what is it that we need to do. We pick up something that appeals to us a little bit and then work quite hard at it. The journey and the end product turn out to be satisfying in various degrees. But most of us seem to spend our time, this one lifetime that we have been given, sitting on the fence trying to decide what is it that we should be doing. The other thing we end up doing is complaining. And this becomes a lament, which slowly fills our life.
As a young person it is a bit sad that you encountered kidney failure so early in your life. You’re also extremely lucky that your father donated a kidney to you. Given your interest in writing, teaching and trying out other avenues, it does seem crippling that you have to earn enough money for your medicines. It is also understandable that you do not want to be dependent on other people.
I do not know if I have much advice to offer. For each one of us there is one thing we bring to the table, every moment — a slice of our lifetime. What would we like to give our slices to is one of the decisions we need to make and almost each day. I know people, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, who devoted their life and time to taking care of people – young ones and older ones. I also know people who devoted themselves to dance or music, almost not caring about anything else. There are people who lead their lives with a smile on their face and others with unsure tense faces.
How would you like to choose your time? What dance would you like to dance and which song would like to sing? It actually does not matter who is looking. This is your time, and your action may be a gift to somebody else, but more than anything else it’s an expression of your own being, and a gift to yourself.
Playing it safe is not going to make one feel satisfied. You will have to ask yourself, looking back after 10 years what would you like to be able to say. “These are the things I tried” or “these are the things I avoided”. No audience outside of us matters because the rewards and recognition have a very short shelf life and are barely satisfactory in the long run.
If something that I’ve written is not clear please do not hesitate to ask any questions. If you wish to share some thoughts you are most welcome.
With warm regards and best wishes
Gautama
It’s sad to realize that people we give our souls to, do not even give us their phone numbers.
I prefer to write shorter things nowadays. Maybe because after a couple of thoughts everything is silent.
I have a secret blog where I had been writing. And I also started a book and stopped after a few chapters. It was anomalous.
Waiting for the drizzle to turn into rain… meantime ..more silence.
1. I have had a haircut and now I sport some bangs.
2. I can make some yummy sambar, rasam and mac&cheese.
3. I wash my own clothes.
4. I sweep and mop the floor at home.
5. Bangalore is heaven on earth.
6. Kisses taste good.
7. I wear two gold rings.
8. I visited 3 temples last month but did not pray even once.
9. I light a lamp in the Pooja room at home but that is just functional.
10. I found time to read “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini in the second week after my wedding.
Note: I could not help it. 
Being this friendless being, all I can do is just write and trust me I have not mended my ways much. Lol!
This noon is soaked in caramel poetry. Anything cloying is inadequate. Your sweetness is devouring the otherwise inedible pieces of time. I want to write a lot for you. Your eyes with their drops of moonstones dipped in earnestly intrusive observation. Your voice that provokes me to effervesce with imagination of a thousand conversations. The distance where I feel safely in love. The secrecy in which I explode into effusive dreams. . the little bits of fragrance you left behind in a hurry. The frightening tears that bind… your hair that I mentally stroke with my fingers… the little granules of attention you give and which I use to build my castles in the air.. my own comforting insignificance and pleasant invisibility.. the way I’m a non-entity in your busy world and a little awareness that you know me. This inspiration that you brought for me and the elating realisation that someone like you exists … someone who will not rebuke the child in me. Those petals called your lips touched by loving truth that ate into them.. why you may understand what I’m living and how you liberate me from needs. Why I never want to know you the way others do and how I want to remember this dream.. you are a dream come true by the mere fact that you are. How you make me leave this world in cathartic flights of fantasy… how you mean more to me than most people I’ve known all my life.. and I’m in love not because you’re beautifully kind but because you’re a silent fragment of me that I searched for… A hint of solace that I yearned for in dark grief.. because you may revoke my flamboyant addiction to language and accept my melodrama.. you are what I wanted when I sighed and you’re the first drop of sleep in my reticence-stricken eyes.. eyes that escape into sleep and not travel through it.. eyes that avoid your gaze for fear of being discovered. I want to write to you because I don’t need you but I love you and because you slay my suffocating loneliness by slipping into the layers of my mind… and because you are mine despite the truth that you are a stranger in the distance.
I should probably stop worrying about who is watching and say a couple of things here because this blog is the only outlet I have got. Why am I so stuck up? I cannot play the low games that other people play and I think it is unethical to be political. I am going to be trampled over and killed in the rat race because I don’t fight. But somehow I prefer getting out of the race to becoming the leader of all the rats.
I wish I could be a clerk in a dusty room full of files and a ceiling fan. Will people leave me alone then or will they still find reasons to play political games involving me? I am not sure. Is this how some people live? Gossiping, telling tales, manipulating and doing dirty things to get to a better position in life? I honestly don’t care! If they want my position they will get it if they ask nicely. Lol! They don’t have to try and play filthy games.
I dream of a workplace where people don’t tell sneaky tales and where they help each other grow so the work can get completed. Alas! This is going to be a pure dream. If I ever ran an organization of my own, people will be human beings first, and not slaves. I think people should get flexi-timing and work-at-home options when they want them. They should get to eat their food. They should get their sleep. Why do these big corporates imagine that the average office-goer is a slave who should do the big brother’s bidding at all hours? Are they buying work or buying a lifetime? Can an individual not have a life outside of work?
I think the workaholics of the world can celebrate their anti-social and obsessive disorders. The workaholic zombies who don’t have girlfriends or ignore their girlfriends when they have work; the ones who have eating disorders like anorexia and sleeping disorders like insomnia can celebrate! The corporates need them. The corporates will pay them all their money to continue their non-existence. Blessed are the workaholics for they shall inherit the bloodsucker kingdom!
Some tips to steer clear of problems at work:
1. Never disclose at work that you are happy.
2. Never disclose at work if you have completed your work before time
3. Never do anything to have fun in your leisure time and even if you do keep it a secret.
4. Never announce before leaving for home.
5. Be wary of the earlier morons who have climbed the corporate ladder owing to their skills in manipulation.
6. Never blog about work problems (Lol!)
7. Swallow bullshit by the tonnes.
8. Pretend to blog about advancement in technology relating to your work and share the links with your manager.
9. Say “Yes!”
10. Don’t say “No!”
Of course, I am Mathangi. I will not follow any of the above tips because I always do what I please and thank heavens I still have some life left. I am talking to the potential workaholic zombies who are vying to sell their souls to the corporate devil.
“I don’t wanna send mixed signals to you. I do like you a lot, a whole lot, and you’re very precious. But, i don’t think i love you with the intensity that you do. I want you to know i’m not ready for anything in my life right now. Don’t want you misled. You’re free, as much as i’m. I’m sorry if i’ve hurt you. i’m sorry if i’ve hurt you, but my feelings for you are genuine, sincere. But i’m a weak person now, and from your perspective, a loser. But i need to collect myself, and i don’t know how long it takes, but until i do so, you’re not bound by anything. If you do find someone who deserves you more, i’ll call it my bad luck. I’m appreciative of how you’ve made me feel! And guilty of how i’ve made you feel. WE could be a thing of the future, but is it definite, and when it would happen, i don’t know.”
*ahem* (puts on gloves and mask) I have quite some shit to handle here.
Well, well, well! To begin with, what the fuck are you talking about?
A “hurt” me.
A me who loves you with an “intensity” that you cannot match.
A person who you are guilty of for the way I am feeling.
Ok! Get this into your head. Use some nails if you want some added strength in sticking this idea to your skull. It is not so easy to hurt me! You have no clue how I am feeling so stop making crappy shit out of nowhere. You don’t have the power to make me feel victimized, lost or hurt because you are a non-entity deep down inside me. Deep down, only I exist with my own dreams and plans. Such brutal honesty would hurt you… but face it! Nobody needs anybody else.
Now, about my intensity… yeah it has been a subject of intrigue and innumerable disturbances in all my relationships. I am INTENSE. Incredibly so. Most people cannot handle it. The weaker ones suffocate and die. The stronger ones learn to handle it and use it to their advantage. Some of my best friends are really, really strong people.
About misleading me, don’t even try! It is not possible. I might look like a sucker who follows you like a lost puppy. One fine morning, I will pack my bags and leave. I will take all your bloated self-esteem with me. And you will be bankrupt. Don’t drive me to that.
From my perspective you’re a loser and a weak person. Yes you are! And that thought is of little relevance to my life, except for some motivation to improve my own self and be different from what I perceive you or similar losers to be.
As for the rest of the blah blah about your indecisiveness, your inability to predict your own decisions and the time it will take to make those decisions, your incompetency in identifying your own strengths and what you’re ready for etc… is not my headache! You had an opportunity and you lost it. Blame yourself for it, if you want to. I am as free as I was on the first day I met you. Sorry, if I sounded dependent – I was not. Sorry if I sounded vulnerable – I am not.
My future is what I make of it. Unfortunately, your future would be what you did not make of it.
Good luck and good bye!
Now for the truth.
You have to work harder and improve your tactics in conning people. My bullshit detectors are on 99% of the time. There is very little I lost to you and because of you. Better luck next time.
I am making a list of things I find easy and a list of things I wish I could.
It is easy for me to:
- Speak my mind and face the consequences
- Delete people from my life
- Allow new people into my life
- Appreciate chocolates
- Make a ruthless study of myself and others
- Hurt the closest of my friends recklessly
- Say “sorry”
- Say “no”
- Giggle a lot
- Laugh at myself
It is difficult for me to:
- Manage money
- Smile and socialize with people I hate
- Put myself in the martyr’s or the fool’s shoes
- Accept rejection
- Accept disappointments
- Accept change of plans
- Accept things I cannot change
- Understand why the hell people just won’t shut up and do as I say
Bloody there is nothing that I cannot change! There I go again! Oh god… someone save me from myself! 
Forgive the bulleted list. It is one of my favorite genres.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I
Real life is really catching up with me and now I am beginning to enjoy it. I’ll be at Bangalore the whole of next week attending a training program. I gave my TOEFL exam today and I did decently well. There are new people in my life and new promises as usual. However, I am not banking on anything because a free mind begins with the anticipation of change.
II
This is for somebody specific. My life is not governed by your presence or absence. There was a time in my life when I had such people around whom I built my world. Every time they left, my world crumbled. Now my world is based upon me, my abilities and my dreams. I would love your companionship and like the idea of sharing things with you, but my happiness or sadness is not to be dictated by your behavior. Fortunately or unfortunately, this is the point in time you and I have met, after I happened to grow up. If you want a wallflower, who gets anxiety syndrome every time you leave, then find someone else. I am not for any such games. I can imagine a life with and without you and both lives seem equally livable. I do not need you. I like you.
III
What will become of me? This is the next worry! Hahaha! Something has to keep us going right?
