(1700 words, 7-8 mins read)
It was a cloudy Tuesday morning in the month of October and my body clock woke
me up 15 mins earlier than the alarm on my mobile clock that was set to chime
at 5 am. Before, my muscles could get into action and catapult me out of bed a
lightning fast signal from my brain instructed them to take it easy. The
previous night, while I was busy collecting information for an article, I was
planning to write for the people’s president of India, Late. Dr APJ Abdul
Kalam’s birth anniversary, my son informed me of his decision to skip his
football training the next day due to a minor injury on his right heal.
Basically, that meant I could return to my state of light sleep and resume the
dream in which I was addressing a hall full of bright young students.
Although, my muscles happily obliged to the instruction from my
mind and lay still, it was getting difficult for my mind to get back into dream
state. It was frequently getting interrupted by a beep sound of 4 monolithic
cranes deployed at the World Trade Centre being constructed right across the
road from my apartment block in Perungudi, now part of Greater Chennai
Corporation. Amidst this tussle between my mind and body the mind
subconsciously tuned into another frequency of sound waves of 2 familiar
voices; one seeking permission to have a head bath and the other canvasing
against it. Before my mind could tune into active listening mode the beep from
the crane grew louder and subdued the last audible words “because, today is
Tuesday…”. But it was just enough for my half-asleep mind to recognize the
first voice as that of my teenage daughter and attribute the second to that of
my modern wife with strong religious beliefs!
The beep from those cranes by now became the trigger for scene
transition and I was back in my dream. The dream had progressed to the point
where I was now faced with some interesting questions following the floor being
opened up for interactive discussion. I had just finished talking about the
power of youth in India and experience with examples shared by Dr Kalam in
the chapter Building a New State in his book ignited
minds.
A tall young boy with an athletic body was waving his hand and as
the mike was being passed to him, my mind was preparing my body for a fight or
flight response. I felt like a contestant in the famous quiz show, “Kaun
banega crorepati?” (Indian version of “Who wants to be a millionaire?”) with no
life-lines left. The boy sitting on the anchors’ chair, made famous by one and
only Mr Amitabh Bachchan, shooting the question for 1 crore rupees!
“Uncle, my mother does not allow me to eat eggs on mangalvar
(Tuesday). You talked about Mangalyaan, India’s Mars mission and how India is
scaling new heights in Space program. But, I am standing here, bound by a
superstitious belief that is not letting me to even follow my diet plan given
by my fitness trainer. What should I do?”. I gave him a receiving smile so he
could calm down and regain his breath. APJ’s quote, “Breathe in thoughts of
success and you will be a success”, came to my mind.
For a split second I wished our roles were swapped as a flash back
of me asking the exact same question to my mother played in fast-forward mode!
If I give him a convincing answer based on my belief system, which has a high
probability of alignment to his scientific thinking then we both might
celebrate it as a success. I was, at the same time, concerned of the impact that
celebration might have on his relationship with his mother and respect for her
belief system.
So, I decided to play neutral and suggested that his mother might
be following a belief and value system that she was brought up with, and she
might be right in her own way. I added, if he did not believe in the same
belief system then he should have an informed discussion with her. Try to make an
effort to explain to her, his point of view and its importance to his fitness regime. I
shared the wisdom of the Dalai Lama who once said, “If scientific analysis were
conclusive to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must
accept those finding and abandon those claims”.
The loud cheers and claps of millennials in the hall was deafened
by the voice of my daughter, which by now had escalated to a high pitch. “Ma, I
don’t understand why I cannot have a head bath on a Tuesday? My hair is greasy
and I am feeling awkward and I want to wash it now!”. It was not very loud nor
disrespectful, but was just enough and concerning to wake me out of my dream
and bring both my mind and body to ground reality. It felt like a déjà vu moment
between my dream and reality!
I rubbed my eyes to
shake-off last traces of sleep hangover and adjust my vision to near sight. The first frame, I
saw, was that of my wife exiting our bedroom with our dog for its morning walk.
In the next frame my daughter was storming inside our (common) bath-room. Our
eyes talked for 15 seconds and she understood my unspoken words; she quickly
fetched my brush and paste and handed it to me before closing the door behind
her! Will she go ahead and take a head bath or skip it and pay her tribute to
mangalvar? The suspense started building up and from past experience I knew it
would last for another 7-8 mins, which is how long she usually takes for her
bath.
I was there, sitting in my green jockey night suite thinking
through my next manoeuvre to clear this hurdle. I reached out to my android
smartphone with 99% battery life left, as a result of 8 hours being in silent
and do-not-disturb mode, and invoked Google baba to provide some answers. Google
baba never lets me down! Within a fraction of a second I was showered with
5,30,00,000 results for my “Tuesday head bath” search phrase! An inherent joy
and satisfaction filled me with this new found insight that I was not alone
in this quest. I hurriedly browsed through some answers (both for and against
the subject in question) on Quora and quickly dispatched few links to my
daughters’ Gmail address.
The social psychologist in me wanted to empower my daughter –
K-Pop listening, mild-mannered and kind-hearted teenager who equally values
Indian tradition - and ignite her natural intelligence to question, debate,
reason and follow her heart. At the same time, the Indian husband in me, with
his 80s upbringing and 90s education wanted his 20th century
love marriage to last forever.
When I returned to my bedroom after having been forced to use the
bathroom in mothers’ room for my morning duties, I saw steam coming out of our
bathroom door. It was infused with the scent of Head & Shoulders shampoo;
“she did it!”. She had already stepped out and was in the balcony that gave a 70mm panaromic view of those cranes still beeping and busy doing all the heavy-lifting. I could see
her shoulder length hair dangling in front of her face as she was giving it a
whip with her favorite 5 feet long turkey towel! I was glad that she listened
to her heart and did what she felt was right for her hygiene. My immediate
thought was to reach for my phone and recall those emails I sent but decided to
leave it there for future reference.
I recollected the excerpt from ignited minds that
I remembered writing down the previous night. It read “…if something is at stake, the
human mind gets ignited and its working capacity gets enhanced manifold”. As I
was convincing myself about my daughters' determination to question the
established beliefs, I felt something cold touching the skin of my right calf
muscle. It was, Duster, our dog who had returned from his morning walk! Alas, that
also meant my wife would be enter ing the room any second now and I quickly prepared
myself to play referee between mother and daughter. I breathed a sigh of relief
when I heard her voice travelling from the kitchen calling my daughter for breakfast. This was
followed by her usual non-urgent but anxious reminder to hurry up as it was almost
time for the arrival of our charted auto-rickshaw for school drop.
There was a surprising silence on the breakfast table. As if
planned with precision, my wife started talking when my daughter took a
mouthful of a small slice of soft dosa dipped in gun-powder. She said, in a calm
and composed tone, “Beta, I follow a certain belief system and I would like to
adhere to it for your well-being. I understand it is not fair of me to expect
you to follow it blindly. So, let’s have a discussion when you return from
school and lets understand our respective viewpoints.” I was glad to hear that
and felt happy that there was no imminent danger to our happy married life. I
was equally surprised by the transformation that was on display on both sides
of the breakfast table.
This was exactly the culture and citizenship that APJ had
advocated throughout his life. He left us with this beautiful quote, “Enlightened
citizenship has three components: education with value system, religion
transforming into spiritual force, and creating economic prosperity through
development”, in his book Inspiring thoughts.
I was now filled with joy and recollected my favorite quote by
Paulo Coelho from his book the Alchemist, “When you want something, all the
universe conspires in helping you achieve it”. Events from my own life and my
dream provided me with a story write and the message I wanted to communicate to
students on APJ’s birthday on 15th Oct, which is now celebrated as “Students
Day” all over India. Like APJ said, “Science is all about asking questions and
finding the right answers through hard work and research into laws of nature.
If India is to become developed by 2020, it will do so only by riding on the
shoulders of the young”.
So, lets ignite our
minds and help make his vision to make India a developed nation by 2020 become
a reality.
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©Balaji Palanidurai
I dedicate this story to my family and all students all over the world!
If all of us volunteer to change our approach a bit towards better life and
respect nature, we won't need volunteers to change the world.
