Ordinary circumstances: Extraordinary consequences

When Malala Yousafzai was announced as the co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize (another winner was Kailash Satyarthi, a children's rights activist from India), the whole world focused its attention towards her. She is the youngest Nobel Laureate as she was only 17 at that time; she was recognized for her cause to protect the right of all children to education.

There were mixed views upon her winning the Prize. However people wanted to know more about her. Whether somebody likes her or not she has become an international figure. But who is Malala? She writes her story in "I am Malala."

Malala is just a Pakistani girl like millions of other girls of her time and space born in a Sunni Muslim family, but a huge difference between her and others is that she got a very understanding father while others did not. Malala's father was very passionate about improving the quality of education; to serve this purpose he used to run his own school. While growing up Malala's playground was the school's classrooms. She started her schooling in her father's school itself. Her father was pretty aware that life was harder for women in their society so he was determined to educate Malala in a good way. He used to say, "I will protect your freedom, Malala. Carry on with your dreams."

On the other hand, there were people who used to see girls' schools as haram (against the religion). A man even tried to persuade Malala's father, " Girls should not be going to school. A girl is so sacred she should be in purdah (veil), and so private that there is no lady's name in the Quran as God doesn't want her to be named." Thank god, he would never listen to such people as he knew the truth.

When Malala was ten years old the Taliban came to their valley, Swat. With this, a lot of unnecessary problems were created. For instance, people were ordered to throw their TVs, DVDs and CDs and the Taliban would set fire on them. Only the Radio Mullah was allowed, and all music except for Taliban songs was declared haram. As the Talibs were against girls' education, many parents started to take their daughters out of schools; some teachers even refused to teach girls. But nothing scared Malala's father and his determination encouraged Malala to continue her schooling.

During that time a lot of killing, bomb blasting and suicide bombing were happening, so people were frightened and they felt unsafe. The same would apply to Malala's family as well. Malala would ask her father, "Are you scared now?" and he would reply, "At night our fear is strong, Jani (love), but in the morning, in the light, we find our courage again. We must rid our valley of the Taliban, and then no one has to feel this fear".

A turning point came into Malala's life when no female teachers and girl students at her school agreed to write a diary about life under the Taliban because their families considered the act too dangerous. In fact this offer had come from a BBC radio correspondent based in Peshawar. Apparently no one was ready to share their experience, so Malala stood up with her determination, "Education is our right just as it is our right to sing." Obviously, her father allowed her to raise her voice via the diary. As soon as her diary entries started to appear on the BBC Urdu blog the world people began to learn about the Swat predicament under the Taliban.

On the one hand the Taliban were banning and burning down the schools; the father-daughter team of Malala was busy campaigning for children's right to education in different parts of the country. Malala would frequently be seen, heard or read in the media with her strong voice. Soon she was recognized as an activist for the right to education. As a result she was in the hit list of the Taliban. At that time she was just 11-12 years old. Perhaps it was for sure Malala was shot by a Taliban gunman on 9 October, 2012 while she was coming home on a bus after school. From this point on people have been following Malala's life .

Malala gives a hope to every girl that she can be another Malala if she gets unconditional parental support at right time and in a right way.    

Gift of Gita

When I left for Australia in 2008, my mother gave me the Gita as a parting gift. She wanted me to recite at least a chapter every morning, even though I was moving to distant lands. Being a Pandit’s daughter, I have grown up surrounded by the Hindu scriptures, such as the Bhagavat Gita, the Ramayan, the Mahabharat and different Puranas. Although I have great respect for these precious books, I never found the motivation or time to read or recite verses on a regular basis; I could satisfy my religious queries by listening to my parents.

I kept my mother’s priceless gift as a symbol of God in a sacred place in my bedroom, never thinking much of it until my mother unexpectedly passed away in April 2013. I came to Nepal in July of the same year to share my intense pain of loss with my father and other relatives. This time, when I was about to leave, my father gifted me the Gita that my mother used to recite every morning, with a beautiful written message: “Timri muwale sadhai path garne yo Komal Gitako pustak timilai smritiswarup - Buwa.” (I gift you this book of Komal Gita, which your mother used to recite every day, as a keepsake – Father). When I took the small book in my hands I suddenly felt the warmth of my mother’s tremendous love for me; it was truly an amazing feeling. Then and there I deeply realised why Jamie Sullivan, a main female character in Nicholas Sparks’s novel “A Walk to Remember” used to carry her deceased mother’s Bible everywhere she went.

This time I was determined not to leave the Komal Gita (Nepali version) unopened. I wanted to be near my mother and I felt the Gita would be the best link to her. In addition, I had to make sense of her abrupt departure. So I decided to recite a chapter from the Gita every morning as an offering to my mother, which she always wanted me to do. For the first time in my life I completed reading all 18 chapters, and I then went on to complete them twice, thrice... I have lost count.

I had only just started to put into perspective my mother’s passing when suddenly my father also passed away. At that time, I longed to be near my father spiritually. Eventually, I opened the Gita that my mother had gifted me which was written in Sanskrit with its interpretation in Hindi. I deliberately wanted to recite the Sanskrit verses as I had always heard my father doing so. I had assumed this language would help me get connected with him in a better way. As I had expected, I found great solace by reciting the verses.

I admit that I am not yet qualified to argue about the vast content of the Gita. Many scholars, who have devoted a great amount of their time, literally their lifetimes, to studying the Gita suggest that every time you read it, you will find interpret it in a slightly different manner. There are many layers of interpretation of this scripture and it is said that the Gita is the only book which has been most widely studied and appreciated all around the world.

Having acknowledged that, what I understand from the Gita is invaluable enough. Although it was

written thousands of years ago, its content is just as relevant to the contemporary world as it was at the time of its writing. This text teaches us how to live our lives being true human beings. Arjun, the questioner, represents people in general like us – full of worldly desires and confusion, and Krishna, the lord himself, answers every question raised by Arjun patiently and convincingly, so that eventually Arjun will be ready to do his immediate duty, i.e., to fight a war. It feels like ‘the war’ is an essential part of the universe. Can we not see such wars time and again in the world of today? Not only external wars, people fight their internal wars within themselves all the time; as swami Radhanath says, we have a bad dog as well as a good dog inside us and they always fight each other. Here, the bad dog indicates the physical qualities like ego, hate, anger, jealousy; and the good dog is related to the spiritual qualities such as compassion, forgiveness, peace, and self respect. The conversation between Arjun and the lord Krishna depicts the whole philosophy of life. The beauty of the Gita is that we can still follow the instructions given by Krishna and apply them in our lives to live meaningfully. It is full of spiritual gems. In a nutshell, the Bhagavat Gita is a “message spoken by the absolute truth telling us the absolute truth,” according to swami Radhanath, and I wholeheartedly concur.

I am grateful to my parents who gifted me the Gita. They made me read it and be aware of the precious knowledge available within its sacred cover. I wish every parent could make their children read the Gita to understand the true purpose of human life, and act accordingly whenever possible; this would be the greatest gift any parent could give to their child.

(Published in an English Daily The Kathmandu Post on Sunday, March 13, 2016) 

[The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.]

No, only time does not heal

When you are grieving following the death of someone you hold dear, people usually say, “Oh, time heals everything so you’ll also be healed.” But I strongly believe that time by itself cannot do anything to heal the intense pain brought about by loss. It is not only me who thinks time is not enough to cure such a deep, but unfortunately invisible wound inside. A Holocaust survivor, Catheryne Morgan, who lost her parents in Auschwitz, the infamous concentration camp when she was merely 14, also expresses the same view in Allison Gilbert’s book ‘Always too soon: Voices of support for those who have lost both parents.’ She says, “Everything I am comes from living without my parents. Time does not heal. My pain is still strong, and it stings still. I live with it day in and day out; it will forever be a part of me.”

Catheryne’s case may sound extreme considering the circumstances under which her parents passed away, yet somehow I can relate to her. After losing both of my parents within a short time span of 15 months, I also realised that time alone was never going to heal me. So I explored different techniques to cope with my shock and pain when I unexpectedly lost my mother in April, 2013. I used the same means one more time, when my father passed away in a very similar situation like my mother’s in August, 2014. Neither of them could survive a stroke.

I was all alone in Australia struggling with my loss, while my four siblings were in Nepal. The first thing that I wanted to do was to get connected with the people who have experienced the same feelings. So, I started exploring and reading articles and books about people who had lost their parents. Whilst reading about their experiences, I was able to relate my pain to theirs, which gave me some sort of consolation. Although I got some mental peace, all my painful feelings were broiling inside and looking for a way to escape; I felt an urgent need to express them somehow. If you have people around you with whom you feel comfortable sharing your feelings, talking to them is a great way to get things off your mind. On the other hand, if you are an introvert and do not want to share your ‘personal’ stuff with others, it is better to maintain a journal where you can write anything that comes to mind; it worked very well for me.

Psychologists also agree that expression, whether oral or written, is essential in the grieving process. In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel ‘The secret life of bees’, it is written that the Jewish people in Jerusalem have a very peculiar way of expressing their grief. They have a ‘wailing wall’ where they go to mourn; they write their prayers on scraps of paper and tuck them into the wall. By expressing our grief in a way which we find comfortable, we take a step closer towards liberation.

Then comes the time factor. It is true that a grieving soul must take their time to recover. As clinical psychologist Sue Morris indicates in her book ‘Overcoming grief,’ ‘grieving’ is entirely a ‘personal’ matter, so different people need different time frames to heal, ranging from a few weeks to a few years. At the same time, it should also be noted that it is not just the passage of time that helps ease grief’s hold; more importantly, it is what you do during that time that makes a difference. So, it is unrealistic to think that you simply sit back and get over the deaths of your parents or your dear ones in a matter of certain time. The time you take in fact allows you to use different coping strategies so that you can get back to your normal life.

In my experience, ‘healing’ is just an ‘adjustment’ where I have to learn to live without my parents’ physical presence in my life. I like the analogy of ‘right hand vs left hand’ used by Sue Morris. According to her, losing our parents (or loved ones) is like losing our right hand which we had used in writing throughout our life. Now onwards we have to learn to write from scratch using our left hand, so obviously it takes time for this hand to achieve a similar level of mastery. Yet, we never forget that we lost our right hand. Likewise, even if I have started living without my parents, as Catheryne Morgan says above, I feel my unprecedented loss day in and day out. When I need to share something about myself, the first people that come to mind are my parents. They cross my mind over a hundred times a day. What else is there to say? I feel them in every breath I take. They will be a huge part of my life for as long as I live.

(Published in an English Daily The Kathmandu Post on Sunday, October 18, 2015 

                                                 in the title 'Heal thyself)

[The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.]