My Mother and her 150 more kids.

For years my mom has been volunteering as a general secretary for a NGO run Orphanage home. She volunteers for few hours daily. She told me what work and activities she performs there. There are 150 kids there that call her mom apart from me her biological child. One day while my trip to home town she asked me if I would like to see her Adharashram (Orphanage home) and I happily agreed to take the ride with her there. It is located at about 5 minutes distance from my home by drive. When I reached there I noticed that it has a tall iron gated compound and behind it there was nice beautiful building. I went in with her and little did I realize that how my feelings would be changed when I walked out of the door. I was shocked, felt like crying and had no words to even say to myself as to why certain things in this world I can’t change and how blessed I am for all that I have.

The moment we entered the building, several kids came running to my mom and asked her who I was? They were all sweet looking chubby kids with decent clothing, they looked neat and clean. My mom said to them this is my daughter Madhuri and to my surprise they all were so happy to see me because they love my mom a lot. The several kids were playing games and running here and there. It appeared it was their playtime break & I was glad to spend some time with them in their break time. At that moment I was still a person walked in as an external observer with no pre-conceived notions or feelings and didn’t connect to orphanage surroundings and kids right away. I guess kids age ranging from 4 years onwards. Quickly most of the kids formed a little line to get hugs from me. I was happy to lift few kids, some were heavy so had to hug them bending down and I felt that these kids here get so much donation and charity money and are taken well care of but seemed that what they wanted is some love. All they wanted is a hug from me. My heart started to get heavy and I could not even express anything but went through the motions of hugging them. Some of the girls asked me what is this that you wearing? What is this?, after pointing at things that I was wearing and smiled at me. They were asking about my bracelet and the watch and the ear rings. They looked such innocent and pure minds that I had no answer but to tell them this is called a watch and this is a bracelet and so forth. Many times we don’t have those moments where we want a particular branded watch and a designer bag and then we don’t even feel the pinch that I wanted more of shoes until I saw a man with no feet. The want sometimes in us never goes down and we always want this and want that. How many of us on daily basis say to ourselves that I am ready to give this up and that up and I really don’t need this probably because it would not make me happy. Often I see friend's status update on Facebook indicating it was updated using cool latest gazettes like iPhone or Blackberry and probably we get lost in this world that our wants and needs are never ending.

Then my mom asked me to go upstairs to the infants floor of the building. I am not scared of reality of life nor it is the fact that i am stone hearted and I didn’t have any emotions but I know myself as to how I am and how I get lost in emotions of such kinds that I feel sad within so I was bit hesitant to climb the stairs and my mother knows my nature so she told me it should be fine lets go. We climbed two staircases. Then once we entered the large room I saw wonderful babies who were infants, toddlers and the youngest was about 10 days old and later I learned that he was found by roadside left by unknown parents. Often the kids don’t even know their last names and when enrolled in school the last names of the kids who are not aware of their identity is N.K. I enquired my mother what it means and she told me that it stands for "Not Known". Some kids grew up to be adults and are studying in colleges now and some got married. However few do come back to their home whenever they get time and excited to see their friends and other staff members and care takers. Sometimes my mother takes kids out for errands and sometimes brings them to our home. I am not sure how she does that but she indeed has lots of love and compassion for them for sure.

I do admire my mother for what she is doing & helping them on daily basis. She must be drawing positive energy and courage from them and must be getting a feeling of inner satisfaction and sense of completeness. Also amount of love she gets in return from the kids is amazing and the blessings from the almighty for the time she goes there for few afternoon hours from busy retired life is more satisfying than driving a luxury car to an air conditioned movie theatre, buying buttery popcorn, sitting and watching Slumdog Millionaire. And then later gossiping with friends over the weekend, holding a slice of pizza, arguing about the image of the country and how wrong or right few things in movie are.

Now I have realized and started to believe in the President Obama’s words,"change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones that we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek".

Dreams.

Dreams Dreams and Dreams is the best thing to see when one closes the eyes as one travels distances , places and even beyond earth at times and takes me to wonderland where I cannot explain what is happening for sure but its a wonderful ride for sure. There are times when I see wonderful dreams but most of the times I dream which someone else might not dare to dream and all I can say to myself when I wake up in the morning is its just a dream.
Its been a few times that I have been seeing this dream or reality which I am not sure but its crystal clear and the picture so clear and I can see every detail of it and sometimes I am amazed at myself that I can feel and see things which I dont notice even with my eyes open when I am awake and I kinda feel blessed to see dreams this way. I have not dreamt of what I have been seeing for a while now and I miss the feeling what I had got then dreaming it when I closed my eyes now days. My room has a window and its big and nice and can see trees out and the sky . I have seen my father standing out of the window and watch me while I sleep and I use to see him for days in a row with his hand extended towards me and trying to hug me and I use to smile and smile and then cry. Many a times I have listened to phone conversation of me with my dad and everything was so clear that I did mention to my mother that my father had called me last night and she smiled too. Its a gift I would say to connect this way to soemone who is not part of the world and I am blessed in a way as some how in my dreams I am always with my dad . Many a times even while I am driving my car I see him sitting next to me in the front seat. There are times when there were accidents on roads I have crossed or I had to drive in snowy slippery conditons and my father next to me in the passenger seat telling me how am I suppose to do or guide me is a good feeling as I know I am home safe home in a while. It makes me feel that he is there for me always if even in my dreams I am with him.
One can talk on dreams this way and I feel others might be dreaming too but most of the times I sleep sound now with no thoughts in mind and have not dreamt much lately which I miss.
The last dream what I saw was amazing too. After reading what I have to say someone might not think amazing it is but I feel it is as one can know how capable our human mind is and where all it can take you and make u see stuff which one may not even think about it in daily life and hence its amazing to me.
Back home where I grew up I had my best friend's home two homes across my home and I did spend most of my life hanging out with her and her sister and I was there everyday for sure . Her mom a doctor and a gem of person and many a times people knew me as my friend's mom's daughter and not my mother's daughter as that much time I spent over there. I dreamt that I slept over night at her place and in the morning I was returning home and I saw a lot of people standing below my home. I happen to ask someone in the crowd that why are so many people gathered here? Someone said Madhuri is dead!!!. Now I know I am Madhuri and I see my own death and I am walking towards my home and I am still not in panic state or scared or have any feeling in me. How can I have one? Am I not dead? If one is no more living than isnt one not to have any feeling? I say ok Madhuri you are dead now what? Then I remembered I had a few things to do before I leave this world. I ask God for 48 hours and he grants me the time so I get to spend 2 more days on this earth till my funeral. I ask this time to God because I feel that inspite of me being dead and I am given time it means that I can do soemthing more about the time I have after my death. All the people who are waiting outside the home are going to come back later as I have told them to goand come back in 48 hours and I go up the stairs of my home and my care taker from childhood opens the door for me . I did forget to mention that my mom is dead in the dream too and she is also in same time frame as me , which is 48 hours. I talk to my mom and we decide to give away her sarees and belongings to the lady and her daughter who have been there for me since childhood and I give her all my money and some gold what I do have. I had no feeling while seeing all this nor did I have any feeling in writing all the above . All I had was a drop of tear in my eye because I feel we all as humans come in this world and we live here and enjoy the joy of parents and so many relations in life and we forget that we are here for a short time and we all have to leave every relation and every possession we have and go one day. We think that this all is real and never going to end and this is real but its just a passing phase and all we have to do is be an observer in it.
The worst part being that after we die and we are taken to the burial place we are left in the corner there till they get ready to do the last rituals and no live( I meant who is breathing) person even sits besides us while we lie there waiting for our body to go in the furnace, all we have is bones n ashes of us in the end and this is the end of our existance and this is the only fact of life I feel and everything else is passing phase for sure.
I am strong believer of these words which are-- What makes one laugh in life makes one cry for sure and what makes one cry in life again brings the laughter on the face.

How to heal......

If someone had asked me to define life then I would say it is the time spent between birth and death. And if someone had asked me what it is to live life then I would have said that to breathe. If breathing is to live then what is to die then my answer would have been that cessation of breathing will be end of life. Things would be so easy if meaning of life was defined by just breathing in and breathing out and death means the cessation of breathing. But little I knew that my view of life and death would change with the incident in my life.

My father passed away on Dec 30th 2007 and I am still trying to cope up with the thought that he is not here with me in this world and become part of a better world now. He was my life. I loved him to the extent that I always told my mother that I love him more than I love you and she knew that it is indeed a truth. I remember all those things he has done for me all these years and I always thought that he was amazing and very supportive. Even the little things like an advice or quality time spent together I cherished and secretly admired.

I remember till the very end when he was diagnosed with Cancer, and he was admitted in the hospital, he told me never to cry in life and to feel sad for one's death as it inevitable, and one should mourn only for a day and one should then move on with life. And he was referring to his own death and I thought that was amazing. He was that kind of strong person, pretty much all his life. The day he passed away, I was in the ambulance with him from hospital in Pune to on our way to home town, Nasik. The journey was around 5 or more hours and I was sitting on one side and his body on other side. Next to me my best friend Ashu was sitting. I owe her big time as she was of great support in these difficult times especially being with me in the ambulance that ride home and her supportive hand on my head and patting on my hand. She was holding me and I was holding my dad and his body was all wrapped around in white sheet from head to toe. Whenever I felt lonely I was holding his leg and felt the strong muscles he had and felt good that he was still there for me. We reached home in the evening around 7 PM. Outside our house, there were several hundred people had gathered waiting for our arrival. And there after few hours later, I had to go to the cremation ground to do all the last rituals. All these people followed us to the cremation ground. I thought these many people had gathered with such short notice and I realized that he was quite popular amongst his friends and patients. I was much stronger at that point and did everything as I was instructed by cremation assistant attendant on duty. Next day we had to go there again to collect the ashes and bones & ritual is to drop that in the holy river, Ganges. Ten days later there was another small ritiual (pooja) on banks of river, Ganges & we family members and close friends gathered for that.

Now that he no longer exist, I cannot see him. The way for me to heal and cope up with the pain is to remember him all the time. I used to sleep at home with his blanket covering me. I still do wear his sweatshirt which he wore; sit on his favorite chair where he used to sit most mornings and evenings at the clinic. I always loved him a lot and did not want him to suffer at the end and he was lucky that he was diagnosed with Carcinoma and had to be in the hospital for only 10 days and did not suffer like what other people go through with Cancer, And he didn’t have to go through Chemotherapy treatment as it would have been very painful and hard to cope up with his weak heart condition. He was told by doctors in cancer hospital that he had at the most 6 months to live if he was to live.

For me the definition of death has certainly changed now. One does not die by just cessation of breathing. One always lives in one's thoughts as my dad is still there for me in my thoughts and for those who loved him. I still don’t know how to react to someone saying that they are sorry to hear about my father passed away. I say it’s ok and I just acknowledge it, as I don’t know what to say. For me I still see him alive inside me and feel that way every moment of time. I still can see him, feel him talk to me, hug me, hold me, kiss me, be there for me always so he is still there for me.

Yeh Dosti( Friendship)

I am blessed to have good friends in life in every stage of life. What is a friend? Very hard to define but I would say someone who can understand you when no one else can. A friend for me does not have to be same age. I feel one has to have a wavelength with that person to understand him or her. Also its a feeling that you share with him or her that no one else can understand.

I have a few good friend's whom I care for a lot and mean a lot to me. I would rather have good friends then a lot of relatives. Not that I got anything against any relative but friends don't judge you and love you for what ever person you are.

My closest friends are not around here but most of them are in India but when I meet them I have good times with them. Its not that you got to call a friend daily, talk to them regularly but when we meet each other we know what our friendship means and know for sure that we are always there for each other . They are busy in their life's too but when I meet them it seems that we are still the same..what bond we shared from childhood has never changed.. we rode bicycles together.. ate together, studied together, shared our crushes with each other, smiled together , laughed together n may be cried together.Many years went by but the spark of what we had shared then and share now still holds us together.

True friendship never dies and always stays for ever no matter how old one gets and where one lives. People who change with times are not friends to me but they are
acquaintances .

So to all of my friends , I love you . God bless u always.

What touches me now?

When growing up as a kid we all dream of few things. Me too as a kid had so many things around me which I feel made me emotional at that time. Now I think of those things and think whether was that happiness then or may be i grew up.

I remember going for a haircut to a salon and on the way my mother used to get a balloon for me on the way back.. those typical air filled balloons which had a long thread to hold.. and I cannot imagine I used to walk back with that balloon in my hand and feel sad when after few days all the air of the balloon would knock out . That was happiness at that age.

Later going to school I used to have some friends of mine being dropped at school in nice cars and I used to look and feel.. wow.. when they used to get down the cars. I was not jealous but since I did not have that ride than I did not know what it is to have. Now that I drive a nice luxury car I don't even feel that it does matter .

Its not because my taste has changed its just that I matured in thoughts i guess. What mattered then was different and what matters now is different as I look at life on a very bigger scale.

What touches me most ?? Cannot be put in one paragraph.

I feel sad for kids who are born in poor families, who have no proper food to eat. The worst part I feel for them is that they can see TV and so many ads on it regarding food or see stalls of food but have no money to eat. On my recent trip to India went to a temple with my mom and aunt and had some kids begging outside the temple. Most of the people outside the temple were giving them money. I asked those kids what would u like to eat?? They said "wada-pav "(bread with some potatoes in it)and pointed me to a place in the corner and asked others to go ahead and said would join them in a few minutes. Spoke the owner of the small restaurant to give them two wada-pav each and cup of tea or coffee.. he looked at me and said to them?????.. I said yes and told them to sit inside and eat. On the way back from temple I bumped into them and they were saying bye to me and said we ate and they were so happy to see me and I smiled and looked in their eyes and they took looked and me and I felt so good.

Also what touches me sometimes isthat when others are nice to you when they need something out of you and later they don't even care. I have helped so many people on day to day basis only because I want to help. Later some of them change with times and Do I regret that I helped them?? I don't regret because everything in life has to change. Life is not static, its dynamic and things change with time. I don't regret over some people who are not in touch with me now as they were never met to be in touch with me all my life is what I feel.

Something I still don't understand is how people have hatred towards each other? Its not that I don't understand its just that I feel that life is so short to love and and how do somepeople have so much time to hate??

I am in love with this song , Imagine by John Lennon and I listen to it everyday and everyday I fall more in love with it. .. the lyrics go..




Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

What makes a woman beautiful?

I wouldn't change anything about myself - and I would change everything about my self.
Change is exciting, its interesting . Its the process of letting go.

There is no woman who can answer this question for sure but I think that inner beauty is the thing which makes me beautiful within me. We live in a world of pencil thin celebrities , diets, surgeries for different parts and yet many women I think are saying enough is enough.

I am beautiful because of my thoughts, what I am , how I think and not because of my skin or my cheekbones being high. Its beauty within me which is confidence, from the challenges i go through, and because I am aware about things around me.

Beauty is essence of health and to feel inner beauty in me is more lasting than the outside beauty the world sees. Real beauty to me is allowing yourself to feel beautiful without needing to be told.

My beauty is standing on life's edge and saying--"OK , Universe Bring it on."

Missing or remembering?

Sometimes we all say that we miss something. Things that we miss could be our family, our friends, our surroundings or anything that we like.

What is that we miss? Is missing something just a feeling? Or missing something is one not being in it? Or we want to live in past memories or we are thinking of future and we want to be in it. Or we are scared of not being in it and missing the thought that we are not in it.

Sometimes I feel that, instead of missing something we rather say that we remember something. That way it will feel different and I would say will be lot less painful.

I remember lot of things, my parents, my friends, my school, my college and my family. That last sentence sounds lot better than saying I miss this & I miss that.

Our life revolves around feelings. It is feeling that holds us together. If there were no feelings then we would have had such a simple life. Then we would not feel sad if someone says that that they miss you, instead it will give positive connotation if they say they will remember you.

The differences between people that I feel are emotional and not so emotional is that how one deals with one's feelings. The effective management of your feelings is very important. One cannot judge how we should feel; there is no right or wrong way to go about it. Feelings are just that, they can exist in any shape or form.

I am trying to simplify my life by not thinking what others are saying about me. That way my life will be lot more easier to live. Also that now I have learnt how to say "No" so that I will get to live my life the way I really want to live.