When my mom turned into a stranger

This is a story by Meera Prasad. This story is a daughter's tribute to a mother fighting a losing battle against Alzheimer's Disease. To see a loved one become helpless can be a life-changing experience.
I have marvelled at my mother's sixth sense. She almost always sensed it when i was
distressed,as if she could read my mind.But that was when she was the deeply intuitive and capable person i have always known her to be.Before Alzheimer's
Disease preyed on her brain and systematically destoyed her mental faculties.she was a home-maker at heart for whom home and the family took top priority.But there was the activist side to her as well when she took stands on issues,or expressed her viewpont with an earthy sensibility.Our home was an open house and my parents the perfect hosts.I remember them playing articulate and well-informed,and,for us in the family,she was our sounding board in life's journey.

But Alzheimer's has changed all that in the last six yars.Though physically present
with us,she has atrophied mentally and has drifted far away to a spaceand time we cannot penetrate-to an unreal world where she has no identity and where we don't
belong.As the disease progressed,evey day brought changes in her personality and behaviour -some alarming,others agonising to watch-but all so far removed from the
person that she is .The doctors had prepared us for a time when her cognitive skills
would get so eroded that she would fail to recognise even us,her family.But when that did happen and her mind just shuts us out,it crushed us,to say the least.It was
a moment of complete helplessness.

I am still grappling with the loss of that beautiful relatinship that i have realized can never be matched.I miss the cozy chats that we revelled in,our heated arguments and the thousand times I would turn to her for her opinion on matters.Or the times when I would be her reference point on issues concerning my generation.Today I am trying desprately to read her mind.As i sit by her bed and watch her stare vacantly at me,I search through the rubble that's her mind for a flash of recognitionin in her eyes or for the familiar smile that now darts across her face and is gone in a split second.They speak a thousand words even though she no longer speaks.It is among life's cruelest ironies I thinkthat gestures like these that I took for granted all along have become so few and far between now.

What is heartbreaking,however,is to see the woman once always in charge,who could outmatch anyone with her quips and repartees,disintegrating into a pale shadow of her statuesque self. Confined to a wheelchair, gaunt, bent over and unable to express her needs, her basic functions are met by us. She lives in a state of blissful ignorance. When i feed her, bathe her, dress her and tuck her into bed, making sure the diapers are fastened properly. I grieve over the role reversal of playing mother to her now. That is her prerogative i tell myself indignantly, my indignation tinged with sadness at the turn of events.
Memories race through my mind like snapshots. Of my mother's quick decline after she lost her husband. It was testimony to 50 golden years of marriage and the inseparable bond they shared, in an age when marriages have become so bittle. I remember her pain and despair as her life was thrown into disarray with Alzheimer's. Of her rock solid presence in my life, nurturing, understanding, sommetimes berating and warning me of the pitfalls as i slipped into adulthood.

I picture her ready to reach out always. There was an aura of dignity about her. And she had the rare ability to laugh at her foibles even when we cracked jokes over her
forgetful ways in the early days of Alzheimer's before the gravity of the situation
hit us. Today she lies in bed shrunken and twisted, her mind blank. Yet she battles
the disease with fortitude and no rancour and sets us an example. It has been a
life-altering experience for me. I learn equanimity and draw inspiration from her
faith everyday as she withers away.

My mother is losing her long and lonely battle against Alzheimer's. We tearfully

cheer the fiesty women.

Death speaks

There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, "Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there death will not find me."
The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, "Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?" "That was not a threatening gesture," I said, "it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

Envy, The cow and the pig

We often find people grumbling and having a low opinion towards life and instead of aligning it to the correct path we enhance it through negative thoughts and hence enervate their will and enthusiasm. But if we see deep inside and engage in soulsearching we would find some of the feelings responsible for this. These are envy towards anybody within our social group and having a desire of amashing materialistic aspects of life which fill us with feelings like: if he can have it, why can't i? and .......so many of them.
So i found these two stories which according to me are appropriate in the given context.
This is the first story-
Centuries ago in the country of Greece there was a young athlete who had so distinguished himself in the public games that his fellow citizens raised a statue in his honor, to keep fresh the memory of his victories. This statue so excited the envy of another athlete who had been defeated in the races, that one night he went out under cover of darkness with the intention of destroying that statue and knocking it to pieces. First he tried and tried to tip over the statue. He tugged and pulled and shoved... and after an hour it moved just a little bit. This encouraged him and he gave one mighty push and the statue fell -- on top of him, and killed him. Envy always harms the one who is guilty of it.

The second story goes like this-
A rich man complained to his friend: "People don't like me. They say I'm selfish and stingy. And yet in my last will and testament I have donated all that I own to charitable cause." His friend said: "Well, maybe the story of the cow and the pig has a lesson for you.""The pig came to the cow and complained: 'People always talk about your friendliness. I know you are friendly, you do give them milk. But they get much, much more from me. They get ham and bacon and lard and they even cook my feet. And yet - no one likes me. To all of them I am just a pig, a hog.
Why is that?'
The cow thought it over a bit and then said: 'Perhaps it's because I give while I am still alive!'"


Did it ever occur to you that when you envy somebody or you are jealous of somebody, that this does not hurt that person in any way... He or she does not feel it at all... It only hurts you: it eats your insides out... So, you see, that it is a useless, self-destructive exercise.
As Ben Sirach says in the Old Testament "Envy and anger shorten one's life."

Faith and belief

Sometimes i find my friends getting disillusioned and having no clue what to do, quagmired by a situation. I often tell them about having a firm belief in their abilities and have faith on the utmost because the climax always has to be happy and he ensures that. This story was given to me by my friend and it may not be correct in the above context but when i see the larger picture of life, i consider it to be something just priceless and close to me.
Once Narada Muni was asked by a brahmana: "Oh, you are going to meet the Lord? Will you please ask Him when I'm going to get my salvation?""All right," Narada agreed. "I shall ask Him."
As Narada proceeded, he met a cobbler who was sitting under a tree mending shoes, and the cobbler similarly asked Narada, "Oh, you are going to see God? Will you please inquire of Him when my salvation will come?"
When Narada Muni went to the Vaikuntha planets, he fulfilled their request and asked Narayana (God) about the salvation of the brahmana and the cobbler, and Narayana replied, "After leaving this body, the cobbler shall come here to me."
"What about the brahmana?" Narada asked.
"He will have to remain there for a number of births. I do not know when he is coming."
Narada Muni was astonished, and he finally said, "I can't understand the mystery of this."
"That you will see," Narayana said. "When they ask you what I am doing in My abode, tell them that I am threading the eye of a needle with an elephant."
When Narada returned to earth and approached the brahmana, the brahmana said,
"Oh, you have seen the Lord? What was He doing?"
"He was threading an elephant through the eye of a needle," Narada answered.
"I don't believe such nonsense," the brahmana replied. Narada could immediately understand that the man had no faith and that he was simply a reader of books.
Narada then left and went on to the cobbler, who asked him, "Oh, you have seen the Lord? Tell me, what was He doing?"
"He was threading an elephant through the eye of a needle," Narada replied.
The cobbler began to weep, "Oh, my Lord is so wonderful, He can do anything."
"Do you really believe that the Lord can push an elephant through the hole of a needle?" Narada asked.
"Why not?" the cobbler said, "Of course I believe it."
"How is that?"
"You can see that I am sitting under this banyan tree," the cobbler answered, "and you can see that so many fruits are falling daily, and in each seed there is a banyan tree like this one. If, within a small seed there can be a big tree like this, is it difficult to accept that the Lord is pushing an elephant through the eye of a needle?"
So this is called faith. It is not a question of blindly believing. There is reason behind the belief. So this story is not told so as to please divinity but to remind us all that faith and belief have more power than anything else on this earth.

Extent, limit and myth

What is the extent of determination and hard labour?

We often attribute a great effort to be BHAGIRATHI effort. Because the magnitude of effort and determination shown by the king Bhagirath is unparalleled till date. The story goes like this.

Once upon a time in India there was a great king named sagar (to be pronounced as s-a-gar not sa-a-gar). But unfortunately he didn’t have any child, the royal priest advised him to go to the jungle and start praying lord shiv as he could only grant him a child. After 5 years of rigorous prayer without food and water lord shiv appeared before him and asked him his wish. As he didn’t have any child so in due course of time the king was so obsessed with child that he asked the lord to give him 1000 children. Soon he was blessed with 1000 children. But managing those 1000 children was very difficult. It was becoming impossible to teach them anything. So they all grew indiscipline and always caused nuisance to everybody they encountered.

They were sent to the great hermit named Agastya. He accepted to teach them. But he asked them not to disturb them during hours, he was busy praying god. But they overheard him and started troubling him after tolerating for a few months he was so disturbed by them that he cursed all of them to die at once. Hearing that king Sagar came running to him and asked him to revoke the curse but the damage was already done. But the hermit told him that the wife of one of his son was pregnant and that his son would have the quality of all of 1000 put together.

He was named Bhagirath. When he became young, he heard about the sad demise of his father and his uncles. He came to know that the spirits of all of them were lurking at the place they died, so he wanted to work for the salvation of their souls. He came to know that only maa ganga had the power to do that and at that time ganga was residing in the hair of lord shiv. So after grand father it was his turn to pray the lord. He could please the god after 20 years of determined tapasya. He was also granted his wish but maa ganga wished that she should be directed to his destiny. It is said that he led maa ganga to all the places were all their uncles and father died and after that led her to the Bay of Bengal.

So what i seriously feel that if we seriously have a desire for a particular thing, no matter how hard it be, nobody can stop us achieving it. We only have to give our heart and soul to it.

Poet, his hard time and his wisdom

There was once a poet who fell upon such hard times that he was no longer able to feed his family. Hearing that the king greatly encouraged talent and was famed for his generosity, the poet set off for the royal palace. When brought before the king, he bowed low and asked that he may recite a poem. On hearing his recitation, the king well pleased, asked him to name his reward.
The poet pointing to the finely wrought chessboard before the king said “your highness” if you place just one grain of rice on the first square of this chessboard and double it for every square, I will consider myself well rewarded.” “Are you sure?” asked the king, greatly surprised.
“So it shall be” ordered the king and his courtiers started placing the grain on the chessboard. One grain on the first square, 2 on the second, 4 on the third, 8 on the fourth and so on. By the time they came to the tenth square they had to place 512 grains of rice. The number swelled to 5,24,288 grains on the 20th square. When they came to the halfway mark, the 32th square the grain count was 214,74,83,648- that is over 214 crores ! Soon the count increased to lakhs of crores and eventually the hapless king had to handover his entire kingdom to the clever poet. And it all began with just one grain of rice.
So what do we understand from this story: Never underestimate the power of compounding. If you stay invested long enough it will work for you. Sometimes though initially the journey seems tiring and impossible task to complete but continuous effort towards achieving it ensures our success. So the most important thing in our life is one step towards our objective.
You all find in this blog an advertisement about a company engaged in microfinance and rural financing. I urge you all to go through it and have a feel of it. Wish you happy reading.

Ravana and his problems

We hear people referring to men accused of horrific crimes as "Ravanas". The lankan king has long been the recipient of Hindu invectives. But Ravana didn't do the kind of things these men are alleged to have done. As for his wickedness, could there be extenuating circumstances? He had to go around lugging nine useless heads along with a single functional one- that may be why he became frustrated and mean. Consider that when one of the heads caught a cold or sneezed. It was hell for the others. He could not turn sideways without major contortions. If one head turned all had to turn. If the heads had quarraled, they didnot cooperate, leading to schisms between the ranks. With four on the left and five on the right of the central one ,he overbalanced when he walked to the side with more heads. He couldnot visit friends because he couldnot get his heads through their doorways. With all those heads curling up in the bed was practically impossible. Lying on the back all the time ,he developed a serious spondylosis. All 10 snored, generating a twister that sucked in the countryside.
At meantime, his two hands couldnot reach far enough to all the mouths. Atleast four would go hungry. Only the central head had an oesophagus, the rest were probably connected to it, but he could have had just the one stomach. Each might have enjoyed a different type of food : murg massalam, aloo paratha, baigan-bharta ,biryani, naan, dosa.... The gastronomic assault dried up his gastric juice and created ulcers. As for alcohol, with just one peg each, 600cc went into the stomach at once. Nowonder why he seemed to be drunk most of the time. Romance was out. If one bent forward to kiss a girl, the other nine jealous guys must have frustrated him by puuling back just as he puckered up. So, two might be better than one but 10 heads lead to anrchy.

Never thought of Bechara Ravana this way. I sure feel sorry for him.