She's come home to me!

                                                She's come home to me

                                     (Dedicated to the memory of my ‘intellectual mother’, my Chotomoni)

Many year before she left her mortal body, she had called me one day in Delhi, to tell me she was going to visit and stay with me here for two months. My partner and I were really happy and looking forward to her coming. 

However, back where she stayed in Kolkata, discussions began at her home about how she could be sent to Delhi. Her husband had got so used to having her around, serving his every need, her son had not outgrown the umbilical cord connection, her own home needed her for each and every thing – what was going to be cooked each day, how much and for how many people – the list went on and on. Needless to say, the discussion of her coming to Delhi ended, only when she decided not to come at all.

Next, I decided to spend a year in Kolkata in my newly acquired home. My flat was only a forty-five minute taxi distance from hers. I pleaded with her to come and stay a week with me, with her husband, my meshamoshai. But then, once again the question arose, as to how she could go, because her husband refused to come along and her young toddler grandson, I was told by her, asked every day, before he went to Kindergarten, whether, she his granny would be home when he returned from school…

The plan to come stay with me was dropped yet again!

I was furious! Women, I told her, always put themselves aside to put men first and then complain that they don’t get heard. My Chotomoni, only smiled. After all, it was her gentleness which was most used against her. 

I never asked her again. I knew she would feel guilty both ways, to refuse me or to listen to her family only. I did not want her to suffer the fragmentation of an undecided mind. I let it go and instead increased my visits to hers.

Until, last year, on 16^th May, 2014, she left her body. I was not at her bedside at that moment, but when I went back to her house after a few days, her photo greeted me with the enigmatic smile that was typically hers. I wept uncontrollably. She had not set foot in the house, that was mine and she would never do so, now.

On the 6^th this month, May, 2015, we completed the one year death formalities by Hindu rituals at Kolkata.

On the 16^th evening, I called my brother, her son in Kolkata and talked to him, consoling him. On the 17^th I woke with a dream vivid as real life. 

In my dream, I was preparing to eat a breakfast of what used to be my maternal grandfather’s favourite dinner. Doodh rooti  is what it is called. Chappatis torn to small pieces and thrown into milk, with a dash of sugar, was in our family pure joy, learnt from habits passed down the generations. 

I saw, my partner returning home with Chotomoni beside her. I was overjoyed. Helping her to sit on a chair, I hurried to give her my bowl of doodh rooti, which she accepted and was stirring the spoon in the bowl, before taking a bite, when she looked at me and said clearly –

“Wear diamonds around your neck.”

I was a little stunned, both from the fact that I was not given to such showbiz, nor felt I could do so because diamonds are so expensive, but my partner interpreted the dream to mean, that in her accepting the doodh rooti, she has indicated that she has accepted what I have had to offer her and in return she has blessed me with the diamonds, to symbolize, a sparkling white and pure clarity of life and path ahead.

No wonder, then, to keep the magic of the moment alive in me, I quickly placed the Chrystals around my neck.

She has come home to me, my Chotomoni. I am wearing her around my neck.

On the isle side in a printed border white silk sari, Chotomoni, Dr Pratima Konar seen here with her friend and room mate with whom she lived over seven years in London, doing her Ph.D. This picture was taken when they were visiting Holland. She wrote at the back of the photo taken in the 60s, Mira Dasgupta and Pratima on boat in Europe.

The world is what we need

Eighty four million lifetimes
Taken for this one lifetime
Eighty four million births
Just to evolve and be blessed
with a life of a human being –

In order that we may See the Self

What good is his
who fasts for a week
or who has vowed celibacy
for years on end?
After the penance of
Eighty four million lifetimes -
the labour undergone
Over eons just to be born
as man?

The chaos “outside” is merely
A projection we call the world
It is what we create
In order that we may be thrust within
To fulfil the purpose of a human life
To See our Self

There is no light
Without darkness;
No rays of the sun
Without objects;
No stillness in the lake
Without ripples.

We need the chaos of the “outside”
The eighty four million lifetimes in different forms
We need to go through the penance
of creating the “outside”
To be born as human
Only to See our Self within

For
Without water to reflect
the moon is invisible to itself.
- Julia Dutta

According to ancient Indian thoughts, the human life comes once after eighty four million lifetimes in different forms over eons. It is a fruit of penance over lifetimes that one goes through, only to be born a man.

Why should this be the case?

What is it about this life as human that we must go through eighty four million lifetimes to wait for this one?

At a biological level, it seems apparent that the human brain requires that many births to evolve that many brain cells which then make possible what we call “consciousness”. It is of utmost importance that it is only the conscious human being, who is capable of striving for realisation. And that seems to be the ultimate purpose of this human life.

The search for Self is primary to human existence. According to Vedanta, there are three states – the waking, dream and deep sleep state. In deep sleep, there is no world. In the dream state, the dreamer creates the world outside and involves itself in it, but in the waking state, neither the dream state nor the deep sleep state exists. The dreamer wakes and realises that it was all a dream. In fact it is he who was dreaming. He created his dream and now that he is awake, the dream has ceased to be.

There is a third state – the state of deep dreamless sleep. Sometimes, when he wakes up, he realises that he has had a deep sleep, totally free of all dreams.

By these findings he becomes aware that after all, the dream state which disappeared as soon as he woke up was after all false. He can be said to have woken up.

Similarly, it is evident that we create the world outside, in order that we may be disillusioned with it and wake up to the inside – the Self, which is always there, forever still, never moving and never to be found in the outside. Yet, even though it is apparent that the search for Self is inside, it must necessarily begin outside, whether it is in this lifetime or in the eighty four million lifetimes we pass through, in order that we may be born as human.


We need the chaos of the “outside”
The eighty four million lifetimes in different forms
We need to go through the penance
of creating the “outside”
To be born as human
Only to See our Self within

For
Without water to reflect
the moon is invisible to itself.

Painting picture: By Jamini Roy