HEIRLOOMS!
I have only two precious heirlooms — one, a watch from my grandfather and another is a set of Rudraksha beads which I recently got strung in gold which belonged to my grandmother. Once, someone exclaimed that I was foolish to get such simple Rudraksha beads put in gold, I simply smiled.
A few days ago, in my grandfather’s watch which is so so old, the small needle got displaced and fell out. One of my students who clearly has a super keen eye, turns around and asks me — “Akshayee why do you wear such an old and broken watch? People like new things, why do you like old things.” I knew that this was going to be a tough one to explain to him. But I tried and I told him that I like old things and that this belonged to my grandfather. I told him that my grandfather from what my mother had told me was one of the ‘kindest’, ‘empathetic’ and ‘most generous’ souls who did everything and expected nothing in return.
I told my little one that sometimes I am not able to be like him even though I want to and sometimes I feel tired and sometimes I also feel lost on this path and so I wear this watch. It is a reminder for me. In today’s world where many want to believe that they are righteous while they are simply narcissists, where many thrive on greed despite being fortunate when compared to most others and while many others are even oblivious to the idea of being an empath or are completely misdiagnosing it; I am trying to practice a set of values that hold no place or significance anymore.
My recent past is a testament to the above words and even though I know that each day comes filled with it’s dark voids, all I try and do is adorn my two precious heirlooms which in the real world have no value and through the energies in them, I continue to push on, some days I am able to do it with grace and some other days I fail miserably to even communicate and in some days I simply decide to crawl back into my shell and hibernate so I can pick all the shattered pieces and put them together.
It is a process you see… like composing a piece of music or trying to write a story or make a painting that eventually must communication the inner soul. This process is not new to me, I am an artist but the problem is that this form of communication has no value anymore and so it has lost it’s essence and hence, many view it either as a weakness, or a trivial abnormality or even a waste of time and space and hence, write it off or completely shut it out so the process never finds a true form which can then be communicated to an audience.
ALAS! Yet we bide our time…