Rashmi's Space

In the next three days, we will step into the New Year. Make a clean new beginning – bidding farewell to something old and familiar. I hate goodbyes. But then, I also love new beginnings! And what better than the fag end of the year to remind us of that? And so I sit, lost in thought, at the dining room table, watching the sunlight stream through the bay window, the light catching shimmering threads in the sheer curtain that adorns the window, and has rarely ever been used in the past year. I need to use those curtains, I think. Draw them close at least once in the New Year. For that matter, I need to have a place of my own to work from too, not just end up at the dining table with my laptop – another thing to get done in the New Year. But even as I think it, I know I will never use that curtain. It will just stay there, adorning the two ends of the window. Nor will I ever get organised in a single place that will be my ‘place of work’ in the house… because that is how I roll. ...

Every house has a routine. Every family has a routine. The husband does a few things, the wife does a few; and the daily grind goes on, like clockwork. So long as everyone sticks to their jobs, and does them perfectly, things go right. Kids reach school on time, adults get to work on time, and all is right with the world. Of course, as simple as it sounds, it also sometimes gets monotonous with everyone just doing ‘the same old.’ And every once in a while, the thought does occur – what if, say, one day the husband did the cooking and the wife drove the kids to school? Wouldn’t it be great to just drive, with songs on, drop the kids, and on the way back, listen to one’s favourite songs? Ah, what a blissful hour that would be! What’s more, there would be hot breakfast ready, thanks to the husband who would have been busy in the kitchen while the wife was out driving and listening to songs – I mean, dropping the kids to school… And then, some days, the smooth clockwork ...

Humility. We have all heard of it. We have all learnt about it. We have all heard our idols speak volumes about it (well, most of our idols). So, we all know humility is a virtue. And that it is important to practice it. Make it a part of our life. An inseparable part. And yet, we hardly ever practice it in real life. We rarely find ourselves in a position where we do something more than ‘graciously’ accepting a compliment received by us. Very rarely do we see ourselves giving compliments back to people who (may or may not) deserve them. When someone says something good about us, we are more than happy to take credit for whatever it is that we have done good. Without giving a single thought, to questions like – are we the only ones responsible for it? OR... are we the only ones who deserve credit for it? What we do instead, is feel extremely happy about it (nothing wrong in that); and believe that what has come to us has come to us because we deserve it. We are ‘worth it’ (...