Poornima Manco

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Incapacitated

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It has been two, nearly three weeks that I have been incapacitated with a back injury. From being in acute agony, to being in relative discomfort, it has been an illuminating journey.

I am not a stranger to ill health. However, I have always been the one standing outside, looking in. Never having suffered from any major chronic complaints myself (touchwood), it has always been an experience once removed. I have seen suffering, incapacity, hospitalisation and death, all caused by various kinds of disease. It has not been the most pleasant thing to watch. Ironically, though, I have lived in a bubble, thinking that none of it is ever going to touch me.

Don’t most of us take our bodies for granted, just a little bit? How often do we stuff that extra slice of cake down, or finish that bottle of wine, or blow off the much needed exercise? Our bodies are amazing mechanisms, but they need an equal amount of love and care lavished on them. Too often, we are chasing our own tails to realise that none of it will be possible without a fully functioning, healthy body.

Which brings me to the point of where does the mind come into play? We have had an extremely stressful time of it, in the last few months. Instinctively, I feel this has contributed to my injury and subsequent incapacitation. Mainstream medicine has accepted how powerful the mind is. In my case, it has literally broken my back. It has forced me to slow down, take stock, introspect and most importantly, let go.

As I am mending my body and my mind, I have reconnected with people I have not seen or spoken to, in years. I have had the time to laugh a little, cry a little and live a lot. So, these three weeks have not been wasted. If anything, they have taught me the lesson of living in the moment. For it is ‘this’ moment that counts. Not the one that has passed, or the one that may or may not arrive.

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Friends

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What is a friend? The dictionary defines it as ‘A person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations’. Yet, that seems such a narrow definition. There are all kinds of friends, just as there are all kinds of family members or people, for that matter.

In my not too long, nor too short life, I have come across various categories of  ‘friends’. There are the good time friends. The ones who are always up for a laugh, or a party, but disappear at the first sign of trouble. Then, there are the lip service friends, who promise to be there for you, no matter what, but when the ‘what’ happens, the pertinent question becomes, “where are they?”. Then there are the acquaintance friends. The ones you meet occasionally, accidentally, and have a nice chat with, but put each other out of your minds as soon as you move on. There are the school friends, the ones you share a happy history with, and relive the innocence of those times whenever you meet, rare as that maybe.

However, the special ones, the ones you hold dear to your heart, are the 3 am friends. The ones who will show up at the first sign of trouble, unbidden. The ones who will take the shirts of their own backs to make sure that you are covered. The ones who will enjoy a laugh and a party but equally be ready to wipe your tears and hold your hand. These friends, few and far between as they maybe, are the ones to cherish. Love them as they love you. Show them the same appreciation. For you are so very lucky to have them in your life.

Here’s to my beautiful best friends:

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.

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Why does nudity scare us?

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Recently I took a life drawing class with some friends. It was meant to be a birthday experience, a bit of fun. What I found interesting though, was the response it elicited. From nervous giggling to outright horror, most people (including my children) seemed to find the idea of us drawing a nude male model as quite scandalous.

I must admit that I was a bit nervous too. This wasn’t just to do with the fact that I would have to look at a strange man’s naked body, but also to do with my own inhibitions. Growing up in the ultra conservative Indian society of the 70’s and the 80’s, where a kiss between a hero and heroine on screen was portrayed by two flowers being roughly pushed together, the fact that I would have to not just look at, but also draw a man’s private parts made me acutely aware of my traditional sensibilities.

Why are we so afraid of nudity? What does it signify to us? A male or a female form sans clothing is a beautiful thing. After all, we don’t arrive in this world, bundled up in Gucci. So, why, as we grow, do we lose that infantile innocence and joy of relishing ourselves in the purest form? Why does nudity get mixed up with sexuality? They are two very different concepts altogether.

As it turned out, my inhibitions took themselves for a walk, as I sketched, what was first a man, then a form, and eventually, light and shadows. I learnt to convey through my sketch, the beauty of what stood in front of me. From my initial embarrassment, and reluctance to look at his private parts, I grew bold and drew them. And honestly, at that point, it could have been a chair, or an apple, or a vase with flowers that stood there. For I was learning about creating something out of nothing. A bit of charcoal, a few lines, a lot of smudging and blending, and voila! suddenly there appeared a man on my paper.

I felt myself loosen up a bit. Not enough to go running on a nudist beach, but just enough to appreciate the beauty that lies in the naked form.

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Birthday Blues

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So, the milestone birthday has been and gone. All I felt at the time was excited anticipation and a cognisance of being very blessed to have my loved ones around me.

A few years on, and around my birthday this time, I have had the worst case of blues. Not being a depressive personality, this has taken me quite by surprise. It’s a feeling of listlessness, lethargy, lassitude; feeling devalued, friendless and lost. It is quite difficult to analyse one’s own state of mind. There is no distance there, no sense of perspective.

Is it age related? Perhaps. Post forty, one starts to feel that life is heading downhill. Most of what I hoped to achieve, most of what life could offer, is maybe behind me now? Or maybe, it’s just all of life’s recent events that have snowballed inside of me, and Wham! when I am least expecting it, sledgehammered me into this state of ennui. I have been tearful and morose, cheerless and apathetic. Not much fun at all. Particularly when my children have excitedly baked me a cake, my husband has spoilt me rotten…and my guilt at not cartwheeling happily through the day has only compounded my misery.

So, here’s what I have decided upon. Life is for the living. Forty two or Eighty four, it is what I make of it. I refuse, from this moment on, to be unhappy or self absorbed or let small, inconsequential matters take over what is essentially, a very fortunate life. My mantra hereon is Carpe Diem! Seize the day!

Amen.

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School ties

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A while ago a friend contacted me and asked me to write an article for my school magazine. It was more than twenty years since I had left school, and for a while I couldn’t figure out what I could write that would be of interest to the students there today.  Then I thought, surely, even as the world has spun on it’s axis, and people have changed, some experiences are still the same. The experience of leaving school to go to University…the fear…the trepidation…the sheer enormity of the life that awaits, is universal. So, I wrote a letter to myself, aged 17. Or more precisely, to all the 17 year olds who were waiting for their exam results and nervous about what lay ahead. Here it is.

Dear P,

As you stand on the brink of a new life, you must have so many questions. You are about to leave the security of school, and venture out into the world. You are excited and curious. You feel that there are infinite possibilities ahead of you, and indeed there are. However, there will be many life lessons to be learnt as well. Do you not wish at this time that, somehow you could transport yourself twenty years into the future, and see where life took you? Well, without giving too much of the mystery and wonder of what lies ahead away, here is a glimpse of things you will learn along the way.

For instance, you will make many many friends in the years to come. However, your closest ones will still be the ones you made at school. Someday, you and your best friend will look at each other in amazement, and say, “We have been friends for thirty three years!”

University will seem so liberating after the confines and strictures of school. You will get bolder, and find your voice. Yet every time you submit an assignment that gets graded an ‘A’, you will remember your favourite English teacher from school, who nurtured your love of literature.

You will go through many milestones in life. Marriage, children, changes in career. You will go through the death of a parent. You will wonder in your despair, whether there is any light at the end of the tunnel. You will discover there is. You will find courage within yourself, and empathy within others.

You will learn that the most underrated virtue in the world is kindness, and you will attempt to be kind to those around you; but most especially to yourself.

Living in a western world, you will re acquaint yourself with your Indian values. Your spirituality, embedded in you all those years ago, will quietly make itself felt again. You will try and teach your children the simple philosophies that were an intrinsic part of your upbringing, and feel a glow of satisfaction to see them absorbed, much as you osmosed them unknowingly all those years ago.

There is a part of you that is afraid as well. Scared to leave the security blanket that is school. Scared to leave the familiar environs and head out into the unknown. To that part I say, don’t worry. You are just another sapling that has come out of this beautiful nursery. You have been given the soil of knowledge, the water of love, and the air of spirituality. You will grow strong and steadfast. You will learn to bend with the wind without being uprooted. This is the gift of your alma mater. Go forth and enjoy it.

With love and blessings,

P.

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Nasty or Nice?

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Yesterday I encountered an interesting situation. I, somewhat symbolically, became a punching bag for someone. His (verbal) attack was vicious, unexpected and unwarranted. Now, I do understand that his frustration was directed towards my company. I was just the unfortunate person who happened to be in the line of fire. However, it did get me wondering about the nature of nastiness, provoked or unprovoked.

Anyone who works in a customer service arena will attest that although, nine times out of ten, people are nice, it’s always the tenth- the nasty one- that sticks in the mind. Why is that? Is it because the emotions that a negative encounter stirs up are so much more complex, and likely to linger much after the event?

Moreover, how one deals with something like this also reveals a lot about oneself. Are you nice to nasty, or nasty to nasty? As for me, I stood my ground, and reiterated that the situation was beyond my control. I didn’t turn nasty, but refused to turn into a doormat either. My colleague congratulated me on standing up to the bullying behaviour of this particular person. But he also pointed out something rather thought provoking.

Why had this man not railed at my (male) colleague, yet, repeatedly, insistently, picked on me? Because, as a woman, I was more likely to give him an emotional response. As a woman, I was perhaps, in his mind, more vulnerable, As a woman, it was easier to dump his anger on me.

Living in the West, sometimes it is easy to forget the kind of prejudice that women face in other parts of the world. When something like this happens, I do wonder, whether to men, or certainly these kind of men, women are still the inferior species?

Anyway, back to the man and his outburst. Reminds me of the idiom: You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Had he been nicer, I still wouldn’t have been able to change the situation, but I would certainly have tried to help him in whatever way possible.

Bottom line is, it rarely pays to be nasty in the long run.