A Grateful Heart
Day 3
“Life is a book of poems
Life is a poetry book
Where does it have space,
To keep accounts?”
This is the first stanza of one of the most beautiful Malayalam lyrics of all time. The lyricist is P.Bhaskaran, and it is a very old Malayalam movie song. The lyric goes on to say that God opened this beautiful book in front of man, and lighted a lamp for him to see it by. We must enjoy each word and line, it goes on to say, but fools, instead of appreciating the poetry, use life to add and subtract imaginary numbers: grudges, misunderstanding, biases.
I am grateful to my parents for teaching me a value system that is not based on money or bank balances, but on the intrinsic worth of humanity. Back when I was growing up, in Kerala, gifts on birthdays and festival days, were always books. My mother was taught Sanskrit in a school, and at the end of the term, just before school shut down for the summer vacation, she used to bring home books from the library, at the rate of 20, for each of us. We were three siblings, crazy about words and reading. We finished all sixty books within the month.
We went for movies sometimes, escorted by one or both parents.
Apart from books, the only source of entertainment was an ancient radio, which played Malayalam songs, soundtracks of movies, and small five-minute, or 60-minute dramatic plays. We also pored over the newspaper: read every single word, from back to front.
My parents taught us, by precept and practice, that all languages are beautiful, and the more languages one knows, the more you know of the culture of people speaking that language. My mother was a Sanskrit scholar, my father, versatile in Hindi, I was studying English Literature. Malayalam poured through our veins. That’s four languages bubbling and simmering within that large house into which mango and jackfruit, teak and guava trees peeped when the breeze played with their leaves.
We were also taught that all religions and all cultures are to be respected and that all opinions, however contrary they are to one’s viewpoint, must be listened to, and entertained. We were also reprimanded, very sharply, if we made fun of anyone who was not as fortunate as we were, either in terms of knowledge, wealth, or physical and mental health.
In a world where competition is rife, where we are told that only the first rank has value, not the second, and where we are constantly being asked ‘five years from now where do you see yourself?’, what my parents instilled in me probably makes me a freak or a misfit. But I am happy. Does that count? I know not. Perhaps, in the general scheme of things, it doesn’t. Yet, I am happy where I am.
In fact, the reason why I began writing on Medium, was because one of my friends, who was my student, Sujona Chatterjee, asked me to write about why I am happy despite having retired. “Write about it on Medium,” she urged me, “more people need to hear that retirement is not something to be feared or hated.” Which is why I began writing on Medium a couple of months ago.
Which also brings me to my topic for tomorrow, in this November Gratitude Calendar: What my students taught me.
“Life is a book of poems
Life is a poetry book
Where does it have space,
To keep accounts?”
©️ Suma Narayan
This is a response to one of the light-filled prompts of Ravyne Hawke ‘s publication, Promptly Written, for the month of November. Today is day 3. Stay grateful. Stay glad.
