Somethings’ Gotta Give!

Slow Down, Bemoans The Good Earth

Since quite a while I have been nursing a pet peeve and admonishing young members of my family about their lifestyle and generally been behaving like my mother did, with her brood of ten, as she raised us all, each as different from the other as chalk and cheese. Super mom that she was!

My pet peeve for the last couple of years has been that we are all consuming much too much of everything. That we have too many clothes bursting out of our wardrobes, too many shoes. That the ‘fridge is always full… that we buy things we don’t eat, need or will ever use.  We change mobile phones all too frequently and unnecessarily. Bring home every new gadget in the market, just for the heck of it. That we go to over-priced restaurants and come home only to say, ‘Home food is so much better, honestly!’

Well, personally it’s been a while since I decided, ‘no more clothes.’ And by and large I have stuck to it. Unless there has been a wedding in the family, or I have travelled to Kashmir and been moved by its plight and gone ahead and bought a dozen kaftans and two dozen woollen shawls with amazing embroidery and returned home to gift them to friends and family. Other than supporting a cause, I hardly tend to spend.

You must know, we really don’t need much to be happy.

Not in terms of clothes, or food or other material comforts. If we have a nice, clean and comfortable home, where we can be peaceful and joyful with our family, that is all that matters. And if we have a few good relationships, nice friends we can call our own, who are sincere and genuine, life is made.

So what is it about, that I have been chiding the young ones around me… “Do you really have to get another Fitbit?” I question. Or, I exclaim in total horror, “What! Another parcel from Amazon! Another pair of running shoes!” The feeble reply, “I need one for running, the others I use casually,” only gets my goat!!

Point is, living life in the slow lane is what I have been advocating.

Obscene consumption was never my scene. Mindless, senseless acquisitions, I felt only took a toll on the earth’s abundance. The worst is the culture of ‘throwaway’. In my time, which continues even now, we looked for things that would last. Things that would stay forever. Become our ‘friends.’ Pens, pencils, erasers in school, for example. The Pilot fountain pen I considered lucky, which I used to write every exam from class VIII until my final year in school,  I still have with me. The pink and blue ‘scented rubber,’ with the letter F was my favourite. And I would use it in a manner that the last little bit of the F could be deciphered right until the very end, until it got so tiny, it could be used no more.

There were clothes I still remember. A smart, short, red corduroy dress with a long zipper in the centre, in the front, which I would wear often and jeans worn way above the ankle, with crossed laces on either sides, and shorts that I lived in, all my growing years. The Duckback green ‘rubber’ raincoat, the smell of which still lingers in my mind and gets me all nostalgic. We used all these for years… it was never about, “I want a new one because I am fed up with this one!” A new one came when the old one became old. It was as simple as that. Good, old-fashioned, middle-class value system.

For the past few years I have been acutely aware of which way the world was heading. And with a vengeance I have been going in the opposite direction. Even international travel was taking a back seat in my life.

My wabi-sabi leanings helped. My inner voice guided, my upbringing came to the fore. Even my food habits got simpler and simpler. What mattered was my dogs, nurturing the trees I had planted at my farm, biting, excited as a child, into the luscious mangoes that came from saplings I had put into the earth 20 years ago. Believe me, consuming ordinary, unattractive but organic vegetables offers a kind of satisfaction you don’t derive even if you went out and got yourself a 10 carat solitaire! So senseless. Or is it useless!

It’s the small things in life that truly matter.

But why this outpouring now?

The coronavirus...

This tiny organism has got us all down on our knees. It has linked the whole wide world, with one delicate thread. That what we call survival.

It has cracked a whip, got us to a standstill, got us down on our knees. It has put the fear of the devil in us. It has got us thinking, it has made us fearful, stay indoors. It has cut us away, locked us down. It is telling us in its own way, “Hey, stop, slow down, wake up, smell the coffee... err you will soon be dead!”

Really, do think, what is life, if it not something that God has gifted to us, to cherish and to keep, until He takes it away. We have really taken everything for granted. We have been moving at a pace so frenetic, that the earth was trudging, huffing and puffing, just to keep up with us. We have been abusing and misusing the bounty of the earth, with not even a thought, forget care and concern, about its depleting resources.

“Something’s gotta give…” the earth decided, and gave us the corona.

And now it’s up to us to derive our lessons.

Less is more. Family first. Inner strength. Spirituality. Faith. Love, not hatred. Brotherhood. Sisterhood. Friends. Kindness. Empathy. Humanity. Animals. Nature. Cleanliness…it’s Godliness. Parents, old and ailing. Love thy neighbour. Work sincerely. Live simply. Stay home. Create. Share. Help. Laugh. Spread joy. Read. Sleep. Walk. Keep fit, be healthy. Eat, mindfully. Be content. Show gratitude. Pray. Believe.

And above all, remember there is a God above. And He is in control. Not a leaf moves without his consent.

Go back in time. Slow down. Appreciate. Apologise.