We think sometimes that poverty is only
being hungry, naked and homeless.
The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.
We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
- Mother Teresa, 1910 – 1997
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Granny used to say to us, "Wait until you reach my age!" and sometimes she used the indian quotes such as 'thread follows the eye of the needle thus it is in real life'...
So, yes indeed. Here I am, and I realize that this is how and what Granny probably felt.
Loneliness has hit rock bottom and surfaced in a tornado that takes my entire concentration and psyche in a corner to sit alone, in the middle of all that is going on outside with the rude loud careless people who go about business no realizing or knowing that there is someone on the other side of the wall who suffers day and night out of physical, mental and emotional torment.
I feel another twitch and pull from the nerves in my head, a freezing pain in my now lifeless toes and a sharp agonizing pain in the back reminding me to 'take it easy'... As my blurry eyes strain to read what I type in haste lest I lose sight out of so much usage and long hours at the computer, and ... and... and...
But what makes me stop at this page and ramble away, I type on... is that look of my granny, my mum, my dad, and many more people I have witness go through the misfortunate of being victims of loneliness.
Having lived through some fine times in their lives they probably did not feel as unhappy as I do. Passed have they but left behind with me what they treasured both material and their profound values. Profound indeed, but then I ask, surely, is that really what society supports in the day and age of now? Perhaps not and perhaps that is why, because I trust too much, I get beaten rotten.
Today I sit in a home where the emptiness stares at me as I attempt desperately to ignore the loud humming of the airconditoner of a neighbor living in the apartment above ours, or the heartless ceaseless loud roarings of the trucks and mechanics attending to the trucks they repair in the gulley on the other side of the wall. I try and tend to the searing pain in my leg, ignoring the mosquito hovering over and around in an attempt to ease my throbbing head or the arthritis biting into my shoulder. why dear god, in this quiet unspoken torture where no one wants to listen to me, many make fun of me, and many many more are happy that I suffer do I need to live in this world?
Is this what Granny probably experienced? Is this probably how she felt?
Friday, September 14, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Once upon a Time
How time flies and how life slips through. . .
It is like sand simply flowing.
Almost a year ago, I start to write and lack of facilities and sometimes the zest missing, I did not continue narrating.
So here goes, as of today, what life reviewed through the aging mind and tired sunken eyes, I look around and recall what I intended to write about in my previous post.
Memory goes as back to those days at Pani Pat Road. The clean and well maintained streets of Ngara and particularly our lane where the residents prided in being a part of the "elites" and many owned huge cars and houses. Perhaps of the business class people and perhaps by some chance of nature, my mum managed to get a room to rent. I do not remember the move from Eastleigh to Ngara, perhaps I was just born then, but I do recall the little room where we all crammed up during our early childhood days. I believe that it was meant to be a kitchen, but the landlady had rented it to my mother.
So that beautiful place with a two huge trees in the compound, and cemented seats on the sides of each door leading to the rooms. I remember the hindu neighbors who left soon after we moved in. The stairs leading to the floor upstairs where we were allocated a toilet. There was no bathroom for us. The landlady and her sons and their families lived upstairs.
And I remember how we had to fill the huge water 'drum' with a pipe each time it exhausted.
It is like sand simply flowing.
Almost a year ago, I start to write and lack of facilities and sometimes the zest missing, I did not continue narrating.
So here goes, as of today, what life reviewed through the aging mind and tired sunken eyes, I look around and recall what I intended to write about in my previous post.
Memory goes as back to those days at Pani Pat Road. The clean and well maintained streets of Ngara and particularly our lane where the residents prided in being a part of the "elites" and many owned huge cars and houses. Perhaps of the business class people and perhaps by some chance of nature, my mum managed to get a room to rent. I do not remember the move from Eastleigh to Ngara, perhaps I was just born then, but I do recall the little room where we all crammed up during our early childhood days. I believe that it was meant to be a kitchen, but the landlady had rented it to my mother.
So that beautiful place with a two huge trees in the compound, and cemented seats on the sides of each door leading to the rooms. I remember the hindu neighbors who left soon after we moved in. The stairs leading to the floor upstairs where we were allocated a toilet. There was no bathroom for us. The landlady and her sons and their families lived upstairs.
And I remember how we had to fill the huge water 'drum' with a pipe each time it exhausted.
Monday, June 6, 2011
once upon a time
What is it that all living things seek on a daily routine? what is this cycle of waking, washing, eating, and a full day's toiling? What is the driving force?
Let's take a break and stop whatever we are doing and close our eyes. Visualise, if we did not have to wake up so early, no time limit to laying in bed and lazing around. Why shower or wash? Why change clothes, eat, go to work? Can we imagine a life without these bare happenings? The rest fall in place as we go along. But what is it that makes it necessary for us to religiously do each action day-per-day?
Of course, it is our need to fulfill our duty as human being. Just as it is for all living being. a routine and daily strive in any form whatsoever, just of the one and only, survival.
Survival, in my opinion, is a that stern need to keep us going and continue to look, look and look without fail for our daily needs.
Apart from the 'Leave it to the universe' confirmation and affirmation, there has to be an action to make things happen.
I watched many of my elders since I was a little girl and their endless effort and strive for making ends meet, or to ensure that the basic needs were availed.
Thus, once upon a time, in the poverty stricken neighbourhood, we lived holding each other's hands during all our times of adversity and yet again held each other's hands when playing ring-a-rosie or such like games.
I here begin to narrate what we weathered in bits as it comes to mind.
,,,
Let's take a break and stop whatever we are doing and close our eyes. Visualise, if we did not have to wake up so early, no time limit to laying in bed and lazing around. Why shower or wash? Why change clothes, eat, go to work? Can we imagine a life without these bare happenings? The rest fall in place as we go along. But what is it that makes it necessary for us to religiously do each action day-per-day?
Of course, it is our need to fulfill our duty as human being. Just as it is for all living being. a routine and daily strive in any form whatsoever, just of the one and only, survival.
Survival, in my opinion, is a that stern need to keep us going and continue to look, look and look without fail for our daily needs.
Apart from the 'Leave it to the universe' confirmation and affirmation, there has to be an action to make things happen.
I watched many of my elders since I was a little girl and their endless effort and strive for making ends meet, or to ensure that the basic needs were availed.
Thus, once upon a time, in the poverty stricken neighbourhood, we lived holding each other's hands during all our times of adversity and yet again held each other's hands when playing ring-a-rosie or such like games.
I here begin to narrate what we weathered in bits as it comes to mind.
,,,
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