Category: Life & Living

Understanding your mother

I am a proud Hindu and consider Hinduism ,as one of the most liberal religions in the world. Hinduism gives me the liberty and space, to practise the religion the way I want to ,and I love that. I have never been a great believer, in many of the rituals of Hinduism.

However, of late, as I experienced some of the rituals, I realise the value of each of them. I was recently on a pilgrimage to Rameshwaram, Varnasi, Prayagraj and Gaya to perform Shradh ( death rituals) of my parents, who died almost four decades back. This is a ritual, which is performed by children for their parents and forefathers ,at least once in their life time and is considered sacrosanct.

The belief is that, if you perform this ritual ,your parents and forefathers will be liberated from the cycle of life and death and will attain moksha (or we may salvation) for themselves. I performed this ritual with my spouse, with sincere devotion and completed it, over three weeks, in the month of March.

While I was performing this ritual in Gaya, which is one of the holy places, where you perform this ritual, the Pandit ( learned guru) explained to us ,why we need to be grateful to our mothers ,in our lives. He explained the whole cycle of life right from conception in the womb of our mothers till our life time, He also explained how our mothers sacrifice everything to make us live and be prosperous.

The day the mother learns about conception and it is confirmed, she is joyous about impending birth of her child. But , she experiences physical and emotional distress. She may have nausea, vomiting, sleeplessness and a lot of other known and unknown physical distresses, which needs to be experienced ,to be understood.

Then in the first trimester of pregnancy, while the mother is taken care of by her parents and family, with nutritious food and care , she sacrifices her sleep, her physical and emotional health ,for the welfare of the child. She may give up her career, her sleep, her food habits, her hobbies and many other good things in her life ,for the good of her child in the stomach.

The second trimester the child grows in the womb and the mother being inexperienced ,has to take extra care ,not to hurt the child physically or emotionally. She is willing to sacrifice a lot of life’s pleasures, to rear the child in her womb and ensure a healthy delivery.

The final trimester may be as challenging ,as the first two. The mother feels the motions of the child inside her, at odd hours. She wakes up in the middle of the night and sits down, so as to allow the child to sleep peacefully. She may listen to music or even sing to keep the child calm and undisturbed.

Then the delivery happens and the first five years ,are still a big struggle for the mother and father ,to take care of the child. The father supports the mother to take care of the child ,but the pains and tribulations of the mother, has to be experienced to be believed.

If we look back, many of us ,may take our parents for granted and especially our mother. We are not aware of the unlimited sacrifices they make, for our well being. This ritual brought tears to my eyes ,as the Pandit narrated all the sacrifices of the mother ,in great details.

I bow in gratitude to my mother and salute all the mothers, who have sacrificed so much ,for their children. I have seen my sisters, my spouse and even my daughter , go through this phase of motherhood.

Let us learn to grateful to our mothers and commit to take care of them, right through our lives.

S Ramesh Shankar

31st May 2025

Foundations of life

A building is as strong as its foundation. The stronger the foundation, the longer it lasts ,and survives all natural calamities in its life. Life is no different . In my definition, the foundation stones of life are our parents, teachers, friends/colleagues/life partner and our own self belief.

Let me dwell a bit ,into each block of the foundations of our life. The first block of foundation is laid by our parents. Our mother gives birth to us and our parents care and mould as kids. They are our role models in life and we think ,whatever they do or say ,are the right things in life.

We begin to follow their footsteps and try to replicate their behaviour and values, in our every day life. Most of the time, we do not even question their wisdom and blindly follow their guidance, almost like a religious diktat.

Our parents sacrifice everything for our well being and they care for us, more than they do for themselves. Our mothers sacrifice their sleep, their well being and many a time, their career too, to rear us ,into better human beings.

Our fathers do ,more than they say. Their actions speak louder than their words. They are like the silent torch bearers ,in our lives. They discipline us and guide us to differentiate between the right and the wrong. Both our parents supplement each other in inculcating the right values in our lives.

Then as we enter school, our teachers take over the baton from our parents. They complement the efforts of our parents. Apart from infusing the requisite knowledge and skills, they also open the doors and windows of the world, to us.

The teachers push us, to realise our full potential; hold our hand ,when we fail in our efforts and keep us grounded, when we are successful. They take pride ,in the success of their pupils. Their efforts are felt by the students and parents ,and not necessarily expressed in words or deeds.

Then we get involved with friends, both at life and work. Our friends are like our partners in life. They run the marathon with us. They encourage us to participate and are there always, to share our joy and sorrow.

Friends in life and colleagues at work ,including our leaders ,propel us to move to the next level ,in every phase of our lives. We do get our life partners to join us in this journey and they too play a pivotal role like our friends and colleagues. They show us the mirror and are always beside us , in the thick and thin of life.

Last but not the least ,is our self belief. We need to believe ,that we can dream anything in life and transform that dream into reality, through our hard work and actions. Just dreaming ,may not be good enough. But converting those dreams into reality, is dependant on our own self confidence, belief and consequent actions.

So, parents, teachers, friends, colleagues including our life partners ,lay the foundations of our life. We need to be eternally grateful ,to all of them. We need to believe in ourselves also always,, to convert our wishes into reality ,through our actions.

Let us bow in gratitude today.

S Ramesh Shankar

31st May 2025

Earn before you spend

As we grow up in life, we love to acquire material things and spend as freely as we can. I think there is nothing wrong to buy ,everything we desire in the world, at the quickest possible time.

We grow up as kids and in school ,our needs and desires may be limited to books, toys or food occasionally. Then as we grow as adolescents, our desires grow along with us. We aspire for gadgets and also vacations and drives and so on. Then we want bikes and cars. so our needs and wants grow faster than our human growth.

This is basic human evolution and may be nothing wrong at all. The one thing, which may come in our way ,is the limitation of resources, at our disposal. We depend on our parents and elders, till we are able to stand on our own feet and start earning our livelihood. At this stage in life, we love spending without much thinking.

Then ,when we get our first salary, we feel like going around and buying the world around us. But our limited resources, make us realise that this remains an elusive dream. We look at other friends and relatives and keep dreaming that some day we will able to conquer the world and buy whatever we want from our own earnings, without depending on anyone.

Again this thinking appears rational and realistic. However, the day we buy things from our own earnings without depending on others, we suddenly realise the value of things around us. A simple thing like, we do not want to waste food ,if we have paid for it. We become thrifty and respect the value of earning and spending.

So the simple learning in life could be, that we need to earn before we spend. Some of us tend to live on credit and loans and imagine that some day we will be debt free and let us enjoy today. Some nations have promoted ,living on debts and credit cards. In India, we have always been inculcated to live on our own savings and never on loans.

This learning is invaluable ,when put it into practise. If we are able to put a simple rule, that we will save at least 20% of our earning every month and then only spend the rest, we may realise that we would never live in an illusory world ,ever. If we earn before we spend, we realise the value of everything in life , in a very experiential way.

I remember visiting a music store at least for ten long years, admiring a music system, which I loved ,but could never afford to buy. It took me ten long years before I could save the money and buy it. This made me realise ,the value of everything I aspired in life.

The simple equation for a successful life could to be earn before you spend and save for the future. Another learning could be, to learn to live without debts and loans. The credit cards, is a great innovation but we need to ensure that we never spend more than we can afford and pay the bills before the due date ,always.

Let us learn to earn before we spend from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

4th May 2025