Life Update:: A visit to Granny’s place

This year has been nothing short of full of surprises. Every month, I have traveled with my family either to my brother’s house or to a place even farther. One such occasion of travel was special. On 14th March, we decided that we would visit my granny’s home in Nira.

Nostalgia would be an understatement. My grandmother’s place was always special to me or for that matter to all of the grandchildren. It was a place where we were children again. My granny/Aaji, always treated us like we were still school-going kids. She used to feed us all kinds of delicious foods and used to hear us endlessly nag about life. When her patience would wear thin, she would snap us out of the bed mood with harsh-sounding but honest words. She was the sort of lady that no one would want to be on her bad side. The most adorable quality of her was that she was true to herself.

We all loved her a lot until Corona took her away from us. She must be around 75+ but if it hadn’t been for Corona, she could have been with us for a few more years without a doubt.

After her passing, our trips to Aaji’s home reduced. But when my son was born I had the urge to take the blessings of my Aaji by visiting her house.

Here is my account of what transpired during the trip.

Disability and the village

Whenever I visit the village, there is always the same amazement on the faces of the villagers. They marvel that a person with a disability, who sits in a wheelchair, can drive a car independently. Disability is still a taboo subject in the village. A child with a disability is still considered a burden. Villagers and relatives don’t even try to give that soul a chance to have a happy life. Access to education is still a barrier for most of the disabled individuals. Apart from the physical access, there is an additional challenge of lack of support from home. Since the parents don’t know how education can change the life of a disabled person, they don’t put enough effort into taking the child to school. That is where the downfall starts.

We have a neighbor whose son has a mental disability. There is a pension scheme from the govt. This pension offers a minimal income to families who have a dependent disabled child. Getting it approved by the gram sevak is not as easy as it is made to look on the policy paper. I heard the struggles of our neighbor. It is a very hard task to get it completed. Poor people are made to struggle for their rightful money.

I hope that applying for this disability pension scheme will become easy.

The soil connection

We have about 1 acre of land in a remote place in my village. We went there to harvest the produce. We see this sort of thing in movies. I have felt the peace when you touch your farm’s soil, its produce. That happiness can’t be expressed. The tranquility of the area where there is nothing but fields across the horizon, is amazing. No hustle bustle noise of the city. No honking noise, it is just you and the peace.

There is a sweltering heat of the afternoon sun but there are ample amounts of trees to give cool shades. There is no other option but to walk the narrow lanes of the field between the crops but the touch of soft crumbling soil makes it feel almost meditative. There is a different level of pleasure in extracting water from the well before you take a sip. A clear sounds of chirping birds even in the middle of the afternoon.

A simple life, fulfilling life

As part of the visit, we also saw a dam where there were hardly any water reserves. You can see the empty basin of the dam. The dry mud, the dead fishes. I am a bit worried that if the monsoon doesn’t hit Maharashtra, we all will be in trouble. For a person like me, I do have another source of income which is my salary but what about the farmers who purely live on the farms? How difficult is it for them to wait for the monsoon and plan for the year?

Habit break

So if you are a frequent visitor to my blog, you might notice that I have committed to self-improvement. I act on that commitment using my daily habits. But sometimes life takes over and habits get paused. One of those types of events was when I was at my granny’s place. I have been visiting that house since my childhood but what made this trip very special was that it was my son’s first visit to my granny’s place, we all were very emotional. So I allowed myself to take a break from my stringent habit tracking. I thought what could go wrong? Sadly, everything went wrong from there. I immediately fell back to the old ways of days. Just laying around, with no meaningful goal for the day. Engaging in banter. I was free from self-checking, constantly trying to be better.

One night while resting, I was speaking to my wife Meg. She happened to mention that you look dull when you don’t read. That was a wake-up call. I immediately looked at my habits scores. I was cruising at 80% earlier which fell to 40%. I was shocked that just a break of 3 days brought my scores down so much. Well since then my scores have not stabilized. It was as if I let the cat out of the bag, and now getting back into the discipline is tough. Having said that I cherish a win against a tough opponent I.e. My mind.

Summary

In summary, the trip was a dose of nostalgia, where I experienced the tranquility of rural life and the challenges of disability stigma in the village. I really hope that there is a low risk of drought in Maharashtra and its impact on farmers. During the trip, I learned it is essential that we don’t deviate from discipline of the life. Always remember the person you want to be.

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