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Loneliness and belongingness

The garden

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No home to return to this time. A few months ago, we were feeling un-anchored while planning our upcoming summer-break in the UK. No home to return to this time.

I sat down, thinking, this was a chance to make a home in another part of the UK for a few weeks, wondering where that might be. By the sea. Somewhere quiet and quirky, not-too-long a train-ride from London. Devon! We’d spent a delightful few days with friends there  last year. I looked up houses for short lets and a cabin appeared. It was available for the duration. It was solely solar powered with a good fridge-freezer and all amenities. Most of all it boasted of an array of outdoor spaces. The photographs were a feast. We booked it before it was taken. In our minds our holiday had begun.

On the day, our hosts were at the car park to receive us and help us with our luggage. They asked us if we knew the story of the garden on the clifftop, where our cabin was located. We didn’t.

Jason was an accomplished young geologist, working at a Diamond mine in Angola.

“On 8th November 1998, the Yetwene mine was attacked by rebels. Several of his colleagues were killed and Jason along with 3 expatriates and 5 Angolans were last seen being herded into the bush.  For many years the families were led to believe their men folk were alive.  What followed the disappearance of the men is a story still waiting to be told. When someone ‘disappears’ in such circumstances, it means there is no defined moment when ALL family members can accept the missing person IS dead.  Each person comes to accept that inevitability at different times, in different ways – and even then, there can be an extended period of time when you believe he’s dead but hope he’s alive.  Oscillating between those two states.  He must be dead, but he may be alive!

When the hammer fell signalling this plot was now the Pope family’s – it was an emotional moment for Nev and Alan.  Did it mean they both accepted their son was dead? (Sadly, the answer was “No”.)”

Of all the places we could’ve landed up in, we are here, in a memorial garden by the sea, with the family of a young man who did not come home, a family that actively sought answers, remembered and talked about things and lives that matter.

Can anyone claim to know which is worse?

Knowing your son is dead or not knowing if he is?

This question is invalid as no one can judge any loss as ‘good’, ‘better’ or ‘worse’. I cannot know how Nev felt then and how she feels now. She cannot know how I feel. Sometimes I can hardly identify my own feelings. How can I claim to know anything of others? No one can. It may be a good guess but only in the head. Not in the bones, the middle of the chest. Not in the experience of the drag of gravity.

This is a joyful garden of fragrant pink roses and hand-made big-eyed metallic spiders, massive and tiny, dotted around. It has a playful feel to it. It is clearly, all about love.

If the path of grief is a loving humbling pilgrimage, this is a perfect shelter along the way.

(Resource: Circle of Remembrance – peer-led support groups for bereaved parents)

If not now, when?

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‘This is difficult.’

‘What I need is absolution.’

‘I don’t deserve it. I failed to be a good parent to my son.’

The subject of our meeting last evening was self-compassion, one of the recurring themes in the Circle of Remembrance. It was an opportunity to revisit the ways in which we can be our own best friend. As we have been encouraging the practice of self-compassion in the group for as long as we’ve existed, I assumed it would be an everyday practice for most of our members.

I was surprised to hear the above responses coming forth. The jaws of the beast of guilt must’ve loosened their grip on me.

Three years after Saagar’s death, I heard of ’Self-compassion’ for the very first time. My innate belief was that the only way to progress was to work hard, like the coachman whipping his horses to move forward. Finally, after having lost my marriage, my child and all pride in my professional achievements, I was learning.

Dissecting events from the past and looking at them under a microscope seemed pointless and silly. Still, I was doing it all the time. I had spent most of my life doing the things that I thought I had to do as opposed to the things that I wanted to. And it was never enough. There was always more that could be done. I was always inadequate.

When Saagar was six, I was working full time and studying for exams. When I returned from my Part 1 Fellowship exam, Saagar looked up from his toy helicopter and asked me, “Mamma, did you win?” I was unable to see this was a game, and I needed to enjoy it a little bit. In the middle of all the working and doing, I completely forgot to relax and look after me. I was unable to stop and reevaluate my priorities. This was normal. Everyone around me seemed to be in the same situation.

Through years of therapy, I learnt that I had been the unconscious creator of the jinn that kept me spinning, leaving little time to sit down, relax and have a heart-to-heart. I was invincible and so should everyone else be. Until now, the art of conversation was oblivious to me. I had never witnessed good listening, except in films. I listened to fix as that is what I was trained to do. Sitting around talking was not as credible as being busy, doing important things. That’s what I had seen and here I was, on repeat. But all these hours of sitting with the gift of my therapist’s listening had helped me turn to myself with empathy. Working through various threads of my life had loosened a tight knot. I was able to tease each thread apart and see it for what it was.

I learnt that I was my tyrant and my slave, pushed by the whip of time and pulled by the notion of success. Despite being determined to not become my ancestors, they were more present in me than I was.

Underneath that jumble, sat my grief, patiently waiting. As the thick oil-slick of self-ignorance thinned and washed away, I was able to grieve properly for the suffering and death of my child. A hundred tonnes fell off my shoulders and I bawled with relief – I was perhaps not entirely responsible. I was simply living by what I knew then.

I was worthy of my own kindness.

I deserved to be held gently by me.

In time, I might even forgive myself.

Possibly, even have compassion for me.

For all these years I had been trying my best to serve my patients and family from a punch bowl that had been empty. I couldn’t see this emptiness as I didn’t know what a full one looked like. In my home and work settings, self-sacrificing mothers and doctors were nobility. These ideals had seeped into me while I wasn’t looking. 

But now, thankfully, I could see that my bowl was empty.

I was going to polish it and replenish it gently.

If not now, when?

What’s been good?

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(Canna indica – grows wild by the roadside everywhere in Sakleshpur)

What’s been good?

It’s healthy to ask this of oneself – what’s been good? Not with the aim to overlook or deny what’s not been good or run away from it. Simply to acknowledge the things that have felt and still feel positive, no matter how tiny. The good and the not-so-good coexist but the mind tends to focus and fixate on what we resist which often falls in the latter category. This is a great way to redirect the mind and train it to pick up on the good, one little thing at a time.

Here’s my list from the last few days:

  • An unexpected packet of 100% Cacao powder showed up in the kitchen cupboard. The previous packet had finished. So, yay!!! This kind of a thing is a special blessing when you live at the back of the back-of-the-beyond and the nearest proper confectionery is a five-hour drive away.
  • Our neighbour sent across the freshest, sweetest pineapple from their garden.
  • For the last 24 hours we’ve had no electrical supply (normal) but our inverter worked beautifully, which meant we didn’t spend last evening in darkness.
  • Mangoes are in season!!! Need I say more?
  • The long-awaited monsoon is here. The farmers are happy and the temperature has dropped to a very comfy range.
  • Our landlord was clearing up his Heliconia bed and offered us 35 root balls!
  • There was a break in the rain this morning and I could squeeze a nice little walk in the coffee plantation where I saw the tiniest yellowest butterfly flitting past.
  • The breeze was cool and refreshing.
  • Most of the shoots of the Jade-plant that I was trying to propagate have taken root.
  • Playing rummy with friends yesterday, I surprised myself by closing two hands that were utterly hopeless to start with.
  • When I returned from my walk and opened the fridge, it lit up. The electricity was back.

How does this list help?

It shows us our resourcefulness in the middle of chaos. Helpful and friendly neighbours, ability to enjoy food and be creative, prioritise physical health, ability to feel relaxed and connected with nature, be joyful and have a sense of achievement – all the things that we can easily take for granted.

So, what’s been good in the last week for you?

Don’t feed them.

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Not your problem. No one else does. They’re a nuisance.

Our neighbourhood has a matriarch of a female-dog, Heaps, who in the last 18 months has produced two generations. When we returned from our monsoon break last year, her son, whom we lovingly called Livingston (due to his seagull ears), had disappeared. Her daughter, Lilly (as in silly, she eats very slowly which is silly given the other dogs steal her food) had Poppy (from Puppy) who then went on to produce five, all of which the local temple took for adoption.  Lilly also had Bear and Patch who we managed to re-home with a local family.  Heaps then had another four, of whom one disappeared and two starved to death in front of our eyes. The one that survived looks like a Teddy. So, that’s his name. Against popular advice we feed them when everyone has gone to bed. Bad!

A State highway nearby is a regular haunt for these dog families.

We approached the village administration about sterilisation, and they said it was the Town Hall’s responsibility. We went to the Town Hall, and they insisted it was the village administration’s problem.

In view of multiple road traffic accidents caused by dogs, the Supreme Court of India, on 7th November 2025, “imposed a clear and mandatory obligation upon the jurisdictional municipal bodies/authorities to forthwith remove all the stray dogs found within the precincts of such identified institutional areas and to relocate the same to designated shelters, after ensuring due sterilisation and vaccination in accordance with the applicable statutory framework.”

The actions to be completed within a period of eight weeks from that day were –

  1. to establish a mechanism for removal and sheltering of stray animals from highways;
  1. the constitution and functioning of patrol teams; and
  1. the operational status of helpline facilities and installation of sign boards displaying helpline numbers.

There is no helpline. No staff. No designated shelters. No implementation.

We leave for the monsoon again in a few weeks.

Wonder who’ll be here when we return.

A prayer

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She’s a friend who’s been sober for more than 20 years. A devout member of the AA, she is religious about it. Even today, her ex-alcoholicness is an important part of her identity and her sense of achievement. It is her story, her life.

At a recent dinner …

“Oh no! This is your glass. I’ve already had half of it thinking it was mine. I didn’t even taste the gin in it. Oh no!” She said to Si.

‘Yes. We made our drinks together before I went to the loo. Your lime-soda was in the pink glass and my G&T was in the blue. I thought you knew. This is an easy mistake to make amidst all the music and the noise. Don’t worry. Forget about it. You obviously didn’t do it on purpose. It just happened.’

“Yes. But …”

The AA says: “No one who has become an alcoholic has ever ceased to be an alcoholic. The mere fact of abstaining from alcohol for months or even years has never qualified an alcoholic to drink “normally” or socially. Once the individual has crossed the borderline from heavy drinking to irresponsible alcoholic drinking, there seems to be no retreat.”

I dread to think of the turmoil within her in the aftermath of that innocent mistake. I can’t claim to understand how she must feel. It came as a shock when she texted us to say she didn’t want to see us anymore.

It made me sad. It made me see the power of our beliefs and narratives, how they can hold us hostage if we let them. I can’t do much except pray for us all.

May we all grow in the ability to love ourselves, and one another.

May we grow in the ability to catch ourselves when we start spinning out.

May we all be able to stay with our experience as it is.

May we all remember, when we’re getting all caught up, to go look at the sky.

May we remember when we’re hurting, that other people are in the same boat. Rather than letting our hurt make us more afraid, allow that same suffering help us realize our shared humanity.