being present

This is.

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9 am. The mist has cleared and the Red-whiskered Bulbuls are out with their sweet song, proudly wearing shiny black mohawks. Post-monsoon, the grass has shot up to nearly four feet high, its slender golden heads gently swaying in the cool light breeze. Pearlescent dew is clinging to the edges of the blades of grass. A frisky young jack-fruit tree is now competing with the elderly rosewood that’s been there for a decade. Coffee is brewing. An occasional motor-bike rumbles past. The chikoo (Sapodilla) tree is heavy with fruit. The palm frond is browning and half of it has peeled off the smooth striped trunk. A hint of jasmine in the air every now and then.

I sit here, breathing, looking at the hilly horizon and everything else, just as it is. Not one thing is wrong. Nothing out of place. The blinking of the eyes. Laughter, when it comes. Tears, when they come. Thoughts as they come and go. The Ficus extending skyward, regardless. The copper-leaf shrub being copper. The grass being its verdant green self. The breeze being its gentle self. This moment being open and present to me exactly as it is.

Not a thing missing. Nothing extra. Not a thing needing fixed or changed or made better.

All perfectly natural. Simple. This is. I am. We are.

How we do it is important.

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They said that Saagar was discharged from the Mental health services because he wanted to return to his education. His parents wanted the same. Correct.

The Home Treatment Team decided it was the best thing. Great. They handed over his care to his GP.

After his death, carelessness was found to be the root of the problem. His Discharge Summary did not name Saagar’s illness. The person who wrote it had never met Saagar. He was carrying out a formality without understanding its significance. He didn’t quite grasp his role in the business of keeping a person alive.

His GP, on the basis of the information he had received went on to treat Saagar for an illness he did not have with medications positively dangerous for young people. He believed he was doing his best by maintaining Saagar’s confidentiality and not sharing his para-suicidal status with us while expecting us to look after him at home. He did his job but his patient died.

They all did what they thought right but how they did it determined the outcome, which was tragic.

The same applies to small things. I can request someone to stop smoking in my space but how I do it matters. I can ask someone to pick up their litter, take their shoes off the train seat and use ear-phones while watching videos on their cell-phone.

Multitasking is not to be glorified.

Doing one thing at a time and doing it well is of much more value than doing five things simultaneously and all shoddy. For instance, being a 100% present during a conversation without checking my phone once. Leaving it on silent mode in the other room with the door shut is my secret for getting into the flow of writing. Being fully present to the page and the pen and the soft scratchy sound that the tip of my pen makes as it moves in a squiggly line from left to right.  Letting everything disappear except the ink freeing itself into the world.