The quest for simplicity has led me by the hand to a lesson in appreciation. After struggling for years with the torture of the moment my mind wakens from sleep and recognises my world, I am learning to receive the morning as a blessing. The fridge whirring, the pigeons cooing, the shouted instructions from the coxes, a train rumbling past, the same dog barking on the beach, the sea breathing. The sun barging into our sea-side cabin nice and early and the sky, the sheer abundance of the big blue sky! Mostly smooth and bright but every now and then, ruffled moody grey. Ever-changing.
The simple joy of watching the infinite sky and the vast sea mirror each other and the thin line where they meet. Eyes that can see unaided. The comfortable air meeting the skin. A steaming hot cup of tea with a handle that’s easy to hold. Hands that are strong enough to hold it. Pain-free fingers that curl around it. The warmth of the steam. The welcome sharpness of tannin. A mind that can discern every detail. A smile that comes easy.
Thank you Morning.
The patience of ordinary things
It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea, How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare, How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes Or toes. How soles of feet know Where they’re supposed to be. I’ve been thinking about the patience Of ordinary things, how clothes Wait respectfully in closets And soap dries quietly in the dish, And towels drink the wet From the skin of the back. And the lovely repetition of stairs. And what is more generous than a window?
Not to admit the world, for the world was already here; only to let it drift through old granite, through warm air, through the afternoon.
Below, children called, trolleys rattled over stone, shopkeepers laughed, voices crossed and uncrossed like birds above a square.
Nothing argued. Nothing needed to win. The street was not divided.
Beside me, a small dog claimed a borrowed mat with complete confidence that love had already prepared it.
I thought of my son.
I thought of all that seems absent, and of all that love refuses to call lost.
The heart did not deny its longing. The afternoon did not deny its peace.
Neither excluded the other.
Then, without announcement, a smile from a waiter, a bowl of water that had not been requested, churros that had not been ordered, a kindness that carried no invoice.
And I understood, if only for this hour, that there are moments which cannot be bought because they were never for sale;
moments which cannot be earned because they were never wages;
moments which ask nothing except that they be allowed.
Nothing was missing.
Nothing was excluded.
Nothing was demanded.
Nothing had to justify itself.
The 5pm cathedral bells found their place among the voices, and nothing was disturbed.
Time found its place without disturbing the timeless.
The voices still rose from the street below.
The light still rested upon the granite. The dog still slept.
Love still loved.
And for this afternoon, everything already was.
By a dad at CORe at the end of his pilgrimage, Camino de Santiago.
‘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.
The blustery wind is uprooting age-old trees. It’s making such a racket, I can’t hear anything else. The gust is roaring and the rain is pouring at sharp angles. Everything is soaked. The air is so heavy with moisture that every bit of fabric in the house is saturated with it. Invisible dampness pervades the kitchen towels, curtains and tablecloths. That laundry has been trying to dry itself on a stand, standing in the middle of our living room for the last four days and nights but it’s nowhere near dry yet. The pages of my books are swelling up as they become more and more damp. The incessant rhythm of banana and palm leaves fanning outside the window and the dance of the silver oaks permeate the milkiness of the cloud inside which we live. The clanging tempo of huge rain drops hitting clay roof-tiles makes it feel like a proper rock concert.
The water has pushed its way into the house. The wind has driven it in through the frame of the west-facing window of our bedroom. A thin line is streaming down the wall, starting at the lower end of the wooden slat that supports the south-facing roof. Most days we wake up to the surprise of little puddles on the floor.
This is normal. Our little rented cottage is unable to keep the monsoon out. Most other houses are the same. It’s to be expected. It’s familiar now. It makes me smile. So far, we’ve spent two months of two monsoons here. Despite the above gifts of this season, a deeper silence and stillness remain present within me. They’re also becoming very familiar.
Next week we fly to Heathrow. Wow! People everywhere. Again. Wonder what that’ll be like. I hope to carry a little box of silence and stillness with me so I can open it and smell these pleasant fragrances at will.
For now, I need to find a way to dry the laundry. I could iron these clothes, but the power supply is unavailable. The sun will be on holiday for at least three more months. I think the only way to dry them is for me to wear them and let them dry on me before packing them up.
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 –
to establish a mechanism for removal and sheltering of stray animals from highways;
the constitution and functioning of patrol teams; and
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.
