Nanhi- an unforgettable experience

Nanhi

It all started with our trip to my mom’s place. We used to go to my  mom’s place every year. There was a beautiful house near the colony, which we loved. It was a khaali house and we always used to admire it and wanted to buy it some day.

In one of such visits, we thought of going closer to the house .Nishant told me that lets have a closer view as we are going to buy it. When we went closer, I tried to peep inside the house to see how it looked inside. As I peeped in, I saw a small girl, 3 or 4 yrs of age sitting on a chair in front of a table. She was such a sweet girl that I could not stop looking at her. She was adorable. As I was wondering what this little girl was doing sitting inside an empty house, I saw my maid, who had accompanied us, fainted at seeing this girl. It was then that it struck to Nishant and me that she was not a little girl but a spirit.  At this very moment, she came out of the house and stood in front of me saying- Aunty please play with me, I want to play. We did not know what to do. One thing that surprised me was that although we knew that she was a spirit, we never felt scared even when she stood in front of us. She looked so innocent and lovable. Since our maid was unconscious, we told the little girl that we would come back to play with her.

So, we left that place and went back to my mom’s house.  This incident stayed on with us and we could not get over it somehow.  Nishant and me had several rounds of discussion about buying the house. We then got to know from the neighbours that the house was said to be haunted although no one had ever seen or witnessed any strange incident around that house ever.  Even after listening about the house being haunted, we were so much in love with that house that we decided to buy it.

We once again went to check out the house and to our surprise, saw that little girl still sitting there as if waiting for us. This ghost girl never made us feel scared, rather she was adorable. When she saw us, she again came out and held my hand, requesting me to play with her. This time I played with her for a while. She was delighted. I felt the same way. I could see the expression of approval on Nishant’s face too. We then returned back home. We told our daughters that soon they were going to meet their friend. When they asked her name, I told them, her name was Nanhi.

Soon we shifted  in our new home, the home that we had so much wanted to be in. We did not want to disturb Nanhi so we decided to move on the first floor. The day we moved in, Nanhi came to us. She was very excited. She asked me if she could stay with us. She told me that she has been living alone in the ground floor and hates it, so she wanted to stay with us. We agreed without hesitation as the house was her after all and there were many rooms to accommodate all of us comfortably.So, we gave a room to Nanhi and one room to our kids. We all were happy with our house. Our life once again started running smoothly. The kids would go to school and Nanhi would stay back with me helping me here and there and entertaining me with her lovely talk.

Our life was going smooth and we all were very happy when one day when I returned home after  getting  my kids from school, I saw three pandits sitting inside my house. I rushed inside and asked them what were they doing inside my house and they told me that they had come to take away the spirit that was staying in the house. I felt very scared for Nanhi and scolded them hard and asked them to leave my house. I ran inside to look for Nanhi but Nanhi was nowhere to be found. I felt helpless- this is when I wake up from my dream feeling shocked and helpless.

Wanted to share this dream with everyone. This is a dream that I saw a few nights back and I actually saw it like a movie. I do not know from where did it come to my mind, but it came with a pleasant feeling. Even though it was a filmy dream, I loved Nanhi and the fact that I am so scared of ghosts, still I did not get scared of Nanhi, made me feel really nice. I do not know if this dream is way too dramatic, the fact that it left a strange feeling in me, a feeling where I really wanted to protect Nanhi and the feeling that somewhere Nanhi had not been able to live her childhood and was trying to do so by living with us and playing with us, hit me hard and has still not left me. I have loved every bit of my dream and wanted to pen it down. Hope my readers like it too.  

Childhood the best time of life...

Yesterday when my kids were fighting over some trivial issue, it took me back several years when me and my sister used to fight for similar issues. Be it tying of the mosquito net or sharing the bed. It all sounds so funny today and I cannot stop smiling when I remember those days when we sisters and brothers used to argue and fight and used to make our mother's life hell. Arguing in front of dad was out of question as we wouldnt dare do so. Dad was the strict one and mom was the liberal one. Mom would very nicely keep our secrets and would give us the liberty to visit our friend's place and go for school picnics which dad never liked. He wanted all his kids to be back home before sunset.

When I sit back and remember the life which we lived, I feel mom's liberty and dad's strictness were just the right mix which has made us the kind of people we are today. When we are young, we never realise what our parents do for us. Back then, we used to feel that we are living in some kind of a jail where we are not allowed to stay back at our friend's place. When our other friends would go for a trip, we would stay back at home. That was the kind of security that my parents felt was right to give to their kids. It was frustrating at that time but today I feel dad would compensate for that by taking us on a family trip every now and then. Gradually as we grow up, we realise that each parent has a way of bringing up their kids. No one can judge them as there is no set format of bringing up kids.

Today we as parents sometimes wonder what is the right way to bring up our kids. We keep contemplating whether we are going the right way or not. When our kids reply back or shout back at us at such a young age, we do feel that when we were young we never would dare do such a thing to our parents, but things are very different today. Kids today are far too smart than we were at their age.

Still I miss those days when we were young. When I see the kids around me I feel we were far too innocent than kids are today. It is good that they are smarter and sharper but they are missing the innocence that we as kids used to have. The exposure that they get today, steals away the innocence from them. Here I feel the term 'ignorance is bliss' fits in best. We should be ignorant of many things as kids so that our innocence is intact with us for the longest time. What kids see, hear and talk today, is something they would as it is do when they would grow up. Childhood should be reserved for innocence and naughtiness. What the grown up kids are absorbing today is uncalled for. We as parents can try to restrict some of the wrong exposure but for how long and to what extent? I as a parent am literally scared for my kids that in their growing up age, they should be exposed to the right things and should learn things at the right age. But we cannot control everything. So I leave it to time. Worrying is not the solution and hence we as parents will try and give as much guidance as is possible and would be supportive to our kids in each and every step they take.

 One thing that I admire most about my mum was the way she had maintained a relation of a friend with all her kids. I too want to have such a relation with my kids where they feel free to express their feelings with me and share their secrets with me.
Being a parent is so much tough and being a child is so much easy. Alas! this realization has come only when the transition from a child to a parent has taken place in me. I do feel for my parents today and empathise with them for the trouble they have taken to bring up their kids but that phase has already passed.

This is a shade of life, yet life is so beautiful that it shows us so many shades of emotions in just one life. Such realisations make the bondings of relationships stronger and dearer. I love you mom and dad for exposing me to thegood things and acting as a shield from the bad things of life. I would have never realised that life is so tough had I always been under your lovely protection. Oh! how I wish time would have stopped then and there and I would have remained a child always, forgiven time and again for the small mistakes I would make as a child. I really miss those days. 

Doors of our minds

We believe that God created us and then we invented and discovered so many things and progressed in the process. We are still learning and still figuring out things. It seems as God has made a huge jigsaw puzzle and spread its pieces in the whole world. Our task as humans is to keep looking for the pieces and put it together waiting for that one day when maybe the puzzle will be complete. In the rush to complete the puzzle fast, we have left back many such virtues that made us human and humane. Life is not only about proving oneself, it is more about living life and enjoying every bit of it.

If you see a child of two- four years, all they know is to have fun, to smile, to love, to question and to cry. Maybe God created us like that- full of emotions and without inhibitions. We as grown ups, thought our species to be "the intelligent lot" and goofed up all the innocence and ignorance that we were born with. We started teaching our babies to be "smart" and in the process, we became manipulative. We never try to observe them when they express different emotions. We sometimes overlook it and sometimes  just take it as a normal behaviour.  Although being a mother, I am sometimes unable to patiently keep answering the never ending questions of my little ones. I do get irritated because at there are other things running in my mind.

All in all life has become quite complicated. Sometimes I wish we were not so intelligent but only ignorant. Someone has rightly said- "ignorance is bliss". Why the rush to gather all the pieces of the puzzle. We should sometimes let our hair down and relax. It does not mean lying down on your bed or going for a vacation on some exotic location. We should let our mind relax. Our minds are full of thoughts. God has created an invisible door of our minds. We need to search for it and just like we close the doors of our bedrooms or our cabins so that no one comes in and disturbs us, similarly,  we should close the doors of our minds for a while and let it feel relaxed. I am not talking about meditation. For me jotting down my feelings in the form of this blog is a kind of relaxation. For some, just chit chatting with their partner could be relaxing. We just need to shut the doors of our minds from the unwanted thoughts and think of something that makes us happy. My hubby feels so relaxed and happy just watching our little ones sleep peacefully. That has a Spa effect on him.

All you need to do is to look inside and find one such mode of relaxation and do it whenever you are too disturbed. This closing of our mind's door is just a way to go back to our childhood when we had no concerns or duties, we only knew how to give love and that too unconditional love. I so much wish we all shrug the negative vibes around us at least for a while,  shake ourselves up and become kids once again.

 If we can find that invisible door of our mind, maybe someday we are successful in closing it PERMANENTLY.