Forgive and Forget

Saturday, January 30, 2010


My eyes opened and the next moment my hand reached out for my cell phone waiting to fill my sleeping room with just the right kind of melody to bring about transition from my semi-conscious state to a state of wide awake ness. A sense of wonder filled me as I realized that my body clock had once again been immaculate. Exactly two minutes later, the promised music got played and I quickly pressed the ‘disable’ key on my cell phone so as not to disturb my better half in his best hours of sleep.


A relaxed cup of hot ginger-flavored chai completed my waking up process. Soon after, I was in front of the bathroom mirror filling my mouth with ‘the best mouthwash in the whole wide world’. Why my mouthwash sounds like a line from a fairy-tale is a tale I am willing to tell. After using and discarding every available mouthwash in both India and the USA, I decided to hunt for ‘the one and only’ kind of mouthwash on the World Wide Web. My efforts brought me closer to some of the spices resting right inside my kitchen. Cinnamon, Clove, Fennel became my close friends but still my search for the perfect thing wasn’t over. I finally found the recipe for my fairy-tale mouthwash and it read something like one part 3% hydrogen peroxide, one part distilled water, a pinch of table salt and a pinch of sodium bicarbonate. I agree that this fairy-tale has shades of ‘Shrek’ in it, but the crux of the matter is that it worked.


I freshened up fast and sat down on an aasan comprising layers of straw mat and a thick cotton rug in my meditation centre. My meditation centre is in the North-east corner of my spacious living room separated from the rest of the room by a partition screen made of intricately carved sheesham wood. There is a small corner-shaped marble temple in there. I bowed before the deities residing in my temple and started meditating on their formless, boundless, infinite power.


Having re-established my connection with the Divine, I was ready to perform my duties towards my household comprising my husband, an 8-year old son and a 4-year old daughter. After sending everyone to their work-areas and getting the house thoroughly cleaned by my silent and efficient maid-servant, I was free to apply myself to my essay writing. I am currently writing an essay titled ‘The Ocean and the River’. This essay is about some of my experiences in the recent past and involves a lot of flashback taking place in my mind. While revisiting the happenings of the past, I have realized that happy and positive memories about people and incidents fill my body and mind with vitality, whereas, sad and negative memories drain away the energy. I have thus, started appreciating the importance of the policy to ‘forgive and forget’ as it is in our best interest only.