Bitter follow up.....

For the first time, I am sad to write a follow up article for my previous article!! It is follow up of my article for the mothers not to be!! I was not planning to write any article till mid February as I have quite a number of higher priority deliverables. But then, I got so upset that I had to write this!!

I had to console a sobbing girl on Sunday over phone. This article is dedicated to her and all the other women who are in her state.

To give a context to other readers, my friend I am referring to in this article does not have children and decided not to adopt. She was asked not to play with a couple of kids by their mother as the mother was worried that my friend will try to adopt her child(ren)! The mother was so outright, explained her concern in simple and sharp terms. My friend was stunned by such a reaction! When she spoke to me after a week from this incident, she was still crying,  I could hear her cry sitting so far away, about 10 hours behind her!  I wish I had nine thousand miles' long hands to hug her from here!

I had to go thru the same pain about 7 years ago. Maybe, I didn’t cry for that long but it hurt me like hell. In Kamba Ramayanam there is a line which says "first a spear went thru the chest and came out thru the back and then a ball of fire at high temperature went thru the same passage". I understood the real meaning of this line when this happened. What hurts me  now is, in the past 7 years, technology has improved so much, our lives got simplified so much but the human mind has not improved any better!! Another woman who is 10 years younger than me goes thru the same hurt 7 years later. It is a shame on human kind!! Connected Vehicles, Internet of Things, conferencing and communication tools, In-flight internet - nothing of that sort has any meaning to me from the time I heard this girl crying to me on Sunday morning! If one can not relate with a fellow human being, what is the use of being so very connected with the help of technology!!

My friend had read my earlier article and she was trying to follow my suggestions. She used to discuss her progress with me every now and then. Until early 2014, I was not open enough to discuss this topic very often with others even if they have the same challenge. But since 2014, I have been giving my ears to her once in a while and suggesting her to take up something of interest to her. Like me, she also decided not to adopt a child and was focusing on other ways to contribute back to the society. She also started being happy and played with other kids whenever possible. And now, she has got such a nasty reaction!! When she said, if she had not followed my suggestions, she may not have played with kids, I felt even more responsible for this. She was not looking for a solution from me fortunately, though she needed a shoulder to cry. I decided to be with her till the time she finished crying though it meant me slipping on my other commitments. The call went on for a few hours. I don’t recollect for how long… it felt like for a lifetime though...

I am thinking about what makes people come to such conclusions and reactions. If my friend wanted to adopt, there are several easier, straight forward ways to do that. For the kind of money she has, for the kind of support systems she has, she does not have to impress these kids and lure them into adoption. Though, genetically mammals may be inclined to start a family with and adopt ones who share their genetic make up to increase the possibility of passing on their genes to the next generation, psychologically, it is hard to adopt one of the two known children. There is going to be a comparison in the minds of those who adopt and who gave their children for adoption whether they took or gave away the better one of the two - even if they decide to stay far away from each other!! When there are so many children in the world looking for good parental support, why get into such a difficult situation? Is it not easier and nobler to give support to someone does not have the care than supporting someone who has the care already and is part of another family? If someone is kind enough to adopt in spite of all the challenges it can bring, why would they break an existing family? Wont it be harder to turn the child around towards the new family if the child already knows what it feels like to be with a mother? Given all this, it is logical to adopt younger kids (maybe infants) from a trusted source but not from very close associates. Why was the mother not able to think about it?

What kind of insecurity the mother should have had to come to this kind of conclusion? Any one who is confident of being a good mother, being a caring mother would not have reacted this way, I feel. Only those who are not sure of the love they have, the care they show, the attention they give, the guidance they give, the support they give to their children and the time they spend with their children can get worried assuming their children do not love them enough and may go away from them!!

For almost all children, their own mothers are the most beautiful and most caring person in the world even they are not in realty. How can someone forget that and make such a poor judgment?  Even if someone wants to adopt the child, is there not a better way of saying no? Should it be as cruel as this?  Why was the mother not able to think about any of this? Is this only her insecurity about her own motherhood? Is it exposure? Is it sensitivity towards fellow human beings or the lack of it? How does the rich react to poor even when they are not interested in the money? How much can perceptions ruin human relationships? Why are we not thinking about all this frequently and correcting ourselves?

I am not sure if animals have this problem. Maybe not. Maybe, humans are the worst form of animals on earth! We have been killing animals, destroying forest and killing people from other countries, races, religions, languages etc.. Looks like we don’t even mind killing the minds and hearts of those very close to us for protecting our own egos and for our own insecurities. Are we all really from a culture that knew the meaning of " தீயினாற் சுட்டபுண் உள்ளாறும் ஆறாதே நாவினாற் சுட்ட வடு" about 2000 years back?

Hmmm… I wanted not to express my dissatisfaction in 2016, as part of my Karma Clearing Program! But I can say that the dissatisfaction level is so high that  I feel the bitterness all thru my body and mind!! It is as if, I drank one whole neem tree!