Sunday, February 24, 2002		Life Ties

MANJULA and Kaveri were born within a space of two years. Inseparable as infants, they kept each other perfect company. That their father was in a boring government job did not stop them from taking short holidays, camping at unheard of places, charting virgin territory and roughing out in inclement weather with a joyous spirit of adventure. They never resented their kid brother who lapped up the entire family’s attention. It was on one such vacation that tragedy struck. They were warned not to traverse the hilly region in the upper reaches of Himachal since during this time, landslides were common. Their father bypassed the suggestion and went ahead with his plans. What followed was a freak accident in which their parents died on the spot. The girls were thrown out of the car and apart from sustaining minor bruises were untouched by the impact of the landslide. Their brother suffered severe head injuries that retarded him for life. He was reduced to being a vegetable.

The tragedy changed their lives. Both girls were 14 and 16 years of age, old enough to interpret it and hold onto images, memories and impressions for the rest of their lives. They moved to Lucknow to live with their paternal grandparents and resume their education. The family tried normalising things, helping them overcome the trauma as they adapted to a new routine and future sans their father and mother. While Kaveri, the younger one, tried to put the past behind her and immersed herself in study and other activities, Manjula turned silent. She withdrew into a shell and spent most of her time reading or listening to music, alone in her room. Initially, the family let them be because they thought it best not to intrude into their private thoughts and it was important to allow them to come to terms with grief in their own manner.

But as the years went by, the girls turned into young women who were as different from each other as are chalk and cheese. Their lives existed on different planets. Kaveri had a large circle of friends. She was always trying out new things, actively participating in college functions and competitions. Manjula, in spite of being more intelligent and talented, had just a friend or two, who too were kept at an arm’s length. She was scared of letting them get too close lest she lose them and feel devastated all over again. The fear of losing people made her hold back her emotions and feelings. She thought that by detaching herself and withdrawing from the complicated web of human emotions she would be able to calm the storms in her mind. She joined various religious groups on the Internet. She spent hours communicating and sharing with those people larger concerns plaguing humanity. At one level it calmed her but in a real sense it further alienated her from that circle of real people with whom she had to learn to adjust and live. She could not bear to spend time with her brother because it brought back a painful onrush of memories that made her feel guilty for surviving the accident and being "normal". The final blow came when a chasm developed between the sisters. The elder one resented the younger’s lifestyle as also her "chirpiness". She felt she had not mourned enough for her parents’ premature dying. She preciously held onto her own "seriousness" and "maturity" perceiving these to be more honourable traits.

By being flexible and vulnerable, Kaveri allowed herself to dabble in new experiences. She took up science with the thought that she would study medicine, but when she got intimidated by the volume of study involved she decided to repeat a class and revert to humanities. At that time it appeared foolhardy because it amounted to losing a year, besides loss of face. But she felt that rather than struggle all her life doing something she was perhaps not cut out for, she would rather study economics and get into the management line. As she moved along, she made errors of judgement, about people, jobs and situations but she came out of each of them stronger and better. Her growth graph kept moving upwards as she adapted to situations without preconceived notions. Also, since she did not in any way feel sorry for herself she was able to forge normal ties with people without the spectre of her past haunting or tainting her thinking in a limiting manner. Since she had lost her parents early in life, she knew she had no one to turn to but herself. She upgraded herself by moving from Lucknow to Mumbai and finally to New York. She worked hard at improving herself as also in having long lasting meaningful relationships. By the time she was 35 she was firmly straddled as a marketing head of an international bank. She had a broken marriage behind her but she was neither bitter nor unhappy. She took life as it came and gave it her best shot. She had a great career, was a state-level squash player and had a close group of friends whom she could bank upon any time. There were times she felt lonely and missed the comfort of a home which resounded with the love of a family but she did not allow this to bog her down and take away the happiness which came from the things she had worked hard to achieve. She came to India every year and finally set up a well-funded trust in her brother's name. Her grandparents were too old to take care of him and she had to provide for him. She set up an NGO, tied up administrative formalities and worked hard at keeping the grants and aid coming in.

Things didn’t work out as well for Manjula who had masked her vulnerability with a more controlled demeanour. She was convinced that those who are vulnerable are easy prey, lacking in making sound judgements, are easy targets for the wily manipulations of the scheming set. By wearing a mask and developing a standoffishness she thought she would make herself unapproachable except to the chosen few. By doing this she closed doors to life. It was like slow suicide. For, she could not have peace by seeking security behind the walls of her fears and hopes. By withdrawing and becoming invulnerable she falsely created a security blanket around herself because somewhere she thought she would be safe and protected within the walls of limited relationships which allowed her to dominate and have control over. She married a college professor but continued to be miserable. Always feeling sorry for herself and shutting herself from the world, she had turned into a complicated person who was also difficult to get along with. Her mental trauma came in her way of leading a normal life. She was always on strong anti-depressants. The task of running the house was more or less left to her husband and her marital life was far from being rosy.

M. Scott Peck says, that it is smart to open yourself up within limits to situations in which you are likely to experience some emotional pain such as in taking a risk to enter a relationship that has the potential to lead to commitment. It is necessary for our own emotional health and for learning that we retain the capacity to choose to being an open and vulnerable person. Vulnerability then cannot be such a bad thing after all. Those who are vulnerable are also the softest, most tender and receptive souls,capable of forging deep loving relationships which rest on unconditional love and a spontaneous series of gives and takes. Manjula had made herself incapable of both receiving and giving love.