domestic ramblings

"Brinjal !!", she said, as her face lit up.
My sister was answering my question as to which curry was the easiest to prepare. She's been a mother to me ever since i had to come to Bangalore for my job. Domestic affairs bore me to death, so I was extremely interested in knowing how one can be happy doing the same thing everyday. Of course , we all do almost the same thing everyday and yet be happy about it. I'm a software programmer by profession, but i do a lot of things than just programming, I participate in decision making, technical discussions, etc etc I felt at least my job was not that monotonous as compared to, say, cutting vegetables, arranging the house back to shape after the mess that kids make, all through out thinking about food that someone else might like might not like ... psshah ! GOD help her.

I had put similar sentiments before my mother a lot of times. Her reply always satisfied me for the moment and then didn't at some later point in time. She simply said, she loved us and so she loved her job. My sister's sentiments were similar too. But then, she has an artistic bent of mind. So she also found happiness in different ways of making something, do a bit of embroidery and painting over porcelain whenever she feels extremely bored. Ah ! I must add, i feel that my mother and her sisters had a very comfortable time bringing us up (me, my cousins viz. my generation) when compared my sister bringing up my nephews. I strongly remember (me and my brother being the only children) my father insisting that we help our mother in the daily cores and we, feeling subtly happy, as we clearly saw that this help, though small, made her happy.
There is no such notion in the minds of my nephews. They entertain the impression that they are born to be served.

And the modern girls too. I'm not an advocate of girl-should-be-at-home-only philosophy. But, I always felt and feel that the delicacy of home making is a privilege and art better known to a female than to a male. In families where both father and mother work and the kids are kept in day-care centers, not knowing the mother's touch, and father's love for most of the time in the day are brought up in such an environment void of any sentiments.

I know husbands who don't budge an inch even as wife struggles beyond hope, cooped up in her domestic activities and I know also of families where both the parents work so much at office and home that the kids are be-spoiled. I crave for a family of my own (whenever that forms ;-) ) to be somewhere in the balance. Where the mother can love and care for her kids in the day without having to bother about money earning, be the first teacher to her kids, (her education is not worthless) and yet be upto date with her surroundings. Father comes home, spends time with kids, have a thing or two to help his wife and be happy.

Amen !!
~

existence

yeah ... a scary thought indeed.
Existence | Ex*ist"ence |
n. Cf. F. existence.

1. The state of existing or being; actual possession of
being; continuance in being; as, the existence of body and
of soul in union; the separate existence of the soul;
immortal existence.
1913 Webster

generally, as a rule, i don't post any wisdomous (Joey ;-) ) stuff but i thought i'll
rant for a bit.
This question baffled almost all of us at some point in time or the other. I do not
profess that i have gauged the concept thoroughly enough to write about it .. but I
wonder ... is it even possible to know for sure ?
There are so many things involved that i'm at loss to know where to start ..
anyways ... when some one says I exist what does that mean ?
The thing that immediately comes to my mind is that - The possesion of the knowledge
that we see, hear, taste, smell and feel. This is true in the sense that, this is what we perceive.
But I donno if i can call it existence. I'll tell you why. Often do we come across
statements in mathematics such as .... there exists a number such that blah blah is not
doodle-do and so there can't exist a limit on the blah foo blah ... and so on and so
forth. Ahha !! a number exists .. !! where ?? Can a number feel, hear, taste, smell and
see ??? Imagine !!
Fine. People may say .. oh please !! there is a thing called logical existence and physical
existence. Well, lets draw some lines here. To us -
The concept of "physical" existence is more appealing as meaning for the word existence.
What are all these hearing, seeing and all this stuff anyway ? (people who saw the movie
Matrix will not entertain such doubts any more ... ) Myriad electro magnetic impulses that
go to and forth the machine that brain is. Now, my friend, what is '2' ? or '3.414' for that
matter ? Another such impulse ? Then why characterize it differently ? I donno.
I just want to "be" content sometimes with the thought all that out there "is" just huge
transfer of energies (electro-magnetic crap or otherwise) into various other forms.
I also "feel" most of the times that I'm better off not "thinking" and just enjoying the life
as it comes ..
But then, I have this unsatiable ego to know that I do what I please ... but with this existence
funda kicking in, I don't see it logically happening ... myriad levels of transfer of energies ...
huhh !!
i'll stop. [at last ..]