An open letter to the characters of Nitham Our Vaanam.
I wrote this letter right after the very first day show of this movie.
A story which speaks a MILLION lessons, reminds me of THOUSAND precious reasons to live life from FOUR characters within TWO beautiful stories to live ONE precious present life given to you.
Dear Meenakshi, you taught me to be strong no matter what life throws at you. The way you carried your life after the loss of your very loved ones, pain, struggles and suffering has all hit the very bottom of my heart.
Dear Veera, just like what you have told to Meenakshi, it was as if being told to me. You reminded me to always do what I love the most and never ever compromise anything or anyone when comes to my passion and dream.
Dear Mathi, you were the lite. Your energy, sense of humour and cuteness just kept going. You taught me to cherish the life which I am blessed with even after I know I might not be alive the next day. Cheat your death by living and cherishing this life till the very last breath that you would breathe.
Dear Prabha, no matter how much I tried to hold on to my tears, you just made me have my emotional breakdown at that moment. The way you have accepted your wife’s reality and the life as it is has just hit me that hard. That no matter what it is, no matter how much pain it could cost, if you never accept it, it will continue to hurt like hell. You taught me to accept the pain, heal and move forward.
Dear Shuba, you are that wonderer with the guts to roam around. Like you don’t just sit there! Go travel and learn life in this way. And in such, you are being guided to the life that are meant for you.
And,
Dearest Arjun,
It’s not only you that learned your life lesson or got the lifeline message from the two stories, but to everyone who are most likely to be in your shoe. And I am one of it.
Arjun might be imperfectly perfect in his point of view, he might be doing all right in his life, he was loyal to every single relationship he has got, and everything goes on smoothly. But you never know when life will be having turning points and redirections until you are forced to detach from everything, accept it as it is, heal and move forward.
Ultimately, to live a happy life is the only reason we are being sent here right! And for that, we are going through everything it has to take for the core purpose to be happy.
Being happy and being wholeheartedly happy are two different things I learned. If my wisdom could speaks, I will definitely want to be wholeheartedly happy.
I read an article recently about marriage and this article ended up with a question, ‘What it means for you to manifest a boon in a form of husband/wife from God?’
This question might not be really suitable for my current life right now, but I believe it is surely important for me for my future and to be honest, I am triggered with a strong intuition to respond to this question with all my heart.
With every right intention in my heart, I would like to respond to this question as an open letter.
What it means to receive and manifest a boon in a form of husband from God?
Before I begin, I would love to refer this boon as a precious boon in my letter.
Dear love,
To manifest a precious boon in a form of husband is to first and foremost understand his character, personality, the way he is and the way he is not. Understanding comes with both admiration and accepting the way he is exactly. Understanding is a form of love. I truly believe this. Understanding him is a way of contributing mental love to him.
To manifest a precious boon in a form of husband from God is to contribute emotional love to him. Emotional love is to feel seen, be connected and wanted. Being vulnerable in this bond is not a weakness.
To manifest a precious boon in a form of husband from God is to spread my love to him spiritually. The energy! My energy, my vibes. I am responsible to uplift his spirit and so do he. Sending him a loving, positive, and uplifting energy no matter where he is, I think this is a very thoughtful form of love I would do for him because I believe in my energy.
To manifest a precious boon in a form of husband is to share physical love to him. Both presences are equally important to each other. The touch, closeness, intimacy and fulfilling one’s physical needs and desires is what it means to receive this beautiful boon from God.
To manifest a precious boon in a form of husband is to pray for the precious boon daily. Praying for his happiness, health, financial stability, mental clarity, strength, growth, and success. Making him feel blessed to have received me as his boon in his life is a huge blessing for me.
To manifest a precious boon in a form of husband is to keep supporting him. All I knew is he would surely be struggling in something that he refused to tell me for the sake not to burden me. But above all, I believe my support would be his strength. Be there, they say. Yes! I would rather be there quietly by his side. I want to be there and support him in every aspect of his life. I would want to ease all his pain with my words. For me, this would be the core purpose of me receiving him as a precious boon from God.
To manifest a precious boon in a form of husband is to love and take a perfect care of his family too. His family is just as equally important as my family to me. Manifesting this boon is not being committed and responsible for him only but to his family too, most importantly his parents. His parents means so much to me and I would want to build a beautiful relationship with them. I would be that type of wife to go extra miles for his parents just to witness their smile and happiness. Perhaps I would anonymously gift something to his parents for their special occasion without letting anyone know about it. Trust me when I say I would want to be their best friend.
To manifest a precious boon in a form of husband is to inspire him to make himself a priority more than anything and anyone else. Inspiring him to love himself even better everyday is also one of the greatest purpose of me receiving this beautiful gift from God.
To manifest a precious boon in a form of husband is to respect him as the person he is and build trust and lots of faith into the divine relationship.
To manifest a precious boon in a form of husband is NOT to give up with him at any circumstances. Loving him is to fight for him, to pray for him and have faith in my heart that God always wanted both of us to be together till eternity.
Last but not least, to manifest a precious boon in a form of husband is to ease his pain, to uplift his spirit, to be the support system he needed by lending my heart, mind, body and soul to him emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically. This is exactly how I felt responsible to have him in my life, to love him and to share this life with him.
Above all, to manifest a precious boon in a form of husband means the world to me. When love is there for him to the core, then pain will be there too to the core and we would walk through this journey together. This relationship is divine and merely important for me to be alive in this Universe. I will take care this boon till my last breath.
If I were given a chance to write about a lifeless object, then it would be this hero here ‘the coconut grater’ This machine here is something which I would like to cherish since my childhood days till to this date whenever I’m helping out my dad at his grocery shop.
This is completely a fun fact writing which I used mixed language. So here it goes.
The grating place is where
We, the siblings fought each other to grate coconut. We will point to each other to grate. Because somedays I’m very semangat to do and some days I’m very lazy to grate. But definitely I got to do it by myself when I’m alone.
I experienced the cuts and bloods. Sometimes it’s a deep and painful one and sometimes it’s a light one.
I gathered my guts and bravery to grate the coconut especially when the grinding blade is new.
I learn to break a whole coconut in a correct way
Little kids or the customer’s children will come and stand near me to witness how I grate. Believe me when I say that they won’t look anywhere else because they are so focused at the machine and the grinding process.
Some people especially the aunties and uncles will take advantage on that particular time to ask about me and alot about my family and any other random things. But do they know that I can’t hear them well because of the machine sound? 🤦♀And honestly I felt so uncomfortable and my mind voice will be like just go away from here la! And I should grind quickly and escape.
I learn to be patient when customer asked for only white flesh. I got to be very careful because some customers are way too fussy. It’s all about controlling our hands when grating.
We curi2 makan the small fruits from the coconut. Only the small one will be nice to eat.
I learned to differentiate the good and spoiled coconut. You got to look the outer part of the coconut then shake it to listen the sound of the coconut water. Sometimes we can only know after we broke it.
My fingers got swollen and tired of standing at the same place after grating many coconuts especially during the Raya festival.
When I was young, I used to take the spoon and hit it on the basin to make sounds. Yes the annoying sounds which later I’ll got scolded by Appa
When I already grate half of the coconut then suddenly customer said they want the white flesh only at the last minute. My mind voice will be why can’t you tell earlier laaa? You see now all mixed up ready 🤦♀
Sometimes customers do bring their own coconuts. But the surprising part here is the way they have broke the coconut, I’ve never even seen someone can break it the other way too and you expect us to grate it!🤦♀ let me give you coconut breaking class
I am thankful to have come across and got chances to use this hero here in my life and I’m thankful for the moments I had with it. I know it’s just a machine but it literally keeps many memories and stories of me and my family members. And definitely it is a source which contributing an income for us apart from many other things in an ordinary grocery shop.
This is my little appreciation of the things around me. I am very sure we all have at least one lifeless thing like this which keep our stories alive. It would be my pleasure if you too could think of any thing and look back the memories which it has stored in it. I hope you could laugh or atleast smile just the way I did. Have a good day everyone.
The person right next to you smiles to you but little did you know that he/she is in pain. The smile on their lips shield it well till no one able to realise or notice the slightest pain they’re suffering from. He/she is broken. They are being stuck. They have no strength to speak up and to share what’s going on in their life. They don’t even know the cause of their pain. They don’t know how to deal with this emotion of pain. The silence has reached the peak till they could hear the slightest sound in a room they’re in. It’s so suffocating as they are breathless at some point. It’s so exhausting as they are mentally and physically tired deep down. Yet they smiled! Isn’t that cruel?!
When I came across this quote, the only thing which came to my mind is my passion. I will be always grateful to the Universe for having my passions in arts, writing, teaching, baking, cooking and the list goes on with the Highest blessing.
The burning desire from my heart unto the passion has made me to realize a part of my purpose in this Universe. I believe that my arts and writings would speak on behalf of me someday. It would still exist in my absence and I proudly say that I represent them. My passion is not my dream, it is my destiny.
AND TO YOU TOO!
You are here for a reason. You are here to fulfill something which were assigned to you. You are going to create a difference in this world. Sometimes, it is as simple as helping the needy ones or to make someone smile. The fact that you are creating a difference in someone’s life.
Yeah! It could be in anyway. If in case you found your purpose through your passion, I’m sure that you would keep doing it for the rest of your life.
You will do it,
For your satisfaction,
For your happiness,
For your survival,
Until you make it big and successful.
All you need to do is BELIEVE IN YOURSELF.
You have only yourself to depend on throughout the day.
Your passion makes the real you.
Your passion brings out the better you.
Your passion reflects the person you are.
On a side note, I would like to share this. Sometimes, passion would need you to sacrifice something in life but it would give a satisfying heart in return. I promise!
And,
Never ever let anyone to destroy or degrade your passion. Once your passion is being underestimated, remember that your whole self is being included there. Keep the people who always motivate and encourage you to achieve more success in life.
I end this thought of mine by leaving a favor to everyone whom are reading this.
We are all here to fulfil certain purpose in this Universe. Perhaps some activities or service or it can be even thoughts and intentions which came right from your heart which you knew it could bring difference to you or to others and gives you the purpose of being here in this beautiful world. I hope and pray that you could discover the purpose of your life. You are never too old to fulfil your purpose and to do something you desired in your life. Keep going champions!
Please continue to do it no matter what. If you couldn’t find it, then it’s okay. Don’t lose hope. You will receive the guidance to do something which you truly involve your mind and heart into it at the right time. And remember, when you do something passionately, it could benefits both for you and for others. It’s just the matter of you doing something to gain happiness, satisfaction and you are beyond blessed with it.
One to be an owner and a leader acquires much of intelligence/integrity/work to be done both internally and externally. In other words, being an owner is simply a title or position which anyone could be entitled for especially in these days, but taking up the role as a leader for that organization is a choice of responsibility which you make every single day in order to get things done right and smoothly.
You are an owner of an organization and doing something for the sake of your own goodness while hurting or creating troubles, worries and destroying the peace of another individual whom is getting the work done for you is not good at all. Moreover, it will never take you to higher places. Yes, you might have achieved something but it will not last long as you wished because those achievements were not from your efforts.
You’ll never know how much pressure have taken place as an impact of your decisions of selfishness towards the person and other individuals whom are surrounded by them. You are actually creating a negative perspective on their dreams while you being biased, selfish and arrogant towards them which will never give you a durable happiness, peace and success. Always remember that.
If you want to be an owner, make sure you become one by not placing the people whom are there to get your works done into difficulties because sometimes there is no way out other than them facing it all. You are only there to enjoy the outcome of their hard works. If you handle things this way, all of your fame, respect and the title which you are being awarded to will never be with you for a long term. If in case it happens to be in a long term, it’s definitely not a pure or genuine outcome from your performance.
WHEREAS,
Leaders create values.
Leaders shine the light on their team and not themselves. And when it comes to the term TEAM, it consists of the people of all walks of life. They are all young, ambitious and bright-eyed individuals.
The messages which I would like to highlight here are,
Why spread hate and negativity when you can spread love and positivity to them?
Why folding up your arms when you can open it wider and lend it to them?
Why you wished to have all the success by your own when you can be the reason of other’s success at the same time?
No matter who you are, remember one’s success by letting others to suffer is not a right thing at all. Above all, it’s not professional at all.
Spread light as much as you can to the individuals whom are struggling to achieve their dreams.
Spread love as much as you can to the individuals whom are trying their best to make a living.
Spread positivity as much as you can and you will be blessed with abundance of happiness and love.
And this will be your real achievement in your life. This will elevate you not only to higher places but also a higher perception in the heart of those people whom succeed because you were one of the reasons for their success.
Many times I tried to write about this topic but I ended up backspacing the few words which I’ve wrote and then remain silent. Certain things hit me up and I’m feeling sad about it and I have no other choice than letting it out now. Even now I don’t know where to begin but I just want to write to let it out.
The picture above illustrates human life cycle and phases where every human being on earth would have to go through it. But what if our life ends halfway there? What if we didn’t go through all the phases orderly till the end?
I realized that the demise of our loved ones gives a huge impact in our life in the present and in the future.
At one part of my life when I was at home for months and haven’t pursue my tertiary studies yet. That time many bad things happen around me especially death. People are leaving from their loved ones forever. I was at that age where I don’t understand the pain of separation and how to handle those situations.
I was broken that time. I thought what life is. Why are we struggling so hard to achieve in life and suddenly our life are gone within a glance or a second?
We were brought up by our parents by facing lots of difficulties. They faced a lot of hardships To bring the best of us To learn the good manners To give and take. To be a good person But all of a sudden our life are gone just in seconds.
You can be very successful You can be very good person You can be anyone. And life are gone just like that no matter who you are. Because death needs no requirement!
Those situations questioned me alot. I was actually in the midst of deciding about my further studies and I can’t make it delay anymore. All I needed was more time to console myself to learn and understand the nature of life.
Sometimes I asked silly questions to myself like ‘why I should go study and waste all the money when I don’t know when and how my life will be taken?’ Until then we should only be happy and care for each other. Because if you think back about the whole day what you did and all that, you only remember the things which made you happy and made you smiled at the end. And that’s what made you sleep better every night.
PART 2(The Ability To Understand The Nature Of Life)
Why this should happen? I’ve always have this question on my mind until I grow older and realized that I should not question about it to myself or to anyone. Like I said earlier, I need time to understand the nature of life and now as I grow older, I begin to accept and understand the law of life day by day.
Whenever I got to know about any death news, I have my thoughts about it, I feel the pain one might felt after losing someone, I console myself, I pray for them, and then I detach myself from it.
When I tried my hardest to detach myself, I console myself that there’s no way other than accepting what has happened. Death happens everywhere and every second. Just like birth. And that’s how life is meant to be. I kept on saying to myself that things will be alright.
I promised myself To be grateful for what I am having right now, To value the remaining time which I left to live in this world, To value each and everyone in my life, To be good and spread positivity and love as much as I can, To seek the purposes of my life without hurting anyone, To always serve the needy ones, To give the best I can to the Universe.
But there are times where I literally can’t do all those things I said just like that. It’s hard to detach myself from the bad news especially when it’s a shocking demise. My heart just goes to the whole family members and pray for them.
Back to reality,
We are all in the set of life’s racing track right? Some are just about to start, some at the beginning, some in the middle and some are about to reach the finishing line. And in the midst of this racing, we experience a lot of emotions and we met a lot of people. We go through phases of life. We witness our growth mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.
I remembered the saying ‘Live life as if today is your last day’. To be honest, initially this saying consoled me to live the life just the way I wanted to be as if it’s my last day but eventually I forgot about it day by day. Same goes to you too right?
We eventually forgot about it when we’re in the midst of hustle and bustle. We eventually forgot about it when we met the chaos of life. We got angry, frustrated, depressed, stressed out over something and spend most of the time living our life in the opinions of others. And just like that we kept on going with life to meet the goals. And then things like this happens again and it acts as a reminder for all of us to value each second of our life.
We should face everything by our own. We must have the ability to take it positively and always remember that God did that because He knows we can go through it.
There’s no way out. Be good and do good. Give out love as much as you can and be kind to everyone. And not forgetting to be grateful for everything we’ve got. That’s the least we can do. So that when death knocks your door, you can feel the ultimate satisfaction in your heart that you’ve lived a purposeful life while your soul makes a way to the heaven.
🙏🙏🙏
Thank you for spending your time to read my thoughts. This write-up would be more meaningful for me if you promised to yourself to value each moment of your life and be grateful for it ✨
I write To learn Life’s lessons are too precious and I wished to note down those lesson. It could be a reminder for me when I’m not on my track.
I write To heal Sometimes the words which I really need to hear from my loved ones during my hard times. Personally, those words build strength within myself and I felt their presence by my side.
I write To convey The stories about the people I met outside. I observe them and try to write out something which I could make it as my wisdom note. Those wisdom notes reminds me not to be judgemental to anyone.
I write To console myself When circumstances are difficult, I write the affirmation I wanted to manifest.
I write To let go To detach myself from situations which I can’t control by my own.
I write To save and to satisfy my heart Certain situations are meant to be ignored and let go just like that but certain are NOT. It’s meant to be saved forever within ourselves and always be grateful for it.
I write about the things I love. About cooking and bakings, About art, About yoga and meditation.
I write about the beautiful souls in my life. I write about the love of my life. I write letters to someone whom I’d call precious to convey the words which I wanted to say out loud.
I write what I felt right I write what the heart feels and what the mind thinks.
Write Just write your heart out. The purpose of writing is not for posting it but to express yourself in terms of words.
Remember, Some writings are meant to be posted while some are NOT.
Cooking has been something which I’m coping up with everyday. Amma will always be my mentor and there are lot more for me to learn from her. When I say food, it’s not only about the main meals, but the Indian traditional food, drinks and desserts too.
Just like every other work we do, we face both the positive and negative outcomes. Let me share the negative outcome too. SOMETIMES, Our cookings do not turn well as we expected. I knew how will be that feeling when your cookings didn’t turned up well. And I also knew the aches you felt when your loved ones are consuming that food anyway because you already done that. I knew they will understand that you’ve tried your best but somehow you’re feeling bad inside your heart at one point. But that’s how we learn. We promised ourself to make it better next time.
And here are some changes I witness in myself. Usually when I don’t like certain foods, I just ignored it. I don’t want to know about that specific food. But when I started learning, I cooked those foods too. Not for me but for my family. I just do it for my family because they loved that food. And the second changes are, I don’t prefer much vegetables on my food. But eventually I started to eat those veggies because I cooked it. It’s kind of funny but I did it.
For me, cooking is also a form of art. I must definitely say this. It’s an art to be learned. It’s an art to be practiced. It’s an art which leads you into keeping up the time well.
It’s an art which you will experience a different outcome each and everytime you cook. It’s an art which allows you to make mistakes. Remember it’s okay to make mistakes. You are learning. You are learning to give out the best serving for your beloved ones.
Cooking has taught me that, It isn’t only about the food, It isn’t about trying out new recipes from the YouTube or from any other resources, But, It’s about mastering the usual menu Amma has been cooking for the family. It’s about to trying our best to bring out at least a little of Amma’s touch in our cookings.
And above all, It’s about the love. The real challenge is to be able to cook with pure love and smiles for our loved ones.
I’ve been taught that cooking should be an ordinary responsibility throughout a girl’s life. But now, it’s not only a responsibility but also my passion. It becomes more special when I serve for my loved ones.
I’m leaving this writing with a self-reminder and appreciation note to God.
The other day when I was serving everyone at home by myself, there’s an urge in me to cook for the needy ones too. The underprivileged ones also need good and tasty food just like everyone out there. I desired to cook and serve them one day.
I’m thanking the God to have found my new passion and I am ready to learn and try out more. I will take every necessary effort to make it better everyday.
Thank you for reading both my part 1 and part 2 of my kitchen story. I’m glad that I’ve wrote all of my cooking story. This writing will be something special and memorable in my future. I hope you too will one day, spend some time for yourself, go down the memory lane of your life and write about something which matters to you. I promise it will be satisfying as you write your heart out and you’ll find yourself smiling back to your writing someday.
My Amma is a great cook and I’m forever grateful for this blessing. I’ve always wanted to follow her footsteps for each and everything especially cooking. I am not a foodie but I enjoyed her cookings. Just like every ordinary Indian family, my family too has been practicing vegetarian every Friday.
Okay, a self-denial here which I wanted to share. I don’t prefer vegetarian food every week but for any important occasion then definitely I would do. I would rather be fasting on those Fridays or eat only a very little portion than usual. And that too I do it because of Amma. I knew she had cooked for all of us. So, I don’t want to disappoint her. And besides that, she cooked at our shop house kitchen. It is not easy and comfortable sometimes. That blazing sun caused a very scorching heat on the roof. But she never complained anything about it.
My cooking history will be this. I’ve been cooking the simplest and easiest food since young. I think it all started when I’m 10 years old. Then it went on like that till I’m 18. During this age, I was more interested in bakings. I would try out more bakings and pastries at home. In the age of 20, is when I started cooking by myself for my family.
Do you agree that in the presence of our mother right there, we will definitely ask all the doubts even the simplest and silliest one also to our mother when cooking? And we got our doubts clear just in seconds? So that was what I was doing whenever Amma is right beside me.
There are several occasion when my parents were away abroad and I can’t be depending on my Amma to clear my sudden doubts in the midst of my cooking. So this kind of situations helped me to build my confidence in cookings.
So, here are few of my unforgettable experience. The first will be when my Amma and Akka were away abroad and I was with my father and two younger brothers. So I got to cook for them. I recorded a few cooking procedures with amma so that I don’t get stuck when I’m cooking. And honestly, those audios and videos helped me when I prepared food for the boys at home. I was actually still dependable as I had someone elder than me at home during that time. So that was one good experience for me. Then it went on. I cooked occasionally at home.
Then again when I was 21, Amma and Appa were away abroad, and only we, the children were at home. I still had my akka right beside me and we were dependent on each other when it comes to cooking. So it was still okay for us and we did pretty well.
In the meantime, I cooked occasionally as Amma will be there to cook all the time. It went on and on just like that. Sometimes I’ll do the side dishes while helping amma.
And then, here comes a challenge for me last year when Amma and Appa were away abroad again and akka was away working. This time it was three of us at home for 10 days. We did the usual routine. We went to shop and I had classes too. I cooked for my brothers and two workers. I said it was challenging because this time, I am only dependent on myself. It was only me to put the food on the table for them as I don’t prefer much on outside food. And honestly, it was a beautiful experience for me. I learned many things. I experienced something different and this is what I meant. The menu planning The preparation The food combination The rush The eye keeping on time moment The doubtful moment The confusion The outcome The cleanliness The fear and almost everything. I felt that I’ve grown more matured to handle things more clearly especially for cooking.
chipmunkspoetry 