CHAPTER 5: PLAYFUL SELF-CONTENTMENT
Living a Fulfilling Life
It was barely six. Dad had finished his short morning puja and was helping his wife by setting out the family breakfast. As he arranged the plates, his mind drifted back 40 years to the day he and his parents arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from India. When his father opened their Indian grocery store, he was there to stock the shelves and run kid-sized errands. It wasn’t work in those days; it was an adventure of the entrepreneurial kind. §
That reverie was interrupted by the clamber of his daughters bounding enthusiastically down the wooden staircase. Arpita, 12, and Ananya, 14, were dressed in their uniforms, ready for school.§
“Dad, why do we always eat such a big breakfast?” Arpita asked.§
Dad smiled. “I need energy to do my work at the store, just as you need energy to study. And what’s the point of owning a grocery if you can’t eat well?” His eyes twinkled as he said those words.§
Mom looked at the girls, “Quick, now. Enjoy your breakfast. The bus will be here soon.” Twenty minutes later, Dad watched through the kitchen window as they headed for school.§
That evening, as the family sat in the living room, the doorbell rang. Ananya opened the door to find Uncle Kumar standing outside. “Hello Uncle! Please come in,” she said with a warm smile. §
Kumar was Mom’s younger brother. Their family had been in Malaysia for several generations. Their parents and grandparents had been low-paid workers on the rubber plantations and had never gone to school. With great effort, Mom’s parents had sent her and Kumar to college, and now Uncle had an important government job. §
Dad’s parents, on the other hand, were business people who came to Kuala Lumpur in the 1970s. They passed on the grocery store they started to their son. It remained successful and provided a steady income. §
Uncle slouched down on the sofa, exhausted and stressed out from his day at the office. Without so much as a pleasant remark to begin, he launched into his favorite topic: complaints about his own family. §
“I am so angry with my children. No matter what I tell them, they don’t spend enough time studying. I hope you two girls study hard! Education is so important these days.” §
Mom chided, “Enough, brother. Don’t start that again. In this home we do not force the children to study night and day. We give them time for other things—to learn religion, dance and art, and to just have fun.”§
“Sister, that’s so wrong! Those things are useless for making money in the future! They must study and earn degrees! Then they can get a big townhouse, like mine, and a Mercedes. Running a grocery store is fine for new immigrants, but the children should do better!”§
Mom was painfully aware that Kumar looked down on their grocery business, but chose to ignore his jab. “But what is the point if by pushing we make them continually worried and upset in the present moment? Our guru told us to teach our children ‘playful self-contentment’ and we are doing so. They are better people when they are content and happy. Remember, in our Hindu religion there are four goals in life: to live according to dharma, to seek happiness, to earn money and to seek liberation from rebirth. Yes, the girls need an education. That’s part of their dharma. But they are still children and children need to be happy, religious and content right now—not sacrifice their youth for a yet-t0-happen future.”§
Dad looked up from his crossword puzzle. “In this house we only force the girls to do one thing!” He peered at his daughters, with narrowed eyes, in a mock seriousness. §
When the girls answered in chorus, “Eat well!” the family burst out laughing. §
Sullen, Uncle Kumar wondered when was the last time he and his family had laughed like that together. Evenings at his home were serious, even somber. There was no time for jokes and games. The children had to study. His daughter Shaila was going to be a lawyer, and his son Satish, an engineer. That was his plan. He could hardly wait for the day when they became rich and important. They would be the envy of his friends, for sure. And they would be able to support him in later life.§
After dinner, as Uncle got up to leave, he whispered to the girls, “I don’t want to catch you idling away your time the way your Dad does. Work hard at your studies and you will be like me!” §
Ananya and Arpita looked at each other, then at their father, who had not heard Uncle’s mean remark. Uncle had never helped at the grocery store—he considered it beneath him, what with his university degree and all that—or he would know that Dad worked very hard indeed. Dad also knew the value of relaxing at home with his children.§
After Kumar left, Ananya sighed, “What’s the point of Uncle’s hard work? He always seems unhappy. Does he ever stop to just enjoy life?” §
“Most people don’t,” Dad mumbled to himself.§
The next day was Sunday, family day. The store was closed. By mid-morning they would all be dressed and leave for the temple for worship. Afterwards they would go for a picnic in the park, if the weather was good, or to an inexpensive restaurant. Then the botanical garden, the amusement park or, on rainy days, back home to watch a rented movie together. Sundays together were always a lot of fun.§
As the years went by, the girls did well in school, despite their uncle’s predictions, and were in some of the same classes as Satish and Shaila. Ananya intended to get a degree in accounting, and Arpita had her eye on a career in marketing. Shaila’s pre-law classes were brutal, as were Satish’s engineering courses. §
One day Ananya met her cousins for lunch at school. Both were so exhausted and unhappy that she asked why they never took some time out to relax a little. §
“Because Dad will kill us if we don’t study all the time,” Satish blurted out. Ananya wasn’t sure if he was exaggerating.§
After Ananya’s junior year in college, Dad suffered serious health problems. The store was becoming too much for him. The girls talked about the situation together, and then with Mom. She said, “You can continue your education if you like; that’s our first priority.”§
“But what will happen to the store?” asked Ananya.§
“We’ll sell it,” Mom replied with obvious sadness. “The money will pay for the rest of your college, and what is left will be barely enough for Dad and me to live on.”§
Arpita frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that. Our grandparents started this store, and it has taken good care of our family for the last 50 years. Ananya and I could finish our degrees, but then what? What’s the guarantee that we will earn more money than we can with the store? It would be different if Dad worked for someone else, but we have a family business. I like the grocery store, it’s challenging, and I like living upstairs from it. We’ve had such a happy life here.”§
Ananya nodded in agreement. §
After further discussions with Dad and Mom, the girls quit their schooling to take over the store. Dad passed away the following year. The girls were fully responsible for the business, and it boomed under their management. §
After a few years, they bought the store next door to expand the space. Soon both had married. Their husbands joined the family’s grocery business. Two years later Arpita’s first baby arrived. Then Ananya had twins. Their homes were bursting with the sound of happy children.§
It was Diwali, and cousins Shaila and Satish came to visit them for the first time in two years. “How’s it going?” asked Arpita.§
Satish replied, “My life is nothing but work, work, work. Shaila’s the same. If I really keep at it, I can get a high management job in the firm. And don’t ever ask me about marriage! Who has time to marry these days? I might lose out on the next promotion if I take my attention off the job.”§
“But are you happy?” Ananya inquired.§
“Not really. I want these promotions, but frankly most of the senior members of the firm are stressed out and miserable.”§
Shaila, who was playing with one of the babies, chimed in. “I would really like to find a husband and start a family, but if I took off for maternity leave, I would never advance in the law firm.”§
It pained Arpita to see how unhappy they were. They had been unhappy children, they were unhappy college students and now they were unhappy adults. Their father had meant well, but this was clearly the result of his constant pushing and complaining. §
It was during the monsoon season, when the downpour was especially heavy, that they heard Uncle Kumar was deathly ill. The family closed the shop for a few days and Mom, Arpita and Ananya drove to Uncle’s house. Satish and Shaila were there. Their distant expressions revealed they hadn’t visited their father for a while. Each had moved to the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur to be near their jobs. Bedridden, he was a mere shadow of his former self. Only now, as the end was near, had they come to check on him in person. §
Kumar looked up from his bed. His illness had caught him unprepared. The doctor had been telling him for years that he needed to relax and spend time with his children, not to mention cut out all the palm oil and white sugar from his diet. Even if he had followed the doctor’s counsel, the children had new jobs and new lives far away. They had all become accustomed to the physical and emotional estrangement. §
Kumar struggled to sit up. “I have realized something,” he confessed. “All my life I thought I had to work, work, work and never let up. I pushed myself. I pushed you, Shaila and Satish. I even tried to push you, Arpita and Ananya. But, fortunately for you, your father would have nothing of it. ‘Let them have some time for fun, let them be content with the way things are,’ he would say. I scoffed at him. Now I see the two of you are happy parents. I would love to have grandchildren, but I raised my own children to be so stressed out, they don’t even want children! They think a family would just mean more stress!”§
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Dad,” Satish offered.§
“It’s not a matter of being hard on myself anymore. Soon I will greet Lord Yama, the God of Death. I clearly see things the way they are, and the way they should have been. Feeling we did not have enough, my father pushed me. Even though I was successful and well off, I also pushed my children. With all this wanting and pushing, no one thought to just be happy.” §
He paused for a few moments to catch his breath. “I shall not make this same mistake in my next life.”§
“Don’t talk like that,” sobbed Shaila.§
Suddenly Uncle shouted, “Get the car! Get the car!” §
Startled and confused, Satish looked at Kumar. “Where do you want to go?”§
“It’s time to leave, give me the keys!”§
Satish looked over at his aunt, then back at his father, who had stopped breathing.§
“He has gone to Siva’s feet,” grieved Ananya, who then chanted the Mrityunjaya Mantra with her sister. Their soft intonations comforted everyone. §
In tears, Satish and his sister listened, but did not understand the meaning or chant along. No time was given for such religious studies when they were growing up.§
A year later they all gathered to remember Uncle’s passing. The family lit a lamp and did a simple puja in the shrine room before his picture. §
Breaking the silence, Shaila spoke, “Father’s death was an extraordinary moment, to hear him talk like that with such wisdom about being content in life. But what did he mean, ‘Get the car’?” §
Ananya explained, “I found out a few months ago that when people are about to leave their body, they often have thoughts of travel. In the old scriptures, it says they may see chariots, horses or elephants in their dreams, or talk about them. But today, we travel in cars, so he asked for a car. It was all part of the journey he was about to take.”§
There was silence until Shaila spoke. “This last year I gave a lot of thought to Father’s final words: ‘I shall not make this same mistake in my next life.’ Father was raised, and he raised us to never be content, to never feel what we had was enough. Even when we had enough, we never took time to enjoy life.” §
Shaila then made a vow: “I have decided to change, so that I won’t have to apologize to my children on my deathbed.” Then she grinned. “I guess I shouldn’t talk about children when I’m not even married yet!”§
Arpita saw her chance. “You know, my husband has a smart and good looking brother who is not married. Why don’t you join us on our next Sunday family outing? We won’t tell him anything, so you can check him out for yourself first!”§
Satish looked up. “Can I come along? Do you have any available sisters-in-law? This is all a lesson for me, too, that there’s a lot more to life than making money.”§
