Among other things, what kept me busy over the weekend!

It's been one year since my mother passed away. People make comments about how fast one year has gone. As I type this post, the memory of last year comes back. I know that she had a full life and was really waiting to go. So I try not to miss her. This last week or so I once woke with a start because I thought she called me. We will be having a memorial service for her on Saturday morning.

The great Lent

It's the time of Lent for the Christian world. Here, in Kerala, as a member of an Oriental Orthodox Church, this Lent is the most important one and is observed for 7 weeks. Lent for us started on the 4th of this month.

I have decided to observe Lent this year, as I have a couple of times before. My sisters-in-law all observe this Lent, as do occasionally the brothers-in-law (not my husband though). During these 7 weeks (actually 48 days as the fast begins on a Monday and ends on Easter Sunday) those who observe the Lent give up meat, fish, alcohol and sometimes eggs & milk. I have decided to give up meat and fish and try not to eat eggs. My sisters will mostly not eat eggs too, which therefore means cakes and custards etc. I remember my husband's grandmother giving up meat, fish, eggs, milk & milk products too, which I know used to be a real sacrifice for her. She used to observe all the Lents in the Church calendar. So much so, the rest of the year, she used to refuse to eat any vegetables, saying she had eaten enough during the different Lenten seasons to last her for the rest of the year:)

During this period of Lent our community--on the whole--becomes very subdued, as this Lent is observed by many Christians of other denominations too. There are no weddings, as weddings are not permitted during Lent and rarely parties, as most of our men are ardent fans of meat, fish and alcohol and a party without all 3 is unbearably dull! Add to that, it is examination time in the school year around this time. Many people take this time to diet stringently too; after all it's much easier with so few social events.

It's during this Lent particularly that all kinds of interesting vegetarian food items appear in the shops, which you wouldn't see normally. They don't seem to appear so much during the 24 day pre-Christmas Lent, probably because far fewer people observe that Lent.

In the Orthodox Calendar there are many Lents of different lengths, this being the longest. I did try to find a site to link to which would explain them, but couldn't come up with a comprehensive site.

All the other women in the family (my husband's family) are all more practising and stauncher Christians than I am. On of the younger ones told me that apparently our Church has a service everyday from around 12 to 12.30 p.m. (about which I knew nothing though born into this Church). One was traditionally supposed to have the first meal of the day only after this service was over. During this service of half and hour, one is supposed to genuflect 70 times. She says she goes most days and genuflects the 70 times. I have to confess that I doubt I would be able to genuflect even twice. She also told me that there is a service on the morning of the Monday that Lent begins. She was telling me that the priest preached a sermon that this day one is supposed to forgive all the hurts anyone might have done to us; that there is no point observing Lent with anger and lack of forgiveness in our hearts. I thought that was a wonderful point. I must say it's interesting to learn things I didn't know, about the Church I have technically been a part of for the past 56 years.

So to all my blog friends, my special prayers for you all this Lenten season. May you all have time to meditate and to get rid of some hurts in your heart.

Hiphop Grandmom had asked me to write about beliefs that I held when I was younger that have changed with time. Believe me HHG, I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to that. Well here are beliefs which have changed.

1. When you love somebody, you must share all their interests. Well, that is one notion that I know for sure is no go! I realise now that any 2 people in a relationship that grows, will have different interests (this applies for all relationships—life partners, children, friendships) and not sharing the other one’s interests is fine as long as each respects the other and his/her interests. [I should add that, in my view, mutual respect is the most essential feeling for any kind of relationship to prosper.]
2. When you are married, you must tell your spouse everything. That was one of those things that I thought too. But now I know that many a time, there is no need to share everything with your partner. Certainly there are secrets that other people might share with you and sometimes things that happen in your life, which don’t really need to be shared.
3. When you loved somebody, the relationship just grew with no effort on your part. Well, I’m sure all of you married people out there know that is just not true. No relationship can be sustained without effort. I’ve had a young person argue with me “ But how can that be true love, when you have to put in effort? Doesn’t it just mean you are trying to stay together just because of inertia without any love?” Well that same young person is now married and I’m sure realises the truth of this statement, mainly because we are never always ‘in love’ with the people we love.
4. If you were a good parent, your children should never question you. Well that for sure I know is not true. I don’t know how good a mother I may have been. But I now know that my children questioning me when they were growing, didn’t necessarily mean that I wasn’t being a firm mother, nor that I was a bad mother.
5. Being loyal to friends and family meant never admitting to their faults. Now I realise that is not necessarily so. Yes one can defend one’s family, but admitting they have faults to someone else who has their interests at heart too, isn’t being disloyal.

Most of my other beliefs I still hold to, like:

1. War never solves anything. I still feel that, stronger than ever. The only case where I couldn’t come up with, in my mind, a satisfactory alternative, was in the case of Adolf Hitler, unless something could have been done in Germany before he came to power.
2. Non-violence really does pay, when you are ethically in the right.
3. Money most certainly doesn’t give you happiness.
4. All people are equal, whatever race, religion or socio-economic background you come from.

I hope this is what you had expected HHG. I would like to hear what Eve at Eve’s Lungs has to say to this as well as Geets.

In the past month I have watched 2 movies, which is pretty unusual for me. One was 'Taare Zameen Par' (stars on the ground) the Hindi movie most talked about recently and a Malayalam movie 'Kadaparayumbol'. Both were good movies. The first one I saw as part of the class I'm attending about Learning Disabilities. It was really good movie about Dyslexia, done in a truly empathic way, without trivializing the problem or glorifying it. As it has been done by such a big Bollywood name, I hope many people will see it and get sensitized. I only wish I had seen it once more in a theatre rather than in a classroom.
The Malayalam movie was good because it was a simple movie. My husband and I are not big movie goers, except when a movie is highly recommended, which is how we went for this.
I must say it's nice to get to watch a movie in a darkened room, once in a while. Watching movies on TV is the worst thing imaginable.
I also got to listen to an octet from Chennai this evening, who call themselves Octet Cantabile. They sing only Christian music though. But they were very good. They did a rendition of Bach-Gounod's 'Ave Maria' which was wonderful.

Here I was being needy (in the blog world) and being self-focused, when I went over to Moanna's blog and there read about a friend of hers, which made me feel small and guilty. All I had was a bad allergy cold and some need issues (which I can never articulate in real life; only send it out in blogosphere). Thanks so much for all the caring that all of you blog friends gave me.

For various unexplainable reasons i need a hug from friends, and a virtual hug will do.