What is a life well lived? As I finished listening to Mrinalji’s podcast and sort of tossed around her axioms and advice given by her mother this particular question came to my mind.
A consistent theme throughout her life has been that of angst whether it is the choice her mother made, or the status of hindi media or the limited choices of women are given etc. From the outside I felt and she also accepted that she is a better person today having made peace with what she is now & what she could do with her life. She has an amazing body of work which she should be proud of. From a journalist to writer to TV personality to new media, you just get awed that she has done so much in 70’s & 80’ one of them incidentally is interviewing Rajiv Gandhi for a hindi newspaper.
What I was awestruck was the depth of her knowledge on HIndi literature, newspapers, magazines, mythology, folkakes, language and the role it plays in a society & how she connects all dots together, it was almost like a sketch as she is reading she is connecting a few more dots and it’s continuously evolving. I think that is one of the life lessons - What is your theme of life?
The 2nd thing which I was stuck by was how both she and especially her mother accepted and went along with what life gave them but still never let go of what they both wanted to do. While her mother was more happy accepting it she channelised her anger into her work. Her mother came from a very rich family literally living in palaces, studied in Shantiniketan, was taught by Tagore himself and then got married to a widower and came to stay in a village with a brooding husband who already had a daughter. This was 1945 she was born in 19 46. But her acceptance was complete as she brought up 4 daughters travelling across Nainital, Almora, Delhi and other places. She continued writing contributing to magazines and then wrote novels which were published and one was also serialised. This is the 2nd life lesson of acceptance and going with the flow, not carrying any malice in your heart. Life will throw many curve balls, how does one continue playing & smiling?
There are 2 advice which her mom gave to be happy, While I will reproduce the exact quote in some time in essence what it means is
‘people are not bad they are born with some basic nature or circumstance make them bad so don’t have any resentment or bad feeling towards them’
‘Don’t accumulate,give away everything and just keep the basics, the more you accumulate, you will feel more miserable / get hurt.’
Day 13: 200 words/day challenge, 462 words
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