Gurudakshina

I witnessed two celebrations of Guru Poornima recently. In either cases, the venerated ones were bhajan teachers, both wonderful ,warm great people. They had taught us melodious, moving devotion-filled music and the fervor with which they were praised and revered was touching. Both gurus responded with equal warmth and humility. The guru hymns sung in their honour were great; I was however left pondering for the rest of the sessions about the true import of the word guru and its contemporary relevance. I had nursed in my soul, from the days of my son’s Amar Chitra Katha days, a romantic yearning for life in a Gurukul-where you would be nurtured wholesomely and fashioned into a complete person. Would I ever find a remote equivalent to a guru in my life, I sighed wistfully. And as faithful disciples sang about atma gyan ans spiritual insights emanating from the gurus, I got my answer- why, I had my guru, not one but two!!

My father had taught me a great many things-unlike in a gurukul, tucked away in the forest, however, he took me places. And where! My impressionable years were spent with my parents in French West Africa where daddy was a UN official. Friends warned him of the folly of expecting education for me in the god-forsaken expanses of French Sahara. Niamey was an unheard of place; I would attend the only French lycée there, the only Indian girl and with no knowledge of French. My father stood by me; by providing me extra help, by learning the language himself. Later on returning to India he found out how my hard-acquired French could be put to good use. He was with me when I joined my MA course in French and later when I became a lecturer in French .
Daddy’s role of guru did not cease with my marriage. On the contrary, as the young mother in me struggled to cope with the experience of bringing up a developmentally disabled child, daddy was there to tell me that tears were no good; problems were there to be solved, that learning never ceased and that opportunities come couched in difficulties. He shares my problems and lives my joys and vicissitudes of life with me.
My other guru, the main shaper of my attitude to life has been my son. A slow learner, whose subtle disabilities came to the fore well after he had been grievously hurt in the soul by society for being different. He looked up to me for understanding and solace. And later, when the bubbly little boy in him had all but died of hurt and a silent, lost adolescent took over, he trusted no one but me. I learned to field insensitive questions about him in front of him and t olet my life follow the path he had laid out for me.A different world altogether opened u pfor me-of unsurmountable problems, uncertainty or of purity and adventure, as I chose to see it. Many people have come into my life thanks to my son-parents like me, children like/unlike him, devoted educators, generous souls…Had my son been more attuned to the world, I would have been another prosaic mother dreaming marks and counting achievements as the sole milestones of life. My son taught me to hear silence and to wait for the desert flower that blooms from nowhere one fine day.he taught me to be a fighting, accommodating and a self-carved mother and later a strong woman in my own right.
Today at 91 daddy is not a staid, disenchanted man. He has been following my evolution from timid girl through diffident motherhood to confident middle aged woman. A little hard of hearing and frail, he is certainly not a man of the past. A true guru, he feels enriched through my experiences and strives hard to understand my son.
And my gurudakshina? I suppose both my father and my son would expect me never to get bogged down by negatives, to always look for an alternative when a brick wall dresses itself in my way.if one has given me the wings of imagination to soar, the other keeps me securely anchored to earth. My father showed how enjoyable parenting can be-my son that it can be extended beyond the family. Gurudakshina need not be given to the guru alone:it is an offering to life itself.