Dear Mrs. Singh,
The other day I ran into the father of your young grandson’s friend, or rather, ex-friend. I met this man at the birthday dinner we all went to a few years ago when he and I spoke extensively then, and so I remembered him when I saw him at Kroger the other day. I approached and reintroduced myself and we spoke again: I asked after his son (who is fine) and after your grandson, who I imagine, is not fine (and never seemed fine to me, either).
This man said that eventually his son and your grandson stopped being friends because of you. He said that his son no longer wanted to hang out with your grandson because you were too controlling and too much attending and just overly-evident in Anudvig’s life. This man, a father and caretake of children himself, said that you wanted to come over and watch his son and Anudvig play, to “make sure nothing happened” to him, every time he came to this friend’s house. His son said it was too much, and too much trouble, and he would rather just not be friends with Anudvig if you were going to be like that.
I told him I felt similarly about Tanya. That all I wanted to do was be friends with your daughter, and have her back, and support her in every way I could, but that you made that impossible. Despite my never having done a single thing to you, and despite my best efforts at friendship with your whole family, and my fee-less decorating for Tanya and Anudvig’s birthday party, and my well-tested temperance when dealing with you, you continued to treat me with such disrespect and wary avoidance and implied wrong-doing as to make friendship with Tanya as impossible as this man’s son found it to be with Anudvig.
Whatever is going on with you, Mrs. Singh, is unnecessary, and obviously detrimental, and in my case, outright unkind and uncalled for. You have chased your children’s, and your children’s children’s, friends away, just because you are scared and can’t handle a little risk and variation. The fact of the matter, though, is, Mrs. Singh, there will always be these, everywhere and in every time, and really, there is very little risk where you think that there is. There is hardly any risk in this man’s home, or at an art gallery, or anywhere that I would take Tanya; and what risk there is is entirely manageable and really, no more in evidence anywhere vs. in your own home, where anyone who really wants to can come and do whatever damage you imagine they might in your fearful, fearful mind, Mrs. Singh. And let me remind you, Mrs. Singh, that Tanya blacked out and fell down, in her own bathroom, and with no apparent cause, and “damaged” her nose that one time. So, it’s not like any one of us can’t trip and fall and break anything and everything inside us just bringing the groceries in!
Plus, what do you imagine YOU could do, or could have done, in this situation or any situation at all? If someone is going to trip and fall (or whatever you feel may happen if you are not there) what, exactly, do you feel you can do about it, anyway??? Because in my experience, what is going to happen is going to happen, whether I am there or not, and if I am, I only witness the event and am there only to lament the whole thing and could not have prevented it if I had tried to! Also, I would venture to say that people need mishap in their life, if only to experience a contrast to their daily life of (what can be) stifling security, and if not to just outright know what to do about problems when they happens, as they surely will! Our bodies would never develop the proper resistance to disease, and the antibodies they need, were they never exposed to the dirt and grime and biological chaos of this world, Mrs. Singh!!!
And I write this letter, not just to you, but to every Indian mom out there.
Just because your life didn’t turn out how you wanted (or maybe it did- with a “bum” husband [I know he isn’t one, but his body is certainly worn down right now] and a family held together only by blood, [as far as I can see, and I have attended your “family” dinners {at your home and eating out}], or maybe your life is just different than you’d have it, or whatever causes you to place your fearful attention so ardently onto these kids), and your marriage is arranged, and your work is “whatever”, and all this does not occupy enough of your heart to satisfy and fulfill, DOES NOT mean you can foist upon your children the shadow of all this unlived love and life!
It is not good for them, you, or the world to displace your attention like that onto these people who need space to grow and live and form their own selves and opinions and tastes. It is keeping these ones, your children (whom you love!), and your children’s children (whom I hope you also love!) back: you are impeding their growth excessively, Mrs. Singh. Your limited understanding of, and crushing insistences about them are retarding their lives’ natural expression and expansion and is “sheltering” them too much from the world.
When I wanted to take Tanya out to the art show in the city, a totally normal and non-threatening activity in nice, fancy, safe Uptown, you pretty much freaked out and insisted I bring her home at a certain time and told me she was very “sheltered” and unknowing of the world and that she needed to be treated thusly. I was shocked that a) you thought I didn’t already know this b) you thought I should be told this at all, and in this particular instance, for some reason and c) that you thought there was going to be any problem with us going to this very anodyne, very innocuous event in the first place!
This is all so indicative of malalignment, Mrs. Singh. First of all, I have spent enough time with Indian people and families, and read enough of your holy books and literature, and seen enough of your tv and movies to know that there is an illness- that you may not know of- in your (culture’s and motherly) “love”. Because it is not love, what you do and are doing to your “loved ones”, Mrs. Singh. It is not love for Tanya, Anudvig, me, yourself, your husband, or the world that drives you to such fear and abandonment TO that fear. It is also very clearly “not working” as a system, what you are doing with these people in your life. Your insistence on guarding Tanya and Anduvig and your home is a faulty modus operandi, Mrs. Singh; your home surveillance, your general outlook on life and others, IS NOT RIGHT, Mrs. Singh, and it is not operative: it is not functional. It IS, however, detrimental, limiting, and faithless.
It is your BELIEF that dictates your reality, Mrs. Singh, and you must know this. When you believe, as you do, that the world is a dangerous and scary place, it will appear to you thusly. It will. The world will look” as you see it”, even if it is not, until one day, it is -because you made it so, with the powers inherent in your, and everyone’s, minds and perceptions thereof.
Despite what your native tv and cinema tell you, as well as what America’s media have to say, there are hardly any mad ax-men lurking anywhere to murder you, or anyone, at all. THERE JUST ISN’T, Mrs. Singh, as evidenced mostly by the fact that you’ve never seen it, experienced it, or heard of it in your realm of real life. And if you have, I’m sorry, but it is just so unlikely that whatever you fear and are guarding against is going to happen, let alone do more damage to Anudvig and Tanya’s well-being that what YOU are already doing trying to stop it! And honestly, your fear-based behavior only draws that possibility of “attack” to you, as I hope you understand!!!
For one thing, everyone is so self-absorbed these days, no one has time for random killing! No one is that interested in other people anymore! But other than that, it just doesn’t happen. The media are a LIE, Mrs. Singh. They are trying to make everyone distrust everyone else and remain in their own little worlds so that we don’t reach out and become connected, and become friends, and realize that we’re all being duped, and rise up against their little sad system. It’s very typical of a culture/country’s end-times, and very well documented in literature from around the world and in all times, and you are playing right into their hands! But that is not the point, Mrs. Singh, the point is: you are afraid of nothing. There is NOTHING out there that can harm you if you believe this: THAT NOTHING CAN HARM YOU. If you have faith in God and yourself and HUMANITY (as you do not seem to) then nothing can hurt you at all! And if ever you are hurt, you can very easily be healed with faith, too; and if you ever die because of faith or anything at all, Mrs. Singh, that, too, is not a problem for the true believer. But in truth, Mrs. Singh, not everyone is out to get you and really, no one is really “out to get you”, especially not ME.
You have tried, condemned, and punished with me with banishment in the court of your family, all for the crime of being different: looking a little weird and acting a little weird. But let me say this: if I were not “a little weird” I would never have met Tanya and you all in the first place, as “normal” women do not reach out beyond barriers of race and religion as I have done. And though you may not think of me as “written in the Lamb’s book of life”, I assure you, I am; as truly, we ALL are, as Children of the One True God. Because when I first met you, I was concerned about the energy around the satsungat, as I had just discovered it hours before, and spoke to you and your husband about it that day in the park with great vigor and bombast out of what was basically fear.
Perhaps I spoke with too great an emphasis that day, and about a subject too far afield for you, as I must have, frightening you and leaving you with a negative impression that seems to have lasted beyond what I would have it to have done. For this I am sorry: I had no idea my excoriation of the bad magic around your husband’s holy place would have affected our lives thusly and for this long. I was very concerned at the time and found your sudden presence in the park that day a kismet synchronicity and so, really, I felt a holy relief at the sight of you two, and was just trying to alert you to a problem I thought we all shared, and I was trying to speak to two people I thought were friendly, and who might understand, and could possibly help. I guess I was wrong, and I apologize for this.
But my knowledge of magic is not itself evil (nor is magic btw). It is merely an extension of my understanding of symbolism that I learned in my classical education in art and literature. It is akin to Tanya’s wearing certain stones to attain certain effects in her life from them, because magic is inherent in all things, Mrs. Singh; and like how knowledge of what stones to wear to counter-act or counter-balance certain traits in our personalities within our choice of jewelry is good and useful and worth knowing, it is ALSO best to just know magic, and how it works, at the very least, since we all wear jewelry/live in a very magically-saturated world.
Because truly Mrs. Singh, your daughter Tanya is one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and not because she’s a good friend, because she isn’t, due to your interference. I consider Tanya a good friend because she’s a very good person: I find her very worthy of all this effort and trouble. Because, Mrs. Singh, I would go to war for what I believe and for whom I love and, right now, you are stopping me from loving Tanya, and understanding more about Tanya, and what she believes and whom she loves and what she wants out of life; and that is a punishable offense in my book, worthy of this war of words I bring to you now. And so, I try, condemn, and punish you, Mrs. Singh, to understanding, and to knowledge of the harm you cause me, Tanya, and Anudvig (as well as anyone else you push your presence and fear upon to their very certain detriment).
Tanya has told me of the beginning of her first marriage and how she was blind to her former husband’s unsavory ways simply because she was so eager to leave YOU and your controlling ways. And because she was so quick to jump your ship, she fell into an unsound boat with a deranged captain, and we are all paying the price of that presently. Tanya cannot drive or control much of her life right now because of this ill-thought-out decision that led to her staying in a hostel in India for years, unable to attain any kind of life at all. And though Tanya ultimately did make that choice, the fact that it wasn’t so much a choice, or a life-destination, as it was a running-away-from-her-mother and a negation of that enforced child-like-life, is ultimately (albeit partly) your fault. You created the untenable, cloistered, cloying, and repressive house she wanted to flee; you instilled in her the idea that a man was an escape from all this (as your mother likely did to you). Or at the very least, you gave her the mental and cognitive atmosphere that led to that ill-fated decision she made, Mrs. Singh, to leave you for a more treacherous situation that she perceived, in her willing blindness to see anything but YOU, was a better life for her than what she had with you. And in the end, the daughter pays for the sins of the mother, as it ever was, again.
But it DOESN’T have to be this way!!!!!!!!!!!!! You CAN change!!! You can break the pattern, Mrs. Singh! You can let go of your fear and realize there’s nothing there to be afraid of except fear itself, and let Tanya and Anudvig fly, like they were meant to, instead of clipping their wings for fear they will fall! You CAN! You can do this for the ones you love! You can let go of your fearful madness that will surely infiltrate and inculcate their young minds with internalized and inherited fear if you continue on like this and LET THEM BE! Let them grow, Mrs. Singh, let them see and know for themselves what life can be!!! How full of glory and wonder and endless option life really is!!! They are not you, Mrs. Singh, with your bound-up fears and limited notions about life and you should not want them to be! You should not instill a fear in them of the nothing YOU fear. You should not! Please, please, DO NOT DO THIS, Mrs. Singh. Because let me say now: they do not have it yet anyway and for this you should count yourself very lucky! Tanya is not yet afraid as you are, and I do not see that Anudvig is either, and all your fearmongering and helicopter-parenting and inane, controlling worry is doing is making them hate YOU. And truly, Mrs. Singh, you add not one “single hour to your life (or theirs) by worrying”; you only instill in them the same faithlessness in people, themselves, and God that you, yourself must feel to badger and board them up and away from life and love as you so do.
I have watched as Anudvig has refused to sit at the dinner table with you all, likely in protest of the cold, uncommunicative atmosphere in which it takes place, but much more likely just as an act of defiance itself: a protest about how he cannot protest anything else in his life at all. Anudvig is a smart, kind, highly attentive boy that is not being nourished in mind or soul or social life. I have seen inside his room and closet, spoken to him about his school and life, and watched as he has played frenetic games on the computer for lack of anything else to occupy his body, mind, and soul. He is aware and alert and sees everything around him, but he has no one with whom to speak and confide in because he has no real friends, and one day, this will all get him into trouble if he is not allowed to grow more properly, Mrs. Singh.
His not sitting at the dinner table with us that evening was the first rumbling of this discontented dissention I speak of, Mrs. Singh. Anudvig will be good-looking and sharp and though the trouble he gets in will likely not be with the law or anything of that nature, he will act out, soon enough, and make himself known to you all as he has not yet since, unless you give him room to breathe; unless you allow him room in his own mind and life now, when he is younger and can grow and decide and choose in the relative harmony of your home’s protection.
Because if he does not have the social, mental, and soulful space now to BE, GROW, and just find out for himself what life is for him, Anudvig will take that space for himself later in his life, in a way I do not think you all will like, much as TANYA did when she left home and took her life’s space. I pray that this is not the case, and that it is not too late to give him his place, in a way, and as she was not allowed, and is still not, even now. And btw, it’s criminal that she’s so Cinderella right now for your family: she needs to take advantage of her youth and beauty NOW and find a good and suitable partner for herself while she can; she should not be cooking and cleaning and talking to some jerk in India on the phone (who won’t even tell her he loves her!) all day! Plus, I made that art for her, that you won’t let her hang in her OWN space, as a manifestation-meditation-object for this person I wish to bestow on her!!! AND there is nothing wrong with it, Mrs. Singh! Men and their beauty and their sex are important, necessary, and part of the true juicy joy of life!! And I might venture to say that if YOUR sex life were more satisfying, Mrs. Singh, you would NOT be so controlling and anal-retentive and overly and annoyingly attentive to your children (and theirs)!
Now, I HOPE you take this letter in the spirit it was meant: a clarion call for change. I hope you see its condemnation and unasked-for advice like the flower I once gave you and Tanya at your door: as an impetus for transformation. At first you said you did not want it (for whatever reason I cannot see or know or fathom) but then you took it in, and fought with Tanya over its placement in your home, once you realized its true beauty and worth and grace, Mrs. Singh. Please let it be thus, and I am sorry if I have ever caused you, or anyone you love, any harm at all, as that was never my intention, and I would not have it be this way, if ever given the choice.
I will pray for you all and look forward to the day we can be reunited again, in full fellowship, “so that our joy may be complete”. I hope YOU can see that I intend well by all this, and that God is “driving me” to it, by giving me the memory, insight, and wherewithal to speak to you cogently about it all. However, please forgive me my forwardness, assumptions, and interfering ways, because I can NO LONGER let this go unattended, for your sakes as well as mine (and perhaps, for all of India’s sake as well).
May God Bless You in All Your Ways and May You Forgive Me Mine.
