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Jain Digest. Summer 2007
INSPIRATION
Reflections on Life through Death
on a religious path as prodded, my Bhabhu determinedly
marching confidently towards something only she seemed Vinit M. Doshi
to understand. My beloved grandmother passed away this month in India After graduating from high school, I saw Bhabhu even after a long and gradually debilitating deterioration of her less frequently as I immersed myself into the commotion body, compounded by the advancement of Alzheimer's of modern life, complete with professional job and family disease. Growing up, I remember her living years vividly of my own. Over the next twenty years I observed from a as a happy, loving and compassionate motherly figure. distance how her health gradually and insidiously deterioWe called her Bhabhu. Like many Indian mothers, she rated. In recent years, she lost the ability to eat or go to expressed her love through food with frequent and indul- the bathroom by herself, she couldn't walk, her joints and gent meals. From her kitchen in the center of the house, limbs swelled and she became completely dependent on she commanded a view to the world, feeding generations around-the-clock care - a stark contrast from her years as of extended family not only with authentic nourishment the grand matriarch. It was difficult for family to witness but with motherly advice, encouragement and perspective the evident suffering, particularly because she could no throughout, sometimes topped with enticing gossip or longer remember, recognize or communicate a word to jokes for dessert. Although she was minimally educated anyone. She was in a state of permanent solitude. What and married away early into a busy domestic family life, she was going on in her mind? No one, not even my devoted understood the world very well through her life experiences uncle who cared for her could really know or experience and perceptive observations about others. She showed a what she was going through. The only clue was in her driven curiosity about things that many elders wouldn't eyes that often showed a meditative and peaceful gaze, understand or care about. She participated eagerly in all reminiscent of when she would recite Navkars or talk activities and conversations, often speaking with humor fondly of Mahavir Bhagwan. It was the one thing she and passion, whether in praising or in scolding, and espe- undoubtedly found comfort in the thing she carried cially when she wanted her way, like when bargaining over closest to herself at all times - the deeply ingrained mantra vegetable prices, arguing with my grandfather or defending that provided inspiration throughout her life. She was 84 her religious faith. There was fire in her.
when she passed away. I had come to know Bhabhu mostly during my youth In observing the totality of her life and sufferings, I was through our occasional visits during family vacations and able to reflect better on my own understandings. In the her one visit to America. As anyone who knew her would days following her death, I once envisioned humankind as attest to, the one unmistakable aspect of her character was a long line of people waiting from the day of birth, inchthe intensity of her religious beliefs. Bhabhu was out- ing forward day after day, entertaining each other with wardly unwavering, unshakable and confident in her Jain cultural distractions to pass the time until eventual death faith. Once, when asked if she knew Sanskrit, she replied and separation from attachments. It seemed a depresssharply, “Namo Arihantanam! Everything worth knowing ing thought, but it was in meditating on this bhavana is captured in that. What use is Sanskrit?" There was much that I realized how considerably and profoundly my own wisdom in her statement, although I didn't appreciate it perspective had evolved since my youth. No longer did I fully at the time. My brother said she had recited the man- see Bhabhu an old woman of another generation whose tra over a million times in her life, but I didn't believe it. perspective I could never share or need to appreciate. On Through the perspective of my Western upbringing, she the contrary, I started to feel that we were more or less practiced her religion with such unquestioned faith and similar and our perspectives reconcilable. apparent rigidity that it seemed unreasoned and dogmatic The change started in my interpretations of behaviors and to me. She devoted extraordinary effort into rituals that attributing of motivations. By extending my own fears I didn't understand and often gave explanations through and limitations to others, 1 had misunderstood Bhabhu's stories that made a reasonable moral point, but always left Navkar mantra as a superficial practice, an excuse to avoid me with some nagging doubt when the allegories failed to delving into difficult questions, rather than as the very extend logically to other situations. She seemed not to be conduit to go deeper into the self. I could no longer view genuinely interested in questions of how and why, at least her practice as blind or meaningless recitations, having not in the rigid way that I was accustomed to thinking. validated the effectiveness of prayer and mediation myself. Over time, we had come to tacitly agree to disagree' in our l accepted that the practice would help me focus my mind understanding of religion - me wandering half-heartedly even when the body fails me.
(Continued on pg 31) 22ation Intemational For Private & Personal Use Only
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