I have just been a part of The School of You’s session on Curses and Boons, which was a freewheeling discussion about mythology and how many figures in mythology came up with a curse on some people, such as the story of Cassandra and Apollo in the Greek myths or closer to home, the story of Karna in the Mahabharata.
We went on to explore the nuances of injunctions such as “don’t exist”, “don’t be you”, “don’t belong” and how these affect our day to day activities and put unwarranted pressure on us to be something we are not, (or never wanted to be). As a further means to illustrate this, I spoke up and said that my mother would force feed me books by people like Thomas Hardy or Fyodor Dostoevsky and while I accept that some of these books are among the greatest written in the history of mankind, (which immediately set off a train of thought in me about how great that history is anyway, when you consider the Crusades, the actions of the Knights Templar, Charlemagne or closer to home the riots and the Indian freedom struggle from the oppression of the British), I found another world in the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and in the films of Guillermo Del Toro than in those books and I think the fact that I could not bring my mother into those worlds, that she expected me to inhabit her worlds without question and yet would never bother with my worlds; well it was that which led me to grow apart from her.
It is funny how the session had more to offer though than what was for me such an immense personal introspection, because we were split into groups and told to re write the story of Karna from the Mahabharata and this was by far one of the best activities I’ve ever done. Our group dived into it, with the clock ticking and eight minutes speeding by and we discussed how, if Karna, who was given a raw deal from the very beginning with his mother Kunti rejecting him (being of course a textbook example of how “don’t exist” is an injunction) instead hadn’t or how his lie to his teacher wouldn’t have been necessary and if Dronacharya had been his guru. We concluded that had this been the case, perhaps (with 25 seconds on the clock) there would have been no Kurukshetra and even no Bhagavad Gita. I must say this story makes a bit more sense than seeing Karna suffer such injustice. I feel, (like others felt in the session too) that his choice to not play the victim card and to be generous and selfless makes Karna a more rounded character ,and a more believable one than Arjuna.
At this point, there was a discussion on how Hindu mythos as a whole is very unforgiving of mistakes and sends the message that mistakes are what bring about huge penalties and therefore should never be made and some of the mothers in the session went on to say that they don’t read or discuss the Hindu mythological canon with their children.
This reminded me of every single teacher I’ve had who has taught me anything and how they would always encourage me to make mistakes and how they would guide me so that I wouldn’t be making that mistake so effortlessly in the future. Being a freelance teacher myself, I was reminded of a student of mine who was never motivated and all I told him was to just go and give his exam and not worry about any consequences. He thrived and he said to me at our final class that I was the only teacher he had had who had believed in him and not written him off as a lost cause.
I digress, but this got me around to thinking that even a boon is not without its conditions. Stand on one foot for a ridiculous amount of time and you will be granted this boon. Lord Shiva and Ravana, Ravana wanting some recognition of his faith and instead being humiliated because he went too far in lifting the Kailash parvat; or the Prince Dastan from the Prince of Persia video game series who is given power over time itself and is motivated to protect his home of Babylon and yet the underlying theme of “You cannot change your fate”, which we are made to see as he loses Kaileena, the true love of his life and returns home from his battle with the Dahaka to find that indeed, Babylon does lie in flames before him.
Someone had written in the chat of the meeting something along the lines of “When the student is ready, the teacher appears. However, when the student is really ready then the teacher disappears.” A jest indeed, but is it/was it?
Is there truly something that is unconditional in this world and is there truly a need to be perfect? I think what this session reinforced in me are the following points:
One- it is okay to not be okay
Two- perfectionism is a sure fire way to total disaster
Three- celebrate and rejoice the fact that you are flawed. Even God made a mistake in creating humans (since Biblically speaking, humans are flawed creatures) and ignoring Lucifer’s warning that we as a species are flawed
Four- embrace every mistake you make as with each mistake you grow a little
Five- forgive. Forgive those that hurt you, forgive those who make mistakes, and of course forgive and be kind to your own self.
I thank the School of You from the bottom of my heart for this session which has given me so much food for thought and happiness and would love to attend more such sessions as and when I can.
Ashesh Mitra
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