Kamla di
She is someone who has been in my thoughts every single day since one day in January this year. She is Kamla Bhasin, Kamla di to me. “Di”, the short for “didi” is a term used to mean “elder sister” in quite a few Indian languages. I like calling her Kamla di.She is someone who is dearly loved by the Creator and by everyone else who has crossed her path or whose path she has crossed. She has a warm hug, an encouraging smile, a forgiving nature and loads of wisdom to offer. She inspires one to dance and to sing. She can lead people to wonderful discoveries about their own selves, about the society they live in, about the Universe…..no wonder then that she has a huge fan following! Positivity moves with her like a constant companion taking her radiance to wherever she goes.
She is someone who works for social change, especially in the South-Asian region in the countries of Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and India. She also works with people in Turkey.
She has other amazing qualities as well. She can appear as a beacon of wondrous strength and be as compassionate as ever in intense personal grief. She has the capacity to give meaning to deep personal grief and channelise it towards new learning, positive learning, higher learning…...for herself and the hundreds of others whose lives she has touched and continues to touch.
Her dearest daughter, Meeto, 27 years old, a student of Oxford "died" two months ago. She chose to leave her physical body. Kamla di has withstood her daughter’s decision bravely and with indomitable strength. Because of the love she radiates and the compassion she shows, she is surrounded by friends, relatives and well-wishers from different parts of the world at this time in her life. She says that the love is helping her to heal; she is receptive to this outpour of love. From the give and take of this highest form of energy, has emerged some wondrous connections and deep and positive revelations about the soul, about life, most importantly about the eternity of life and about the immorality of soul connections.
Meeto has her own galaxy. One of her friends in Oxford wrote about Meeto in her blog in January and this gave a chance to many more to write in – heart felt pieces of writing which just shows how much she, like her mother, influenced others. These are the links to the spaces devoted to Meeto on her friend’s blog.
http://necessityprevails.blogspot.com/2006/01/in-memoriam.html
http://necessityprevails.blogspot.com/2006/01/meeto.html
http://necessityprevails.blogspot.com/2006/01/some-of-my-memories-of-meeto.html
One of Kamla’s friends has created a separate blog in Meeto’s memory and honor.
http://www.meetomalik.blogspot.com/
I have known Kamla di since the past four years now. I have had the chance to spend more time with her than ever before since last month. I feel extremely graced.
10 comments:
Its nice to know that such amazing and wonderful people are out there in the world. I really don't know what to say. Its just so sad when people you care about and love leaves the world.
Yes, I agree with you, it is devastating, at the same time the lady is on the path to turning deep grief into a new kind of learning - not only for herself but for others too. Her life is amazing, you are right.
Hi ambrosia !
Just wanted to give you this link which helped me making the links in my blog.
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=110&topic=22
word of caution: Preview the the blog after pasting the code as it helps knowing beforehand how it will looks like. And then you can't go wrong in it.
Just wondering something... why would someone choose to leave their body?
It is just another way to say she committed suicide. A person with a clinical condition can make decisions that the person in a normal state wont.
Depression.. is it really a disease or is it something that we have created?
It is important to understand here that depression can be broadly of two types. One, what we ALL sometimes experience as part of life's many upsets. While the other is a clinical condition, categorized under the broader head of "mental illness" in which a person loses touch with reality. The person's behaviour is determined by chemical changes in the brain over which one has no control. I would'nt like to call mental illness a "disease" because that word is a lost term, often how we choose to express ourselves determines our responses.
To some extent I will agree with you that the causations of the day-to-day category of depression is often socially constructed and to the extent we are affected by external circumstances depends very much upon our attitudes and perceptions. It is in our hands to deal with our attitudes and perceptions.
May I add, people with the former category of depression can gain a lot going to a trained counsellor but those suffering from the latter need to seek out psychiatric help which involves medication among other things. However, a new form of therapy called hypnotherapy or regression therapy is being used these days to treat clinical depression and other mental illnesses whch involves no medications and has astounding results.
I think depression is our hearts way of telling us that we are not happy with what we are doing.
It calls for change.
One of the worst things I can say about depression is that it saps away all your will and you dont want to do anything...
but thats the refreshing bit too.
Sometimes in life you just want to exit the rat race and sit still not do anything... depression is just ur body telling you that time to sit n do nothing for a bit...
ofcourse its up to you to kick yourself back in action..
Have you read Matt Ridelys book Genome? You must read it.. it provides some fascinating insight about what you say.. chemical vs env. factors... and it (and other research) says everything is linked. Thus you cant say whether its purely chemical or environmental. Its too closely linked to be seperated out.
What say you?
I want to focus here only on clinical depression. There is already a lot of apathy in this society towards people suffering from depression, it is like compounding the problem by placing the burden of responsibility upon the person suffering from the condition. A person may be at his/her peak in life, yet may show symptoms of clinical depression. Alongwith treatment, sensitivity on part of people around is utmost required. It must be remembered that it is one thing to do research and quite another to treat... usually years of research filter down to affect changes in treatment procedures. My point is that it is important to seperate in one's mind the ordinary life depression from clinial depression. Although in the former case, chemicals do play a part, but can be brought under control by the person themselves but in the latter, external help is required without which the condition worsens.
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