Counting My Blessings

Response to a Prompt

The College I taught in was situated in the centre of what was essentially the Bollywood Dream factory. It was a space with huge mansions, tiny well appointed cottages only the very rich can afford, most of the international hotels and a long strip of beach. Along this beach, too, nestled private houses, cocooned in native tree species, planted purely for the sake of privacy.

Many of the actors and actresses, singers and models, when they were just brash teenagers have been part of my classroom. All students, whatever their pedigree, dressed smart, and in very expensive clothes.

One year, there was a student in my Humanities class, who wore a brilliant smile on her face at all times. The jaded, cynical air the other teenagers wore, as a matter of course, was absent from her face.

She also wore the same set of clothes every day.

Every. Single. Day.

One day, while walking around the classroom, assessing a grammar exercise, I spoke to her. She turned to me, with that entrancing smile, that lighted up her face, and told me something that I have never forgotten.

“My father drives an autorickshaw through the night and works in a security firm in the day. My mother works as a maid servant in three houses. Together, they manage to fund my education in this College. But I don’t want them to waste money on my clothes. So when I go home in the evening, I wash and dry these clothes, and wear them again the next day. But I am happy. And my parents are happy, because they have never had the good fortune to be educated.”

“And I am grateful, every day, that I managed to score 98 percent marks, to help me gain admission here, and for this chance God gave me…”

I walked around that day, and the next, completely lost in thought.

How often have I erased present joy, by moaning about past failures or future fears?

How many times have I taken my blessings for granted, and whined about non existent problems?

How consistently have I been inconsistent about giving credit where credit was due, and being thankful when I should be?

How accustomed have I become to see that one black spot in my life, rather than the large square of pristine white around it?

Beginning that day, I have tried, every day, to list, in my mind, three things I am grateful for, every day.

Every. Single. Day.

Parents and teachers, children and grandchildren, friends and family, yes.

But also, the gift of learning.

The fact that my mother insisted that we go to a good school, in spite of stiff opposition from her in laws, and even her husband.

The fact that my mother went where no woman in her family had ever been before, and completed her post graduation in Sanskrit Literature, with such single minded devotion, that she ranked State First, and got a gold medal for that feat.

The fact that I know enough words to clothe my feelings in them. The truth that I have all my senses fully functioning, that I can cry when I feel overwhelmed, and laugh, when I am overcome by mirth.

The blessing that poetry can move me, and prose, motivate: that I can blush, abashed, and flush, furious.

The fact that I have found friends and companions, soul sisters and sounding boards on Medium: a race and crew of people I hadn’t known the existence of, ere Medium.

Thank you: for what I was, who I am, and what I will be.

That I can continue adding to this list, for ever and ever, and still not say ‘Finis’, for as long as I live.

©️ 2022 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.

This piece is a response to Ravyne Hawke’s prompt, in Know Thyself, Heal Thyself:

Thank you, Diana C., jules, Spyder, Ravyne Hawke. Stay blessed.

Shoutout to the powerful words of this writer, and this one essay that moved me more than any other:

Thank you , Carmellita. This helped me more than you will ever know.