Calm In The Midst Of Chaos.

Jyotsana is a fairly common Indian name. Loosely it translates to 'radiant light', such as that of the moon. 

When you think about it, names that mean moonlight are quite popular in many cultures & languages.

In spite of having lived in India for nearly 30 years, I have only known three Jyotsanas thus far, only two of whom I have been acquainted with in person, one in each of the schools I attended growing up.

Jyotsana Singh was my classmate for 3 years before her father - an air force officer got transferred to a city in North India. 

This was several years ago & as you can imagine many details in my memory are lacking. A few things about her though, I will probably remember forever.

I didn't realize it at the time but Jyotsana was the first non-conformist that I have had the pleasure of knowing.

She wore a bright sky-blue skirt to school everyday that was noticeably different from the our navy blue uniform. 

This shade of blue was so unique that one could easily spot her from a mile away in an otherwise indistinguishable crowd of 500 plus students.

I vividly recall many occasions where our teachers with varying degrees of annoyance, attempted to get her to change but she just wouldn't comply.

The schools notorious sports teacher Mr.S (who I am convinced tamed dragons in a previous life), weeded out the unkempt, tardy & untidy amongst us every morning. 

He would then make them stand apart in a separate 'line of shame' during the daily morning assembly. 

There were a few all stars who featured in the line so often that they would sometimes just volunteer to step out of their regular class line and walk to the far left of the school ground. 

I was not an all star but I featured in the 'line of shame' on & off throughout my 6 year tenure at the school. 

Most students in this line stood with their shoulders drooping and their heads bowed in embarrassment. 

To add insult to injury, the line of shame would be dismissed only after the entire assembly dispersed. While this happened several of the other 485 students or so would hurl some of the most gut wrenching yet hilarious insults at the poor misfits waiting for this torture to end, and then of course the grand finale was when your teacher would shame you for showing up a few minutes late to class, completely oblivious to the fact that it was the sports teachers fault.

I was one of the dragon tamers favorite targets.

If it wasn't my shoes, it was the stains on my shirt, and if my uniform wasn't the problem, he would pick on the 'chubby' children (of which I was one) for not working hard enough to get in shape. With Jyotsana though. it was always the skirt. Apart from this highly debatable 'flaw' she was the perfect student. She never missed a day at school and was otherwise impeccably dressed and groomed. 

The teachers soon realized that she really didn't seem to care for their silly admonishing or punishments & they eventually stopped bothering her.

Before I get too distracted I will mention one more thing.

Just because Jyotsana got away with this, doesn't mean the rest of us had similar luck.

Two weeks after Jyotsana was allowed to stand in the regular class line in spite of sticking to her sky blue skirt, Pawan Kumar, another classmate of mine, showed up to school in some fashionable black jeans to go with his white shirt. 

We stared at him with pride

Maybe this boy (who for the life of him couldn't straighten the irregular tuft of hair standing out at the back of his head) would usher in a new world where kids could wear whatever they pleased to school.  

Our hopes increased when he didn't get sent to the line of shame where I was standing on this day because (I kid you not) Mr.S felt 'I looked too happy to be at school'. 

Then midway during the school prayer when I saw the ex-dragon tamer head to the shisham tree that stood near the entrance, my heart rate began to rise, I knew what came next.

He menacingly broke a fresh twig from the tree and stared at Pawan till the morning assembly ended.

When Pawan walked past him, he yanked him out of the line, made him pull up his jeans up to his knees & whacked him till the skin came of his calves. 

We hoped the twig would break at some point but this was precisely why Mr.S chose the fresh branches on the tree and not the dried twigs on the floor for this punishment.

I know, this may seem hard to believe but for us it was just another day at school. 

There was no use in complaining, Mr.S had been in the school longer than the principal and nobody was going to be able to get him to quit or even retire a year early.

With that pleasant interlude, let's get back to Jyotsana.

Another attribute that was unique to her was that she had the shortest hair among the girls in our class most of whom had long hair with one or two ponytails neatly tied in red ribbons.

She walked with her back straight as an arrow and her head tilted up around 30 degrees undaunted by any of the activities around her, good or bad. 

It was like her head was in the clouds or something (like the moon you know so I guess her name was uniquely fitting).

All this being said, there was one thing that got under her skin.

One little yet recurrent thing.

I have written about the chaos that prevailed in my classroom in some of my previous blogposts. 

This was a regular affair, we didn't have teacher substitutes to fill in urgently if someone fell ill or decided not to show up. So every so often, for 30 mins to an hour our class would run amok.

I personally loved this time, usually I would be right in the middle of the melee doing my best to keep the intensity from going down.

Most of the girls in the class didn't care about the noise, this was a good time for some of them to catch up with their friends or for the more studious ones among them catch up with their homework. 

Then there was Jyotsana.

She would stand up one her desk or walk to the middle of mob the boys had created and shout as loud as she could trying in vain to get us to shut up.

Occasionally we would pause for a second or two, and then start shouting louder than before, sometimes poking fun at her for trying to take away our few moments of freedom.

We were little monsters.

There was one day when we had 2 hours (a double period) without any teacher in the class.

The noise that prevailed that afternoon brought her to tears.

This was the first and only time I had seen her cry. 

I watched her father pick her up from school that evening as I started to head home, she looked defeated, her fathers hands were on her slunk shoulders and she talked to him quietly as they walked away.

We found out the next day that the reason we had 2 uninterrupted hours of freedom was because our science teacher, who was by far my favorite, had a new baby that decided to show up a few weeks early.

We were happy for our teacher, but more importantly we were overjoyed at the thought that in the coming days there would be period upon period of unmonitored fun in our classroom.

Our English teacher looked distraught as she made this announcement, she knew our class was full of hoodlums and that no amount of pleading would make a difference. The only real solution would be for her to find a way to keep us engaged during our science classes while we waited for our teacher to return. 

She didn't have the time to do this and so she called upon our class representatives, Ms.K & guess who? Yours truly, to 'keep the peace' and not allow things to get out of hand.

As soon as she was out of ear shot, I ran back into the class and yelled at the top of my lungs, 'We are free for the next two hours free, yay'!

There was a resounding shout of joy that followed subduing all of the quiet sighs arising from small pockets in the classroom, Jyotsana's bench being one of them.

Stop judging me, I was elected by the people so I did what the people wanted.

Pretty soon a gang of boys formed at the back of the classroom where a spirited competition of the game 'Chungi' began.  

'Chungi' for those unfamiliar with it, is a game we invented that consisted of kicking a makeshift ball comprised of strips of bicycle tire tubing tied together, against a wall with one foot, not allowing it to touch the ground for as long as possible.

We did not have access to Nintendos, playstation's & smartphones back then and relied on such improvised games to keep us entertained.

Avinash was the undisputed champion of 'Chungi' and on this day he had kept the thing from falling for a little over 25 minutes. Just as we got ready to inscribe this in the book of school sports records something unexpected happened. Anand, the challenger, who normally sucked at the game had one of those once in a lifetime moments where every flick of his foot struck the Chungi exactly at its centre of gravity keeping it bouncing of the walls and off the ground for longer than ever before.

For the first fifteen minutes everyone thought it was just a fluke, but when Anand got to 20 minutes and didn't even break a sweat we knew Avinash's undisputed reign was at risk.

Anand! 

Anand! 

Anand! we cheered, our voices getting louder as each second passed.

When he lost his balance for a moment our collective gasp was so well timed that there was a palpable silence in the classroom, if only for a few seconds.

The screams of joy shattered that silence as soon as he regained his composure and continued kicking the chungi with perfect coordination.

24 minutes and 30 seconds passed. 

Sensing defeat Avinash withdrew from the crowd and disappeared, no one noticed.

And then it happened.

Deepak, who was keeping watch at the door frantically started shouting, flailing his arms at us - 'She's coming back she's coming back, Ms.Biswas (our English teacher) is coming back'!

The cheering stopped abruptly and the room was engulfed with the noises of shoes and feet shuffling back quickly to their desks.

Anand was the last to return, his moment of glory was only a few seconds away but getting caught playing in a class while everyone else pretended to be studying would mean a sure trip to the principals office, and a letter to his parents.

When he couldn't hold it any longer he stopped, at what one might argue was exactly 24 minutes and 59 seconds.

We waited with bated breath for the door to open, and when it did, to our surprise Avinash walked in instead.

He paused for a moment and looked at the class, all eyes were fixed at him

Then he smirked and we all instantly knew what was happening.

Anand let out a feral scream and charged towards him, tears forming around his eyes.

Before we could blink, the two of them were on the floor tearing each others hair out.

A small group of us rushed to the scene and threw ourselves at the angry duo, separating them as they shouted obscenities at one another insulting ancestors long gone.

As the noise reached a crescendo I saw Jyotsana stand up, we thought we knew what was coming next, and waited for the high pitched roar that typically followed in these situations.

To our surprise that didn't happen.

She straightened her back, took measured steps to the front of the class and sat on the floor cross legged with her eyes closed.

We held our breath and waited not knowing what came next.

And then she started chanting, slow and steady, taking deep breaths as she did.

As soon as we realized she was trying to meditate in the midst of the most chaotic day in class that year, howls and jeers erupted all over.

The laughs got louder every time we heard her chant & continued on and on.

I think I saw maybe one tiny change in her expression initially when the teasing began but after that she was unshakeable... 

For 2 minutes, and then someone got under her skin, all I know is that it was not me, and before we knew it she was atop a table shouting wildly at us to stop the screaming. 

The situation continued for the next 2 weeks.

Ms.Biswas would get out assurance of peace and quiet, and minutes after she left, chaos would ensue, Jyotsana would try to meditate and eventually she would break.

The chaos only got worse as our time off became more predictable.

To the keen observer though, one thing was changing.

It took longer and longer for my classmates to break Jyotsana's concentration, this in itself became a game - to see how long it would take before she lost it.

As time went by, something stranger started to happen, some of my friends became more empathetic to Jyotsana, and her silent protest was changing hearts.

By the time our science teacher returned the crowd of students that teased Jyotsana daily had shrunken to less than a third of its initial size, she had become increasing resilient to any provocation and she was now able to keep her calm for impressive lengths of time.

Her face looked so peaceful at times, it was as though she had tapped into something deep inside that was invisible to the rest of us.

I remained fascinated by what I was witnessing and even today I recall wanting to ask her more about those 2 weeks, but sure enough, one afternoon her father picked her up in the middle of a class and we never saw her again.

We did not need to be told it was a transfer.

As a school that mainly catered to children of folks in the armed forces transfers were commonplace, and they often came in out of the blue.

Every now & then students would leave all of a sudden, right in the middle of a school year & new kids would show up all the time in similar fashion. 

Jyotsana walked out of our lives just the way she came in, with her head held high, her back upright & a smile on her face.

I have been immersed in work as an internist now for a few years.

A couple of months ago a realization dawned on me that I had been denying for quite sometime.

It happened after I had just eaten lunch one afternoon at the hospital.

Every 3-4 weeks or so the cafeteria serves Indian food, other than for being very careful with the amount of salt they use the food comes out quite well.

On this day I was quite determined to enjoy my meal, it had been a very day thus far. 

I took an extra packet of salt, found a quiet room and dug in.

Barely 5 minutes later, all the food was gone, I still felt hungry and worst of all I couldn't remember what the food tasted like.

My mind was so preoccupied by my thoughts and plans that I couldn't enjoy even a small break.

I accepted in that moment that although I was doing a good job of maintain a sense of peace and calm externally, inside, there was plenty of noise, a lot of chaos.  

For me personally a lot of the noise comes from a mad rush to finish an endless lists of tasks.

So much so that I find myself multitasking all the time.

It doesn't matter if I'm eating, or working or driving or even praying my mind is constantly thinking of what needs to be done next, so much so that I cannot enjoy an activity for the sake of itself.

There is contentment of course, especially when I look at all the ticked boxes on my to do list at the end of the day but sure enough, I am acutely aware that there is more stuff waiting to be done even as I close my eyes to sleep.

Had I got a penny every time that the words meditation or mindfulness have been mentioned to me over the past 7 years I would have a good chunk of change.

Its not that I don't believe in the effectiveness of these techniques, its just that all my attempts to practice them have largely been failures.

If you are reading this post, and you have a few minutes at hand, I want you to try this - Close your eyes and for the next 5 minutes try to do nothing but focus on your breathing.

Go ahead...

If you tried this simple task and succeeded at it, good for you, you are miles ahead than a large percentage of the worlds population.

When I tried to do this I lasted probably 45 seconds before my legs began to feel restless and I had this irrestibile urge to get up and move.

There were no distractions around me, in fact, I was in the hospital chapel & there was no one else around.

Not being able to spend 5 minutes a day without worrying about getting several things done was clearly a sign that something wasn't right.

I knew I had a problem, a big one. One that I am acutely aware needs to be fixed.

Since that afternoon in the hospital chapel I have been pursuing a sense of inner quiet, an ability to spend a few minutes in silence, trying to concentrate on a singular thought or activity.

In all honesty, I have done poorly overall.

It is because of this pursuit that my thoughts have often been drawn to Jyotsana. The image of her sitting cross legged on the floor in our classroom trying her very best to capture a sense of calm doesn't only make me nostalgic but also acts as a source of encouragement that if I worked on this hard enough I will one day make a breakthrough.

A few days ago I had some success which I what pushed me to write this blog.

I was listening to a guided meditation and slowly but surely the restlessness faded and for 5 straight minutes I was able to focus my attention on one simple activity, the flow of breath inside and outside my nostrils.

When I got up to resume my work I was not transformed but I felt more grounded, more present and less worried about things that were weighing me down a few moments ago.

Every single day, even at the time of writing this blog I am chasing that feeling, that sense of inner calm. 

I now understand that humanity and chaos are irrevocably linked, one might even say chaos is a sign of life. Be that as it may, I also believe that one of the core longings of our soul is peace.

If you can relate to my experience and you have not given yourself a chance to meditate, try giving it a shot. 

All you need to start is a few minutes to yourself, a place to sit down with your back and held upright and your breath.

Turns out you can achieve some zen even in a classroom full of hooligans.

Until next time,

TGV