kamala kakumanu

  Amor Fati ; learning to love and accept everything that happens. Amor Fati is a stoic philosophical concept and with passing years it makes much more sense to me. In fact stoic philosophy precisely is to embrace every situation even if we are not happy with it, as if we wanted it. Stoics believe we have been presented with situations and experiences to help us evolve. I always believed in planning, performing and executing as planned to perfection.  we all know nothing works as planned always! This inevitably made me feel disappointed and left with self doubt. It made me eventually anxious as I always worried about the end result. As years passed, I had experiences which made me realise the importance of embracing uncertainty. Life is dynamic and every day is different with new experiences. Life keeps happening to all of us and power lies in courageously accepting each moment and embracing them. I have understood whether we like or dislike, we cannot change a lot of life s...

 ‘What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we have’ Oprah Winfrey. The learning which has changed a lot for me from inside is the realisation to see the truth as it is. It seems very simple but it is complex. Seeing truth as it is requires immense courage, no ego, non-judgemental,detachment from our own opinions and above all accepting that we are wrong many times. I am still a work in progress in this but have come a long way from where I was earlier. My seeds for this thought process started with this beautiful book by Eckhart Tolle called ‘The New Earth’ where he talks so deeply about Ego and I realised all the thinking in my head is most of the times my Ego telling me stories and not the real truth. It is convenient and easy to just ignore the truth and accept our own self mind made stories as temporarily they make us happy but life is a self revealing process and it ultimately will drive us or lead us to truth . Life gave me experiences which ...

 My maternal grandmother is a very important part of my life as I realised I express my love to my loved ones as she loved me.  My grandmother was a very simple woman who inherited a lot of wealth from her parents. She had a very strong mother who was very authoritative and was managing the lands and labour and was smart with finances. After my grand mother lost her mother, all her property was inherited by my grandmother and grandfather. My grandfather was not smart with money and so eventually lost most of the wealth. I remember my grandfather passed away and my grandmother started staying more with us and I always felt very close to her. She was very calm in contrast to the world around me. she is not much educated and her world was limited. She was very meticulous with any work she does like cooking, cleaning and household stuff. I used to sleep with her in her bed during my  summer breaks as my parents both were working and used to be late from work. She used to narr...

I got married while I was still in college and since then always have been with my family. I am eternally grateful that I am loved by my family always . I have always wanted more from my husband in terms of time and attention. It used to make me sad if he is away and I looked forward for his return always . This seems very normal and rather good for most of us . Since past 6 years, my husband is working in a different city and I would meet him on the weekends. Initial days were very tough as I am always wanting his presence. I cried , fought and resented and blamed everyone and everything. Suddenly stillness came into my life and the noise settled down. I started feeling that I cannot ask anyone to make me happy and I cannot put that pressure on anyone to give me company. I realised I feel very entitled about my husband. I always felt we both should be there for each other and do a lot for each other. This is what I saw while growing up and I see around me in good marriages. I am grate...

I was taking a nap peacefully on one afternoon next to my husband and I suddenly woke up with a very old childhood memory which was very special for me . It was deep inside my subconscious memory . I had a friend Neelima in my residential college in 11th and 12th grade. We both were in hostel together and we belong to the same town so for one of the vacations we went home together and I happened to stay back at her place that night and that evening and night has etched a great memory forever. We reached her place and her mom has prepared for our bath with tubs of hot water and helped us wash our long hair . She later dried our hair gently and invited us to the table which was organised with delicious home cooked curries , rice and a dessert. Then she took us to our beds which were prepared flawlessly with crisp cotton sheets and mosquito nets around both our beds. They had a three or a four room home but I was so touched by the love and care . Now I understand that is ‘unconditional lo...

Oct 21 1996 28 yrs ago I got engaged to this man I hardly knew and I was not ready for it . Literally,  the only fact that I admired was that  he is a self made man who came up from a village and accomplished the most difficult exam .  Very reluctantly and not knowing much about civil services and this man We got engaged and I moved away from my state, my family with this man to a completely different world . I already was traumatised due to my father’s death a year ago and was not in a good place to start this journey. I came to Punjab to a new place, new people and except him I didn’t know anyone . We made a family, we listened to each other, understood each other with respect and trust and made a beautiful family . We had our own struggles, fights but we were never disrespectful to each other . We both wanted good for each other and we never thought of any win or loss as an Individual one rather it was always our loss or our gain. Looking back, only Gratitude comes to ...