What is contentment

Taken from - Amma's Wisdom

Amma was generally healthy and avoided taking any medicine if she fell ill or felt feverish or had a head ache.  Just before my father's passing away, Amma had developed wheezing. She had not suffered this  condition earlier in her life. As usual she tried her home medications but the wheezing would recur. When the wheezing became a constant condition, my mother started thinking that she has had an asthma attack.  My brother persuaded Amma to see a doctor, accordingly they consulted a doctor. Amma's siblings have had the condition of asthma and therefore, it was concluded by the doctor seeing Amma as hereditary and began treating her for asthma.

This treatment gave her some relief, but wheezing became a regular condition and her the treatment for asthma continued. Though over a period of time the treatment continued, yet the problem persisted. In addition to wheezing she developed swollen ankles.

My father-in-law was a doctor and a brilliant one at diagnosis simply based on the symptoms of the patient. When my wife told him about Amma's condition and her symptoms, he quickly concluded that, she was not suffering of asthma, but was suffering from an enlarged heart or slow heart failure. This was a bit of a shock to all of us. We decided that moment itself that we would bring Amma for treatment to Bangalore. 

Amma was given the treatment for heart ailment that prevented further damage to her heart. After this treatment Amma recovered sufficiently. Thereafter she didn't return to the village to tend to the farm and her career as farmer came to an end and she came and settled down with us in Bangalore.

So she began a new chapter in her life as an elderly woman in a big city -Bangalore. It required changes in her lifestyle from being a farmer to life in a city. As a mother to me and my sister and brother, mother-in-law to my wife and a grand mother to my daughter, she performed  these roles with such poise that it would have been difficult for any one to believe that  she was a village simpleton!  She adjusted to the city life very well and it was amazing to think her felicity to transform herself to suit to any place or lifestyle. 

When she moved to Bangalore I was still working in a Bank and we lived in the residential quarters provided by the bank. It was a small house with one bedroom, hall and a kitchen. My daughter went to school early in the morning, me and my wife went to work by 10am, that left mother alone in the house for 6 hours until my daughter returned home from her school. This left her with plenty of time and was a challenge to her to mange so much of time with very little to do... unlike her busy schedule Inte village.

Though Amma did her morning prayers and also cooked dinner for us, that would not take much of her time. I was a bit concerned about how she will manage being alone at home and nothing much do. In few days I found her reding books almost on a daily basis.Though she had spent only 4 years in the school, her ability to read (Kannada -  the local language) amazed me. My wife would help her with two or three Kannada novels written by different authors and she would lap it up in a matter of day or two. My wife made sure that there was a constant supply of Kannada novels to her and amma settled down into her routine of reading books and novels. The concern I had about how she would manage her time was solved by this simple solution and she kept her busy reading and boredom that would have really haunted her became alien to her. I heaved a sigh of relief that Amma was now occupied in her spare time and the routine of farming that kept her busy no more became an issue. 

I have always wondered about this quality of her to quickly transform herself to a any new given place or situation. Normally people who are busy and retire from their daily work, find the transition a bit difficult and they will miss their routine, friends, etc related to their work and therefore, constantly complain about the change in their life style and bore people who meet them, with their past achievements in their work place and all the heroics about the adventures in their life before retirement and construct stories after stories to narrate to anyone who met them......that is why youngsters dread to meet people who have retired from their work and staying at home after retirement!

It was remarkable that Amma not only didn't complain about the change in the life style but seemed to have overcome completely  about her farming schedule and unlike the 'normal' retired people she didn't come up with the boring stories about her life in a village, farming and the hardships she went through...  She seemed to have kept her past aside and focused on her present... reading books, talking about the general topics at home with us or relatives or guests who visited her. She had shed her role of a farmer!

There are many writings on 'giving up'.  It is common knowledge that 'giving up' something that we are used to is not easy, rather it is painful to give up something we are used to. She adopted to this change in her lifestyle by switching over to reading novels. She showed by this example that giving up what one "is used to in the past can be overcome by finding an interest inherent in themselves and pursuing it with zest. It will ultimately help shed  the 'old self' and bring a new path in the journey of life.

That part, Amma started taking interest in computers and in a few days she  learnt to operate  and to play computer games. She loved solving zig saw puzzles. We gifted her with many of them. 

I was thinking of what is the learning and wisdon in this part of her story.  Then it hit me that she passed on the wisdom about what contentment is through this part her life story!!

Her contended life aptly fits into the quote by Maltbie Davenport Babcock.....  Which says :

"No one is discontented who employs and enjoys to the utmost of what he has.  But this much at least can be done, and this is contentment, to have the most and best in life, by making the most and best of what we have....Contentment is not satisfaction.  It is the grateful, faithful, fruitful use of what we have."


Note:Thanks for reading this story.
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vdharmraj@ramaavenkatesh.com.