Secret Santa

The car took a sharp turn on DP road right in front of the crossword. The black paint of barriers on footpath, meant to stop people from driving on the footpath, was peeling off in parts almost resembling the map of India. I walked briskly trying to avoid the brown stray dog approaching me, his tail moving rapidly trying hard to seek my attention. I climbed up the stairs. The guard was sitting on the old wooden table. The blue temperature scanner lying there. He seemed least bothered that I was entering the store. His black moustache was ragged like a used-up bottle brush. I went to him offering to get my temperature checked which he did, his “please leave me alone” expression had not changed a bit. I had to find a gift for you for less than 150 Rs which seemed like an impossible task. The smell of new books mixed with crisp early winter air greeted me. The first table had its usual bestsellers and coffee mug. I picked up a red coffee mug which had a combination of round and square shape. Turned it upside down. It had a white tab with red borders right in the middle of which in faded ink was a number Rs 350. I kept it back disappointed wondering who made up this rule of 150 Rs. I was convinced that I could not find anything in this shop. I started meandering around the isles. I was getting lost in the works of Richard Bach, J Khrisnamurthy , Osho and others. The music system was playing an instrumental of a recent Arijit song. The dog had somehow followed me to the store I saw him sitting right across from me. His green eyes looking straight in mine, his tongue vibrating with each rapid breath. His tail which was now resting on the floor was still moving but less rapidly than before. Annoyed I started to walk away briskly moving through multiple isles reaching to a darker corner of the bookstore. Shaking my head thinking to myself that COVID had really affected the way businesses operate. Looking back constantly trying to make sure that the stray dog was not still following me. Suddenly my eyes fell on this black book with a red circle in the middle on the top in white was written MURAKAMI and on the bottom in smaller font “The wind-up bird chronicles”. Haruki Murakami is my current favourite author and I was surprised to find an entire section just for his books. I got lost in browsing through his masterpieces.  I suddenly heard the panting of the dog again. I looked around, but he was not there. That’s when I noticed that my shoelaces were untied so I kneeled down to tie my laces. As I looked up I found a small white gem with a black starry sky circle in the middle and on top was written MURAKAMI I quickly turned it around and the price label brought a smile on my lips. 

 “No matter how far they go, people can never be anyone but themselves.”

The power of the present moment is that it is the only moment, which harbors the possibility of choice: A review of, The Choice Embrace the Possibilities. By Edith Eager

Dr Edith Eagers life story revolves around something her mother told her as a child. “ “Just remember,” she says, “no one can take away from you what you’ve put in your mind.” ” The book chronicles her life journey which is expressed through bold and lucid transparency.  Her mantra is to take care of what is happening on the inside regardless of what his happening on the outside. Yet, it is what happened to her outside, which makes this a soul churning and exhilarating read.

Struggles accompanied Dr Eager from her early childhood when she had to deal with her cross-eye, shattered expectation of her mother who desperately wanted to have a boy and being compared her extremely beautiful and talented elder sisters. She overcame all of these and created her own space to become leading ballet dancer and gymnast. This space though was torn apart when she was expelled form the Hungarian gymnastic team because of her Jewish heritage and this was just a beginning of her suffering. The ugly, beastly cruel storm that smothered humanity with its fangs of anti-Semitism   also robbed Edith of everything she had. Her first love, his romance, her house her childhood, her father, her mother and her identity were clawed away from her by the greatest stigma on humanity. Yet her dignity prevailed, even when she was forced to dance in her camp for the entertainment of Dr Mengele the evil, which took her mother away from her. She endured all by holding on to the voice inside her which told her, if you survive today tomorrow you will be free and by holding on to her only link to reality, her sister Magda.  The two sisters clung on to each other often sacrificing their individual freedom to face the wrath of Auschwitz and Nazi atrocities and survive to tell their story.

The book also tells the story of her post freedom liberation to America, her domestic struggles and conquests to become a psychologist. She recounts how she faced her own demons while dealing with her patients and how she conquered them. While helping her patients cope with violence, racism and pain she constantly challenged her own beliefs, of anger bigotry and suffering. When the moment presented itself she took up her own challenge to visit Kehlsteinhaus (eagles nest) the place from where Hitler had orchestrated the crimes against humanity and against millions of Edith Eagers. She stood on the rubbles left of the nest and forgave Hitler thus announcing victory of humanity over evil, of Dr Edith Eager over Adolf Hitler. However, the most poignant moment of the book is when she visits Auschwitz and relives the dreaded moment in the line when Angel of death Dr Mengele pointed her mother towards the line of death but pushed her to the line that would survive. Going back to that moment she forgave herself for surviving but not being able to save her mother, thus letting go of the burden of guilt that she carried for all the years after her liberation from the camp. The exclamation mark in her life is that she ultimately worked with military as a psychotherapist to treat PTSD and helped in treating ravages of the wars similar to the war that had ravaged her.

Out of all the cases she has described the two cases, which summarise the essence is of two women who came to her on the same day. One who was in huge pain because her son was suffering from a deadly disease and the other was in pain because the color of her new car did not look good. As disparate the situation of these two women was, their pain still was equally intense. Ultimately, how we respond to a situation depends on our mind and our thoughts, which stem from our core beliefs.  Indeed, ““We don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but no one can take away from you what you put in your own mind.” 

This book illuminates the path for your soul to conquer suffering, like none other.