The ‘Malvika Effect’ – unshackled by the past, undaunted by the future

Every once in a while, you will meet someone who will inspire you to live your Life differently. Soak in that inspiration and every time you feel desperate or depressed about something in Life, employ that person’s spirit, his or her joie de vivre, to revive you!

Last week we met one such person – Malvika Iyer. She’s a bilateral amputee, who lost both her hands in a bomb blast in Bikaner, Rajasthan, caused by a fire in an ammunition depot. It was a near fatal accident. Her two legs were badly injured too – she had multiple fractures in both of them; nerve paralysis in the right leg and hypoesthesia (loss of sensation) in the left leg. She was barely 13 then. She was hospitalized for 18 months and went through multiple surgeries in hospitals in Jaipur and Rajasthan. Today, almost 12 years on, Malvika is a Ph.D. Scholar and Junior Research Fellow at the Madras School of Social Work. She made up for the time she lost while she was in hospital, by completing her 10^th standard through a private appearance – she scored 97 % overall, with a 100 % each in Math and Science! Importantly, she finished in the same year that she would have, had she not met with the accident; which is, she did not lose an academic year! Malvika then went on to graduate from the famed St.Stephen’s College, New Delhi, even as she worked extensively with differently-abled children at the Centre for Child and Adolescent Well Being in New Delhi.    

Lady Courage - Malvika Iyer
Picture Courtesy: The Week/Internet

We went to meet Malvika, armed with all this information – of an achiever who had succeeded despite all the odds. But we ended up meeting the most down-to-earth person ever, a girl-next-door, who wore her ‘specialness’ on her sleeve. She is aggressive but not bitter and combative, she’s resolute but not abrasively feisty, she’s accepting of her ‘special’ condition but not apologetic, she’s conscious of her future – and the challenges it will bring along – but lives every moment to the fullest! Malvika says that she realized early on that camouflaging her disability was not a solution to her problem. Accepting the way she now was and living with the awareness of what she can and cannot do, was the only way, she reckoned, to live her Life fully, meaningfully!

There’s an infectious air of positivity about Malvika. Sitting with her you can feel your confidence levels receive a boost. You know that you too can face Life – squarely and with a smile! Behind Malvika’s quiet courage is her mother Hema’s unflinching support. Hema says Malvika’s accident changed their entire family’s attitude to living. Fear, insecurity, worry, anxiety – all these emotions, says Hema, did not mean anything, anymore. That Malvika had survived and that she had to live a full Life began to engage the entire family. So when Malvika – who chose not to wear her prosthetic hands when we visited her – whips out her smartphone and sends you a Friend Request on facebook, all by herself, without having hands like you and me, you know how right Hema’s been with dumping wasteful sentiments like self-pity and bitterness and encouraging Malvika to live and celebrate Life!

It is but natural to get stumped by one of Life’s blows. It takes time to make sense of what’s going on when Life socks you and shocks you. You don’t know how you are going to cope with your new reality. You don’t even know if you will make it, if you will survive to tell your tale. Surely, Malvika’s Life too went through precisely the same pattern, but where she changed the game for herself is to accept – and not resist – her new reality. From her acceptance, an inner peace was born. And that’s the resoluteness, the quiet courage that reflects in her. She employs this spirt to live her Life fully – unshackled by the past and undaunted by the future.

We came away inspired after meeting Malvika. You can all it the “Malvika Effect”! We were particularly delighted that she had accepted our invitation to receive the first copy of my forthcoming book “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money” (Westland) when it releases in August this year! I will carry the memory of this meeting in me for a long, long time – for it is not often that you meet someone who reminds you that you have, well, met Life!

When you are fully aware, you need not suffer anyone, anymore

There are some people in whose presence we feel extremely uncomfortable. Something in the way they conduct themselves puts you off. And at another level you do recognize that you are made very differently and there can be no chemistry at all between both of you. So, every time you have to meet this person, you go into a agonizing dilemma. You are thinking of ways and means to avoid the encounter. You make excuses. And when you can’t avoid anymore, you suffer deeply in this person’s presence. Your physical discomfort morphs into awkwardness and eventually into unhappiness.

I have been through such experiences too. And at many times I have had the urge to tell the person, whom I loathed meeting, what I felt deeply about her or him. But social niceties, the intricacies of the relationship between us, would force me to not express myself frankly. Even so, suppressing what your true feelings are always leads you to more unhappiness and grief.

I used to have a neighbor who is very, very wealthy. He simply loved to talk about his wealth. He talked about his cars. His yachts. His vacation homes. His businesses and how much profits he had made from recent projects __ giving details brazenly of which politician or bureaucrat he had bribed. And he talked endlessly. He would accost me in the elevator, in the parking lot or even, at times, invite himself over into my living room to launch off into his completely unwelcome self-expositions. There was no way I could escape his tyranny because he simply had no sensitivity. He didn’t bother about another’s time, space or privacy. For several months I suffered. It came to a point when I would dread bumping into this neighbor and so I would be very wary of even stepping out of my apartment. I would rush out or in so that he did not see me. It was a stupid way of living in my own house. But there seemed no other way! I could have perhaps told him off. Or had a showdown with him and put him in his place but then he was a neighbor and nobody wants to spar with a neighbor. So, I simply kept suffering.

That’s when I read this story about Swami Vivekananda. Just before his famous trip to the USA and his iconic speech in Chicago, Vivekananda visited Jaipur on the Maharaja’s invitation. The Maharaja gave Vivekananda a grand reception that was worthy of a king. There was a public procession…flowers, lights and the royal works. In the main court, the durbar, of the King, an elaborate dance performance by the leading courtesan, a devadaasi, of the King was organized. When the performance was about to begin, and Vivekananda came to know that the dancer was a prostitute, he rushed up to his room and locked himself up. He refused to come out. He was afraid the prostitute’s presence would corrupt his moral pledge to be celibate. He was even angry with the King for having the audacity to invite a prostitute in a Swami’s presence. The King came up to the room and profusely apologized. But declined to send the prostitute away because his value systems prevented him from sending anyone away from his court. He said he could not insult or humiliate a guest in his court, even if she was a prostitute. The prostitute, when she heard of what was going on and delaying the start of her performance, was very hurt initially. She had heard a lot about Swami Vivekananda’s brilliance and had considered it her privilege to be dancing in his presence. She then took a momentous decision to begin her performance without either the King or his important guest being in the Court. She sang as she danced. The song is very beautiful. The song goes – “I know that I am not worthy of you, but you could have been a little more compassionate. I am dirt on the road - that I know. But you need not be so antagonistic to me. I am a nobody – ignorant, a sinner. But you are a saint – why are you afraid of me?” As the song wafted through the palace corridors and reached the young Swami Vivekananda’s ears, something happened to him. He confessed later that he was defeated by the prostitute. He came out of his room. And he watched the whole performance in the court. That night, he wrote in his diary: “A new revelation has been given to me by the divine. I was afraid... must have been some lust within me. That’s why I was afraid. But the woman defeated me completely, and I have never seen such a pure soul. Her tears were so innocent and the singing and the dancing were so holy…. Sitting near her, for the first time, I became aware that it is not a question who is there outside, it is a question of what is.” Surely, with that experience Vivekananda transcended to a new level of consciousness. He became fully aware.

Reading this story, I awakened too. I realized that in the context of either my bombastic neighbor or in some other key relationships, where there was a complete absence of chemistry, wherever I was struggling, I needed to look deeper. I needed to look at what is than who is there outside. What is behind the exterior, behind the packaging is the same beautiful cosmic energy that powers each of the Universe’s creations. The diversity is in the packaging. The shapes, the sizes, the colors, the bells, the whistles, the bows and ribbons, mislead us. We develop a distaste for and suffer people, or even start hating their very presence, without focusing on what is in them. My awakening led me to learn to tell people, like my neighbor, politely that such intrusions and self-expositions were not welcome anymore. I did this with complete equanimity__no agitation, no hesitation, no fear, no pride__and honesty. And ever since I told him that, he stopped behaving in that manner with me. In another relationship, I simply told the person that the chemistry between us doesn’t work. Period. Even so, I have learned to appreciate people just as I appreciate myself. I still struggle sometimes missing ‘what is’ for the packaging, but my awareness does a great job playing the role of a reminder service. It quickly reminds me to go beyond the outside, the exterior, the packaging, every single time. With this awareness there is no more suffering, no more unhappiness, in anybody’s presence!