Dear darling friend,
Couple of days ago, on the eve of the wedding ceremony of my friend’s son, I was attending the ‘welcome’ function. For the guests, a light musical programme was arranged. The theme and sequence of the songs intended to make us ‘walk through’ the mood and feelings of the boy and girl during premarital days. The songs were interspersed with appropriate commentary.
The compere was explaining how the advent of this new relationship, changes the moods, perspectives and impressions of the same old surroundings. He humorously explained how life goes through various variations right from first sight, first few meetings, the first touch, through different premarital functions, various rituals, shopping, etc.
Many religions and many communities have many different rituals, sometimes spanning almost a month, before marriage. There are some rituals that carry over for a few days after marriage too.
The compere fantastically explained how this creates the necessary ‘Build-up’ in the young couple’s life.
As the programme was going on, people were joyfully greeting their friends, hugging them and having a gala time together. As I didn’t have many acquaintances, I was listening to the songs and the commentary attentively.
Suddenly I realised, how much a good ‘Transition’, is crucial.
Till then I had boasted to everyone that I had had a simple ‘Registered Marriage’, followed by a reception and I did not allow any rituals. I was pleased with myself thinking I had done a very modern, progressive act.
That evening, I realised, I had missed that Space called ‘Transition’ in that, so very important, phase of my life.
Between every phase of our life, there lies this space called Transition – – – from Infancy to childhood, from childhood to adolescence, from adolescence to youth and so on. Due to any reason, if we miss out on experiencing this space between any two phases, we can’t get connected to the next phase easily. There will be an internal struggle and we won’t exactly, enjoy the next phase.
If you have ever plucked an unripe mango, you would have noticed white liquid oozing from the stem where the unripe mango was plucked from. This white liquid indicates, the mango was not ready to leave the tree yet. Its nurturing was on. The nutrients were still being given. The transition from the unripe mango to ripe mango was not yet complete. That unripe mango will never be as tasty as it ‘could’ have been if it had completed the transition!
When we are going on a holiday, a journey of few hours gives that necessary transition space.
What is a good night’s sleep? It’s a transition for the next eventful day.
Why a graduation ceremony? Transition!
What are holidays in a child’s life? Transition!
What is a induction program in a organisation? Transition!
All top performers follow certain rituals. Why do they follow these rituals? Transition!
It’s ironical when parents want newly born children to learn to talk, stand, walk, recite, etc. quicker than the rest of the children. They are concerned, in this competitive world, their child shouldn’t remain backwards.
Many parents eagerly push the children into daycare, playgroup or nursery. We don’t give them space to think and explore for themselves. We spoon-feed them with our philosophies, what should be their hobbies, career and the course of their life. We ‘push’ them from one phase of life to the other without allowing them the necessary ‘transition’. We make them adults before they have even experienced their childhood completely. We want them to be ‘career oriented’ and fail to make them ‘life oriented’.
This is exactly why, in one or two aspects of life, people may be successful, yet in so so so many aspects of life, they are frighteningly lost or insecure. Result – a unique combination of ‘successfully miserable and miserably successful’.
Nature brilliantly teaches us about transition. That is why a healthy pregnancy lasts for close to 9 months. Women do not get pregnant today and deliver tomorrow, right? Nature understands, women can’t enjoy the role of a mother, if she doesn’t go through the transition phase of nine months.
So this space called ‘Transition’ is crucially important as we experience the shifts of life.
One can’t move on directly from first gear to second gear. For this change, one has to pass through a transition space called Neutral gear. And imagine, some people want to directly move to the ‘fourth’ gear. Bah!!! No doubt we are in such a tearing hurry yet reach nowhere.
A ten-minute advance arrival to any important programme, makes us prepared for the necessary mental buildup.
And off course, a few minutes pause after the programme too is essential, before we shift to any new activity.
I have decided to respect this space called ‘ Transition ‘ and celebrate life event to event. I am going to celebrate learnings and achievements with grace and go through the happy transitions.
When there is a transition between eating and excretion, its a healthy body. If eating and excretion happens without any ‘transition’ it is a diseased body. Lets stay healthy with ‘transitions’ everywhere necessary.
Needless to express, after reading this piece and before switching to something else, do pause for a few moments. Enjoy the transition.
With love, prayers and exceptional wishes,
naren and satish joshi