I enjoyed my conversation today, immensely.
We talked at length about life, love & relationships. Growing and changing, finding your way in life when 20 years old or feeling like 50 years old.
Ravin, an intelligent, beautiful woman. The Mother of a new friend and about to return home to India…which is a long way from here.
Name: Ravin
Occupation: Company Director in Textile Industry, Designer & Mother.
1.Where were you born and raised?
New Dehli, India
‘A very comfortable childhood, I went a little astray, you know I belonged to a very conservative family and in India the system of arranged marriages is still very prevalent and I am the youngest in the family of four and everybody in the family had arranged marriages. I was a little more enterprising and found a man for myself, he wasn’t to my families approval, not because there was anything wrong with him but because he was from a different community. I managed to fight my way and get married to him.’
‘Amongst the fortunate few we went to a very good school. I went to a Convent school, which was like a private school now, it was considered for the elite.’
Ravin was very fortunate that her parents worked very hard in order to enable an excellent eduction for their family. Her parents migrated to Pakistan to New Dehli and had their own hotel.
2. Tell me a childhood memory.
‘I remember that I had a very strict Mum who was disciplinarian and my Father, she was always complaining to him that he wasn’t hard enough on the kids. ‘They are not disciplined enough!’ She said. He said, ‘You know, I don’t want them to remember me as a tyrant, I want them to have pleasant memories.’ ‘Because our Father never said anything to us, we were so much in awe of him that we never wanted to do anything wrong because we didn’t want to him to feel that he had given us the Freedom of making a choice and we didn’t live up to his expectation. He was a very great man.’
‘I remember at one time my Mother had to run off to her brothers house because of some emergency and I had long hair that needed to be braided for school. I had an older sister, who was 10 years older than me, she was like a Mother figure to me. I had to go to school in the morning and she was supposed to be doing my hair. We had a fight, she said ‘I’m not going to make your hair!’ I didn’t know what to do, so I went up to my Father and he says ‘Ok. Let me see if I can do it.’ And he braided my hair. I have such a clear recollection of that, it was maybe the shabbiest hairstyle. But he didn’t ask me to speak to my sister he just said ‘Let me do it for you’.
This story got me, I imagine the scenario, The way Ravin speaks its as though I am at the movie theatre watching the scene, its really quite lovely. I’m imaging this beautiful Indian man braiding his baby girls hair for school, struggling but doing the best he can, because he loves her and she has to have it done..I’d have liked to capture this moment on film, I’m glad Ravin caught it in her memory.
3. What is your favourite season & why?
‘We have a very long summer season and its very hot, so we look forward to the Monsoon season.’
‘We had a big central courtyard that was open to the sky. We used to block up all the outlets until the water flooded a bit and then we would get into our little trunks and wade around in it’.
‘Sometimes we would wade home from school knee deep in the water and it was great fun, we would come home and my Mother would make us strip down, take a bath and then prepare very hot snacks for us, Pakoras. The memory of the rain and the Pakoras is very clear to me.’
4. Tell me about someone you love?
‘I love my family, they are the most important people in my life. I actually think my life for the past 42 years has just been around my family.’
Ravin has been in a period of personal change. She has been married for a very long time and loves her husband very much. They have retired their business and the children have their own families and she suddenly felt that she had no purpose. Also during this period she lost her older sister to Cancer. Her sister had bravely fought the Cancer before for many years but this time it came back and took her life.
For Ravin this was an awakening for her to find an avenue for her own soul, to learn to love herself and put herself first. She needed to find a reason for her being.
‘Life is passing by, you have to find a purpose, all my life I sat back and my husband was in total control, I realised if he is not in control I have no life of my own. It was my sisters vision of living every day as a bonus and her image that helped me change my personality from a total introvert to, I mean it just totally changed my personality. So I went out, made friends, starting travelling on my own as my husband just didn’t want to travel at that time.’
‘I have found my own voice & my own feelings. It’s good to love someone intensely but I think when you love someone so intensely you expect the same kind of feeling to be reciprocated which doesn’t always happen, then its disillusionment. So now I have learnt to love with detachment. Love without expectations. It has helped us and we have found a new way to be happy.’
‘Today could be the last day of my life so I have to live it!’
5. What words of wisdom do you have for the reader about life?
‘Live life with detachment, love it but have no expectations from it, then you will enjoy every moment from it because every moment is a bonus. If you expect then you will always be disappointed, if you have no expectations then everything that comes your way is something to enjoy.’
‘If you love yourself then you can love the world.’
6. Dreams for the future.
‘I am not aspiring to make anything big of my life, when it comes to the finances and the comforts of life I have achieved everything. I’d like to travel the world and have a very happy family life with my husband, my children and my grandchildren.’
Ravin shared with me so many stories of her life. She is so proud and supportive of her two children and works with them both in their successful businesses. I feel like before me, this vibrant, beautiful woman who has lived an incredible life has just grown new, glorious wings. Not to take her away from the husband and family she adores but just to explore and venture out into the world a little more.
She is on a voyage of discovery and her beautiful grey eyes light up with excitement when she talks about it.
Listening to Ravin talk about her childhood, India, their culture and seasons was incredible..the images danced before my eyes and I could see myself there amongst it. She was a beautiful voice, an incredible knowledge of the English language to which she uses to colourful effect.
We talked for nearly an hour and I could have listened for much longer. Its rare that we take the time to listen so hard that we can visualise the narrative in front of our eyes
I’m left with the image of these dancing, singing children, knee deep in muddy water in the monsoon rain, laughing, splashing & playing.
It really is quite a wonderful sight.
