The Cost You Pay for Anger

Thought of writing this months back but I guess now is it’s going to be. In last December around the Christmas leaves, I along with my family went on a vacation in the state of Karnataka. Me, my wife and the kids, my parents, my elder sister’s family and my wife’s parents was the whole team. The main destination was the Kollur Mookambika Temple. Apart from that we visited the Udupi Krishna temple, Murudeshvar Shiva temple and the Malpe beach. As I mentioned earlier, Shri Mookambika Temple in Kollur was our main destination. This is an age old temple standing for over 1200 years. The deity is manifestation of Goddesses Parvati, Saraswati and Lakshmi. Goddess Sri Mookambika Devi is worshipped in the form of Jyotir-lingam. She is the unification of both Shiva and Shakti. It is believed that Devi’s blessings can heal all the problems.

If my memory serves correctly it was in the year 2014 I visited this temple along with my parents for the first time. I wasn’t married back then. This write up is about something which happened during this trip in 2014. I was the one who had planned this entire trip. At that time, my main destination was the Malpe beach and not this temple. I had learned from the internet that this is a beautiful beach with white sand, and there are plenty of shops which sell fried fish and all which taste so good. We visited the temple on a late evening. We had a comfortable “darshanam” of the deity and we all came back to hotel satisfied. My mother, like every mothers out there is an ardent worshipper of all Hindu deities. If there’s an opportunity she would visit the same deity multiple times on the same day around same time. As we had a comfortable darshanam of deity, before the night’s sleep, I told my mother not to revisit the temple in the morning since we need to vacate the room and spend some time in the Malpe beach before we board the train back home same day evening. As I assumed that I will get only few hours in the beach, I wanted to ensure that there is no delay in vacating the premises and start our journey from hotel to the beach.

When I woke up in the morning, I could not locate my mother. When I checked with my father, he told me that she has gone to visit the temple. This triggered a huge amount of anger in me. I could not digest it that despite telling her multiple times not to, she chose to visit the temple again. When she was back I burst out. I extremely shouted at her for completely ignoring my requests and now may have costed some time I had planned to spend on the beach. My anger was on such peak level that the pressure I think hit my head and I started having head-rushes. Then we started from hotel, and were able to visit the beach comfortably before boarding the train.

I for a long time regretted this. I felt so bad about myself for getting angry to such a level that it affected my health. I felt so bad that I shouted at my mother, even though I had my reasons, in such an extreme way when I should have handled the situation with much more sanity. Because whatever she did wasn’t a crime. After all, she thought she will quickly visit the temple before I wake up.

Years passed, when life continued I faced with some very difficult situations in life. Me and my wife decided to seek blessings of Devi by visiting the temple, so that our difficult times disappear and we have enough strength to sail through. For some reason I also felt Shri Mookambika Devi was punishing me for ill-treating my mother by shouting at her, for visiting her holy shrine. I thought, may be Devi will forgive me if I take my mother to the same temple. I told my wife that I will take my mother to the temple and after we get the darshanam I will tell my mother that I brought her to the same temple where, years back I shouted at her. That was my way of asking apology and take the corrective action for my wrongdoing.

In our December trip, we all got wonderful darshanam of Devi, this time we planned to get the darshanam not once but twice. We visited the temple in the evening as well as next morning. We spent quality time in the temple and had memorable vacation, and yes I did tell my mother what I wanted to tell her.

As hoped for, the intensity of our problems in life has definitely come down. We are happy today. Anger is something which can destroy peoples’ lives. There should be thousands of people out there who must have done irreparable damage to self or the people around them because they could not manage their anger in a particular moment. Any emotion, be it anger or anything else isn’t unnatural. It’s perfectly natural and a human being is expected to show all the emotions. The trick is to manage it rightly so that we do not mess up our life.

I hope you enjoyed reading through one of the chapters of my life. Feel free to comment your thoughts and similar experience you had if any.