Learn life from (Part 1)

Learn life from

•    a young widowed mother who toils for her only son
•   an old man who has lost his wife after 40 years of marital bliss and smiles when you wish him a good morning
•    a blind father-son duo who make their living by selling bamboo baskets
•    a child of 2 years who has lost her parents and laughs with all innocence when you give her a chocolate
•    a cancer survivor making most of his remaining life striving to make the society better for next generation
•    a community rebuilding itself after complete devastation due to a natural calamity

Being happy is not that you do not have any problems; it means to put them all behind and smile to say "I can sail through this".

Life - Part 2

Life is unfair to some people and more than fair for most of the masses. As my brother told me once, the irony of two people on a bicycle and a scooter is that even though the person on bicycle works harder than the other person, he never gets past him. Such is life. And as is, many people come into your life to be there for a period of it and just vanish in thin air as if they never existed. And some to leave a lasting mark and few you never knew existed as a part of your life. 

I usually buy fruits from a street vendor rather than from the supermarket just opposite to where she sits. When I went to her the other day after a long time, she inquired why she had not seen me for long and I explained her that I was out of the station. After the usual purchases, she paused a little before taking the money from me and looked at me expressionless. She showed me her thumb and told me that she had cut herself earlier in the day when she was trying to cut open a jackfruit. I looked at her with sympathy and could offer only a few words to be careful and took leave from her.

On my way back, I could not give up imagining about the closeness the vendor displayed. I see her once in a week or so or sometimes once in a month or so. I was surprised by her friendliness. (She usually chooses what I should buy!). But I was ashamed of myself for not having the presence of mind to buy her a band-aid from the shop a little distance away.

Are you missed?

All of us are so used to our environment that we hardly tend to notice the inanimate things around us. We live oblivious to the nature of how they try connecting with this. By inanimate, I mean all those living and non-living things around us, people excluded. The other day, when I was on my usual evening walk in a park nearby, I noticed a vacant space in its corner. Though I instantly recognized there was something missing and it was not a usual sight, it took me a minute and a half to realize that there was a huge tree and had been cut. Although the thought why it was cut came on my mind, the thought that I will miss it and most importantly, will the inanimate things too miss you if you are not around predominated my mind. 

Just a short one.

“Disappointments come to those who make appointments with the future”, says one of the Swami Chinmayananda quotes. Absolutely true! But is it not human nature to keep on assessing what is in store for future? We worry about past, ponder over future but count out the present that is more important. Irrespective of accidents and incidents we face in life, if we can learn to balance both our joy and sorrows, and let it not influence us (easier said than done) too much, then life will be as beautiful as the sky; Though there is no right blend of blue hue and whiteness of clouds, it always looks beautiful.

Kal Ho Naa Ho...

The incense sticks burning, the room washed clean. Not a smile on any lips around. Nor is anyone interested in talking to others in the room. Nobody seems to encourage the child that’s trying to walk for the first time. A deep thought rather a reality that’s struck hard seems to affect every person in the room. It’s smell stronger than the incense sticks; it’s touch stronger than that of a mothers caring hands; it’s taste bitter than the neem; it’s sound harder than lightning to bear.But, when it decides to descend nobody can ask her to go back. THE ANGEL OF DEATH. Nobody has a taste of her till the time arrives and none can tell how it is after they taste it. 

“He/ She becomes ‘it’ in a fraction of second.”Life is so unpredictable. So too is death. As a matter of fact, every birth ends in death and when that person dies, as Paulo Coelho says in his ‘Winner Stands Alone’, when a person dies, an entire universe is lost with them. Their experiences of life, their knowledge about things is completely beyond reach; in other words nobody can ever feel or look at the world how the person himself/herself saw or felt.

 People say we never realize someone’s worth until they are gone. But that isn’t the fact. The truth is we miss them, we know them as they are, we know what they are, we know their worth even when they are there. But we do not express it since we know they are with us, they are around us; we assume, we take it for granted that things will never change. We never realize it is all matter of seconds. We never know whom we might lose the next second or whether we will be there that second to lose that someone.

 The absence of a person is felt for a while, but as the days pass ‘Time heals everything’. True, but the deeds that person did or the deeds you did to that person, will it ever fade away from your memory? You may say, to pretend, that you do not remember anything of that sort happening at all; when pointed out; but will you be able to answer the same when you yourself ask the question??

 Just think of that minute when your spouse is no more to say that you love her or him, your parents are gone before you were courteous and kind to them, a very close friend of yours is not here so that you can call them up to just say a ‘Hi’ to feel lighter (though you did not mention it when they were here).Just think of that moment. That moment when you will feel utter darkness around you even when the day is bright, things will really be heavy to bear. Life is a little shorter than you think. Live happily, let others live happily. Help if you can; do not trouble if you cannot. There will definitely be a point in life when you look back and replay your life. Try not to regret but rejoice at that moment.