THE COST OF LIVING

There is a voice deep inside me that says that I’m blessed to be living, that I can witness the world created by the Almighty, but there is also regret that I can’t witness the world as created by him.

So much has changed since this universe was created, though changes are inevitable, but the changes for good should be inevitable, but as it is said where good prevails evil also does exists, so we have to live with both good and adverse changes. To the extent where Good and Adverse strike a balance it is easy to cope, but sadly so, there is never a balance. The Adverse always overpowers the Good, rather the consequence of Adverse overpower those of the Good.

As much as I don’t want to sound like a pessimist, I can’t help such thoughts from flowing into my mind. The world appears to be a graveyard of dead souls rather than a consortium of lively spirits. We are increasingly swaying away from humanity and allied virtues.

In these times people see each other as crutches rather than a fellow human being. Every relationship is a means to reach some destination….wonder what is the difference between the local trains and our relationships, we leave one, hop into another and so on…

In today’s ambitious world people feel its better to work for few more hours and gain some fiscal benefits and improve the quality of their life rather than sitting peacefully with their family for at least sometime.

We are all running a big Marathon in which everybody wants to win. In doing so we forget about all that is around us and all that we are leaving behind…We are not even concerned with what is happening to the people around us we are just running…

At the dawn of each day we think about all the work and commitments lined for the day…when did we last think of ourselves and everybody we truly love the first thing in the morning…everybody is in search of ‘something’ and this something seems to have no end….we run and fight against ourselves just to get close that virtual something, without realizing that, that something is within us. We are just like the musk deer which could experience a sweet smell but couldn’t reach it…it kept running and running in its search and finally in its blind search fell from the mountain and lost its life just to realize that the sweet smell was coming from within him…

We are all paying the Cost of living which includes our mental peace, our strength, our happiness, the smile on the faces of our loved ones, and the most important ourselves, we seem to have lost the track of ourselves in this Marathon…Living is rather expensive in today’s times…because it involves living at the edge everyday and sacrificing all that is priceless…

Sometimes I ask myself why are we living and then I get this reply “We are living because there is still some trace amount of humanity and Good alive on this planet, and we are living so that we can propagate this trait and make the lives of our subsequent generations worth living, so that they never have to pay the cost of living as we do”.

When a smile from a stranger works miracles…

There was a restless kind of silence around me waiting to engulf me into its dark dungeon. Things were not going the way I had planned them, on the contrary diametrically opposite things happened…and when they happened I felt as though the whole world was conspiring against me. Dejection crept in, a sense of solitude filled my mind, and I felt alone in the crowd and failed to listen to the many people around me. I was feeling sapped out of my energies and cognizance….
With turmoil inside me I stepped onto the lanes outside my college, with a friend. She took me to a park nearby where there was not even a bench for us to sit. So we dug up our bags to find papers to sit on, finally settled we looked around aimlessly laughing at ourselves…suddenly from nowhere a gang of kids turned up…they were from families of slum dwellers…they had some of the dirtiest faces I have ever seen, yet the most beautiful smiles. They were playing with a Latto (Top). I have never seen such a defunct toy in my life…but they seemed to derive immense pleasure out of their toy. I exclaimed at my friend when one of the toddlers managed to spin the toy like an adroit, my exclamation brought a smile on his face and an expression as though he had achieved something out of this world…
He then came up to me and demonstrated all his tricks he could perform with that toy, noticing my cell phone he said in the sweetest possible tone “ Didi meri photo pahado na” which I gladly did…on looking at his photo he broke into one of the sweetest and purest giggle I had ever heard…he posed gallantly for the camera and called all his friends for a group photograph…one of them even rushed home and called his sisters and introduced them to us and asked us to click their pictures also...all of them saw the pictures, enjoyed them for a moment and then dispersed to play…suddenly two youngest boys from the gang came from nowhere and asked us to click their pictures and the striking salute pose was the highlight…the kids laughed and giggled and went on to play…
They went off and left their smiles on my face…I felt rejuvenated and complacent as though I had achieved something…had I ?
Yes I had…I regained my cognizance back, that my smile had never gone anywhere it was there with me, within me…the only thing that was lacking was the will and the reason…now I had both…
The kids had given me the will to smile even in the most excruciating circumstances like they did and the reason to smile being their infectious smiles itself…
All this thanks to my friend who took me to that park…..Thanks Sangeeta.

JIGSAW PUZZLE
A few days back I was at my cousin’s place and was helping my nephew solve a jigsaw puzzle. Every time we were able to settle a piece, his face would exude joy and satisfaction, sometimes we joined mismatched pieces also and the displeasure was also evident on his innocent face. That 20 min game made me realize and understand some of the most important lessons; our life is also a jigsaw puzzle, just a bit more elaborate with some more pieces but the rule is the same…..you keep configuring it correctly and you will be happy.
Like in a puzzle game the company provides us with all the pieces required to complete the picture so also God has given us all the pieces, they are just scattered and it is left to us, how to assemble it. The only difference is that the company provides us with a blue-print of the picture but God does not.
The best lesson I learnt from the game is no part of life is useless or bad….it may be a misfit but certainly not bad…it will fit somewhere else in the larger picture. Also if we try to forcefully settle a part somewhere it only leads to ruining of the piece and the picture both which is bound to give us displeasure.
But the beauty and complication of this game is that all the pieces unfold gradually they are all clandestine pieces…when the right time comes they will unfold. We have to just wait for the right time but be vigilant enough to know the turn of time and to act quickly and locate the pieces an organize them this is the second lesson I learnt.
The third and the most important lesson I learnt was, we can never grow if we can’t be childish. Like it is said there is only one way to understand a game…play it, similarly there is only one way to understand life…live it. So live life before the last piece unfolds.