Another year passes by.
This year has been special like all the previous years i've lived in this planet earth. Years of memories has already faded away while a few are left behind in my thoughts as shards. None of it happened with a reason. In this hour of age, i realize, all that has happened was inevitable. There could have been no better alternate. If there was, i'd definitely had not come across all the people i met, all the stories i listened to, any of the experiences i had. Anything that remains relevant to me is due to the relevance it has in my life. May it be the memories i often recollect of my chemistry teacher who never wanted me in his class room or that of my father making me swirl in his belt for every other mischief i did.
Did that do any good to me?.
I don't know yet. But it sure has changed me, moulded me to be a better person.
The day when my maternal uncle told me of how his President asserted about conquering self when fever overpowers, flashes in front me, every time i get into any sort of addiction. To consider fever as an enemy when it is fully equiped to compromise my energy, and fight back as I wake up to say "No, you rule your body not any virus" sounded stupid for the first few years of putting it to practice. Few years down the line when cigarettes had taken over my habbits, bringing a pause to my yearly ritual of fasting for sabarimala, i raked back that thought of stupidity to understand its time i direct my body and bring it under control. From then on, every time i feel smoking addiction has taken over me, i decide to fast and complete the process of sabarimala pilgrimage. This continued to happen for few years until i realized how much deep of a thought had my uncle shared while i was still a teen. I have since successfuly balanced between my love for cigarettes and its addiction on me.
Family conversations has a great to offer. Being born to a family with bigger branches than a 300 year old baniyan tree, i've been fortunate to be a part of nitty gritty discussions of family politics. During one such discussion when i was old enough to be allowed to sit in the gathering i heard another brother of my mother consoling his extended family.
"Doing is our preference, looking for gratitude isn't, do not be bothered if there is no one to look back at you when you need them by your side".
At that point i never thought that would recourse, nor would I remember any of that conversation. Five to ten years later when my friend asks, why don't you expect someone to be there whom you had helped, i proudly flaunt this quote and become their inspiration. Certain sentences had made my life simple and simpler. Also to add with that I remember is the conversation which led to someone from family gathering saying,
if you were to know they'd have already said to you. If they don't, do not make them uncomfortable.
Though I've failed this a multiple times, someday i can reassure of not putting you in an uncomfortable situation, I say to myself.
Friends, family and fellow humans. Do not do the mistake of wanting to keep everyone who you've picked up during the course of life along with you through your life span. If a tree were to do that, some day it would fall of its own weight uprooting the shrubs around. As seasons change, situations change, to which life has to adapt forcefully. Those leaves which has fallen early shall be around as a manure to the tree or any trees around in the forest of life. Friendship, love or relationship is not a part or package of commitment, but a reminder of gifted human emotions bestowed upon us. Greatest of them all is when i learned to not expect anything in return once i've done something for someone.
A lot of shady character that got along me as i grew older, but not late to realize none of them was by influence of others but my incapability to stop exhilirating my mind from pleasure. Might be the life i saw of others during my travel through length and breadth of India or be the reality of life that hard struck in during some random boozed conversation I've had down the line. I do not want reasons, i do not want truth for it shall unfold if i had to know. To learn from faliure began the day i failed in my botany exam after my teacher ripped me apart for spoiling her impression on me. That was the last day i cried for failing in an exam. When my school principal, after multiple attempts to throw me out of the institution in the name of saving her school from poor results in board exam, said to my friend's father "I expected more out of him". I gasped thinking, had i been a success in academics I'd never have enjoyed this recognition.
To offer seat in a public transport to any elder who's weak or to younger who deserves it, during my journey to college was the beginning of paying respect to fellow humans. Thought of my neighbour not having to give seat to elders were also equally justified to me. All it took were for themselves to elevate and be at a place where they ought to be.
All these years what i had forgot is to celebrate my father as a hero. Unlike every other kid in my class, colleagues in office, actors on screen, on stage celebrating their father to be the first hero. None of what he did looked extraordinary to me until I started earning. I still remember writing 72,000 as annual income and living the life of elite at home. Not that my father had a lot of money, but he was capable enough to keep me away of his worries. When the whole class of mine went for excursions, I'd spend my day happily with my brothers playing cricket without even bothered of what i've missed. Later on when i recollect his stories that he has told, matching with those of what others from my family has told, i am certain. He's endured his life as a hero. To built a 1800 sq ft house in a stranger state seems bigger a task for me now. To fix a electronic device all by my own, now seems to demand much knowledge. To give up smoking for his and family's good, looks much of a sacrifice to me now.
After years of being at home taken care of by my mother. I never felt anything big of those women who claims to be a house wife. Life is so beautiful that it let's me revisit on all my perceptions or opinions that I've had or gained through the life i lived. In a matter of fact it is that let me decide to myself, being a human is greater than being a man of opinion.
Never was I made to feel superior of being a man. Never was I made to feel inferior of a woman. But to grace what I have is what I embraced through her. Coming back from office, looking at my shady room, i get remined of her running around to keep things in places, which makes me realize how much it takes to be a responsible human. Nothing is normal to me now, from a insect that clears the decayed mess to the operator of earth mover who clears rumbles of landslides. Every action has its own reputation.
Let me assert. Life's biggest reconciliation is by understanding the life on my own.
People change and so should opinions.
