Tag: Life

Happiness

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Happiness is an eternal quest. Happiness is a mirage. Happiness is like passing clouds. There are two kinds of happiness: Happiness that we derive by doing the things that we like and happiness that we derive by doing the right things irrespective of whether we like it or not. Happiness is not a one-size fits all suit. The activities that lead to happiness in one stage of our life will not lead to happiness in a different stage in life; it might look outright absurdity too. Happiness can’t be expressed well with words but we can recognize moments when we were/are happy (if we are not evaluative or critical).

While I am sleeping do I actually know that I am sleeping? The moment that I try to gauge my level of happiness or if I am happy at all, I am no happier. Happiness can be achieved by being in the moment. Happiness is the fuel that drives life forward. Without happiness, that sense of well-being, what is the point of the pursuit called life? It is better to identify the unique set of activities and things from which we derive happiness than being driven in pursuit of the social stereotypes of happiness. Enough of the philosophical rhetoric on happiness.

Now to the practical aspect of how I experience happiness in my daily life. To me happiness is series of little moments scattered across my entire lifetime. My pursuit of happiness is as unique as me. Below are the list of things/ activities that give/have given me happiness at different times:

  • Unexpected rain on a summer day
  • A sip of water post a bite of chilly
  • Patience to laugh at my own follies
  • The wag of tail by man’s best friend
  • Strange sounds of feathery vagabonds
  • Extended slumber sessions on a holiday
  • The roses that blossom in my rose plant
  • A timeless statue smiling at me in vanity
  • Reading a favorite book at a leisurely pace
  • Kind words by my wife in times of distress
  • Playing a prank on my sisters and friends
  • Unspent money in the wallet at month-end
  • Eternal race of endless waves on the seashore
  • The moment a favorite dish melts in my mouth
  • Pretending to lose to my child in a boxing match
  • A cocktail of music that takes me on a time travel
  • An endless road inviting to an unexplored journey
  • Walk on the seashore while enjoying dawn or dusk
  • Droplets of water hanging on to a leaf like dear life
  • A game of cricket with old buddies on a lazy Sunday
  • The radiant smile of my child after a hard day’s work
  • The aroma of freshly baked bread as I walk past a bakery 
  • A cold water bath of hot day and hot water bath on a cold day
  • A favorite movie whose dialogues that I can remember by heart
  • Stumbling upon an old friend in a crowded market in a new city
  • The new language scripted by my daughter when she started talking
  • As a young boy, holding my parents hands when we went out for a walk
  • The tiny dot of light turning the endless canvas called sky into infinite shades
  • A fraction of heat from the tea mug that seeps into my palm on a cold morning

 

Note: This post has been written for Indiblogger’s Indispire edition 108: ‘What does happiness mean to you? Do you go looking for happiness?’

My Daughter’s First Annual Day (Part Two)

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On 10th March, we reached the venue for the annual day exactly by the stipulated time which is kind of a cosmic miracle considering my life-long issues (should I say my legacy) with time management. Looks like the school authorities had accounted for Indians’ Standard Time (which is basically being at least 30 minutes late for any program) and the program was nowhere near getting started. Slowly the venue started getting filled.

The rebellious mothers of my daughters’ class decided to ditch the golden color overcoat for the girls and instead to use a mini-apron in the same color as the skirt. I basically left my wife to sit with my daughter, her classmates and their respective mother and moved to another row to sit with my daughter’s classmate’s father. As I looked at the bright and colorful costumes of kids in other dances, I felt that may be my wife was right about my daughter’s dance costume. Seriously, what was I thinking? I should have been extremely naïve or extremely audacious to doubt the judgement of an Indian Mom. Lesson learned: It’s ok to doubt the judgement of your wife in her role as wife, but it’s naïve to doubt her judgement in role as a mother. Thankfully my daughter’s class teacher did not object or question the slight change in costume for the girls and what could have been an unpleasant conversation was averted.

My daughter’s dance program was listed as the eleventh one in the itinerary. There was only one skit which was kind of narration skit that introduced each and every dance performance. In all there were eleven dance performances for songs including Barbie World, Macarena, Tarzan and Jane, Witch Doctor, etc. There were even a couple of Hindi And Tamil folk dances too.

Once the Annual Day Programs started they proceeded at a break neck speed. Each class had its own dance performance. The school authorities ensured that all the kids in the class including kids with special needs also participated in the performance, which is commendable. For all the dance programs the respective class teachers would also dance in front of the stage so that the kids follow them and dance. It was kind of funny and heartwarming to watch the activities of the kids on stage. The dances were far from perfect but even imperfection is perfection when it involves kids. Some of kids were distracted seeing their parents capturing videos of the dance performance, which was exactly what the school authorities forewarned and forbade.

My daughter’s dance performance went very well. The showstopper of the evening was a speech by a girl thanking all the teachers and parents. She spoke very well for five minutes with just one minor hiccup which for her age is a tremendous achievement. At the end of the Annual Day function after the National Anthem, most of the people were in a hurry to leave the venue which I could not understand as the program got over well ahead of time.

We went onstage and took a few snaps of my daughter with her friends, class teacher and school head. We also thanked our daughter’s class teacher for all her efforts. The Teachers should be thanked for all their efforts and preparation for the annual day. It is very difficult to make children of this age perform in unison and the teachers had done a remarkable job. On the way home, my wife sponsored our Celebratory Dinner at Cream Center.

My Daughter’s First Annual Day (Part One)

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On 10th March, my daughter’s playschool, ‘Eurokids – Kotturpuram,’ conducted their annual day. The event was held in another school’s auditorium in Alwarpet. The school had planned for the programs in such a way that all the kids participated in at least one program. My daughter was participating in ‘Tarzan and Jane’ dance. In the run-up to the annual day, my daughter kept us informed with the happenings in her dance practice sessions.

About ten days back when my daughter’s class teacher revealed the costumes for the dance, the mothers of girl children in the class almost blinked in sync in disbelief. Since the song was based on Tarzan, the teacher had chosen for girls’ black full hand t-shirt, black full trouser with a blue mini-skirt and a golden over coat. They had problem with choice of costume, the color, etc. My wife was one of the rebellious mothers who was hell-bent on ensuring that her daughter shines like an angel from another world.

My wife and my daughters classmates’ mothers were left fuming further when they came to know the choices made by other class teachers: Pink Barbie Gown, Colorful Beach Trousers and T-Shirts, Gagra-Choli, etc. In the days leading up to the annual day, I can safely assume that these mothers hated their daughters’ class teacher more than their respective mother-in-laws. There were suggestions and counter-suggestions going back and forth. Not a single day passed without my wife complaining about the dance costume and feeling bad that while other kids would have wonderful costume, our daughter would have a (a perceived) funny costume. I finally managed to pacify her saying that ‘we would buy all kinds of good looking costume for our daughter but not a jungle themed costume; so in way the teacher is doing us a favor!’

Two days before the event when the teacher handed over the costume to us, my wife’s blood pressure reached the stratosphere. I tried to reason with her and calm her down; however she suddenly took George W. Bush kind of stance against me, ‘If you are not with us you’re against.’ Not wanting get crushed under the wrath of the Lady Tsunami in the house, I basically chose to confine my logical opinion to the safest corner in my house, which is basically within my own head!!! My wife rang up one of my daughter’s classmate’s mother and the two moms brainstormed on how the situation can be salvaged.

My wife altered the length of the skirt and with the remaining cloth made head bands and rubber-bands of the same color for all the five girls in the dance. My daughter’s classmate’s mother went even further: she managed to trace down the cloth used in the skirt to a shop in T. Nagar and found a tailor who would stitch a mini-apron for all the five girls in one-single day. And on the day of the event they were getting ready to unleash a ‘Fashion Revolution.’ Wow, hats off to these Supermoms!!! Viva Fashion Revolution!!!

Well, what did the dads do? One, we never interacted much, so the idea of coordination between us is never going to take flight. Two, our fashion sense is as weak as the depleted knee bone of ninety year old man; so the lady in the respective household is never going to allow us to decide on something as important as the costume for the daughter’s first annual day. Three, we are VERY LAZY to do so much work in one single day; Therefore all of us should have independently come to the same conclusion: ‘we would buy all kinds of good looking costume for our respective daughters but not a jungle themed costume; so in way the teacher is doing us a favor!!!’ I think that was the right conclusion since we need not be disturbed from our state of bliss called as ‘Inertia!’

Book Review: ‘Between Parent and Child’ by Dr. Haim G. Ginott

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Between Parent and Child.jpg

Of late my wife has been reprimanding me for being hypercritical and harsh with my daughter. Not wanting to get into my way versus your way debate with my wife, I decided to check for myself if my wife’s comments are actually true. Where else would I turn to counsel than my new-found best friends, books? I turned to Amazon search engine to shortlist a book to read on the subject and after a few clicks, I had found ‘Between Parent and Child’ by Dr. Haim G. Ginott, a book first published in 1965 and considered a classic on this subject.

Forget the content of the book, the book could easily called a classic for the number of high impact one-liners in it. Mid-way through the book I completely lost count of the number of one-liners that made me sit up and say wow! The book is concise but thorough and the chapters are short but effective. Most importantly at the end of each chapter I was motivated to read the next chapter. The book proceeds at a rapid pace in dispelling many myths about parenting and parent-child interactions. Overall it’s a very good and delightful book to read and could be an important source to refer back to, from time to time.

Some of my favorite pointers/ observations from the book are:

  1. Don’t be a parent, be a human being who is a parent
  2. Good parents need skill
  3. Communication for connection: Respond to children’s feelings, not their behavior
  4. Behind many childhood questions is the desire for reassurance
  5. Fish swim, birds fly, and people feel
  6. Praise, like penicillin, must not be administered haphazardly
  7. Abusive adjectives, like poisonous arrows, are not to be used against children
  8. Anger, like the common cold, is a recurrent problem. We may not like it, but we cannot ignore it.
  9. The niceties of the art of living cannot be a conveyed with a sledgehammer
  10. Emotions, like rivers, cannot be stopped, only directed
  11. Parents can initiate favorable changes in their child by listening with sensitivity
  12. Discipline, like surgery, requires precision – no random cuts, no careless attacks
  13. Discipline: Permissive of feelings but strict with behavior
  14. When children are punished they resolve to be more careful, not more obedient or responsible
  15. Effective upbringing is based on mutual respect between parent and child without the parent’s abdicating the adult role
  16. It’s desirable that a parent or other caring adult be home to greet children upon their return from school
  17. It hurts to share a parent’s or a spouse’s love
  18. Children do not yearn for equal shares of love: They need to be loved uniquely, not uniformly
  19. Efficiency is the enemy of infancy: Children need opportunities to experiment, struggle, and learn without being rushed or insulted
  20. Children need a clear definition of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable behavior

Even Scavenging Crows Don’t Sell Themselves Short

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One of my fondest childhood memories is that of me and my sisters feeding rice to sparrows and crows in the verandah in our grandparent’s house. It’s an age old practice that our grandparents had encouraged us to indulge in and enjoy. These days sighting sparrows in Chennai has become a rarity and finding time in our extra rush-hour life to feed the crows has been difficult. The problem is also aggravated by the fact that it’s very difficult to find a suitable spot to feed the birds in apartment complexes. Nevertheless in the last couple of years I have got into the habit of feeding crows.

The compound wall of our current flat is just an arm’s distance from our kitchen. As a result we place food for the birds on the compound wall from our kitchen. The convenience factor has made it easier to feed the crows. The sound of the crows around breakfast and lunch times also serve as alarm bells that remind me to feed the crows. I hadn’t given it much thought but of late I have started noticing that even crows have foods preferences. The scavenging crows are the last creatures that I would have expected to have preference in meals but they seem to have preferences. Crows prefer non-veg items; that’s a no brainer. They prefer chapatti over rice; that’s a surprise to me. The spot where we place pieces of chapatti will become empty within a few minutes whereas when we place rice it will take a couple of hours to get finished. Crows seem to hate dosas; they are kind of ok with idlis.

This Saturday morning, something even more interesting happened. My wife was not keeping well and my mother was at my sister’s place. I went to kitchen to drink water and on hearing the sound of crows I reached out to the loaf of bread lying on the kitchen table. I pulled a couple of slices of bread and tore them into smaller pieces and placed them at the usual spot on the compound wall where we keep food for the crows. Then I went to wash my hands at the kitchen sink and simultaneously peeked through the window to see what was happening.

Four crows descended on the compound and were shouting loudly. However none of them touched the bread. One of the crows even looked very closely at the bread pieces similar to the way a lab technician would look through a microscope. Even after a couple of hours the bread pieces were still lying on the compound wall.

As I was having my lunch I could not help but wonder about the optimism of those crows. Crows are mostly scavengers eating on left overs, living a kind of rootless existence (in the eyes of a human) with not much guarantee about the next meal. Yet the experience of their life time had taught them to be so optimistic about their immediate future that they were not willing to sell themselves short. Even a lifetime of scavenging has not dented their optimism.

I wish I had the same optimistic outlook about my own life. At so many instances in life I have sold myself short thinking that it was risky to forego what was in front of me. There have been days at a stretch when I had been pessimistic, cynical and grumpy. I have also known of so many people (with the best of education, jobs, health and family condition) who have had the same feeling and would go an extra mile in propagating their pessimism to others as well. And yet here we have bunch of scavenging crows that were more optimistic than people like us and were refusing to sell themselves short. Optimism is not something that you deduce from your immediate environment or situation but something that you inculcate within yourself. Life and Nature are indeed great teachers.

Book Review: ‘Flow: The classic work on how to achieve happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’

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Flow

If there was one book that was consistently quoted in the books that I read last year, it was ‘Flow: The classic work on how to achieve happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.’ So I had this book on my ‘To Read’ list for quite some time. Even after I have finished reading this book, I still have trouble pronouncing the author’s name. The book is also not a breezy read kind of book and it takes a few pages to get used to the author’s style of writing. Some of the words and phrases that I came across in this book are completely new to me. But the concept that the book deals with has had so much appeal that as per the author it has been translated into 14 different languages.

The basic premise of the book is that happiness is not something that happens to a person. The author argues that Happiness is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended by each person. This book summarizes decades of research by the author on the positive aspects of human experience — joy, creativity, and the process of total involvement with life that the author describes as Flow. To put it simply Flow is nothing but the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.

The author lays out the common characteristics of optimal experience, i.e. Flow: a sense that one’s skills are adequate to cope with the challenges at hand, in a goal-directed, rule-hound action system that provides clear clues as to how well one is performing. The author also addresses through individual chapters on how one can achieve Flow in activities that require physical skill, in intellectual and artistic pursuits, in one’s current vocation as well in interpersonal relationships. Towards the end of the book the author also handles how one can integrate discrete Flow activities in life into one unified Flow experience. It would be worth paying extra attention to the last chapter, ‘The making of Meaning.’

Some of my favorite lines from the book are:

‘Contrary to what we tend to assume, the normal state of the mind is chaos.’

‘A person can make himself happy, or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening “outside,” just by changing the contents of consciousness.’

‘Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it.’

‘The reality is that the quality of life does not depend directly on what others think of us or on what we own. The bottom line is, rather, how we feel about ourselves and about what happens to us. To improve life one must improve the quality of experience.’

‘Potentiality does not imply actuality, and quantity does not translate into quality.’

‘Purpose, resolution, and harmony unify life and give it meaning by transforming it into a seamless flow experience.’

Overall the book would need extra investment in attention and time but it’s worth the effort. After all the book deals with how any journey can be worth pursuing for its own sake and there is no better place to start following the idea than in reading this very book that espouses the idea. The central idea of the book is so important that following it if not mastering it will greatly enrich our life.

Sports Day at My Daughter’s School

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On Saturday my daughter’s playschool, ‘Eurokids – Kotturpuram,’ conducted their annual sports day nicknamed, ‘Health is Wealth Day.’ The event was held in another school’s ground in Adyar. Throughout the year for most days my daughter had been late to school because of me. However for the sports day we reached the venue well ahead of time. In the morning it was cloudy as if it was going to rain but when we reached the ground the weather was just perfect for a sports day.

As I entered the ground I was amused that the thought of the winds of change in my life. For the first time in our lives I and my wife were attending a school event as parents. Time just zips past us in a flash while we are barely aware of how far we have come in our life. It just seems only yesterday I was standing outside a delivery room in a hospital when the doctor showed my daughter to me and yet here we were after three years and eight months taking our daughter to her very first sports day.

The school’s official mascot was placed at the entrance of the ground. It was a fairly large ground for an event of a small school. I met many of my daughter’s classmates and their respective parents. Since it was school admission time most of the conversation was around which schools we had applied to and whether the kids have got admission in the schools that had completed the admission process as of now.

I have never seen my daughter so lively and happy and so were the other kids. The school had arranged for drills by age group and races (individual and team) by classes/ age group. My daughter and her age group kids had to wear the Eurokids official T-shirt for the drill and a theme T-shirt for the races. As we were helping our daughter wear the T-shirt meant for the race, we were pleasantly surprised to see her name printed on the T-shirt.

As for the actual event, the drills and the races went off without much hiccup. They were far from perfect but even imperfection is perfection when it involves kids. The school management, teachers and staff had done a tremendous job of putting together drills and theme based races and there were a mini quizzes to introduce each race. My daughter’s race was around bears competing to catch fish and trying to make it to the finish line first.

Like most schools conducting events for kids, my daughter’s school ensured that every kid participated. They also gave prizes for every kid. As there was no first or second prize it actually freed the event from needless judgements and complaints that would have been made by the parents. During the prize distribution ceremony the school head kept repeating multiple times that ‘this is the first prize that the kids were winning in their lives’ and at Eurokids ‘Every kid is a winner.’

As the event was progressing it was heartwarming to see some of the kids dancing even from the audience area for songs of all the drills. There were many a funny moment during the event. The only two problems at the event were not from kids or the school but from the parents group: In our enthusiasm to watch the kids perform, we were refusing to settle down in the seats and the applause from us was rather muted and lacking energy.

When the kids were not performing in the drills and races, they were conducting a parallel sports day in the audience area. As I watched the kids play I could not help but notice that so much group dynamics and personality traits were already on display even at such a young age. I also could see with my own eyes (as pointed out by researches) that even a couple of months of difference in age can result in significant difference in kids’ ability to understand and act. The kids were somehow lost in their own world oblivious to what was happening around them.

There were musical chair competitions respectively for the fathers, mothers and the teachers/staff. The school had thrown in another surprise element by arranging for pizzas for the kids which was a huge hit with the kids. Overall the event resembled a carnival more than a sports day and it was a welcome break to be spectator to the surprising world of tiny but sunny personalities. When it was to time to go home one of my daughter’s classmates was crying and complaining to her parents that she did not want to leave the ground and go home. What more can serve as testimony to the success of the event? Three cheers to the ‘Eurokids – Kotturpuram’ management, teachers and staff for making the sports day a grand success.

Pirates in the Ocean called Democracy

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“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy–to be followed by a dictatorship.”  ― Alexander Fraser Tytler (Scottish advocate, judge, writer and historian)

“Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth stupid fumbling.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”–Albert Einstein

Hindi Saying: “Dhobi ka kutta, na ghar ka, na ghat ka’” which roughly translates to “Neither here, nor there.”

The political class of this country has to take care of the people at the bottom of the pyramid (at least once in a while) because they form the bulk of the voting population; these people basically sign the politicians’ appointment order to rule the country. The politicians worship the rich men of this country because they generously fund, albeit without much transparency, the political parties. The Tax paying population is actually in no man’s land with nobody to care for them. In fact the maxim for the tax paying population could be: ‘I Pay Taxes Therefore I Am.’ If a history book is to be written about Independent India’s achievement, the tax paying population would be mentioned just in the footnotes: ‘All the achievements of this country were funded by the country’s generous, unsuspecting and helpless tax payers.’ The only reason that we ever matter to the country is because we pay taxes, Period. Our true existence is for politicians to use our tax money to indirectly pay incentives to the poor people to elect them. It’s a good old carrot and stick approach: The politician get the carrot and the taxpayer gets the stick!

The tax payer is the poor soul caught between hell (inflation) and high water (government) that ensure that his or her hard earned money is used lesser and lesser for his or her own well-being with each passing year. The Indian Taxpayers are like the poor oxen used by a farmer to plough his barren land. The farmer (Politician) knows fully well that his land (Indian Economy) has been rendered barren (in bad shape) by his greed (rampant corruption) and nature (global economic situation), yet he expects that by making the oxen (tax payer) work harder (pay more taxes/ forego subsidies) he can get better returns (continued support from the voting population).

The Indian Tax payer is like the bonded slave of Colonial India. We are bonded for life to pay taxes to the government. We have an eternal duty to pay taxes but no right to ensure that the money that we pay as taxes is spent wisely. We pay taxes and travel in potholed roads but our tax money will used to provide free television for the Needy!!! We pay taxes and endure innumerable power cuts every year while our money is used not to build power plants or public schools or hospitals but in some arcane, utopian and symbolic public scheme that ensures the most votes for the politician who announces the scheme.

The first thing that we should be willing to keep open during our travel in this country using our personal vehicles: ‘Our Purse.’ Why should we, the tax payers pay toll duties at every toll booth? We already pay duties (taxes) to the government every month. And shouldn’t that duty (taxes) that we pay be used to build the roads. Shouldn’t the non-taxpayer who uses his own mode of transport be the one who should pay toll duties? In free India, the Indian tax payer is probably paying more duties/ tributes to the Indian Government Machinery than paid by Indians of Colonial India to their British Masters.

By the time we understand what one type of tax actually means and how much it will offset us, the government roles out yet another tax or cess. Income Tax, Professional Tax, Property Tax, Value Added Tax/ Service Tax, Toll Fees, Excise Duties, Entertainment Tax, Fuel Surcharge, Education Cess, Swachh Bharat Cess, etc., the list of assault on the tax payers income is endless. Just like the omnipresent microbes that threaten the physical well-being of individuals, the government imposed taxes and its bad policies threaten the financial well-being of the taxpayer. What is the success rate of various populistic scheme rolled out by the government? Shouldn’t the tax payer have some say in the way his or her money is spent?

What have successive governments done to broaden the tax net? What have successive governments done to catch hold of the tax evaders? What have successive governments done to bring back black money holed up in tax heavens? What have successive governments done to plug the leakages in the public distribution systems? What have successive governments done to roll back various privileges and subsidies being bestowed upon politicians and parliamentarians? The answers is an EMPHATIC NOTHING.

Politicians mask their incompetence by running media campaigns about how a Good Samaritan has to give up his or her LPG subsidy. The LPG subsidy to the taxpayer is just a drop in the ocean of government spending. The LPG subsidy to the tax payer is like ‘a pimple on an ant’s rear’: It is awfully small compared to various other spending by the government.  Lawmakers, ‘Please address the real issues that are setting back this country before you target the tax payer once again.’ I guess not only in kids’ stories but in real life as well, the greedy owner (government) is hell-bent on killing the goose (tax payer) that lays the golden egg (taxes).

Why does someone who makes above 10 lakhs of income have to forego subsidies whereas parliamentarians with crores worth of personal assets enjoy subsidies and privileges of various kind? Why can’t we roll back various tax benefits given to the largest of Indian companies? How about taxing super rich of the country on any money that they have not used in productive, job creating investments (holding idle) for more than a period of, say five years? Well parliamentarians of India, ‘Please lead by example. Please say no to all the privileges that you enjoy.’ Ultimately what is the difference between the pirates of medieval times who used weapons to loot ships in high seas for their own benefit and modern day governments that use the threat of the law to make taxpayers part with their hard earned money which these governments eventually spend as they wish with absolutely zero accountability?

Note: This post has been written for IndiSpire Edition #100: ‘Gas Subsidy has been ended for people with income more than 10 Lac and prices hiked. What is your take on this decision?’

 

The Wise Angel

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In the book ‘Springboard,’ Professor Richard Shell narrates the story of an elderly man (from working class background) who walked into a Wharton School seminar on income and happiness. After listening to what was being discussed, during Q&A session the elderly man described that happiness is just three things: good health, meaningful work and love. Professor Shell who was also present in the audience that day describes in the book that the aura of the academic world had for a moment fallen away under the weight of those simple words. Professor Shell goes on to describe that anonymous gentleman as the WISE ANGEL.

Today as I was lost in a stream of random thoughts, my mind finally came to anchor at the ‘WISE ANGEL’ island. I was thinking if I had met such a ‘WISE ANGEL’ in my life; or did I have the fortune of meeting someone who came at least close to the ‘WISE ANGEL’ – someone who was able to express a profound thought in a simple way.  For a few minutes my mind circling just like a man stranded in an unfamiliar woods on a foggy day.

After a few minutes I remembered of my visit to a Homeopathic Doctor at Mandaveli, Chennai – a few months back. I generally avoid taking allopathic medicine for recurring and nagging issues. I generally try to find some natural cure or take Homeopathic medicine. After repeated failures to locate a Homeopathic doctor near my locality, I found one near my sister’s place.

On this particular day, I had gone to see this doctor for a bout of common cold. He asked me for my age (35 years) and other details. He was trying to explore my medical history, allergies if any, family medical history etc. Then I started explaining about the issues for which I had gone to visit him. Before prescribing me the medicine he said, ‘You should realize that your first innings is over.’ Puzzled, I replied, ‘I don’t understand.’

The doctor went on to explain: ‘Till 35 years of age we are in the first innings of our life. From 35 years to 70 years we are in the second innings of our life. If we are fortunate enough to live beyond 70 years, we should consider it as super over. Since you are past 35 years of age, it is better to realize that you are in the second innings of your life and make modifications to your lifestyle accordingly.’  For a moment I was like thunderstruck.

Looking at the rather strange look in my face the doctor went on to add, ‘Our health is the most important asset that we have. We should do everything under our control to ensure that this asset remains healthy as long as possible.’ The doctor went to on to explain some of the food items that I can eat to increase my basic immunity. Then then prescribed medicines for me; I paid the fees and left the clinic. That day as I was riding back home on my bike, I had mixed feelings.

But over the next few days as I reflected on what the doctor said, I realized that the doctor only helped me realize the reality sooner than later. And as I think back on the incident today and associate the incident that Professor Shell narrates in his book I can clearly see that the Homeopathic Doctor is one of the ‘WISE ANGELS’ that I have encountered in my life.