Choice

Does the Fire represent light & soothing warmth or ferocious heat? Isn't Water, the liquid of life, capable of choking life too? Is Nature always a cradle of life ?
I believe that nothing can be classified as either being absolute good or bad with 'good' read as the desirable outcome and 'bad' as the non desirable consequence. I feel that everything around us, objects, living being, material,spiritual, action, inaction,event has both sides. Sometimes in an balance and sometimes not but both the elements are always present. Further the definition of desirable / undesirable itself changes with perspectives (like in a stock market someone's loss is someone's profit). I personally believe that nothing in itself is good or bad but only the perspective makes it look like so. However for this discussion I confine myself to the widely accepted beliefs.

In our day to day life I witness several examples that make me draw the above mentioned inference. Forget material gains but even the most wonderful things in life like music, peace or love come along with some dependency or the anxiety of losing them someday. Similarly though we suffer in a tough situation but it leaves us stronger and teaches us also. Think about it.

I get convinced more day by day that every choice I make in life, be it subconscious like starting to walk with left or right foot or critical as choosing a life partner, will have its desirable and non desirable side. If at any point I see only the rosy path then it only means that the challenge is hidden beneath the layers of time. By now if you think that I am being pessimist then please continue to read on as I get to the exact point I am trying to make which happens to be very simple and have been told to us by great religions for thousands of years.

Tough times & good times will always continue to come by our way. While we all make the efforts to shun away one and embrace the other but we should not forget that each has its importance and to a good extent it is only our way of looking at it which makes it look good or bad. Where we should really put our best effort is try to respond to both the same way. Remember that every choice we make has its reward and price.

Gifts of Life

Recently I saw a movie named 'The Ultimate Gift'. It is about how a billionaire teaches his grandson to stand on his feet.As part of his will the rich man leaves instructions to his lawyers that ask his grandson to take twelve tests and pass in each one and only then the contents of the will would be revealed to him.
The first test is to do hard manual labor in fields, next is to survive a month without house and money, then to find a true friend, set up a library for poor village children in a third world country and so on. The guy is mad at his grandfather in the beginning but soon realizes how phony his life had been.
He realizes that the 12 tests were actually a means to introduce him to the gifts of life. The gift of hard work, friendship,family,love,learning,laughter,money.

Sooner or later we all realize the value and importance of these in our life too. I feel that all that is around us, the sunlight, flowers, green grass, cool breeze,knowledge, music, friends, family,love, we don't earn,own or have a right to them. These are actually gifts.

Enjoy them, embrace them,admire them but most importantly be thankful for them.

Heroes in Real Life

I was watching Cast Away for the nth time on TV today. It starts with Tom Hanks teaching [read as yelling] his staff [he plays a FedEx official] to improve their work.
Later in the movie he gets stuck at an island and in the end returns back. Looking at 'FedEx' so many times in the movie I felt like sharing
the experience I had at one of the FedEx centers in the US.
It was July of 2005 and I had come to the US for the first time and just 10 days later got the terrible news of my close friend passing
away in an unfortunate accident. It still remains the biggest shock of my life.
He was also in the US at that time and his family was in India. A friend and I went to Jacksonville next day to arrange for his journey back to India.Once that was done the next step was to ship his belongings also to India. So we went to a FedEx shipping center. There were 3 big suitcases and the bill came around USD 1700. The shipment was unusual. Clothes,shoes,books and all day to day stuff. The lady at the counter decided to ask us what was going on.
We told him about our friend. She asked us to wait for a minute and went in. She came back with her manager. Both of them had heard about the incident in the local TV and siad that they were sorry for our loss. We were very touched !
"This shipment has to go for free. We can't charge any money" the lady told her manager. Her manager replied, "absolutely". She started looking at
documents to find a provision to waive the charges.Apparently not finding anything she called up her Regional Manager who allowed them to use their employee discount to help us out and they did.
We did not have words to thank them. Not for the money they saved us but for showing genuine concern and going out of their way to help out two complete strangers.

Those 2 ladies are my hero.

"Yarron yahi dosti hai..."

There is an open air auditorium in the park near my apartment and during the summers there is a concert there almost every weekend. Last week it was Chinese classical dance show and today a performance by the famous South Asian rock band - Junoon! They started with a blast, a supercharged version of 'Yarron yahi dosti hai'. Out of all of their songs it is the one I like the most. Samir Chatterjee [Tabla player of the band] was quite impressive and his jugalbandi with Salman Ahmed [Guitar] was enthralling! The show went on 2 hours and I relished every single moment of it.
It is actually quite nice being there every Saturday evening. Pleasant weather, gentle breeze, soft lush grass and of course great music.
Many thanks to the people who organize such fabulous events free of cost to the common man.

Sustainable Pace

Small efforts bring large results when repeated often enough. And anyone has the ability to make a small effort. Small efforts meet with little or no resistance. Over time, with patience and persistence, those small efforts can steadily wear down the most formidable challenges. Often, the progress that is the most reliable and unstoppable is the progress that falls below the threshold of detection. Though each individual effort may seem to have no effect when you make it, at some point you'll look back and realize the enormous impact of all your efforts added together. When you seek instant gratification from every action, you make life needlessly painful and frustrating. When you choose instead to treat each moment as an opportunity to make a small, positive, long-term investment in your life, the rewards will be many and great. Progress on your journey with one modest, joyful step at a time. By moving at a sustainable pace, you'll be able to keep moving for as long as it takes to get exactly where you choose to go. Enjoy success and fulfillment as they come, one small effort after another. Steadily add the special value of each moment to your life, and you'll create a treasure that you can never lose. -- Ralph Marston