Digging the well of destiny

 In Chhatisgarh, an eleven-year-old boy fell into an eighty feet deep borewell. The water table is plunging down and the water-seeking holes are going deeper and deeper. The boy was stuck in the deep cavity for 104 hours. Around 500 rescue personnel worked round the clock; dug a parallel pit and a connecting tube to fetch out the boy. Meantime the boy was handed down six bananas, juice and ORS fluid. He had a snake and a frog as company all along. In the dark womb of oblivion, the primal fear rules supreme. One would love to have some company in such a dark, deep pit. So forgetting all predatory instincts and devouring orgies the snake must have cuddled the frog. The latter must also have, forgetting all fears and intriguing irritations, reciprocated with friendly croaks. It seems a bit sad that the boy couldn’t share his banana with his mates. It’s not clear from the reports whether the snake and the frog could be rescued or not. If they were not, and this is more likely given our valuation of life in human terms, then I would call it an incomplete rescue operation. Maybe with bits of nostalgic condensation they would have turned out to be the best of friends outside—the snake and the frog.

The elephant lost a human right

 So the court has ruled that Happy is not a person, he is an elephant. A court was hearing a petition whether the zoo-confined pachyderm in the US could have human rights superseding his animal rights. Had the verdict gone in his favor, he would have been released in semi-freedom in a big sanctuary. Alas, that wasn’t to be! I think all animals should have human rights and the humans, with their huge sets of ominous rumblings, will do pretty well with animal rights. After all, we are the strongest animal among the booming bedlam on earth. Mother earth is replete with the abundant sagas born of our criminal candor and odious excesses. So who else is the biggest claimant of animal rights?

Excellence and chance

 The golden boy of Indian athletics, Neeraj Chopra, has to carry our perpetually blossoming expectations born of psychotic obsession with gold on his strong shoulders. A bandana tied on his forehead, flowing locks of hair and triumphant fists present a picturesque imagination. He returns to action after almost a year since his Tokyo gold. He hits 89.30 meters at a tournament in Finland, bagging silver but more importantly, it’s his personal best. Sometimes your best gets you a silver only. They say it was a fantastic throw accompanied by his trademark warrior cry while throwing. It looked all set to qualify as an epoch-making endeavor and cross 90 meters and hit his passion mark to enter the elite group of javelin throwers. But a naughty gust of wind made the ascending spear swerve to left.

Well, that shows all we have in our capacity is to give our best throw. But the results are sometimes decided by the circumstantial, chancy winds. Sometimes the dangerous drafts of adversarial winds cold-bloodedly kill our throws. We primarily throw to challenge the adverse winds. Sometimes the winds turn favorable as well and give us bigger returns than we would have achieved otherwise. The moral of the story is that we shouldn’t complain about circumstantial winds. Give your best throw. That’s all that counts. If the petty treacheries of adverse winds rob you of your gold, believe me if you have given your best, you won’t be a mere helpless hayloft, you would be at least a respectable wreck. And that’s all that matters, not silver and gold.

Move on but look back sometimes with gratitude

 I think we can avoid abusing the things that keep us alive, that give us this day, that shape our life (in whatever shape it might be). Whatever the texture, shape and structure, it still is our life. It's still a flower (even if it's badly mauled and ruffled by circumstances) and it still belongs to the genre called 'life'. And the manifestation as a 'life' is an incentive by default. We are manifested and still get a chance to evolve and manifest more. A blade of grass manifesting its life in famished desert sands is as important as a luxurious devdar in rich, salubrious, rainfed hills.

This body, parents, siblings, friends, partners, deities, everything in fact has been responsible for this life that we see defining us at the moment. Irrespective of what we think of them presently, didn't they touch our lives positively and meaningfully when we needed them or crossed path with them? Please recall that spark and excitement when we initially met them!

We meet people on the way and move on and meet new people on the way. That doesn't mean the ones left behind were bad and the new ones arriving in life are better. They are equally good or bad. Everyone is equally imperfect but even with their imperfections they have something to offer to us and we to them, which shapes one phase of the journey. They are the ones who get us to a point of being positively touched by the newer people.

If I judge those who were left behind, it would be like condemning the lower steps on a ladder after getting to the higher ones. Would we have reached the top step--for example, reaching a stage of finding an ideal soul mate--if not for those nice lower steps, those nice people with whom we broke up in the past? The relationships are like a ladder. It's a journey basically. Different people that we meet are beautiful, strong steps on the ladder that bear the weight of our feet and help us take the next step. And we are just the same to them. We too were low at the time when we met them and that's why we stepped on that rung and found it helpful. So did they.

All steps, lower and higher, are equally important. All the people we connect with, all relationships, all situations and experiences are various steps on the ladder. The problem is that we judge them vertically like a ladder standing upright, in terms of high and low, good and bad. Life isn't a vertical ladder. It's multidimensional in nature. It unfolds in layers. All the people that we meet are equally high and low at various points. So honor the people that came along the way. They have given us this life as we see it now. We can avoid abusing these various steps on the ladder of life.

Acceptance of the uncontrollables in life and gratitude for what is done (ignoring what wasn't done) save us from abusing the things, situations and people who have helped us live one way or the other. Respecting them is as good as respecting life.

Most importantly, dear readers, always remember that there will always be more and new people, situations and relationships to help us see that life simply goes on. Good and bad will always come our way. But we have to ensure that we celebrate the former more than we sulk over the latter.

Just do it!

 The things which ought to be simply done, should just be done. Otherwise, their shadows linger in the mind. They grow heavier with the passage of time. This invisible weight is heavier than the stones we see around. Simple, harmless acts of appreciation, of enjoyment, of helping someone cross a stream are better done and closed with a full stop. It’s better for a healthy mind. Otherwise, they linger like conspiring shadows over our conscience.

A missed chance of being good will definitely cast a shadow on our mind. An effort to help the self in being good, on the other hand, will hardly leave any unbecoming imprint on our conscience for pinching reflections later.

Only goodness has a legacy and a future. Hypocrisy and meanness are just bad examples and leave repentance most of the time. To do good is instinctive for a human being, it’s however another matter that we stifle the urge most of the time. To be bad, on the other hand, is not intrinsic to our nature. It is wrongly reflective, a miscalculation, a tragic bypass of the instinct of goodness.

Nurture the seeds of the instincts of goodness. It’s a simple practice. It gives peace of mind, clear conscience and makes the journey enjoyable. Avoid it and you carry the burden in your mind.