The Forced Farewell

My friend was almost in tears, when she saw the middleaged man in tears. It is not common to come across a middleaged man shedding bitter tears. He was shedding tears thinking of the plight of his daughter. She, the girl in her twenties, cared very little for the emotional outburst of her father, who but had to struggle from morning till evening to make both ends meet. But she cared less for the father, who could not even afford to provide two square meals for his family members. The plight of poverty-stricken family had found a safe haven for the daughter in a secure convent walls, hoping they may see their daughter have atleast three meals a day, and a worry-free life.

But the dreams of the parents were shortlived, when the young girl decided to quit the secure life, just because she found the "correction" of the sisters too harsh. She might have had an ego, that was too bloated, and she could not think of anyone correcting her. She would do what she wanted, and everyone will have to accept it as coming from God almighty. She found these corrections excruciatingly painful, and her pain was perhaps more than the pain of her hungry father, who was proud to think that her daughter was in a town, growing up speaking English. If he too was as adamant and unrelenting as his daughter, life would have been quite different for this girl.

Life for a young girl in this world is not a bed of roses, or a smooth sail; it has its own share of toils and troubles, especially if a girl is not brought up in a conventional mould. The dropouts and distracted will have to find ways to kill not only their time, but also people with whom they can build a world of their dreams. But who is there to help this girl to start life anew, with renewed vigor and strength? Surely not her father, who is too tired of life already in his forties. His pleading with his daughter could not soften the heart of the girl, and she was leaving pastures green, in search of dry deserts, to find an oasis!

The playful heart of this girl has not taught her a lesson, that the world is not as friendly and warm as it always looks; she had taught the mirages as real, and when she is thirsty and rushes towards the mirages in order to quench her thirst, that would be the moment of self-realization, and that would be the moment she may remember what her father meant for her; what it means to be under the safe and secure care of someone you can trust. When buffeted by the never-ending currents of life, she might look for a breathing space, where she may find someone to wipe her tears. It may be too late before she finds herself in such a situation.

No one on earth has the audacity to decide the fate of another human person; not even God has the power to do that. Each one decides his/her own fate, and that would determine what we make life of. One may tell me that the fruit of a particular tree is bitter or sour, but if I am determined to taste it for myself, who can help me? But unfortunately, in life there may not be second chances, and there may not be avenues to take a U-turn. But she will find her way one day, and remember with gratitude those men and women who had corrected her to mend her ways, for it is only by pruning can a tree reach its full maturity!

A Weighty Matter

Observing the different kinds of people who frequent airports and who hang around the domestic and international terminals is quite an interesting phenomenon. It is quite amazing to notice that most of the people who frequent air trips are generally large in size, both men and women, and if I were to make an approximate proportion of oversized men and women who emerge out of the glass gates, it would be about 50 per cent. From among the rest of the 50 per cent, about 25 per cent could be categorised as the undersized, and only about 25 could be termed optimum size according to their height. Naturally we have devised a formula of optimum body mass in proportionate to the height, and that is how many of us could be fooled by these calculations, while we ourselves may feel that we are not enjoying the comfortable weight, and that we have to either shed weight or gain some, and that takes much of our time and energy.

I leave it to psychologist and dieticians to tell us how we gather more body mass than we should have; and slimming and trimming industry is the next boom that our metros witness, and there is suddenly a mad rush to keep ourselves trim and fit. There are all sorts of gadgets and machines available to bring us to the natural body mass that we should have otherwise, and we need to empty our coffers, besides shedding the extra fat, and the extra inches that we may have been walking with. Some of us even become so very comfortable being obese and extra large in size that they don’t consider it a problem, and they may even feel good about it.

I know my mind is quick in arriving at some mad conclusions, and I am sure there may be some who may vehemently oppose such conclusions. Nevertheless let me state just a couple of them, in order to wet the appetite of a few who might want a taste of my conclusions. After being born and brought up in a village for about 20 years, I realise that very few, if not none, are over-sized; out of one hundred you may be lucky to find one or two persons who could be called obese. In fact such a concept did not exist then, and there the matters of comparison was often between the moderately sized and the undersized. People by and large were and enjoy good health, and there are very little chances for one to indulge in overeating and let the fat spread all around the weistline, and present a different look. In the city, the situation is quite different; the ratio that I had mentioned above could be close to truth. One might whisper that it all depends on the life-style of the families. Even the children who go to school gain excessive body weight already at an early age. But beyond the life-style theorem, there is a fact that one person’s gaining excessive weight implies another person’s losing that much weight.

I don’t plead that someone should buy my conclusion, especially the above one, namely one person’s excessive body weight implies another person’s under weight. My conclusion, if we may call it so, is based on the notion that the universe we live maintains certain amount of balance, equinomity, and often it is disturbed by one of the most notorious of species, the homo sapiens sapiens. And we are the cause of so much of imbalance all around us. In fact, the imbalance in our universe that is brought about by human beings is just an indication of the imbalance and degradation that had befallen us, and now it is too late for us to escape from it. What can I do to maintain my body fit, so that I don’t become a prey to the modern ailments! One can notice that many of the diseases that we bother about so much were non-existent some years ago. So, where do I stand, and how do I keep myself fit for the world?

Today I will take a few minutes for myself and think about my body weight; do I feel I am over-weight or under-weight, or just the optimum weight. However here I would make a little correction to what the physician or therapist or even a dietician may say about the weight. What is most important is that one feels comfortable about it, and feels at ease to carryout one’s works. Do I feel at ease with my body mass? If I feel so, then I don’t need to worry too much about what the therapists may say. It is the law of the universe that some trees grow a little taller and bigger than others, and one cannot complain about the other. I also today realise that I don’t need to exert myself very much in order to maintain a healthy body, and mind. Let me return to my sources, and just be what a villager would normally be, and I will start noticing something beautiful happening in my body and in my society at large.