Cheer Leaders!

How wonderful would it be if we have a few dozens of “cheer leaders” in every locality! I am not talking about the professional cheerleaders at every sports stadium, whose duty it is to cheer up competing teams. We do not need such professional cheer leaders, often with limited fittings, so that they can cheer up the audience and the teams, not only by what they do, but also by what they are. But we need cheer leaders in every locality to cheer up every person living in there; we need others to cheer us up, and help us to realize that beyond our personal pain and agony is there a world of joy and happiness, of human communion; that we are all united by the bond of pain and sorrow, happiness and ecstasy.

Maybe it is not possible to have a group of cheer leaders who would go from house to house, spreading cheer in every person they come across. They could help people forget their worries and privation, and help them to smile for a while, make them laugh at something stupid, give them the comfort that they are not alone in their suffering. I feel the world is badly in need of cheer leaders, and I would not be surprised in a few years some people invent a system of artificial cheering up persons and families, and make a thriving business out of it. After all, with the way the world is expanding, there are all the chances that we would need artificial means of cheering us up.

I was told about a very old woman, in her late eighties, in Germany, who would sit at the entrance of the railway station of this small town, and would wish everyone who entered in there. In her old age, she had nothing to offer to the many people who entered there to catch a train to go to their offices, or to their relatives, and all of them entered in there with their load of worries, pain and anxieties. And this senior lady would greet them with a smile, and for a moment the people would forget their worries and wish her the same. This was her mission at the fag end of her journey. But I found this is a wonderful way to spend the last years of one’s journey.

How beautiful it would it would be if all those who are posted at the entrance of corporate houses were trained in the art of cheering up people, so that everyone who entered there would be charged by their cheer and smile; our offices and working places would be more joyful then. What we need today are men and women who feel certain joy deep down their hearts, and would like to transmit to other people, especially those who do not know what joy and happiness in life are. We need such people to occupy our security system. Technology is so advanced that in many places we can manage without security personnel, but no machine or technology can really replace genuine and true cheer leaders.

I have known about a few such cheer leaders, who would take time to voluntarily visit those persons languishing in sick beds, or in old age homes, or in self-imposed exile, in order to spend a few minutes with them; and what a difference their few minutes of stay with them could make. People can change their perspectives and pains within a few minutes, and look at life positively, thanks to the magic that these cheer leaders can make. But these people are those who experience deep down certain joy, and they cannot contain this within themselves, and therefore feel the urge to reach out to others. I wish their spirit spreads all over, and fill all our localities with the cheer that can make us laugh and smile, and take life with a courageous smile.

Price of Peer Pressure

Some days ago my sister called me to say that she had a bad news for me; she said that she had quit her job and was sitting idle at home. Hers was a temporary job, and she was paid a daily wage, as is the custom with many of the medium sized and small nursing homes, who do not want to get into commitment with their nurses, and this is the third nursing home that my sister was working at. Since there are so many young girls looking for a job, the homes take it as advantage, to reduce their wages as low as possible. So apparently there was a stir among the nurses of this particular nursing home, and they demanded from the administration a higher wage for their duties. When the administration refused to give heed to their appeal, all the nurses resigned en masse.

There was peer-pressure, and it is hard to fight against peer-pressure in such a situation, since all of them help each other during their respective duties and exchange duty hours according to their conveniences. But at the other end of the spectrum is the loss of job. My sister would not demand a higher wage, she is not that courageous, but one or two of the courageous nurses might have coerced the others too to resign, and my sister was helpless, and was forced to tender resignation. Her friends are not going to help her get a better job, with better working hours, and a better wage. That may be none of their business, but ultimately who suffers. Peer-pressure is such a thing, where one is placed like a cat on the wall, standing between devil and deep sea.

Given the situation at home, my sister was badly in need of a job to make both ends meet, and sitting idly at home is not something she would like. There was a tone of sadness even as she narrated to me that she was waiting for a call from some other nursing home where she had applied. It is not easy to sit in the house doing nothing very substantial. One may even feel bored and wasting away, and that was what was happening to my sister, and all that I could encourage was to call up the very nursing home where she had resigned the job and check if they cared to take her back. She was not keen on doing that, because in that case she might lose her credibility and face. However she said she was ready to accept the offer if they called her back.

Going with a group has its advantages, especially if there are persons in the group who really care for me, and would support me come what may; but it also has its gray areas. It is a very delicate issue and there are chances for one to be wrong whatever he/she does. But it would be wrong to go with the group all the times, because one or two members of the group may divert the interests of the group and make use of it for their own benefit. The ultimate question that one must ask is this : does my flowing with the group going to help me now or later? If the answer is in the negative, then probably I should reconsider my following the dictates of the group. My conscience may be the better judge some times, and I should listen to it as and when I feel that way.

It is hard to stand by one’s conviction and resist the pressures of a group, especially if the group pressure could force one to give up personal convictions. But this is not impossible; what one may require is great amount of guts and courage to stand by personal convictions. It might have been alright if my sister had stood against the pressure of the group to resign, and resumed her job as usual. She might have to bear the dire consequences, but that could win the appreciation of the administration for her, not so much because she stayed back to work for them, but also because she had the courage to stand against group pressure. Sometimes it is worthwhile to stand by one’s convictions and resist the temptation of flowing with the group.

Guts to Call Cards

Not many persons have the guts and courage that some women have and constantly exhibit in a world where fear and inhibition are considered virtues. When I heard how this mother dared to shame the 40 plus aged man who tried to misbehave with her daughter in the bus - rubbing his body shamelessly on the young girl of about 14, I felt that this is the kind of woman that the world needs today, to tackle the many men who still think that they can take for granted that women are weak and would tolerate any kind of non-sense, without registering their protest. But the time has come for such men to reconsider their age-old concepts and judgments.

I would be happy even if there is one such woman in a hundred who would dare to blast the bastion of men, and challenge them at all cost. I remember many of my friends telling me, But why make such a fuss with the men who are not going to change their ways of behavior even if I protest! That is precisely what many a men take for granted, that women would not bother to challenge them, because ultimately they are going to be losers, whatever be the context and verdict. This woman however today teaches the world that the courage to be is part of any woman in the world, and if they hide this courage, they are not fully themselves!

According to the worldly standards today, the women and men who show extreme courage and guts, especially in favor of someone dear to them, are the easiest targets of the people who wish to take the whole world for a royal ride, and it is not seldom that these people become casualties too soon. The world is too frightened of the people with guts and great courage, and it cannot tolerate them, because such people can defy not only the material world, but also any moral and spiritual world. However the irony is because of these people that the world is still sane.

With guts and courage, what one requires to have in life is the moral stand to face all consequences, most of them going against them and the values they had been upholding; life would not be a bed of roses for these people, but if they want to have a quiet, calm life, then it would be better for them to hide their true selves and flow with the world. Unfortunately the world does not have too many whistle-blowers in our society, for these people cannot blow the whistle until there is some kind of security for their very existence.

It is sad that neither the society, nor nature is there to protect and safeguard the people who have the guts and courage to face all odds, questioning those which go against natural and social law, thus giving vent to their yearning to be fully human fully alive. As I salute this lady who had shown such guts to protect the honor of her girl, I only wish that every woman in society emulate the example of her, and show to the world of men that women cannot be considered just an object of pleasure, but that they too have a rightful place in society, which the men are bound to respect and honor!

The Last Run

When I first heard how this young man ended his life one night, I just could not digest the fact that there are such cowards still in the world. The vice-principal of a prestigious educational institution, known to so many illustrious persons resorted to such cowardly act of ending his life with a rope, hanging himself from the fan in his room! If that was a cowardly act, which I cannot accept, the reason why he did so was all the more cowardly. Just because a lady with whom he had a clandestine relationship, even physical affairs, was going to be married to another man, this young man wished to bargain with her, either she accepts him and forsakes the wedding, or he ends his life!

The lady, who happened to be working under the care of this young man, ultimately decided to find her own way, least expecting her paramour to decide something which was beyond all her imagination. One may go all lengths to blame the lady for tricking the young religious man into a relationship which was not becoming of his religious identity, leave alone of a gentleman. We are not sure how the relationship between the lady and the young religious priest began and bloomed, but one thing is for sure, the young man was far from being a religious, he was not even being an average human person, who could accept reality as it came to us.

I feel sad for the young man, who at the age of just 41, prime of his life, decided to bid farewell to the world, without a word to friends and relatives, all the people he grew with… and he quietly quit the world at the dark of the night. I am not much worried about the scandal that this incident of suicide has created in the city, but am worried more about the blot that it has left on religious life in general; the religious have lost much of their credibility because of the stupidity of this one young man, who had his own reason, however narrow it might be, to do what he wanted, without ever thinking of what the act would land him and his religious order into.

I feel there is nothing on earth which can be a valid reason for a person to take off his life, and surely not relationships, because with regard to human relationship, we enter into a limitless ocean, and we would find certain points shallow and certain other points deep. We may have to walk with care and caution, so that we do not allow ourselves to be drowned. There may be cozy points, there might be quicksand, and there may also be dry ground in the midst of water. We all of us find persons of our choice and taste during our sojourn on the sea; some persons enter into our lives for a short duration, while some others walk with us greater distance, and very seldom we may find persons who may walk with us all the way.

The number of persons embracing death in the recent years has increased manifold; for quite many young people it is the easy way to escape life. It is heartening to listen to the story of each of the people who have resorted to end their lives, for silliest reasons to grave ones. I am convinced of one thing, we cannot give any reason for running away from life; by trying to end their lives, these people have only tried to prove, they were not meant to be born on earth; for the world belongs only to the people who know how to live courageously and appreciate life on earth. The escapists had entered into the world by mistake and probably the world never belonged to them, very much as they did not belong to the world.

Engineered Expectations

How I wish the world was behaving exactly I wish it to; and how delighted I would be if all the people around me do exactly what I would want them to! There is a hidden “I” in each one of us, who wishes to assert that s/he is the center of the universe, and that everything should go round her/him. When things do not go according to my calculations, then I feel my world crumble before my very eyes, and I am frightened of facing it. It is painful and agonizing to witness my expectations are thrown into pieces and I am nowhere in the picture. When I expect that the world goes round me, and I do not find the world is nowhere close to me, it is a frightening thing to even imagine, leave alone facing it taking place before my naked eyes.

But this is a predicament that everyone has to go through, and no one may be spared from facing the dreams, aspirations and expectations evaporating into thin air. The superior I in me would always assert that s/he is right, whatever be the case, and I can find the truth factor of this statement, if I observe how I argue with a friend or companion. What is the goal of any argument – to win; but it is not merely to win, but to win OVER the other person. If two parties win in a competition, then there is less joy, than when one party wins and the other loses. Psychologically I feel great when I am able to throw down someone either through reason or by muscle power. And when I am defeated by others, my world shrinks, and is even on the verge of disappearing.

We shall have a thousand and one reasons to blame the whole world around me, and in most of the cases we may even be justified, and there may be many others who would think that our remarks are based on facts. We may have just expectations, and common sense might not prevail in many cases, and we may be left in dark. We may have to live with people who take things for granted, and do not even behave as a human person, and we may be wounded on seeing how such persons treat and respond to us. They can become a real pain in the neck, and we may find ways of either getting round the problem and make life miserable for the person, or not permit the person make our life miserable.

It is not always possible for me to make the other person aware of the kind of harm s/he is creating to me, and on many occasions the person may not even be in a position to respond to my allegations. I should understand that I do not have the pill for the ills of the world; I cannot change the way my companion behaves, which annoys and irritates me. Even if I take courage to explain to him/her that his/her actions hurt me, there are little chances that s/he will take it seriously and do the needful to accommodate me. But just because the other person is not going to buy my views or change the color glasses s/he is wearing, I cannot stop living my life!

Today I would like to ask myself, how many times have I dared to doubt my expectations? Not all of my expectations can be easily justified; if I were to scratch most of my expectations, I may find that they put a lot of demands on the people around me. I become the judge, who determines how others should relate and respond to me. If only I become suspicious of most of my expectations from others, then there would be less reasons for me to get annoyed with them. That would also open new windows, which would remind me constantly that just as I have expectations on others, others too could have similar kind of expectations on me, and do I pause to note their expectations?

Man of Different Mettle

Dear Father Ignatius, I am not patient enough to count how many years ago you had left this beautiful world, but I can only say that it was more than 450 years ago, but your memory is still fresh in my mind. Because there is something in me which I can proudly claim to be Ignatian (see how easily you have become a type, like Aristotelian, Hegelian, Marxian…), and the world around me is only happy to see me as belonging to your ‘type’. Sometimes people do frown at me, because there is a trace of idiosyncrasy, and who today is not idiosyncratic, tell me?

But jokes apart, after going through 16 years of training (the world outside calls it grilling, drilling and brain-washing), I could not help become quite similar to you to a certain extent. But I wish I were more like you, so that I can have the fire to enflame everyone I come in touch with. The world today is too lazy, complacent, too nervous to take risk, and too calculative in its moves, too frightened to dream big, too comfortable in their little ghettoes. The world today needs more men who can fight and yet not heed the wounds.

When I first heard how you left the comfort of your cozy life in the palace, the dreamgirl you could have possibly won, after that wretched setting of the knee bones without local anasthesea, I was quite alarmed. How you dared to leave all, and don the sack-clothes of a mendicant! No, it is not possible for me to do the same today; your world was quite different, and in today’s world, I need to count each of my steps, or else I may be down in the gutters.

You had no shame! Thank God for it, you were able to sit in the company of small children and study, and slowly move to heights to even complete your MA in the prestigious University of Paris. You had experienced what a prison life is, having yourself stayed there twice, for the mistakes you did not commit. We are too self-conscious, and safeguard our sanctity as if our lives depend on it. If we are able to drop all shame and dare to walk before God , there can be no better security than this.

I marvel your indomitable courage to even rise up against the mighty empires, kings and popes. And strangely no one ever dared to oppose you, because they all knew you were a man made of a different mettle, and they cannot compete with you. The guts you had made men and women of your times to tremble, and the God you believed in had blessed you with a spirit which cared for no human appreciations and applause. I take my hats off to you, Father Ignatius. If only people can see in me the Lord you so lovingly served all your life, I need no better blessing on your feast day.