Displaced Depression

No one in our office could believe that he would have mental derailment; he had always been a soft spoken and quiet man, who spoke very little, and that too only with the people whom he considered trust worthy. It came as a rude shock to our staff, when he confided with one of them that he was frightened of the police, of the evil-intentioned people hiding from somewhere close by waiting to attack him. He was terribly frightened and nothing would stop him from believing that he was just imagining all these things and there was not an iota of truth in what he spoke. But he was convinced that he was speaking truth, and every time the telephone rang, he thought that his rivals were enquiring about him, and that made him all the more nervous. He even asked a few of our staff if he could stay with them and not return to his home, and it took them sometime before they could make him return to his home.

It was only today that I came to know that he had been quite upset with the family matters, especially his mother supporting her younger son, and opposing whatever this gentleman did. The younger brother had been trying to usurp the parental property, and therefore had blamed him of having a relationship with the wife of his elder brother. Everyone knows for sure that he is not the kind of person who would entertain anything of that sort. He said that he occasionally call up his sister in law, only out of courtesy, and would just enquire how she was and nothing more. His younger brother made use of this issue to blackmail him and now he is mentally disturbed, a situation he is happy about, so that he could grab the property for himself.

I was feeling sad for our staff, because he is a quiet person, who is guileless and would not think evil for anyone. It is hard to believe when bad things happen to good people, and unfortunately that seems to be the law of the land. Good people suffer far more than evil intentioned people, and it would often appear that this is the accepted norm and we have nothing to grumble about. What could we do to our staff to bring him back to his healthy self? He has already gone to the hospital and had consulted doctors, who have given him medication, and hopefully after some days he will be able to come to his healthy self, provided he is allowed to live peacefully without attempts to sabotage his mind and peace. But it is doubtful if his younger brother would allow him to leave peacefully, at least till he succeeds in grabbing the property.

The world has seen lots of bloodshed due to greed for parental property; it is easy for lazy people to depend on what the parents have augured through their hard labour, and not giving a try to put their best to earn more. Truly honest and hardworking people would not depend on parental property, but would try to get something out of their sheer hard work, and this is the kind of wealth and property which will last. All those who rely only on the parental property may one day find themselves paupers, because they only learn to rely on what others had given to them, and such people may leave hardly anything for their offspring. Even if it hard to manage daily living with the earning, if people make it a point to stand on their own feet, lots of lives could be saved, and the greedy would have time to mend their ways.

It is hard to say what would happen to our staff in the next weeks and months; it is hard to predict how his younger brother would take it, when he comes to know that his elder brother was getting back to normal, and that might foil his evil designs to get his share of property. There is very little that we could do to help him limp back to normalcy, but some of our staff call him up now and them assuring him of our support, and that is what we could do. We would not like to sit in the seats of judgment to condemn the evil designs of his mother and younger brother; it is not for us to judge their actions, because we know very little about objective truth, and even if we know for sure that they had deliberately tried to cheat our staff, and still we cannot condemn them on the basis of what we know. Judgment is not for us, but to support the suffering and troubled hearts is what we could do to ease those who long for fresh air.

Not Finding the Silver Line…

It was a beautiful sight to see! About thiry men and women, young and old, surrounding a middle-aged man, and literally forcing him to act! I was part of the vocal men and women at Kolkata’s domestic airport, as we waited to catch a flight to Delhi, so that the next day we could board the flight to Brussels, via Munich. When we reached the airport at the reporting time, namely two hours before the scheduled departure, we were told by the Manager on duty of that particular airlines that the flight we had booked tickets in was cancelled, and they assured us of the full re-payment! But that was not the kind of arrangement we could ever think of. We had booked tickets through a different airlines from Delhi, and if we were to cancel the tickets at the eleventh hour, we may have to forfeit a large per cent of the ticket fare. Besides we had already informed several persons about our going, and necessary arrangments had already been made! Many of us found we were let down at the last hour by the airlines personnel.

After discussing with the manager on duty of the airlines for about thirty minutes, many of the passengers of the said flight became infuriated. We demanded the officer to start negotiating with personnel of other airlines, requesting them to offer some seats, so that at least those who were in dire need could take the flight the very day. After about an hour of coaxing and cajoling, the officer accepted to give a thought to it, thought some what indignantly. Deep within I knew we cannot afford to miss the connecting flight to international destinations, especially when the time period seemed quite difficult to make alternative arrangmenets. Helpless as I was, just like many of our co-passengers, I began to tell myself that there should be a way out, and we were going to travel the very day to Delhi, and catch the connecting international flights the next day. I was not sure if that was possible, and if the attempts of the airlines official would bear any fruit.

The fact was that there was utterly no hope; no silver lining. It was fully dark, but at such critical moments, we cannot afford to lose hope. Even if there was no chance, it was our sincere hope that things will turn out to our advantage that ultimately made it possible for 21 of us to board a later flight from a different airlines. Being part of the four hour drama, most of the time spent standing and listening to co-passengers, and occasionally clarifying a point or two, but at the end of it all, it was well worth. Even when many of my co-passengers said that ultimately everything may end up in an eye-wash, yet I was sure I was going to Delhi the very day. I did not even much care if others would go or not, but I had to go, and I would by all means go, come what may.

Just like me who had a connecting international flight, many other co-passengers too had connecting international flights, some were going to attend some international conferences. One young man made a plea with the official that his father was to be operated on the following day, and he had to be beside him. There was a young lady who was joining office for the first time after appointment on the following day, and she cannot afford to miss the first day in office. There was yet another young lady who was to meet some international business clients the following day, and she would not like to let down her partners. But more than pleas and requests, what really got us through was the sheer grit and will power that we have to be flying that very day.

Often in life it is so very easy to lose all hope, especially when we cannot see the silver line in the midst of darkest clouds, and when we give in to such hopelessness, then we end up at the dead-end. We end up more depressed and destressed. Today I would like to pause for a moment and recollect to mind the different moments when I had failed to hold on to my will-power and the hope that things will begin to smile, and the darkest clouds will begin to disappear. There could be quite a few events and incidents when I might have lost all hope, and in turn sank in disappointment. It requires a lot of guts and determination to hold on to one’s hope. We live in a world where to hold on to hope is something that is often laughed at, and frowned upon. Let me tell myself that tomorrow I will deliberately and consciously hold on to my storehouses of hope in the midst of hopelessness, and prove that there is nothing to lose for the one who hopes in the best in the worst of situations! (Munich Airport)

Defreezing Depression

When on e of my closest friends sent an SMS to me saying she had been feeling lonely and was undergoing certain kind of depression, I shuddered and shivered. This are two words that I would not like to hear from my friends (not that there are no other word making my blood to clot – cancer, my sister had gone through the pain of it, and heart-attack, my sister losing her husband due to it, are quite foreboding even today)! If only we realize the causes of depression and loneliness, and what they could lead one to, we cannot take such feelings lightly. At some time or other, even the most joyous of people experience such fleeting moments and depending on how they handle such feelings, they may get out of them, or move from bad to worse.

Believe it or not, loneliness is the patrimony of the modern generation. Time has become the most expensive commodity in the business world, and human relations the biggest casualty. There are more and more objects of pleasure entering our malls and supermarkets to keep us on our toes 24x7. Keep our toes, did I say? Precisely! We find it hard to sleep for a few hours continuously – cat’s nap is what keep many business people and high-class people going, though their life-span is shortened considerably due to negligence of their health. Each one in the world is slowly turned into a microcosm of himself, herself, with no one to give company. What we are left with are a few electronic and digital gadgets, who have replaced our grandmas and grandpas, even papas and mamas. Relating to machines is quite different from persons. Feeling lonely is the by-product of market economy: and this is a problem that needs to be nibbed already at the bud.

If we have to do a survey of the number of persons going through acute to chronic depression these days, we would be shocked to know that the number is alarmingly high, and is always on the rise. There are more and more cases of suicides among the affluent and the so-called high-classes in society. What makes them resort to such cowardly acts of ending their lives? For one thing, they often feel they are left alone to face the endless row of problems and complex situations beyond their capacity. They lose all hope in their friends and neighbors, and the world becomes a bitter reality they can hardly bear. They feel they would be happier to end their lives – by whatever means! But are there alternative ways by which they can help themselves and look at life with a different vision?

Of course there are ways and means of overcoming the feelings of loneliness and depression. No one on earth is so unfortunate not to have even a single person in the universe with whom he/she does not have a very close relationship. It is not necessarily that husbands will always have their wives as their closest confidantes, and the opposite may also be true. As soon as a fleeting feeling of loneliness and depression surfaces, we need to call such people and pour ourselves out. Keeping such feelings within may be dangerous and it may even lead to undesirable consequences. Secondly to keep oneself busy with the kind of things one is fond of; the idea is not give any scope to be idle, for it is an idle mind which plots against life. Thirdly, watch comics and humorous films on the television or video, and laugh with the characters, and this will ease things out a little. Make sure to stack a few top humorous comedies of Charlie Chaplain and Laurel & Hardy in your cupboard.

If you don’t have people with whom you could confide, don’t worry; just walk into a nearby garden and speak to the trees and grass, flowers and leaves. Pour yourself to them, and you may listen to their thin voice, and you will realize that they are indeed good friends. Or look at a bird sitting on a branch of a tree and strike a conversation with it, and it may have a sweet message of friendship for you. Or speak to the clouds, or the Sun, the moon… every created reality around you. Probably it will not take you too long to realize that you are no longer alone in this vast universe, all are there with you, by your side. If you realize this, then you will also feel that you have the wellsprings of life running from your heart, and you had not paid your attention to it so far! Now is the wake up call to fall back on these wellsprings of life!