Life's Bitter Joke

Humor is of several kinds; I won’t be able to enumerate all of them, but I know for sure there is genuine humor which help widen our face-lines, and there is wry humor which would only arouse uneasy feelings in the listeners/audience, and there is yet another kind of humor which is cruel. There are similarly jokes, which instead of make us laugh, may only prompt us to shed tears, bitter tears. This is what can be termed as life’s bitter jokes, and today I am going to share about one such bitter joke one of my friends narrated to me. It is immaterial who had narrated to me, but the fact is that it happened today to people known to me. And believe me, jokes have no color or creed or nationality, and can apply to all people in all situations.

People do make mistakes, but if we fail to look at the people who make mistakes, and only blow the mistakes out of proportions, we are bound to lose the touch of humanness, and that may be dangerous. This senior lady, who had lost her husband some three decades ago, had brought all her children up single-handedly, courageously, crossing several barriers, hills and valleys. She worked hard to make a living, and even as she nears her seventies, she stitches religious habits for a group of nuns, and that keeps her going. She is assisted by her eldest daughter, mother of six children, and wife of a drunkard, who is the sole bread-winner of the family. The mother and daughter duo had received an order to make a religious habit for a nun, and today was the deadline.

The senior lady had not eaten during the day, struggling to keep the deadline, and rushed to hand it over to the nun, who on seeing the outfit, shouted at the lady at the top of her voice. There had been a lack of communication, but that was not the reason for her to lose her temper and shout at the lady, who had made this outfit with great care and love. Her daughter younger daughter, who stood close-by was stunned to see how her mother was being humiliated, and was deeply hurt by the rude and rough behavior of the nun. The senior lady and her daughter depended on the nuns to make a living, and they valued the orders of the nuns greatly, but they could not believe their eyes when the nuns began to pour out all their anger on the lady.

The mother and her younger daughter were both greatly hurt, but they are helpless; the ruthless and cruel way the nun had treated them was more than they could bear. If the duo was well off, they could just say goodbye to the nuns, but they cannot afford to do that. They have to repair the habit, by replacing it with another set, and the senior lady was ready to travel for three hours to purchase cloth to replace the one they had made with wrong measurements. When I think of this situation, I feel sad, and at one moment there were a couple of tears at the corner of my eyes. How could life be so cruel to the have-nots? Is not there a way out for them to live with the honor and dignity they were created with? Should they continue to live on the mercy of the people who could hire and fire them at will?

The one image which comes to my mind when I think of the bitter jokes of life, is that of clowns of ancient day plays; these were men from the lowest strata of society, who struggled to make both ends meet, and opted to make a living by making people laugh on stage. While they laughed and made others laugh on stage, the reality at back-stage and at home was just the opposite. They laughed while their hearts cried bitterly, and such is the laughter the mother and daughter would have been indulging in today, and when I heard this incident narrated to me, I was helpless as to how I could console the daughter, leave alone her aging mother. It is one thing to listen to others narrating to us as it happened to them, and it is another thing to experience it for ourselves.

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.

Unique Gift of Life

Maybe I will never be able to realize what D&R have gone through in life, and if only I know how each of their days pass by, I might be more empathetic towards them. Now what is this D&R? Dinesh and Reshma or Dravid and Rani, or David and Reena! Maybe these are some of the commonplace names, but behind these names are individuals who are "made for each other", but are left to grope in darkness with no child they can call their own. The number of childless couples is growing, and medical science is helpless to make them not only rear, but also bear a child! Pro-creation has always been one of the primary goals of Christian marriage, as we hear it from our catechism classes!

When the couple finds out that one of them is incapable of cooperating in the bearing of a child a few years after their marriage, all troubles start. The husband may blame the wife and the wife the husband; and the couple may blame the parents, and every other person they can think of! Unfortunately their problem of bearing a child does not end there. They try to undergo any kind of medical treatment, even the witches and the ojhas, with the hope that one day they would be the proud parents of a child. What happens when all of these costly attempts fail is what I dare not imagine.

I have seen so many couples who belong to this category; how nice it would be if the angel Gabriel visits all the houses of these couples and announce the birth of a child through unusual means, through divine intervention. Even angel Gabriel does not seem to like visiting our planet. But when their attempts fail, the bond of union that had kept them together all these days, begin to be brittle; men may indulge (if they are still young enough) in extra-marital affairs, alcoholism, smoking, bad company, and anything which can make them forget the harsh fact that he has no child of his own!

If men are able to give vent to their feelings and frustrations externally, women may do just the opposite. They may keep everything within their hearts, and may one day explode. Often such feelings may find expression in obesity, all sorts of diseases, gossipping, backbiting, suspicion and finding fault with the husband, jealous of their friends having cute little babes. The unhappiness of men and women often find some concrete expression, and it may be dangerous if these people are not able to find some sort of outlet for their emotions. Ideally the husband and wife should be able to find an outlet in their spouses, but when it fails, they should find adequate means.

We live in a world, where moneyed men and women are discovering newer formulae to manage life; some years ago, I have come across people who felt having a child was a nuisance, and so would love to be by themselves. The care of a third person, for whom they may have to give up all their comforts and pleasures, might appear too much for these kind of couples, and many of them decide not to have any children, even if they are physically fit to bear and rear a child. The gift of a child is a great gift; nothing on earth can equal this gift; but if someone is deliberately refusing to have this gift, then we can only assume that these persons do not know the value and worth of the gifts. Maybe they would realize what it means to have a child, when they feel old age fast catching up with them!

The Fire-brands

I am amazed to see how some people are full of energy and vitality even when they have crossed the threshold of a successful career. Some used to say there is no retirement for the people with a zest! They might be tinkering the coffin, even after being buried, because they cannot keep quiet even for a minute! It is a joy to come across people of this category. Mind you, I am not talking about workaholics, who believe in working for the sake of it, but am referring to the people who enjoy the work they do. They are, as it were, married to their job, and would forego a meal or even biological need in order to get something done!

We often come across the people of the other category too, people who do not believe in giving their best, but be satisfied with the minimum they are expected to give. These are the dead bodies, walking on our streets, they have neither life nor vitality. They would delight in eating, sleeping, gossiping and indulge in everything that is unhealthy and harmful to oneself and the wider society. These people are the one's who become a pain in the neck of the people of the former category, and alas, if you get one of this type as your partner! Your life will be ruined within weeks or months. Before you change them, they would have converted you to their company!

Life can be a lot of fun only when we get into what we are busy with; it may be a silly routine job, or a highly creative process. It is the same with people who know how to turn each moment a magical memory! Some of the modern day messiah's have proposed one way of getting the best out of life. Take for instance, Eckhart Tolle, while proposing the Power of Now, has invited us to dissociate ourselves from the mind by savoring the present moment. Being present to the every moment can make us realize that life is not just a fleeting instance, but one which can make a dry stick bloom with a thousand blossoms! For these people, even deserts will be covered with oasis all the stretches!

The universe still has a breed of men and women who can defy nature and time, and contribute their little mite for the benefit of the world. These are the people who stop aging, and their biological clock as a matter of fact, moves in reverse. To come in touch with even one such person is like a piece of iron coming into the presence of a powerful magnetic field. You get drawn to, and it might be too hard for the iron piece to get out of the magnetic field. While being in touch with magnetic field, the iron too is magnetised, and when it leaves the magnetic field, it carries with it powerful magnetic current, and that can change the world around!

I call such men and women modern day sages and saints, who have the potentiality to change the face of the earth. It is possible that the world can boast of only a negligible per centage of men and women, who can ignite the lives of others, who can set the world on fire. The men and women with zest for life, are the treasure house of any society. It is not what they do, which nourishes the society at large, but their very presence is enough to inject new life and vitality to all around them. Such people never experience death; they only pass from one phase in life to another, and even their memories are sure to spread the magnetic field far and wide. The aura of their sanctity is the food for the world today!

Chasing Shades of Shadow

I really can’t understand why we are so frightened of shadows; we can scarcely understand that shadows are part and parcel of light. Can we ever think of shadows if there is no light? The presence of shadows only confirms that there is light; and strangely but interestingly, the brighter the light, stronger may be the shadow, and we have no control over these shadows. These shadows follow the light wherever they go, and it is impossible to separate light from shadows. But we spend a lot of our energy and resources to separate them, and feel disappointed when we are not able to succeed in this mission. The secret is to let the shadows remain with the light; to accept and embrace the shadows as an integral part of light, may give us an opening into wonders in our lives.

Perhaps the best example to illustrate this point is a candle which is burning. Even the best of candles will cast a shadow when brought in contact with an object. Granted that we have no control over the shadows, there is a time when the shadows will slowly disappear. When does that happen? When the candle burns itself, or dies to itself to use a biblical expression, then we know that the shadow too will disappear. The taller the candle, broader is the radius of its shadow. This only reminds us that we have nothing to do with our own shadows too. Any frantic attempt to fight with our shades will only end up in failures, because nature has its own way of remedying the shadows, without our intervention. We need to just let things happen at their natural course, without wishing to hasten the movement.

We all of us are composed of light and shadows; while we are overjoyed with our light areas, we are impatient with our shadows, and think that it is within our capacity to overcome them. We might seek psychological help and spiritual assistance to overcome these shadows, but may realize that we move no further than the starting point. What can we do when we find ourselves drowned by our shadows more than the light? Is there anything that we can do? There is. To embrace the shadows, the accept and acknowledge them can bring greater amount of tranquility and peace in our hearts. Most often we do not want to accept them, but resist them, as if they are unwanted elements. It is true that we don’t desire them, but they are ingrained in ourselves. It takes a lot of courage and strength to actually embrace our shadows, and own them up. The shadows have a lot to contribute to our mental and spiritual health more than the psychological health.

Embracing the shadows also imply yet another important movement in the dynamics of the shadows management: to recognize them for what they are, as if looking through a magnifying glass, to identify them, and even naming them, without tending to judge and evaluate them. It is difficult to be indifferent to them, and our human mind would tend to brand them on the basis of bad or evil, and that can cause us dearly. It needs to be said that shadows themselves are neutral and indifferent, it is what we make of them out to be will determine if the shadows are led to straight path or a crooked one. It is like thoughts which are benign and neutral, but some thoughts can lead one to kill an innocent, while some others may lead one to protect the innocent. But if we try to put aside all the shadows, we might throw the baby with the bath tub, and that may cause us dearly in the long run.

Today I would like to take a dip inside my heart to find the different shadows living with me quietly; I would like to recognize them, identify the, and befriend them. They are my lasting friends, and even if I wish to bid adieu to them, they may not go, because they are part of my second nature. I would like to embrace them, and acknowledge their specific role in my life; I would like to remind myself that much of what I am today is thanks to them. If I am able to keep my shadows to remain under my control, then there are chances that I will be able to grow with them, and then they can very well become my strengths. And what greater joy can there be than the greatest enemies are made into the greatest friends, who would be prepared to give even their lives for me!

The Greatest Gift

Today all the dailies flashed headlines of the barbaric bomb attack on people of high society in most luxurious hotels of Mumbai, and the papers said at least 80 people were feared dead, including some of the highly placed government officials. What bothers and worries me as I open the newspapers each day is the number of persons killed each day... violence, hatred, jealousy, the reason may be anything, and it is so easy to take the life of a neighbour that a very thought of it is enough to start the pellets shooting in the sky.

Needless to say the greatest casualty of our times is the human species; I may be exaggerating if I were to say that there are more people killed today than the number of people dying of ripe old age. In fact many in our society find no reason to kill another, and yet when their spirits are low, they dare to do the impossible. The weeklies are full of stories of children killing their parents, mothers tossing of their children in the river, whole family taking recourse to self-poisoning, and there does not seem to be an end to all these.

I am made to pause for a moment and think what is my life worth? Is the human life a dispensable commodity, like a tissue or a sanitarywares? It is only those who have valued the beauty of human life would ever make an attempt to preserve it. Those who think that they are a burden to the society and the world at large, would think the whole of humanity in such a position. They would not hesitate to lay down their lives for a silly and worthless cause, and in the bargain show their anger and vengence on innocent people living around them. It may also be due to utter frustration they may go through which might land them in such an unpredictable situation.

My life on earth is a perhaps the greatest gift of God, and I have no right to take it out by my own free will... My life, to put it figuratively, belongs to the universe, and I have a specific role to play in the cosmic ordering of things, as the Bhagavad Gita would say. When I begin to cherish the beauty and wonder of my life, the world around me begins to smile, I begin to see a thousand hues and colors in them, and it is then that even a blue sky could take me far beyond the horizon, to a land where I can be perfectly in peace with myself and the world around me.

Am I proposing an impossible proposition? Today I would like to forget the world around me; sit quietly all by myself in a "secret" place, far from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and spend just two minutes, taking an inward journey into the core of my being... just I and myself, and no one else. Let me look at myself as I truly am, and listen to the silent whipsers of my heart, the colorful paintings of my spirit in the space before my eyes, the throbs of every grass and plants, the sheer joy of living in every birds and animals... In humble submission, I can hear my heart cry with joy, Thank you Lord, for the gift of Life!