Lonely Birds!

I dare not think about the life of a priest in a lonely parish, as is the case with many interior missions; due to the lack of priests, these men are to live alone, all by themselves, with no companion to share life in common, as is the case with any religious congregation. I also feel how they would be haunted by loneliness, and the need for a companion, with whom they could pour out their pains and agonies, joys and ecstasies. The priests are to face more loneliness if they do not get along well with the community of believers they serve; if the people turn hostile, their plight is doubled.

One of the ways how these priests attempt to overcome this sense of loneliness, is by having friends near and far, with whom they could share life through modern means of communication. I would not be surprised if the persons living alone in a remote village, has a fat telephone bill; it is his need, and that is a survival mechanism. There are also some others who try to overcome loneliness through some unhealthy practices; some develop obsessive compulsion to gluttony, some to watching films, some to sleeping. For them, to kill time is a major preoccupation.

I had been taught in my younger days that one of the best ways of overcoming loneliness is to develop a healthy hobby, on which I can fall back, whenever I feel down and forelorn. Alas for those who have not develped some healthy habits, they would find it hard to spend time usefully. I know some of my friends who know how to make use of their free time, especially when they are alone. Some write poems, some compose music, some do wonderful gardening, and all of these are profitable not only at the personal level, but also benefit the wider society. Anyone who foresees a lonely life in future should start preparing to face it already at the younger age.

But it would be wrong to think that only the diocesan priests most often feel lonely; their situations may force them to such a situation; even persons living in big communities may experience certain amount of loneliness, especially when there is no one to spoon-feed them every time. Some feel "left out", when there is no one to take good care of them; they like to be invited for meals, invited for dinner outside, or taken for an icecream. During the personal free time, some may fine it hard to while away the time. That is why gossiping is a major timepass in many religious communities.

If a person does not take care to overcome loneliness already at the early stage, then it could become a matter of major concern, because it is bound to lead to some other unhealthy social practices. What can I do in order to overcome loneliness? The best way is, to give company to the persons who feel and experience loneliness around me; for when I feel lonely, they are sure to reach out to me, and share their valuable time and energy. It is only by reaching out to one another that we can create a world where we can experience oneness and unity of all creations.

Married to Martyrdom

I should admit that I am not very favorable to soldiers, the men and women in uniform, fighting to protect the nation from intruders and enemies. Not even because my father happens to be a former soldier, having served the nation for some 30 years as foot-soldier. I have not experienced anything which made me feel a sense of animosity towards these patriotic men, but I know deep within I am not in favor of this class of people. Does a country need soldiers, at all? Can’t we do away with soldiers, who are paid to protect the nation and the people, and who in turn are expected to pay back to the nation with their blood.

Today as I watched the Republic Day parade in Delhi, there was the awarding ceremony. The prime minister paid his tribute to the ‘amar jawan’ (immortal soldiers), by placing a wreath at India Gate memorial. The first citizen of the nation had awarded the brave soldiers with Ashoka Chakra medals, for their bravery. The soldiers who had died while protecting the national boundary, and fighting against insurgents and terrorists, are given great regard and respect by the nation. They are considered the nation’s pride, and we glory in them. But behind most of the soldiers, especially the foot-soldiers like my father, there is yet another self, which is often not talked about.

I have heard it from my father that he joined the Indian army, when he was barely 18, with education which was too little to join the army. He had to bribe the school authorities to give a certificate saying he had completed class 8, while in fact he had completed only class 5. The purpose? Not that he had great patriotic spirit, and a desire to give his life for the nation. No, not at all. He wanted a job, and it was easy to get into the army with such low academic qualification, and so he did. I had an opportunity to visit one of his camps, a few years prior to his retirement, and I was not pleased at the way he was treated by his superiors! But that is a different story.

Since my father was most often on duty, we were under the care of my mother, who had to take care of the five of us; she had to look after our education, farming, feasts and festivals. My father visited us twice a year, one annual leave and another casual leave, and often we would look forward to his coming, because we felt quite secure under his care, more than that of my mother. But one thing was for sure, we all missed the loving care of the father; it was only after his retirement that I came close to him. Being an introvert, I could hear my father pour out his real self, only under the influence of alcohol, and at other times, he was soft-spoken. I feel he too missed us all very much during his lonely battle with life in the army camps for so many years.

It is possible that we cannot altogether abolish army in a country, unless all the nations of the world decide to do so, and divert the money they would otherwise use to maintain the army, for developmental works, such as providing scholarship for rural education, job opportunities to the unemployed, research facilities on culture and religions, to name a few. But I feel sad when we hear the stories of army men living inhuman lives in the camps, and some of them even committing suicide due to loneliness and meaninglessness in the midst of adverse climatic and social conditions. Do we need to protect the land by spilling the blood of innocent men and women, and encourage it in the name of patriotism and bravery? We may have to look for alternative ways of protecting the nation, if at all there is a grave need, and not throw the lives of gullible men and women before the gun-point!

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!