Love and Prejudice

Once upon a time there was a small town. A happy town! People were happy with whatever they have with them. Everything was going on smoothly except with one house, where everything was not going smoothly. A forty years old man was very sick. His family tried different types of treatments to cure his illness but in vain. Not a single treatment was effective. Old man was getting weaker and weaker.

On one unfortunate day he passed away. His fourteen years old son was wretched, he felt alone because his main support was no longer in this world. He was his one and only son. He loved his father very much. Death of his beloved father made his condition miserable.

When he was small kid, he heard from someone that far from the town, in a village there lives a divine saint, he has magical powers, and he can make anything possible. The son thought to pay a visit to this saint. So he went to the saint who was living very far from the town. He went there and explained his tragic loss and how he feels now without his father. He then expressed his wish to bring back his father to life. The saint explains him how this is not possible. But the stubborn lad was not in a mood to listen. Saint tried to console him, but it was in vain. Saint then asks him to do one thing if he succeeds in doing that then he will bring his father back to life. The lad agrees to him. Saint asks him to pluck a leaf from the tree. After listening to such a simple task the lad goes plucks the leaf and comes back to saint. Saint then says ‘now go back, and plant that leaf to exact place on a tree from where you plucked the leaf and make sure it comes to life again.’ The lad gets confused and asks how it is possible. The leaf is already plucked now how can I plant it to tree again.

The saint then explains him ‘if you cannot put a simple leaf back to his life how you expect me to bring your father back to life.it is not possible.’ The lad agrees to him. But again since he was a good, loving and caring son he asks the saint, ‘it is said person goes to heaven after his death, or in hell, I don’t want my father to go in hell. I want him to be happy; I want him to rest in heaven. Since you are a divine saint, you know everything, I have heard you make impossible things possible please fulfill my wish. As I loved my father, I don’t want him to suffer in hell.’    

Looking at the lad and his good intentions to keep his father away from the suffering, Saint feels empathetic for him, and thinks how to console him this time, after lot thinking he comes with a solution. He smiles at him and says ‘it is possible but the remedy is very difficult. It is not your cup of tea. The Son said I love my father, howsoever the difficult is the remedy I will complete it.’ Looking at his determination saint became happy. He then asked him to bring pure and clean water, some sugar and some salt.

After bringing them, he asked the son to mix one table spoon sugar into the jar full of water. And asks him to taste the water. The son says water is somewhat sweet. Then he asks to mix one table spoon of salt in it and asks to taste it. It has become salty the lad replies. He then asks him to add one more table spoon of salt. And again asks to taste it. This time water has become too much salty.

The saint then says ‘our life is just like the pure and clear water. Whatever good deeds we do it makes our life sweet and valuable, and whatever bad deeds we do it makes our life salty and useless. Nobody likes the salty water not even you then how do you expect the heaven would like the person with bad deeds. If your father has done enough good deeds then he will eventually be liked and welcomed in the heaven. Otherwise not.’

The Lad gets the point, and says thank you to the saint for enlightening him and leaves the place with satisfaction.

We also sometimes act like the Lad, in the story, don’t we? Asking lord to give us what is practically impossible to happen, and when it doesn’t happen as per the wish we start cursing ourselves or the society.            

Tomato Chips and Potato Sauce

It was an exhausting day, we both stretched our limits. Finally we spotted one restaurant, ordered a good lunch and after feeding our stomachs me and my 20 years elder friend were satisfied. We had some casual talks, and suddenly I proposed one thought for discussion. I said, “This is my observation that most of the time, if you observe some of the big and famous names the fight they have put their entire life and became so famous and well known is really appreciable but if you look at their offspring then you see that they don’t have any fight in them to do something like their parents. This could be because no parent on this earth would want to suffer his child the same thing which he/she suffered in his/her childhood. So they try to give their children all the comfort in this world, because of this the children don’t get the value of that particular thing, they don’t really have to fight for that particular thing, for which their parents have fought as a child in their childhood. And this makes them incompetent. What do you think” he looked at me, gave a smile as usual and said, it is not so.

“What you are doing is, you are comparing Mr. Junior with Mr. Senior. If you see lot of things have changed since Mr. Senior’s child hood to Mr. Junior’s childhood today. Yesterday, Mr. Senior fought for lot of things, the basic needs perhaps, to survive, which was the need of the hour, but today the things have changed for Mr. Junior, the situation has changed. Today Mr. Junior don’t have to fight for his survival, because he knows for sure that he is going to get at least two times meal a day, and all his basic needs are going to get fulfilled,  so why he would waste his energy in that, today he needs to focus on other problems, and he need to fight accordingly, that doesn’t mean he is less competent than his parents.”

“But I have seen the live examples, the young ones are not that much successful or famous as compare to their genesis.”

“You cannot compare the Tomatoes with the potatoes though they are from same family. Each person has its own unique characteristics; you cannot expect Tomato chips or a Potato sauce. It will be irrational to expect this. What you can do is, you can compare tomato with tomato and potato with potato.”

“I lost you there with Tomato chips and Potato sauce. Feeling hungry again.” We both laughed and ordered some snacks because as the discussion was heating up, we need something to keep our mouth busy while the other person was talking. So we ordered some snacks, the French fries and the tomato sauce. “So where were we? The guy asked. “Comparing Tomato with Tomato!”

“Ya, you are right! We should compare Tomato against tomato. But the question is how? If you ask me, the good way is to compare yourself with today’s you and last year’s you. Is there any difference? have you made any progress? Have you learned anything new? Have you triumphed on any of your bigger problem? and if answer comes yes then that’s it, there is your fight which you were searching for. Which you feel it’s not there!

“Yes you are right, whatever you said right now could be right, and I’ll have to think on it, give me some time to digest it.”

Ok, you little wiseass, but till then, enjoy the French fries, and tomato sauce. Let’s digest these first. We both laughed, finished our little snack and we left, with a thought in mind of never to compare Tomato with Potato.    

The Beginning of Time

We were sitting in a café talking; gossiping may be. It was more than two hours since we were there, but since we all three enjoying the conversation nobody bothered about the time. Words were flowing just like rivers, continuously. After all it was a reunion after three years. After about an hour or so one of my friend asked what’s the time. It was four hours since we were there and nobody was aware of time. I guess that’s magic of time, sometimes it is very hard to pass, and sometimes we don’t even remember how much time we spent. “Its 5:30.” “No way! It looks like 3:30 out there”, she pointed at the window. “It’s because of summer you Dumbo.” My friend corrected her.

This particular conversation kept me thinking, today we know what time it is? But how do our ancestor used to know what was the time at any given moment?  Because days are shorter in winter as compare to summer. So after coming home when I was bit relaxed, I googled it, how do people used to know the correct time. And google provided me couple of options about some of the time mapping techniques. One of which was, water technique which was developed by Egyptians, it was same like a hour glass, but instead of sand they used water, the other technique was An Obelisk from ancient Greek, a  pointed pillar, tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. These were originally called "Tekhenu" by the builders, the Ancient Egyptians. The Greeks who saw them in the Egypt, used the Greek word 'Obeliskos' to describe them, and this word passed into Latin and then English, the shadow of obelisk created because of sun was measured from sunrise to sunset and time was determined. Another interesting method was ‘Sundial’ method the base behind this particular concept was somewhat same as that of Obelisk. But what about the night, well this problem was solved by the very clever Indians. If you happen to visit the Sun Temple at Konark, you will get to know that there is something called ‘Moondial’ along with the Sundial which tells time in the night also. So while setting the standard time for any country people must have taken the help of these techniques. And this is how the first watch they must have standardized.

So today whenever we look at the watch to check the time just be thankful to our ancestor about the techniques they developed to map the time. Because it is not we who invented the time mapping, by discovering the watch, we just improvised the technique of time mapping what our ancestors have invented.
And This is how the Time Began!

 

Behind Every Criticism There Is hidden Truth

In today’s self-centered world, everyone is so much involved in the itself that given a choice between “Thank you” and “You are welcomed” many of us would choose “Thank you” instead of “You are welcomed” means nobody is bothered to help today, everyone is so involved in themselves that they always want someone to help them, be it friend, a stranger or their luck.  But they won’t miss a chance to give an advice who need help. “I think you should work for an IT company, they pay handsomely” , says the guy who works as a clerk in a bank, to a person who is there for car loan and about to buy a brand new Mercedes. People sometimes forget who they are what they know about any particular thing is right or wrong? But what they will do is, give an advice.   And one of the common thing observed is, jealousy because of somebody’s success. If a person is making good money for himself, this thing makes their face sour.

Today I went to my friend at his shop, just to say “Hi”, it was long time since we met, and I happen to be in his area so decided to pay him a visit, there I met one guy, probably in his late 30s. well dressed, good looking, came to his shop to buy certain things. List was long so he happened to spend little more time at the shop. The guy in the shop was taking out things from the shelves as per the list, while we were both busy in talking about one of our mutually known person. As we were discussing about him, and his habits, that person was listening us, the moment we stopped, he jumped in, “Do you know how much money he makes, he was just an ordinary person like you and me, we were in same class, we even used to sit together on same bench, we used to do lot fun, he was very rebellious back in school days, used to use lot of bad words for his other school mates. Now look at him, doing same thing with is subordinate sucking their blood, and enjoying profit on his own.”

Everybody has heard such stories at least once in their life. Where a lay man feels like he is been cheated by his luck, looking at the other guy who is very successful in his life. So this lay man starts to make stories out of it, just to soothe his heart and mind and create a protective layer of excuses about why this happen to him and not to me. After spilling all of his comforting, and jealous coated excuses, he got calm down, his good were now ready on the counter, he placed them in his bag and took an exit with saying bye to us as if we were his school mates and a big smile on his face.

We both looked at him, said bye. As he went my friend told me to ignore the frustrated poor soul. After almost half an hour I also took an exit from there but this person kept me thinking about the psychology of human being. It is same as that of, ‘if your friend gets fail in an exam you feel bad for him and try to sympathize him, but if the same friend scores distinction and you with just passing marks then you feel miserable.’ The same psychology is applied in real life also.      

If somebody is so successful today, there must be good qualities in him otherwise he won’t be that much successful today. So instead to criticizing him try to analyze him, who knows you may find some good hidden qualities out of him, which will help you to make your life successful.

That’s why it is said behind every good thing there is hidden truth. Only few will know it.     

    

Its All About How Hard You Can Get Hit and Keep Moving Forward

Life is very mysterious thing, sometime it is up, sometimes it is down. When you are up everything seems happy, world wants to associate with you, you feel world is very friendly place to live in.  but what happens when your downfall starts. Your life becomes hell, nobody wants to associate with you, and everybody ignores you. But that’s the time when you get to know who is on your side of the line. Just like the atmosphere gets clear after the rain, everything looks so clear. When you are in trouble your thought process stops, everything looks confusing,  you starts to chock up in to that problem, just like a traveler on the fogy road. What you want is light to see it through, to see the path clearly so you start to depend on other fellow travelers. The moment he sheds lights on the fogy road you get to see some blur images, depending on that you keep moving forward, at certain point of road you realize that fog has ended you say thanks to your fellow traveler for sharing the light with you. But when you look back you come to realize that this is not the destination you aimed of. It’s the destination of other fellow traveler which he chose for you. If you are lucky you may end up at the short cut or on the right track towards your destination. But if you are not so lucky you may end up traveling on the opposite side of your destination. This fellow traveler could be anyone; it may be your close friend whom you trust very well, a mentor who always guides you through your rough phase.

Many times it happens in life that you come to know instead of going forward you have been pushed back, so all you can do that is prepare yourself better than previous time, and when you face the same problem again this time you can face it on your own, and come out faster and move forward. Because life is all about moving forward! As correctly said in Rocky Balboa, “The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place, and its how tough you are, because it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that! You are best thing in your life but until you start believing in yourself, you ain't gonna have a life.”