The Celebration of being alive

The Celebration of being alive (Dr. Christian Bernard)

I shall never forget the day I saw a ‘GRAND PRIX’ in a children’s ward. In the face of pain and mutilation it was an inspired piece of Joy in Living. It happened spontaneously when someone carelessly left a food trolley unattended in a corner of the ward.

A moment’s inattention by the Ward Staff and the trolley was commandeered by an intrepid crew of two … a driver and a mechanic. The mechanic provided the motive power galloping along behind, head down, pushing on the rear rail, while the driver squatted down on the lower deck of the trolley, clinging on with one hand and steering by

scraping one foot on the floor. The choice of roles was easy: the mechanic was BLIND and the driver had only ONE ARM. They put on a ‘hell on wheels’ show that, judging by the

yells of encouragement from the rest of the patients, had more spectator appeal than any other road or track race. It ended in a collision of scattered plates and outraged scolding from the ward sister, who brushed aside explanations of ‘Gee Sister, we were only practicing from the ‘GRANPREE” and ordered the offenders back to bed. The mechanic was all of seven years old. A child from a slum dwelling, he had lost his sight in a sudden blaze that destroyed not only his firetrap home, but also most of his face. He was partway through a weary round of operations to release his jaw from the mess of scar tissue that had gripped it so solidly that he could only raise his head by opening his

mouth.

At the time of the ‘GRANPREE’ he was a walking horror but with numerous operations, if all went well, he would have good neck movement, and most of his terrible scars would be covered. But it would be a long and painful time of being wheeled in and out of operating rooms, of healing wounds and the discomfort of heavy bandages.

WE WON” he told me, appearing from under the bed clothes minutes after ward discipline had been restored and sister’s awful threats were still hanging in the air.

His sunken eye sockets focused on me in the uncanny way of the blind, and his head bobbed up and down. THE MECHANIC WAS LAUGHING!

The driver was nine. The full book of troubles had been thrown his way when he was seven … beginning with an illness-ridden infancy, an operation for the correction of a faulty heart valve, polio and the loss of leg action, broken bones and recently, an operation to remove his right arm and shoulder because of bone cancer. He explained that the “GRANPREE” crash was due to mechanical failure owing to the fact that his machine was ‘just an old clap trolley’ and the wheels too stiff to steer properly.

As I left the ward he was trading insults with his mechanic. I had not gone 100 paces when it hit me like a hammer blow. Here were two of the most socially deprived people I’d ever met, and they had just given me a lesson in getting on with the business of living.

Since then I’ve often thought of his story of that incident, and I am grateful to those two kids for the insight that the business of living is JOY, in the real sense of the word.

Not simply pleasure, amusement, recreation… but more a CELEBRATION OF BEING ALIVE.

Related post: http://visharada.blogspot.com/2006/02/celebration-of-being-alive.html

Unproportionate freedom

Over the decades, women gained a lot of freedom. I would call this unproportionate, the reason being, women were suppressed since centuries and over the decades they gained equal freedom as men do.
And a bitter facts comes in, that not all women are matured enough to exercise their equality and freedom.
Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. Men can't do a women's job or can't be women. They cannot be as caring or loving as our mother, sister or wife are. Women are incomparable here. Here comes the real problem. Women think they can just do whatever men can do. (May be). They are so passionate about proving this that they forget what they are best at, they fail to be mothers, sisters and wives. It is really happening in our society. I'm not saying that women should sit at home, take care of children, cook food, only be a house wife. Absolutely not. Apart from enjoying their freedom and equality, they have to deliver their duties which they are meant for.
One incident I would share:
One day, I was traveling in a bus. There were a few empty front row seats in the bus, marked for ladies. I noticed no one was there to occupy, I sat down. Just then in the next stop, a women got in and came by my side and showed me the sign, meant for ladies. With due respect, I got up and occupied the next front row seat which was empty too. She turned back and showed me the sign again to remind me that men shouldn't be sitting in the seats allocated to women. Uttering no word, I just stood up and kept standing till I got down.


"Finally I would conclude to say, the society still respects women. The rotten stuff is there on both sides. Women are unequally equal and not all women are matured to understand the responsible freedom and independence they have. And people who understand the difference between rights and privileges, I call them matured".


This post is in reply to http://smriti-simszone.blogspot.com/2011/10/youre-woman-youre-nothing.html

Know when to run

The average life span of human has increased considerably over centuries.
This is a fact which we all think is true as it is driven by data. The data which said, in 19^th century the avg. life span was around 50 and now in 20^th century it is above 75. It is no doubt looking at the numbers the life span has increased by approx. 50%. It is agreed to data but not to the fact.
A simple fact that we are not living as if we were in 19^th century. Things changed, they grew, they evolved;  fast, very fast. We are leading the life at double the speed. Then we walked now we run thinking that we are achieving at faster pace.
 The life span is not the number of years we live. It is what we lived from the beginning till the end. Hence the life span would never change even if we start living for 150 years.
If the span has to change, it is only Quality of life and the time we spend for ourselves would bring the difference.
 Now with 75 years, running at double the speed, the fact remains we live only 75/2 = 38 years. And the fact still remains our life span keeps decreasing.
And one fine day, we take birth to die the same day though we live for 200 yrs.
 What do we run for, we would never realize because we are being driven by a zillion factors.
We run for recognition, for rewards, for money, for opportunities, for achievements, for growth, for promotions. We are raising the bars pushing ourselves, hard to jump. We set tight deadlines, to stretch ourselves. We are making ourselves more ambitious. We set goals difficult to achieve. We set high targets. In the current world, achievers are under performers, we start to over perform to get tired. Hence we run.
 We started running, not knowing what we are losing.
 The simple fact still remains…If we walk, we can walk for 20 miles seeing all the things around. If we run we can run only for 5 miles over seeing everything around.
 The only solution is to stop running and slowdown yourself. Think what is important for yourself. It is you, your family, your neighborhood, your state, your country, your own world. Drive yourself and don’t get driven.
Running will only will leave us tired. If you know where to run then we will live longer than ever.