A Lesson for all of us?????

This is a wonderful article that i came across in The Hindu today....What is said there holds out much relevance for us...Just read it here...
http://www.hindu.com/mag/2009/04/26/stories/2009042650320800.htm

For those of u who are a bit lazy i paste the whole article...


Date:26/04/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2009/04/26/stories/2009042650320800.htm

REFLECTIONS

The lonely crowd


JO CHOPRA


Often, all it takes is a smile to bring people out of their shells of sorrow and grief…

A few days ago, I read this tiny news item in our local paper: “Cafe Manager Kills Self”.

A 23-year-old man allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling fan in his home in Malviya Nagar. The victim, Harsh Saini, was working as a manager in a coffee outlet in Malviya Nagar. Police said a suicide note was found which stated that no one should be blamed for the incident.

It’s the kind of awful little clip one could read every day if so inclined. I usually pass right over them, not wanting to let myself imagine too much of the individual life which had come to such a pass. Somehow, however, this one hit me hard.

I had been to that Cafe a few months ago. I remembered it because Malviya Nagar is an area in Delhi where I seldom go. I was there to meet some film-makers and I was excited because they are creative and buzzy and I was looking forward to our meeting. I was looking forward to it so much, in fact, that I arrived half an hour early and rather than disrupt their morning, I went to have a cup of coffee and catch up on some reading.

Memory’s reach

And I remember the service was so slow I almost ended up being late for my appointment. I remember being mystified by what could be taking so long because I was literally the only customer in the place. And I remember not being inclined to leave a tip but leaving one anyway because I was a waitress once myself and old habits die hard.

I thought about all this when I read about Harsh Saini, 23 years old, and I wondered if he was the one who had made my coffee so slowly that day and whether I had remembered to smile at him and whether I had thanked him properly. I wondered if the depression which finally caused him to take his life had already begun to slow him down and make his work seem futile and pointless.

“Be kind”, Plato said, “for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Ten years ago, our paediatrician told us that our daughter, Moy Moy, probably had only a few months left to live. Praise the good Lord, our doctor turned out to be wrong, but for most of that year, my husband, Ravi, and I stumbled around as if in a waking nightmare, functioning, but just barely. We seemed to ourselves to be always on the verge of tears, fragile and distracted.

But who knows how we appeared to others? Many people told us later that they had had no idea what we were going through.

One day during that black time, Ravi said he could never treat people casually or unfeelingly again. “When I’m sitting in a meeting in Delhi or attending a conference, no one has any idea what is happening with my daughter. So how do I know what someone else is experiencing? You really can never be sure.”

I work with an organisation in Dehradun for people with special needs. I think about all the parents whose kids attend our school. They struggle bravely and valiantly to give their children a good life in spite of their difficulties, in spite of the lack of community support and acceptance; I think of some of our staff and their hard lives and the way they still show up for work every morning cheerful and ready to care once again for the children in their charge; and then I think of Harsh Saini and all the other faces in the crowds we walk through each day, unaware of their secret griefs and sorrows.

Smile. Be Kind. So simple. So hard.

Working with people with disability makes it easier to do, somehow. The fact that so many of their struggles are obvious keeps us mindful of the struggles the rest of us do our best to hide. It’s tempting to believe that everyone else has it all together, that no one else is suffering or troubled or confused. People with disability help us smash that myth. They stand right in front of us and say: I need your help to get from one place to the other. I can’t hear what you are saying. I can’t see what you are showing me. I can’t understand what you want me to do.

If only...

If Harsh Saini had been around more people with disability, maybe he wouldn’t have needed to hide his worries and fears so effectively that he finally had to kill himself to escape them. Maybe he would have realised that it’s ok to be confused, that others have been there too and would have been willing to grab him by the hand and pull him back from the abyss.

That’s why inclusion is so important. It keeps us human. It reminds us of all that we share in common. It teaches us to look out for each other and to remember that while each one of us has secret griefs and sorrows, none of us is truly alone.

The writer is the Executive Director of the Latika Roy Foundation, a Dehradun-based Resource Centre for People with Special Needs ( www.latikaroy.org).

© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

The Year Gone by........

I Have delayed this topic for as much long as i could...I wanted to get a hold on myself before i could write this topic...It has been a very bad year for me...by any means of standards...the timeline ranges from April'08 to April'09...First i had a small sort of accident which sowed the seeds for the misery i was to suffer from during the year...It was a horrific time when i had to cut down my socialising by 100%...It galled me...it galled many of my friends who felt I deliberately avoided them...relationships went sour...although i redeemed some of them not everything i lost during this period was gained...It still hurts me to this day...but as Russell Crowe says in "A beautiful mind"..."They never have gone, Mayb they never will...But i have learned to live with them"...If i cud put my pain(physical, metaphysical,transcendental :D) into perspective those would be my exact words... well...Thatz how it goes i guess......I havent detailed much of my agony durin these days but thatz not necessary...Hope things turn better during this year....

PS: By the way, just saw Schindler's List....T-E-R-R-I-F-I-C...Magnificent movie...A Must Watch...

Itz Killing Me!!!!!!!

That line aptly sums up the way the Fed-ex really feels...For a man who rarely displays his emotions(He was in tears at the presentation ceremony) on the court that is quite a statement...Stranded on unlucky 13 he simply doesn't have a clue as to what he has to do to beat his nemesis, The man whuz energy seems never to run out...Consider this...Rafa played a gruelling 5 setter for over 5 hours just the previous day and he comes on to win a 5 setter again, lasting for over 4 hours...Tough u say...well in fact it must have been killing him too...But the energy he displayed was simply out of this world...Rafa has beaten federer at the french open(where he seems unbeatable anyway), Wimbledon, and now this , The Australian open. I have long been a fan of federer and was rooting for him this time too but Rafa is in a class of his own these days...That doesn't mean federer is playing badly...he just is vexed with Rafa i guess...mayb he should complain about the bright colours that rafa wears to matches...At 22 nadal seems to be the greatest player of the moment but he has some way to go to match federers record...Federer on the other hand musnt be written off...At 27 he still has some way to go(if he keeps losing to this man like this, i doubt he will)...Comebacks are the hallmarks of champions and Federer is no exception...Hope he does well at wimbeldon...Hats of Rafaa....Itz killing me!!!!

Thinking!!!!!!!

Excerpt from the ATLAS SHRUGGED by AYN RAND...there are so many passages worth quoting but lethargy prevented me from quoting anything previously...i quote this as I am reading...

"Thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of u practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one's consciousness, the refusal to think-not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the respoinsibility of judgement-on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict 'It is'. Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say 'It Is', you are refusing to say 'I am'. By suspending your judgement you are negating your person. When a man declares: 'Who am I to know?'--he is declaring; 'who am I to live?'.."

"This, in every hour and every issue, is your basic moral choice: thinking or non-thinking, existence or non-exixtence, A or non-A, entity or zero."

Whuz standards?????

Itz been some time coming...I have tried writin sumthin but have alwayz ended up feeling miserable abt the topic i wanted to write...So finally one of my friends insisted dat i write watever da case may be, i sit down to pen my thots...Thankz Sushil....The topic has been haunting me for quite some time now....are v living for ourselves or sumone elz sake...true..there are certain norms to be fulfilled in a "SOCIETY" n all but arnt v stretching ourselves a bit too much ..We are to be judged by what we do and what we don't and not by what OTHERS DO and wat OTHERS DONT...This malaise is not only existent in our professional lives but sadly in our private lives tooo...who sets the standards and who judges them...It ultimately lies in the hands of us to define what are the standards and what principles we stand by...and while judging arent we supposed to consider the viewpoint of the person alone in question,and then decide for ourselves whether dat is right or wrong... unfortunately we dont and thus are blinded by the predujices that have been fed into our system...by system i mean family,friends,media...we hardly think about these things and consider them a waste of time...yet it is so important to know people and what prompts them to do certain things, but noo...we live in a state of static equlibrium where our thoughts and feelings take a backseat... We just go on living life as if it doesnt matter as to how we live it...Think...!!!!!!...I Go onnn!!!!

End of Dadagiri!!!!!

Knowingly or unknowingly both of my posts have contained a reference to Dada....So finally when Ganguly announced his retirement it was inevitable that i should dedicate a post to him...I dont exactly remember when i was actually fascinated by the "God on offside"...I still remember pestering my dad to take me to lumbini park on a Sunday when the prince would arrive. It was way back in 1999 or sooo....I was waiting in the line n when i finally saw him i was in awe that i was actually seeing the man himself....our meeting lasted for a couple of seconds in which he signed in my autograph book and threw it superciliously on the table between us...That quality has been wid him throughout his career which has earned him quite a few enemies... A man who has always wore his heart on his sleeve, never shied away from speaking his mind out watever the consequences...probably no one in Indian cricket evokes such emotions as this man....he taught the indian team to play to win...A lot of stupid things have been said by absolute nicompoops who cant even match the stature that Ganguly commands.....Love him or hate himmm...U just cannot ignore him...who can forget the sahara cup moments in toronto or for that matter the dancing before carting left arm spinners or the piercing of the offside with 8 fielders...Itz ironic as well as justice that the youngsters that he so furiously supported have been knocking on his heels.....The timing of his announcement coudnt have come at a much better time...Hope the bengal tiger goes out on a high....

Randomness....

Randomness....Well ..what is it...It implies something that isnt routine..given that time and tide wait for none we assume that each new day is a new beginning and is diiferent ..Yet How often do we hear the words..."Same routine life raaaa"....Mea culpa....i have said this soooo many times that it is almost a cliche....soo many software engineers talk about this....have we stopped enjoyin life(the "we" refers to people whu think like mee)....have we stopped noticing the lil things in life that we soo much enjoy...forgive mee if the above sentences sound trite....lemme explain...previously when i watched serials there was no discernment...i used to laugh at
the foolishness...i stopped watchin them completely...since recently that is...so to break the routine i started watchin serials....it went on nice for a week or soo...I jus cudnt go any further..cudnt take itt...i almost wud have broken the remote the other day if i had stopped thinking...i said to myself...hang onn....i wud have laughed these off...why have i changed....well...i have had some problems lately but still....i dont know how to complete this logically(whu said that the topic was logical)...i am too tired to complete itt.....so i jus leave in the middle of randomness and ask u to draw your own conclusions...
PS:Yes i had to break this routine...hence i rote this post..
PPS: Random thot for the day: IT IS BETTER TO LOOSE AN ARGUMENT THAN A RELATIONSHIP
PPPS: Random advice of the day: Read the Fountainhead...
PPPPS: Random news of the day: Dada is back in the test squad..
PPPPPS: Random words of the day: Bbyee...I am leaving...
PPPPPPS: If u dint find those amusing...u are probably rite...I just hate this post..

Yaah yaah...M leaving..Have a nice time folks...