questions!

What is growth? What is success? How is wealth measured? These are questions asked maybe for the ten millionth time worldwide, but I ask this since I do not have the answers. Going from a small house bustling with laughter and activities, flooded with emotions, to a huge vast house, which is empty, silent and limited to a few specific purposes; is that growth? Visiting the city’s largest mall and being recognised by the owner, being known to half the city, but being unable to help your daughter with her homework, being too busy to know that your wife craves for just half an hour alone with you, being too involved in work to have dinner at the proper time; is that success? There are so many stories where kids and relatives of multi millionaires met with gruesome deaths for various reasons, and all their monies couldn’t do anything but accumulate interests in the world’s biggest banks. That money is wealth? I have been called a lunatic for these kinds of thoughts, and it has happened often, but somehow these questions never leave me. The purpose of life to me doesn’t seem just to live looking at a retirement with lots of luxuries; it seems to be for me, is to be amongst loved ones and to go to bed at night with a smile on the face; to wake up and see faces of loved ones till the last day. Even in death, being surrounded by people who are sad to see me go seems to have more sense that to have lived a life where people wait for my death – to rid me of my sufferings of an ailment or to have my belongings split equally – since I am after all, a lunatic! ;)

Privileges...

I cannot thank enough my friends from PK’s group who introduced me to Bhagini Samaj. It matters not what it is to be called, for each time I go there I am flooded with emotions and thoughts of various kinds. It becomes inevitable to introspect and I find myself so highly privileged in life. Everything seems to be a luxury. The last time that we went, there was a couple that had come there with PAV BHAJI for all the kids there and my friends Prajna, Greeshma and Shreeshma served them. It was a cute thing to see. Each time that I am there, I feel so moved. It was for us, ‘after all PAV BHAJI’ whereas for them it was a special occasion. It was a bonus that rarely comes, which they find so irresistible that they stealthily dip their fingers into and taste, before saying their prayers. I have never been hungry and yet I have never prayed before eating anything, and they have never eaten anything without praying. For me, my camera is now a part of me; something commonplace. Being in a photo is so irrelevant that it totally slips off my mind [my mum always scolds me for that! :) ]. But for them it is a privilege, an achievement to be photographed. Just looking at themselves in various poses gives them a joy that I have would I feel if maybe I won a million dollars. The new umbrellas that a family gave them were nothing short of a treasure! Most of them were reluctant to open them so that it would remain new for as long as possible. And here I am, always cribbing and complaining. I have so much in life, yet it feels like it isn’t enough. There is a major contrast in life... there is a major contrast in the lives that I saw, and in the life that I dream of. All I can do is write about it, and pray for them. I hope the guilt sort of feeling soon dispenses. I do not believe I am strong enough to keep them in mind nor motivated enough to strive for their betterment. What I do is temporary and tiny... :(

May God forgive me and share my blessings with them too.