Category: Perspective (Page 10 of 20)

What’s to learn from a Blank Page?

December 5, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

This is a blank piece of paper.
Well, it used to be.
Now that I’m writing on it, it isn’t blank anymore.

But wait a moment, and imagine
Is it just a blank page?
Or is it so much more than what we think it is?

A blank page is an ocean of possibilities.

It could be a page where a toddler squiggles his first lines ever with a tiny red pencil.

It could be a crumpled ball that the toddler’s kitten plays with for hours at end.

It could be the first paper plane the little boy makes.

It could be a frog he learns to make in origami class.

It could be a hand-fan he waves to soothe his kitten on a hot summer day.

It could be a cone that contains freshly roasted groundnuts, worth all the riches in the whole wide world.

It could be the first love letter he ever writes, brim with an innocent passion.

Or a mournful poem he pens when he falls in unrequited love.

It could contain a doodle that he sketches, one that has the ideal mix of amusement and hope.

Or it could have wayward scribbles all over, intelligible only to him who’s certain of his confusion.

It could be a painting his old grandmother paints, an artist who finally summons the courage to play with colours again.

It could contain notes of a beautiful symphony his sister composes, one that’s yet to be ever played.

It could contain an elegant equation, that explains deep mysteries of the universe with simple, irrefutable logic.

It could contain a sketch of a prototype he imagines as a young inventor,
An invention that changes the face of mankind.

It could be the declaration of independence, a freedom his nation fought for years to earn.

It could contain his will that he writes realising that the end is near.

Or maybe it can just be a blank piece of paper that ages gracefully.

If a blank sheet of paper could be so much more,
How about the miracle of existence that’s alive in the little boy?
In you?
In me?

Could we be so much more? Just like the blank sheet of paper?

We are not merely a blank page,
We are also the embodiment of energy that can transform it into something beautiful.

We are a billion beautiful possibilities.

Listen to the blank page singing softly,
That you,
as me ,
Just as us all,

Are art in the making.

On Performing best on the stage of life

December 3, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

‘All the world is a stage
And all men and women merely players’

Thus, said Shakespeare in one of his poems back in the day.

The beauty of truth is in its timelessness, as captured beautifully in the opening lines of the poem.

At each living moment, we assume the role of someone, the spirit of an ideal.
For instance, at this moment, I represent the spirit of a thinker and writer.
You represent the spirit of a reader.

At times we represent the spirit of a friend, a teacher, a brother, a mother, a listener, a speaker, a traveller, a seeker, a child, a father….

But are we able to perform best in all these roles that we assume on a day to day basis?

Most likely, no.

The reason for this is because we look at the world through the lens of our ego, a lens prone to aberrations and distortion.

Identification of the self with the ego comes at the cost of objectivity.

Let me explain.

Say you somehow find yourself at a social gathering that you’d ideally not attend.
And since you feel quite out of place, you stay aloof and wait for the moment when you can get out of there.
A certain someone comes to you and breaks into a conversation.
Now, at that moment, even if your ego wishes that you were out of this situation, there is no running away from the reality of that moment.

At that moment, you embody the spirit of an attendee, a listener.

Now if you choose to be a good attendee, and listen with utmost attention, you would do yourself and the gentleman you’re interacting with a good favour.

But if you identify yourself with your ego, the kind of person you think you are, and look at the situation from that lens, it’s likely that you’d converse half heartedly with much lesser attention.

Which choice is better in your opinion?
In the greater good, I’d choose the former.

I mentioned an inadvertent situation in the example because most of our interactions are of that nature.

Once we choose to play the best role we can at that moment, and think beyond our Ego, we will function much better as a person and refine our interpersonal relationships.

And, let me assure you that this approach does not come at the cost of individuality.
In fact, it only enhances our personality and refines our objectivity towards situations in life.

With such an outlook, all our half heartedness towards situations will vanish and we would only look to perform our role in the best manner possible at that moment.

And those moments will culminate into a best possible life.

Identify your role in each moment,
And perform best,
The show is always on,
Why not make it meaningful !

On realising the ideal state of being

December 2, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

‘I want to bicycle from India to Hongkong to see my son’ shared Nirupama, a 71 years young bicyclist I met in Pune.

As lofty as her dream sounded to either of us, I was sure she would be on this dream trip very soon.
She had shared stories about her bicycle trips to Laddakh, Kanniyakumari among other places in India.
Having started bicycling after retiring from work at the age of 60, she kept on challenging herself and went past barriers even young adults wouldn’t dare dream to.

I saw the apprehension in her eyes while she shared her dream, wondering if she could go bicycling across countries to see her son.

I wanted to make her believe that she could do it.
I took out my phone and showed her a route she could take to reach Hongkong starting from Bangkok.

Her eyes lit up like a chiselled diamond.

And I am sure, as I write this, she’s busy back home, thinking of ways to make this trip happen.

What an inspiration she is !

This encounter reminded me of two other elderly friends I had met in Thailand.
One of them by the name of Phulong, 72, who wants to bicycle all around Thailand on his own.
I’m sure he’s biking around in some part of Thailand as I write this.

The other friend, Eugene, 72, an Irishman I had met at a hostel, wished to sail to India on his Yacht.
In fact, that what was he was going to start doing the moment he was back home.
Maybe he’s fixing up his Yacth as you’re reading this.

Meeting such ambitious and proactive elderly folk left me humbled.
I wondered how they could exist in such a state of being.

The answer I found was on the lines of their perception and interaction with two factors :

a) Time

b) Mindspace.

The elderly have only a decade
or so of life left to make something of. Yet, they have the a lot of time to reflect, imagine and think of ways to achieve a distant dream. The awareness of the finitude of their life only helps them to attribute more value to the little time they have on earth.

Also, the mindspace of ‘It is Now or Never’ is most obvious at their age. They are not afraid of anything that used to hold them back when they were young adults. They are in a position to imagine without inhibition.

I couldn’t help but draw a parallel between the relationship kids have with time and mindspace vis-a-vis the elderly.

While it is finitude that helps the elderly imagine and act without inhibition, it is the apparent infinitude, a timelessness in which the imaginative spirit of a child thrives.

A child has no fear of dreaming or acting on its dreams. If a child wants to be a doctor, he would just put a dummy stethoscope around it’s neck, wear the elder siblings oversized shirt and he’s ready to treat anyone and everyone in sight.
A child imagines and acts in the best of its capacity.

As young adults, what can we learn from the elderly and kids about ambition, imagination and taking action?

We live in an age where we have neither the time nor the mindspace to imagine and act on our dreams.
Aren’t most of us busy with something or the other that commands all of our immediate attention?

And sadly, we have become comfortable with devoting time to things that we are asked to do, without really thinking if it truly matters to us in the long run.

Part of the reason is because we dwell in the dangerous domain in our understanding of time,
in between finitude and infinitude.

If we really feel a sense of timelessness as kids, we would truly be present in each moment and be able to imagine the way we must.
At the same time, if we truly understand the finitude, the fragility of life, as the elderly do, we would, at all times, act responsibly and do things that matter to us.

Would it not be the best way to exist,
To live with complete understanding of our relationship with time and mindspace?
To understand finitude and infinity and let the wagon of our lives soar on the twin rails of imagination and action ?

If we choose to live with this awareness,
Could life ever be little?

On the paradox in wishing for a long life

November 29, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Who doesn’t want to live a long life !
Everyone wishes for as many trips around the sun as possible in their lifetime.
In India, when elders bless younger people, they usually pray for them to have a life lasting aeons.

But what exactly does more years in one’s life add to?
Does more years translate to more meaning?
Does it also not imply a longer old age full of decay and suffering?

I feel that we should reimagine our conception of a lifetime.

How about thinking of age in terms of time and not years.

Let me explain what I mean by this.

Remember Eisntein, the fuzzy haired genius?
Once, one of his students asked him to explain the concept of relativity in simple language.

Here’s what Eisntein said,

‘When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, you think it’s only a minute,
But when you sit on a hot stove for a minute, you think it’s two hours.
That’s relativity.’

Such elegant simplification!
The jest of a genius.

The way we sense our time on this beautiful blue dot is also a function of relativity.
A life full of unwise choices can seem to be an agonisingly long drag.
Just like a macrocosm of a boring lecture in college. An abyss with no apparent end.

On the other hand, a life full of wise choices, purpose and meaning would feel like a breeze.
A macrocosm of an hour with your favourite playmate when you were a toddler.
You never realised when time passed, since you were so involved in enjoying each moment, weren’t you?

But here lies the paradox.

The inherent paradox in our wish is that we want a long and meaningful life.
Because long and meaningful don’t go together.

If you are living a meaningful life, then life would pass so easily that you never realise when the years flew by, just like hours fly by when you’re with someone you love.
Life would seem to have finished in a moment.

But if you feel that life is long, it just means that life is seeming long to you, maybe because for you, it isn’t so much fun to be alive !
For if you truly enjoy something, time would feel to have passed in a jiffy !

It is best to live in terms of time and not years.

Rather than wishing for a long life, we should wish for a life that just passes by, for it would mean that we truly enjoyed each moment in it.

And the best way to get that experience is by being in love,
With life itself.

Clocks and calendars aside,
I wish you a meaningful life.

What else does one need in life after all !

A sermon from my 5 year old teacher

November 18, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

I’d come to visit the reforestation community I had volunteered at for much of last two years.
Incidentally, since it was also the place where I had started my bicycle trip, I felt the need to visit again to get a sense of closure to this incredible journey I’d been on.

One of the special aspects about this community is the concept of Unschooling or ‘Nature led learning’.

The kids as well as adults seek to learn and grow by interacting with the environment around them, guided by the compass of their curiosity.

While I was volunteering here, the most profound lessons I learned came from the kids in the community.
It was always such a joy to gain perspective from children who were just being, learning, growing and evolving as a function of their environment.

So yesterday, when I sat down to have breakfast in the morning with all our community members, I got a wonderful surprise snuggled up in another volunteer’s lap.
It was one my little teachers, Rahaphaello. A five year old bundle of joy we all kindly called Rafi.

I was happy to know that he had stayed through my eight month absence in the community.

At first, he gingerly observed me from a distance, as if trying to place me in his mind. It had been a while since I was away after all.

Slowly he walked towards me to get a closer look. With each onward step, his memory jogged him to fond memories and soon enough he came close and held me in an affectionate embrace.

He had grown taller and heavier in these eight months. His eyes shone as brightly as I have always know.

His eyes were gazing deeply into mine, as if casting a spell that needed cooperation from both of us.

‘You know what I see in your eyes?’ he asked.

‘You tell me Rafi, what do you see in my eyes?’

‘In your eyes….
It’s …it’s…round ..like the earth,
I can see the whole world in your eyes!’

Still in my arms, with a gaze transfixed,
And with all the love that could ever be found, he looked at the world he saw in my eyes.

‘You know what I see in your eyes Rafi?’

‘What?’

‘It is a big star, very very big….
And it’s shining bright…
Maybe it’s many stars..
Could it be a galaxy of stars?
Or could it be the whole universe?’

‘The whole universe?’

‘Yes, yes , the whole universe, right when it all began, with a beautiful big bang.’

‘Oh really? I want to see my eyes then ! ‘ he said excitedly and ran towards a mirror.

And like many of the lessons he taught me without knowing, it ended at the threshold of his attention span.
It was a habit of his,
Of leaving you in deep thought as he jumped away to another context he fancied in his surroundings in that moment.

—-

Nihilistic thoughts often flirt in our mind.
‘What is the point of it all ?’ one often wonders.
‘We are just a speck of startdust in the grand scheme of things and nothing really matters.’

But it takes the wisdom of a child to make one realise that even in the speck of an eye, in the speck of an insignificant being one is,
Dwells the blueprint of the whole universe,
Of creation itself.

Even in such a momentary happenstance of our existence in the grand sceme of the cosmos,
There are the answers, to all the mysetry, all the magic there is.

How easily did Rafi teach us all,
That the secret to an ever fansinated consciousness, like that of a child’s, is accessible to us all if we choose to find magic in what we relegate as mundane !

That maybe the meaning of life,
After all,
Is to realize that the universe is undeniably,
within you.

A Diwali in true spirit

November 7, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

It was the eve of diwali. A celebratory joy had taken over the little hillside village of Jyotigram.

With the advent of the evening, the villagers started lighting up earthen lamps in their homes.
Within half an hour, the whole village had a luminous aura around it.
It was a sight to behold.

Even with the sun setting, darkness could not envelop the village. The flickering flames of the hundreds of earthen lamps kept darkness at bay.

Looking over the village from the little hillock was a young boy named Aadi.
He had worn simple clothes, quite unlike the villagers who had worn their best dresses for diwali.
He had a cloth sack hanging across his shoulders.
And even though he looked modest in his appearance, his eyes shone bright as a full moon on a clear night.

‘What are you doing here son?’ asked a silhouette in the dark.

It was an elderly man called Harish, a photographer from the city who’d come to village to capture the festivity of Diwali.

Aadi recognized him. He had seen the man come to the village a couple of days ago with his camera.

‘I am just enjoying the view of my village all lit up on the eve of Diwali. Isn’t it beautiful?

‘Yes indeed ! It is a breathtaking view from this hillock. As if the villagers have won over the darkness of the night with the light of all the lamps!’ said Harish.

‘Just how we celebrate the victory of good over evil, knowledge over ignorance on this day.’

Aadi didn’t look anywhere else but at the village the whole while as he talked. He seemed happily transfixed by the luminous aura of his village.

‘Are you not celebrating Diwali?’ asked the old man.

Aadi turned around breaking his gaze.

‘In a way I already celebrated it, but in a way I didn’t!’

The answer perplexed Harish.

‘So you lit up a lamp at home and came up to the hill to look at the village is it?’

Aadi looked at Harish lovingly and said,

‘I am a poor village boy Uncle. I cannot afford to buy oil to light up a lamp. Neither do I have the means to buy a gift for my friends nor the ability to make sweets for neighbors.’

Harish felt a sense of guilt, to have made the boy realise his penury on a day of celebration and festivity.

‘I’m sorry to know that my friend.’

‘Ah you don’t have to be sorry. I never pitied myself for my poverty.’

‘But you said you also celebrated Diwali in a way. Would you tell me how you did?’ asked Harish.

‘A month ago, I realised I would not have the means to celebrate Diwali.
So I went to the river bank and sat down to pacify my sombre self.
But then I saw all the heaps of clay on the banks of the river.
And I knew what I had to do to make things better.
I started making earthen lamps with that clay and left them to dry in the sun.
I worked hard night and day and managed to make enough lamps for every household in our small village.
I couldn’t afford oil, but I made the lamps that could contain the oil that would fuel the flame.
Those lamps were my gift to my villagers.
And the sweetness of this sight from the hilltop of all these earthen lamps I made is better than anything I’ve ever tasted. That’s my Diwali.’

There was a majestic delight in his shining eyes as he shared this.

Harish felt as if he’d gotten the best gift he could have gotten on the eve of Diwali.
The gift of perspective.

Both Harish and Aadi looked at the luminous village in awe.
It was a beautiful sight.

Harish clicked a picture of the radiant village from the hilltop.

He gently placed the picture in Aadi’s palm.

Aadi smiled as he looked at the wonderfully shot image. His eyes shone even brighter than the lights of the whole village.

‘A gift for you’ said Harish smilingly.

Aadi slid the picture in his cloth bag. He pulled out an earthen lamp he’d made from the river bed clay and placed it on Harish’s palm.

‘Happy Diwali’ he wished.

Both Harish and Aadi basked in the gentle glow of the village’s luminous aura.
Cherishing a gift unexpected,
A picture and and earthen lamp,
Either of them realised deep inside,
that this was a Happy Diwali indeed.

The meaning of life as revealed by a tree

October 13, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

In the woods I stood, facing a friend
A tree
Whose life was breathing poetry

I had a question
And it knew,
‘Ask’, it said
To the wind as it blew

‘Cur Hic Statis‘, my friend my dear,
Why is it, that you stand here?

Gently it smiled, content in its being,
Revealing an answer in what I was seeing.

‘Even when I was a seed’ said the tree
‘I believed in all that I could ever be
Buried in soil, I couldn’t hear, not see
But Give and Grow was mother nature’s decree.’

And when I was a sapling, I aimed for the sky
Not doubtful about how and why
The sun was the compass, the aim was high
I had to blossom, I had to grow,
Else life would be a lie.

I realised from the day I was sown,
The need for water was much bigger than my own
So, each leaf and petal, through pleasure and pain
Sang hymns to the wind and summoned rain.

Restful yet restless, with no time to bide
My nature, as nature’s is to provide
Through ups and downs, in the season’s tow
Sometimes fast, at times slow,
But never do I stop to grow.

Droughts and passing storms give an advice sound,
Be humble and have feet firmly on the ground
And even if I cannot move helter-skelter
For those who can, I give shade and shelter.

WORK, I know not, I only know BEING
How could living be of any other kind?
After all, it’s a matter of choosing and believing,
The world is a projection of your mind.

Cur hic statis
‘Why do you stand here’ you ask
As the end comes close by the hour

I REALIZE, I BE
I’m a hundred trees,
A million fruit,
A billion flower.

And,
A fruit lands in my lap, breaking my reverie,
I REALIZE,
I UNDERSTAND,
What I could be.

I eat the fruit and plant the seed
As I journey on,
To become a tree.

A story from a Sewer

October 10, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

It is early in the morning. Leela and her daughter Sita are preparing breakfast for their family of 5.
They live in a shanty that looks no different from the hundreds of other houses in their ghetto that dots the railway line.

Sita’s two younger brothers are still asleep. Her father Suresh is getting ready work.
Work that he finds despicable, but submits to nevertheless for his fate was sealed the day he was born in a Dalit family.

Dalits are a section of the Indian society that finds itself at the bottom of the Hindu Caste hierarchy. For hundreds of years, they have been treated as untouchables, destined to do all the lowly tasks in the society.

As much as Suresh can trace back his ancestry, all of his forefathers were manual scavengers, people who take care of the human waste santation of their community.

Even in the modern era of technology, urban sanitation is still dependent on people like Suresh climbing down the sewers to manually get rid of decaying human excrement.
It is a thankless job which people from lower castes still do mostly because the society has destined them to never rise above this age old practice.

This is a means of survival, with both feet sinking slowly in marshy sewage every Single workday.
He works with no job guarantee, irregular pay, no safety equipment and worst of all with no hope.

Deaths are common in this ‘profession’, if you will. And 9 out of 10 manual scavengers do not make past the age of 60 because of constant exposure to toxic gases in the sewer lines.

The only way to cope with the work environment is alcohol. Maybe this is the only job in the world where the person must show up drunk to go on with the work.

———

Sita brings two flatbreads and some curry for her father. Each morsel is punctuated by a generous gulp of the locally brewed liquor.

Hurriedly he leaves for work after his meal.
The two boys awaken to the sound of a bicycle bell. Their 4 year old friend Harish is on the doorstep with his new bicycle.

Harish’s father was Suresh’s work mate. He passed away a month ago in a sewer after exposure to toxic fumes.
It was an tragedy that took no one by surprise.
Perhaps the worst of tragedies is when a tragedy becomes a norm.

There was no hope of any help for orphaned Harish and his mother.
By the grace of a kind person who reported the incident on social media,
People pooled in money to help the family. A corpus of 30 lakhs was collected which now is a fixed deposit in the name of Harish. The interest on the amount pays for his education and household expenses.
He also got a bicycle his father had promised on his birthday.

The demise of his father in a way, brought much needed financial relief to the family.
Of course, this is an exception than a norm.
Not a day passes without a sewage worker succumbing in the chamber of death.
Nobody cares.
The government, even less than God.

But the ring of Harish’s bicycle bell gives some people hope that if the goverment offers a deaf ear, maybe compassionate citizens will help in the case of a loss.

It is better than having no hope at all.

Leela calls Harish in and all the kids line up for breakfast.
She can’t help but think how different the lives of her kids is going to be as compared to Harish’s.

‘Would she ever be able to give access to good education to her children and hope that they become the first generation in their family to not be a sewage worker?’ she wonders.

In Indian culture, the wife wishes a long life upon her husband.
But could Leela ever wish for that, when she knows that her husband would never live beyond 60.
The sludge in the sewer is quicksand, destined to engulf all lives that set foot in it.

In a fair world, she would wish life on her husband,
But today, seeing little Harish and her kids side by side,

Crushed in her soul, she hopes her husband doesn’t return from work.

Life has never been fair.

Maybe,
A death would do them all better.

What a half marathon taught me about cultivating lasting friendships

October 8, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

It’s a matter of great privilege to have an enduring friendship. Even more so, when you can still do things together with the same friends who you grew up with.

I feel fortunate on that regard. I still have my childhood friends around who are proactive and find ways to do things together.

Recently, two of my friends and I decided to participate in a running event. One of them and myself were participating in a half marathon and the other hand chosen a 10 kilometer run.

I was apprehensive about my ability to run such a long distance, as were my friends, but since we were all in the challenge together, it made things easier on some level.

But there was one hang up we faced four days before the run. My friends had already registered for the event and I, because of my indecision and procrastination, hadn’t enrolled yet.
On checking the website, we came to know that the event was sold out and I couldn’t officially be part of the run.

It was a bit disappointing to us all.
We wanted to do this together.
But fate seemed to have other plans.

So did I.

The night before the run, I told my friends that I was going to run as well. I would run from home at the same time they start at the official start line, and run the half marathon distance as planned. So even if I would not be running on the same path as them, I would be running at the same time on the streets of the same city.
They happily agreed to the idea.

At 5:30 am the next morning, we all started to run together, on our own paths, in our own realities.
I ran about alone in the city with an app on my phone telling me about my progress with each kilometer.

Once I was past my 7 km mark, I took a turn on the road that coincided with the official race path!

I took a little detour and timed my run such that the distance I had covered coincided with that of other participants at the 11km mark on the racetrack.

And once I reached the 11km mark, I was on par with other runners on the official path to the finish line.

That felt magical, to be running on the official track out of pure chance!

Having other runners run alongside helped me with pushing myself in the later half of the race. I didn’t have a bib number attached on my chest as others but I was a runner just the same.

At the 17 kilometer mark, I saw a runner from behind who I could recognise anyday out of a huge crowd.

It was my friend !

He seemed to be having some trouble during the run. He looked tired and was walking for a brief stretch.

But I believed he could do much better. I breezed past him on the track and patted him on the back.
The surprise of finding me on the official racetrack filled him with great joy.
A sudden rush of energy took over him.

From that point on, he raced onward with all his might running past me within a kilometer.

I was happy to see him go full throttle as he blended in with other runners beyond my sight.

Eventually, we ended the race at the official finishing spot, relishing each other’s achievement and the togetherness that came along with it.

In that moment of celebration past the finish line, I also found a great lesson about friendship and the paths we take in our life.

In life, past a certain age, all our friends take different paths in our lives. Part of it is voluntary and a part out of pure chance.
And often, we feel distant and disillusioned by the notion of an enduring friendship.

But we need to realise that at some point in our lives, our path will diverge from the ones each of our friends take.

We still need to keep running on our own paths, forever trusting in our self and the connection we share with people who we believe in.

At some point, sooner or later, our paths will coincide, for all path lead to the same end, if followed with courage and complete honesty.

We all have to, at our own pace, persevere, and keep on running on our own path with faith that’s complete and unwavering.

And if we tread the path of our own choosing in our lives and go all the way,
We are bound to find the confluence we’ve always longed for,
With the people we have always loved.

So, is there a reason to feel sad when our paths diverge with that of the people we love?

No.

As long as they are true in their heart for their pursuit and you are in your own,
And you both persevere,
You will always find each other when your paths meet,
Forever happy with each other’s growth.

Tread with faith
And persevere.
The friendship will endure.

It’s only a matter of time.

What can we learn from a kid waving a train goodbye?

October 7, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

A window seat on a train ride.
Feels like such a luxury doesn’t it?
Why wouldn’t it,
For it offers a unique cinematic experience after all.
The landscape is neither static nor moving too fast like in a motion picture.
It breezes at a pace that’s easy on the eye, offering enough mind space to dwell on worlds within and without.

Recently, I had the fortune of having a window seat on a train ride from Kolkata to Pune. Much to my disappointment, it had air conditioning in all of its coaches.
An air conditioned coach doesn’t offer the same experience as a sleeper class open window. No gush of wind messing up your hair, no influence of outside weather on the inside, no hawkers, certainly not as much fun.
It is quite a sterile environment, an AC coach.
But I still had a window seat.
I couldn’t complain !

Sometime in the afternoon, I found myself looking at the landscape of central India through the tinted window.
The train chugged by a little agrarian hamlet.
Amid the vedant rice fields, I saw a mud house where a group of little girls were playing.
As they saw the train passing by, they all took a break from their play and started waving at the train in sheer jubilance.
The buoyancy in their being lifted my spirits. I couldn’t help but smile and wave back.

But then, I realised,

‘These are tinted windows ! I can see the girls but the girls can surely not see me wave back at them !’

But did it make a difference to their enthusiasm?

The girls would never know who they are waving goodbye to, or if they were waved back at.
They smiled and greeted strangers nevertheless.

And did I not smile? Sure I did,
As many other passengers must have, at the sight of their effervescent energy.
That’s a child’s karma.

A child’s mind has a primeval consciousness.
It willingly gives energy to people and places around it. At some level, it understands that the energy will come back in much bigger a bulk.
It is unsullied by the transactional, quid pro quo paradigm adults dwell in.

For an adult, it is easy to feel lost, isolated and self centered in his being.

‘Why should I even do something if I don’t see a benefit on the horizon, a profit of some sort?’ one wonders.
Growing up, we become used to doing something for something in return.

Our mindset about work is best reflected in our conversations. The most common questions we ask one another as adults are,

‘What do you do?’

and

‘How much do you make?’

The answer to the latter is much based on the judgement of the answer to the former question.
Usually, the reply is in terms of one’s occupation and income respectively.

But maybe we need to do the asking a bit differently.
Maybe should ask each other and our self,

‘What do you love to do?’

And

‘How much do you give?’

You would wonder,
‘How does this relate to the little girls waving a train goodbye?’

At that moment, when the girls are waving, they are doing what they love to do, in accordance to their natural instinct.

And what are they giving?

Many smiles to people who they would never know.
However little, however fleeting it may be,
They add value.

Now,
What can we learn from them?

Foremost,
To involve our self in the most natural extension of our being,
By doing things we love to do.

And,

To give unconditionally, with utmost joy,
Without expectations.

It they can, deep in their hearts, find such happiness in giving,
Can’t we?

It is not easy to shift our perspective as an adult and start to give our energy without knowing what result it would yield, or what benefit we will get as a result.

Well, we can all start simple.

How about starting with waving goodbye to a train we will never see again?

Yes, you will feel awkward,
And to lift that hand would need overcoming inertia we didn’t know to exist.

But after the train has passed,
If we find our self smiling,
We would have learnt a lesson.