Boring life

Self is fed up with boring routine of daily life.Getting up early in the morning, going to the office , engaging in lifeless works, returning in the evening, having chats or heated exchanges with family members and going to sleep tired. What meaning has in this vegetable life? Why the self continue to do so for years? What purpose it serves. The only possible excuse the self find is that children are too young to look after themselves. After a few years they may not require any help. So the reason for existence of the self ends there. The only escape then is death. With that all the fights of life will come to a close. The self becomes a deadbody - a susbstance to be removed from the premises as early as possible. With its burning or burial all the memories associated with the self vanish into thin air. Thereafter nobody bothers about the creature that lived among their midst. This is not the story of the self alone. But autobiography of mankind.

What is life about?

Self is in a deep contemplative mood for the last few days.The question upper most in the mind is what this life upto and what its purpose. Truly no meaningful answer is forthcoming. whether man is just another species among the fifteen lakhs discovered so far. Sometimes one is tempted to beleive so. It is not established till this date that animals have sixth sense and thinking power.But there is no doubt that they have survival instincts and emotions like love and hate.Their only handicap is that they can't intervene in nature and create artificial comforts. In that respect man is superior. Even then no man can live forever, he can only extend his stay in this world for a few more years.Then why all these conflicts. contradictions and wars.Man usually quarrel over fictitious things like religions, gods, castes , regions and even in the name of patriotism.It is not one's selection to be born on a particular part of the earth.It so happens that where ever man and woman cohabit a progeny is born.We seek comfort and pride in the belief that God,the fictitious super power, really blessed us to be born as an Indian , as a Brahmin,as a Nair etc etc. This misconception has been going on for centuries after centuries.Perhaps it is a consolation that prompts people to live with more self pride. In the end where all these glories go? Almost everybody know the answer to this question. But no one is willing to admit this fact till the last breath. That's the greatest mystery of man's thinking. So the self wonder is man really a wise species as he claims to be? Can't he live happily with the resources available to him and without destroying the nature? Still searching for an answer to this nagging query.

THE GIFT

There was
A blind girl who hated herself because she was blind. She
Hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend. He was always
There for her. She told her boyfriend, 'If I could only see the world,


I will marry you.'
One day,
Someone donated a pair of eyes to her. When the bandages
Came off, she was able to see everything, including her
Boyfriend.


He asked
Her,'Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?' The
Girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind. The
Sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn't expected
That. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life
Led her to refuse to marry him.


Her
Boyfriend left in tears and days later wrote a note to her
Saying: 'Take good care of your eyes, my dear, for before
They were yours, they were mine.'


This is
How the human brain often works when our status changes.
Only a very few remember what life was like before, and who
Was always by their side in the most painful situations.


Life Is a
Gift


Today
Before you say an unkind word - Think of someone who can't
Speak.


Before
You complain about the taste of your food - Think of someone
Who has nothing to eat.

Before
You complain about your husband or wife - Think of someone
who's crying out to GOD for a companion.< STRONG>

Today
Before you complain about life - Think of someone who went
Too early to heaven.

Before
Whining about the distance you drive Think of someone who
Walks the same distance with their feet.

And when
You are tired and complain about your job - Think of the
Unemployed, the disabled, and those who wish they had your
Job.

And when
Depressing thoughts seem to get you down - Put a smile on
Your face and think: you're alive and still
Around.

I PRAY
THIS MOVES AROUND
THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE....






--

Sharing thoughts.

It is a good fortune to have someone as a friend with whom you can share your secrets, private joys and intimate worries. Human heart is not capable of withstanding much happiness and deep sorrows. so it is better to lessen its burden by sharing it. This should be done with utmost care. The person we select must be trustworthy and generous to offer his time.He/she need not be a great intellectual or a scholar capable of giving valuable tips.Mere patient hearing itself will do a lot. Our life span is too short. We are heavily conditioned by the society .Individuals have only limited freedom to be themselves. This is creating a lot of tension. We may not get exact partners either in private or public life. Naturally, if somebody walks into our life with a bit of consolation we tend to tilt our love or loyalty towards that individual. In due course this itself may become another burden.Then we will be in a predicament as to how to release ourself from this relationship. In such situations often we panic and come to wrong conclusions or take a generalised view that nobody is trustworthy. This leads to isolation which in due course will result in depression. So the better option is try to indentify or trust at least one individual with whom you can share your joys and sorrows. This need a little courage to take risk. Remember the other also may need you.Once this experiment clicked you will have a lifelong friend.

KG Kannabiran

Guest post by VASANTH KANNABIRAN

Kannabiran died on 30 December 2010. As per his wishes and ours, and based on previous discussions we declared that the last rites would be simple, speedy and secular. The secular part we ensured. There were no flowers, no lamps, no mantras, no ceremonies. But the clamour for progressive “traditions” was what I found troubling in the extreme. In doing away with religious orthodoxy, all we have done is replaced it with other orthodoxies.Last respects (in the form of flowers and slogans) must be paid. A “last look” at what? As his wife of 51 years I did not/could not relate to the mortal remains of Kannabiran. My grief was for that indomitable fighting, smiling, tender spirit that had left us. We had agreed long ago that if our only son was far away there would be no waiting for him. Kannabiran was a public figure. He belonged to the people who loved him. There is no disputing that. But did that mean that the public, or their self appointed representatives, which consists of so many conflicting groups should have the right to dismantle his body and take it in different directions?

We all need symbols and some reassurance. But the slogans we raise however loud and clear – can Kanna hear them? Will they, like the traditional mantras, take his soul to heaven? Who are we reassuring? Why are we afraid of silence? Why are we making our radical orthodoxies more rigid and meaningless than the reactionary ones? What is reactionary and what is radical? Why are we in such haste to raise monuments to the people we love? If Kannabiran cannot live in the hearts of people, are tributes and memorials going to bring him to life? To be loud in praise is easy. It dies out in a moment.

The truth is that the dead no longer matter. What matters is our own visibility, our public personae. We want not just to grieve, but to be seen grieving. We need those TV cameras to capture and convey our grief and compassion to our constituencies. And the media rules the day. Rather than digging out file shots and meaningful clips from their archives they would like to focus on the dead body, on the cotton in the nose, on the grief (loud or quiet) of the mourners and place it before the “public”. This is just another manifestation of the blurring of the boundary between public and private by reality shows on television.

Instead of recreating the dead man in imaginative ways that would bring him alive to the public that loved him, we would rather show the dreary details of his funeral. How many people? How many placards? How many organizations? VIPs came out of respect for the dead person. The first sign of respect is to leave your gunmen and security guards outside. To visit KGK with a gunman beside you is the ultimate insensitive insult to his spirit. We need to think afresh and we need to learn the value of silence. We need to stop thinking – what will I get and what will my organization get in all this. It is not enough to write obituary pieces and hold meetings without any reflection of our conduct and attitudes.

The dead need no reification. Kannabiran was the voice of the poor. He never projected himself. He never needed to.

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Posted in Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Media politics | Tags: Death, KG Kannabiran
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