We As Kids Are The "Real Us"

Account of somebody I know:

" Like everybody, I had dreams too for me, my wife, my kids. I will not say I achieved each of them but I did achieve some I planned and some I never planned, too!  In these 79 years of life, what I have learnt is that my anger never did any good to me,my health or my family. My ego, not talking to somebody for years did no good to me until one day I got the news of somebody I stopped talk to being dead and now my ego stood nowhere to be seen. My greed never let me sleep peacefully until my kids went out to settle down somewhere else and my wife left for heavenly abode and that was when my greed came to rest, it was no use then! I was jealous of my friends having their ambassador cars almost 35 years back until I realized having an ambassador and a luxurious life did not let them live longer than me walking, cycling and lately riding a scooter to work every single day! Having dreams makes life interesting as we have things to look forward to, goals to achieve but we often, let our 'dreams take toll over our lives' rather than 'living' our dreams. Having a dream that makes you happy is worth but having a dream that inculcates in you anger, hatred, ego, frustration, kills the child within you is not worth having! I am happy I have learnt these things in life, I'm not jealous anymore, I try talking to everybody even if they don’t,  things do upset me, but I try controlling my anger, haven't totally won over that yet! Only if I knew all these things a few decades back, life would have been more wonderful and great, but yes, better late than never. I'm trying to be a kid again, a child that knows nothing but love and happiness for all!"

 I guess I have come to this realization a little late, or maybe, too late, but I finally did. Have you ever thought why is it always said that old age is equal to another childhood! Old people are always compared to children. Whoever has lived with a family or in and around a neighborhood that has children and old people sharing the same area will know what am talking about.

When a child is born, all he knows is, to laugh or cry, he doesn't know anger, jealousy, ego, greed or hatred. He just has two reactions to every situation, either crying on seeing someone or on something or laughing and smiling on seeing something or someone. As we grow up, along the way,we catch anger, ego holds us, and greed for something or the other surrounds us. Children are often marked as  GOD!  Like  him,  kids do not know what jealousy is, what hatred and anger is!  All they know is love and happiness!

When we age, slowly and gradually we develop within us these new emotions. When we are kids and we don’t see things that we want coming to us, we become sad but, as we grow up that sadness is replaced by anger and frustration. As kids our greed includes chocolates, our parents loving just us more and more and not other kids, not even our siblings, but growing up we shift our greed in search of things we don’t have even if it means sacrificing what we already have. Ego? Nah! They don’t even know if this word exists! A short, "I don’t want to play with you" for a few minutes have been replaced by hatred, sometime life long hatred!

Then comes the old age, the age where have lived completely, from being kids, to young adults, to responsible family people and to life after retirement. This age, where people are old enough to spend their remaining lives in bed and young enough to play around with their grandchildren. There's no jealously seeing other young people thrive because they've already lived their lives, they want their surroundings to be happy and prospering and most importantly peaceful. They’ve to be taken care of, like a child. The only difference being they depend on their kids like the kids depend on their parents. They've had utmost experience of their lives and so they try concluding their lives being like a child again.

One major difference between kids and old people is that kids behave the way they behave without having any reason to, they're born with those traits and the people who have lived all their lives, the old people adopt these back into their lives because they've experience life, because now they know hatred, ego, anger, jealousy will never lead them anywhere. We as kids are the real us. 

Armed Forces: Our Life-Lines

Saw a documentary today that showed what lives of soldiers is like on the Siachen glacier. I have always been hearing of the army at the Siachen glacier. The temperature, the extreme living conditions, the atmosphere, the snow, but never did I feel what I actually felt today after watching the documentary. Sitting far away from the borders inside our small houses, sleeping peacefully, enjoy, partying and foremost getting time to spend with our loved ones, never can we actually feel how people far away at the borders, out in the oceans, up in the air in the air-force planes, on those uneven cross country borders or on the -50 degree Celsius  Siachen glacier live like.

 Endangering our own lives for others, for those whom we don’t even know is the most selfless deed that not everybody can do. In a world where today, everybody works for their own benefit, their own purpose, people don’t even have enough time for their own families, finding people who take care of families of whole country, who probably doesn't even know any one of them is always worth thanking for.

Army troops that go to Siachen spend 3 months on the glacier with no hot food served, no contact with families, seeing nothing else but snow all around and a few others of their troop members. When they go up there they're fit and fine, but when they return, their health deteriorates, weight loss, skin color darkens, bodies are tired, these are the people who affect their selves for people like us, but do we even bother? Do we even take a single minute to thank them, to let them know what they mean to us, to this country, to this land!

When a child dies falling into a bore-well, the central government, the state government declare help money for them in lacs, but does that happen when a soldier dies? Their families are left vulnerable. We win a cricket match, match fees given are in lacs and crores, and what about those who won our country, who let us all sleep peacefully every-night? About them, who don’t think about their own parents but also for every parents that our country has, not about their own brothers or sisters but for every boy and the girl that resides here!

I bet, thousands of us have the same questions, same solutions, but we have failed to make a change. We are busy fighting for women to get permission to enter the mosques, fighting over the degrees of our VIPs, and all such less important issues. We often keep our thoughts, our questions and our answers to ourselves thinking sharing it would mean making fun of ourselves or thinking as if one person will not be able to make any change. But, if we all stand together for our own people in the army wouldn’t it lead to a change, may be not too big, but at least a little bit, because something is always better than nothing!

Two Decades Of Life And Counting (3/3)

Class 10 at 15 called for a personal mobile phone,

Messaging packs with 3k messages a month were newly shown!

Waiting for a reply for several minutes and sometime even hours,

Board exams came and went by quick,

Someone old, yet very new was introduced in her life's leaflet!

A new bond she began to share,

That included love, best-friendship, possessiveness and care!

Began with departure of best-friend to another school,

Sad, unhappy, she felt alone,

But the bond they shared was much more stronger it seemed,

When her best friend came back to the same old school and together they wept!

Sweet 16 birthday bash was celebrated in the United States,

Far away from home as a junior in high school with new mates!

Skyping with family and best friend became a routine,

International calling was done as if local  town calling!

Homecoming after half a year was a grand affair,

Thousands of new things to talk upon and share,

Family's love, mom made food and best-friends reunited

Year 17 and class 12 were spent in bliss with the people she loved!

A one week tour for full class was arranged,

This last year of being together was captured in clicks!

Mixed emotions of leaving those,

With whom you’ve spend major time of life,

But a forever promise to keep all the promises made ,

Straight from the heart everybody with tears laid!

Birthday 18th had put a beautiful necklace around,

Far flung from another country to a small town.

Moving out for studies, and life of hostel were not that easy,

Getting a girl as best companion made her journey cozy.

Unlimited fun, regular studies and day out with friends ,

Major missing of best friend made her busy on calls and whatsapp trends.

The new city welcomed her with two road accidents,

Which again put her and two friends on bed with broken legs and bands.

Year 19 had a complete different story to tell,

Several years long Relationship fell apart,

Career paced up real slow,

This  all was something less I guess,

Another accident, collapsed her in bed for half a year, indeed a bad one thou!

She cried, she fell apart, went into depression,

Those she needed forever the most,

No longer were there to even ask how she is ,

In her highs or lows!

But God does it all,

He has sent some amazing ones  to her life this time,

Without whose support it wasn’t possible for her to live or survive.

Her parents' support helped her regain her willpower,

To stand once again, to dream once again and try to fall again never!

Year 20th of life, twenty-sixteen,

was the beginning of a new decade of her life,

with memories to cherish,

with wounds to heal,

with dreams to pursue,

with goals to achieve!

To all that has already been,

To all that will ever be,

She will stand up and fight back,

Because,

God is always there to show you the way when you fall!