Celebrating Life

Leisure is a poem by Welsh poet William Henry Davies. Among this set of seven beautiful rhyming couplets which linger in my mind since childhood are: What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. .... No time to turn at Beauty's glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance... The poet Davies hits the nail on the head with those immortal lines. He was talking about the rat race in which we live, then as now, as always. A rat race which leaves us with no time for unalloyed leisure, for pure pleasure. No time to soak in and absorb the simple joys of life. Of Nature. Which is the other name of Divinity. Time off is what, in fact, we also see all around us. Or, at least our last-gasp stressful need and ways to de-stress! People trying desperately to get off the world, this fast spinning world. People trying to go East, in search of peace, shanti. The path that leads to meditation and yoga. Which is nothing but an act of a few minutes of switching off, getting off the fast spinning world, to imbibe peace, serenity, shanti (peace). Most often, we don’t have any time for even that. How many times have we heard the next fellow say, “I have a crushing schedule and no matter how good I am in time management, at work and at home, I just don’t seem to be able to snatch any time for exercise, yoga or meditation! It is also true, as true as mother’s milk, that those who are really-really busy are the ones who are able to find time with ease for just what is important, nay critical, for their well being, for life. They are the ones who do find time, maybe just a few minutes, to do what they have to do. The all-important time to press the Pause button. And just stand and stare. Little do we realise that in this rat race where we are all just running like mad, we may come first. But we would still remain a rat. So we must learn to also cool off at the right time, to take it easy. And take life on a daily basis. Take life as it comes. Then, there will always be people with different mindsets. There are some who would rather retain a pessimistic approach towards life. Every now and then they will heave out a big sigh and say: “What’s the ultimate outcome?” A friend of mine had a teacher in school who loved to lament about life and found her happiness in her tears. More than a decade later, when this friend had left school, the teacher remained the same. Every time you asked her, “How’s life?” she would let out a sigh and say: “I will die soon.” Everyone knows with every passing second, all we are doing is inching inexorably towards death. Every single one of us mortals, along with birds, insects, animals and even plants. All we are doing from morning to night is marching towards death in slow motion, as it were. But is there any point in concentrating on what is imminent and inevitable? Why don’t we let life and death take their respective course? We have some brilliant examples of people with indestructible will power and the zeal to live, too. And thank God for that! There is a woman in another friend’s neighbourhood, whose husband committed suicide two years back; she lost her son-in-law in a road accident eight years back; and her only daughter is a schizophrenic and shares a rough relationship with her. What can she look forward to, you might ask. What she has is an indomitable spirit. She loves life, rejoices in the greatest gift that the Almighty has given us, and goes globetrotting every three months to explore new facets of life. You know, we don’t value what we have. But when it’s gone, we go into overdrive trying to retrieve it. There is hardly a person living who has not at least once in his/her lifetime had a death wish. And there is no person who in his/her deathbed has not wished that he/she lived longer. One thing I have always noticed is that whatever bad or ugly happens to us, we blame our life for it. But when the tables turn and we experience all the good things, we never care to thank our life and be grateful for it. It’s not always that life gives us lemons. There are occasional candies as well. It’s about how we handle the situation that forges the kind of human life that we make for ourselves. We spend our lives like hurriedly finished meals. And when the D Day comes and we look back, we realise we haven’t really ‘lived’ life; we have just ‘spent’ it. And, hence, it is very important that we savour life, enjoy all its tastes, bitter, sweet, salty, sour, tangy. You have to keep the faith. Life never disappoints you provided you keep your faith intact. And, yes, life does give you not just a second, but a third, fourth, and multiple chances to repair, reconnect, rebound and resurrect. It is we ourselves who fail to take the hint, grab the opportunity and get to work on it. What is life if we don’t understand its value? What is life if we don’t have a second to spare and think? What is this life if we miss out the little pleasures and moments of happiness that it offers us? We must remember that, “Life is just a short walk from the cradle to the grave, and it sure behoves us to be kind to one another along the way,” as Alice Childress so succinctly put it.