If you are surrounded by green all round you and it is serene inside, then what can you complain about in life ? I was enjoying the greenery of the environs around my home and serenity inside. Nature has its unique ways of cooling your senses and I felt it that way today.

This led me to think and reflect more on life and living. I realised that if we live a life of being “green” in every aspect of our lives and being “content” with what we have, will it not be wonderful. I realised it would be but wondered why is it so difficult.

If we have to lead a green life, we need to be sustainable in every action of ours. We should give back to environment a little more than what we take from nature. This would seem a tough challenge. Imagine the paper, water, fuel, power and other valuable resources we waste every day. We kill trees, ensuring drying up of rivers, power cuts and degradation of nature by use of fossil fuels in every way.

Imagine a life where we could have our own well for water needs, generate our own power using the sun, recycle and reuse resources thus creating no waste, how would life be. There would be no pollution. There would be no climate change and no shortage of water, power or any other resources needed by human kind. We will leave behind more for our future generations than we have inherited from our fore fathers.

Similarly I was wondering how life would be if all of us were content with what we have. Contentment is a state of mind more than a balance between wants and needs. When want exceeds needs, it becomes greed. This is possibly again easier said than practised.

Why do we get greedy even when most of our needs to live a happy life is fulfilled ? This may be because we live a life of comparisons. We accumulate wealth more for establishing or proving our status in society as compared to others than what we need to be happy. The day we live for our own happiness, we may live a life of contentment.

I may appear philosophical in my hypothesis. But, to be honest this is what most of us spend our life doing. We want to buy a second bigger car because our neighbour has one. We want to buy a second house since that’s a style statement we may want to make in social circles. We use more than one phone because we want to be seen with latest phone in the market as that it determines our social worth.

None of the above are impacting our daily needs in life. We can live only in one house. We can drive only one car at a time. We cannot improve our communication with others by having more than one mobile phone. By the time we realise that we are chasing an illusion, our health is impacted and we do not have the time to enjoy life anymore. So, the cycle continues.

One can experience both the green and the serene in the photo above.

It is time to pause and reflect. It is time to sit back and take stock. It is time to fulfil our needs and not our greed. It is time to live a sustainable life. Let us learn to contribute to the greenery around us by giving back to life more than we take from it. It is time to change our attitude to life and living.

Time to change is now.

S Ramesh Shankar

16th September 2018

Today morning I was meeting a guest at work in a common meeting room. I had booked it from 830 to 0900 hrs only. My meeting spilled over and the receptionist at our office promptly and politely reminded me to vacate the room as the participants for the next meeting were waiting.

I realised that I had over stepped my time and apologised for the same and vacated the room as requested. As we came out and sat in the lobby to conclude our meeting, the receptionist told us that we can continue and conclude our meeting in the same room. When I enquired what happened to the other meeting, she told me that she had arranged an alternate discussion room for them.

I wondered why it happened . On reflection, I realised that every day when I pass through the reception I wish them and return back their gleaming smile. I try to be polite to them always. So, today I realised that if I am nice to people around me, they always try to be nice to me.

It may appear a simple thing in life but difficult to practise. All of us want to be good to others all the time but the circumstances make us vulnerable many a time. Imagine you have parked your car in a no parking zone and on your return you see a cop placing a fine on you. What do we do – we say we were not aware that it was a no parking zone. We go further and justify stating we had parked only for a few minutes. In the end when fined, we lose our patience. Was it our fault of parking in a banned zone or the cop’s mistake of rightly fining us.

At work, we behave no different. We keep rescheduling meetings as per our convenience and changing priorities. When someone does not attend a meeting on a rescheduled date and time, we express our displeasure. We forget that we had rescheduled, postponed and advanced the same meeting five times to suit our convenience without checking on the convenience of our team members. We were not nice to our team members’ convenience but we expect them to be nice and adjust to our convenience all the time.

We expect our bosses to adjust when we fall sick all of a sudden. But when a similar things happens to any of our team members we preach the importance of maintaining good health and the criticality of work on those days when our colleague is sick.

We are equally belligerent at home. We do not bother to wish the security guards in our homes when we pass by them every day. On the contrary, we expect them to salute us and wish us every single time we pass through the main gate of our campus. Is this fair ? If we do not have the courtesy to treat security guards and our maids as human beings, can we expect them to treat us humanly ?

One of the drivers at my workplace who is a diabetic told me that one day his lunch break was delayed and he requested his boss for a 15 minutes break so that he could quickly have a bite. His boss not only denied him the break but also made him feel small by asking how he could ask for a break when he was so busy at work that day. His boss was possibly not even aware that his driver was a diabetic.

My learning in life is that if we expect our family, friends or colleagues to be nice to us, we need to learn to be nice to them. If we treat our servants, drivers, security guards etc humanely, they will reciprocate humanness with equal measure.

As in the photo above, our security staff took care of us 24×7 even beyond their call of duty since we treated them with respect.

Lets learn to be nice, if we want others to be nice to us.

S Ramesh Shankar

5th September 2018

The world is witnessing one of the worst tragedies ever seen in recent memory. This virus has spread to every nook and corner of the world and destroyed countries, communities and families.

While our scientists and medical fraternity are working day and night to save lives, they are limited by resources and limited knowledge of this deadly and evolving virus.

It is at such times, we as individuals, families, communities or nations need to spread hope and positivity. We need to remember that positivity is infectious and if we are able to spread it faster than the virus, the despair of people suffering can be minimised.

While we cannot compensate a family, who has lost a loved one, we can pray for them to withstand this tragedy in their lives. We can share stories of innumerable good samaritans working around the world to save lives.

Every day I read a positive story, my belief in humanity soars. I know of young volunteers helping individuals and families getting beds, ambulances, medicines etc. I read of actors driving ambulances to save lives. Today I read of bikers using their motorcycles as mobile ambulances to take patients to hospitals.

While we may have every right to criticise governments and those in administration for the lack of infrastructure or timely support, it may be more helpful at the current juncture to provide a lending hand to the already crumbling support systems.

The tragedy has spread far and wide. It has made life dark for many. In this situation, we have a choice – we can either light a candle in their lives or light a fire. It may be more appropriate to light a candle and kindle hope rather than fume despair.

We as individuals can support our own family or friends. We can volunteer in our community and spread positivity. This is enough. If each of us can take care of our family, friends and community, we may have done our bit.

It is time for us to salute them. It is time for us to be grateful for whatever they are doing within the limited resources available to them. Let us fight this virus together and wait for things to normalise before we fix the blame as to who is wrong and why.

We need to remember that the medical fraternity, the healthcare workers, the sanitary staff, municipal authorises and the bureaucrats running the administration, the ambulance drivers, the crematorium staff and innumerable others are working 24×7 only for us.

I would appeal to politicians also to sink their partisan differences and work as one team supporting and enabling each other to succeed. Let the experts and bureaucrats work independently and we need to ensure their success.

I would appeal to the media – both print and TV to share positive news first. I am not for one recommending that we need to hide facts or suppress news. Let the headlines be of heroines and heroes, who are saving lives of common men and women every day. Let the other news be on the back pages.

Last but not the least, I appeal to every individual to take responsibility for themselves. Let us spread positivity and hope among our family members, community and society.

Let us use social media responsibly and share news of hope, service and bravery. Let us appreciate the small deeds of unknown women and men around the world working round the clock to save lives in a global crisis like this.

As in the photo, it is time to light the lamp and spread hope.

I commit to spread positivity in every possible way. Will you please join me ?

S Ramesh Shankar

11th May 2021