The world is hit by a virus. The best of technology and human power is not able to combat this deadly virus. Human lives are being lost every day in thousands around the world due the impact of this virus. What lessons we can learn from this human catastrophe.

I decided that every day I will reflect on one limitation of myself and explore how I can change for the better in the future. Today, I will focus on the innumerable human beings who serve us from morning to night. Do we treat them as humans on equal footing like us or do we still continue to live in our glass houses ?

The outbreak of this virus taught us a lesson that social distancing is applicable for everyone. This virus does not discriminate based on nationality, caste, religion or state you belong to. It randomly impacts people who violate the guidance given by the medical professionals and the government authorities.

On the other hand, we as human continue to discriminate based on caste, religion, social status and nationality. Today let me go through a day in our lives and help us reflect on how many people impact our lives positively sacrificing their own welfare for the societal good.

Our day starts with the morning newspaper boy. He may be working beyond his education hours to earn that extra buck to support his family. We say let us stop the newspaper boy because he may spread the virus. Then the milkman. Imagine the milkman stopping supplies as he is worried about spread of the virus. Our day will begin on a sour note.

We stopped the maids, drivers and Gardners in our community when the lockdown began yesterday. There was a big hue and cry. The members felt that they could not survive without maids for a day. They wanted the maids to sanitise a million times a day but were least concerned about the maids getting impacted by the same virus. We have become so self centred that we want all services possible under the sun but we are least concerned about the health and welfare of maids, drivers and Gardners. As if, they are not human beings like any of us.

We want the sanitary workers to visit us everyday to collect the wet waste. We cannot find an organic way to compost the waste for a few days in a garden or even a pot inside the house. We may get impacted by wet waste inside the house but the sanitary workers are fully immune to all such infections.

Our lives are incomplete without cooks. How can we imagine cooking our own food or cutting our own vegetables ? How does it impact us if cooks are travelling in crowded buses and trains to help us out in our homes. After all it is their duty to serve us and not ours to care for them.

The list can go on. We have our security guards in our campuses who are working 24 x 7. We have municipal employees serving us. We have the utility employees, the police and most important the medical and health workers working round the clock to keep us safe and healthy. What are we doing in return ? In some communities, we are ostracising medical personnel and airlines staff as if they are coming back home only to spread the virus to us. We do not realise that they are putting their lives on the line to serve us day and night.

We as humans have to learn to be grateful to other human beings every day of our lives. No job is menial. No human is high or low. Everyone contributes to the happiness of mankind. We realise only when we pick up the brooms as to how difficult it is to clean the garden in front of our homes. If we put the wet waste in compost bins, we realise how much these workers sacrifice to keep our environs clean.

It is time to look within and change. Let us commit to treat every human being around us as human beings and respect whatever they do and be grateful to them.

S Ramesh Shankar

25th March 2020

The choice to be happy or unhappy every day in our life is in our hands. It depends on how we exercise this choice. Every day of our life, we have choices to make and this determines if we are happy or otherwise. Every situation in life has two sides. It is like looking at the glass half empty or half full. If we look at life as a half full glass, it makes us happy every day. On the other hand, if we keep worrying about the half empty glass, then life is treacherous leave alone being unhappy.

How do we be happy at all times ? It may not be practical to be happy at all times of your life. But the day we realise that we have a choice in everything we do every day, we may live happily. If we succeed in any effort, we are bound to feel good. On the other hand failure of any type makes us sad. When we fail, we have a choice to sob or reflect and learn from our mistakes.

It is like after running 40 kilometres if we are not able to complete a full marathon of 42 kilometres, we have a choice to curse ourselves for not completing the last two kilometres or pat ourselves on the back for completing 40 kilometres successfully and preparing earnestly for the next marathon to be a winner. So, in every situation we can regret and feel sad or rejoice whatever we could achieve and resolve to attain higher goals in the future.

Life is no different. Every day, God gives us the ability to make a choice. We can get up in the morning and be grateful for all the wonderful things he has blessed us with. On the other hand, we also have the option to curse ourselves and feel bad as we are not as wealthy as our neighbours or our siblings. In every situation, the choice we make, makes us happy or unhappy.

Happiness in my view is a state of mind. It is an attitude to life. I have met people who earn just enough to meet their daily needs every day but are always happy and willing to help others in all ways they can. On the other hand, I have met senior managers in organisations who earn enough for their next birth too but are never happy with their salary or quality of life. The day we realise that we can buy material things through money but can never buy happiness from any shop, we may have changed our attitude to life.

I am a born optimist and luckily for me my spouse is equally a contended person. We have been happily married for more than three decades and have gone through all the ups and downs of life. We have been happy when our monthly salary was just enough to meet both our ends or today when we are blessed with enough for our future. We realised as in the photo above that living life as if tomorrow does not exist is one key to happiness. Another mutual learning is to ensure that our greed never exceeds our need. Our third mantra to happiness has been to live within our means. We have never lived on credit and have always tried to be be debt free throughout our life( except for house, car or medical emergency loans taken at some stages of life)

So, we have a choice to make. The date and time to make the choice is every day and every minute. If we wait for the auspicious day to be happy, it may never arrive. It is better to live every day as if today has been the best in your life. If something goes wrong, it is better to hope that tomorrow will be a better day rather than brooding over yesterday and spoiling our future.

Let us start now. Be happy forever.

S Ramesh Shankar

We feel connected to people and things around us. This feeling of connectedness is to be experienced to be believed. I have met people during my travels whom I may not meet again in my life. I may not have spoken a word with them during my journey in a flight or train. We may have just spoken to each other through our eyes but the connections are strong.

This happens with both people and things. I have sometimes looked at a beautiful piece of art in someone’s home and got connected to it. It could be a statue of Buddha or a fountain and you feel as if there is some connection between you and the object. I have not found any rational in such connectedness. But the feelings and emotions within you are stirred and you feel strongly about it.

I was recently siting in an airport lounge and two people came to me and asked me if I was so and so. When I told them I was not that person, they could not believe it. They felt that they have met me somewhere and know me very well. Similar incidents have also happened with my spouse, who mostly travels with me in all my personal travels. Some people say that there are seven people in the world who look similar. This may also be just a belief and I have not found any scientific basis for the same.

I was in a yoga class in Lonavala and had a similar feeling of connectedness towards my teacher. When I told her she said she also experienced the same and I resembled one of her uncles. This may look strange but it is true. I am not sure if we start imagining someone known to us when we go through such experiences. It could be gut. It could be stored memories of past experiences. I am not bothered about the source of such feelings. I believe such feelings are beautiful and one has to experience them to appreciate them.

I was once in an alumni meet of my college mates in Pondicherry. I felt connected to a Buddha statue in brass. I went round and round and then after a bit of negotiations could not desist from buying the statute. It is still in my home and every time I see it I feel a sense of serenity. This feeling is shared by my spouse and my sister and her son. It is strange but it is true. Why do we need to justify all our feelings or behaviour ? It may be fun to just experience such feelings and enjoy it as it happens to you.

I once met a co traveller in Switzerland. Both of us were climbing the Jungfraw on a holiday. We had never met before nor have we met after that. But the way we connected with each other was amazing. It looked as if I knew her for ages and we were childhood friends. We felt secure in each other’s company and enjoyed our journey together. We have been connected on social media but not much exchange after that incident.

Every incident of this nature makes me believe that there is an emotional connection between us and the people and things around us. Some people attract us like magnets and encourage them to connect with them. There could be others who get attracted to others in a similar way. We get attached to things around us too and sometimes even feel like talking to them. I have seen people talking to statutes of God as if they they respond to human emotions.

Both me and my wife feel connected to nature. Amidst nature, we get immersed in thoughts and emotions as in the photo above.

Life is an exciting journey and every such incident adds mystery to our lives. I enjoy discovering the mysteries of life everyday. Every person I meet and interact give me an opportunity to learn and grow. Every incident of connecting with people and things makes me believe of the possibilities of life. We need to live on hope and belief. If we believe life is full of possibilities it becomes one.

Let us makes the best of life.

S Ramesh Shankar