I was watching a Kannada movie, where the heroine tells her hubby that he could have taken up a job offer to work abroad and that may have helped him to take care of his old mother and ailing uncle. The hero responds that caring is about taking your mother to the temple and spending quality time with your ailing uncle. It cannot be compensated by money. It really struck a chord with me.

Many of us may be thinking that we can provide anything to anyone with money. We do not realise that money cannot buy everything in life. Money cannot buy time for us. Money cannot get us happiness. Money cannot ensure good health for us.

Our parents sacrifice everything they can so that they give us the best of education and health. They hide their miseries to keep us happy. They ensure that we are not burdened by their life struggles and get bogged down in our education or our career.

So, when we are done with our education and our career, it is time for us to care for them. Interestingly many of us may think that if we provide enough financial support, we are fulfilling our duties towards our parents or elders. It may not be fully true. While money can buy material things in life, it can never substitute for emotions and care which the elderly long for.

The other day someone was narrating to me an incident of how his uncle repeats the same story again and again every time he meets him. He just listens to him and that gives him joy. We may not realise that we as kids may have asked our parents stupid questions or even repeated the same thing again and again till our curiosity was quenched. Our parents, teachers and elders never lost their patience to answer all our inquisitive questions. Today it is our turn. Paying back is the time we spend with the people we care.

Paying back cannot be done always with money. Expressing gratitude is not like repaying a bank loan. While a loan can be repaid and closed, expressing gratitude is timeless. The people who have helped us while we were walking up the mountain of our life may not wait for us when they are walking down their mountain of life.

Each of us will go through the same cycle of life. What we sow, we may reap in the future. If we are grateful to the people who helped us stand up in life without expecting anything in return, we may get support from unexpected quarters when we are slipping down the path of life. I have always believed that we need to be selfless in helping others and God will take care of us when we need it most.

Our ability to remember that relationships are not “transactional” is the key to life. Life is a zero sum game. Life is not always about repaying debts – financially or otherwise. Life is about unconditional gratitude to the people, who have made us what we are today. Life is about the realisation that what happens to someone today may happen to us in the future.

Life is about spreading joy in the life of others. If we can bring a smile to someone we care, we have made their day. This may not be possible always by spending money. It could be the time we spend their them. It could be by being there when they need us most. It could be doing something for them without their even knowing about it.

We need to remember that our parents did not do what they did for us expecting anything in return. The last thing they expect from us is money. The most important need is to realise that our needs go down as we age. We do not care for the material things in life. What we long for is quality of time, relationships, love and care.

As in the photo above, every time I spent quality time with my nonagenarian aunt, I have learnt more about life and living and understood the meaning of love and care. Her unconditional love and patience has always made me realise the value of sharing and giving without expecting anything in return.

Let us commit to look within. Life is cyclic and if we do not realise it today, it will make us realise when we are at the receiving end of life.

Time to realise is today.

S Ramesh Shankar

6th February 2022

I hail from a lower middle class family and have seen the trials and tribulations of life. As I grew up in a government employee’s sole income , we did not have the luxuries of life at home. No TV, fridge or car at home and we had to sleep on mats and on the floor. This financial condition of our family did not deter our spirits nor prevented us from getting the best education possible and the values, which have always kept us happy and contented in life.

After my education, when I started my career in a public sector undertaking far away from my home town, my income was minimal but the opportunities to learn were unlimited. It laid the foundation for my career and also gave me the knowledge, skills and attitude to craft my own career .

I then moved to private sector after almost a decade and a half and each of the organisations I worked for took me to different parts of the country and the world. Each city taught me life lessons in plenty and each country I visited widened my perspective.

My family supported all my decisions in my life. This made my children live and study across different cities in the country. They never cribbed or sulked. On the contrary, I would say that every movement made them more adaptable to change. Today I am confident that they will survive and thrive in every situation they face in life, where ever they live and work.

Marriage as an institution that brought balance to my life. My spouse has been my life long partner sharing my joy and sorrow with equal measure. She has gone through all the tests of life along with me without winking an eye lid and has enabled me to achieve whatever little I could in my life. I owe to her for what I have accomplished in my life and career so far.

Family as an institution has been the foundation of my life. Learning the basic values from my parents, I moved on to set up my own nuclear family. Having lost both my parents at a very young age, it compelled me to take responsibilities and moulded me into a mature person to deal with life in all its dimensions.

My children have equally supported my growth and development in my career. I have experienced the dislocation in education and its impact on your academics on your education. They have sportingly moved from city to city along with us without any complaints or any drop in their performance. Hats off to both my daughter and my son.

God has been kind to me and my family throughout my life. I knew the value of money at a very early stage of life. After thirty eight years of corporate life, when I retired I can say that I am fully self reliant on my financial well being today. However, I have been happy right through my life. I have got all that I wanted in my life and may be it is time to give back in equal measure now.

I have always believed that this world is such a beautiful place to live. Why do many of us spend most of our time crying about what we do not have in this world ? On the other hand, will life not be happier and joyous for us if we celebrate all that we have in the world. Many of us are so privileged that we have a place to live in, good food to eat and a happy family supported by friends and relatives.

Life is beautiful like the neelakurunji flowers blooming once in twelve years in the Coorg hills as in the photo above.

I feel it is time to change our attitude to life and living. It is time to celebrate every day of our lives for all that we have and not regret for some things we may not have. It is time to realise how privileged we are as compared to millions of other people, who struggle to get two square meals a day.

If we celebrate life and live happily, we create a beautiful world around us and realise how wonderful the world is. The day to start celebrating life and the world is today and the time to start is now.

S Ramesh Shankar

3rd February 2020

Most of us are born preachers. We love to give advice even before we are asked. This habit has been inherited from generations. I do not know whether it is in our genes or not but it is prevalent around the world in human beings.

One of the interesting insights I got from “Vidhurshastra”, a Hindu relic is “Never give advice to an adult, unless asked for”. I read it only a few years back and since then have tried my best to follow. Although, I must admit that I fail once in a while and go ahead giving free unsolicited advice.

I feel less annoyed at Preachers per se. The category of people who preach before they practise is the one I find amusing. I can narrate quite a few interesting anecdotes from my life where I have experienced this.

The first instance was I went for routine annual medical check up. I was found overweight by a few kgs for my age. The physician who examined me looked at my reports and enquired if I exercise everyday. I told her that I walk and do yoga every day. She said without blinking her eye that I need to exercise more to lose weight to maintain good health. She was technically right. But coming from a person who was atleast ten kgs overweight for her age was very amusing to me.

I have seen many parents advising their kids to refrain from smoking and drinking although they feel quite normal to smoke or drink daily in their lives. These preachers not only put off their followers but end up as hollow and nobody will be willing to listen to them. Their kids may have to listen to them till they grow into adolescents and then they would rebel as they see a wide gap between what they say and what they do.

I have seen social activists fighting for great social causes like anti dowry, domestic violence against women and treating servants humanly etc. However, if you peek into their own personal lives, we find they take dowry , consider domestic violence normal in their own homes and treat their servants inhumanly.

Children will always follow what you do rather than what you say. Its good to practise before you preach. If you wear a mask always, kids need not be told to do so. They will do it on their own as in the photo above.

This reminds of the next category of such phoney human beings. They are the so called religious leaders. They are present in almost all the religions. They preach abstinence and dignity of women and practise the other way. They exploit the emotional vulnerability of women and men and misuse their position of significance in society.

I do not want anyone to get me wrong. I am not against anyone giving advice to anyone. However, I feel it is unfair to give advise on anything unless we follow it before we give suggestions to others. If I do not follow something, I have no moral authority to give advise on the same to anyone – irrespective of whether someone seeks it or not.

My mantra in life is simple. Practise before you Preach.

 

S Ramesh Shankar

24th Jan 2020