Category: Life & Living

Joy of living

IMG_1546 2

I experience joy by enjoying the little things of life. I love the smell of the wet mud after the first rains. I love the song of nature when the birds are chirping during my morning walk. I love watching through the window when travelling on a long distance train. I love looking at the moon and wondering as to how it travels with me as I am zipping past it in a super fast train.

Life is celebration of the “Joy of little things” for me. My day begins with listening to birds and enjoying the music of nature. Then I enjoy the cartoon in the morning newspaper where the creator conveys a great message even without uttering a word through his caricatures. I admire the commitment of my maid and driver, who report for duty day in and day out without any excuses.

Each little thing in life adds joy to my life. The lyrics of a song fascinates me and make me glide in imagination. The sound of the sea waves in front of my house reminds me of the ups and downs of life. It makes me realise how the stones on the shore weather all the storm and still are ever willing to face the next wave. I admire the hard working fishermen who set to sail before dawn to end the day with no catch but yet try again the very next day.

The potter whom I met in a village taught me many lessons on contentment in life. You need not be rich to be happy in life. On the contrary, wealth can neither guarantee good health nor happiness in life. The village folk teach us to be in touch with nature and be grateful. We get greedy with the materialistic world and our greed invariably exceeds our needs and thus creates a lot of unnecessary frustration in our lives.

Watching the sun rise and the sunset gives me joy. I can spend hours watching the sun set and birds return to their nests. The art in the clouds during the twilight hour is to be seen to be believed. Every day is a new pattern and no designer or artist in the world can ever imagine it. I wonder how the stars twinkle in the night sky. It looks like a black carpet with diamonds sparkling on it.

I can spend a whole day watching children play in a park. I am amazed at the way they fight and then within minutes resolve their conflicts. They are willing to play and interact with other kids of different age groups. They do not look at caste, creed or social status while playing with each other. I wonder why human being lose all these wonderful qualities when we grow into an adult.

I love the mountains too. Trekking on a snow clad mountain can be breath taking, literally. However, when you reach the peak, you feel as if you are on the top of the Himalayas. The generosity of the people living in the hills melts your heart. They treat you as their guests in their homes when you go past their tenements. This phenomenon is rarely seen in urban communities.

Enjoying a swing in a hammock may be a small thing but gives joy to my spouse as in the photo above.

I also love to listen to music. I can spend hours together listening to jazz, ghazals or light instrumental music. Interestingly I write most of my blogs while I am in a flight listening to music using headphones. It transcends me to a different world and words flow through my keyboard like water gushing through the river. I sometimes wonder how these thoughts deep inside me find expression in words.

All these little things give joy to my life. How about you ?

S Ramesh Shankar

Quest for life and living…

IMG_4512 2

All of us may have learnt scientific inquiry as part of our school education. Most of us give up this spirit of inquiry as we transcend from childhood to adulthood. Very few of us have this spirit as a way of life. My sister’s husband was one such being. One can understand this spirit since he was a scientist in the Indian space research organisation for almost four decades.

Today I started my workday with a meeting as usual. I had kept my mobile phone in the silent mode. However I realised that some of my close relatives were continuously trying to reach me. When I sensed there could be an emergency, I interrupted the meeting and picked up the phone. It was indeed one of the saddest day of my life. I was informed that my brother in law had passed away. His name was K Natarajan and had served the Indian Space Research Organisation as a scientist.

He had got up in the morning and had gone to the rest room. When he did not return in reasonable time, his family members knocked the bathroom door. When he still did not respond, they broke open the door and called the doctor. The doctor examined and gave the sad news within minutes. He had died out of a massive heart attack while he was in the rest room.

This may be a very peaceful way to leave Mother Earth for himself. But, I could not imagine the fate of my sister, who was waiting outside with a cup of hot coffee for him to return. I could not imagine how one could wipe the tears of his mother, who is 94 and was staying with him. Life has its way of shocking us. We are rattled out of our normal being. We realise that life can change for any of us within minutes or even seconds.

I would say I was lucky. I had been to Trivandrum only last week for our leadership offsite. I spent a night with my sister and her family. I had spent hours discussing with him on various issues from politics, sports to spirituality. I have seen him from my childhood and have always admired his spirit of inquiry. He always explored knowledge and knowing about life and living.

He was a brilliant student and had an illustrious career in the Indian space research organisation in the field of electro optics. One could spend hours with him discussing on any subject. Apart from being well read, he was open to respect alternate view points and always stood by his views on all issues. I always admired his hand writing. It was almost like engraving in gold. I wish could I could have inherited his beautiful handwriting.

Another invaluable learning from him was his respect for elders and service to them. I still remember how he used to stay with my grandmother and take care of her when he was a student and took all opportunities to learn from her wisdom. He was very comfortable in interacting with people of all ages and used all mediums to interact. Today my son told me how he used to be the first to comment on his facebook posts and even wished him in German whenever he visited Germany for official work.

He took care of his mother right through his life. I had recently visited them and realised how blessed he was to be able to take care of his mother in her nineties. I did not know that today I would write his obituary in front of his mother, who is 94. Life teaches you many lessons the hard way. I cannot imagine how a mother in her nineties will feel losing her son in front her own eyes. I dread to think how my sister will lead the rest of her life without her life partner.

The photo above is symbolic of his family bonding and care.

I commit to live the spirit of inquiry and take care of elders to the best of my ability in life . This can be the only way I can pass on my tribute to him.

S Ramesh Shankar

22nd November 2017

The journey is as important as the destination

Today our scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation almost made a landing on the moon after valiant efforts. The mission may have partly failed to land on the moon although the orbiter is encircling the moon and will give invaluable data to our scientists to explore further.

While the nation was watching the entire episode through the night on national television channels there was a sigh of despair amongst the mission team when the object failed to land on the moon. It was kind of the Prime minister of the country to watch this live and then go and address all the scientists the next morning to keep their spirits high.

One of the statements made by the prime minister of India was “The journey is as important as the destination”. It was a great insight for me personally. Many a time in our lives when we fail, we tend to focus on the failure which is the destination and forget the learnings through the journey.

Our wonderful space scientists would have worked for decades to achieve this impossible mission. They would have learnt a lot of valuable lessons through this journey. Hence, it is important for us to celebrate the journey as much as the destination.

It is true for scientists, sportspersons and even the common women and men like us. We need to enjoy our journeys as much as keeping the focus on our destination. It is like someone undertaking a trip to a beautiful hill station and keeping their eyes closed through the journey in a train waiting for the hill station to arrive. Imagine what all beautiful sceneries one would missed if one were to do that.

If we take any company in the world and even the most successful ones, they would never have achieved success unless they enjoyed their journey and celebrated all along their way to success. It is important to remember for every successful product in the market, there would be hundreds of products which would have failed and never hit the market before.

Life is no different. We need to keep our focus on our life goals. However, it is important to learn throughout the journey of life and celebrate each milestone on the way. If we do not do that, we may stop learning and that can be our biggest failure.

Another important lesson learnt today from the ISRO experience is the role of a leader. The leader should be with the team more during failure than during success. It is the inspiration of the leader during failures that makes a team succeed again and again.

Our best wishes to our Indian Space Research Organisation scientists and every Indian is proud of their accomplishments today. We are one of those pioneers in space research in the world only because of them. Let us salute them. I dedicate this blog to my brother in law was a scientist with ISRO for four decades.

S Ramesh Shankar

7th September 2019