A friend send me the following quote today :

“Life is ironic. It takes sadness to know what happiness is, noise to appreciate silence, and absence to value presence.”

I found it very insightful and recollected many life instances, which I could recall. Let me share three incidents of my own life, which made me realise the value of this quote in real life.

The first incident was when I started my career in 1981. I joined a leading public sector for my first job. Within a year of my starting my career, I lost my mother to a heart disease called tachycardia. I was 23 and she was just 54. Within two years, I lost my father at the age of 25 due to a kidney failure. This shattered my life and I was drowned in grief.

After a year, I recovered from the shock and my career took off. I was blessed with a daughter and a son within 5 years of my marriage and was happy both at career and in life. The sadness of losing both my parents at a young age made me realise the value of family – spouse, children and siblings and I am ever grateful for that.

I understood that God makes you realise the value of happiness through your ability to deal with grief in life and bounce back. Sometimes we are told ,that we cannot value joy unless you have experienced sorrow.

All through my career I lived in metros or towns ,around the country. I got used to the noise all around me. Whether it was the traffic around us or the chit chat of people living or working around. One day I visited a hill resort and lived in a room facing the forest. The only sound I could hear was that of the birds chirping or the leaves of the trees, fluttering in the wind. Similarly on another occasion, I lived on a river bank for a few days. I could hear the sound of the river and the aquatic animals.

We get so used to the noise around us, in the cities ,that we are not privileged to hear ,the sounds of nature. Thus our mind and heart is polluted with the noise around us ,rather than listening to the inner voice within us. We need to experience noise ,to understand the true value of silence.

Another realisation through my life experiences is that ,we do not value people who are around us, all the time. When we lose some people, we realise their value and start missing them ,in our lives. In my case, it could be my parents, whom I lost at an early age and I miss them all the time ,since I lost them early. However, there could be many ,who do not value the presence of parents or siblings, because they are around. The day they leave this world ,they may possibly value them more.

The question to ask ourselves is ,why do we not value people, when they are around. What makes us miss people, when they are no more with us.

Every incident in our life is a great learning. If we are willing to learn from our mistakes, life could be more valuable and insightful to us.

Let the journey of self discovery begin today.

S Ramesh Shankar

6th March 2024.

Life is like a broken glass, when some incidents in your life shatter your basic ethos of life. You may have worked hard and achieved a reasonable success in life and work. But all that gets destroyed in seconds with some such incidents. I would like to share three such incidents I have witnessed and how to deal with them and bounce back.

The first incident was when a close family friend of many years suddenly stopped talking to us ,for no understandable reason. They neither had a fight with us nor informed us ,why they did so. We grew up together and would visit each other and were almost like one family. Then suddenly ,one day ,they stopped talking to us and did not want us to visit them too.

Although this incident shook us apart and made us wonder what could have happened, the mystery remains till date. While we never understood the root causes, we bounced back believing that we did not do any wrong and hence we could consider it ,as a bad dream. Every human, who makes a mistake knows to herself or himself. Our conscience does not lie to anyone. Hence, this realisation of self belief made us bounce back.

One also realises that beyond a point ,there is no reason to wonder what happened. What happened is a reality of life and one has to live and deal with it. One could ask oneself ,if we have done anything wrong. If yes, seek forgiveness for our wrongs. If not, forget the incident and learn to move on in life. Our conscience will never lie.

The second incident was during my work days. I had a colleague at work, who was an affable human being. She was full of empathy and always there to help others in every possible way. However, she got posted in a role, which did not suit her best and hence could not deliver. As the leader in the team, it was my responsibility to bail her out of this role and find an alternate role, which suited her strengths. I did that and was happy ,she started doing well in this new role.

When this person got moved from one role to the other, she told some of her colleagues and friends ,that I had not supported her enough. On the contrary, I even saved her job as she was in the firing line ,by some of her seniors. I visited her city recently and wanted to have a cup of tea but she did not even want to meet me. I was shocked but realised that I had done my duty and may be something else ,has upset her. I need to forgive her and move on as she is still a good human being, whom I respect a lot.

The third incident was when I read about a leading business man in some country ,asking his father to leave his house. I saw a video of the father, who was narrating of how he built his business and handed over to his son. However, after the son took control of the business, he possibly thought that the father is more of a liability than an asset and wanted to separate from him. I was perplexed as to how a son could do this to his father. However, not being privy to what went wrong, I did not want to comment or wonder about this incident. However, later I came to know that the spouse of this business man ( son) had sought divorce and also wanted to leave him for the nature of her husband. This made me realise ,that life comes a full circle. We reap what we sow. If we sow love, we reap love. But, if we spread hatred, we get back hatred in a different form. In Hinduism, we call this “Karma”. What goes around, comes around. Knowingly or unknowingly if we do good deeds, there is no way we will not benefit from the good deeds of others.

Life is a mystery. There could be days, when the sun will shine brightly but there could be other days, when the sun will never rise and the mood could turn gloomy. We have to live waiting for the sun to rise again in our lives.

We have to accept life with both sugar and salt with equal measure.

S Ramesh Shankar

13th March 2024

I am a born optimist. I always feel our future and the future of our children is bright. We live in an era, where technology is galloping ahead every day. Artificial intelligence is challenging human intelligence every day of our lives.

Let us start with education. The scope of education is limitless today. We have moved much beyond the classical education system. There are multi- disciplinary approaches in every step of the education system.

The schools have multiple approaches to educating a child. The use of technology in education, is enhancing the learning abilities of children. Education is cutting across boundaries of nations and universities. educations institutions are truly turning global, to learn and share their latest research and teaching methods.

If we move to the life of children within homes, it has also developed in a multi dimensional way. Today ,children have access to information and technology ,at their fingertips. They need not walk out of their home, to know the best school across the world ,for any field of education.

Similarly if we take the field of sports, the world is the playground for children. Kids have access ,to the best training and coaches ,across the world. They can learn and train from any part of the world and practise anywhere as per their choice.

If we move to arts, theatre and films, technology has shrunk the time taken to make movies. Today ,kids can learn to make videos and films even on mobile phone and many successful films, have been launched. Access to art museums across the world ,is at the click of a button.

The one area I may be a bit concerned ,is the area of social institutions. The concept of “marriage” and “family” as social institutions ,are breaking down and hence children may not have the social net around them ,to guide and support them in times of crises or need. However, I may be wrong in my assumption and may be other social institutions may take over this role of parents and siblings.

As parents and teachers we need to ensure that children do not become overtly competitive and ambitious, which treads on the sensitive line of human relationships between peers. It is best to compete with oneself rather than with others. We need to inculcate this human value continuously, in our children. This could also result in disappointment where parents and teachers can play a role ,to channelise their ambitions and goals ,in their areas of strength rather than weaknesses, so that they succeed.

The average intelligence of the child today , is multiple fold of the past generations. The learning ability and also the ability to adapt and change ,is also much better than ,what we had experienced in our childhood.

While technology will definitely take us to a brighter tomorrow, we need to guard and ensure ,that the basic human values are instilled on the child. These could be as simple as respect, gratitude, contentment and so on. These values need to instilled by schools and parents, with equal partnership.

We also need to evolve a social and political system in society, which embraces human values and promotes them. If we end up in a highly competitive world ,where human value diminishes, then that may not be the best future for our children.

I see a bright future for our children , and responsibility to create the future ,lies on us. We need to imbibe the best of technology and embed them, with the best of human values, for a happier world tomorrow.

Let us create a future for our children, which is better and happier than what we have today.

S Ramesh Shankar

5th Jan 2024