The other day I was in an old age home. Nowadays, they call them “assisted living places”, because when children are not there to assist their parents, they have to find places, where they could be assisted by others.

At a time, when the world has become the market place, I am not against assisted homes and assisted living ,as many times parents do not want to live in alien countries and at other times ,children do not have the space or resources, to have parents or elders with them.

Recently, I visited a friend’s mother. She seemed very happy with her stay. She was happy with the clean environment, hygienic food, a lot of activities and festivals being celebrated for all religions ,along with the cohabitants.

These homes are professionally managed and take care of the elderly very well. I went around the place and found out that it was well designed and every detail ,was taken into account. Apart from lifts, dining halls, entertainment rooms, guest rooms, there was accessible wash rooms with supportive arm rests, wash basins, a well furnished kitchen and doctors and nurses on call.

My friend’s mother seemed very happy and even advised us ,to visit all the floors, to see and experience the facilities for ourselves. We went around all the floors and it was indeed impressive.

But, when we left her flat, she told us that everything was good except when recently some of her neighbours fell sick, they were rushed to the hospital by the staff but when they died ,their bodies were donated to medical colleges for research. When we enquired, if they did not have any kids or relatives, she hesitatingly said ,that nobody visited them when they fell sick and hence the elderly, had given prior consent for their bodies ,to be donated to medical colleges.

My eyes were moist and I could not believe ,what I just heard. Life has become such. We do not have time to visit the elders in our family – it could be parents, grandparents, uncles or aunts. Today, we may not be living in the same city or country and hence they are forced to live in assisted living. But, imagine not visiting your parents when they are sick and not even being there ,to do their final rites when they die.

Although, I was aghast at what I came to know today, I was not totally taken aback. In every aspect of our lives, we do not have time to do the basic things in life. We do not have time to take care of our own health. then how on earth ,can we take care of others’ health.

In the past, if anyone in our neighbourhood fell sick, every neighbour, friend and relative would visit them and take care of them. Today, we are not even aware of ,who our neighbours are ! How can one expect anyone to take care of us, when we do not bother about others ?

We may need to look ,deep within. We need to realise that we will not remain young and youthful ,for the rest of our lives. The day we get old, our children may do the same ,of what we are doing to our elders. May be our kids could be more alienated, than we are.

It may be time ,to set the clock back and reset our lives.

S Ramesh Shankar

21st April 2024

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