For most of us, what we see is life… but for few others, what they cannot see is life! Strange isn’t it?
It all started with the reading on the recent developments of ‘Point return’ and an argument which i read from one of my friend's blog that read as “How many of us know Rakhi Sawant? and How many of us know Vandana Gopikumar and Vaishnavi Jayakumar?. The duo co-founded The Banyan, a trust that works with homeless and mentally ill women.”
Luckily I knew both of them and their great work for the cause. It is an inspiring story if you want to know about ‘The Banyan’. It all started with the objective of helping one woman because there were no organizations that were ready to help that one woman. These two great hearts did it and they are doing it now in a bigger scale in Chennai. So it was for one life, these two accepted their life as a service for other lives. They chose their lives and it did not come to them?
And since I was the regular follower of the goodnewsindia.com which is managed single handedly by D V Sridharan, I was also following his new initiative of Point Return. The point is to return – is what he is trying to achieve. It is inspiring to read the developments and the challenges that are being faced by him in developing the agricultural land he is working on. And he is working alone. His primary objective is to restore a tiny corner of abandoned India into a sustainable resource for water, energy, food and cash. The first step he is working is on a 15 acre land which is located 100 km from Chennai. Readers of this post may want to visit these two websites for more details and get inspired. So Sridharan could chose his life?
As I was working tight with my busy schedule worrying about a lot of things which I did not wanted to but I was forced to, I got a call from one of my mentor. The whole discussion was good in terms of discussing about what actually is the driving factor for us to do something different. Also he used the term “electrifies” which was appropriate at that moment as we all are tired of routine work and to get the motivation, something should really electrify us. He was enquiring about our great Himalayan trip and we ended up with an objective to dedicate our lives to the Nature. I always get inspired to talk to him because he is the inspiring factor in my life to do something different as he is doing extraordinary things and achieving his goals one by one being physically challenged. I salute his spirits and I am sure he will do whatever he wants to do for the society.
My conversation with my mentor, the latest updates on point return, and the Banyan made me think a lot and gave me enough kick for the whole day. As I was thinking I did even share my thoughts with few of my good friends and I am sure even they would’ve thought about it in the same way. The thought which was lingering in my mind was do we have enough options to chose in life? Or are we taking the life the way it comes to us?
Well… I have the question unanswered yet. While this thought was lingering in my mind, I got to know that one of my good friend’s dad was no more and she was taken aback by the whole process. The one statement which came from her made me think a lot again was, she said “Life is not the same anymore”. So again my question was “Do you have any other choice?”
To add to the same, if that was the case, during our Himalayan trip, because of the Nature’s play, two people lost their lives. Did they have any choice? Having all the other team members with them they could not come out of what they encountered.
So life is to be taken the way it comes? Today morning while I was travelling to my office, one handsome gentleman got in to the bus at the residency road stop. I did not look at him properly as I was interestingly reading my economic times. But after a few seconds I heard a loud noise and as I looked at it, it was the stick of that gentleman. Yes! He was blind and he was struggling to get on to the seat. I was observing him as he got onto the seat and opened his physically challenged bus pass and with the great difficulty he showed that to the bus conductor. After settling down on the seat, he took out his comb and started combing his hair and cleaned his face with his hand key. He was comfortably sitting and listening to the FM in the bus. But I started feeling uncomfortable looking at the way he got ready, combed his hair just to make sure that he looks good to others. He must be around the age of 25-28 and he looked like any other handsome professional. So that is his life. Whether he chose to be that way or he just accepted the way it came to him. But hats-off to him for his brave act of moving around in the city of Bengaluru without any fear and like a normal human being.
That’s when I thought, for us, what we see is life and for him, what he cannot see is life. I realized that he can see what we cannot see and we cannot see what he can see. It is not about just seeing, it is visioning life. Sometimes I get nightmares thinking about my mom and her difficulties. But I have accepted it as she has accepted it the way it came to her. I just wish her to see my face at least once. But I know, she is seeing me every day and she has the vision for me and my life which is more than the sight.
Having accepting the life the way it comes to you, you tend to vision yourself around what you see or what you cannot see. Now to decide whether we are lucky having got to see things or unlucky having got to see things which we did not want to see is again a vision around us. Envisioning the hard facts around us and the plenty of opportunities for us to work and make the society livable is the biggest challenge again. We can say we may not be lucky because we are seeing and encountering such hard facts on a daily basis but we are lucky because some of us have chosen to work with the hard facts which can make a difference.
Now again my question to you is… how do you envision your life? Do you have options to chose? Or take it the way it comes to you? And either ways, what is the difference that you can make?
Srik
