Saturday, August 25, 2007

Jokes apart..

I often used to count myself unlucky for a variety of reasons…Am sure all of us had at some point thought that things happened pretty unfair for you...Maybe the bad appraisal you had...Maybe the crooked nose or balding hairline you have…Maybe a incompatible husband or wife…Our prejudices of how much life has been fair to us is decided on such mundane to relevant reasons.

How many times have we appreciated how lucky we are? I mean even being able to have three square meals everyday makes us a lot luckier than the poor man who has to rummage the garbage bins daily to fight his hunger pangs. How being half deaf is not a big deal when someone is there who cant see or hear anything at all…How you had parents who made sure you never went hungry ever when there were orphans who never got a chance to call someone Daddy or Mommy. It sounds cliché to say this .It is our nature never to appreciate how lucky we are…

There is so much misery in this world and I sometimes wonder when it all turns into a big catastrophy...Holocaust was long over 62 years back. But aren’t mini-holocausts happening every day around us. The west hates the Arabs...The upper castes hate the scheduled castes...the nationalist hate the commies…Indians hate the Pakistanis. The Americans hate the outsourced Indians...The world seems to running on hate.. Gandhi..Mother Teresa...They came...They tried. But we put their snaps on the walls and said...”You talk good...you rock…but c’mon you must be kidding...it doesn’t work that way”..

Our little life is juxtapositioned in this big hate vessel trying to gasp for the little joys which makes us happy. We don’t even manage that most of the time. The happiness that we seek in our own little ways. Listening to Mozart...Falling in love...Being loved...All is another jigsaw puzzle in the big scheme of things…

At times we miss that all these puzzles are what makes our life worthwhile. We miss the pieces sometimes and get frustrated. Sometimes everything falls in place and we are ecstatic...But then the point is finishing that puzzle coz that looks beautiful in the end…


Life is a like a Giant Ferris wheel. At times you are on the top and you feel like having conquered the world. Things look beautiful up there..The sky is vibrant blue..The wind is caressing your face. And you are on Cloud nine…But not long before you come down...The low ebbs in life happen…. There is pain...obstacles and chaos… But then it is like that wheel ...Hold strong when the wheel goes down. It is worth the exhilaration of going up again…

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

I keep telling people just the ferris wheel thing! only that i add 'atleast you are riding something' to the end :D

Alexis said...

Mathew turns philosophical !!!

But well written and a very valid point. I liked the part about Gandhi and Mother Teresa. Great post

silverine said...

I have seen people with more than their share of sorrows smile, while people with apparently no problems grumble. It is all in the way you look at life. It's all in your hands. Smile and the whole world smiles at you. Cry and you cry alone as the old saying goes. Ultimately it is you who makes the decision to call the glass half empty or half full. Good post. Wishing you a very Happy Onam :)

Mishmash ! said...

hmm...u re again into that philosophical mood :D Very well said!!We often forget to enjoy the lil pleasures of life.
Btw,A crooked nose or a balding hair line is deft'ly negligible ones but an incompatible spouse? really ??

Onaasamsakal :)

Shn

Abhi said...

Mathai'yude mattoru suvishesham! This one is pretty serious though! I liked the various examples you gave. Everyone is running around a lot of things which may provide him with happiness and pleasure for a short time. But no one goes after achieving eternal happiness. That's when the human race actually becomes involved in a race, a rat race for survival of the fittest.

Happy onam man!

N A R I YA L C H U T N E Y said...

:). Mathew . Seems you are having an Onam effect :). Time to touch base in Kerala.

"How many times have we appreciated how lucky we are? I mean even being able to have three square meals everyday makes us a lot luckier than the poor man who has to rummage the garbage bins daily to fight his hunger pangs. How being half deaf is not a big deal when someone is there who cant see or hear anything at all…How you had parents who made sure you never went hungry ever when there were orphans who never got a chance to call someone Daddy or Mommy. It sounds cliché to say this .It is our nature never to appreciate how lucky we are…" - We dont appreciate all this because everytime our benchmark is the people who are doing better than us. It is in our nature as you said.But as you said may be we should not forget to wnjoy those little things in life whether we are in the low ebbs or on a hightide . The journey to a high tide from low ebb is urely exhilirating and makes you realise that the road to success in life is always under construction :)

Lidia said...

Totally agree with you. I especially loved the jigsaw puzzle analogy at the end. Utterly quotable. It really is the little things that make things worthwhile - i usually find people make me happy. As many people there are that can bring you down - there is usually at least one person who has the power to pull you up!

A very interesting read!

-Amy

Dhanya said...

Can't agree with u more..Most of us forget to count our blessings n keep cribing about the little things that we miss n make ourselves feel miserable.. As Silverine rightly said it's just the way we look at life.. You can be happy if you choose to be happy :)

Anyway wishing you a wonderful Onam :)

mathew said...

@Sreejith
Yeah..thats a nice closer statement!

@Alexis
Thanks Alexis..

@Anjali
Yeah..perfectly summed it up..It is finally in our hands to see it right..
And a Happy onam to you too�

@Mishmash
Thanks a lot..
I said trivial to relevant reasons. I don�t consider it as a negligible reason..
And wishing you a great onam�

@Abhi
Hahaha�You want to get in the bad books of St Mathew..He would have spoofed at my blog..
And wishing you a great onam�
P.S the spell check say Oman for Onam!!;-p

@NC
Nope man..not in another 3-4 months.. ;-(
Yeah..our yardsticks get higher�yeah..but if we can ignore the benchmark things get better!!

@Tohou Lidia
Thanks.. yeah..but what if there is no one to pull u up..it is a fight of our own to pull ourselves up..

@Dhanya
Yeah..each person has his/her own sorrows..but then there is no time for cribbing over it..we have to pull the socks and move ahead..but lest unhappy times are a reminder of how good good times are�
And wishing you a great onam�

Rejil Krishnan said...

Mr cherry, food for thot...great ideas invited and greater feelings tickled .
The ferry wheel analogy....thot provoking yet poetic, sweet in style and tuff in reflection...well done cherian...
I'll have my onasadya thanking everyone for the bounties gifted.No more regrets.
Happy onam.

jac said...

Matt
Forget the wheel for a day.

My Onam wishes !!!

Seema said...

The sky is vibrant blue..The wind is caressing your face. And you are on Cloud nine...AHA POETRY OKE THODANGIYO ;) lol
Hold strong when the wheel goes down. It is worth the exhilaration of going up again…TRUE TO THE T !

mathew said...

@Regil
Thanks for dropping by.. :-P
Btw you don’t have keep saying Onasadya all the time.. :-(

@jac
wish you the same buddy!!

@Seema
No poetry for me.. ;-P
Thanks..

Anonymous said...

There was a time in my life i considered myself as the most unlucky person in this world. It was all bad things happening to me; a not so happening career, love life, home front, bank balance, health et al.

I was in Pune then, i was waiting for my cousin to get back from a shop, on the roadside and thinking of all my miseries and asking God "Why Me".

Then i noticed this bus which stopped a little ahead of the bus stop and people running to get into it. There was a physically handicapped man also among the people who ran towards the bus, but by the time he reached the bus took off. He then realised there was another bus which had stopped at the stop and he kinda ran back but again he missed it by the time he reached. He then patiently got onto the shelter and waited for the next bus.

It was like a jolt on my head. It was clearly a sign from God that I'm one of the most previliged ones in this world as i was sitting on my bike at that moment. And all my problems seemed insignificant.

Cuckoo said...

How beautifully you have said it !!

So many of us keep grumbling over nothing and so many among us keep smiling when they have nothing.

:))

Di said...

:) Finally someone gets wat Ive been advocating all along!! :P

Usha said...

:)
well said!