Life Is Beautiful | Flash Post 384

Button, would you rather live life braving risks or live it the same way, everyday?

Take risks, of course. Is that even a question?

What’s the one risk you’ve taken?

To leave home, hearth and the obvious and dabble with the unknown. When I left, I had no inkling of what I wanted to do or where I was headed. And then, I came into your lives by fluke when chotididi picked me from amongst hundreds of teddy bears in a toy shop as a gift for barididi and brought me home and life changed thereafter. I can’t really say that it underwent a total metamorphosis, given the fact that I also have a family back home who love me dearly, but I opted for change. And it’s been a wonderful journey as I have not one but two loving families now.

You dared and life showed you that you can go ahead and explore. You can take a slightly diverse route and find a little more joy and happiness or whatever you are looking for. Some of those experiences could meet with a bitter end but you would have taken that chance. These experiences help mould us into who we are. The quote above by Eleanor Roosevelt says exactly that. It says that if life was predictable, it wouldn’t be life after all. It would be dull and flavourless.

You mean like food that’s devoid of any kind of flavour?

You’re right in a sense. I’ll give you some examples that’ll make it simpler for you to grasp what I am saying.

That should be helpful.

My father, for instance, lived life by the clock every single day of his life. He’d wake up at 6 every morning, irrespective of which day of the week it was, have tea and go to the market with his jute bag (I think people were aware that plastic is harmful for the environment without making it too obvious) to buy provisions for the day. As we didn’t have a refrigerator at home, the perishables had to be used the same day or they’d rot. He bought stuff depending on what my sister and I liked to eat and took a call what my mother should prepare for lunch and dinner, which was usually a non-vegetarian and a vegetarian dish. He would then proceed to read The Statesman, which was the one paper he subscribed to while my mother cooked lunch. Next on his list of to-dos was taking a bath to don his regular white dhoti and white shirt. He always wore his shirt with the sleeves rolled up, call out to my mother to serve his lunch and leave for work. He did a 10-6 shift in a government office and would leave home latest by 9.30 so he could be at work at the stroke of 10. As there were no traffic jams then—and I am talking about some 80 years back—there was no question of being late!

Did you just say 80 years back! That’s many, many aeons back!

Continuing our story—he’d be back on the dot of 6.30, drink a cup of tea with my mother, talk about nothing in particular, eat dinner and go to bed by 9 every night. Basically, this was the schedule they followed day in and day out. Our lives—I mean my younger sister’s and mine— followed a similar pattern and nothing ever punctuated it. I now wonder why they never went for walks or took a break once in a while to visit a relative or friend! Did they have friends, I wonder! Did they never once desire to do something different for a change and break those shackles that tied them up? Did they never realise that steering even a little away from the monotony could be fun? Did they find their lives monotonous? Were they living for the sake of living? Did they not feel like adding some flavour to their lives? Did they feel life was all about performing duties and that having some fun was wrong? And the most important question is— were they happy even for a moment to simply be together?

I get what you are trying to say.

The reason why my father expired immediately after retirement was because he found himself stranded. He found himself stuck with nowhere to go, nothing to do. Both my sister and I had got married by then and he must have felt even more lost.

It’s a lesson for all of us that life throws many options our way and all we need to do is seize some of those opportunities, venture out and discover where they could take us. Who knows, we may just end up surprising ourselves.