For Granted?

You have probably read this story a few hundred times by now as mail forwards and as facebook posts, but I can promise you that you wouldn't have read it the way I did. So please, for my sake, read this story to the end, read it the way I want to share it...

There was this man travelling by train. In the same compartment, there was another man travelling with his son. The son was probably 16 or 17 years old. The son was quite excited, almost as excited as a 3 year old. He was seeing outside the window and making some pretty childish comments every now and then.

Suddenly the son said - "See papa, that tree also has a brown trunk, how is it that all trees have brown trunks"
The father replied - "Well, that's the way it is."
Son - Wow, there are so many different shades of green. That's green, right?
Father - Yes son, that is also a green.
Son - See papa, the railway tracks are going parallel to us
Father - Really? lets see how far they can keep parallel...
And the son kept saying - "See papa, the whole sky is blue", "the birds are trying to race with the train", "Everything is going by so fast", "The hill at the distance looks like its moving forward instead of back"... and so on.

Everytime the son would make such a comment, the father would say "Its beautiful, isn't it!!!", "Very nice", "Amazing" etc. It was very obvious that the father was being very patient with his son.

Finally, our friend couldn't watch it, so he said to the father - Looks like your son needs help, I think you should take him to a doctor.

The father, with all his excitement replied - Actually, we are coming back from the Doctor. My son here was born blind and he just got an eye transplant. He is just learning to see...

The man was dumb struck. That is when reality hit him, and hard...

Something beautiful happened right then - For the rest of the journey, this man sat right next to the young boy and enjoyed each and every sight with the young boy. He had travelled that route a few hundred times, but he saw a new world that day. A world with new found eyes.


For the last few years, my loved one was going through great pain and trouble due to some dental issues. She was not able to eat anything sweet, spicy, hot, or chilled, not able to drink soft drinks, effectively letting go of everything pleasurable because of the dental issues.
Recently, she completed the entire treatment, and is now able to eat anything she wants.
You should see the smile on that face when she eats what she wants.
A healthy mouth is something we take for granted, but for her, it was an absolutely amazing experience to be able to eat and drink whatever she wants.

I used to hug her everyday, three times a day, sometimes fight with her, sometimes not speak to her for days. She would make cakes and sweets for me and I don't remember saying thanks once to her. Then, one day she was gone. That is when I realised what it is to have a grand mother in one's life.

I go to work with it everyday, for 8 years it has been my partner, so much so that its like second nature for me to ride my bike. Then, one day, at 11 in the night, the clutch wire snapped. That's when I realised how I had been taking its reliability for granted.

She's waiting for dinner everyday when I go home, then one day, she was not feeling well and ate early. When I came back home, I was eating alone from my plate, that's when I realised how eating together from one plate was a default activity for me.

Most of us have irritating mom's, who keep pestering us to keep our rooms clean etc, wait... the day will come when you will realise how you have been taking your mother for granted.

You keep cursing the job, the company, the boss, yet you keep coming to the same workplace for years. That credit into your salary account every month is taken for granted. Until, one day, recession hits... that's when you realise that you took the job for granted and never tried to work on your skills...

We take the body for granted... Wait till the doctor tells you about that anomaly in the liver, or that white spot in your mouth, or the day you have to climb five floors and you realise that 125 kilos is a lot of baggage.
If you don't take care of it, this very body will start betraying you...

Only for the last few days, I have become more aware of my dental health, I enjoy my gym workouts better, I enjoy the family time better, I take better care of my bike, I drive a bit more safely, I don't mind doing some house work.

It is the very basic nature of us humans that we take all the beautiful gifts of life for granted and only when they are gone, we realise the true worth of them...
We have been doing this for all our lives... Atleast now can we change???

The Hug...

I was sitting at my friend's place to see her new born baby.

We sat there chatting while the baby slept peacefully. Then while we were talking, I touched the nice chubby cheeks of the kid and instantly a slight frown appeared on his face, then the mother caressed the other cheek and the frown disappeared, even a slight smile came back. All this while the baby was still asleep.

Somehow that baby seemed to recognize the touch of his mother even when in deep sleep.

Must be some magic in that touch...

I remember when we were kids and fell sick, how our mom would sit next to us. She would just keep caressing our hair while we slept. Somehow the touch seemed to heal us. I still remember how I used to cling to my dads legs trying to hug him while I was barely above his waist height.

Even as we were growing up, my mom would give us a hug when we left for school and would welcome us with a hug when we came back. That habit lives on even today. I leave the house hugging each and everyone in the house and again hug everyone in the evening when I come back home.
Not a single day goes by when I haven't hugged each one in my family atleast 3 times.

Unfortunately, in today's time and age, we don't have time to hug, time to hold hands, time to sleep with our head in that loved one's lap...

A father doesn't have time to hug his son, a mother doesn't have time to hug her own daughter... The result... when these kids grow up, they start missing that loving touch which they received as kids. Over time, they forget the value of it.
We now have a generation where a husband hesitates to hold hands with wife in public.
We are in a generation where if a son actually goes and hugs his mother, the mother gets worried and asks - is everything alright???
We are in a generation where if I hug a guy friend I met after ages, three of the people on the road will think I'm gay...

For the first time in my entire blogging, I find myself poor, I don't have enough grammar to tell you the value of a hug, the value of a touch, the value of a clean non-sexual touch.

If you trust me as a friend, do this today. Do this right now.

Just go and hug the first person in your house right now. (that doesn't include your maid servant, she might charge you with assault.) Whether its your mom, your dad, your sister, your spouse, your brother, your sister, you friend, anybody at all... Heck, go hug your landlord...
Find a loved one and give them a hug. Not a single word, no explanations, if they ask you, just say you felt like doing it... Just one hug...

If you are not able to do this even after reading this sharing, then I'm afraid you have already lost the most valuable experience in your life and I can promise you its not coming back.

This sharing is not for you to go and like in facebook.
Its not for you to read and feel good.
Its not for you to read and think - Gulshan writes well.
Whether Gulshan writes well or not is not the question, because if this sharing is not able to change your heart, then all my writing is probably not worth a dime for you...

Go ahead, beat the hesitation, experience that hug, that touch and come back and tell me how it was...
Trust me... I'll be waiting for your comments on this one...

Mirror - Part 2

A few days ago, I had shared about a mirror and how it tells us only the truth. Then I went on to share that every person needs a mirror in life, a teacher, a parent, a true friend... someone who can tell unpolished blunt truth.

One of the feedbacks I received said this - "My belief is that even a mad man walking on the streets, shouting and pouring his anger/tragedy and what not is a Mirror for us, may be not directly for our issues but indirectly pointing us to take care or else......"

Thats so true that I had to share this with everyone.

When I see a man shouting like crazy on the road and being rude to others, I look up and say, Thank God I'm not like that.

Whenever a person drives like a monkey or the hungry coyote and whizzes past me, I just think - Thanks God I don't drive like that.

And then, someone in the office comes and passes a comment on my work, and I don't like it. Then I realise that I said something similar to another colleague a few days ago. This friend has shown me the mirror.

Seeing a friend go through health issues, getting parts of his body taken apart and lying on the table just because he could not drop that last glass or that last butt... even that is a mirror showing me that I have been on the right track so far.

Seeing my friend pile up kilos every year and gathering unnecessary weight on his body only pushes me harder to stay fit.

Next time you see an ant in your house, don't squish it, just shove is far away from its path. What happens next will be a revelation to you. The way it comes back to its tracks again and again and again you might realise something. (and the ant doesn't even read this blog)

My teacher says, some people make mistakes and learn, smart people see others' mistakes and learn. Of course, there's a third category which never learns no matter who's mistake it is.

My point is - 

When you seen someone suffering from cancer because he smokes and drinks, its a clue for you to drop these habits. To continue doing these thinking it will never happen to you is absolutely foolhardy and @#$!#$.

When you see someone driving without a helmet and meeting with an accident, its your clue to wear a helmet and drive safely. If you continue making the same mistake he made... well, then you will become an example for someone else...