INESCAPABLE INTRUDERS

The first cries of a new born baby pronounce him/her having ‘passed’ the examination of healthy normalcy. Wow!! What an age to begin appearing for exams!! Poor little infant doesn’t even know that the series of examinations has only just begun!

And from then on, no shying away from appearing for the exams that life doles out at various stages in myriad ways!

When I was preparing for the Indian Civil Service examination, the enormity of the syllabus overwhelmed me. The prescribed syllabus was just a pointer to practically everything under the sun. That’s why there goes a common expansion to the acronym UPSC as Un-Predictable Service Commission 🙂 (it’s actual expansion is Union Public Service Commission). The syllabus is unpredictable, the questions are unpredictable and the result is the most unpredictable of all!! But, still lakhs of aspirants from all over India slog to compete for this exam each year and many don’t quit till the last attempt is over.

Unlike educational exams, the tests of life are not choices that we tend to make voluntarily. Life’s examinations are the results of permutations and combinations that we find ourselves a part of. No matter how challenging or alarming, the tests of life are elusive to none. The interesting outcome of life’s examinations is that one still proceeds on to the next stage of life irrespective of the result. So you see, unlike career examinations, success and/ or failure cannot and do not stop life from moving ahead. But yes, they do impact how life moves ahead.

Who is the Examiner?

Though it might be tempting to believe that God conducts all of life’s examinations and He is the one who would give us the certificates with the remarks ‘pass’ or ‘fail’, ‘well done’ or ‘you need to work harder’, it is not true. To give an example, a person driving on the highway sees the wide smooth road ahead and seeing no sight of man or vehicle decides to accelerate the speed beyond the limits. In no time there appears a vehicle from the opposite direction and baaaaanggg – both vehicles collide!!! The driver gets arrested for overspeeding, has to pay a hefty penalty and his driving license is suspended for a three months. To conclude that God put this driver through a tough examination is absurd.

There are many such struggles in our lives which we drag ourselves into either because of our faulty thinking and decision making or at the behest and provocation of others. Though God does not lead us into such wrestling matches, He sure is the Shepherd to steer us out into pleasant pastures if we admit our folly and choose to seek His help. (God never imposes His help on anybody)

However, there are some other examinations that God in His wisdom allows in our lives. They may be the likes of sickness, unemployment, difficult marriages, childlessness, an intolerable boss, job posting away from home, special needs children, poverty, affluence (yes, even prosperity and affluence test us) and many such ordeals over which we seem to have no say. There can be three human responses to these rough winds that blow on our faces.

1. To curse God and lose faith in Him.
2. To take things in our own stride
3. To surrender to His will and seek His intervention.

When we choose to respond in the first way, i.e., blame God for our difficulties and turn away from Him, it fills our lives with bitterness and self-pity, creates inroads for addictions and sicknesses and ultimately drives us into self-destruction. Life goes on, but with emptiness.

When we take things in our own stride without blaming God but not wanting His assistance to tide over the rough patches either, we tend to lose time and efforts in trial and error strategies – going round and round weighing the options and thinking of probable correct answers and sometimes even failing to hit at the solution.

However when we rely on God and seek His intervention, He does the impossible in our lives. Yes, the impossible! Or miracles, if you would like to think that way. Test Him on this if you will and you will know for yourself.

I remember reading about a God-fearing affluent person who lost a majority of his wealth in one day. To add to his misfortune, the roof collapsed and killed all his children while they were partying at a venue. In course of time, he developed a kind of incurable skin ailment which filled his body with sores and stinking pus. Even when his wife smirked at his foolishness for holding on to his faith in God in spite of all the struggles that they have had to go through, he did not let go of God. Things continued that way for a long time, after which gradually God blessed him and restored his health, wealth and blessed him with children to fill the void in his household.

Not all events of seeking God’s intervention in life’s examinations result in such tangible successes, however. At times, struggles go upto the very last breath with alternating jostling episodes of leaning towards God and withdrawing from Him in utter frustration and helplessness. In such times, the deliverance from such continuous phases of examination can be experienced only in eternity.

If you are going through a bitter life trial which you find difficult to endure or escape from, I entreat you to put your faith in God and see the difference for yourself.

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”

EXAM! HOW TO DEAL WITH IT?

Every evening while on my way back from the office, I always see a cute little girl with her Dad at the bus stop. Every time, the girl will be holding a chips packet in her left hand and her Dad’s finger in her right hand. Her Dad will be holding her big schoolbag and waiting to get a taxi or bus. The girl looks happy, feeling very safe and relaxed from studies, she appears to be in her own world and talking something non-stop. And usually, her Dad’s response was “yea…yea. Yes… okay… good”, keeping her busy in her imaginative world. Meanwhile, most of the time I used to be on call with my cousin explaining her the moves of this cute girl and the beauty of her cute little fancy frock. I just love that scene. Every time our talk about that girl used to end with one wish – “Wish we could time travel to our school days & make a permanent stay there. There will be no rigorous life exams, no worries, no heart-aches only eat – study – sleep and play. What a blissful moment, we lived!” As I resonate with my present feelings looking at that schoolgirl, it reminds me of what I was thinking in my past looking at an adult. I used to think – “When shall I become a grown-up man, there will no exam pressure, absolute freedom to roam anywhere I want and enjoy life to the fullness.”

One among the greatest urge of every human mind is,

“Life would be filled with comforts & the availability of Easy-go for Prosperity”.

There was a rich man having a big business empire, in his entire career he always malpractice for success. In fact, he was so shrewd and skillful in malpractice in his life that never ever any of his teachers were able to catch him red-hand. Finally, he becomes one of the most recognized successful businessmen in his city. To celebrate and showcase his luxury, one-day he invited his school friends and the school teacher for a dinner party at his home. As the party began, he started boasting about his cunning ideas to success and the final point of his boastful talk was – “There is nothing wrong to cheat and succeed in life. Since life is a competition, cheating to succeed is always welcome. As a matter of fact, ‘cheating is a skill’.” After his talk, his school teacher said, since all your school batch mates are here, let me test your intelligence. If you pass, then I will agree with your statement. Someway, the billion-dollar businessman was able to cheat and succeed again. The businessman criticized his school teacher publicly. As the feast was over, the school teacher made a personal request to the businessman asking him how did he manage to cheat everyone in the test. The businessman took the teacher into his bedroom and explained his cheating tactics. As he finished boasting on his cheating tactics, immediately the toilet door opened and his 10-year old son came-out and looked at his father with a cheeky smile. Tears dropped from the billion-dollar businessman’s eye and both the teacher and the son departed from the room.

Despite the veracity, voracity & the variety of examinations from the classroom desk to the real-life, it cannot be denied that examinations always trigger intense mental and emotional pressure (sometimes resulting in physical pain) and an immense amount of challenges in life. In order to get rid of the clutches of pressure and for the easy-go for success, we tend to take short-cuts in life. In concern to it, renowned Christian author Ravi Zacharias tweets,

The shortest route is not always the best route,

because often times it can bypass life’s most important lesson.

In examinations, short-cuts/shortest routes to success demand breaching of the ethical and moral boundaries in life. India Today research says, more than 52% of men and women between 25-50 age living in metros consider copulation with higher authorities is a shortcut to professional success and it’s okay. Well, some of our Bollywood movies (ref: Corporate, 2006) have accurately presented the consequence of the use of such strategies from all angles of life.

The Bible says,

“Wise lives among many counselors and he listens to them whereas the fool rejects counsels, his ways are right in his eyes. The wise fear the LORD and shun evil.”

Furthermore, the depth of knowledge and the timely implementation of knowledge decides who is wise. Since God understands the finitude of the human mind and the need for knowledge during the time of the test alongside our hard and honest work for success, He (The God in the Bible) has promised us –

“Ask Me and I will give Wisdom, Knowledge & Understanding. I will give you Wisdom and from My mouth flows Knowledge and Understanding.”

Featured Image source: The New Yorker Post, EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM-1

GOOD LUCK . . . FOR THIS EXAM!

Whenever my husband is really stressed he gets different versions of this dream . . .
It’s his school final exam . . . He is late . . .  And try as he might he is not able to reach on time…

Or he reaches the venue and realises that he has prepared for a different subject and exam is of a different subject…

The most hilarious one is that he has prepared himself completely to cheat in the exam but in the examination hall he cannot find the parchees (the small chits of paper used for copying). Next day morning we have a hearty laugh on the struggles he faced in his dreams. This way or that he says my struggle with exams is not getting over even decades after I have given my last exam.

There is another one . . . If everything goes well the question paper is out of syllabus.
I believe it’s the same with life. It’s an exam but the syllabus is not provided so the questions are always out of syllabus and we have to use our thoughts and experiences to ace it.

Another quote that Google gave me and I completely agree with is –
Life is the most difficult exam..
Many people fail because they try to copy others
Not realising that everyone has a different question paper..
Yes we all are giving a different exam, fighting mini battles at different fronts. Winning some and getting wounded by some. That’s how life is!

I once commented to someone that my life is pretty ordinary nothing extraordinary in it. Its like a straight path. I had this fairy tale notion that it should be like a wave with crests and troughs. Of course at that time I had been thinking only about the highs and not the lows. And life took my words literally with only a minor change. My wave began with trough rather than crest and I hit rock bottom. About two and a half years ago my husband lost his job and that taken for granted salary at the end of each month suddenly vanished. Since then it’s the biggest exam we have ever faced as a couple. During this time we have had many new experiences – struggling to keep a business afloat, looking for a job, fallout with friends, worrying about the big expenses cropping up suddenly in life. I was not prepared for this at all. I have led a rather sheltered life till now. Worrying about money was never on my agenda. Okay, we were not millionaires but there was enough to go buy. Looking at others I used to despair. Why am I facing these hardships while others are enjoying? (looking at your FB newsfeed its very easy to assume that everyone is having a gala time in their life). 

It took me some time to come out of my self-pity but then I realised that its not only me; each and every one of us is giving an exam. Only his or her question paper is different. They may not be struggling in the areas as us, but they are surely fighting the battle on a different front.

These exams / struggles / troughs do change you. I think I am a more confident person now. Gone is that scared girl who used to turn to her father and now her husband at the first sign of problem. I think I can handle things better. Even though the peak of my crest is a long long way away. I really think that at least the ascent has begun.

Wishing Good Luck to everyone for this exam…

P.S. : Since we are on the topic of exams just wanted to share that we as a family are entering that crucial year when both my children would be facing a Board exam at the end of the coming year. And all of us who are familiar with the Indian education system know how stressful it can be. So, keep my kiddos in your prayers and send your good wishes.

LIFE IS LIKE AN EXAM – THEN WHY MANY FAIL?

Let us first understand – why life is an exam?

Is it really an Exam?

Who is judging you?

Do you have any say on this?

It is true that life is challenging, but we all have different challenges to deal with. I might not be dealing with what you have, neither you will be dealing with what I have to. We all have varying hurdles to live through our daily routine.

We all tend to overlook into others lives, and make our life much more challenging by complaining about what we lack, ignoring what we already possess.

So why do we fail in the exam called life? Ever thought on the same?

There are several reasons, why we fail in life :

1. We all are scared of failing.
2. We listen more to others than our innermost desires.
3. We compare ourselves with the better, assuming that we are just nothing.
4. We just want to be a copy of others, than being different.

Being Scared of Failing 

If we try, then only we can decide, whether it is fun or not. Without even trying, assuming things to be difficult is the first step of failure. Take life as a challenge that is when you will cherish every moment of it. Wade off the fear of failing and prepare yourself to experience a new you.

Have you ever seen a baby stopping to try to walk, upon falling several times?

It is simply because, the baby is not scared to walk, even when it might fall a couple of times. Success is not an easy thing to achieve.  Growing up, most of us have lost that inquisitiveness in life.

Turning Deaf to the innermost feelings

Taking advice from the wrong is going to lead you into much more trouble. We all tend to take advice from people who do not have a single knowledge of what we do. And finally, even when our heart desires a lot, we just break away from those innermost feelings.

Don’t you think that is the worst part of being in a challenge? 

If you want to make life challenging, challenge the people around you who are stuck in monotony and show them how life can be happier with a choice that glows your heart.

Comparison- The slow poison on life

Even though we all know that we have varied things, aims, desires, dreams, passion, lifestyle everything including habits, we still tend to compare.

Yes, Comparison kills the joy of life.

One may have, a luxurious life but may not be completely happy. At the same time, a poor one may not have the luxury but has a peaceful life. It is all about how you take things. Identifying what you actually need and what makes you sufficient is important.

The moment you realise that you are different from others and you chose to be different, then it is a grand success.

We all even must have encountered several instances wherein parents compare children with other children and forget that their own child possesses something unique. In such cases, the child loses its self-confidence and even fails at many things. Little do they realise that comparing the child to another one, is killing the joy in their life.

Let them be what they want.

We all are Copycats 

We all just try to be a copy of the one near us or known to us. We never try to even change a little bit, because we assume that , something that is being called perfect among us is an epitome to be followed.

Being different is a challenge.

Life throws different challenges to all, and we all try to copy, forgetting that we all have different question papers to solve.

As I was saying, 

Life is an interesting challenge to endure. Making every moment challenging is even much more fun.  The moment we push ourselves outside the glass wall of others’ expectations, we are going to make life interesting.

At least at one point of life,  choose to take up a challenge. It might change your perspective of life.

 

 

WHAT IS YOUR STRUGGLE?

“Life is a book – read it!

Life is a journey – go through it!

Life is a feeling – experience it!

Life is a theory – prove it!

Life is an examination – pass it!”

This is the crap I used to write / practice in the initial days of learning Ms Word of Ms Office package (basic computer knowledge for everyone 😁) and used to feel so great about myself 🤣🤣. And seriously show it to the trainer in the disguise of getting my learnings checked – Look at the hidden writer in me, how philosophical I am (now I am realizing what a fool I was🤣). Well that was back in 2004-05, I was just 19 then. Now you know my age 😉. Old enough to understand what life is about? May be 😊.

It is a struggle for sure that is designed to check your temperament. The magnitude of struggle differ from person to person; situation to situation; day to day.

Poverty, unemployment, illiteracy – macro struggles (countries / economies are in constant face offs with these issues).

Anger, greed, lust, materialistic attachments – struggles of every soul.

But I am not educated enough to discuss anything so deep, serious and profound. So why not open up about our struggles that are no less serious than these 😁.

My biggest struggles: I am sure the list might seem and sound funny but definitely not easy to fight and even sure that all of us without any exception have such interesting struggles:

• I struggle to keep my eyes wide open from the moment I enter any vehicle be it car, auto rickshaw, train, bus – just name it. This is the reason I refrain from sitting next to my husband in our car because as they say if you sleep sitting next to the driver you will surely rub off your yawning spirit on to him and driving needs utmost concentration.
• I struggle to keep my diet on track. My taste buds accustomed to Dilli style spicy food (for Delhites its never Delhi but Dilli) salads and health drinks are too bland and boring. And sweet tooth is only aggravating my fight to keep a check on calories intake. But the only solace in this battle is that I am not alone 😉. There’s an entire army of food lovers who are finding it difficult to switch to alternative choices 😁.
• I struggle to strictly stick to the list of “To Do Things” in a day. Yes, you call it Procrastination and I chose to term it laziness. Being blunt might give enough impetus to fight it😁.
• I struggle to call a spade A Spade and that got me into soup lot many times.
• Keeping things and forgetting them and worrying about the things ensuing.

That was just a glimpse into my mundane yet not trivial struggles. We all have such struggles that are laughed off, ridiculed but they have their own place in making our lives interesting, give us few memories. Won’t you agree? If yes open up about your “Struggles”.

GET READY FOR THE NEXT EXAMINATION, ONCE YOU ARE DONE WITH ONE

I started to feel sick from the very first day of February this year. I felt, because I have accumulated a lot of hair on my head, I am feeling sick. So, on 2^nd of February I went for a haircut. To save all my warm clothes from sick, wasted hair I went out with just a shirt. The climate was pretty weird during that time. I had a good haircut and I came back feeling lighter. I took a bath and had my lunch. In the evening, I started to cough. I had a paracetamol after I called my both doc brothers. I kept delaying for next two weeks, suffering with relentless coughing and fever. When it is out of my hands, (which was never in my hand from the beginning though) I went to the OPD, to see an able doctor. She asked me to get a chest X-Ray done. I followed her instruction. And after she saw the X-Ray, she asked me to get admitted right away. We were not ready and this admission was quite unexpected.

Life, is a word which is very vast in itself. The moment this life instills in a baby, it faces many challenges around it. And its struggles start from the day one though the degree of challenges increase gradually according to the growth of the baby.

When God created everything and given us life, He allowed us a freewill. And that freewill became the greatest challenge of all time for each and every human living on this earth.

How? Let me explain…

• When something is served in front of us to eat, we ask ourselves, “Is it good for the health?”
• When someone asks us to do a certain task, we ask, “Is it right to help that certain person?” Or “Is the help someone asked lawful?”
• When we are on the verge of deciding on our career choice, we ask, “Is the career I choose morally alright?” Or “Will this career take me in the right direction?”
• When we are about to choose a life partner, we ask ourselves, “Will this girl be alright for me?” Or “Is she be compatible to me?” Or “Does this boy accept me as I am?” Or “Is the boy a drunkard or will he be faithful?”
• When there’s something that we are addicted to, we ask, “How long should I be struggling?” Or “Should I be leaving it for good or keep it moderately without affecting anything around me?”
• When we sit in front of the TV, we asked, “Is it okay to watch this movie?”

The list of such instances can go on and on…

The recent experience that I went through which I described above, in the beginning of this article clearly talks about how I let my freewill be at its will and I suffered until I allow someone else to decide on my behalf to deal with my sick body.

At every step of our life, we had things to decide. And these decision-making questions that we ask at every step of our life are unending. Our freewill is challenged and put to test every now and then. Trust me, it is a struggle, because sometimes I wonder how it would be when I would be allowed to do whatever I just feel like instead of considering what is right and what is wrong. That was my sinful human tendency that is crying out to break free or freak out.

Life is indeed an examination. We literally, appear for exams once we are done with one.

Be ready to counter the challenges our freewill face, all the time.

Stay Blessed!

LIFE IS A SERIES OF BABY STEPS; AT THE END OF EACH STEP THERE IS AN EXAMINATION

The whole world was surprised when a a non-English movie won the Oscars a a few weeks back. The next morning every major newspaper applauded the movie, It was an epic moment for Koreans to celebrate ‘Parasite’ bagging not just the best film award but the best direction as well. Curiosity arose in me as to what might have been the plot of that movie which impressed the Oscar panel so much. Being a non-English movie it is difficult to create that impact crossing the language barrier. After a little wait, I did watch the movie. It was not my first Korean movie, yet my first of this kind of genre. Parasite depicts that part of life which most of us think is very normal in our day to day life, but the director Bong Joon-ho’s take on it made it a spectacularly woven story. I am not going to spoil the fun for you if you have not watched it yet, but I would certainly love to tell you that the movie is very impactful in many ways. I kept thinking about the movie for a couple more days. 

The best dialogue I loved was, “you know what kind of plan never fails? No plan at all. No plan. You know why? If you make a plan, life never works out that way”. That is very very true. We always think we have planned well, ahead in time and are ready for challenges. At the exact time, life throws an unexpected twist. We might feel helpless and are lacking the strength to fight through it. It is life’s way of telling us, “Get up and keep going”. 

Three years ago, I went through the worst time in terms of health. Something was wrong, I could not see properly, I had balance issues, I couldn’t walk and doctors had no clue what was going on. I was struggling at work because of health. I remember one of the conversations I had with Chiradeep back then, “Dada, I don’t know anything else but to write software. If my eyesight doesn’t recover, I don’t think I can earn for living. My life was all going good a month ago and now I don’t know how my future would be like. The only thing I can think of doing is to continue writing using a speech to text converter, and have you as my editor“. Chiradeep and I had a good laugh over that. A month later, the doctors said my brain pressure is high and they have to do a procedure to check if there was any infection. 

The nightmare my mother doesn’t want to be in. She called up my father and started crying. “How can I take her to the hospital for the procedure alone?”. She was more scared of being alone there than my procedure. I can understand her situation. She never had been alone or handled things alone. The next day before the procedure, I told her, “Amma, listen to me. This is called a credit card, and this is the PIN number. In any emergency situation, don’t panic. You can use this card to pay for the bills. Don’t worry so much; nothing would happen. You just sit outside and wait. I would be back after the procedure”. She came back after the procedure to see me, as the doctor said I cannot walk. There was a sigh on her face. I bet she was worried about the results. My health took a good four months to recover, but during that time I have never given up. It was very slow and steady progress. 

In the above, my father had to take the exam of being a helpless father. I know he would have preferred to be with me, but he could not. My mother was worried about seeing her child suffering. I had no clue if I was even going to survive this. I wondered if I had cancer or even something worse than that. “Who would take care of my parents if something happens to me”, was the constant thought that bothered me. The situation is the same, but all our examinations were different. 

From then on, I did go through a lot of ups and downs both professionally and personally. Sometimes I even wonder I would have committed sins that are following me to torture me, Karma you know. Sometimes I think I am very lucky to have parents who support me in all walks of life. No matter what my decision is, they stand by my side. Without family, I would have been lost a long time ago. When I think of not having a family, I think of those orphans who live their life all alone without the feeling of family. Chiradeep always tells me, “Sona, human beings are social animals. To be alone is not how we are wired, so I can understand you find it very difficult some times” and he is right. A human being always needs at least another human being, who would care for them. As long as you have that one person in your life you would come out with flying colors in all the examinations life throws at you. That person can be anyone but should be the one who you can trust and who sees you as a part of his/her life.