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.