Lights Off... Life On...

This is a title which I found in one of the news papers in Bangalore last month. Friends around me laughed when I read it aloud. I didn't go through the details but it kindled a thought in me.

I heard this idea from some great personality (as my other posts also are!), who exactly i can't recollect. He was talking to me about the problems in families of Kerala. They are problems pertaining to all families in cities. Kerala even though it doesn't have a big metro like Mumbai or Bangaluru, is evenly developed. You can't find kilometers of deserted land here as we see on our trip to Bangalore. Kerala has urbanised villages. So the problem is also relevant to almost all the families in Kerala.

He was talking to me about another news that stole the front pages of the dailies there. It was " The power-cut will be soon re-established : As a result of shortage of water in dams the Govt is forced to re-establish power-cut says the Minister of ........." This might be a news of dysphoria for anybody. I also felt the same when i read the news. But he put it in a different way. He was admiring the minister for his decision. He seemed to be very happy about it. It seemed very abnormal to me. And he explained...

Problems among family members are increasing. Parents don't know their children, They are not ready to open up, They cannot predict what their children would do when they deny something, The wedge between husband and wife seems to be increasing. The children also don't know why their parents ask them to do something, Why they are not grated their wishes...
So they turn against their parents. Many children taken to counseling feel that their parents don't love them. The parents if wealthy(in most cases), will be try to make them joyful in all the ways they can. In their busy schedule they may not be able to respond to the needs(not physical but mental) of their children. This widens the gap, Children go out of control of their parents, they even commit suicide for silly reasons!

The problem is lack of communication between family members. In this age of fast life they don't get enough time. When they come home they sit in front of the idiot-box and pretend to enjoy! And in this age of atomic families children don't have another person to share with. Marvelous were the days of power-cut. The moment the power goes, everybody ion the family stops whatever he is doing and assembles in the drawing room or at the door steps(Applicable only for those families who don't have generators and emergency lights!! Their fate is even horrible!!). They share their whole day during this half an hour. They don't find it difficult to spent that half an hour. They speak of their friends, their dreams, their needs, and anything beneath the sun... They become deeply bound, light-hearted. This is the best medicine available for the disease.

Without healthy families a healthy nation is not possible. Thanks to Electricity Board for their move in this direction.

Focuz...

Everybody has his own aspirations and dreams about life. That differs from person to person. But the success depends on how serious he is about his dreams... No pain no gain... He has to sacrifice something to achieve his goals.

Everyday we meet new new people, we get information about new new things, we hear about new new technologies. All these can have an impact on our dreams.

We should not be orthodox to stick on to what we had decided earlier, but ready to accept the newer challenges. We should be flexible enough to adapt to changes. We should never lose focus on our goal, our path, once we choose that. Many things, many incidents will pull our mind away from our goal. It might be something attractive conquering our senses, or something that put hurdles in our way. We have to fight both of them till we succeed.

We all have heard the story of Arjuna aiming a parrot's eye. While others saw the parrot, the tree.. he could see only the eye of the parrot. That sharp should be our focus on our goal. No other visuals, sounds or anything should be able to shift our focus. That made Arjuna different.

I remember another story from Ramayana, which can be cited as the best example for commitment towards the goal. It is also a well known story... Hanuman is jumping Lanka to meet Sita. On the way he meets different things which tries to shift his focus. He meets daemons who tries to block him. He uses different tactics to get rid of them. At times he uses his physical strength to win over such hurdles. We can also see him using his intelligence to make fool of them and move forward(He becomes very small and escapes from a rakshasi). We can also see the hill 'Mainaka' offering him rest, food and water. Hanuman refuses expressing his love and respect. Here he depicts how committed one should be on his goal. How he should fight with the hurdles on the way. How he should not go behind temporary gains losing focus. That was what happened to the rabbit in the old rabbit-tortoise story. Failure in focus at a small point of time shall result in the goal being never achieved at all...

So focus on your goals. Define them sharp and fine.