LOVE

As we approach Valentine's Day 2008 is there a better topic to write about?!
Though I feel I can only write a little,this indeed is a topic of gargantuan proportions!

My inspiration for this piece comes mainly from my JJs(my codeword for my best girlfriends!).
As we sat and talked today I suddenly threw a question at them....how do you define love??

Sri, the wise one, said a beautiful thing..."The best things in life cannot be defined,they are only felt."
One said she doesnt't have it and another said that she's still looking for it(after dramatically exclaiming...you all don't love me re!!)....and the best was obviously Riffy,as she sat nervously chewing her fingernails(metamorphically of course!!) in a hotel room far away,I asked her this question over the phone as we all wished her the best for her fellowship interview tomorrow..."love??....what crap man!!"

So I thought to myself...how do I define it??
I believe everyone experiences love daily...every minute...every second..of their lives,albeit in different forms and flavours...so it stands to reason that I need to be able to define it in some concrete way.

As I closed my eyes and thought about it..here's what I felt...
"Love(in its purest sense) is a state of the mind and the heart,nay of your entire existence,when you wish ,pray, hope and work for someone else's happiness, when you are willing to sacrifice your own joys for someone else...when your lives become so entwined together that their pain is your biggest pain and their happiness is your greatest joy"
So I believe that selflessness is the cornerstone of all true love.
This central theme becomes clothed with several layers, layers imposed upon by society,which makes us perceive our love for different people differently......imbuing it with different flavours.
So it is that fatherly love and motherly love,sisterly love and brotherly love,love for your friends and a couple's love for each other,all appear vastly different.But if you look closely enough you'll find that centerpiece of selflessness shimmering through all the surrounding haze.

But of course like all other human emotions rarely do we experience love in this purest way...when we are so weak that we cannot even hate someone truly...how can we be strong enough to love purely???
Man is the most selfish of all animals...and this selfishness creeps into all our relationships...eating them from the insides until the hollow shell breaks asunder.

People would love to shout from the rooftops about undying love,about love that needs no sustenance,that feeds and grows on its own.
I disagree with that completely.
Love is like a bright fire that warms and dazzles us all at once,but it needs fuel to survive like every other fire.
It needs constant input and effort from both the people involved,even if the realtionship is one acquired by blood.And that too just to sustain it....if you want to make it grow....then you need to do a lot more...and one is not enough..it definitely takes two to tango.
The moment you stop pouring your energy and vitality into the fire....it peters out and fades into nothingness.

But the funniest part about love is that you never realize its beginning or end at the time that it happens...you only find yourself in the midst of it...its like diving into a deep pool when you are asleep and then waking up in the middle of stormy waters!!
And you don't clearly see the end either...the realization comes long after the emotion has gone.

A tricky little devil ain't it??!!

I take that back though...Love, whatever else it may or may not be, is not little...its our biggest strength and most terrible weakness,our greatest joy and deepest pain,our most magnificent triumph and saddest defeat,our pit of earthly desires and our path to the divine,the simplest and yet the most complex of all human emotions.

To be or not to be..that is not the question we get to ask of ourselves everyday...but to love or not to love,that I think is a question we all face each day of our lives...and I wish for all of us that the answer to that was simple.

Good and Evil

Seems like a well worn out topic doesn't it...good and evil...the eternal enemies....fighting for sway over our hearts and lives..
So why am I sitting down today to think,reflect(!) and write about this...again something everyone would have thought about at some point or the other in their lives..

Well, it started as always with a discussion the other day about whether true evil exists in this world..or can everyone's "sins" in life be attributed to some major trauma in life?
And are all these problems and defects(for lack of a better word) "fixable" or are there people in this world whose souls have been truly and irretrievably lost??

We all know that true perfection doesn't probably exist...nothing in this world is perfect...but we all strive for it anyway...and I do believe in the mantra handed down to me from my school days...our school motto..."Nayamatma Balhinen labhyah" meaning "Perfection cannot be achieved by the weak".
The pursuit of life is a pursuit of happiness and a pursuit of perfection...though both mean different things for all of us...we might not truly attain either but the journey of life becomes worthwhile as long as we continue to work towards the shimmering ideal.
As a dear friend(CC) said the other day...(pardon me for bringing medicine into the blog)...that even God doesn't believe in perfection...otherwise the normal ejection fraction of the heart would have been 100% and not 60% as it is!!!
And truly you can see evidence of this "lack of perfection" in all of God's creations...and best of all in Man!
If we were all perfect think of how terrible we might be...we would never understand weakness or suffering in others,never know or understand what pity meant,never probably love anyone except for ourselves...
Certainly a recognition of our imperfections makes us better human beings....probably thats the reason Man is a social animal...we need people around us to make us feel better in times when we are feeling lost...and so we reach out for each other...for comfort and warmth...oftentimes for those who are stronger than us and sometimes for those who are weaker than us...
So it is that most people are neither black or white but rather shades of gray....our goodness/badness is relative like everything else in this world...

I have been privileged to know several really good souls..people who though they may not be "perfect" are way along the spectrum towards 'white'...these people have made my life...and indeed the lives of everyone that they came in contact with more meaningful and richer....think of someone like Mother Teresa...I have heard friends who met her in person say that everyone could feel and perceive that aura of goodness...her handshake was like a breath of life...a sip of water to the thirsty...

But what about true evil..and I mean not selfishness/dishonesty/jealousy/envy or the other more common and mundane human pitfalls...I mean true evil...the desire to hurt people...obtaining satisfaction from other's grief...random people....not those who have hurt you...maybe even those who have helped you???
Is it that true evil doesn't exist or is it that we are just lucky enough not to encounter it too often??
Do people like Lord Voldemort exist in the real world???
( you see the influence Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling have on my mind and imagination?!!)
People who have progressed so much on the path towards evil...that their souls have been tarnished and lost for ever....
I have been lucky not to see much of evil...but I have perceived glimpses of it I think in a few random people...even as a child...I remember meeting people who made me feel scared for no good reason...and I learnt later about why I felt like that and was thankful that I was safe and protected always...in fact as children I think we are even more alert to such vibes because our own souls are so much more pristine....all of us...without fail...do dirty our souls to different degrees as we grow up...and destroy our natural instincts for good...they are clouded by other worldly desires...which not only distort our vision but also our judgement of right and wrong..

And if such people do exist...is there a reason why God made them like that???
Is it always some trauma in life that is a precipitant..or are they just born like that....or is it their choices in life....as Rowling would say..that it matters not what you are born with..the talents/qualities....but rather the choices that you make in life that make you the person that you are...
and if there is a reason for the evil .....will it do any good to go looking for it...will it help the person or the society at large..or will the quest for answers just uncover more dirt and grime???
Will even the greatest magic in this world...LOVE..help these lost souls....or will it just cause them more agony??
As I discussed with one of my more dearer teachers the other day...there are few things that we can "fix" even in the body..we just care for people in medicine.....and even just caring for the mind is so much more arduous than caring for the body...but the SOUL???....is it even within our range as humans to restore it to its untarnished state for a broken soul is like broken glass??

And finally...how do you save yourself from true evil...just avoid it and pray to God for your safety and sanity...or be brave and look the devil in the eye..and say that "I am not afraid of thou because I have God on my side!!!!!!!!" and make an effort to save all your friends and the society from it too???
(this is not to make it melodramatic!!)
Or by continuing to be "good" yourself...and doing what is right...and never to try to conquer it by being evil yourself....that perhaps is the toughest but most crucial part of the answer to the puzzle.

I need help from all of you who read this...let me know what you think...for once I am somewhat at a loss in life...my experiences so far ill-equip me from answering these questions fully...I would appreciate any input/thoughts or ideas you might have....
And when you answer the question about whether you have perceived any evil....I am talking about evil which has not harmed you but you still perceive it...don't please mix it up with people who have hurt you for one reason or another....because that is definitely a big confounding factor!!!!!!

The Vicissitudes of Life

A big theme...the fabric of our lives is made up of many a tangled thread...and its an effort to sift through each....and making sense of even a small portion is like finding the key to the universe of our existence.

Having had a very happy childhood...I have nevertheless had like most,nay all, people in this world, my share of trials and tribulations...so it crossed my mind a few days ago about whether these struggles really make us better in any sense and if so what?And is there a defined point where we are in danger of giving up completely and surrendering to adversity without a worthy fight??

Why did this question strike me now...why was it that I felt that I have grown up more in the last 2 years of my life than in all the rest??

Was it the illnesses of dearest than dear family members..illnesses in which I sat and watched...infuriated and alternately tortured by my inability to do anything even as a doctor...where all I could do was spew forth some paltry lame words of encouragement and hope,support from miles away over the telephone!.....where I sat and prayed day in and day out for their health from GOD....

Was it the struggle for residency... a path that I had thought would be somewhat difficult,but which turned out to be more taxing and draining than I had anticipated...that sense of fear of losing everything for that one thing you are staking your life for??

Was it living alone...and fending for oneself...no longer carefree and sheltered from all by loving parents??

Was it the behaviour of people you thought were friends but who turned beautiful friendships into heartwrenching mockery??

Was it the realization of the sublime truth that we all are but creatures of GOD and must go through all that he has planned for us....we may sit and make plans a plenty for an entire lifetime while he maybe laughing at our childishness!!

Having had a strong faith in GOD all my life one would have thought that I would have realized this a long time ago....and maybe I had...but I think we humans have poor memories for such matters...and GOD has to give us a whack now and then to bring us back to our senses...to make us realize that we are but an inconsequential speck of sand in the grand scheme of nature.

I would not presume to even begin to imagine how and by what means HE decides what rewards and what punishments to mete out...and how HE balances them....but one thing I truly believe is that it is always for our betterment.

Going through the throes of despair is essential to experience the euphoria of happiness...one must fall to the depths of failure sometimes before rising to the pinnacle of success.

He keeps challenging us...stretching us to the limit....seeing how far we can strain ourselves...it all depends on how soon we realize the important message that he's trying to convey...if we learn quickly chances are that he'll let us breathe easy...but like a parent teaching an infant to walk he needs to push us to seemingly unendurable limits occasionally....letting us expand our horizons and capabilities in the process.

Each challenging phase of life that we go through takes something away from us...something of our childhood innocence and naivity...and leaves some permanent scars occasionally...but I would rather carry these scars proudly like a soldier returning from the battlefront does...rather than like a burden.Each one of these scars adds to our knowledge and experience and each helps us along our chosen paths in life...making us better equipped emotionally to deal with future problems.

Certainly there are times when you are about to give up...and this point is not well defined at all...it depends on our circumstances of life and our social systems of support at that moment in time......but from my limited experience,GOD always sends someone along to help us at that critical point...it maybe someone we never knew before...it may even be some aspect of our character hitherto left undiscovered.

Our path in life maybe riddled with myriad troubles...but it is always a journey of self exploration and betterment and it is from this knowledge that we should derive comfort and solace intimes of need.Every cloud has a silver lining and the storm is always followed by golden sunlight!

Having said all this...I would like to say however that it is not in the times of crisis that we realize the presence of a supreme power...but rather in the calm after the storm has passed are we able to see HIS infinite sagacity...but if we go looking for it we can see the presence of this guiding light even in the smallest and seemingly unimportant things...and it is certainly a comfort to realize HIS presence..left to ourselves we humans would always choose what was worst for us!

Maybe most of you who read this will find nothing new in it...having realized these simple facts a long time ago...but my own inadequate understanding of this has been a shocking revelation to me and by putting it down in words I hope never to forget it again.Amen.

A Fresh Start

Reading and writing have always been two of my favourite pastimes.I owe my introduction to the beautiful world of books to my father who passed on his own passion for them and the English language to me.
Growing up my fondest memories have been of discussing books,thoughts,ideas and what not with Dad.
As I became busier and busier with studies and the world of medicine I never gave up on reading books (non-medicine of course!!)...they were often my escape from an existence which was otherwise in danger of being reduced to the mundane.
If someone were to ask how I went through medical school so comfortably and without becoming crazy(!!) I would say it was my family and books!!
I know that sounds like a paradox as med school is all about thick books but those who share a passion for reading would understand the paradox.
But somehow along the way I lost all touch with writing and putting my thoughts on paper...maybe it was because there were so many people to discuss them with...but as far as I can remember my dearest "ambition" apart from becoming a doctor was to write a book... ...someday I still hope to do that.
But my life is still busy in the pursuit of medicine... and its easy to foresee that the book is not happening anytime soon....and staying away from my family and most friends I have few people to discuss my thoughts with...funnily enough it was an email that I wrote sometime ago to a friend that made me realize all over again how good it felt to put down my thoughts on paper and made me wonder if it was time to take out a few moments now and then to do that.

I am not sure how much I am going to be able to put down..but its a start for sure...keep watching this space for more!