gratitude

Day 408

Posted by

0

Steve Jobs’ last words –
“I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success.
However, aside from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to.
At this moment, lying on the sick bed and recalling my whole life, I realize that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride in, have paled and become meaningless in the face of impending death.
In the darkness, I look at the green lights from the life supporting machines and hear the humming mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of god of death drawing closer…
Now I know, when we have accumulated sufficient wealth to last our lifetime, we should pursue other matters that are unrelated to wealth…
Should be something that is more important:
Perhaps relationships, perhaps art, perhaps a dream from younger days
Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me.
God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth.
The wealth I have won in my life I cannot bring with me. What I can bring is only the memories precipitated by love.
That’s the true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on.
Love can travel a thousand miles. Life has no limit. Go where you want to go. Reach the height you want to reach. It is all in your heart and in your hands.
What is the most expensive bed in the world? Sick bed…
You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear the sickness for you.
Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – Life.
When a person goes into the operating room, he will realize that there is one book that he has yet to finish reading – Book of Healthy Life.
Whichever stage in life we are at right now, with time, we will face the day when the curtain comes down.
Treasure love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends.
Treat yourself well. Cherish others.”

 

Day 407

Posted by

0

For years I have looked at women in fancy hats and admired them for being able to carry them off so elegantly. The scene from ‘Titanic’ where Kate Winslet’s beautiful face slowly emerges from underneath a fancy wide-rimmed hat is one that has made a lovely little spot for itself in my ‘long term memory’. For the first 33 years of my life in India, I had never seen many women in hats except in films. While secretly being deeply fascinated with hats and ogling at them in the streets, markets and shops, I didn’t actually believe that I could wear one because:

  1. It might look really strange on me.
  2. I’ve never done it before.
  3. It’s not the kind of thing people like me do.
  4. Where would I go wearing a hat?
  5. I don’t have the right kind of face for it.
  6. I wouldn’t know how to pick one!
  7. I couldn’t carry it off with elan.
  8. My discomfort would show.
  9. And so on and so forth….

At a Christmas fair this morning, I spotted a hat shop from the corner of my eye. I walked past it and bought a few other things from other shops. I was with friends who I trust. If anything looked funny on me, we would have a laugh together. So, after 16 years of thinking about it, I gingerly approached the shop, feeling like I was just about to make an absolute big fat fool of myself. The lady at the shop welcomed us with a lovely smile that made me feel a bit better. She showed me felt, velvet, corduroy, tweed, leather, silk, wool, possum hats, berets, fascinators with feathers and great big wedding doo-daas! It was party time! I tried on all kinds of hats and looked at them in the mirror at various angles. We did have a good time going through the lot of them. At one point, they all went quiet and asked me to look in the mirror. I did. That was it. We had found the right one.

I have a hat! 🙂

Day 406

Posted by

0

Everyday I think, may be today is the day I start referring to Saagar in the past tense. I haven’t been able to do that as yet. I don’t know if I ever will.
Everyday I think today may be the day I will focus on all the things I am grateful for and then the pain might be a bit less. I am ever so grateful yet the pain is no less.
Everyday I think may be I should change all my passwords so that I don’t have to think of him everytime I turn my phone or computer on but that wouldn’t work because he will still be there.

Now, his absence is as present as his presence was. In fact, much much more so. The things we take for granted!

I love to read what his friends have to say about him. They meant the world to him and through them I am getting to see him in a new light. They are a source of strength and solace for me. Their love for him seems pure and unblemished. I wish to immortalise Saagar even though he no longer lives on planet Earth.

“Saagar had a truly unique ability to leave an impression with everyone and anyone he ever met. He transcended social cliques and instead got on with everybody individually – a testament to which is the variety of people who showed up today. For me, the only way to explain this is with reference to how genuine a person he was. By this I mean, he was not concerned with trivial trends or social point scoring – but was instead truly interested in things that matter. There seems to be a culture that is rife at the moment whereby our conversations are dominated by the insignificant and the contrived. Take a moment to eavesdrop next time you are in the Nova smoking area and you may notice this repetitive humdrum: People insist on sharing with the world how much they have been drinking, how much sex they are having and how many drugs they have been taking. Our obsession with the trivial has become endemic. Saagar shared my frustration with this culture and was able to call it out for what it really was: infantile bullshit. As a result, a conversation with him was incredibly refreshing. He was genuinely opinionated about things that actually matter, and used his razor- sharp wit and unwavering rationality to expose things as the way they really are. I felt – like I am sure many of you have felt – that every conversation with Saagar was a blessing. A pinprick of sanity to burst the insane student bubble in which we live.

​As I stand here, still struggling to talk about such a presence in the past tense, I am comforted by the fact that the lessons we learnt from Saagar will never leave us. The most important one he taught me was pride. No matter what, Saagar remained unapologetically proud  about so much in his life, and this pride was truly contagious. He took pride in his upbringing, and the sheer courage it took for him to move from India, to a period of racial bullying in Belfast to the drastically different setting of one of the country’s leading public schools (although speaking from experience – public schools are perhaps not the best place to seek refuge from racism!). This did not affect him in the slightest however. In fact – he remained so proud of being brown that he resorted to smoking out of liquorice rolling papers that were as brown as he was. Proud of the friends he made, and proud of the experiences he shared with them. Whilst he may no longer be with us, this pride lives on in each of us – as we are all immeasurably proud to have known him, and prouder still of how he chose to spend his tragically short time on this earth, leaving little more than the wisdom he imparted, the compassion he shared and the untiring friendships he made.”

Ooooodles of love to you and all your friends Saagar. xxx

 

Day 402

Posted by

0

As I go through the memory book created by Saagar’s friends I am astounded by the sensitivity and perceptiveness of some of these young people. I suppose when one is 18 or 19 or 20, life is an intense experience. The feelings are clean and pure, experienced in all their fullness.

This particular note is an example of a subtle yet profound observation made :

“Yo Sagman! My brother in drums and banter. Thank you for brightening up those little boring intervals before morning Arabic lessons (not least with the neon green trainers) and for making the banal enjoyable and beautiful. That’s where life is lived really, in those little spaces in between perhaps………”

We do not remember weeks or days. But we do remember moments. I remember the times when I sat in his room reading my book while he did his homework. We shared the space without much conversation and that was special. The times when we cooked in the kitchen together with the radio playing in the background and both of us pottering around doing our own thing – those were the good times – relaxed and content. Nothing spectacular. Just comfortable, peaceful togetherness.

Washing the car on a Sunday is not one of my favourite chores but he would turn it into a fun thing by putting on some music and then doing a funny dance, first with the water hose and then with the vacuum cleaner! The neighbours enjoyed it too.

I miss you my baby but having met your friends and having heard about your time during the last 2 years at university, I am happy.  They sound like two of the best years of your life! xxx