Taking a walk outside

Last week Thursday our son who is currently a fourth year resident in ENT surgery in Los Angeles told us he was called for jury duty on Friday. My husband texted him saying perhaps his attending could give a letter of excuse explaining his absence would cause hardship in the functioning of the department. Our daughter chimed in with a similar thought. My husband used to work as an oncologist and invariably got excused from jury duty, legitimately, because his patients were receiving ongoing chemotherapy treatments and these could be disrupted by his absence. The general sentiment amongst our medical fraternity has been to avoid jury duty as much as possible. I pointed out to my family that I am the only one out of us who has actually served as a juror. The rest seem to have embraced an escapist strategy. They laughed at the remark. 

In the bigger scheme of things, the few times in my life thus far when I was picked for jury duty, seem to be a privilege. A unique opportunity to see firsthand how the judiciary system works. What role citizens play in meting justice to their fellow citizens who have landed in legal soup. It was an experience outside of what my regular line of work would have offered. It added a layer to my perspective of life around me. 

All of us get these opportunities in our lives from time to time to see the world outside of our smaller world. And only few of us accept them. Majority are caught up pursuing our own dreams and aspirations. 

One of the many beautiful songs sung by Asha Bhonsle for the classic movie Umrao Jaan is Justju jiski thi. It is a haunting song filled with heartbreak and longing. The opening line spells out a dry truth that not everyone in the world can relate with. 

Justju jiski thi usko toh na paya humne 

Is bahane se magar dekh li duniya humne !

What( or who) I desired for, I could not find. But in the process of searching for it I got to see the entire world 

Each of us born on earth harbors some desires, whether trivial or grand. It is these desires that propel our lives. They create a tunnel vision. 

Jise bhi dekhiye woh apne aap mein goom hain!

Our desires make us stay “lost” in our own small world, mostly unaware of what goes on around us. Ironically, also unaware of what’s within us! 

I came across an interesting meme earlier today. It read:

Aren’t you bored being home all the time?

Meanwhile: I bake, garden, read, organize my treasures, try new recipes, watch my shows, listen to music, enjoy time outside, do little projects, and enjoy my own company without any nonsense.

The intent of the meme was to highlight the fact that a casual observer may find the life of a homebody as being unremarkable and inconsequential while the truth may be far from that. It may be filled with several meaningful things that the observer can’t comprehend. 

I saw the life of that home staying person in a slightly different light. No denying that all the listed activities carried meaning for the person. But in each of those actions, the mind was focused on activities that the mind enjoyed. Nothing wrong with it at all. The only shortcoming is that if that’s the only thing what the mind does, stay busy in enjoyment of activities of personal interest, and not learn about the world outside of it , it would roll through life like a stone, gathering no moss at all. Oblivious. Simply immersed in personal enjoyment. It would cause a lot of pain and discomfort if those activities were taken away for any reason. 

Whenever and if ever the mind dares to step outside its personal sphere of desires, aspirations, comforts and enjoyments, that’s when it actively begins to learn greater truths of life. That’s when it would be ready to receive a better understanding of the world and about its own function and dysfunction. It would absorb the distinction between basic discomforts of hunger and thirst and discomforts arising from removal of vanity. The nakedness of being cannot be experienced until the cloak of personal desire is removed. 

The few occasions we get to step outside of our well defined lives are those rare opportunities to put aside our desires and comforts, and experience life in its bare form. The more we learn to value these opportunities and grab them we will be on a faster track to freedom. 

Otherwise, like millions of people, we will be one more to go from point A ( birth) to point B ( death) carefully packaged in the golden cage of our desires. 

Amitabh Bachchan often quotes his legendary father, the poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s words:

Man ka ho toh achcha 

Na ho to aur bhi achcha

If you get what you want, good.

If you don’t get what you want, even better.

( Bachchan explains that what you wanted was probably a lesser thing than what God would want for you. So have faith when you are denied your small wishes, bigger things are likely meant for you.)

On similar lines I would say if your dreams are shattered, be grateful. Because you are then set free from the cage that you didn’t know was a cage. 

You will then have the entire rest of your life to understand life rather than glide through life like everyone else. To be enlightened and humbled every moment rather than live with incremental arrogance of knowing everything you need to know. You would go gathering patience and more patience for people around you than getting more impatient as you get older. You would see kindness carry more value than time or money. Sacrifice more meaningful than fulfilled dreams. And freedom and wellbeing entirely different and unrelated to physical or mental elements. The world may deem you to be crazy. Only a few like you would know your worth. And even if there wasn’t a single of such kind, it would not matter. Nothing would matter. You would be enough.