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TRANSCRIPT
You were probably born inthe latter half of the
1980s or in the early 1990sand are currently in yourmid-20s — which could bewhy this caught yourattention.
You might still be single, orin a relationship, or about tobe married. Or probably yourrelationship status is just soconfusing even to you thatyou say “it’s complicated”,and try to leave it at that.Whatever it is, though a partof your mind says you arehappy the way things are, asmall part is envious of yourmarried friends who seem tohave suddenly moved on toofar, leaving you behind.
If you are a young woman,and still unmarried, society’seyes are on you. Everyone youknow or you can’t even re-member ever meeting in yourlife, suddenly come up to yourparents and ask why you arestill not married and suggestsome cousin’s nephew and goon about how he’s the rightguy for you. This will beenough to fuel your parents’worries. And suddenly you’llfind yourself going on a pil-grimage every weekend in-stead of to malls or movies, toget rid of the ‘doshams’ inyour astrological chart.
All of a sudden, the worldseems to be filled with onlymarried couples. Your Face-book newsfeed is full of en-gagements, marriage andhoneymoon photos, and ev-ery picture or post shared isabout love or relationship. Asif your relatives are notenough to drive youdesperate.
Life doesn’t get easy if youare in a relationship, either.You start worrying aboutwhether your partner’s fam-ily and yours will accept, andget along with, each other.Even if they are open-mind-ed, there will always be some-one in the crowd who willbring up caste, stars, commu-nity or a hundred other rea-sons as to why the marriagemight not work. You mighthave lost your girlfriend justbecause her parents thinkshe’s old enough to get mar-ried and you are not, or be-cause you’re just not theiridea of Mr. Perfect.
Just getting married won’tsolve your issues. Because,then they’ll want to knowwhen you’ll be starting a fam-ily. Don’t even get me startedon that! In short, society justdoesn’t leave you alone what-
ever your status.Most of you would have
successfully got on to the cor-porate treadmill, only to real-ise you don’t control thespeed on this one. Your pre-fect badges, gold medals andcertificates are neatly keptlocked inside along with yourmusical instrument, paintingkit, stamp and coin collec-tions, only to be taken out oc-casionally to be dusted andkept inside again. Your daysare filled with issues, lines ofcode, defects, customer calls,coffee-cups and office treats.Some of you might not evenget enough Vitamin D as youare in office before sunriseand out only when the mooncomes out.
Even worse are the oneswho live by time zones in adifferent continent. You endup living for and only duringweekends. You tell yourselfit’s all for the house or the caryou want to buy, or so thatyour matrimonial profilewould look good. Occasional-ly, when your heart stirs up anold dream, you convinceyourself your current job waseverything you ever wantedand the on-site opportunitythat seems just round the cor-ner would solve everything.Very few of you have thecourage to follow your dream.
Your school-and college-mates are far and busy withtheir own lives. They are ei-ther busy with their higherstudies or married life, orclimbing up the corporateladder. Not just your custom-ers, even your friends are nowin different time zones. A callout of the blue, a few What-sApp messages, make youwonder how much life haschanged. There is no longer“the gang”, and everybody isbusy creating their own iden-tity in the world. You readblogs that say “Things to dobefore you are 25, places tovisit before you are 30…” andwonder whether they’ll everhappen to you.
But I’ll say you are on theright track if by 25, all youhave had are a broken heart, amissed on-site opportunity,rejection, lost someone closeforever. You’re now just bet-ter-equipped to survive therest of your life.
Cribbing about the waythings are isn’t going tochange your life. So get out ofthe familiar walls, try an ad-venture sport, visit new plac-es, make new friends, care forthe less fortunate in society.Just go out and seize the day!
The mid-20s crisisthat really isn’t oneAkshaya Giridhar
I’ll say you are on the right track if by 25, all you have had are a brokenheart, a missed on-site opportunity,rejection, loss of someone close forever.You’re now just better-equipped tosurvive the rest of your life.
panying winds. It swayed inthe wind and the roots be-came bare as the soil under-neath got washed away. Hespent hours looking at thetree, but to his surprise thetree held on.
July came and the greenfoliage that is characteristicof the season came to enve-lop the region as spring ap-proached. The professor hadto be away from home for acouple of weeks. As he re-turned and opened the gatesof his house, his gaze went inthe direction of the guavatree. To his surprise, he sawseveral green shoots from itstrunk, and a lone fruit greet-ed him as he went near it. Herang up his teacher to tellhim the good news. Moreimportantly, he was keen toknow why he had given theadvice he gave.
The senior replied: “It’ssimple my boy… the treefaced a threat to its survivalwhen you cut the branches,and hence was forced tocome up with adaptive mea-sures. The new branches,leaves, and the fruit are itsresponse to the external
action.”The professor
summed up thestory by tellingthe boys that ifthe bar is higher,we will be forcedto work harderand innovativeideas will come tous as we lookaround for op-portunities. Headded: “I urgeyou to work har-
der, and take obstacles as achallenge. New doors willdefinitely open.”
Many years later, I wasamong a small group of peo-ple who were discussingover coffee the impact of thesocio-economic policychanges that came about inIndia in the 1990s.
A software engineer in thegroup said: “The IT revolu-tion and the global Indianwould not have happenedbut for the socio-economicchanges initiated in the1990s.” He said peoplewould have remained con-tent with government jobsthat gave them a seemingsense of stability.
My thoughts went back toProfessor Parameswaranand his advice that day whenhe asked us to look aroundfor new opportunities whena crisis confronts us.
Adversity makes us moreproductive and helps us in-novate, as his lesson fromnature taught us. On the oth-er hand, mollycoddling isharmful as survival skills failto evolve when we needthem.
Nietzche was right whenhe said, “Whatever thatdoesn’t kill you makes youstronger.”
If you examine anyone’s lifefrom close quarters you
will realise that it is always anunending endeavour to avoidadversities as we live ourlives. Human beings, you willobserve, are always engagedin everyday acts that will helpthem avoid, overcome, oradapt to the difficulties thatlife throw up. Adversitieshave a beneficial role too — asI learnt from nature, moreprecisely from a humble tree.
The 1990s were tumultu-ous for India, with many eco-nomic and social changeshappening. The governmenthad introduced an affirma-tive action programme forthe socially and educational-ly challenged groups of thecountry, and this meant somepeople were preferred for themuch-coveted governmentjobs.
It had sparked much dis-content among those whowere not beneficiaries of thenew system and it was thisfeeling that took a few boysfrom Karamana, a sleepy sub-urb of Thiruvananthapuram,to Professor Para-meswaran, a retiredteacher of life sci-ences, known morefor his stories fromlife which had asoothing effect onthose who listenedto him.
The professormade all the boys sitaround him as henarrated an eventfrom his life whichhe said resembledthe situation that the peoplearound him often foundthemselves in. Many yearsago, he had planted a guavasapling in front of his house.Years passed and the saplinggrew to be a tree. But, it boreno fruits in spite of the pro-fessor’s nurture.
One day, his teacher land-ed in his house after a longinterval and the discussionnaturally turned to the treesin the garden. The older manasked about the guava treeand the professor replied:“This is one of my failures. Itis several years now but thistree has not yielded anyfruit.”
The senior’s response wasan unexpected one for some-one who loved nature and allthat was in it. “Cut all thebranches except one or two,”he told his pupil. Parameswa-ran was taken aback by thisadvice, but he did not betrayany emotion out of deferenceto the older man. That nighthe thought long and hard anddecided to follow his senior’swords.
Soon it was June, and themonsoon brought copiousrain. The professor watchedthe guava tree every day withits two remaining branchesholding on against the heavyrain lashing at it with accom-
If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you strongEaswer H.V.
Adversitymakes usmoreproductiveand helps usinnovate, asnature oftenteaches us
CMYK
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OPEN PAGE14 THE HINDU SUNDAY, MAY 11, 2014
NOIDA/DELHI
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Yes, we need high-speed train travel inIndia, and we need iteverywhere. But
should we rush into buildinghigh-speed bullet trains andthe required lines for them?Not at this moment, I think.Before that we deserve manymore things on the IndianRailways so that we can travelfast, safe and with comfortand dignity.
Instead of investing hugeresources to construct a rela-tively short stretch of trackfor a bullet train, there is aneed to do many more thingsfor the network throughoutthe country.
There should be no pres-sure on us to introduce bullettrains just because many oth-er countries have such show-piece systems. But thereought to be pressure on us tohave the kind of general trainservices that those countrieshave.
There is a need to improvesafety standards here. Clean-liness and hygiene should im-prove inside trains, onplatforms and along tracks.We should complete all unfin-ished projects that are waiting
ple handrail at every staircasein every station, so that it sup-ports passengers and porterscarrying luggage? Why can-not I enter a train when it israining without crossing asheet of rainwater fallingfrom the platform roof?
Why cannot we improvethe conditions of tracks ev-erywhere so that the general
speed of trains can be in-creased, keeping safety inmind?
All these need to be done,and can be done. The IndianRailways, which follows ro-bust engineering practices,can do all these and more.With a national will andmatching resources it can bedone. It does not need anynew technology. It does notneed much additional space tolay new tracks. It requires de-termination and training ofpersonnel. It requires disci-pline, a change in attitude anda sense of accountability.Without such general im-provement, the bullet trainproject has little chance ofsuccess.
The Indian Railways sys-tem is a working system. It isfunctioning. But it is far belowthe standards that exist incountries that are pouringmoney into bullet trains. Letus first improve general stan-dards and then consider thebullet train, if it would still befeasible.
For now, we should im-prove the safety, quality andspeed for all. Those who needstill higher speed can travel byair for now.
with a porter which platforma train is going to arrive on,especially when it is late?Why should one have to waitso long even to buy a platformticket? If you doubt this, orsuggest an automatic ma-chine, you should experienceit at the Bangalore railwaystation.
Why cannot we have a sim-
course, everyone else?And how about punctual-
ity? A train running lateshould become the exceptionrather than the rule. Shouldnot two clocks in a stationshow the same time? Whyshould it be so difficult to findout if my train is late when Iam on the platform? Whyshould one have to enquire
for too long; they are a drainon the budget.
Why should not train travelbe a pleasure? Why shouldmaking a ticket reservation bean unpleasant experience? Dowe need the Tatkal system ofmaking reservations at all?Should it not become possibleto book a ticket at short noticeand travel comfortably? Andcan I travel in a reserved com-partment without a largenumber of unauthorised pas-sengers entering and sittingeverywhere, while the ticketexaminer walks around help-lessly or looks the other way?Is travel safe for women, chil-dren, the differently abled,foreigners, the elderly and, of
Mohan D. Deshpande
WAY TO GO: Typical scenes of waiting, and desperately boarding, passengers atthe New Delhi railway station. — PHOTO: V.V. KRISHNAN
Why the bullet train can well wait for nowThe Indian Railways should get its priorities right and first improve conditions of travel
Summer cleaning this yearwas different. My only son
was done with schooling andhad left home for his under-grad at New York University.Years of moulding him to be-come a responsible individu-al, student, swimmer,speaker, leader — everythinghad come to a grinding halt.The only way I could shakemyself off a possible on-slaught of an ‘empty nest syn-drome' was to clean up whatbelonged to the bygone era,and get ready for another setof productive years.
Cleaning up Sachith’s roomwas an emotional challenge.His Lego set, stickers, old la-bels, Pokemon card collec-tions — all sent me intosniffles and sometimes intooccasional wails. I couldn’tget myself to junk them. Sothey stayed back in his war-drobe along with his firstswimming trunks. His text-books had piled up over theyears; we were hoping it couldbe of use to some needy kid.Nobody seemed needy
going to be a collection ofhealth foods, low-carb meals,salad preparations and otherhealth tips for the hubby andme who were into middle age.The photo folder was a madcollection of pictures of fam-ily, friends and happy occa-sions that had accumulatedover the years after my soncame into our lives. Theywere sorted, cropped andkept ready for Family Album– Version 6.
Exhausted after a week ofcleaning, I saw that there wasone more task left. Cleaningup my telephone book. Myhusband never understoodwhy I insisted on using only apencil in the phone book. Tome the phone book was moreof a reminder of events thatwent by, rather than just peo-ple who came into and wentout of our lives. This book wasa flashback of happeningsover the past 15 years of ourlife: the names of people whohad passed away were rubbedoff with a sigh. Along withthem went the grocer who gotwiped out with the coming ofa supermarket in the neigh-bourhood, my plumber whotook off for the Gulf, and thepaediatrician from whom wehad weaned away my son.Then there were teachers, tu-tors and coaches of variousbreeds. Right from the oneswho wanted my boy out oftheir lives to the ones whohailed him as the best find intheir entire career. All ofthem remained in my phonebook. They were all part of myson’s upbringing, priceless as-sets that had moulded his per-sonality. .
Thus ended my summercleaning, which also markedthe end of my primary role asa mother. I had the immensesatisfaction of having woundup this role well. My only dutynow was to offer prayers formy child — to keep him closeto my Lord, and to give him asense of duty to his needy fel-low beings, however toughthe challenge, whatever raceor religion they belonged to.
plations as to why a teacherloathed him. Science and phi-losophy fascinated him andhe even framed his own theo-ry of time! This scrapbookmade me realise that we hadallowed our boy to grow freeof the shackles of academicdemands. He was free to thinkand dream and grow into aconfident young man. I guessthis is what eventually earnedhim a full scholarship at aworld-class university, andcertainly not his board markswhich were just average.
Cleaning up my laptop wasa daunting task. Along with alot of stuff that had accumu-lated over the years, therewere collections of school es-says, snippets of online arti-cles in science, social issues orjust famous quotes that wereonce sent to my son. Therewere recipes that were mostlyfor quick school snacks, pud-dings, sweets and savouriesall geared to suit a growingboy’s palate. All this waspacked into a folder, ‘zipped’and e-mailed to my sister,who would now need it. Fromnow on my recipe folder was
enough these days to use oldtextbooks, unlike in my dayswhen they were not just mon-ey-savers but also providedvaluable pointers through ex-tra information scribbled init. Unwanted today, they arejunked for the paper recyclingman. Old clothes and toyswent to a nearby orphanage,to make space in thewardrobe.
In the pile of mess in hiswardrobe, was his scrapbookfull of scribbles, drawings andpictures that he had collectedover the years. Out of curi-osity I decided to thumbthrough it wanting to seewhat my little boy had gonethrough as he grew up. Therewere drawings that reflectedthe cartoons of his age fromchildhood to teens. Rightfrom Speed Racer and Spon-geBob all the way to Simpsonsand Samurai Jack. Therewere phone numbers of hisclosest friends and bullies.There were also one-liners toGod that reflected joy in vic-tory or pain in failure. Therewere also tiny little poems ofcrushes on girls or contem-
Reflections through transition timeMeena Benjamin
The most beautiful word inany language is mother andits equivalents. Because theword mother not only epito-mises and encapsulates allthat’s lovely and beautiful inthis world, but also the mostdivine in the whole universe
— John Stuart Mill, English philosopher
Indeed, ‘mother’, or itsequivalents, is the most
beautiful word in any lan-guage. It evokes a spectrum ofemotions and a gamut of feel-ings in the heart of even themost ruthless individual. Itmoves even insensate moun-tains. This very quality of
selflessly loving of her offspr-ing elevates a mother andplaces her on the highest ped-estal of veneration. “PutraKuputra Bhaye / Mata Kuma-ta na Hoye” (A son may goawry but a mother cannot be-come anything other than amother).
The umbilical bond be-tween a child and his or hermother is much stronger thanthat of man’s love for god. Be-cause god cannot be every-where, he created mother.Even divine love is measuredwith respect to mother’s love.The Koran states that Allahhas in his heart, the love of 70mothers. Without getting in-to the hair-splitting compari-sons, it can be aptly said that
mother’s love is boundless be-cause she carries her child inher womb for nine months. Itcreates a bond that is peerlessin the spectrum of human re-lationships and emotions.The way a mother relates toher child, a father cannot.Emotionally as well as affec-tionately, the father foreverremains on the fringe but amother instantaneously takescentre stage and the core ofcloseness. There are two rea-sons for this. The first is amother’s inestimable love (forher child) and the second isthat mother is a woman, soshe has to be always emotion-ally superior to father, a man.A mother understands evenher child’s smallest need; it’s
an uncanny trait. A mother isalways telepathically boundwith her offspring.
In the Mahabharata, Gand-hari shuddered and had a pre-monition of the death of her100 sons in the battle of Ku-rukshetra, whereas the blindDhritarashtra required San-jaya to know that his sonswere regularly dying in thebattlefield. Even Duryodhana,who was so close to his father,wanted to meet his mother,not his father, before dying.And Gandhari also came toknow of her wayward son’s vi-olent end much before hisone-to-one fight with Bhima.
This underscores the depthof love and affection betweena mother and her child.
Edward Gibbon wrote poi-gnantly of how the Romanemperor Nero’s hands shookbefore he killed his schemingmother, Agrippina the Young-er. Even a man like Nero,whom British historian SirArnold Toynbee called “cruel-ty personified,” thought twicebefore killing his mother.
This love transcends theentire canvas of closeness be-tween two individuals or twocreatures. No other relation-ship is so poignantly interwo-ven as that of a mother andchild. Mother is a glimpse ofheaven on earth. To quote theoriginal Persian couplet, AgarFirdaus “war-rue saminast/Haminast, haminast, hami-nast (If there’s a heaven any-
where on earth, it’s here,here, here).” And after par-aphrasing it, “Agar Khudawar-rue zaminast/Haminast,Haminast, Haminast (Ifthere’s god anywhere onearth, it’s here, it's here, it’shere).”
No language in the worldhas enough and the most ap-posite superlatives to articu-late a mother’s unconditionallove for her child. It’s some-thing that needs to be felt andexperienced from inside, notdescribed from outside.
Sumit Paul
This Mother’s Day, for a glimpse of heaven on earth