Life and its many connotations

Its been quite a long time since I have written anything, so this blog post might be a little rusty around the edges but bear with the contents. Life, hmm, has been quite interesting lately marked by the events of marriage; developing and understanding situations from a whole different stand point. Writing this post after watching an incredibly touching movie, I want to capture some of the memories of childhood, parents, post graduate studies and the most recent one of meeting my better half.

Its amazing how life unfolds through the days and years in a series of twists and turns marked by your behavior and attitude that we display in those moments. In my post-graduate studies, I would often switch off the lights in the night and gaze through the darkness rewinding and replaying the good and bad incidents of the past. As I would often fall asleep through them; I would wake up in the morning with a fresh perspective, feeling humbled by my actions, behaviors and attitude and also a deep founded respect towards my parents, brothers and sisters .

Through this, there would be an awareness, so as to say, from recounting those incidents and watching yourself -in words, tone and actions; from the eyes from a person virtually present in that exact same time. This routine would help me in evaluating my behaviour in a relatively short span of time and form a self-corrective nature.

But as life keeps moving along, you get busy. For me, Busy is a hypocritical word. The word keeps you engaged in things and events that give you little or no happiness of being in that state. It is like a suspended state of action with little or no time left for thinking about the actions executed, words spoken, tones used or attitude exhibited. There is little time left for feeling and emotions; and striking things off from the to-do-list becomes the most important objective of the day. When even remembering the almighty for a moment just after hitting the bed becomes a thing that you postpone to the next day and so on and so forth.

For the last couple of days, after getting married to a person whom I have come to respect in un-imaginable terms, I've been having conversations with myself about exploring the next thing in life to set, to do and to accomplish. While I may not have a found an exact answer to those questions, what I have come to realize is a new connotation to the word "life".

In simple terms, Life is about being aware. Aware about the transformations taking place in the lives of people around you. Aware about the stage of life your parents are progressing on, understanding that they are no longer as active as they used to be. Aware of the small small changes like the warmness of their hands amid the wrinkles that criss cross them, the softness of their skin and the silky whites that grace their heads. I don't know about others, but observing such things instills a sense of pride and confidence about them. At the same time, it also pushes me to perform actions that bring a smile on their face and make them happy.

Aware about the stage of life your siblings and their families are and taking out time to become an important contributor and shape memories for the years ahead. Also for those really cool and admirable uncles and aunts and teachers and neighbors, to whom we used to look upto when life's definition comprised of 3 simple actions - school, cricket and tv. Taking time out and being part of such small conversations immediately plunges you back into those really warm "etched in memory and frozen in time" moments like an India vs Pakistan match in the 2003 world cup and you cramming for a board exam in the hot store room upstairs.

As I am writing this post, another thought comes to my mind that being aware is an incomplete reference for life. After all there are 2 lives that are being talked about - yours and of the people who matter the most to you. So being aware of the lives of people around you needs to be complemented with balancing your own life. Now this may seem a simple word "balance"; which essentially means striking an equal between 2 or more things. However, the challenge for most working professionals is to find the their own definition of the word. While for some it may mean striking corporate success, to some it may be sustainable work and pay and good peer atmosphere. Where most people in my age group fail is observing the state of "other happy" people from a distance and evaluating their definition of balance and then trying to fit their lives in that mirage of a definition.

As I conclude this, I too, am trying to express the billions of thoughts running through me, trying to pen them down and re-read them to think, feel and develop a new perspective about life.

PS- writing something after a very long time, ignore some grammatical accidents.