NEVER A DULL MOMENT

If growing-up is fun, then, there should never be a dull moment in life!

Because, growing-up is a life-long experience…

This morning, I caught myself giving a long sermon to a group of six students of twelfth standard. Suddenly, it struck me, in the midst of my sermon, that some twenty-five years ago, incidentally, I had taught either one or both the parents of all these six students! And, I realized that I used to sermon the parents of these young ones, those days, as animatedly as I was doing this morning! Yes, the same fire and passion… same temper and language! 

“Hey, now listen to me, you guys,” I found myself telling my ‘faithful’, “a quarter-century ago, I used to lecture your dads or moms exactly the way I am doing to you now!”

They giggled!

My sermon ended!

“I will tell you guys,” I shook my head with a lot of contentment, “there has never been a dull moment in all these years!”

Honestly, I meant every bit of that line!

Life has been a roller-coaster ride… I had enough of everything which one could ever hope to have in life. Times were good and times were bad… There were moments of success and there were moments of failures… There have been so many good souls to lean on and there have been so many to let me down… Things have worked the way I have planned and things have fallen apart breaking my heart… And, there have been pleasant surprises… gifts, bonuses and windfalls - all like the precious ‘Manna’ from heaven! There have been times, I have felt like a winner in life… and, there have been times, I have felt like a loser…

All this?

Yes, yes.

And, still, there is a reason 

to believe that 

there has never been 

a dull moment in life?

 

Yes, there has never been!

At 6.45, this morning, when I opened the curtains of our window, my heart smiled at what I first saw outside. A lady was taking her brisk walk. 

What is so special about it? 

“Darling,” I called my wife, “look here!” 

When my darling wife saw the sight, her heart too smiled. “Never a dull moment here!” she shook her head.

The lady was taking rounds after rounds holding her quite-a-big Doberman close to her heart!

Yes, if growing-up is fun, then, there should never be a dull moment in life!

Because, growing-up is a life-long experience!

“Now you go home and ask your parents,” I had told my young-six this morning, “whether or not I preached them with the same fire and ice twenty-five years ago!”

Never a dull moment, darling… Never, ever!

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pics.: Prakash S. Nayak