LIFE'S LIKE THAT








Pic.: Akshay Puri

If I have to choose two simple things – the wayside things as I call them – I had come across, today, which made me smile and feel a little better, they would be these:
1.      An old anecdote shared by Chaitra Rao from Manipal in one of the Reader's Digest issues (LIFE’S LIKE THAT), and, today, shared on FB by one of my friends, Nisha Nair.
2.       A random click by another friend of mine, Akshay Puri.

 First, the anecdote…
“When my mothers’ breakfast upma repeatedly failed to meet dad’s expecting standards, he sat her down and explained the fundamentals: the importance of right amount of water, the timing, and how his mother used to dish out great upma in 15 minutes flat…
It worked for us anyway. Since then, we have been having good, steaming-hot upma every Saturday morning. Only the cook has changed… Dad has to make it!”

I was at the dining table, having my Saturday-morning breakfast… In the place of Chaitra’s Upma, I had omelet and roties. They tasted unusually great, after savoring the joke!

Did I, often, crib before my wife about the food she prepared? Did I lecture her as to how it had to be done and, yes, how my own mom used to dish it out in 15 minutes flat?

Well, I couldn’t stop my heart from smiling… and feeling nice!

I chanced upon Akshay’s random click almost at the same time… I loved the beauty oozing out of this random picture. The squirrel looked so inviting, sitting on Akshay’s hall-room window… I immediately sent a message to him seeking his permission for its use in today’s blog…

To see the beauty around us, we not only need a heart of a lover, but we need a heart of a child too. There is so much God has spread around us… so, so much, that even a billion cameras cannot capture it. Even if they can, it would be only labeled as a ‘Duplicate’, a ‘Copy’… It can never be the ‘Original’!

Yes, even our best creations are only ‘copies’ from the standpoint of God, the creator. It applies in every sphere… No matter what we create or produce, invent or discover, let us remember, that we only come out with ‘copies’… The ‘original’ is irreplaceable! The ‘Master’ is irreplaceable!

So, when I was captivated by the simple beauty of Akshay’s squirrel, I couldn’t’ stop my heart from feeling the awe of God’s bounty around me… It seemed as though the squirrel had come to my hall-room window to remind me as to how ‘small’ I really was in the gigantic design of God!

One random share – an anecdote – had brought a smile in my heart. Another random click had brought a deep reverence for Life… “Life’s like that,” I heard my heart whispering!


GERALD D’CUNHA

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