LIFE LIES IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE

 



 

“With life as short as a half-taken breath,

don’t plant anything but love.”

Rumi

 

One of the things I have been poor at – and blissfully ignorant about – is how to make the best use of changing technology. I used to write  my daily notes in dairies. There was an office  assistant, and hence, I never learnt to turn on and off the computer. Then, one day, he quit to join a better job. I decided to turn on the computer… So, since, 2008 or so, I have been directly typing my daily notes. I began to call them my ‘Blogs’.

That’s, also, when I decided to join FB, with the sole objective of sharing my Blog posts through this platform. A couple of my students had helped me to start my Blog, while my son had helped me to join FB. I remember his words: “Dad, you are joining Facebook when our generation is quitting it (to join Instagram).”  Well, I did not know what that meant…

It’s about fourteen years since I joined FB… and, I still continue to go on with it regardless of what my son and his kith are going on with…

Ignorance is bliss… Innocence, too.





“Sir, please check my written status,”  a friend of mine messaged me, yesterday, on WhatsApp. I was confused, “Where is it written?” I wanted to ask her. Just then, my eyes fell on the lines written on her WhatsApp profile:

“Life is short. But, if lived well, even a blink is enough.”


That’s how I had replied to her comment on one of my Blog posts. She had written:

“Sir, though I was not lucky enough to be your student, I have learnt so much from you… Learnt a way of life from you… Have learnt to  forgive and love.”

And, I had replied:

“We all cross our paths just to enrich each other’s lives. Life is short. But, if lived well, even a blink is enough.”

That’s when I learnt what ‘Status’ meant!

Jab jaago, tab sabera!

But then, as I said, Ignorance and innocence, both, are bliss!


I had, always, wondered – rather, was left confused – reading the permanent status of some of my students: ‘Sleeping’… ‘At work’… ‘Busy’ and so on. Just as I have not bothered to change my DP on social-media – be it FB or WhatsApp – these lazy, young kids have not bothered to change their social media status…

When I mentioned about it to my dear wife, she remembered a 3-year-old son of one of her friends. She said, “Every time I say to him, ‘Beta, you come to my house, he has a ready reply, ‘Aunty, I can’t; I have a meeting’!”

That’s pure innocence.

By all probability, this little ‘executive’ has acquired this permanent status from his parents or someone at home…

The little kids are busy… the young ones are busy… we all are busy… So busy, that when we cross our paths, we fail to see the extraordinary beauty in our ordinary things…






Yes, Life is short. But, if lived well, even a blink is enough!

It’s Mike Skinner who said, “Life lies in the blink of an eye.”

 

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic's.: pixaby

 

Video: Rohit Gupta/Jindagi Na Milegi Dobara

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