Man ... This is Life!

Birth is a happy occasion, a celebration of love caught in the vicious circle of life.

Hence, the pitiful wails and the clenched fists of the newborn infant. It rebels from that very moment, angry and afraid of being snatched away from the cocoon of its home. Its security shattered as it is forced to make its laborious journey into the world of the unknown. Its umbilical cord severed that connected it to its creator. Alone and confused the individual is born.

It is three or may be four now. It is the cynosure of all eyes with cherubic cheeks, mischievous grins, innocent chuckles and transient tears. It is the little attention seeker, the tantrum thrower discovering the adventure called life and reveling in it. It relishes the novelty each facet of life has to offer. The child is born.

It is a rebel without a cause, may be, without a pause. It has to make itself heard over the mocking tones of its contemporaries. Its id is super dominant and his ego unflappable. It races against time throwing caution to the wind. Life is in its grasp and it moulds its own destiny. It laughs and scorns the weaknesses of others and emulates the strengths of its “friends” and idols. It is a pendulum, its movements a bundle of pre-conceived predictably erratic emotions on a very short fuse. It hungers for recognition. The adolescent is born.

It lusts for power in the boardroom or in the bedroom. Power drives it towards its goals in the search of pure lucre. The smell of freshly minted notes intoxicates its senses. Mergers or acquisitions of any kind, for business or for pleasure must be fruitful to be worthy of its consideration. It has already loved and lost and though it knows that money does not turn the wheels of life, it certainly oils them. It is a fa’ade to cloak its despair and promises itself never to trust again. It has lost the capacity to trust and to believe in others and most of all itself. The shrewd businessman is born.

The drive is gone, the will is gone and it is married to complacency. It has lost track of time. Yesterday is today and tomorrow is yesterday. Life follows a predictable pattern. Age has compelled it to mellow and it is stoically and strangely satisfied with the scanty servings life has to offer. It is afraid of sudden change of plans that disrupts its clockwork curriculum. It is overawed, flustered and bewildered by trivial matters and feels threatened by it. It seeks security in its family and relatives. The retired man is born.

It is always lost in the sea of millions, forever trying to ascertain its individuality stumbling on the impediments erected by itself or by its peers or by “society”. Its journeys are Herculean as it has often got to rise from the ashes battered, bruised and contused. Like the proverbial phoenix it tries to soar only to have its wings slashed and clipped again and again. Incredulously, it rises again and the man is born.

And the woman perishes — first as the creator when she cuts off all ties as when the cord is sliced. Then as the mother, it pampers and spoils teaching her son the nuances and the privileges of being a boy, catering to his every whim and fancy. Indulging him during his adolescent years tries to be his friend but becomes the enemy in disguise. She tries to live in the fast lane, trying to keep pace with her son but she is chasing the tornado that sucks everything in its path. She is the woman used and betrayed for some lucrative deal. She thought that it was love when she was paid not to think. She did not have a right to think. Then the wife of a complacent man with no goal, zeal or ideal — life for her is in a rut and she believes that there is no way out. She digs her grave deeper and deeper. Then as the creator again she lives but she does not perceive and she continues her uninterrupted cosmic karmic journey for all eternity.