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The quintessence of what we are supposed during our progress from womb to tomb is ‘to be our age’ at the various
stages. As an infant in arms, your healthy growth depends to a great extent on your parents/guardians who are duty-bound to see to all your needs including security. A little later, when you become interested in sliding down ramps and swinging, the formation of your basic character starts, depending upon the settled nature of your escort. At school and at college, it largely rests on our teachers to inculcate in us a sound outlook on men and things and a true appreciation of eternal values in life for us to adopt as guides in our journey through it. The next crucial stage of is your setting foot on an independent life of your own. The affluence of your parents or the lack of it decides whether you can wait until you and the job suit each other or you sell yourself under distress by accepting the first job on offer. Again, your luck determines your choice of a life partner. Whether it is a marriage born of love or is a conventional one, Heaven alone knows if she will be co-operative or a hindrance. A large majority of us are fortunate in being spared from these ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, hazards that can disrupt life. It is matter of great sadness to me that most of us do not pause to think how lucky we are; we go through life just as a book-worm does from cover to cover of a book but with no title to claim awareness of its contents. There are amongst us some beings going by the name of ‘mongols’ whose mental age does not catch up with their physical age. We have special schools to cure them of mental retardation through and tedious process so that they can mix confidently with the rest who are supposed to be normal. The ugly fact is that, barring rare exceptions, we are like Peter Pan refusing to grow with age. For all practical purposes, it is no better than ‘mongolism’. In practically every field of human activity, this infantile ‘senility’ affects relationships to such a degree that extra-terrestrial beings would have no hesitation in calling this world a madhouse. There are amongst us many who keep amassing wealth through questionable means. Their accumulation should cease at some stage as water spills out in an overflow jar. Why do they continue their operations so as to confer unfair advantages to their descendants up to, say, the seventh generation after them? Even among organisms invisible to the naked eye, not all species are harmful to humans. It is due to the silent and unseen activity of one such thing, living on a micro-level, that we get curd and butter out of milk. As age advances, we should shed our inhibitions and complexes and start living like the Miller of the Dee who neither envied anybody nor was the object of envy to anyone
Published: April 08, 2007
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