Your dream vs your family

I saw a serial some days back in which the hero in order to decide whether he should marry the heroine or not asked her the following question. "If you had to choose between your family and your dreams what would you do?" The girl's answer is that she would never break the dreams of her family in order to fulfil her dreams.

This scene reminded me of a conversation between two of my friends that I heard while we were passing time at the Trichy railway station. One of them exclaimed "how can I leave my family who've been with me for 22 years, for someone whom I've got to know only for a short period of a year or two?"

The counter question by Ideh was "what if with this someone you would have ended up spending 30-35 years of your life?"

Life sure doesn't look like a box of chocolates to me. :p

Differently enabled

An article with the same title as above was printed in today's Times of India. I am quoting a part of the text here:

"The chief technology officer of Tata Steel, a person with multiple sclerosis who uses a wheelchair, has even the South American coal authorities turning to him for advice on the future of coke-making in Colombia. The advisory systems consultant of IBM Global Services India, who is visually impaired, is a member of a 4-member IBM world-wide team and the first blind IBMer to achieve IT specialist certification. The assistant director of filmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali is the "anchor on the sets" of his films.

People with disabilities are busy conquering new frontiers everyday. Every sphere they break into, they instantly win accolades and ardent supporters with their competance, professionalism and dedication, changing the way entire sectors look at people with disabilities."

Such people are living examples of the fact that how our life turns out depends up on what we make out of it.

In my class XIIth English textbook there was a story. It began with a blind beggar recounting to a rich businessman how he lost his eyesight when he was trampled in a stampede as someone from behind pulled him down in order to reach the exit first. The beggar was hoping that on hearing his account this rich man would take pity on him and give him some money so that he could survive another day. But what happened next was something unbelievable.

It turns out that this "rich businessman" was also visually impaired and the tale that the blind beggar had been narrarting in truth took place the other way round. It was the beggar who had pulled down the man in front of him and the man in front of him was none other than this businessman.

What makes this story extraordinary is that the stampede had occured in a mill where at that time both the beggar and the businessman were employed as labourers. Facing the same circumstances while one man chooses to use his disability as a means for generating sympathy for himself, another one chooses to succeed in life going on to prove that he is simply differently enabled.

Summing up... it really is on us to let a hurdle remain a hurdle or to jump over it and move ahead in life.

Reckless living

The above is R K Laxman's You Said It which came in Times of India a few days back. Funny though the cartoon might appear but it actually raises some very serious issues. One it talks about the poverty that is still rampant in India and two about the reckless way of living of those who are above the poverty line. It is the latter that I am going to discuss here.

When kids drunk in part by liquor and in part by their youth run their car over unsuspecting workers sleeping on the footpath they also in a way run over the families of these workers. On most occasions the news papers and news channels are able to create a stir among the public but justice is hardly ever delivered. I sometimes wonder how those guilty of taking a life can sleep peacefully at night and in the day be able to look everyone in the eye.

A friend of mine once proudly told me that he had could cross a road while just inches away from a bus! It left me completely aghast. Have people even stopped valuing their own lives?

What wouldn't some of us do to bring back a loved one that we've lost... to get some extra minutes or even seconds with them? Its a shame therefore to find someone putting his/her lives at stake just for experiencing an adrenaline rush that lasts only for a few moments.

I believe its time we realized the true worth of the life that we've been given. Its time we started caring again.

Men on marriages :)

I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste.

- David Bissonette

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.

- Sacha Guitry

After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

- Socrates

A happy marriage is a matter of giving and taking; the husband gives and the wife takes

Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them.

- Dumas

The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, "What does a woman want?"

- Freud

I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me.

Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.

- Henny Youngman

I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years.

- Sam Kinison

There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage.

- James Holt McGavran

I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one left me and the second one didn't.

- Patrick Murray

Is there God?

An atheist was walking through the woods.

"What majestic trees"!

"What powerful rivers"!

"What beautiful animals"!

He said to himself. As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly charge towards him.

He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing in on him. He looked over his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer. He tripped & fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw & raising his right paw to strike him.

At that instant the Atheist cried out, "Oh my God!"

Time Stopped.

The bear froze.

The forest was silent.

As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came outof the sky! .

"You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don't exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident." "Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer"?

The atheist looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask You to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps You could make the BEAR a Christian"?
"Very Well," said the voice.

The light went out.

The sounds of the forest resumed.

And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head and spoke:

"Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen."