Thursday, January 24, 2008

Contentment – are you on its left or right?

As we weave through life and follow predictable life-routines…wake up..the loo routine…the morning grub…rush to work…swear at your fellow motorists…etc etc the level of mindless automation that we have achieved is amazing. During those rare moments when we sit back and think about what we are doing and where we are hurtling towards, life has this funny way of rushing in and sweeping all those thoughts under the carpet. Life is the chameleon here taking the form of our children suddenly brawling or the wife either cosying up or screaming or a myriad other distractions.

Are you content? That’s the moot question! Or as T. S. Elliot’s central character in his poem The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock, shall we also in chorus refrain:

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Do we dare disturb the universe that we have created around ourselves and turn back and descend the stair and give up the hustle and bustle of life to do what we really care. Are we really content?

We have all our lives, atleast us middle class Indians, been goaded by our parents and society to climb the ladder of success, participate and win in the rat race…chase our tails till kingdom come…and here I am.. neither a doctor nor an engineer..things that an Indian parent would give their limbs for to have their children achieve..thinking which side of contentment am I? Content that I have the means to enjoy’s life’s pleasures or should I follow that part of me that wants to chuck it all up…go to Benaras, the city where I have left my soul…float in the Ganges…and do what I cherish to do – write!

Stop awhile and think, which side of contentment are you?