Nearly a month ago, I wrote the following, while dusting the new diary.Today, I reach an important milestone of my life. Reaching 60 is more like moving towards a century, while your in nervous 90 plus. Those marginal runs count to reach the magic figure 100.So also the march towards one’s sixty. When my father reached this number, I was at Madras Presidency College. They didn’t do any celebration. Indeed there was no need for it, as every day was lived practicing hard and honest work,and as a reward for that honestly released energy,they took their wages of labor. I also want to follow my parents in this regard.
At 60,I look back with a sense of pride of my parents and work ethics and my own disillusionment with academic work and this also gives me an opportunity to think about my parents , my immediate relations and my students.
In a matter of a month,
If God willing,
I shall be completing sixtieth year.
Nearly forty years of academic life
And Thirty eight years of marital life
When I look back and ruminate,
Reflect in tranquility and troubled peace,
I honestly wonder
How those long years
Have been lived through
Sometimes with a sense of exhilaration.
And many a time, especially
In late 90’s and early 2000s
In deep depression/despair
Digesting insults and swallowing
Continual humiliations.
As Mother Earth does not
Grumble, even while it is caved in
I have also endured
With patience and perseverance
And delivered the common good
The academic good.
Mother Earth has been raped
Plundered and exploited,
And yet it moves on with
Measured steps
And Revolves around the Sun
With clinical precision.
With all destruction process
In the name of development
Global warming going beyond
Tolerable limits,
And ecological balance
Turning into a tail spin
There is an understandable worry
About sustainability of life itself.
At 60,I look back with a sense of pride of my parents and work ethics and my own disillusionment with academic work and this also gives me an opportunity to think about my parents , my immediate relations and my students.
In a matter of a month,
If God willing,
I shall be completing sixtieth year.
Nearly forty years of academic life
And Thirty eight years of marital life
When I look back and ruminate,
Reflect in tranquility and troubled peace,
I honestly wonder
How those long years
Have been lived through
Sometimes with a sense of exhilaration.
And many a time, especially
In late 90’s and early 2000s
In deep depression/despair
Digesting insults and swallowing
Continual humiliations.
As Mother Earth does not
Grumble, even while it is caved in
I have also endured
With patience and perseverance
And delivered the common good
The academic good.
Mother Earth has been raped
Plundered and exploited,
And yet it moves on with
Measured steps
And Revolves around the Sun
With clinical precision.
With all destruction process
In the name of development
Global warming going beyond
Tolerable limits,
And ecological balance
Turning into a tail spin
There is an understandable worry
About sustainability of life itself.
When I look back and ruminate,
I am not fully happy with myself.
I know I could have done better
Led a still better life, on varied fronts
I couldn’t go beyond
A certain limit
With all my academic greed.
I am thankful to the God
For whatever has been given.
I only know,
This lengthened life itself is a bonus.
Many happy and miserable
Accidents of life
Could have just whisked me away
Just like that.
My Friend, Amanulla’s kind of
Premature hand shakes with Destiny,
Why did he give this bonus?
I don’t know
We are all living on bonus time.
And we must live each moment
As if it is the last or first one
That we have encountered.
“Infatuation is like common cold,
Therefore it must run its course,”
I read once.
The same thing must hold good for
Everything in life
Both good and bad
Just pass like a fleeting moment
I want to forget all my
Cumulative financial losses of life
By strange quirk of fate, sorry
My own indifference and stupidity
Has distanced me form
Elementary fund management.
I also motivate myself
With an auto suggestion to
Overcome all physical stress
And psychological strife
With a stoic smile.
It would also passé….
By absorbing more into the subject
And getting dissolved there,
An insulating mechanism may ensue.
The language of violence and hatred
Is more like a volcano
They don’t erupt suddenly
You must learn to live with it
Insulate from it, and if possible
Profit by that experience,
An experience that millions
Will not get in this birth.
True, waves of the sea
Do not rest,
Heart beats continulsy with a
Rhythmic beauty and yet
They too will take a small break.
In the sea of life called suffering,
Fused with transient pleasure
You too will take that
Small break of rest,
A blissful joy.
You are alive today, because of work
Hold on to it.
Embrace it feverishly
Get mesmerized by it,
Love it, Labor for it
Remember your Mother
For further guidance in this regard
Besides meditating on work, also
Resume your walk.
Enjoy it and get energized by it.
When death finally embraces
In a more pleasant way
At the appointed hour
Causing mild and short lived suffering
To your close hearts
You will be fully liberated.
Until then enjoy, some freedom,
Love and friendship
If they come on Your High way of Life
I am not fully happy with myself.
I know I could have done better
Led a still better life, on varied fronts
I couldn’t go beyond
A certain limit
With all my academic greed.
I am thankful to the God
For whatever has been given.
I only know,
This lengthened life itself is a bonus.
Many happy and miserable
Accidents of life
Could have just whisked me away
Just like that.
My Friend, Amanulla’s kind of
Premature hand shakes with Destiny,
Why did he give this bonus?
I don’t know
We are all living on bonus time.
And we must live each moment
As if it is the last or first one
That we have encountered.
“Infatuation is like common cold,
Therefore it must run its course,”
I read once.
The same thing must hold good for
Everything in life
Both good and bad
Just pass like a fleeting moment
I want to forget all my
Cumulative financial losses of life
By strange quirk of fate, sorry
My own indifference and stupidity
Has distanced me form
Elementary fund management.
I also motivate myself
With an auto suggestion to
Overcome all physical stress
And psychological strife
With a stoic smile.
It would also passé….
By absorbing more into the subject
And getting dissolved there,
An insulating mechanism may ensue.
The language of violence and hatred
Is more like a volcano
They don’t erupt suddenly
You must learn to live with it
Insulate from it, and if possible
Profit by that experience,
An experience that millions
Will not get in this birth.
True, waves of the sea
Do not rest,
Heart beats continulsy with a
Rhythmic beauty and yet
They too will take a small break.
In the sea of life called suffering,
Fused with transient pleasure
You too will take that
Small break of rest,
A blissful joy.
You are alive today, because of work
Hold on to it.
Embrace it feverishly
Get mesmerized by it,
Love it, Labor for it
Remember your Mother
For further guidance in this regard
Besides meditating on work, also
Resume your walk.
Enjoy it and get energized by it.
When death finally embraces
In a more pleasant way
At the appointed hour
Causing mild and short lived suffering
To your close hearts
You will be fully liberated.
Until then enjoy, some freedom,
Love and friendship
If they come on Your High way of Life
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