When I look at my life and go
down my memory lane, I sincerely believe
that right from the start the unseen hand – the wise and benevolent destiny has taken care of me- no
matter how much disinclination I had towards Him or how
inconsistent and erratic in my love or anger against him.
The secret of success
if any in my life, or failure -there are many is that I did not set any target
or goal for myself. Absolutely there was no visionary ambition or modest one. Somehow
I have survived thus far without dreaming, without politicking or compromising
on my hard core principles of life.
My innocence or
ignorance about the typical run of mill kind of ego centric journey, that
usually many indulge in was truly a blessing in disguise for me. I did not have
the time or mental makeup to think big and act big and bulldoze many so as to
come up in life. There are many occasions when my alleged enemies (I will not
call them academic) right from college days placed more stumbling blocks to sabotage
my career growth and I was helpless and clueless to negotiate those vicious thoughts.
But I will not blame them squarely for my failings in life. All through my
journey for one reason or another I was weighed down by cumulative suffering ,
most of it self inflicted or ordained by
karma or caused by friendly enemies. I should only thank the supreme for not
having allowed me to lose the sense of balance at the height of despair and humiliation.
All success in my life,
I have attributed it towards the benevolence of Supreme
and all the failures were treated as the inevitable byproduct of my supreme
inactivity. Now with the aging process, I am really worried about the prospect
of physical tiredness which might revisit me as an inseparable companion and
derail my lingering residual academic pursuit. Living at the margin time,
really a bonus time ,I earnestly pray to
the supreme that He should allow me to realize my full academic potentials and make me lead a truly active life , far better than what I have done in the last five decades . Sincere prayers and genuine academic lamentations
will not go unrewarded, I know. For that to happen, I need to fine tune my
physical health and improve my mental health.
I have had my own
moments of joy and pain . When my mother died and more recently when my
youngest daughter got married and thus delinked
from me in a geographical sense , I cried in pain, one early morning .It was
really a full cry , an uninhibited soul
pacifying welcome cry . Occasionally writing in a poetic prose I have
ventilated my emotive feelings.
I have never argued with God for my personal tragedies and sufferings although
Iam continually angry with God for his silence over the suffering of the
majority of the downtrodden, living in dirt and filth and sulking in sorrow and
agony. I know, our life here on this beautful
planet is very very brief, purely transitory. With each passing day, we are
moving closer towards death.Most of us hardly remember this fact, as we are too
busy with the trials and tribulations of daily existence.
Life provided me every thing. Born and brought up in a village environment, rising to an exalted position of a professor in a University
, after straddling through presidency college of Madras and Gokhale Institute of Pune with good academic distinction was indeed more than what I could have expected or dreamt . Good parents , schooling in tamil
medium , education in reputed institutions , memorable teachers and good
friends all along the academic journey, early settlement in job and life , marriage with a beautiful
village girl, bristling with innocence
and inexplicable radiance , and through her three beautiful girl children
and their pleasant residuals- two grand
daughters . What else one would ask for in life?
Higher education with
fellowship / protected salary at an internationally acclaimed institute at Pune
came just like that with minimum effort on my part to help a friend ; the subsequent adventurous journey towards Pune when that friend was no more on Earth. The
academic tapas and meditation at Pune without bothering much about reaching the
Ph.D destination was indeed an
unforgettable experience.I worked more, studied more and interacted with many faculty members but
returned home with out the coveted degree- the passport needed for stepping
into higher academic realms of life . My
life in general and Ph.D journey in
particular and of course two decades university life at pondicherry in retrospect appears to be like a pleasant or a bad dream or suspense
thriller with a lot of unexpected twists
and turns as there was always additional chaos in the
background – behind the scenes feed back effect from the domestic segment of
life. With folded hands I must thank the Supreme for having saved me in both
academic and domestic life .It was my good fortune that I did not have Ernest
Hemmingway’s parental genes to commit
suicide.Memory is very hazy and weak to recollect the distant past- both
pleasant and painful events, of that dead past.
The pleasantest thing about my life is that I am gifted with tremendous sense of forgetting .That generous
forgetting has made my life easy flowing .I do not have many ashes of memory to
burn me and make me depressed. Forgetting is my bliss. Remembering is the bane
of my better half.
Living through life is like reading a book. When will we
read the last sentence of the book and exit from here, leaving all our legacy to History, we don’t know. If life
ends in the middle of a song or abruptly collapses at the very start of the journey, can we quarrel with
the creator?
I pat on my shoulder
for having lived a life of austerity and simplicity with minimal enjoyments in the midst of chaos , treachery , betrayal of love and heightened insensitivity
of many humans . I congragulate myself for having survived
thus far forty years of teaching and thirty eight years of leading a pleasant
and upsurd marital life, without much expectation.
When I saw my girl
first I had my lustful liking and I
don’t know whether it was love . At sixty plus I attempt to see the eternal beauty on the face of aging wife ,
who remains young to me. I may not like her as I did four decades ago,but
definitely I love her and that love alone should sustain my life hence forward
along with my boundless love for my subject called Economics, which has lost
much of its reputation close on the heels of
global financial crisis . Both
the old girl and the old discipline make me hungry in even while they satisfy,
modestly.
