Zindagi milegi na dobara -- I

I had wanted to sleep early one night. Remembering the childhood rhyme that says "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.' and hoping when I get up next morning I will be wiser, wealthier and healthier :P  Of course with a zeal to make myself better than I was the previous night which would eventually make my life better than before.

Life. An average of around 70 yrs. Then you are gone. Back to the soil. Taking another form. Maybe molecules of water in a bucket. May be orange. May be green tea leaves. A kite etc. Then maybe a space shuttle garbage floating in the outer space. No returning back to the soil thereafter. That's it. Interesting :)

With all these imaginations I fell asleep. The next morning as I got up early as planned, I read whats app messages that talked about a mild earthquake that passed through Kolkata last night. I was kind of shocked. It was so strange. Really? An earthquake? Imagine you sleep one-night unaware that's your last. So hard to digest. The shock waves from the tectonic activities somewhere far away from Kolkata caused tremors in my mind too. Was I on the verge of returning back to the soil had the intensity of the earthquake been higher? In just a matter of 2-3 seconds, I would have changed from alive to cold and lifeless. Would I have been counted just as a number by some news report and then later converted into an orange? A kite? Who knows.

With a cup of green tea and my parents having breakfast beside me, I was sipping in the idea of my last breathe as well. It tasted so bitter, the brevity of life. It was a terrific realization that life could end in a matter of a second. My mother asked me what breakfast I would prefer but all I was thinking was about my life. Regarding the breakfast, I was not so sure, so I casually said I will have whatever is available. But, should I have the same thought about my life as well that  I am not sure about it and anything is fine? Really? I was awestruck and overwhelmed.

Its was not that I have not ended up in troublesome and bleak life-ending incidences earlier but this one was different. Perhaps it was on purpose that I recollected the childhood rhyme before sleeping last night. That I felt a lot changed within me. It was a wonderful feeling to be alive that morning (and thereafter). Parents, especially mothers always neglect their health/happiness before that of their family's, I read in the newspaper kept in front. I decided to talk about the health and well being of my parents. To see them smile back at my concern for them out of nowhere was delightful. Never had felt that my life, every single second that passes, so very precious earlier. And myself so wealthy.

Sometimes something happens so suddenly, you just can't adjust with that very moment. Then, even though you like it, you deliberately try to place it back in order as you are accustomed to. So my mother returned back to the same question "What breakfast I would prefer.?" and I felt I was pushed back to the same question "what life would I prefer."

To be contd...... after breakfast......