Letters from a Father to his Son.

My Dear Rishi,

It was another weekend,  I was hoping to talk to you but I got the voice  mail missed hearing your voice. 

My brother and I were talking about the blog I started writing for you.  We talked about India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. During the independence movement in India, he was in jail like many freedom fighters.  Like many freedom fighters, he was missing his family especially his very young daughter.  Instead of sitting and becoming depressed and bitter, he started writing letters to his daughter Indira Gandhi  (who later became prime minister of India).  These letters were published as a book , the book was called, “Letters from a Father to his Daughter”.  I was inspired by this conversation and immediately decided to change the title of this blog from Random Thoughts on Life to, “ Letters from a Father to his Son.   Rishi I will write to you every week and I hope whenever you will get an opportunity to read my blog, these letters will inspire, motivate, involve, open your eyes to this beautiful world and life has to offer you.  We may not be together but we are always in each other’s heart.  I love you Rishi. Here is a small poem I wrote for you.

                          A Father's Hope, Prayer and Wish for his child

May you always be a BETTER person and not a BITTER person
May you always be the LIGHT wherever there is DARKNESS
May you always be LOVE wherever there is HATER ED
May you always be KIND wherever there is CRUELTY
May you always bring JOY wherever there is SADNESS
May you always bring PEACE wherever there is CONFLICT

May you always be HAPPY and realize that HAPPINESS is within you and the purpose of life is to be HAPPY!

Today, I will share with you what I consider the most beautiful moment of my life.   Rishi when you were born the nurse bundled you in a white soft cloth and gave you to me.  You never cried, your eyes were closed, my first words to you were, “Welcome Son, God bless you , I love you” and to those words you opened your eyes and looked right into my eyes and said awaaaah…no it was not a cry and you were not yawning,  you were very alert , to my ears it sounded  like eeehaw :) “I am here daddy, I am happy to see you”.    Rishi, that is and that will be the most beautiful moment of my life.  Whenever I think of beauty all I do is close my eyes and go back to the moment of your birth and I see the beauty of life, beauty of being alive, beauty of the universe which I saw in your eyes when you opened your little eyes and you made this life worthwhile.  There is no other beauty that can ever come anywhere close to this. Rishi for this I thank god, I thank your mommy, I thank you for showing the most beautiful moment in my life.  Rishi trust me without your mommy this would have never been possible.  Mommy and Daddy will always love you no matter what. Always remember, “We love you very much”

Love,

Daddy

The Story of the Pencil By Paulo Coelho

My Dear Rishi,

Paulo Coelho is one of my favourite authors. His writing, his life is quite an inspiration. I read his first book in 1990, The Alchemist, just as I was graduating from my undergraduate program. This book I have re-read many times since than and I have learned something new. I hope someday you will get an opportunity to read his collection, read his biography and learn about life.

This is a short story from his book, "Like the Flowing River".  I will not add my own commentary just read and enjoy

Publish Post

"A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point he asked:
 "Are you writing a story about what we've done? Is it a story about me?|"

  His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson:

   " I am writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I'm using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up."

     Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn't seem very special.
   "But it's just any other pencil I've ever seen'.

"That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on to them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.

   "First  quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to His will.

   Second quality: now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he's much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.

   Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.

   Fourth quality:what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.

  Finally, the pencil's fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. In just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action.

Love you Rishi, I miss you a lot. It would have been so much fun to read this to you the same way I used to read to you when we went to India and you would always ask, " how come Daddy?...I really miss you sweetheart ....I love you very very much and miss you..

Love,

Daddy

Understanding Life from the eyes of Death

Understanding Life from the Eyes of Death 

By V. Chander

Life, put in very simple terms is the journey from the minute we are born till we die. If we sit with this concept and contemplate little bit more suddenly new avenues, new channels open up. If we let go of life from our own wants and needs perspective life, like a lotus flower emerges out from a pond, similary,  our understanding opens up to the world and rises above this cycle of life and death.

So what is this journey! This journey of life. Let us pause and reflect!

All living things on this planet and as well as this universe follow the same journey i.e. from the minute we are born we all are racing to our common destination and that is DEATH. One cannot talk about life and shy away from death. Death is nothing but extension of life. A life which we the living cannot perceive it as we understand when we are living. This understanding or awareness becomes very profound if you have experienced NDE (Near Death Experience) or if you are born with the wisdom to understand death. Since many of us have not experienced that stage nor may have the wisdom to understand, so we the living need to understand life from the vantage position where we are i.e. THE PRESENT!

Let us explore or begin this journey of life with an end; yes that is DEATH.  There is nothing dramatic about death but the way it happens can be. However, one cannot get caught up with the process rather than focus on the end result. We humans are the only species on this planet who are aware that  we will die one day. This awareness that death can come to us any where, any time has not stopped the humanity to achieve great works of art, literature, architecture, creation, achieving impossible dreams. This is the highest achievement or triumph of human dignity.

Marching forth in life, despite the elusive nature of death tapping on our shoulder when we least expect is the essence of human life. All the progress you see on this earth is because of this human drive. Is this true both at personal level as well as cosmic level? Is the journey between birth and death preparing us for the so called final destination? What happens at individual level can it manifest in a collective or global level?

The triumph of human dignity to march forward despite the ultimate awareness of death can be observed from the evolution of cave man's mentality to the present day humanity. Although, you may still see spatters of cave man mentality behaviour in today's society but by and large the undisputed fact remains that humans, despite this knowledge that they will ultimately die one day have not stopped from achieving things of grandeur on this planet.

We have evolved or become so sophisticated that we have become the agents of our own destruction both at individual and as well as global level. On one hand we are able to create things of lasting joy and yet we are able to inflict enormous pain to our fellow humans , other living things and most important our planet which has sustained this life. We humans are blessed with both i.e. seeds of creation and as well as of destruction.

On one hand our seeds of creation can connect us to our highest potential both at individual and at collective (Global) level thereby connecting to cosmic level for the good of humanity. However, hubris at individual level and at collective (Global) level can destroy everything we humans have achieved over eons e.g. WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) and yes no pun intended on that front.

Life is like a flowing river between two banks; a bank of creation and a bank of destruction. It entirely depends on which bank you are viewing life from? At this point in life, I am neither the creator nor destroyer but just an observer who is paddling down the journey of life alone. But if I must choose, than I will write my obituary note today in such a way that I will live my life to the highest potential as my ancestors have evolved by being a creator with humility with a profound respect, understanding and gratitude some day I have to let all this go and the life will continue.

Let peace, love and gratitude be in our hearts as we learn to understand life from a death's perspective.