BIRTHDAY MUSING

Today (15th June ‘09) is my fiftieth Birthday.

I am not truly into birthday celebrations. This has not been part of the value system that I had grown up with. Birthday was felt like any other day. However after my marriage and after being part of social groups such as Rotary etc, there had occurred some conscious mention of my birthday and of course, a dutiful acknowledgement of the wishes from the friends, from my side.

Generally, a purushayus (life of a human being) is considered to be hundred years by our scriptures and puranas. From that perspective, today I had crossed the mid mark. To some of my friends who called me to wish me, I said that I have become UDF (Since LDF stands for LEFT democratic front in Kerala politics, UDF, the opposing front is the RIGHT one. And since I have come to the RIGHT side of the scale of my life, I jokingly called myself a UDF person)

In our Hindu culture, sixtieth birthday (shastiabdapurthi) is celebrated with prayers, feast and get-together. In the olden days, people did not live for more number of years. Reaching sixty, therefore would have been a major achievement and that landmark would have called for celebrations, I presume. Today the case is different. Statistically, in Kerala, a man lives up to 74 years (and a woman, up to 78) and reflecting that, statistically, I still have a one third of my living time left. Good, let me feel happy!

Man is like wine. Maturity increases the strength and substance. I am thinking whether I can put up a different look of me from today so that people can consider me matured, peaceful and considerate, rather than my hitherto original self of emotional, child like, spontaneous, and sort of, ‘on face’ in my dealings. Probably if I tell them my age, people should give some considerations at least, I hope.

Truthfully speaking, I had some calculations about me reaching fifty years. I thought when I reached fifty; I could give way the operations of my enterprise to the second line and indulge more in mentoring, reading, writing and propagating managerial and entrepreneurial thoughts. The current times are not conducive for that to happen. I am required to continue my present profile for more period of time than I had anticipated, I think. This being the reality, I must accept it, with a pinch of salt or otherwise.

However, is there a better way? I am forcing myself to think that there is. What could that be? Continue whatever I am doing with the required level of focus and add more to it such as mentoring, writing etc. This calls for spending more time at work front and getting lesser rest, that is. Will it work? One has to test and see!

That brings me to the story of the Lion and Gazelle in the African hinterland. Every morning the gazelle wakes up with the thought that it has to outrun the fastest running Lion to survive and every morning the lion wakes up and thinks that t has to run faster than the slowest running Gazelle to make food and survive. The bottom line is, it does not matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. Whatever you be, what matters is that you have to on the run to survive!

So what do I do? Ok I will run. Since the load is bigger, the efforts needs to better. But probably, rather than short distance dashes, I think I could be looking at doing marathons now.

Steady, consistent and on the run that is ……………………