Faith & Patience

Life is Beautiful. The World is a beautiful place to live one’s life. No one is born with every thing. What we have today with us is either someone’s in the past or going to belong to someone tomorrow. For it shall be illusionary thought to claim what we have today is what we brought when we were born.

My tears dropped, which is quite natural, on seeing it, when my friend was busy parking his car in the parking lot. This happened in front of the temple in Apollo Specialty Clinic adjacent to my Office campus in Anna Salai. We were there to have our snacks in the food court in the campus in the evening after our market visit. And, it’s quite a comfortable place for me since, am an usual visitor to the place and happen to observe a lot of people with patience and faith in front of the small temple, praying for quick recovery, beauty is, irrespective of their religion. But, this was a moving sight – the patient (looks like being in a critical stage) was brought in a wheel chair along with her family members.

They looked like people from a small place, here for the unaffordable treatment. I could notice the small teardrops trickling from the patient’s eye, with a sense of gratification towards the deity. Her family members showed content in their face meaning it looked like this should be a matter of life and death to their beloved family member.

When they crossed me, the sense of satisfaction on the faces of her two family members showed the immense faith they had on God, the unknown. The sense of gratification amidst tear drops in her face showed me the patience with which she is undergoing her treatments and the thanks she is conveying to her people around for their wonderful support.

I smiled as we entered the food court with these thoughts. Who is God? Where is she/he? Where comes so much of faith & patience amidst so much of difficulties? Why some people have to suffer in this beautiful World, when someone is enjoying? What is the cause of this phenomenon? Why this happens? Is it never-ending? Or is there a solution?

The sight of seeing a seven year young kid going to the school in the morning in his father’s sedan and the sight of another kid who is around the same young age, picking up rags in a gunny bag and crossing the signal occurs at the same time in this beautiful World. And, Life is beautiful and so the World we live in. My thought is, is this World beautiful to both the people at the same time-for someone living with peace in Bangalore and for someone fighting for life in Kashmir. For someone spending $10 in New York for a cup of coffee and for someone yearning for a piece of bread loaf in Somalia. What can we say when we find someone in a remote village in India walking 10 kms to fetch two pots of muddied water for drinking for her family, whereas someone in a Metro city in this same India is concerned that her/his favorite Cola is not available in a Pizza Hut store. What’s this World teaching us all? I am quite sure; the answer is not so easy. The fact remains the same. Everyone in this World is living everyday with tremendous Faith & Patience on the known and the unknown, for one day, for them too - this World and their Life will be beautiful.

(This was first posted during June 2008)