Two months back I was on a trip to Mumbai from Delhi. This was my first long distance trip by train and that too alone! It was a journey of around fourteen hours. I was prepared, to spend these fourteen hours sleeping and reading M. K. Gandhi’s My Experiments With Truth. By choice, I had an upper birth booked. At the lower births two other boys were traveling. I guess, these two guys recently became eligible to cast a vote. I can say this after hearing there conversation. They were talking about there board exam performance, there plans of getting into some premier engineering college, there experience with there last date (which I guess, was, probably their first date!) and every probable thing which any normal teenage guy talk.
Hearing them, i said to myself, these are really kids and knows nothing about life (as if i've done Phd on life). Slowly, my thoughts turned away from there conversation towards the analysis of change in my attitude in living my own life in last four years. Let me explain it in following way:-
Earlier workout meant, body building by going to gym and following weight training. Now workout means, yoga, brisk walking, meditation and yes, Baba Ramdev’s pranayam!
Earlier for me a long drive meant, driving madly through the traffic in a zic-zac way with loud music, now long drive means going for a drive late night with maximum speed of fifty kmph even when there is hardly any traffic on road with the volume of music just enough that it’ll reach only uptill my ear drums.
Earlier, exploding on the person with all possible Hindustani gali if his car even touches the bumper of my car, irrespective of who made the mistake and now, with a smile on my face just saying “no issues, it happens” even if the accident created a big dent on my car. But mind you, there is hardly any chance of accident these days because now I go very slow!
Earlier reading Times of India meant, directly going to sports page and then to Delhi Times which incorporates beautiful pictures of beautiful beings! Now, reading Times of India means going through the main newspaper in detail, which is actually full of failures of mankind and taking note of these failures by clubbing them under “important news” and at last getting stressed after reading it and saying its kalyug!
Earlier good food meant, eating what ever one wants to eat especially from the road side stalls like burger, deep fried momos, chole kulche etc. Though, even now I buy eatables from road side stalls but they are strictly "fruits and narial paani" with a hope that i'll not die early!
Earlier for me, Raksha Bandhan or Rakhi was simply a festival of brother and sister in which sister gets lots of money and gifts just by tying a rakhi on brothers’ wrist and brother gets nothing else. And now, the meaning of Rakhi has so drastically changed that the same brother is going fifteen hundred kms away to Mumbai to meet his only sister to celebrate Raksha Bandhan.
I think life has changed a lot specifically during last two years, for good or bad only time will tell. We, as a human being should accept what ever comes in our way whole heartedly.
