Music has no scope

My long-lost college friend messaged me out of nowhere and the message read: “My son wants to do Ph.D in music but I am not allowing him to do that because there’s no scope.” In other words he will not make money and he will not have a life if he studies music. This message came at the time when my own daughter just started college and she’s doing B.A in music.

I have enjoyed music from the 60s, 70s and 80s and I know every generation has. I would like to think that these musicians were not paupers. People doing only music in the last century and before that lived their life. I don’t know how the world would be without music. So every millennia saw gifted musicians. Everywhere I go I hear music – malls, buses, trains, cars, theatre, restaurants. Every video that we see has background music. Every event like wedding, birthday, annual functions, even funeral: there’s music. Somebody is making music and is getting paid for it. I don’t think people are making music and distributing for free, except for few.

Another question that comes to mind is how much money one can make in a lifetime? Well, nobody has the perfect answer to this. In any profession/career there’s no guarantee that you will make loads of money. So the question we should ask ourselves is what is it that you want to do? Everyone is gifted with talent and based on that he/she can choose a career. In fact if you really want to make money in a short time you should be an international sports star, coz sports stars retire at the turn of 40, many even before that.

The real question one should answer is what can you do for 40-50 even 60 years without getting bored or tired. The Japanese have the concept known as ikigai – a passion that gives value and joy to life. Isn’t that important?

Stop Forwarding…Start Living.

Everyone seems to be the expert these days. Or at least they think they are, of Covid 19. Message boxes are bombarded with forwarded videos, images, jokes, texts, information, etc. etc. People seem to have found a new job – forwarding messages.

People think information is knowledge and forwarding that information is wisdom. Nobody questions why should a particular thing needs forwarding. There are so many false information being shared in SM today.

Stop forwarding, start living. There’s always something new to learn everyday. Keeping tabs on how many are dying or getting infected is the only thing people seem to be doing. Look at people who are fighting the virus on the ground. They are working 24/7 to make our life better and healthy. This pandemic will pass and we should be coming on the other side, better, stronger and wise. Let’s start living now!

Cursed or Blessed

I was chatting with a friend on WhatsApp and he mentioned he was at one of the hill stations with his family. He was happy to be away from the ‘cursed city’ referring to the summer heat in the city. I retorted saying you should never call it cursed just because it’s hot.

I have often heard people say this to a hot place and not to a cold place. Both extreme heat and extreme cold are not desirable but people usually complain more about hot weather. I feel we are where we are by destiny and we must bless the place we live in, not curse. Everyone doesn’t have the luxury to enjoy good weather all the time. We are made to adapt to any kind of weather otherwise everyone would be living in Europe. Besides, I think the place where we live, work, socialise, play and make friends and grow, cannot be a cursed place.

I am a summer person and I know that people are more active during summer time. The cold keeps us indoors but we are usually out ‘living’ in summer.

Catch me if you can

I have been traveling since the last few days of 2018 and I am still not home. All the while I have had to meet numerous people, eat various kinds of food, adapt to new places, engage in different activities, sleep and wake up at odd hours and so on. I guess that’s normal for any traveller. What one doesn’t expect while traveling is falling sick.

Even before I started my journey I became unwell. The cold always catches on me, despite all my efforts of avoiding the menace. First I had throat ache, then cough and fever. I slept through the day on first of Jan 2019. That’s how I began the new year. I didn’t want to turn sweet to sour so I got up by the end of day one and started my usual holiday activities. On second Jan we went for a picnic. The cough never left me eversince I got it.

What I have learnt is to continue to live even when ‘winter time’ comes in our life. I had to keep moving from one place to another meeting relatives and friends, even attending a wedding. I just didn’t have the luxury of resting. In life we do come across our ‘cold weather’ but should we decide to move on, there’s no stopping. Our passion for life should be bigger than our circumstances.

Get busy living

“Get busy living or get busy dying.” This is a line from the movie Shawshank Redemption. The recent Bollywood hit 102 Not Out is saying the same thing is a different way.

The veteran actors Amitabh Bachchan and Rishi Kapoor have bowled over the movie goers with their superb acting. But more than their acting, the idea of ‘living’ is portrayed so well. Amitabh at one point says with a lot of humour, that he never died in his entire life. He says as long as you are alive don’t die. His son of 75 years is afraid of living as much as of dying. He gets his BP and blood sugar checked everyday. He takes shower for less than 15 minutes because he will catch cold otherwise. He doesn’t listen to music, doesn’t go out, doesn’t even smile. Basically he’s just waiting for his death. Have you come across such people?

The spirit of living every moment is the key. We don’t live in a perfect world and we shouldn’t expect either. We can imagine and dream of a world for us. Every living moment is precious and worth savouring. Worrying about tomorrow doesn’t help.

Don’t you grow up!

I have been working with children for the past three years and I have learnt a lot from them. One of the things that keeps them alive is their childlike nature. They are not mature enough to lose that intrinsic wealth.

These children have so much pressure of studies, parents’ expectations, activities, exams, projects and so on, yet they manage to be carefree to take up all the challenges and still enjoy everyday. They forget in the 5th period a stupid comment made by their friend in the 2nd period. They are back to their normal self. They never take themselves seriously. They don’t forget to live despite pressures. They take great delight in little things. We adults have to learn this from them.

We grownups lose our childlike nature too soon to be ‘living’ everyday. We look for happiness in success. In fact we never studied to be successful, no one told that to us in school. We just enjoyed books, friends, pranks, recess, tiffin, random drawings, scribbling, pulling each others’ legs – just the little things made us happy. When we mature we are starved from little things because we are looking for big things. We blame our work pressure, city life, lifestyle and so on. We become ‘mature’ not to laugh at silly jokes and pranks. We look around if someone’s watching before doing childlike things. We only laugh when we see them in movies.

It’s ok to go out in the rain, slide down the stairway, jump with joy, laugh without a care, make mistakes, fail and try again. It’s when we want to be perfect individuals we don’t see the value of childlike nature. It’s important to acknowledge that we cannot be perfect. If growing up would make us perfect every elderly person would be wise, but that’s not the case. But if growing up takes away all the joy out of life I would rather remain a child. Even though growing up is natural we can always keep the child in us alive. If you want to live without losing any enthusiasm for life, don’t you grow up.

Reason to Smile

Everyday we go through different kinds of pressure; at work, at home, on the road and so on. At times the people you work with give you tough time. All these take a toll on your health and happiness. There may be many reasons that make you forget to smile, but you must find reasons to smile every now and then. And you will find them if you look for them. 

Look at the children in playing in the park they are all running, smiling and are happy and healthy. In the same park you will see parents sitting on the bench looking serious, all due to stress and pressures of life. It is important to find reasons to smile as it relieves you from stress and anxiety, keeps you healthy, lowers blood pressure and relaxes your body. Just a smile works wonders.

Smile has so many benefits. Look at the sky at dusk. God still holds the whole world in His hands. Every sunset will make you smile. Find thousand reasons to smile if the world gives you hundreds of troubles everyday. Smile your way to good health and making friends. 

Live Fearlessly

The greatest fear humanity has ever faced is death. I have heard countless stories of people who have dared death and have overcome the fear of all kinds. We are fearful of small as well as big things. For some it’s the fear of failure and for others it could be the fear of dying riding a bike in a crowded city.

Fear keeps us from doing so many positive things in life. We have the desire to do but we can’t, and we won’t. Surprisingly it’s the educated lot who are fearful of the unknown. Look at many great business ventures that have happened in the world. They were mostly started by people who had nothing to fear, not even losing their degree because they didn’t have one. They just followed their heart and did what they wanted to do. They enjoyed every bit of what they did even if it was painful, because they ‘knew’ what they were doing. Fear keeps some of us even from living every day. We wait for things to be perfect to start living. We all like surprises but if the surprises are unpleasant we call them problems. Life can throw surprises at anytime and we need to be prepared for that, either good or bad.

We have to overcome our fears in order to live a victorious life. Those who have overcome fear have found how precious life is.  If you are scared of water and you want to learn swimming, best thing to do is jump into the water and overcome that fear. Once you overcome the fear you can make it a habit. Once it becomes a habit you can live fearlessly till the end, no matter what happens in life.