I have come across many twists and turns in my life. When it appears that my life is going smoothly, when I feel I am the high road to success, when everything appears to be calm and peaceful, when I am enjoying the blue sky and the lovely sun shine, when I think everything is bright and beautiful and I am in a state of everlasting bliss, all of a sudden something happens to throw my life out of gear and a fear slowly spreads all over me paralyzing my movement, my thinking and my entire body. I feel my world has come crashing down and I don’t know how to face the situation, where to go or how to solve the problem faced by me.
It could happen to anyone. It could be that some one close to us has passed away, a loss of a job, a serious sickness in the family or self, a serious misunderstanding among the family members, a debt which cannot be paid, the electricity meter in the house getting burned on account of overload, a customer canceling a big order and so on.
We wonder why this has happened to us and not to others, what serious crime have we done for this calamity to befall us, in what way we deserve this punishment. We think and think and think and grope in the dark. We don’t get any answer for days and days. Finally the calamity sinks in us and we accept the situation we are in. It is only then we try to look for a solution. We try desperate measures to extricate ourselves from the situation we are in. We pray hard to God to show us a way out. After a long and painful wait we get an answer like a bolt from the blue to overcome the supposedly insurmountable situation. Even then it takes a lot of will power, hard work, determination and sacrifice to extricate ourselves from the difficulty.
Once again we get back the spring in our steps, the sun starts shining, we can see the blue sky, the birds starts singing and every thing looks wonderful.
I suppose such ups and downs, trials and tribulations are part and parcel of our life and there is absolutely no need to panic when we are unknowingly sucked into the vortex of a calamity. We will always find a way out. Perhaps life would not be so interesting, exciting with so many adventures and challenges if we had a smooth ride and faced no difficulty at all.
EVERY PROBLEM HAS AN INBUILT SOLUTION. IT IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO TEST OUR TALENTS AND OUR FAITH IN GOD AND OURSELVES.
Violence begets violence. This is a simple, pure, unadultrated fact of life.
Yet we find at different times in the history of the world violent people terrorizing mankind and wantonly killing innocent people and destroying property. They have all met a violent death in the end.
The free world which wants to live in peace and harmony will ultimately catch up with the murderers and give them a befitting punishment. The vast majority of the people in the world shun violence and they have to be protected from demented, cruel, murderous, inhuman people who constitute an insignificant minority.
Appeasing evil doers will only go to encourage and motivate them to do more and more despicable acts. A thorn can be taken out only by a thorn and any amount of cajoling, persuasion and incentives will not produce the desired results. It will only be misread as a sign of weakness.
In any case those who take the sword will die by the sword. This happened to Hitler, Mussolini, Maximilien Robespierre and many other evil men who stalked the world unleashing violence and perpetrating mindless murders.
Peaceful people should always expect a violent man to come on the scene at some time or the other and it is the duly of all peace loving nations to nip violence in the bud.
Sometimes the leadership of a nation is violent and they encourage, sponsor, train and arm terrorists and sent them to other countries to cause havoc. Then it is the duty of United Nations to step in keeping aside their narrow national interests, take strong punitive measures and ensure that the evil leadership is removed without much loss of time.
What is your view on terrorism and terrorists?
After graduation I started working as a sales executive. The company gave me a bullet motorcycle for traveling. Once I was going on a tour to Pondicherry. I was riding peacefully and calmly at a steady speed of 50km. After the city limits there is a railway track parallel to the road. As I was riding on this parallel road I was startled by the monstrous sound of a train behind me. Very soon the train caught up with me and when I looked sideways I saw the driver waving and smiling at me. The carriages also started overtaking me and the passengers started shouting, laughing and waving at me. Something snapped in my head. I wanted to show them the power of my bike. After all I had a BULLET. What do they think? I started accelerating. The speed indicator showed that I had accelerated from 50 to 60 to 70 and going up and up.I started to overtake the carriages. I felt like a superman. I screamed, laughed and waved with one hand to the the passengers. When I caught up with the engine driver, I screamed at him, too. The speedometer was nearing 110 and I started overtaking the engine.I was terribly happy I could overtake a speeding train.
Suddenly I found the road taking a sharp turn from the railway track and I could see a narrow bridge over a dried up river bed. Since I can't jam the brake at that speed I started reducing the throttle to slow down the bike. The bridge was located at a sharp curve and I knew I could not negotiate such a curve even though the speed was coming down. I was certain that I and my bike will plunge into the dry river bed which was far below and I will die instantaneously. There was no way to escape this horrible end. I looked at the speedo-meter. It was nearing 70. I desperately tried to turn the bike at a sharp angle. I hit a huge drum filled with sand at the side of the road and came crashing down along with the bike. I had no helmet but my head was not hurt. But I was dazed. I sat up slowly and looked at the bike which lay on the road with petrol dripping from the tank.
My pant had torn near the knees and I could see blood dripping. My shirt was also torn and I could see blood on my elbows. I got up slowly and limped to the bike. I noticed that the crash guard was bent, the accelerater cable and the rear view mirror were broken. I looked at the dry river bed down below with a sigh of relief.I did not plunge into it and die a miserable death.
Again God Almighty put out his hand to save a foolish young man from a certain death and here I am living today to tell you the story.
Most of us when confronted with a problem, we worry and magnify the problem so much that it starts to haunt us. We are so much obsessed with the problem that we cannot concentrate on our daily routine and always have a nagging feeling within us. We think our problem is too big for us handle and there is no solution for it. Sometimes we even lose our sleep over it.
But consider people affected by a psunami, people living in war torn areas, people ravaged by an earth quake. Many people lose their lives all of a sudden, many people are badly injured and maimed for life for no fault of theirs, many children are orphaned in no time and many lose all their property, entire life’s earnings and become destitutes in an instant.
When compared to these people, what is our problem? We still got our life, our property, our health, our family, our friends. Our mental faculties are intact not only to face the problem but also to find a solution. It is said – EVERY PROBLEM IS AN OPPORTUNITY.
Let us count our blessings and keep our chin up even when confronted with a problem which we think is insurmountable. We will always find a solution one way or the other.
