Stop the hustle and accept peace

Want a nice haircut? Go to your favourite salon in the morning or soon after it opens. Your stylist would be fresh and more creative and also, as you already know ‘first customers are always more dear’! Want a happy stomach ? Don't feed it anything after 8PM and have your favourite coffee/tea as the second thing in the morning. Sweet tooth? Eat your favourite dessert in the morning and be guilt free throughout your day. Want a disease free life? Massage your feet daily before sleeping. Most of our body's acupressure points lie on our feet.

Body heat? Soak 1 tp of basil seeds in one glass of water at night & have it (The mixture) next morning as the first drink. Difficulty memorizing the meanings? Don't just look for the definition, look for the word’s google image too. Want to exude confidence? Speak every word slowly + clearly and maintain eye contact. Bad mood? Sing or listen to your favorite song & feel the change. Increase productivity? Open your social media only for 5 minutes and believe me you can achieve such a refreshing break in getting back to routine work.

I know a close family friend. Dedicated Doctor. Loving husband. Caring father. Professionally, he was a very successful person. He ran his own hospital. He was famous in the area for his many philanthropic deeds, timely help for the needy, and selfless dedication toward his work. Locals had a faith that visiting him would be the cure for most ailments. They trusted him. He was god-like. He was also famous in my family circles for his strong atheistic views. Reasoning, logic, and objective approaches formed the very core of his life.

My family is deep-rooted in religious faith and thus his stance looked oddly outlandish. He was very rich, at least compared to most people in my family. My mom and dad do not have a car even now. But this man had three cars ten years ago. He was a dog lover. He had five dogs. Frequent international tours. Finest food. Stunning cars. Grand lifestyle. Put all these with this: kind, altruistic, balanced, and charismatic personality. That was him. The perfect package.

Naturally, as a young man, I considered him my role model. I could not sense a false note anywhere. The final year of my college. He was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. The news struck us like lightning. The whole family scrabbled its way to his home. His life came crashing like a meteor. The whole town was in disbelief and shock. Many stupid but concerned questions were raised: “How could this happen to him?” “Why him, of all people?” “How could this happen to a Doctor?” Regardless of the commotion, his time kept ticking. I remember visiting him during his last two months. I literally stopped breathing for a moment when I entered his home.

The curtains had been enveloped with dust. The floor had not been mopped. The beautiful plants outside had started dying. The cars stood there begging for attention. Three of the five dogs had been given away. “He wanted to keep Fido and Henry until…” the maid said with a trembling voice, holding on to my mom. Every face in the home was grief-stricken. Death prevailed in the room. There was an absolute silence in the home. Deafening silence. When I walked to his bed-side, every tinge of charm, glamour, and life his face once had had deserted him. He was pale and lifeless. There were pastors in his home. He had apparently requested for people from all faiths to pray for him.

His wife told me about the changes he had been showing ever since the diagnosis. That night, I witnessed the horrors of his pain. I was in the hall and I could hear him wailing in his room. “Someone save me. Take this pain away from me. Krishna, please hear me. I beg you. Is there a good god who listens to prayers? I could clearly hear him sobbing like a 10-year old. I could hear thumps. Slaps. Something clawing the ground. Something being dragged on the floor. Something wriggling.

A few minutes later. " Please forgive me, please tell me I will live through this and just tell me once I have a long life. And then some unintelligible mumbling. Muffled screams. Muted and menacing. This continued for almost an hour. And then, silence, marred intermittently by a woman sobbing. His wife. The next morning, the wife said that such nights had become a norm. She said how badly she wished he died instead of enduring the pain. I heard her crying into my mom’s chests: “Akka, I want him to die, but he keeps saying some miracle will happen and he will survive.” I left his home, but my mom told me of how his final hours were.

“He kept begging to all the gods before stumbling into unconsciousness.” “He sobbed, pleadingly.” He kept believing in a miracle. He waited. We hold on to so many ideologies. Beliefs. Plans. Rules. Policies. Everything is just a facade. When your oxygen runs out. When the last drop of your blood trickles down. When the last month of your life nears. When the last moment arrives. When your life is on the cliffhanger, the human inside you kicks his way out. Trembling. Begging. Pleading.

Disproving all the massive facades you had built all your life. Every brick of the wall you have built will be blown to smithereens. Your knowledge will vanish. Remember, the man who waited for a miracle was a doctor. You and I are fragile. Just wet fluttering tissues. Stop building facades. Be whoever you want to be. Atheist. Religious. Fat. Thin. Rich. Poor. Famous. Obscured. It does not matter. Just Start living while you still can. Love more. Live more. Lose the hatred. Lose the arrogance. ’Cause no matter how you choose to live, death beckons. Cheers!