The ultimate truth

Speaking philosophically, we should live our age rather than yearning for our long gone by childhood and youth and enjoy whichever phase we are in our life. And it’s more so for someone like me who’s an eternal optimist, looking forward to each day as a new beginning and an unexplored opportunity. But there are moments when despondency does set in, taking precedence over our positive emotions such as hope and optimism.

As goes an old Urdu couplet, “ `मैं अकेला ही चला था जानिब-ए-मंज़िल मगर, लोग साथ आते गए और कारवाँ बनता गया`. As we traverse the path of our life, we come across people, who become our friends, relatives and acquaintances. And we keep on expanding this list as we continue to move ahead. And as old age starts setting in, while we add new members to this brood in the form of our grandchildren, grand nephews and grand nieces, the fact is that our friends, elderly relatives and acquaintances also age with us and then the karvan (कारवाँ) that we assembled over a period starts depleting.

The above thought crossed my mind as recently I witnessed a spate of deaths comprising my close relatives, friends and acquaintances. While creaking joints, falling hair and teeth, diminishing stamina are a few of the natural consequences of old age, witnessing depletion of your circle or brood or whatever you may call it is more agonising and traumatic. Again philosophically speaking, nothing is permanent on this earth and every creation faces destruction at some point of time, but given all one’s positivity, faith, optimism and what not, there are moments that do plunge one into the state of deep sorrow. Of course, all that we can do is to take all this in our stride and continue our journey ahead.