Thank you, all of you guys who responded to my last post, with detailed suggestions. I am sorry I couldn’t respond to each one of you individually, but there was a family emergency. My father had a heart attack and I had to rush off to Kerala. He is much better now, and things have settled at home, but it had been an incredibly stressful and exhausting two weeks.
I am back in Bangalore, and things are pretty normal now – well as normal as they could. But that’s not the point of this post, or rather rant. The point is..well, go ahead….read.
My dad is ill, really ill – he has had two angioplasties, and came close to the third one this time. It kills me every time I go home, and see him looking so fragile, and yet so brave. He is above seventy and has lot more ailments relating to his age. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that I can do to make things better. Oh yes, the best medical treatment, and probably “being there” for him (honestly, I don’t know how much it has helped him), but what else? As like most heart patients, and people close to them, we have learned to live with it – learn to live with the constant worry even as you continue with your life, learn to have fun even as you continuously check your phone for any missed calls, learn not to confess your worst worries aloud because you are worried that they might actually come true.
But what about people who have a choice – people who are now young, and have the choice of making a decision to live healthily. It really bugs me, really bugs me, when people act as if its not a big deal – when they choose to mess up their own lives, voluntarily, without any consideration for the people who care for them. Recently I had a conversation with my roomie who was saying the same thing.
She was talking about people who go about making random statements like “oh I want to die at 35..but before that I want to live well..do what I want..WTF, let me drink and smoke and then die..anyway life is boring”…and believe me, its become such a fad to make comments like this. And of course, turn a snooty nose at people, who actually try a little bit to have a healthy life style. Do these people actually realize what they are saying? Do they know that I would willingly take those years from them, and give it to my dad, who had so many plans at 72? Do they actually realize that while a five year suicide plan is what they want, it’s not as instantaneous as they think it is? Do they have any idea about the kind of trauma their family goes through, when they see their dear ones suffering. Forget anything, do they realize that a long painful sickness is not really ‘cool’? We have a friend who is 26, obese and diabetic and today leads a restricted life style. My roomie was talking about irresponsible she was at one time, and how a little caution could have avoided a lot of pain today.
Today again, a girl comes across to me and says that she is bored with life, and therefore she is drinking herself to death every day. Oh maybe the comment was meant to be funny, but these kind of things cease to amuse me anymore. I don’t plan to debate on the pointlessness of life, ..its pointless….but for heaven’s sake, use some brains. And maybe a little heart too..and for once, try and be a little less self centered. Yes, of course, the standard argument – Its my life ..I do as I choose, I live it the way I want….NOOOO! Its not your bloody life….You don’t live in a cocoon… and there are people around you who hold a tiny share in that life you are bent upon wasting. So its high time you stop being so selfish, and show a little concern for others. Boredom? Of course, it’s a long life (if you let it be), and you are bound to get dissatisfied at different points….so show the guts to go ahead and change what needs to be changed….instead of being a weakling and using it as an excuse for being an excuse of a human being. In fact you are worse than a person who commits suicide. A person who commits suicide does it with the intention of punishing the people who hurt him; you do it just out of indifference for people – that’s the worse crime in my book.
Whew!! I am angry…I guess its because this is happening so close to my dad’s attack, but all I am asking is for people to be a little more intelligent, and maybe caring. My dad is 72 and he is doing the best he can in the circumstances. But there is a lot more everybody else can do – eat and drink in moderation, walk, exercise, live healthily. It not a guarantee against anything, but life deserves some respect, don’t you think? I do.
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