Thank God for the children

"God sends children for another purpose than merely to keep up the race -

to enlarge our hearts; and

to make us unselfish and full of kindly sympathies and affection;

to give our shoulds higher aims;

to call out all our faculties to extended enterprise and exertion and

to bring round our firesides bright faces, happy smiles, and loving, tender hearts.

My soul blesses the great Father, every day, that he has gladdened the earth with little children."

- Mary Howitt

What matters is love ....

What matters is love ....

When you are done chasing the rainbow...
given all of lifes disappointments and tribulations ...
all that may really be of any value and would matter at the end of the day or end of life ...

... is how we love and how we are loved!

Everyone misses it the most when it’s not around

I have often wondered how we take things for granted. We never appreciate light till we are surrounded by darkness and want light around us. May be that’s why nature has created the opposites of every feelings. One can really end up appreciating happiness only when one has experienced sorrow.

On our last visit to Kerala, we went through remote villages in Kerala, where electricity has not reached, everyone starts life at dawn, eats before dusk and assemble around a fire most part of the evening till they retire.

I wonder if they ever miss modern day implements like mobile phone (or for that matter telephone) or car? Certainly, they have seen tourists using mobile phones and arriving in vehicles.

I started thinking that I and them are presently in the same part of the world – with same environment surrounding us, but the way I miss my mobile and internet they don’t.

The difference may perhaps be explained by our past experiences. So it is not existence of the things and non-availability of such things that we miss the most but more so absence of the continuity in our experiences related to such things.

This phenomenon is not just limited to implements and worldly goods but also true about persons in our life.

While our children were with us in Mumbai, they were busy with the school, college, friends, movies and partying, I was busy in the business and my wife was busy in the routines of house. We all took everyone for granted. Now absence of them makes us realize how empty the house feels. Not that they were in the house any major part of the day (and that often they kept us awake late nights for them to arrive home), still their complete absence makes us miss them.

We don’t notice when the house is nice and clean that there was a great effort someone has put in to make the house the way it is. However, if we see a mess around the house, we realize immediately that someone has not been doing the job he/she should be doing. It is the same way with children. When they are around, we take them for granted and when they are not, we miss them the most.

FirstBlog

This being my first blog, I would like to explain the title AkepaBaap for the blogspot.
The feelings a father goes through when both his children leave for studies abroad is captured in the word "AkelaBaap"- a lonely father.