I
participated in an activity for most of the last week, discussing threadbare
the likely business scenario in the year 2020, and the best way to tackle it.
We agreed that complexity, volatility and uncertainty are three major business
constants, and yet made a plan to guess and overcome these.
Nothing
wrong with that, except for a thought that kept erupting in my mind with
constant regularity – do we know what will happen the next second, not to talk
of eight years hence?
In
spite of the lapse of twenty-six years, I have yet not been able to forget how
my mother died in front of my eyes. Just four hours ago she had said that once
recovered, she would have chicken and rosogollas
at home. She came home, but dead.
My
father-in-law passed away within a matter of hours. He had a walk in the lawn,
read the newspaper in the Delhi winter sun, enjoyed his siesta, but developed
breathing trouble in the evening. By the time the night fell, he was no more.
It
is not only death, but the cruel hand of destiny that puts one at places where one
least expects to be. Millionaires had to beg with paupers after a few-seconds’
earthquake in Gujarat some ten years ago. I am not sure whether all of them
could bounce back and achieve their previous glory.
We
know that nothing is permanent, yet behave differently. Our quest for survival
and lust for living feeds the so called spiritual gurus and the dream
merchants. We keep living in a make-believe world, till death knocks at our
door. By then, it is too late to remember those who really loved us, those to
whom we owed a word of gratitude, those who died to see us live.
Isn’t it a pity that we understand and
appreciate life only when very little of it is left!
संदेश
