ARROGANCE OF SURVIVAL

One of the biggest paradoxes of human existence is the arrogance of survival, while the most certain thing is mortality. To come to the basics, why does anyone feel arrogant, proud or egoistic of anything? It is because of the deep rooted feeling that, their success, wealth, position, status, power is permanent or so it seems when one of the above is giving high to the individuals. Politicians, media owners, film stars, business rich men, bureaucracy,  good looking woman, and just about everyone whose life is protected and well off, have this known or unknown belief that, what they is either everlasting or will last for longer time.

Probably sports persons are different and they realize the reality better as they face success and failure very often and in more trying circumstances. Even people in television and movie makers (not stars) are also slightly better as success and failure is very thin line for them. Hence the scope for arrogance is less.

The other side of the coin is that, if we all know and realize that, nothing is permanent and everything happens as a drama and we are just essaying the roles, our life will be better. In fact our basic life is very short and much shorter is the youthful zeal. 

If one keeps extending the logic of why most of us have arrogance, it is only because of the fact that, somewhere we are sure we are going to live longer and in a better manner. The abuse that all of us do to ourselves and to the mother nature, the final result, which is the death, is always not far away should be the hard hitting realization. 

Imagine, a child who is given a toy and told she has only today to play with and it’s not his or hers, the joy is pure and there is no negative feeling attached. The same rationale can be applied to everything around us. IF all of us knew the exact date of death after we are born, our whole attitude would be different. We will not suspend our disbelief that death is not for us. Even a chain smoker will not think or believe that, he could get affected anytime with cancer. He wants to believe that , he is quit and anyway it will not affect him.

Such foolishness is what most of us are subjected to, in our own different ways. IF we all know, that nothing is permanent and nothing is even vaguely sure of time period, why have any negative emotion or feeling for anything or anyone.

Honestly, i always wonder, if someone, ( could be myself) dies in the sleep, the entire living becomes false in a minute. So is, all instant deaths. OR so is any death.

When death is known as inevitable , why not accept it happily and gladly or at least prepare for it happily.

 According to me nothing is more spiritual than 1) Learning to lead the life happily and without getting hurt or hurting anyone 2) Accepting death gracefully. To achieve these 2, all of us need to take some path of spirituality and live it up every minute. Best way is what Sujatha potay recommends...     Do something for the A) Body B) Mind C) soul everyday and what you can do is several things and choose what suits you.

TELEVISION AUDIENCE AND TELEVISION CREW

Television audience is like a nagging mother in law. NML (nagging mother in laws) can be very unpredictable and difficult to please. Anything that is done can be either done better or is just not ok. NML has privilege and right to refuse and deny anything that comes from a docile daughter in law. Probably that is why most serials still have saas bahu issues. This is on a lighter side, but what is most difficult and most difficult is the understanding and fixing on, which the audience is.  It is almost like not knowing the target and aiming for it. 

Take a Hindustani music concert, and understand the rock show... There is always a crowd, a gathering which relish that kind of music. The performers and the organizers can be focused on the content as there is no pressure to churn out something different than the expected kinds. This is applicable to the classical dance, theatre plays, pub dancing, Disk jockeying etc..

But when it comes to television audience, one needs to keep in mind the cross section of people, across age groups, across income groups, across regions, sexes etc.. How can any creativity cater to such wide audience and how can someone entertain to such varied group? If yes how does one go about it? Is it easy to know the tastes and preferences of the audience for entertainment? 

It’s because of the above questions that, some standardized formats of singing, drama, dance, keep happening as they can’t totally go wrong all the time. In other words, television brings and perpetuates not only mediocrity but predictability and stereotypes. This is inevitable as there is TAM, and there are business targets to meet. No other field, no other career is tested as frequently as every week on performance. Hence TV industry people are always under tremendous stress for what happens and for what does not happen.

Gut feel, cuing, pulse, all these help one create and plan. But in all honesty, television unlike other forms of arts is far less creative as pressure entails that art is compromised. People also get into assembly line production and hence even creativity becomes mechanical. It’s very difficult for people in television to get entertained as even watching TV is a work as we all tend to compare, feel envious or try to ape etc.

Despite all that, it’s fun under pressure as the success on Wednesday’s makes all of us wait for more Wednesdays. It’s always life before Wednesday and Life after Wednesday for people working in television and only these people can understand.

Without a doubt, television is just in a very nascent stage and there is lot to achieve and hundreds of channels are going to come in very many specializations. You tube, face book, apps on mobiles, various net options are already getting integrated into television and TV is not watched in its time of telecast but is followed in a much larger scale than what the TAM can catch and appraise. Working in television is like performing marriage every day (marriages of olden days and not current .. all out sourced formula) and these marriages have kids of all kinds. And we in television keep nurturing all kinds of children.

WHY DO WE TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED

What does it mean to take anything for granted? According to me, taking anything for granted would mean , not giving enough value or “bhaav” to something and in turn expecting everything to function always the  same way it does or expecting something and somebody to be the same always. Now this expectation of permanency in anything is anti antithetical  to the modern way of life. But we still unreasonably do it often as a contradiction of our existence. 

The most important thing we keep taking for granted is our own human body. Every part, every structure, every element in the human body is a wonder and if we engage in the thinking of this, we will never cease to get tired or bored of wondering , how everything is designed and  how everything functions. There is no better machine and no bigger mystery than the human body as we can only keep wondering and not find the logic or sequence of anything .. Things go right if it has to and go wrong if its inevitable. The birth, and the death signify the unanswered marvels of the nature . 

But the least all of us can do is to show the gratitude towards our own body by not 1) abusing it any ways  2) By nurturing it properly 3) By nourishing it with love, proper food and exercise. Many scriptures, theories and books have detailed the need to thank each part of our body every day and there is nothing wrong even if it said once more, albeit boringly; any time better than talking about the box  collections that movies have made, as if they all go to our bank balance. 

My 1000^th time awakening has come when i was getting my mom operated on the eye for cataract. There was a provision to witness the surgery live from the observation gallery. And when i saw how Sookshamam ( delicate and subtle) the eye is, there is cornea, retina, pupil, fluid, optic nerve,  oh my god... anything can happen to the eye and get damaged a hundred times a day but still thank god nothing happens.  Can we take the credit for this? Hundred percent not, except in very few cases . May be it is not even possible to be careful all the time, about any part of the body as the correlation between injury, irresponsibility and goodness, wellness is not always scientific and mathematical. 

But still, we should not take anything  for granted. We must thank every part and cell of the body everyday and thank god for giving us all these wonderful things . if we really sit down and list out all that we are bestowed with and blessed with, we will all stop cribbing and feeling sad on what we don't have and what we keep seeking.

Only if we have the time, sensibility and basic courtesy to thank all that we have, only then we have right to seek what we don't have. This is the way to be happy. I want to thank the Agarwal hospital staff and doctors for very fantastic hospitality . They did not make us feel that we were visiting the hospital. They made me and my mom feel that we are visiting a good relatives place and my mom was treated like their mom. Special thanks to my colleague sarvanan without whom, i would still have neglected and prolonged taking my mom. Thanks all and thank god.