Being normal in a sick world

Rajkumar Hirani’s movie, “Three Idiots” pictures the fact that how being normal is what it takes to be an achiever in life. To be bold enough to pursue what you dream, to struggle and wait patiently for the fruits to reap, to have peace of mind and most importantly, to live your life your way is what "Ranchhoddas " taught us. Normal means confirming to a standard, usual, typical or expected. In a world where people say “Common sense is not so common”, also is the case, “Being normal is not so normal.” Of course, the world is full of sick people. Now, sick doesn’t only mean physically ill, diseased, but also implies to mentally, morally or emotionally deranged, corrupt or unsound and deeply affected with some unpleasant feeling as of sorrow, disgust or boredom. Fitting well in the above stated conditions, “Sick is so common”, isn’t it? The western countries and the modern literature considers an individual as a unit and a single entity, but here in India, deep within us to our roots, we can trace our family our family as a single unit. The young generation of a nation is the most active and the potent population and the best of the human resource. Nowadays, whether or not the young generation suffers from stress more than their predecessors is a debatable issue. While many people believe that stress is a serious problem that should deserve much concern from the public, others are of the opinion that the situation is just exaggerated. Whatever debates persist, one thing is clear that the young is sicker than ever! Secondly, thanks to urbanization and over population, in this era of connectivity, the youngsters nowadays have become more isolated from each other. The recorded number of people who commit suicide because of stress in today’s society is greater than at any other times in the past. According to the statistics by National Crime Record, the number of students committing suicide has increased by 26% in last 5 years with metropolitan cities like Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai topping the charts with average 20 deaths per day. What a disgrace to the country! The youth of a nation are trustees of prosperity. If they are sick, who will work for the nation? The next member of the unit is the middle aged. And the grave among the two is the feministic half. The woman of today has the duty of two worlds in her hand- the domestic world and the outside world. And between the two is her fragile physical self which has to create a balance between the two worlds totally different from each other. The woman of the house is expected to do all the household chores along with her career. The below story lashes out against the stereotypes of modern society to which women fall victim and show how women are obliged to fulfill certain roles that have been earmarked for them. “I am a wife and a mother too. One evening, a male friend of mine who had a recent divorce told me he was looking for a new wife to take care of his child from his ex-wife. I pondered, if this is the case why people wanted a wife for, I too want a wife! Why do I want a wife? I would like to go to college to become economically independent. I want a wife who would look after my children while I’m not at home. Bring them up properly, send them to school, look after their studies, wash and mend their clothes, see that they eat properly, take them to parks and zoos often, take care of the babysitting while we go out, cook nice food for me and my children, at times for my guests too who drop in for a house party. And of course to run errands, to look after the house, to take care of all of us, who would not bother me with rambling complaints of a wife’s duty. When I am through my college and having a job, I want my wife to quit working and remain home so that my wife can more fully and completely take care of a wife’s duties and serve me ‘garam phulkas’ when I’m back from work. My God, who would not want a wife?”The society hasn’t changed the stereotypical image of the women. Let us look at another part of the world. Yahoo, a leading tech firm & a fortune 500 company, recently hired a woman CEO, Marissa Mayer, what’s more, she was six months pregnant when she was hired, a fact she did not hide in her interviews. Marissa will take some time off after child birth and will be back at work later. She can manage both. There is something to celebrate about that. Marissa is a role model for women and even men. The comparison between the above two examples shows how sickness of the society hinders the normal life of a woman and expects her to manage the two worlds. Mayer sets an example of how to come over the presumed norms of the society and be entirely normal. Yet another member of the unit, the senior citizen, is sadly the most neglected one. The present day children don’t get to listen and learn from the ‘daadi-naani ' stories. The morals learned from these stories had an effect in their upbringing and helped them be ethical adults. The sickness of the mind has made us lose the respect and reverence towards them. The sources of pleasure have changed. The television has become the head of the family. This has affected the lively interactions that formed a part of the living room. Isn’t this the real sickness of the human race? The use of technology is exemplary of how sick the society has become. We put in our brains to make the technology but use the technology without brains! The noise of the discussions in the dining room has been replaced by the noise of the television shows. This is how the drift has taken place from being normal to being sick. A great scientist, a living legend, Stephen Hawking is one of the best examples of how a person can be normal in this sick world. Hawking has a motor neuron disease. He is now almost completely paralyzed and communicates through a speech generating device. Despite of this he has many papers published to his credits and he still is a leading scientist and does research in cosmology.This is how a person a person can survive normally, communicate normally, when people would have called it impossible and sick had they been given such circumstances. Being normal, what does it take? Its all about some simple fundamentals which have seeped out of our everyday life and thoughts. Remember ‘Jaadu ki Zhappi’ from ‘Munna Bhai M.B.B.S’, or the ‘All is well’ concept of Baba Ranchhoddas? Is it , in any way, complicated? The human race is epidemic with the fevers of achievements, the cut-throat competitions, the peer pressure and a lot more to add on the list. They are constantly apprehensive about the self created enigmas. The only antipyretic that would work against these high grade fevers is the infection of happiness. Perhaps happiness is the most infectious and the healthiest of all diseases the sick world suffers from. The newly created vectors are the laughter clubs and laughter shows because ‘Laughter is ‘still’ the best medicine’. The other secret of being normal is imbibing of the real values and standing firmly on them. But what differentiates success and failure and what differentiates good and bad is our values. The test of our values is when they are challenged. When the dust settles down in one’s hectic career and we get a moment to introspect, we realize that what kept us going with our life, our career and our friends is the mutuality of values. The next one is about being an inquisitive learner. “I am learner from cradle to grave” – George Bernard Shaw Degree is just the pit stop in the journey. Your existance is of no importance if you have reached your destination. The other part is having conviction and passion. The former is necessary for the latter one. Believe in yourself; believe in your beliefs, particularly if they are against the grain. A turtle makes progress only by sticking its neck out. That is the only way you can push the envelope and develop. As someone has said, if you are not living on the edge, you are occupying too much space in this world. There are three kinds of people, one who make things happen, two who watch things happen and three, who wonder what happened. It is up to you to figure out where you belong. The final aspect is that of optimism. There are many people around us who can immediately paint a dark cloud around a silver lining. But there are normal people too, like these two: “What day is it?” asked Pooh. “It’s today” squeaked Piglet. “My favourite day” said Pooh.