OK, what to do when you are really angry? Really annoyed and pissed off! Break something? Curse? Hit Someone?

Ok, and what to do when you are really angry with yourself? Can you break your head? Definitely not! Or maybe try hitting yourself? That's foolish, ain't it? But you know what, I am angry with myself and actually very angry! Why? Well, because I seem to never learn from my past mistakes! I know it's human to err, but to err similarly time and again is mere stupidity. And for this, I can't forgive myself.

And then the irony is that each time I am committing the blunder, I know what I am getting into. Then there is this voice of my intellect (I guess it to be from there :) ) asking me to check myself, but I don't care to listen to it; as my heart still believes that I can't go wrong every time. And then once I'm into it there's no turning back. I truly live that the moment thoroughly and pray that it never ends. But end it does...leaving me sad, lonely and longing for it again.

Yeah....it's so ecstatic. It's very first touch on your tongue sends a cold tickling sensation throughout the body. And in this scorching Delhi summers, it's a blessing in disguise! Yeah..I am talking about Ice creams. Aren't they simply great? Ohh...why do I regard them as blunders. Well, when you are trying to go on a good healthy diet, they are actually SINFUL!

And you thought I was talking about something else! Caught you!

The ambience, the people, everything around you gives you jitters in a surrounding like that. People holding their dear ones who are crying in pain; staff in white or green rushing here and there, personnel with instruments around their necks running from one dept to another. And I walking down the corridoor, looking for the right gate no. to collect my reports from. Yes, i was in a hospital - Apollo, surrounded with people in pain and illness.

Somehow, when u are also in pain, you can relate to others who are in a similar situation. Such is a human being. In times of happiness, it's difficult for most of us to understand others' misery; but when we are or have gone through similar trying times, we can understand relatively more easily.

As I was about to enter the dept of Neuro Sciences (I am suffering from migraines), I stepped aside as some people were bringing a patient on a stretcher, lean, pale, with so many attachments of drips. He must not have been more than 50 yrs, but could barely move a limb. His arms and legs were hanging out of the stretcher with his attendants trying to save them from being brushed against the wall or the door. He lay still, with blank eyes staring into eternity, it seemed. My eyes followed that patient with my thoughts wandering. Did he still have a will to live? Did he want to live? Will he be completely cured? Will he be able to walk again? Will he ever be among his own people living and laughing like them?

As he went out of sight, I turned and caught my reflection on the glass door. I was standing on my own feet, walking without support, moving without help, living a life on my own. And yet, there have been so many things I complain of. Has life treated me as harshly as I say it has? What about that man who can barely walk?

Today, I truly feel blessed. I have what many don't and I am grateful for all that I have. Thank you God, for making me 'Me'.

'Is life just this what I am living or is it much more or maybe lesser?'

Thoughts like this cloud my mind day in and out. At times, I look at life objectively, chalking out my role in it, my responsibilities, my stake and the risks. At other times, I subject it to being a mere state of existence. Or how else can I justify all those incidents and situations that I have been a mute, passive spectator to? They came, blew everything that seemed to be in their perfect places in my 'life' and left behind rumbles and ages of agony and suffering. And what could I do? Just watch it happen to me.

But no, life could not be just this. I have seen the other phase of it also. The one which has dreams turning into reality, angels blessing you, hard work paying off, love pouring in - the life with the perfect Midas touch to it. And do we complain then? I didn't.

But then, however and whichever way life may treat you and me, I firmly believe that miracles do happen in each one's life and there are incidents that need no proof, no justification; they happen, leaving you feeling blessed and thankful. In those truly dark moments, when the entire world seems hostile, each moment spills pain and even your own shadow turns its back to you, an angelic wand sweeps away all the misery.

There have been many occasions when I have felt the magic wand show its magic. On those fateful times when the entire world seemed to have collapsed before me, a strange power made me hold on....hold on to faith...hold on to life. A voice within me told me to stay put; it echoed that this too shall pass; it affirmed that if He has brought me to it, He will give me the strength to survive it.

Patience, faith, perseverance, trust - all these reduce to mere words in hard times. However, it has been these words that helped me pave my way through those difficult paths. Patience with other and my dealing with them; faith in the Supernatural, the Almighty; perseverance in my endeavor; and trust in those who held me notwithstanding the heat and pressure of those times. And I moved on, making my way to light.

There have been many occasions when life seemed futile and I know that there will be many more. But then, I even know that the same wand will brush its magic on me again, shaking me out of negativity and giving me the vision to realize and be thankful for all the truly wonderful people and things I am blessed with. And the first - this Life. For without it, I would have never been able to live all the beautiful moments that I have and those that I will.

Will life treat me as positively as I think of it? I know not and I don't think so. It is full of uncertainties, I know. But then, does it not depend on me how I take it? They say that happiness is a state of mind; then is living not the same. Or are we calling existing, living?

Whichever way and however it may be, life is surely much more than what I have lived until now. And I look forward to living it to its fruitful completion, whatever that may be.