Something Will Never Change!

 “When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world/ I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change the nation/ When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town/ I couldn’t change the town too/ Now as an old man I tried to change my family, but to no avail/ I then realized that only thing I can change is myself and if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact my family, the town and the nation.”- Rabi Israel Salanter.

 While taunting man’s helplessness to achieve what he wants in life, this poem also underlines the impossibility of changing certain things in the world… things that remain immutable to change… things that go past human efforts. Our idea of bringing social changes is always laudable, but it is childish to anticipate the world to accept our ideas of change easily without questions and tune it to our thought frequencies.

 Some of my friends are always switching companies and going in for new, green pastures. At the time of their migration to new companies, they blame their old ones being regressive and unresponsive to changes happening around them. The new companies upon which my friends hop in suddenly catch their fancies and I hear them speak high of them as if they are the companies’ newly appointed brand ambassadors. However, their new-find enthusiasm and fancy is a short- lived phenomenon… a flash in the pan. For, I know they would quit the new concerns too calling their bosses addled heads and the company lacking in long range visions.

 So fastidious are my friends that they go on switching their jobs and adducing reasons for it. A deep study of their behavior may reveal that they have sort of mind-set that refuse to appreciate the goodness in other things or persons if they go against their pre-conceived ideas and thoughts. With the ‘I-am-always-okay’ thoughts ever filling in our minds, we built an imaginary world in ourselves and weigh the real world with our so- called self- worth.

 Like nature, we should have equipoise in life. We should appreciate that while many things in life that are liable to change, still there remain some things that are immune to change. My friends who are switching companies are well qualified, but still quit their jobs feeling it infra dig to work with companies that are incompatible to their self-worth; they think that the concerns they are working for are not up to their expectations and that the people therein don’t buy my friends’ ideas and thoughts.

 

‘My mom doesn’t understand me; my family doesn’t understand me; none in my office hears what I say; and the society too is not ready to travel with my thoughts and principles,’ are some of the monologues we continuously indulge in all through our life without realizing that it is we who need to change and not the society. The thought that ‘we are always infallible, doing things right’ leads us to chaos.

 Why do we indulge in such mawkish monologues? Why people including our family and friends don’t understand us? Why the society becomes lukewarm and looks at us askance when we try to change things? This happens because we always sit in a high pedestal of vanity and anticipate the world to rally around us and adapt to what we preach or ignore what we impeach. There were many leaders in our midst who changed many wrong courses in the world. They did not swim against the current; they rather went with it and turned it to their way at a right time. So, success becomes elusive to those who try to force feed others with their thoughts and opinions, however good they may be.

 ‘My god, give me powers and prowess to change those things that are susceptible to change. If not, make my mind more pliable to accept such things that are immune to change,’ should be our prayers. For, it is to be realized that things not remaining in our orbit of control and influence will never get changed. Any attempt to change them is meaningless and will go against the law of nature. ‘Is change is the law of nature or the rule of man’, we should ponder.

 We cannot bring changes in the world without changing our mindset that only reflect our pride-self and know-all-character. We’d better remember that the world will never for once fall to our feet and adapt to the change we preach. Rather, it is we who should turn our thoughts to the course of the world. For, course correction, as charity, should begin at home.

 “Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted.” What’s your take?

Image courtesy: Google

Death of a Star!

[When I was flipping through my Diary 2002 the other day, my jottings about Monal’s tragic end beckoned me and brought to my mind a host of awesome nostalgic thoughts. I had a feeling of déjà vu as the dead artist again touched a chord in my heart. How would emotionally deplete artists behave when driven to wall? [Read on…]

Monal, a starlet from Bollywood, hung herself to death on the Tamil New Year’s Day. A strange quirk of fate played havoc with her life, putting off her promising career of becoming an icon in the Kollywood. TV visuals showed her sleeping eternally on a bier; she was a feast to flies that were swarming her lissome body … a body that set fire to the hearts of thousands of her fans.

Monal’s premature death moved me to a great extent not because she was one of the upcoming actors of the Kollywood and a diva for whom the tinsel world plumped rather madly, but because it set me thinking as to what led the young actor to kill herself savagely in the middle of her blooming career.

Sadly, the history of Kollywood has been replete with gory incidents of suicides committed by droves of actresses both upcoming and established. Vijayashree, Lakshmishree, Shoba and Jeyalkshmi are a few glaring examples. Mostly, the reasons that drive the artists to put out their lies are not fully investigated, and, as such reasons for their death remain buried with the stars.

Dire poverty, terminal illness, heavy monetary constraints, dowry harassment and incompatible with one’s spouse are mostly cited as reasons for men/women to commit suicide. However, those reasons cannot be attributed to an actor’s suicide. For, the stars have access to all the fine things of life: a cozy bungalow; a fleet of imported cars; a retinue of servants; and above all their basking in the limelight of the public glare.

However, it is still puzzling to know as why the actors, especially the budding ones go for the noose. Reasons, if analyzed, may go beyond their material well-being. Notwithstanding their wealth and popularity, the female actors are not a happy lot. Depressed as they are over some inexplicable reasons, they have some hard feeling always tugging at their hearts.

Having no intrinsic worth of histrionic skills but having only bewitching body lines, the junior actors soon find themselves surrounded by competition from other more bewitching chicks brought from other states. While being in the grip of insecurity of not getting chances, which constantly stare at them, the budding doll’s life become more untenable since their parents exhort them to go the whole hog with the men dominated filmdom, grab every straw coming in their way and make money.

Getting no warmth and real affection from parents who treat them only as money churning machines, the up-coming film girls start feeling lonely with no one around them to repair their breaking hearts and assuage their hard feelings. Again, falling in love with persons of their choice bring only holocaust to their homes and make the parents to stoop to any level to cut their love knots, fearing such love affairs would dry up the money channels.

Unfortunately, the girls on the move never share their feelings and thoughts even with their close confidants. While there are thousands of fans who are building temples for them and worshipping them as ‘maiden goddesses’, the actors have no one close to them to give emotional comfort and support. Emotional depletion and injured feelings thus play ghost in their minds. When such pent-up feelings go off bounds, the beleaguered actors suddenly flicker off their lives and create flutters in the film world.

Early psychiatric intervention to address the emotional problems of the actors can prevent disasters and deaths, says a doctor. “Suicide, the doctor adds, is certainly preventable and it is important that young people learn to cope with stress, learn alternative methods of dealing with emotional crisis and practice new techniques to solve problems.”

Now, the air is thick with the Film Employees Federation of South India is planning to give counseling to the actors to make them aware of the necessity for giving vent to their hard feelings and getting back their repose. Such damage control steps, though made with good intention, would fall through since no actor worth her name would showcase their feelings to the public view. A better and pragmatic step would be giving counseling to the parents of the actors to make them more pliable in handling their sensitive, and emotionally charged star daughters who are in a mad race to pitch in for space in the celluloid world.

Image courtesy: Google