From the pen-APN
The readings on the Blood Pressure
machine went up and up and up and finally the readings told that I have very
high blood pressure and I need strict control over my diet and habits. The
discovery of high blood pressure in me was surely shocking as well as a strong
warning but the next moment I felt it to enlighten my views on life. For a
moment I thought how thoughtlessly and irresponsibly I have squandered away my
youthful times. I have achieved almost nothing in the bygone years when I was
more active and efficient. I was careless and did not have a specific goal in
the preceding years. I never minded when I had become the victim of under
utilization of my capabilities and my faculties. As a result money, success,
glory and its synonymous greatness, as understood in common parlance, were
always beyond my reach. In short, I can say I had given the reigns of my life
to external agencies which never considered the real worth of the human being
inside me.
I have no rights to raise any issue
or any complain because I had primarily failed to estimate the true worth of
myself. So I never aimed at greatness. My life cannot be taken as an exemplary
life till date. However, I am not hopeless. There are numerous examples strewn
all over the human history that many great men were very ordinary and obscure
in their earlier lives before they stumbled upon true greatness. Such examples
invariably bring new hopes and new energy to start life anew with changed terms
and conditions. I was in a fifty/fifty situation. It was because I never knew
whether I have a second innings or I have already run out of my allotted time.
I was looking at the blinking heart
icon of the monitor while the physician was taking the blood pressure readings.
And at the same time I earnestly prayed and hoped for discovering a treasure
trove of humanity before the blinking heart icon departs from me.
My physician looked rather serious
at the worsening condition of my heart. I looked into his eyes, got up from my
seat and in the style of Rajesh Khanna, in the movie Anand, I sermonized, “Oh
Doctor! Why worry? Be happy. In my youth I had heat in my blood and…… now there
is pressure in my blood.” Drawing my face close to Doctor’s, optimistically and
enthusiastically, I concluded, “And this pressure will push my engine on the
track to greatness…..Yahooo! The journey begins now. ”
