As I sat in this neighborhood restaurant in Bangalore enjoying my sinful Benne Dosa dripping of hot butter I saw the picture of a smiling face on the counter, garlanded; It seemed familiar. It was the picture of Puneet Rajkumar the heartthrob of millions. He had tragically died of a heart attack while working out in the gym; he was only 46. Today happens to be the last day of COP26 Glasgow, where the world leaders had huddled to declare the world of their commitments to take actions to save the world from overheating – which is projected to rise by 2.7 C by the end of this century.
My mind sensed that there was something common that connected these two events. It started brewing in my mind triggered by a cup of freshly brewed
filter coffee. I let my mind wander.
I am no doctor but the new age
obsession to build a six-pack herculean body fed on a custom-made diet and
exercise regime is what our body evolutionarily perhaps was not designed to
take. Some of us have redefined what once was called fitness and have
replaced it with the picture of a roman wrestler whose sole purpose of existence was only to eat
and fight. Nothing morally wrong in what Puneet was doing one would say but did
he overdo his fitness bit? His fans and friends must be wishing what if he had not
overdone this.
The climate change situation is alarming,
and it’s said that there is no time, and we need to act fast. The world leaders
chose to stay non-committal and have let the slide continue. We have clearly
overdone many things in our pursuit of comfort and convenience over the past two
hundred years. And I am sure that soon we will regret that we didn’t act in time in the
past.
A friend from the past had called
up yesterday and we spoke long over the phone catching up on things after years. This
once used to be a daily routine between us till things turned sour. I was awkward
and not comfortable speaking to someone after a long gap. After years of detachment
when I look back, I realize how I had overstepped my limits and overstayed in
that space. This is a pang of guilt, the burden of which I carry even now.
Many of us live with a
sense of loss after losing someone dear, emotionally scarred, harboring the
feeling of hurt because of broken relationships. The earth with its air,
water soil damaged irreversibly because of our own lifestyle and realized in hindsight that all these things which have damaged us today could have been
avoided had we paused or stopped at the right time.
Not that we didn’t know, there
were dozens of omens, alerts, and advice of the impending danger but we had
chosen to ignore for pleasure or short-term gains. Why do we choose to do so? Why
do we miss that right moment when we should have slowed, paused, stopped,
or stepped back and prevented things from worsening further? What happens to the rational man at these critical junctures?
Ignore all these discussions; should I, myself not have opted for a regular dosa instead of this buttery treat?
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