March 05, 2009

Let us ass.u.me....

I still vividly remember my History teacher way back from seventh grade... Short, fair, neatly worn hair and a voice that made heads turn. Like most teachers, she had a favourite statement.... "Don't assume things I did not mention... Assume almost implies making an ass of you and me!Ass.U.Me. Get it?" At that moment it seemed funny and really nothing but just another remark from a teacher who was furious at her students.

But today as I look back and think about it, it makes way much more sense than I thought. And now, as it seems to emerge from my mind, it comes generously coated with all the ambiguity life has to offer. All that is certain, enveloped with all that is uncertain and intangible.

It may sound puzzling at first to know the way life leads us through its rather monotonous ways but yet gets us to milestones that we seek. And on the way, we encounter so much, that makes what we can call "life". One very nice quote I remember at this point is, "Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans". So true. You assume so many things and make plans but life takes you in an entirely different direction.

The reason this thought came to me was due to a simple incident that occurred not too long ago. On just another unusual day, we woke up, did all that we had to do and the day went by. We were invited for dinner at my aunt's place in Bangalore since we were to travel back to the US and had just two days left. We had a great time there. Then when we got home, just as you too may have assumed we slept. I too assumed that I will sleep. But the next thing I know I had the worst abdominal pains and was taken to the hospital and admitted there. And before I could gain back my strength I had IV/drips flowing down into my body. And the way the events turned it made us wonder if we could travel at all.

How comfortably we had assumed that nothing could go wrong! We all do this so many times. In fact, almost all the time with our near and dear ones. We assume that nothing can happen. But when it does, it takes us by shock and surprise. We assume that we can comfortably live in our own orbits and assume that nothing can happen to us. A neighbour happens to be a part of a car crash, we assume it could never be us. A stranger misses his flight - oh, that could never be us. A building burns down in the next town - that can not happen to us, ever. Terror strikes a country - oh, not us, NO Way!! We forget to count our blessings, forget to give credit to everyone in our lives, and forget to thank God what is in our hands. We assume, its all normal and cant change. We assume way too many things for our own good. We assume!!

6 comments:

Deepti Pawar said...

Cant agree more Ketki!! She was ONE helluva teacher.

mariamma said...

wow, priscilla ma'am... i still remember that comment of hers :)
nice writeup, deeps!

Rajani said...

Hey, that's Pricilla Maam in the first sentence!!! I too recognised it!!:-)

Deepti Pawar said...

Great! Thanks for reading up girls!!!

Sreedevi Menon said...

Hey great article .. love the way you wrote it. Huh ... I don't remember Ms.Priscilla ever saying that .... maybe like you said it made no sense

Deepti Pawar said...

Tx for reading up Sreedevi. Do keep checking back for more of my thoughts!

And, thank you for the compliments too!