The Man , the Boy and the Donkey...........

Whenever I see Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan at a public gathering, I always ask him ,” Why did you not marry Rekha. You both look stunning together”
Of course, Mr Bachchan never replies to and as a matter of fact is not a part of this rendezvous which has been airing pointlessly in my head for several years now.

Sometime back I dreadfully witnessed “the phase” of my life which apparently everyone goes through once, twice and even multiple times in their lifetime. It was one of those times when you feel lonely and dejected by your loved ones , when professional life seems to be stagnant , when everybody seems to have settled down baring you and every sad song it seems was composed for you and the lyrics begin to make perfect sense.
The frequency of mishaps increased to such a level that while I was busy comprehending one problem, another was ready to demand attention with yet another problem carving in its final form ready to pounce on me.

Bewildered and despaired, I decided to speak about it to a friend. I went to him and like an active volcano, in no time, erupted my molten lava of emotions to him.
Have you heard the classic story of “The Man, the boy and the Donkey” was his instantaneous question as soon as I finished my narration.
I looked at him with melancholy and thought of adding another problem to my never ending list “Another friend was demoted to an acquaintance.”
He continued and what he spoke for the next 15 minutes absolutely made sense.
Just to reiterate the story for the purpose of this blog , there were two men , father and a son, walking along with their donkey. On the way , they met a man who told them that it was foolish to be walking alongside the donkey. They should climb on the donkey and continue with the rest of their journey.
They found the suggestion sensible and did so. When they moved a few miles like this , a passing by traveler commented Look at these men they have no humanity left, They both might crush the donkey to death Hearing this ,the father got down from the donkey. After walking like this for sometime, they encountered a man who pointed towards the son mockingly and asked him whether or not he was ashamed to be enjoying the donkey ride making his poor father walk.
The son got down and his father sat on the donkey. A few more steps and there were people mocking at how unthoughtful the father was riding on the donkey leisurely leaving his kid to cover the journey by foot.

I am not sure what moral did Aesop had to give from this fable and neither did my friend relate the story to my problem, I however learnt a very important lesson that day.
It is almost impossible to please everyone .What matters is that you should be pleased by your thoughts and you should be able to justify your actions. Different people have different perspectives to look at you and multiple explanation of your actions,you cannot stop them nor can you go around and explain everyone why you did or did not do a certain thing. A classic example of this is Mahabharata.
There was a good side and there was an evil side and then there was the good side doing the evil but history knows it as a necessary measure adopted to curb the evil side and to ensure victory of Dharma over Adharma.
As long as you are able to justify your act, there is no right and there is no wrong.
A murderer justifies his action and so does a priest. We all have different thought process, are subjected to different circumstances, come from different backgrounds and finally we all have a different definition of wrong and right. Your wrong might be my right , your less might be my more and your east might be my west.
Everything is relative and much of it is subjected to the school of thought you follow and the circumstances you are exposed to.
I got a solution to my problems thus. The focus had to be on not necessarily the right actions but justifiable actions. You cannot make everyone happy so stop trying for that. Still, if you want to make everyone around you happy, start with yourself. On similar lines, don't judge anyone else's action keeping your happiness or satisfaction as a parameter. The doer might be happy with the action and finally its his choice.
Because of The man ,the boy and the donkey story my mental rendezvous witnessed the grand finale episode. I don't question Mr Bachchan now :D