What Life Does To You, If You Let It..

I came across this picture on Twitter a while back, which made me realise that if there is one epidemic that has spread across the human race over the last few years or so, it is the shrinking of the human heart...

Babies are born with huge hearts, hearts that love, love unconditionally, hearts that trust, hearts that beat in gay abandon, hearts that are true, yet carefree and impulsive...

Somewhere, as the babies grow, their hearts shrink. They become selfish, they are wary to love. This epidemic which has spread like wildfire is a curse which is afflicting the modern world...

The irony is that each individual is aware of this, but is afraid to admit that he or she is afflicted by the epidemic...

Every human today exists like an island, an island of loneliness. It is a pretty silent world out there, which perhaps why humanfolk found solace in their friendship with dogs... Dogs' hearts seem to grow as they age. I remember once we stayed at Neeti's friend's home. They had a young Labrador, who won our hearts, memories that we continue to cherish till this day...

In humanfolk, there are exceptions. We visited Ladakh in 2011 and on our way to Nubra Valley, we stopped by for lunch at a roadside eatery which was manned by a pretty Ladakhi lady. Tourists were served lunch followed by large mugs of tea. One tourist, who presumably was in a rush to get to Nubra Valley, asked the lady if she could take a mug full of tea alongwith her. She offered to give a deposit of a couple of hundred rupees and would return it on her way back the next day. The lady smiled and told her to take it alongwith her, refused to take the deposit. She trusted the tourist... and she had a large heart... This incident has stuck on to me ever since...

Perhaps there is only one way, which is to be unconditionally positive and large hearted. 

The core essence of being a human is to connect. While it is easy to connect on emotions such as greed and selfishness, the connections which are forged on the basis of large-"heartedness", if there is such a word, are the ones which are durable and virtuous...