“Hello!” Lulu, my parrot, called me
out. There are some good things about parrots as friends. Parrots have a
different perspective. Not necessarily good or hmmm….. agreeable, but
different, yes different.
“Hello,” I noticed Lulu was
perched on a very high on a branch of Gulmohur tree. “Hello, it is so difficult
to spot you in that foliage. What are you doing up there?” But I knew the
answer. Parrots when they put on their thinking cap, they go to the top of the
tree. “Thinking something, eh? Are you reviewing the last year’s events? That’s
what everybody is doing.”
“I can see that you wish to do it.”
“It was an important year. I had
not-so-good-health in October 2013. So springing back to normal life in 2014
itself was an achievement.”
“That was a rather a bad time. How
does it feel now?”
“Like waiters in a restaurant
starting to place breakfast settings on the surrounding tables while one is still
having dinner, these intimations of mortality plainly communicate the message:
Your time is up, it’s time to move on.”
“If you quote from a book, you
must mention it, that’s the right etiquette. I asked how it feels. Answer that,
don’t give me intellectual stuff.”
“That time is short, in a
nutshell. Acutely feeling it now. More than ever before.”
“I understand.”
“And I am very unhappy about one
thing - the ‘bucket list’ is as long as ever. Hardly any item got struck off as
yet.”
“I know what you mean. Rabindranath
Tagore has put it beautifully.”
“Tagore? What?”
“Rabindranath Tagore said 'I have
spent many days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came
to sing remains unsung.'” Lulu winked at me.
“You are pulling my leg, Lulu. Are
you trying to convey something, what’s it?”
“It is time to stop doing certain
things. Decide what you are NOT going to do as a New Year resolution.”
“Why?”
“You are frittering away your
time. Once you stop doing those things, you will find time to work on the
Bucket list. Agreed? What are you going to stop doing?”
“I feel it is time to stop working.
Consulting I mean. I have really nothing new to say to the audience. And
training too. I am losing interest in those activities. I feel I should stop
these activities.”
“That will give you considerable
time on hand. But why are you not discontinuing?”
“I find it difficult to say NO.
And I also feel that some money must be earned to keep the home fires burning.”
“What happens to the fire within?
Didn’t you talk about waiter setting breakfast table while you are having
dinner and the message of mortality…? Eh?”
“I see your point. There is never
the right time to do what you always wanted to do in life. In the coming days I
must focus on many things, together with my wife.”
“Overdue! And what else?” Lulu
flew down through my window and sat on the table lamp.
“????”
“Old man! Make a clean cut from
the past. Stop doing what you have been doing. Break away from the past. It is
important to take bearings again. Do what you wanted to do and have not done. New
Year is a good time to make up one’s mind and do it.”
“Hmmm……”
“Gather courage. You are behaving
like a lamb, going where circumstances and time is taking you.”
“Ha, ha! Coincidentally, the year 2015, the next year is the Chinese Year of the Sheep.”
“Ha, ha! Coincidentally, the year 2015, the next year is the Chinese Year of the Sheep.”
“So it is your year! Ha, ha!!” Lulu
laughed sarcastically as he flew away.
Vivek Patwardhan
"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.