Taken for granted…
Sometimes I wonder, how it would be if we were born in a different era. What if we time travelled backwards to the age of cavemen where every day was a fight for survival; where getting your daily meal meant risking your life constantly? One in which people had to go without food for days. A behavior pattern that is so ingrained in us that the brain even to this day is wired to find high caloric food stuffs more palatable. It is in constant fear of running out of food as a result of which we all tend to overeat. We need to consciously remind ourselves not to.
We do take the availability of food for granted. I once heard a personnel talk about how the situation in certain parts of Africa were so dismal that there were kids scouting garbage heaps for a few morsels and in other parts there are humans still sold as slaves in the slave market. (This is being mentioned not for looking down upon somebody, but that it is our collective responsibility to give back to one of our most ancient continents as much as we take from it.) Also, we take our freedom for granted.
What if we were born a few centuries ago where emperors fought for territory everyday; where the common folks were always in danger of being taken as prisoners, slaves or killed if accosted? An era where even the royalty didn’t live for too long past their prime. They had to be prepared for warfare every single day. Imagine living with the sword of Damocles hanging over your head; in this case literally in the form of an invading neighbor or a foreign power wielding a sword. Worse still, a disease consuming you in your youth.
Pre independence life as little as a century ago would have been so different. Either you submitted to the whims of your foreign occupiers or took the brunt of their atrocities. India wasn’t involved directly in either World War I or II. However, we did become a collateral damage in someone else’s fight. When tons of food grains were diverted from Bengal to aid the war efforts of the Imperial powers, millions here starved to death. A Google search will show you pictures of cachexic bodies. When farmers in the country were forced to grow Poppy instead of food crops which in turn was sold to our neighbor in exchange of filling up the coffers of our Masters then, the layman, the economy and morality died a slow painful death. During Independence, the average lifespan of an Indian was just 30 odd years.
I am no history expert, but these are anecdotes that I have come across that make me wonder if we take our present luxuries for granted? I am calling them luxuries, because if you put some things in context, they will feel like one.
Where I studied for my under-graduation, there would be no electricity for 6–8 hours on a daily basis. Even in the summers where the mercury rose to 45 degrees at times. We all had to make do with the limitations. Water supply was at times scarce, the place being arid as it is, so on certain days we would have to store water for our basic needs.
When there is a power grid failure in a place like New York or another major city in the USA, that turns into an international headline. I stay in a well equipped city. Even then, growing up power cuts were common place here. Coming to think of it, it isn’t a big deal really. But, we make a big deal out of it. A few hours of no water supply and we are flustered. Some war torn countries have neither water supply nor basic toilet facilities for lakhs of people residing there.
As a kid, I was choosy with my eating habits as I mentioned in one of my previous posts, ‘The Lunchbox’. I am still a foodie, but after my stint in various cities , I have come to appreciate a simple home cooked meal. When people complain about how their mother doesn’t cook well or their wife doesn’t make a MasterChef worthy dish every day; I would say just pick up some culinary skills instead.
In our country education is cheap if you work hard at it. There are costlier options too but you can get a college of your choice by just putting in the efforts. You are good to go even without a scholarship unlike in the West where affording college education has become a new caste system of sorts. Something reserved only for the privileged, and post that too people spend several years just paying off their student debt.
Take Health care for example. One of my pregnant family members had to spend 4 hours while bleeding before being seen by an OBGYn, in Ireland. Thankfully they shifted to the United States where the system is relatively more efficient. Most of us have heard of the case of Savita Hallapanavar, a dentist in Ireland who was denied a much needed abortion based on the country’s archaic laws before she died of complications at the mere age of 31. The incident went on to change abortion laws in the country. She would probably live if she were in India that day. We do not appreciate our healthcare enough. What we have here are overworked residents, but not lengthy waiting times or idiotic laws.
An illness will make us appreciate health more. My personal journey of weight loss where I went from a 94 kgs to 74kgs by restricting myself to a 800 Cal diet accompanied by two years of sleepless nights, make me appreciate better health more. Today, I have a calorie tracker and my alarm bells go off the moment I exceed my Calorie count. Not that I was ever an overeater but my hormones had gone for a toss and it took some effort getting the scales back on target.
My stint with depression taught me how important my hobbies were. How giving importance to things that nurture your soul actually make you more efficient in other arenas. How consuming pills is something I never want to go back to. When you are gone, nobody will give a damn about how hard you worked; neither is it something that you will be proud of on your death bed. It will be somebody else laughing their way to the bank trudging on the remains of your futile life. The message is not one encouraging complacence, but that you need to have your priorities in place.
How some take their relationships for granted until they lose their partner because now they have given their life more importance over your unreasonable self serving tyrannical demands.
If someone puts you in a survival mode like how your primitive ancestors were, be grateful that you have a choice to walk out of it. Let no one, even you take yourself for granted. Make that choice. You live only once.
