Life and lessons- a reminder that human life is precious

National highway 43 is an epitome of India’s post-independence progress. As the sun turned the ochre horizon to ripe orange on that Sunday morning, we were racing through the 8-lane expressway that connected Hyderabad with Bangalore. Three hours later we retreated from the enviable route to the dusty kutcha roads to reach Kurnool. My mom had an invitation to a baby naming ceremony of her relatives. In India, we have celebrations on innumerable occasions and I am inclined to think that the strength of our society lies in bondages we have as families with one another. A new life was born and it was time to rejoice. The neonate was awed at the sea of humanity that embraced her that day, not knowing that she was the cause of this familial hullabaloo. I got to meet scores of aunts, uncles, cousins. Old relations were renewed, new ones were formed. After a heavy lunch we set out to Hi-tech city again reviewing the revelry that we were part of.

Few miles down the road, the post lunch somnolence was taking its toll. Sitting beside the driver, I could not afford that luxury. The desolate highway suddenly teemed with people. We slowed the vehicle down and I had to stretch my short frame to behold the scene. A lorry had just run down a pedestrian walking the other way. He was about 25 years of age. His torso was crushed by the heavy wheel of the truck and his innards were spilled over the dark concrete. It was a grotesque sight. He was needless to say, dead. The deceased hardly lived his life. He must have just married or may have been a father to young kids. He must have been the sole breadwinner at home. I pondered about the wife and kids waiting for him in expectancy. What trauma would be unleashed at the death of a grown up son! The mood of joyful celebration gave way to spine chilling horror and the household cacophony in the car transformed to a philosophical rendering. ‘How momentary human life is’, I opined. We passed an ambulance that was leisurely making its way to pick the victim to the morgue.

Moments later, I got a call from my sister. She had sent a couple of puppies for me to pick up. They were of Pomeranian breed resembling stuffed toys brought to life. We had named the male as Bruno and the female Julie. The new inhabitants of our home were shy beings. They would retire at one corner and sleep away to glory only to be disturbed by a hunger pang. Bruno was more adventurous of the two. It would venture into new rooms with ease and bark in anxiety all over. Julie was reticent and home sickness was too evident in her demeanor. Both were voraciously hungry and they would pounce upon the bowl of milk placed in their proximity. At night I had to sleep on the mat near these canines. My sleep was fractured by a series of intrusions on to my bed by Bruno. It began to lick my feet and occasionally grip my fingers with his infant jaws. Then both Bruno and Julie fell into a familial ruction with Bruno convincingly overpowering his sister. My nocturnal rest came to an end when Bruno pissed over the bedsheet I was sleeping on.

It’s been just days since these young lives entered our precincts. But the bond we have developed with them is too strong. As beastly as their origins are, they have become a source of immense joy. Their gingerly gait, their cute expressions at strangers, their hiding under the furniture to avoid us, their irreverent sleep patterns, their waging of tails as they gulp milk down their bellies, even their notoriously misplaced urination- all trigger warmth that we cannot experience in any other man made forms of entertainment. The next couple of months will be strenuous to us as our new ‘kids’ gel into the family. They will have to be vaccinated, their nails trimmed, baths given and their diet adjusted. None of these ordeals seem tiresome to a lazy guy like me. There is mirth in taking care of lives we love.

Life is a gift. It has with it an energy that we cannot comprehend. When a new life enters the world there is celebration. When someone passes away there is sorrow. I am inclined to think that this is the reason why marriages are happy occasions. Other than it being the completeness of love, marriage is the institution through which young lives are added into this world. Life is also a right of those who live. Right to life is a basic right granted by the United Nations to all human beings on this planet. We do not have the right to deprive others of their rights, however small that other person may be. Murder is a crime and so is abortion. We cannot condemn one and condone the other. Both involve violation of the basic right to live. Even a mother who bears the fetus for 294 days in her uterus cannot decide to extinguish the flicker of new life in her body. These days abortions are done for convenience-‘she is not married; we are not prepared to raise a child; we do not have a government job; it was an accidental pregnancy; it is a girl child’, - and these are the excuses adults give to kill their off springs. The Judeo-Christian worldview of life is that all beings are created by God. Only He has the right to give or take life. Life essentially is sacred and so is the concept of marital sex that precedes the formation of that new life. All things in life have a reason because they are permitted by God. Myopic approach hinders us from seeing the purpose behind all suffering and that is to draw close to God. Not that God causes suffering but allows it so that if we can see them, they are opportunities to trust Him and believe in Him.   Euthanasia, abortion, suicide and pornography are considered sins in Biblical perspective, because in them man plays God and robs God of prerogatives He alone deserves.

Today my pet Bruno looked at me wagging its tail when I called him. It filled me with great joy that a hundred Charlie Chaplin movies cannot give. That is the happiness life gives to each one of us. Soon he will begin to appreciate the tone of my voice and will also hint his by body language. He would share my joy, my anger, my sorrow, my duty. He would almost share my humanity. Now it makes sense in a smaller scale as to what Christians mean when they say-‘you will become like Christ.’ If a dog can share humanness with long time relationship, then so can man be like Christ when he invites Jesus into his life and obeys Him. That is life lived to its fullest, lived for the purpose for which it was created. And who else would know it better than the Creator Himself!