Diverse Shades of Joy and Sorrow in Life
Author: Dr. K. S. Kang
Life is an alteration of pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow and happiness and gloom, just like shadow and light during a cloudy day and day and night. I experienced in my life in last couple of months. First of all a whiff of joy came in my life when it was announced that my younger son would get National Award for Films for the year 2024 in the category of non-feature films for superior sound direction. This news filled my friends, relatives and well wishers with jubilation,including his old maternal grandmother living in a remote nook of Punjab who was quite happy with this achievement. Little did anybody knew what would happen in the next fortnight.
Just fifteen days after this announcement this old lady suddenly and unexpectedly passed away bringing the wave of gloom in my life. It was unfortunate that her grandson had got award but she could not survive to see receiving it from the head of the state. She was both physically as well as spiritually and emotional strong lady, who believed in serving everybody in her live so as to make their lives comfortable and pleasant. She had capacity to take everybody along in life. She cared for everybody and she could not sit idle in her life. She was always on the move to help others. She was a sort of natural scientist in food technology. She did experiments of various sorts in her kitchen- which was a sort of lab to her- in order to make dishes as delicious and nutritious as possible body, accommodating taste of everybody in the family. Even growing sickness could not compel her to sit idle even in the last moments of her life. She liked knitting sweaters and utilised leisure time in knitting sweaters and made her life useful to others by gifting them sweaters and socks even for the members of her distant relatives. Going away of such a great being in the family has left a void that is nearly impossible to be filled in the near future. My deepest tribute to her personality as she had fulfilled her promise made to my mother to look after me well, so she was more than a mother to me and she even sacrificed her pleasures to make my life comfortable and pleasant. May God grant her place in heaven for ever.
A brief breeze of joy in this gloomy atmosphere came in the form of visit to Harvest International Tennis Academy in the neighbouring village. This visit provided a sweet and pleasant respite to me as I am a Tennis enthusiast. This academy located in a sleepy village of Punjab not only turned Tennis Champions but it also provided facility of education to them in the form of a CBSE affiliated Senior Secondary School. This academy had nearly a dozen courts, both clay and synthetic courts. It coached young people of both the genders in learning the skill of playing Tennis. When we entered the academy we had a talk with a coach who was giving tips to players playing on the clay court. We also had the honour of having a cup of refreshing tea with the coach and manager of this academy.
A greater wave of jubilation came in my life when I got the news that a ceremony is scheduled to be held in Gujarat at Kevadia (Ektanagar) near the imposing and grand statue of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, where my son would receive his award form the Hon’ble President of India Ms. Droupadi Murmu. Initially only one person was allowed to attend this ceremony, but later on I, my wife and my elder son also got passes to attend the ceremony. So my son came to our native town from his working place and we headed towards this destination in a hired cab in the morning. After a journey of nearly ten hours we reached the destination and stayed in a decent hotel, that was booked by my son for the night which was quite comfortable and pleasant. In the morning we went to see this grand tall statue of India’s first Deputy Prime Minister, which was surrounding by breathtaking natural surroundings of beautiful lush green hills placed around the swiftly flowing Narmada river. In this lap of natural environment Sardar Patel was standing tall overlooking the surroundings at the lush green tall mountains and deep valleys. No doubt this place was nearly epitome of beauty. After visiting the statue from within we also went to see Biological park situated nearby. We came back in time to get ready for the award ceremony and we were taken to this site in the buses for security reasons of VIP visit. After attending the ceremony, surrounded by glitterati of film personalities and celebrities we enjoyed the dinner that was serve to all the guests attending the ceremony. After attending this ceremony we came back next day in our cab to our native place.
As we were basking in the glory of my son’s accomplishment another gloomy news came to disrupt it in the form of sudden demise of my nephew of heart attack and his age was only fifty five years old, though it was respite that he had fulfilled his parental obligation by marrying his son and daughter who are now settled in England and Canada respectively and he was also fortunate to have seen his grandchildren too. As children were abroad so dead body had to await his funeral for 48 hours as it took time for his daughter to reach the village from Canada. I was to go to attend an International Conference at Jodhpur for three days when I got this news. Suddenly I changed my plans and after attending the conference on the first day took a train from there to Jammu Tawi and during the night and thanks to online booking that I got a berth in sleeper. As a result of it I reached the village nearly 24 hours before his final rites. Next day after attending his last rites ceremony I came to Ludhiana and thanks to tatkal reservation that I secured a berth in III AC coach of Amritsar-Ajmer Train. After overnight journey I reached Ajmer, though train was late by 90 minutes as a result of which I could not catch the connecting train, so I had to take Bus from Ajmer and reached my native town early in the evening.
