Skip to main content

Being Alive

 

A scene from Ezhattumukham in Kerala

One of the most alive characters I can mention without having to think twice is Zorba, a creation of Nikos Kazantzakis. Even in his sixties, he possessed all the passion of a young man. He sang and danced, made love, drank wine, and did not care much for the silly politics of ordinary mortals and the gods of the same mortals. What would Zorba answer if you ask him, “What does being alive mean to you?”

“To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right…” Zorba would begin. Life is freedom. Free to sing your own song and dance your own steps. It doesn’t matter whether the song jars or the dance looks clumsy. Just liberate yourself from all man-made snares like isms and religions. And live. Live your life.

To have no ambition and yet work like a horse as if you had the all the ambition of a conqueror. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To be able to stand with the land behind you and the sea in front, feeling the wind in your face, and to enjoy the urge to fling all that you have achieved so far to the wind… and move slowly to the realms of fairy tales.

I have admired Zorba from the time I came to know him. I was in my twenties when I read Zorba the Greek the first time. I read the novel many times later. Now I am as old as Zorba is in the novel. I have committed a lot of blunders which Zorba might think of as natural. At any rate, I have learnt certain valuable lessons from most of those blunders. That’s what being alive is: learning lessons from your blunders. Zorba would agree with me though I never possessed his wisdom or even the potential for such wisdom.

PS. A certain dullness of spirit is overwhelming me these days. But fellow blogger Parwati Singari’s prompt - What according to you is being alive? #beingalive – became a gentle breeze wafting from the sea…

PPS. This blog is participating in The Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa campaign. 

Comments

  1. Harshita NandaOctober 6, 2021 at 3:59 PM

    While running behind the goals and ambitions we forget to live no?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 6, 2021 at 4:43 PM

      Precisely. Obsession with conquests is the most serious threat to being alive!

      Delete
  2. Neerja BhatnagarOctober 6, 2021 at 5:10 PM

    Very true. Such a liberating post. We just forget about living while running after what we think is life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 6, 2021 at 5:20 PM

      If people let go a few pursuits life would be great for them as well as some others.

      Delete
  3. Weekend GetawaysOctober 6, 2021 at 5:25 PM

    Its very difficult, but that would be ultimate nirvana

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 6, 2021 at 7:27 PM

      Perhaps not too difficult. But I can say with certainty that it took me long years to at least realise that I was blundering pretty much.

      Delete
  4. Yamini MacLeanOctober 6, 2021 at 5:32 PM

    Hari OM
    Ah Zorba - a favourite of my younger years too and you remind that it me that it may be time to reacquaint... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 6, 2021 at 7:26 PM

      I'm sure he will lead you to yet another new light.

      Delete
  5. Debidutta MohantyOctober 6, 2021 at 8:42 PM

    It's a refreshing and liberating post. Most of the time we chase mundane and trivial things but we think that's life.

    ReplyDelete
  6. jyoti @momcaptureslifeOctober 6, 2021 at 11:58 PM

    Absolutely we need to learn lessons from our blunders

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anuradha sowmyanarayananOctober 7, 2021 at 10:14 AM

    thought provoking

    ReplyDelete
  8. The SiriusgramOctober 7, 2021 at 9:39 PM

    Seriously, thought provoking . Great read

    ReplyDelete
  9. deepti menonOctober 7, 2021 at 11:16 PM

    Being alive and young at heart can be highly liberating. Thank you for reminding us of Zorba the Greek!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Debdatta Dasgupta October 8, 2021 at 9:40 AM

    I now have Dean Jones singing Being Alive in my mind!!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Gurjeet chhabraOctober 8, 2021 at 11:17 AM

    So beautiful, true it seems like we don't live. we run on a rat race.

    ReplyDelete
  12. sivaranjiniOctober 8, 2021 at 12:38 PM

    A beautiful take on being alive and allowing ourselves to grow through life with all the flaws it had given us.

    ReplyDelete
  13. RituOctober 8, 2021 at 10:15 PM

    Being on this constant hamster wheel, most forget what it is to live. To be alive. A thought provoking post.

    ReplyDelete
  14. GBOctober 9, 2021 at 2:57 PM

    Finding the meaning if being alive is one of the biggest paradox of life.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Manali DesaiOctober 10, 2021 at 6:46 AM

    'That’s what being alive is: learning lessons from your blunders.'
    This motivated me a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Abha SinghOctober 10, 2021 at 4:39 PM

    Learning from our mistakes yet enjoying life that’s what being alive means. No one is living perfect life. It is going to full with happy and sad moments and that’s what gives us strength.

    ReplyDelete
  17. SrikanthOctober 10, 2021 at 5:30 PM

    A very thought provoking post

    ReplyDelete
  18. UnknownOctober 12, 2021 at 6:06 AM

    What a thought-provoking, refreshing post. True that, in chasing the aimless rat race somewhere we have forgotten to live the life in real sense.

    Archana Srivastava
    archusblog

    ReplyDelete
  19. sadvika annamOctober 12, 2021 at 11:15 PM

    A post to think off! Learnign from mistakes is the best we could do

    ReplyDelete
  20. jayshree bhagatOctober 14, 2021 at 2:25 AM

    I am learning with my age and mistakes

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

The Vegetarian

Book Review Title: The Vegetarian Author: Han Kang Translator: Deborah Smith [from Korean] Publisher: Granta, London, 2018 Pages: 183 Insanity can provide infinite opportunities to a novelist. The protagonist of Nobel laureate Han Kang’s Booker-winner novel, The Vegetarian , thinks of herself as a tree. One can argue with ample logic and conviction that trees are far better than humans. “Trees are like brothers and sisters,” Yeong-hye, the protagonist, says. She identifies herself with the trees and turns vegetarian one day. Worse, she gives up all food eventually. Of course, she ends up in a mental hospital. The Vegetarian tells Yeong-hye’s tragic story on the surface. Below that surface, it raises too many questions that leave us pondering deeply. What does it mean to be human? Must humanity always entail violence? Is madness a form of truth, a more profound truth than sanity’s wisdom? In the disturbing world of this novel, trees represent peace, stillness, and nonviol...
6 comments
Read more

The RSS does not exist

An organisation that has 80,000 branches in India does not exist legally in any document. This is the cover story of The Caravan this month. By the way, The Caravan is one of the very few publications that still continues to exist in spite of being overtly critical of Narendra Modi and his Sangh Parivar. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not registered as an organisation under any of the usual Indian registration laws such as the Societies Registration Act or as a trust or company. It functions as an unregistered voluntary organisation, though it is arguably the largest public organisation in the country. This situation makes the organisation absolutely unaccountable to anyone, argues The Caravan . The RSS is not legally required to file annual returns to the Tax department or disclose its financial details publicly though it deals with thousands of crores of rupees every year especially after Modi became the Prime Minister of the country. The membership of the organisat...
12 comments
Read more

No Problems Only Opportunities

You’ve probably heard this joke. A young man walked into his office one morning and found a beautiful young lady sitting in his chair. He called the MD and said, “Sir, I have a problem.” The MD replied, “Don’t you know our company’s motto, young man? No Problems, Only Opportunities .” When Suchita of The Blogchatter sent me a mail with the topic of this week’s blog hop –  - the first thing that came to my mind was the above joke. I know many people – too many, in fact – who went through terrible problems. My own life was a series of problems in none of which was there the consolation of any beautiful woman. One essential lesson I learnt from life is that life is a series of problems. You solve one and then arises the next one. Now I have reached an age when problems are no more problems: they are life itself. If you ask me what was the biggest problem I ever dealt with, it was my last years in Shillong. I was a lecturer in a college drawing a fat salary stipulated by the U...
13 comments
Read more