Five days of thankfulness challenge

A Friend asked me to do a five days of thankfulness challenge, which meant I was to write three things I was thankful for each day for five consecutive days. I did. I loved doing it. I realized I do enjoy writing I should do this more often. Some friends liked it so I figured I will put it on my blog so it is easier to find it later on.

Here goes.

Day 1 of thankfulness:

1. I'm Thankful for my mom, I may not always say it like this but I am very glad to have you around, you give me strength, your opinion matters more than everyone else's put together.

2. I'm Thankful for the immense love and kindness that is shown to me by my family everyday. The three of you are the gentlest, calmest people I know. I hope I can be more like you everyday.

3. I'm Thankful that my brain is still in 'reasonable' working condition, that as unfruitful as this endeavour has been so far, I am still trying to make sense of the world I live in. As much as the mystics would love for me to give up, I am glad that I can't, not yet.

Day 2 of Thankfulness:

1. I am thankful for Wikipedia, google, youtube and internet in general. I have learned so many things from so many people over the internet who are large hearted enough to have put their knowledge, for my asking, out in the open, without any demand for monetary compensation or thanks. Compare that to the miserliness of people who will not divulge their secret recipe even to friends. My heart fills with gratitude for all those who share their knowledge quite so simply. My thousand parnams to you. Thank you.

2. I am thankful to all the men and women who devote their lives putting together maps. There is no other feeling like the dread of being lost in an unknown shady side street of a big city. Even if you were lucky enough to find a human being who you figured was safe enough to ask for directions, you couldn't always be sure this person knew what he or she was talking about. It was a big risk in every direction. So I am thankful for wonderfully put-together map books, gps software, and online directions. I have no idea of the kind of drudgery such a job would be, but I grateful someone does it. Thank you.

3. I am thankful for pain killers. Thank you.

Day 3 of Thankfulness:

1. I am thankful for books. Their words have reached across time and space and allowed me to live lifetimes in hours. I have made friends with people I would have had no access to otherwise. Okay they are imaginary friends, but think of it, even if I actually lived in Dostoevsky's time and by some remote chance was one of his social circle, how likely was he to pour out his heart and soul to me in person? How often do people do that to the real people they know? Books are the distilled, organized, best version of a person's thoughts and I am glad to have access to minds like Ghalib's, Feynmann's and Plato's. What an embarrassment of riches. Thank you for this bounty.

2. I am thankful for Mohammad Rafi's voice. He has sung at least one thousand songs such that each one of them can make you want to live and love again. ....kadmon ke nishaan khud hi manzil ka pata honge. It is the kind of stuff hope is made of, it is the kind of hope you can hang your life on. That I have this voice at my disposal is - a blessing. Thank you.

3. I am thankful for my ability to forget. I am glad to have forgotten all the many bad things that have been said or done to, for, or about me. Good riddance to all that, thank you very much.

Day 4 of thankfulness: 

1. I am thankful for the technology that makes my everyday existence more comfortable than a queen's from two hundred years ago. My electrical mechanical helpers are much more reliable and predictable than hers ever could have been. A big thank you to all my machines, their inventors, and manufacturers.

2. I am thankful for poetry. Now that my Nanaji has forgotten his own grandkids' names, he still remembers Jan Nisar Akhtar's 'ye zakhm hi apna hissa hain, in zhakhmo par sharmaayen kya...' That gives me hope, if I do get to live as long as he has, then, when every other bit of my painfully acquired learning deserts me, there will still be some very beautiful things left over. ... baad marne ke mere, ghar se ye samaan nikla. I'll take that. Thank you.

3. I am thankful for nail polish. It is probably the only time when I think men got the shorter end of the stick. So many colours and no moral imperative to make up your mind. Get a new one everyday. I do. Thank you.

Day 5 of thankfulness:

1. I am thankful for this uniquely human concept of do-overs, blank slates, and second chances. There is no such provision in the natural order of things. The towering waves of a Tsunami, the rising winds of a hurricane, and the poison of a cyanide have no such option available to them. As far as I know we are the only force in the cosmos that is able to pause a raised hand, suspend judgement, and offer someone a second chance. So I am thankful for all the second chances I have been able to give and receive.

2. I am thankful for friendship. It is the only relationship in life where we come close to a 50-50 balance. Most other relationships work, parents, kids are intrinsically power - imbalanced. A good friendship is not. It is a beautiful thing, not only in the moment that it exists but also when it ceases to be. I have never regretted being friends with someone, no matter how harsh or sudden the 'growing apart'. I may sulk for days, sometimes years, but in this case, for me at least, the present never touches the past. For that moment in time, for that part of our journeys, we were friends, and nothing that happens after can change that, that friendship stays, and I am thankful for that.

3. I am thankful for some good hair genes that I have inherited. When I was younger I have made some pretty awful comments about my own hair, about its texture, unruliness, and just the sheer volume of it. But this being my last day of thankfulness and all, I want to send a recantation out to the universe. I was young and foolish, I did not realize how good I had it, thank you for giving this to me.