Dye or die, the choice is yours!

One should be proud of grey – a sign of maturity. During my posting at Chandigarh during the 70s, I had seen a board hanging outside the cabin of a cashier – We live only once, if we live right, once is enough. My concept of life was very clear from the very beginning.

Birth is not a right, and death is certain. After birth, you have every right with certain checks of society. The only question is, as to how you live the long or short span of life between birth and death. There was a flood of questions in my mind when I had read this quote at a very young age – Why is there a fight to live? Why do people cheat each other? What do people gain by dodging others? Why is there no change of mindset? Why don’t people understand the value of life when we have to live only once on this planet?

Ultimately, these questions changed at least my living style, and once on saw a photograph in the various newspapers, highlighting the lathi charge on blinds, I reacted in the editor’s mail column, and since then I have had an emotional attachment with this class and am blessed to take care of the visually challenged persons till date.

This quote has helped me to live a very peaceful life with dedication to the needy class, especially the visually challenged persons institution, to whom the first book ‘Akhon Prokhe” – Out of Sight – was dedicated, the first ever book in the Punjabi language. Any amount above Rs 12, the cost of the book was taken as a donation for the Home for the Blind and till date they are enjoying the interest from that amount. No doubt, the interest rate has gone down considerably, but the small interest amount contributes to managing the day-to-day affairs of the inmates.

Everyone has gifts with them that no one else in the world can offer. You have skills you don’t even know you possess, and at the same time, you have an instinct for love within you that you have not experienced yet.

There are songs you have yet to sing, dances you are meant to dance, and stories that only you will be able to tell. If you’re facing financial challenges, I promise you they can be solved. If you suffer from severe depression, find a medical professional to help you. It may even be something as simple as a chemical imbalance that can be corrected with acupuncture, a change in diet, or medication.

If your heart is broken, it means you have the capacity to love, and there is someone special out there waiting to meet you.

There are also joyous, wonderful experiences awaiting you, but you have to be here to receive them. Yes, it is darkest before dawn, but the dawn will always break through.

Four decades back incident is still afresh in my mind. The happening goes like this: one of my senior colleagues, a technologist and handsome too, whose face was blackened within a few days, but he was reluctant to share what had happened to him as he had lost the charm to live.

When I asked him about my grey hair at an early age, he disclosed, “Dear, you should be proud of grey, a sign of maturity. My sincere advice to you is, don’t dye your hair in your life. My blackened face is the outcome of a reaction of chemicals available in the dye material, which I used a few days back. I can’t face myself before the mirror now”. I did not dye, but I got more recognition with grey hair and beard, which has become my dissimilar identity of ‘living without dyeing’.

Frankly speaking, I still don’t forget the incident in my life when I overheard the words – I die every day, but he was saying I dye my hair every day.