Home Sweet .......( Fill in the blank with the name of your hometown)

Be grateful for the home you have, knowing that at this moment, all you have is all you need.                                                                                                           
                                                                                                     - Sarah Ban Breathnach

In today‘s world , one can’t think of any country or region that isn’t torn apart by war, bombings, uprisings, terrorist attacks. We keep on reading so much of these that I’m ashamed to say that most of us have become in sensitised. I’m not saying that feelings of pity and sympathy have gone away totally but these feelings come second. When I read of such atrocities, the  first thing I do  is a  mental scan of locations of my family and friends. If it’s not related to the place where they currently are, then I selfishly breathe a sigh of relief, because we all are lucky to be alive one more day .

Next to the loss of loved ones, the most painful feeling would have to be the loss of a home. The home that one grew up in  and built happy memories , where one would retreat to cry in peace or  just dream . How does anyone deal with a loss like that. One second your house is there  and next  in a flash , it’s reduced to a pile of rubble during a bomb attack.

To students out there studying in places far away from home, to people out there working in different cities. countries, away from home , perhaps you all can relate to this. How many times have we thought' Let me just go home and everything will be fine '. When loneliness, anxiety hits, no matter how bad things get , the only place we can ever think of going is “home” . There is a beautiful word in Hindi ( or Sanskrit, I don’t know, my knowledge on both these languages is atrocious)  called “Panha” which means shelter.   It means shelter not only in the literal sense but in the all encompassing sense.

The book “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell , has to be one of my all time favourites among classics. It’s a Pulitzer prize winning novel , set in Atlanta, Georgia during the American Civil war . I haven’t watched the movie till now, not sure why .Perhaps it’s because I’ve created such a fabulous mental picture of Scarlet O’ Hara and Rhett Butler , that I don’t want to see that image shatter when I watch the movie.

Scarlet O’ Hara is unlike any other heroine in the novels that I’ve read. For starters, she definitely is not the role – model and  virtuous types. She is brash , impulsive, manipulative, torn by vices such as envy and  selfishness .But despite all that , one can’t help but feel a strange kind of sympathy  with her and her turbulent love affair with Rhett Butler. Rhett is another astounding character made timeless by Margaret Mitchell.

The reason I wrote about this book was among all the timeless and popular quotes in the book ,  one really stands out for me. When  she is  tired and frustrated and so far away from  her home called Tara, she says  “Tara! Home, I’ll go home. After all ,tomorrow is another  day!"


So let’s remember that no matter how bad things get , let’s not forget that the  very fact  that I’m able to write this and you’ re able to read this means we are lucky than most people in the world at this moment.

Here’s something I came across a while back and I  leave this  as the parting thoughts with you.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness... you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week. 
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation... you are ahead of 500 million people in the world
If you can attend a religious meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death... you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep... you are richer than 75% of this world
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy
If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.