Have you witnessed a miracle yet?

It is just amazing how many times we take things for granted, when instead, we should have stopped and stared at whatever it was with wonderment and astonishment! I mean, just look around you – the morning act of the sun that paints the sky with its multi-colored hues, the chirping birds flying across the painted skies – yes flying! The sounds of the morning – so pleasant – have you wondered why they don’t the hurt your ears? Shady trees so green – why do our tired eyes long for the green?? The cows mooing, ready to deliver milk! And the chickens clucking away as though saying – eat me, eat me! All things that we take for granted...

Now – imagine what would happen if the chicken suddenly said –“You can’t eat me! I have my rights!”? And what if the chickens actually did! There would be no chicken to eat – no chicken tikka masala, no tandoori chicken or chicken burgers or chicken soup. And imagine what would happen if the cow turned around and said “I refuse to get milked!!” There would be no morning glass of milk, no ice creams, no chocolates…no nothing - not the world that I would want to live in for sure – would you?? Of course not!

So…isn’t it a miracle then that it actually is how it is, I mean this world, that the sun rises without having to be woken up, the birds fly and don’t crash like our airplanes, the cow pretends not to know when we milk it and the chicken is so brave that its not scared to be eaten and the giant trees don’t as much as flinch when they are cut and made into baroque sofa-sets that we all love having in our drawing rooms – isn’t it indeed a cause for everlasting wonderment - don’t you think?

Now, consider "normal" human behavior. What we most often consider normal and don’t even stop for a moment to appreciate, is more often than not, if you think about it for a second, totally irrational! Consider this - why do people stop and wait at a red light even when all roads in the intersection are totally deserted (yes, they actually do it in some advanced countries - crazy isn't it...)? Why do we say we feel great when we in fact feel like we just had two litres of vinegar mixed with castor oil? Why are we nice to total strangers on the road, but bark at those we love? Why do we not get as revulsed by our own mean smelling body odors as we do with others’? Why do we laugh when someone slips and falls but cry when we fall ourselves? Why do 38 year olds think they are still 20? And for christ’s sake, why does my mother think I am just 5?? I guess, I have hurled the point across with enough force that it must have bored through your brain and embedded itself in the wall behind. If so, please wrench it out and thrust it back in your head – that’s where I want it to be.

To better illustrate this point, (for those with slightly tougher skulls), I will narrate to you a seemingly innocuous incident that I wouldn’t have given a second thought to, had it not been for the circumstances that conspired to ensure that I did. Later, while I ruminated on the whole thing, and let my imagination stroll around a bit, I was really amazed at the implications and that’s what prompted me to write this blog!

It was last Monday, after the long weekend, we were bouncing our way to the office sitting in that bone rattler that we call our bus. I was deep in thought about what next to blog (it consumes a serious amount of my cpu), when my good friend who travels with me on the bus every day, announced with a flourish that she had done shopping over the weekend (now, that, I always take for granted – women and shopping – there is no wonderment or miracle of any sort in it – women must shop if they are awake, it would be a miracle if they did not) and then she went on to produce these expensive looking pair of designer glasses from her bag.
“So, what do you think, aren’t they really cool?”
“Huh? Yes, yes they are. What are they?”
“Those are my new glasses!”
“Ah glasses - but of course!”
“They look like they are made of chocolate, don’t they! I just couldn’t resist them! I had to have them!”
“Yes indeed. The inside of the frame looks like it is made of white chocolate and the outside is dark choclate!”
“Mmmm…they look so yummy – I wish I could eat them!”
“Yes – you are right…but what about the lenses…?”
“What about the lenses?”
“The lenses – they don’t look like chocolate…”
“Hmmm – yes - you are right! I wished they did..!”
“…but then you wouldn’t be able to see through them if they were like chocolates, would you? I was only kidding when I said they should have also looked like chocolates (smiling)!”

Actually, I am a little surprised that she took my suggestion seriously.

“Oh…it wouldn’t matter. You know that I just loooove chocolates!”

Well I guess that did kinda make sense… she does really love chocolates, I know that!

She now puts on her new, choco-glasses, if I may call them that, and asks,
“So how do they look?”

I am thinking “They look like chocolate sticking to your face”, but luckily I say,
“They look really nice!!”

Actually, the choco-glasses themselves don’t look any different as they sit on her nose – but it is something else that is catching my attention – it is the way she looks with those glasses on! I am trying hard not to stare and not to smile and am trying hard to think of something else, because I can sense what’s coming next…

“So, how do I look with the glasses on?”

I am petrified with horror when I hear myself blurting out exactly what I am thinking…I want to stop...but I can’t…

“It looks like someone framed your eyes in chocolate and hung them up on your face and later fixed a nose under them for support so they wouldn’t fall off. And – stop trying to lick those glasses, will you?”

I swear I cannot remember what happened next – but when I came to, my head was throbbing and I was finding it hard to breathe. There was something stuck in both my nostrils – yes, I guessed right, each nostril had one half of the choco-glasses stuck up it (strangely they didn’t smell of chocolate). I must have looked like Jim Carey in the movie scene where he has beans stuck up his nostrils, only in my case it would be chocolate sticks with a strange lens type thing attached at the ends and I didn't stick them up there myself. The rest of the story about how I extricated the choco-glasses from my nose and made it to my office is not very interesting so I won’t go into it now.

Now stop for a moment, and think, what was it that was a miracle in the incident that I just related to you? Well – let me help you here. Why? And I ask again, just why??...would a beautiful young lady with a seemingly well developed and fully functional, above average mental faculty, decide to spend big money on a pair of glasses just because they looked like something she loved to eat – in this case - chocolate!! It defies all logic, yet people wouldn’t give it a second thought! For all you know, the next time it could be earrings that look like chewy oatmeal cookies or a pendant that looks like pepperoni pizza. If I ever owned a company that made accessories for women, I wouldn’t just make them look like chocolates, pizzas or cookies, I would make them edible! Think chocolate flavoured glasses – and what the hell, I would have white chocolate and bitter chocolate, with and without nuts and more. If you were hungry, you could actually snack on your choco-glasses or your oatmeal cookie earrings!! It would be a whole new market segment - fast moving, with high margins – a market for people who not only like to wear their accessories but also like to eat them…!! Well…I am digressing from the theme here a little bit, but I guess you get the drift…

What in most cases would have been overlooked as normal behaviour is in reality quite irrational . It never for once occured to me that what my friend did was totally devoid of logic and rationale, till I got hit on the head - maybe that jolted some nerve cells awake.
And this, my friend, is just a tiny example of the kinds of miracles that are happening in and around you all the time. Let me assure you, that once you start looking out for them – you will find them, and they will be a source of great joy for the rest of your life! Look at me, I am enjoying evey minute of it!