My Birthday

( I had written one blog in Marathi on my birthday. I am giving its English translation, for readers not knowing Marathi)

Today is my birthday. Even though I am not so young to celebrate my birthday, thoughts got crowded in my mind. Realising that it is a minor event, I tried to divert my attention but the thought of becoming elder created uneasy feeling every now and then.
I thought of preparing abalancesheet of what I gained and what I lost during the lifespan elapsed so far. But the question propped up “Who am I?” The question created a host of answers; I in my own view, first son in view of my parents,Husband in view of my wife, father in view of my children, friend in view of my friends, teacher in view of my students, a common citizen in view of my nation, a male human being living in this time period in view of all human race, a fragile and temporal living being in view of earth, a small speck with momentary existence in view of universe. As I started moving away from myself, my importance,my achievements, whats more, even my very existence also started diminishing rapidly and found myself lost in the vast expanse of universe. The thought made my mind numb but in the next moment, I realised that ranking is completely reverse in view of my grasping and experience. Though my presence was insignificant in universe, in view of my knowledge and experience, expanse of universe was insignificant to me. Thinking in the same line and traversing backward, I could visualise my true identity completely in myself.
Still my scientific reasonng was not ready to give me special importance than others. I realised that understanding of self and feelings and aspirations must have been equally strong in other human beings also. Naturally feeling of superiority than others had no place in my mind. When such false feeling of superiority becomes more prominent, man tries to retain memory of achievements and experiences and thinks of writing autobiography. People write autobiography. Should I write mine? Why should I write? Are there any memorable events in my life which will help to guide others? Or atleast entertain them? Is my achieve so great that other people will aspire to become like me? Am I honest enough to describe all events without prejudice or self ego? Do I have courage to write about others without caring for consequences? What is guarantee that I shall not justify my wrong action or praise myself? If answer to any of these questions is “No”, then logically thinking I do not have right to publish my autobiography. I know really well that my mind is not so strong to say “Yes” to every question. Hence, I shall not try to write my autobiography.
I feel that there is other better option; i.e. to write about our feelings and thoughts. Memory of thoughts needs to be preserved not the memory of person. Because memory of person without thoughts is just lifesketch. If thoughts are wrapped in person’s personality, then they become tagged and difficult to extract objectively. Do my thoughts are so advanced or important that they are worth preservation ? There is no necessity that the thoughts and feelings should possess these qualities. If they are objective, they can help others in enriching knowledge and process of thinking with high assimilative capacity. If the thoughts display a strong mind and logical reasoning they will guide the mind in confusion. If they represent frustation and pessimism, they will guard against negative thinking.
If all people express their thoughts and feelings in this way, there will be a rich collection of human perceptions without personal or time attributes and such a knowledge treasure will become a great asset for future generations.
Hence, I have decided to express my thoughts not with personal glorification point of view but in generalised objective way without bothering whether people will read or not . At least today, on my birthday, my thoughts guided me come out of my self-ego cage and prompted me to become impersonal write down thoughts without tag of “my thoughts”.