Wisdom. For a change (but you could pay with notes as well)

The other day a friend and I were chatting about something and he mentioned that it is hard to stay positive (as in, a positive frame of mind, not the charge at one end of the battery cell).  As is usually the case when I disagree, I said nothing.
 
I am now about three generations old.  Back then in 1965, the average life expectancy in India – and this is, if anything, an overestimate – was forty-two and the odds of my surviving the first year if I had been born in a poor family in Bihar would have been around 60:40 (as it happened, it was a C-section birth in Ernakulam and the early delivery was, no doubt, God’s way of handing over the problem after doing his best at getting me to behave in socially acceptable ways).  But back to what the world was like then:  small pox was still around and fatal and polio was amongst a laundry list of diseases that could put someone out for good. India was a horrific basket case, having just got over a debilitating food crisis: we have no idea how many humans - emaciated, crippled, sickened and lost – perished.   
 
As for other species, forests were being rapidly cleared and hunting wasn’t just common, it was, in most parts of India, culturally mandated and wildlife was living a precarious extinction crisis across the world which we thought would be final.  And the world had just overcome the Cuban Missile crisis (for which, of course, I am not responsible, having not yet been born) which brought the planet as close to the edge as it can ever get. 
 
When I think back these years and of what could have been had the call of the dice been different, it is hard – impossible - to stay negative.  Life rocks.  Seriously.  I have thought of this every time I am by a stream or river waiting for an otter to show up (they never do, so it’s mutually exclusive), or when watching a herd of elephants, with a nervous, palpitating heart, or, as in October this year, a flock of snow pigeons at Darwa Pass, after a trek up that I thought would never end (like most of my posts on Facebook). 
 
We live in a world of astonishing charm in the company of the most remarkable species about which we are learning much more every day than was known earlier.  And keeping these species company is an utterly unpredictable, notably idiotic, understandably neurotic, visibly egotistic, extraordinarily chaotic, incredibly talented, generally idealistic, somewhat plurastic one that is, well…., us.  Years ago, I decided to not worry about what I cannot control when I am not at the steering, and instead to enjoy the ride (and to not read the newspapers).  All these species have stories to tell and writing those stories – to inflict on an unsuspecting audience that seeks Literature but is given Peanut Sauce - is the best part of the deal.  This is an astoundingly beautiful world and never has been better.  Truly.  
 
I am off to a river and the forest by it for a few days, hopefully to meet some of the Kuruchiyars I know, among the nicest, gentlest people you could find with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the ecosystem.  And to have a cup of black tea twice a day with two delicious unniappams at the world’s finest tea stall.  An apology in advance if I do not reply to that birthday message, but let that not stop you….