Life is...

Life in a way is too confusing – first there are manufactures and advertisers jumbling up my poor mind with their plethora of choices about which soap (glycerin, moisturizer or exfoliating particles), which toothpaste (neem, salted, fluoride, gel), which bread (white or brown), which atta (fortified, multigrain, soya enriched), which TV (plasma or LCD) to buy? On the top of that the stress of trying to decide which caller tunes to choose for my mobile. Help! If I don’t decide fast they will send me 30 more options. Life in earlier times must have been easier, I think head full of decision made, not made, to be made, tea or coffee? cold, hot, cappuccino, espresso? Decisions, hang them all – I settle down to read a book of proverbs instead. Ah! Proverbs, where we would be without them?

Those pithy sentences which sum up the accumulated wisdom of the human race? But very soon it becomes clear that whosoever they are who handed us down these proverbs were equally big on choices. No-one-size fits all wisdom for them, they certainly don’t believe in putting all their eggs in one basket. Go figure these. Does stitch in time save nine? Is it better to go with “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? is it more prudent to play safe and thus not land in sorry circumstances or should one go with the nothing ventured, nothing gained philosophy? Should you strike while the iron is hot or would it be wiser to look before you leap? Is forewarned truly forearmed or is it okay to go with the glow and cross one’s bridges once one comes to them? And count those drafted chickens too, only after they are hatched? And after that, does one call in many hands to make light work of the chickens or will too many cooks spoil the tikka lababdaar?

The truth ain’t no easy answers, life’s contrary, that’s what…