Out of sorts!

The about to be open bud in the centre is out of focus in this photograph. This happens sometimes inspite of best efforts. For me photography is more about the message I can find from the pictures rather than about the art of photography. Not that the art of photography is not important! I wish I was better at it! 

While reviewing the photos I take with I do almost every day, I get drawn by something that stands out.

When I noticed the about to be open bud out of focus, I felt disappointed. I thought for a moment that, had that bud been in focus, the photo could have been a piece of photographic art of some value. I was already out of sorts in the evening yesterday, with a chest infection and fever. So this photo only aggravated the sense of feeling low.

It as by then nearing ten at night while it was raining heavily outside my phone rang! It was Thomas a dear friend, from MOSC Medical College, whom Anna and I have known for six years now. He rang from outside the main gate to our cottage.  He currently works in Respiratory Medicine, while preparing for his post graduate entrance test. By the time I got ready to receive him with an umbrella, he had arrived at the door step drenched in the downpour. He was on duty in the hospital, but took a break to bring me some medicines. He did not take time time to sit, but made sure that I took the first dose of medicine before he left. 

This was the most unexpected thing of the recent times. That someone should come home to bring medicines at 10 in the night! I had mentioned to Thomas during the day that I was unwell. He dropped in to my office area and examined me and suggested some medicines. I was unable to get the medicines he suggested in the pharmacy in my village. When he heard that he decided to bring the medicines at home. 

It is now about 24 hours since than. I feel better now and am sitting up to reflect. As Anna has been away for couple of weeks, a timely help from Thomas made a significant difference!

This experience occurred when I was feeling out of sorts physically and emotionally.  

The time when one feels low for some reason, is a difficult time, both in coping with the situation and finding a way forward. 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

And yet, it is one of the regularly occurring experiences in our daily lives. 

This is where each of us can be a Good Samaritan to those around us in some practical way, knowing that offering a help or showing an act of kindness can make all the difference. 

The more you receive such help and find the help timely, the more one feels encouraged by the mission to live mindfully of others.

To do good to those who are strangers or are likely to show indifference is all the more altruistic!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)