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Belagavi needs Patience

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by Dr. Madhav Prabhu 

In simple terms, patience is a quality to stay calm and not get angry, especially when there is a difficulty or when you have to wait for a long time. Patience obviously is a virtue beyond ordinary. They say that earth is the most beautiful planet because of the pace at which it evolved, the secret of this evolution was years of patience. 

Today Belagavi is burdened with problems we simply are not able to realize or handle. I was thinking of this for the last few days and there seemed no solution to most, but yes there is one thing that could help and that one thing could be patience. We have lost the ability to remain calm, to be patient with not only others but also ourselves. We are so obsessed with immediate rewards that we forget the fruits can be even sweeter if we finish to perfection being patient at the task.

In today’s world, standing in a line is so down market and so hurtful to our ego, we don’t mind paying a little extra to be out of turn, or even better pay someone to stand in line. Parents don’t want to wait even for the full nine months and demand Caesarian sections to deliver babies before time. Fast food, fast transit, fast growth, fast promotions, fast results, fast relationship, and faster Internet, where is the pleasure of enjoying your life and making memories for a lifetime.

I somehow think that if we had patience we would solve half of our problems. You don’t believe me right, hmmm let’s take a few examples.

patience-1Ok let’s start with something that’s haunting Belagavi recently, and if you have been busy with Valentine and somehow missed the headlines, or not visited AllaboutBelgaum, there is one accident happening every day. Young lives are being lost, someone’s dad, another’s son never gets home, the surprising thing is, this happens in a rush to reach the very home before time.
The roads of Belagavi are a death trap, there are potholes, there are cable and gas pipelines being laid without any warning signs, there are cattle and buffaloes at the center of the road, there are the most unscientific speed breakers, there at signboards plastered with advertisements and no warning signs, there are barricades bang in the center of the roads and yes there are crazy zebra crossings which make no sense.

Our population is young and we have some qualities that youngsters always have, for the young speed limits are to be broken, helmets are to spoil the hair style or to evade the police, signals are for buffalo’s and traffic rules are for uncles and aunties. There is no patience to procure a license if you do apply for one you just can’t wait in line and have to get it immediately by bribing the authority.

Then there are the rickshaws, these are very interesting specimens, for the spaces left in between vehicles are not for safe distance but for them to ferry in between. Lane discipline is so lame that if a rickshaw follows it, there is a risk of being thrown out of the drivers association. Showing a signal while turning hurts the ego of a rickshaw driver and he just can’t wait at the traffic signal.

Now you can imagine yourself driving amidst pot holes, buffaloes, rickshaws, Romeo Juliet and a separate class of pedestrians who willfully jump in-front of moving vehicles under the pretext of crossing the street. It’s difficult driving or walking on the streets of Belagavi unless we propose the truce of patience.

love patienceNow imagine what a little patience can do to this. We wait for a little for the license, don’t bribe to pass the driving test. We start our journey early, wear a helmet and seat belts and smile at people who are in a rush. We wait at signals, do not change lanes and slow down at speed breakers. We respect the rights of pedestrians and also people with difficulties and let them pass. We eat little starters before drinking alcohol and wait for a little before driving. We stop honking and don’t abuse anyone. Why would there be an accident if this spice of patience was added to the roads?

With a little patience, all of us can reach home safe, live to see your children grow and drive you around in their cars, is this pleasure not worth waiting for.

See patience is needed everywhere, look at home I bet you still enjoy your grandmothers cooking, what’s the special ingredient in it spices, condiments, salt, pepper I bet not, the best ingredient is time and patience. Our moms have refined every recipe over years, given it effort and perfectly curated it patiently over a lifetime. Today we don’t have the time for culinary refinement, we need fast food, cooked and served fast irrespective of the ingredients. The result today we are experimenting with “Swiggy and Zomato ” rather than “Chili and Tomato”. Fast foods are harmful to health, I am sure no one will say that about the dish your grandma makes, patiently with lots of love.

The second problem that we can solve with some magical patience is suicides, and I say this with some degree of an authority having counseled a number of students lately. We have in Belagavi seen students commit suicide, newly wedded commit suicide and disgruntled lovers commit suicide too.

food patineceFor students success is like Maggi ” kholo, pakao our khao “, failure is unacceptable. There is no scope for a NO. I believe the only thing that teaches best in the world is NO.

When your parents refuse a bike you decide to earn one, when a girl says no to your proposal you decide to become even more desirable, when the first job interview is a no you go after a job even harder, it is only that NO which can teach you the value of a YES, today students can’t take a NO and that’s because there is no patience.

Failure makes you perfect, it ignites in you the passion to succeed, it gives you the practice to be better, it helps you correct your defects and not cover them up. There is no teacher like a failure if you resolve to succeed and give it time and patience.

Not only is the student impatient these days, but it’s also the parents and the society, the child has to come first, he has to have a degree, he has to get married, he has to earn early, he has to do this and do that. Seldom do we give that much time for the child to succeed and never do we have the patience to sit with our children and understand what they really desire. What if we had this patience, what if we sat with our children and gave them time to express what they want, what if the society had the patience to support unconventional careers, would this world not be a better place. Time and patience can bring the best out of our children, they may not give instant results but may discover something worth a Noble Prize given the time and the encouragement, research is not fast food, IT jobs are.

The second reason is also common, we recently had a polytechnic student committing suicide for it and believe it or not its love failure, I somehow fail to understand what one-sided love is, one person’s infatuation is glorified as love, that seems so unfair, love is something controlled by hormones and governed by the brain and if the other persons harmonies are not stimulated and the brain is not convinced how can you get unilaterally so serious about it. There is impatience here too, love is never about the looks, it is about patience, it’s about adjustment, it is about giving time to each other, knowing each other and trusting each other, somehow none of these are virtuous enough and love today is like Bollywood movies, results, and climax in three hours.

I believe love needs patience, give yourself another chance, there is someone out there for you too, your hormones will be released for many more choices, one person is not the end of the world, certainly nobody can be worth ending your life. Have patience, give time for the right person in entering your life, life is so beautiful when in love.

Valentine’s day is a marketing gimmick, not an opportunity missed, you can fall in love, gift in love on any random day and you will have much more joy. You don’t need to gift in love and if at all you have to, gift some time and plenty of patience.

People today have misplaced priorities, marriages have become pani puris, you need to make them fast and gulp them fast when actually they should be like puranpolis, you need to sit down dish some milk and ghee and eat it with a lot of patience.

The high number of divorces we see today is also a result of impatience, you just don’t want your spouse to take time to come true to your over-inflated expectations. If expectations were always met then pigs would fly. How many times do we sit and show that we care, that we understand and that we will be supportive of the others needs? A good marriage is like a bicycle you can’t expect it to run on a single wheel. It takes a lifetime to find a companion and all it needs is patience. Relationships are like barbeque’s you need them to simmer on the fire of time and only then will they taste good.

There are lots of things that can be easily dealt with provided you have patience, AllaboutBelgaum will not give me space enough to write about all of them, neither would the readers have the patience to read. In short, I believe in the dialogue from the movie Forrest Gump “life is like a box of chocolate”, eat every bit of it with patience, and savor its flavors, that’s the only way to make it worth living.

22 thoughts on “Belagavi needs Patience”

  1. Thought provoking article doctor sir ,it made me ponder.yes patience pays plenty of rewards and most valued is our own life & of others.

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  2. Yes Dr, Well articulated …
    ….Patience pays to the one who has enough patience to wait n enrich….संयम आणि सहनशीलता – Patience & Tolerance, at least these two values the parents n teachers must inculcate amongst their ward n students …. Most of the vagaries n incidents happen for lack of them…… The families n society at large looses rich human resource at such an young age at the hands of silly, avoidable incidents….
    ….. Hope the younger generation reads, listens n practices….
    Good thought that made me ponder, Doc !

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  3. Very good article,need not be for Belagavi alone,The subject discussed is universal… patience is a virtue needed everywhere and everytime

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  4. Great article by Dr Prabhu. Although I am not from Belgavi, I had opportunity to listen him giving medical case presentation demonstration during workshop at KLE Pharmacy college.
    Thanks Dr

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  5. Very good read.. Dr Prabhu please continue to write, i think most of us have enjoyed your earlier articles as well.
    Some of us have spoken badly about our city, let me tell you that our city is still untouched from all the so called modern garbage… it still has all the necessary ingredients for a peaceful social life. My fellow citizens in our city will not agree but all those who have left the city for green pastures in last few decades will certainly agree. We staying in far away lands miss our city every moment. Thanks to AAB which helps us connect with it everyday.

    Reply
  6. Good article. Not just patience we also need tolerance.Tolerance to hear someone else’s opinion, have a healthy balanced discussion vs attacking those who voice a opinion different from mob mentality. Freedom to express an opinion without the fear of being verbally and physically attacked.Fast food is definitely bad, but worse are hatred and negativity.

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  7. Best article I have read …Thank you so much Prabhu sir….so many lessons learnt through this article..Once again thanks a lot.

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  8. Yes, indeed this article was the need of the hour. Patience is what we lack, but at the sometime the concerned authorities have to take action. Hopefully someone from that capacity reads this.
    As parents, yes we have to do our part. As rightly said Charity begins from home. Need to teach our children values patience. Maybe meditation 🙂

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