Delhi Diary III : The Interview and The Swami's Quote

DELHI DIARY III: THE INTERVIEW AND THE SWAMI'S QUOTE:

Swami Vivekananda: They alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.

We and that included me, Mohsinur, Gautam and Debashish, read that aloud at 4 P.M. That was written in large letters in the big white-board in the corridor where we all sat, almost perpetually awaiting Gautam’s turn for the interview. Our party arrived there at 10 A.M.!

Debashish: How can anyone be ‘more’ dead? The statement is technically wrong!

Gautam: To be ‘less’ dead is to be in the vegetative state!

Mohsinur: Those alive are going to die some day but those who are dead are dead and so they are ‘more’ dead!

As for me, I simply began to wonder if I were more dead than alive at that point!

Here we were, three surgeons and an orthopaedician, tagged ‘degree-holders’, utterly jobless, trying to squeeze out humour by talking foolishly about a perfectly correct sentence and a deeply meaningful array of words supposedly so intelligently arranged by the master philosopher rocking his own times and standing the test of the times that followed! However, the statement was apparently like a spent unripe lemon rather than a mango!  And no, this simile was not suggested to me by Mohsinur!

The above resulted because we had exhausted every topic of discussion, talking from the time we got there to that wicked hour when our stomachs ached in hunger and our brains were affected by consequent shortage of its fuel, glucose. While three of them went into power-saver mode, the remainder suffered acute dysfunction and went into over-drive! The last one was encased in the sturdy skull of Mr. Singh, that is, Gautam! And thus he mesmerized the interviewer!

E.S.I. Hospital, why the hell call us all at 10 A.M. when you conduct the interview at 3?

I now stumble upon the complete quote of the Swami. “This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.”

Yes! Our life is short! We don’t even realize what transient vanities are escaping every moment from our lives! Yes! We are living our lives for others! Yes! We are more dead than alive…