** Re : Madhoo & Tooth **

Your musing on Madhoo's tooth and linking that to practical aspects of life was a nice narration.

Your discussion on remaining fresh and carrying the blissful smile throughout one's life made me to think on those lines for a while.

For any child to be happy and blissful - throughout one's life - we should teach them to be strong with in. Only when one is mentally strong, will they be able to handle any situation with some cheer in heart and bliss in mind. When life is smooth without any problems, say when being a child, we dont need any special effort to be happy (at that stage happiness is more on reflection of the surrounding, including people). But as we grow up and when we get to face problems - how do one remain cheerful and blissful? I think it all depends on how strong you are with in yourself. That leads us to the next question as to - can we mould a child to be strong?

It is destiny that makes a few stronger and differentiate them from others. It is destiny that paves the path of life and we only walk along. I have seen people remaining cheerful even in worst of the circumstances (do you remember a few we met in that old age home?). But for that to happen they need to be mentally strong - or - should have seen something more worse in life, that could have made them stronger.

The second sort of people is who are trained to be stronger. The present day world is getting more and more competitive. Its going to be a sort of survival of the fittest. So kids are going to get more and more competitive. The best we can do is to teach them to learn to accept the so called victory and defeat with some cheer. In defeat, we should teach them to go and congratulate the winner and at the same time should not lose the intent to be a winner next time. That could help them a lot. (Aren't these things easy said than done?)

A few may be made strong. If so, well, it is going to be good. If we are not naturally made to be stronger - we should train ourself to be so. There may be a world of difference - nevertheless, it is better than to be meek. You can never compete with the naturally gifted - like Sachin or Lara. At the same time, there are also some famous cricketers who are trained to be great - like the famous street smart player - Miandad. Havent we seen, at times, "Miandads" win over "Sachins" of this world ??!!

Without going in to the question of whether our child is mentally strong or weak - we have to train them to be strong. But do we all have time, patience and efffort?

-Gowri