Last night, I sat idly going through my jumble of jottings when this stopped me:

“What’s the rush?” Ask the cancer patient who has only a few months to live. Ask the AIDS patient whose body is shriveling. The ‘rush’ arises from our human compassion for our fellowman who needs help now.
—Professor French Anderson, Genetic Pioneer

I mused. Transitoriness of life and the impermanence of things made me philosophical. We all die, and with us our joys, successes, sorrows and regrets also die .

There's this old, wizened man back home in my native town. Let's call him Wajid Ali. He is the one who built the house that we live in. Why do we live in the house and not him? Because my grandfather owned the house and passed it on to his only child. Why did my grandfather own the house when Wajid Ali was the one to build it? Because grandfather got the house built, Wajid Ali was only a contractor who was paid to build it. At the end of the day, contractors do not own the houses they build.