English Literature – Articles ☆ 🌿 Seventy-Three: A Quiet Look at the Road Behind 🎂 ☆ Shri Jagat Singh Bisht ☆

A birthday without much noise, but with a great deal of gratitude 🎂🙏

Birthdays come and birthdays go. The candles grow in number, the cake 🎂 somehow becomes smaller, and the birthday boy—if he is fortunate—remains a thing of beauty and joy forever! 😄

And so, here I am, quietly marking seventy-three.

No grand celebration. No ceremonial trumpet. No attempt to convince the world that seventy-three is the new forty-three. At seventy-three, one has acquired enough wisdom to know that arithmetic is not easily fooled. 😄

Perhaps a birthday at this age is less about counting the years that have passed and more about looking at what those years have quietly made of us.

🌼 The road began in Jabalpur, the cultural capital of Madhya Pradesh—a city that has given India some remarkable minds and voices. Harishankar Parsai, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Osho Rajneesh all belonged to this fascinating place.

To have been born there is, perhaps, to have received a small inheritance of eccentricity, enquiry and an irreverent curiosity about life.

And then life brought me to Indore—the Mini-Mumbai of India, and the city that has repeatedly earned the distinction of being India’s cleanest city. Somewhere between Jabalpur’s cultural soil and Indore’s energetic spirit, the journey unfolded.

🎬 There is another amusing coincidence.

I share my birthday with Amitabh Bachchan.

The difference, however, is that while Amitabh has had an entire film industry to celebrate his birthday, I have had to make do with friends, family and Facebook. And, most importantly, Rekha is nowhere in sight! 😄

Perhaps that is just as well. At seventy-three, one should avoid unnecessary complications in the plot.

🌱 A few milestones along the way

Looking backwards, there are a few milestones that make me smile—not because they make me important, but because each represents a little chapter of a life that somehow acquired a direction of its own.

🏅 1971 — National Science Talent Scholar

📚 1979 — Probationary Officer, State Bank of India

🧠 2000 — Behavioural Science Trainer

😂 2010 — Laughter Yoga Master Trainer

And somewhere along the way came another adventure—the adventure of putting thoughts into words.

📖 Eight books in English, largely on happiness and well-being.

📕 Four books in Hindi, devoted largely to humour and satire.

✍️ Hundreds of blogs, written whenever an idea refused to leave me alone.

Looking at this list, I am reminded of a wonderfully mischievous couplet by the great Urdu poet Akbar Allahabadi:

«Hum kya kahen ahbaab kya kaar-e-numayaan kar gaye,

B.A. huay, naukar huay, pension mili, phir mar gaye.»

In simple English:

«What shall I tell my friends of the great feat they achieved?

They got a degree, found a job, drew a pension—and then died.»

Akbar Allahabadi wrote it as a satire on the predictable ambitions of the colonial middle class. Yet, more than a century later, the joke has lost none of its sting.

Get educated.

Get a job.

Earn.

Retire.

Collect the pension.

And finally, exit the stage.

What a magnificently efficient way of spending a human life! 😄

But beneath the laughter lies a serious question:

Is that all there is to life?

Perhaps the real measure of a life is not how successfully we completed the checklist, but whether, somewhere along the way, we managed to make another person’s journey a little lighter.

Whether we taught something.

Whether we brought a smile.

Whether we helped someone discover hope.

Whether we left behind a few words that made somebody pause and think.

Whether our presence, however modest, added a little warmth to the world.

🌿 That, perhaps, is the real accomplishment.

🕯️ From achievement to awakening

At seventy-three, I find myself less interested in looking at the mountain already climbed and more interested in the light that seems to appear at the end of the tunnel.

The old mind asks:

“What more can I achieve?”

The quieter mind asks:

“What can I let go of?”

There is a subtle difference.

For much of life, we gather—degrees, positions, experiences, possessions, recognition, relationships, opinions, books, photographs and stories.

Then comes a time when wisdom whispers:

Perhaps it is time to travel light.

Not because life has become less beautiful, but because one has begun to see what is truly beautiful.

🌸 The smile of someone we love.

🌸 The kindness of an old friend.

🌸 The morning sun entering the room.

🌸 A bird calling from a tree.

🌸 A quiet cup of tea.

🌸 A page of a good book.

🌸 A moment when the mind becomes still.

These are not milestones that appear on a CV.

Yet these may be the milestones that matter most.

🙏 Gratitude—the finest birthday gift

If I have reached seventy-three with some measure of contentment, it is certainly not because I travelled alone.

I have been carried, in countless visible and invisible ways, by the love and affection of my family, and by the friendship, goodwill and blessings of friends and well-wishers—some of whom have walked beside me for decades.

To all of you who have shared a laugh, a conversation, a cup of tea, a difficult moment, a celebration, a book, a thought, or simply your affection—

thank you. 🙏

Some people enter our lives for a season.

Some remain for a reason.

And some become so much a part of our journey that we can no longer remember the road without them.

My gratitude to all of you is deeper than a birthday message can express.

🪷 And now, towards the Buddha

There is one influence that has gradually become deeper than all the others—the teachings of the Buddha.

Not as a matter of ritual, but as a way of looking at life.

To observe rather than immediately react.

To understand rather than condemn.

To cultivate compassion.

To recognise impermanence.

To quieten the restless mind.

To loosen the grip of the ego.

And to discover that happiness is not always something to be acquired; sometimes it is something to be uncovered.

Perhaps, therefore, seventy-three is not an ending at all.

Perhaps it is a doorway.

A quieter chapter.

A turning inward.

A time to listen more deeply to the silence from which all meaningful words arise.

So, instead of a loud birthday proclamation, let this birthday be a small bow to life.

🙏 A bow to my parents and ancestors.

🙏 A bow to my family.

🙏 A bow to friends and well-wishers.

🙏 A bow to every teacher and every experience that shaped me.

🙏 And, above all, a bow to the Buddha, whose simple yet profound teachings have increasingly illuminated the path.

The journey behind me is long enough to make me grateful.

The road ahead is short enough to make every step precious.

And perhaps the most appropriate birthday resolution at seventy-three is not—

“I will become more.”

but—

“I will become less of what I need not be.”

Less ego.

Less noise.

Less hurry.

Less judgement.

Less attachment.

And, hopefully—

More awareness.

More compassion.

More laughter.

More kindness.

More peace.

🌿 The birthday cake may disappear.

🎂 The candles may grow.

😄 The hair may become philosophical.

But the journey continues.

And as I quietly look towards the light at the end of the tunnel, I know where I would like to place my feet.

🪷 Buddham Sharanam Gachhami.

Dhammam Sharanam Gachhami.

Sangham Sharanam Gachhami.

🙏 May the remaining journey be inward, awake and grateful.

And may there always be enough laughter along the way.

🌸 Seventy-three—and still learning how to live. 🌸

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