10 Lives I’d Have Loved to Lead (Part 2)


                                

Continued from yesterday…

Henry David Thoreau: The American writer and philosopher who influenced personalities like Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. He wrote Walden - a classic - which chronicles his experiences of living in the woods. He advocated simple living.    

Lesson to be learnt: 1) how to enjoy solitude.      

Chanakya: He was so many things rolled into one. Teacher. Philosopher. Economist. Jurist. And to top it all, he was the advisor to the king. He was instrumental in laying the foundations of the Maurya empire. Clever, canny, his name has become synonymous with wisdom.

Lesson to be learnt: 1) how to make strategies.

Rumi: More of a mystic, less of a poet. Or more of a poet, less of a mystic. Or a mystical poet. Or a poet-mystic. He transcends religion, borders, and boundaries. His poems are read by everyone and everywhere. He continues to enthral and fascinate.

Lesson to be learnt: 1) how to write soul-stirring poetry.  

Gautam Buddha: The Prince who became a monk. From Siddhartha he became the Buddha.  At the age of 29, he renounced the world. He created another world. A world of nirvana. Serenity and tranquillity are what you experience on just imagining him.

Lesson (s) to be learnt: 1) how to conquer the self 2) how to reinvent life.  

Ibn Battuta:  The legendary explorer. He travelled for 25 to 30 years from city to city, continent to continent. The whole medieval world was covered by him. He seems to be a fairy tale character. His life is one long odyssey of self-discovery.

Lesson (s) to be learnt: 1) how to be a great world traveller 2) how to absorb culture shocks.

So, the 10 lives that I’d have loved to lead are: 1. Ayatollah Khomeini 2) Casanova 3) James Joyce 4) Bhagat Singh 5) Genghis Khan 6) Henry David Thoreau 7) Chanakya 8) Rumi 9) Gautam Buddha 10) Ibn Battuta
A mind-boggling experience.   

-          NZ

21.7.2019



   




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