Thursday, August 19, 2004

The Sigh Of Relief!

How do I define Relief? Can I call it as the state of euphoria, when a person gets what he wants? Relief here is happiness. Or is it the peace of mind that he gets by doing something he wants or getting away from something he doesn’t want? Here relief is alleviation.

Well, Relief is relative, and it could be short or long term.
For a student, securing the maximum in a paper is excitement, for a sportsman, winning a gold is elation, for a mother, seeing her kid back home is joy. Meaning happiness, excitement and joy are all kinds of relief.

For a commuter in a crowed train or bus, alighting safely and breathing fresh air is alleviation, and for a kid, getting its favorite toy is reassuring. I can go on adding illustrations for relief and for a blog writer this is gratification.

Speaking of gratification, I remember a story from the Tales of Thennalirama, where, once the King K.D Raya called on his ministry and asked them what is the most satisfying thing in this world. Many of his courtiers replied as “having all the wealth in the world”, “eating the best cuisine”, “owning the biggest palace”, and then came our hero T.Rama, and he proudly told the king, that “Answering nature’s call is the most satisfying thing”, the entire court flared into laughter.

Embarrassed with this, Rama decides to educate the king. The next day, early morning, he made the Royal loo indicate a busy signal (Hm.. Sad the Palace had only one). The king and the queen frantically took turns in separate iterations to check for availability, and the indication showed “BUSY”. After making them run for a while, Rama decided to free the room, the king felt so relieved that he called for Rama immediately, affirmed his thoughts and apologized.

Well this is a story, and if you are tired reading this article and happy it ends here, that’s the best Sigh Of Relief...