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This is a new kind of Fajr reminder that I want to share with you which is really sharing stuff from my own life which I hope will be enjoyable as well as a means of learning inshallah. On October 20, 2010, we are now in 2024, on October 20, 2010 I was 55. So I published a book on that day called 2010-2010-55 because that’s how we write dates in India and everywhere in the world except the US. So in the US we write the day first and then the month. In the US we do it the other way which is the month first and the day afterwards. So this is written in the English or the Indian way if you like. 2010-2010-55 which was 55, the book contained 55 life lessons that I learned in my life. So let me share some of these with you. Those who read the book, please forgive me or read the book, please forgive me and those who are motivated to read the book and get it on Amazon. Those who would like to learn more about my life, there’s another book of mine called It’s My Life which is for the princely sum of $7. I’m most grateful to Allah that He gave me the life that He gave me for only $7. Alhamdulillah, wajib. So as I told you I turned 55 on the 20th of October 2010 and that’s the title of this book 2010-2010-55. I reflected on the lessons that I learned in my life which I think has been, alhamdulillah, an unusually rich and active and exciting life lived in India, in Guyana, in America, in Saudi Arabia and in travels in other parts of the world. I wrote this book as a tribute of thanks to all those who added value to me and taught me formally and informally and invested in my learning. During my childhood and teens in India through the 60s and 70s, I spent all my vacations walking in the jungles of the Sahyadri mountains in Adilabad district in Telangana living with my dear friend and mentor, Uncle Rama, Venkat Rama Reddy Sahib. Imagine the excitement of a 15-year-old with a .22 rifle or a 12-bore shotgun walking with one goan companion, Shivaya, all over the jungle bordering the Karnab river, just Shivaya and myself. At times, Shivaya and I would walk in the night to witness a sambar mud bath and sit behind a tree quietly watching majestic sambar stags roll in mud and then stand up to shake off the excess, coated in an arm of mud which when dry protects them from biting insects. Sometimes we would hear the call of the tiger as it set out for work. I learned to read tracks which tell the story of all those who passed that way. I learned the meaning of smells which tell their own stories and sometimes can mean the difference between life and death. But the biggest lesson I learned was to take life seriously while having fun and to extract every drop of learning. In the late 70s and early 80s, I spent five years in the Amazonian rainforest of Guyana bordering the river Burbys. I went there when I was 19 or 20 and lived alone in Kokwani on the river Burbys. During weekends, my friend Peter Ramsey and I would take our boat on a trip 50 to 60 miles, sometimes 100 miles upriver and camp on the bank or on a sandbank in the river. And sleep in hammocks. It was our code of honor to not take any food on these trips and live off the land from our hunting and fishing. As an emergency fallback, we would take some raw chicken guts in a plastic bag. If we didn’t manage to catch any lukanani or to shoot any agouti or kanji pheasants, we would trawl the chicken guts in Burbys and sure enough we would get a bite. Piranha. Great eating as long as you know how to keep clear of the teeth and retrieve your hook. I would say alligator eyes shining like diamonds sprinkled on the dark waters during our night patrols to check our fishing nets. During one trip, Peter and I accidentally caught a 22-foot anaconda in our fishing net. It was so heavy that both of us couldn’t lift him clear off the ground. I met people who lived 30 to 40 miles up the Burbys River in houses on stilts in small forest clearings where they grow a few vegetables, hunt and fish for their meat, and don’t come to town for months at a time. No water except the river, no light except the sun and the moon. Sometimes it’s a single family of Amerillians, sometimes it’s a couple of families who live by one another. Their children play in the forest and swim naked in the river. Yet I never heard of a case of piranha bite. Never figured out that one as the river is infested with piranha and they love to bite. Why that didn’t happen with these people I don’t know. These families always grow the best honey which they would sell to people like me who turned up on their doorstep or to take to town and exchange for a couple of bottles of country liquor. Deadly stuff in more ways than one. I spent 10 years in the 80s and 90s in the rainforests of the western ghats in the Annabales in India. And further south planting tea, coffee, cardamom and rubber. I spent many hours tramping up and down hills and valleys, sometimes at a height of 8-9000 feet on the famous grass hills, at other times wending my way in sweltering heat through the thick forests on the ghats where the sun almost never reaches the earth. One day I escaped an angry charging bull elephant by what could only be a miraculous divine intervention. All my tea garden workers believed that I was divinely blessed from this day on. A belief that of course I did nothing to dispel because who could object to being divinely blessed. On another instance I walked up to a red dole kill, a wild dog kill. They moved away and sat in a circle watching me while I ensured that the slumber hind that they had brought down was dead. They were very merciless killers because they don’t have the ability to kill properly. So they do that in a way which is not neat to put it politely. On a forest road in the Annabales I once had a face off with a huge gore bull. I was on a motorbike on a Royal Enfield but it was a bull. He was on a motorbike on a Royal Enfield but eventually he decided he didn’t hit me enough to eliminate me and moved away. Allowing me to move on on my Royal Enfield motorcycle. My greatest joy was to camp on a huge rock outcrop called Banjapare in Lower Shaitanmudi Estate where I was the big boss, the manager sitting on a platform in a tree to watch elephants come to drink in a nearby stream. When the elephants left the gore would come. Bison. Finally when everyone had gone their way my companion Raman and I would descend and light a fire against the bitter cold, smoke a couple of beedies and drink hot sweet teas and wait for the sun to rise. Gradually the sky would lighten. The orange glow would show and then the majestic ball of fire would come up over the edge. The edge of the horizon greeting us across an expanse of forested teagrads. What really is the value of such a sight? As I say I was never good at math. Some things are simply priceless. The important thing is in all this is to ask yourself what did you learn? All of this I can say that I learnt two extremely important lessons in my life. The first relates to the fact that essentially we are all in control of our lives and ourselves and no matter how powerless or powerful we may believe we are, we are all in control of our lives and ourselves. There is always something that we can do to make a difference. Therefore my first lesson is I will not allow what is not in my control to prevent me from doing what is in my control. Let me repeat that. I will not allow what is not in my control to prevent me from doing what is in my control. The second one relates to the fact that everything is in my control. The second one relates to the fact that everything we do counts and defines us as human beings and becomes our legacy to the world. And therefore the second lesson is all that we choose to do or choose not to do defines brand value and character. All that we choose to do or choose not to do defines brand value and character. I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala to help us to live a life that is worthy of the time that He gave us and to end it in a way where He is pleased with us at a time when He is pleased with us. May Allah bless the Prophet and his family and his companions with peace and prosperity.
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