What does the death of CCD founder, V. G. Siddhartha, leave for us to learn?

1781st BLOG POST -->>

The death of Mr. V. G. Siddhartha, the founder of Café Coffee Day, has moved everyone in our country. I have myself not been a regular visitor of CCD but still when I heard the news of his suicide, I got little thoughtful and couldn’t think of anything else than him. Initially when the news of his disappearance had come in, I thought it is about some scam and he is hiding but this news is terrible. There can be a lot of stuffs behind his death- someone’s mistake or his own mistake which made him take this decision but the fact remains that even an inspiring figure like him can end up doing something like this which is generally known to be the stupidity of young students or helpless farmers. An entrepreneur of his stature has gone through this gives chills to me.

When we generally see people sharing their pictures and check-ins in CCD outlets, we think how sorted out and classy their life is that they are able to afford such costly beverages regularly. Now I am just thinking if someone who has founded and created CCD was so vulnerable and weak, what can we judge about people who go there just to sip those coffees? How strong are they? How capable are they? How rich are they? How safe are they? Everyone is unsafe and everyone gets scattered when the moment of pain or Catch-22 situation arises. People just forget this in the fast-moving world where they, say, earn 5000 rupees a day and spend 20-25000 rupees on a weekend in drinking, socializing, shopping and treating themselves for the 5 days of 9-7 stressful job that they undergo to earn this tough money.

These days we don’t have time to stop, evaluate, realize, understand what we are doing, remember our pasts, think about our present and plan about our future. This makes a person’s vision distorted as to what he has, the amount of money he is spending, none of the money that he is saving for his tomorrow, with whom is he getting involved with, with whom is he getting distanced away, what he is spending most of his time and resources in etc. If you don’t get even 15 minutes a day to think about yourself, your dreams, your goals, your short term and long-term plans, you are somewhere stopped knowing yourself. And tell me, what can be dangerous than this? If you are breaking up with yourself, what will other relationships in your life ever matter to you? If you have left yourself in other’s hands, who will save you when you shall be alone?

Such incidents of death and suicide are tragic but may be God scripts it for us to learn and self-introspect about what we are, where we are and what do we need from life. It is because we just keep walking and in the process of it because there are 10 more people walking with us, we forget the destination we had headed towards and start considering walking as an experience and get ready for wherever it shall take us. What starts mattering to this distracted human mind is the togetherness of these people and not the individuality that we need to carry always with us- either in private, with family or in public. Always remember that tomorrow when tough times shall come- it is only your mind that you shall need to overcome the situations and think upon what’s next to get out of the trap and continue life with the same spirit. Similarly, always focus on saving more and spending less because money is the first thing that brings any kind of problem in your life. Even when you have a stressful job, you are unable to leave it because you need money. Even when you are in a bad marriage you don’t end it because you are scared of losing money in alimony. Hence, don’t end up spending money like water on your weekends, birthdays, achievements etc. People say money is not everything but we know the reality.

Life is both- long and short. You never know how much more you are going to breathe on this Earth. Always concentrate upon knowing yourself every moment as much as possible to keep your life sorted at any given point of time. Always have clarity what you need and how much you need. Don’t get into wrong practices just for the sake of this moment without worrying about the life to come. Take decisions practically rather than getting into anything emotionally or greedily. Love your life more than its association with others because one from this sector of OTHERS can make your life miserable the way it happened with Mr. Siddhartha.

In the end, I would pray God to make his soul rest in peace. He called himself a failed entrepreneur but he was none other than inspiration for the youth of this country with his foundation and the way he made Coffee part of people’s routine with cool ambience and beautiful smell all around, he surely gave many memorable moments to everyone’s life who entered a CCD outlet even once. Let’s hope no one else suffers what he suffered and life is always entertaining but not confusing.

Thanks.

WRITING BUDDHA