Remaining active

[FONT=&quot]My father-in-law celebrated his 88th birthday on the 15th. Every birthday has been celebrated by‘Pujas’ being offered to Lord Shiva and Lord Ganapati. That has been the custom for years in our family.
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[FONT=&quot]He has been a part of my life for more than thirty years and even now, without his being aware of it I have been learning something from him.
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[FONT=&quot]He is himself and does not try to teach or give advice to anyone. Remaining active in spite of advanced age is his special quality. All his life he has led a very active life. My family have been agriculturists for generations living in this small village from the early years of the 20th century. Those were the days of Joint families. Each member was assigned their duties. These families were self sufficient, whatever was needed by the family was grown in their lands. My father-in-law looked after all the lands and most of the people living near by worked on these lands.
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[FONT=&quot]His was a very busy life. Once he told us that was used to standing most of the time, even now he does not like to sit still for a long time. Even now he like to keep himself busy and is always doing something or the other. :thumbsup
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[FONT=&quot]Cooking is one of his favourite hobbies, he learnt cooking when quite young and is an expert in making sweets. He says cooking is like child’s play for him. He grows arrowroot and when they are fully grown, they are removed from the ground. They are crushed and milk is removed and dried in the sun. This powder is a thickening agent and used in ice creams. The ice cream he makes is very tasty.
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[FONT=&quot]He believes that if a person has ten plus points and only a few minus points then those should not be given any importance and just ignored. This has been his philosophy all his life.:thumbsup[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] He loves to keep in touch with all relatives, earlier he used to write letters to all of them, but now phones and talks to them. He is a favourite to one and all.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] This does not mean that he is perfect but with so many plus points the minus points do not matter.
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[FONT=&quot]The respect he gets is the respect born out of love and that is very precious. [/FONT]
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He is not a perfectionist There are people who always look at the negative points in others, even if the others have many plus points, he feels that is not right. Every one of us have plus and minus points and he believes that plus points are more important, who are we to pass judgements on others? No one is perfect ,so why judge a person by only his or her negative points?
Lakshmi