The Last Run

When I first heard how this young man ended his life one night, I just could not digest the fact that there are such cowards still in the world. The vice-principal of a prestigious educational institution, known to so many illustrious persons resorted to such cowardly act of ending his life with a rope, hanging himself from the fan in his room! If that was a cowardly act, which I cannot accept, the reason why he did so was all the more cowardly. Just because a lady with whom he had a clandestine relationship, even physical affairs, was going to be married to another man, this young man wished to bargain with her, either she accepts him and forsakes the wedding, or he ends his life!

The lady, who happened to be working under the care of this young man, ultimately decided to find her own way, least expecting her paramour to decide something which was beyond all her imagination. One may go all lengths to blame the lady for tricking the young religious man into a relationship which was not becoming of his religious identity, leave alone of a gentleman. We are not sure how the relationship between the lady and the young religious priest began and bloomed, but one thing is for sure, the young man was far from being a religious, he was not even being an average human person, who could accept reality as it came to us.

I feel sad for the young man, who at the age of just 41, prime of his life, decided to bid farewell to the world, without a word to friends and relatives, all the people he grew with… and he quietly quit the world at the dark of the night. I am not much worried about the scandal that this incident of suicide has created in the city, but am worried more about the blot that it has left on religious life in general; the religious have lost much of their credibility because of the stupidity of this one young man, who had his own reason, however narrow it might be, to do what he wanted, without ever thinking of what the act would land him and his religious order into.

I feel there is nothing on earth which can be a valid reason for a person to take off his life, and surely not relationships, because with regard to human relationship, we enter into a limitless ocean, and we would find certain points shallow and certain other points deep. We may have to walk with care and caution, so that we do not allow ourselves to be drowned. There may be cozy points, there might be quicksand, and there may also be dry ground in the midst of water. We all of us find persons of our choice and taste during our sojourn on the sea; some persons enter into our lives for a short duration, while some others walk with us greater distance, and very seldom we may find persons who may walk with us all the way.

The number of persons embracing death in the recent years has increased manifold; for quite many young people it is the easy way to escape life. It is heartening to listen to the story of each of the people who have resorted to end their lives, for silliest reasons to grave ones. I am convinced of one thing, we cannot give any reason for running away from life; by trying to end their lives, these people have only tried to prove, they were not meant to be born on earth; for the world belongs only to the people who know how to live courageously and appreciate life on earth. The escapists had entered into the world by mistake and probably the world never belonged to them, very much as they did not belong to the world.

The Surprise Visitor

I could not believe when it started to drizzle in the evening, as we sat for supper; initially I thought it was the bustle of the branches of the trees, but later with the patter, I knew it was rain. Even as I went for my customary evening walk, I could not make out it might rain. The five minutes of patter had left the ground wet, though it was far from being soaked. But in the middle of the night, I could hear the rain, and the cool breeze from my window was spreading a chill sheet. It was wonderful to welcome the surprise guest after so many weeks and months. I know the earth was waiting for the guest more than me.

As I walked early in the morning along the road, soaked with the rain, there was a heavenly scent; the smell of the earth is something that can fill one’s heart. The freshness which the rains can give to the earth is something that is hard for us to create for ourselves. The trees which had been preparing themselves for a fresh coat of leaves, found it opportune to shed their leaves, and the roads were full of pale leaves, and all that I could see were naked trees, stripped of their clothes, and bathing joyously on the waters from heaven. Sure the trees hardly get chance to strip themselves before bathing in the rain.

The sun has not shown his face yet, and the clouds are having a free run in the endless sky. The birds have their time, after being bathed in the fresh waters… how often do they get that free bathing, mother nature bathing her innumerable children all at once! She knows for sure when her children need a bath. I can see a pair of crows struggling to build a nest at the tree just outside my window, and what a surprise for me to see one of them with his/her one foot chopped off, and finding it hard to stand on a branch, and still s/he is there every day to add to the nest that the couple is making. May nature bless their efforts.

I love a cloudy weather, and more a rainy day. To gaze at rain drops falling from heaven is a wonderful experience; sometimes I love to be drenched by these waters, the nectar of the gods. God’s free gift to the whole of creation, and everyone has a share in it, without any distinction of color or caste or creed. I would love to welcome this surprise visitor, and everyone on earth should be happy to have a closer touch with him/her. The gentle touch of the rain is sure to soothe even the most troubled of hearts, and wipe away every tear from the eyes of those who have no more tears to shed. But as I contemplate this great mystery, the rains, my mind goes to somewhere else.

The human beings are notorious in making the entire universe cry with pain and agony; we have put our venomous hands on everything that we saw and found them beautiful; the forests, mountains, the seas and the rivers – we have not spared any part of the universe, and have emptied the natural resources of the universe in order to fill our barns and bellies. Is the universe today shedding bitter tears at the plight of her creation? Her tears are our life blood, and we need to keep her crying in order to let our fields turn green. Today I look up to the heavens, those pregnant clouds, and fold my hands with respect and reverence, and plead that they overlook our crimes and selfishness, and let the earth have her share of rains in plenty!

In Support of Serpents

Snakes! the proverbial enemies of humanity from the time of the first parents, Adam and Eve, there is hardly any who would say something in support of these animals. They are a cursed lot, already from the time of the genesis, and they are still so, except for a few minor religious sects who have taken shelter with snakes as their deity, as is the case with Manasa Devi in Bengal, and Naga Devadai in the southern India. But that does not stop the snakes from harming even the very people who worship them as deities! It has gone deep into human mind that snakes cannot be allowed to live!

We are taught already from our childhood that snakes are evil, and they are all poisonous. They cannot be allowed to prawl around in our gardens and fields, but they should be killed on the spot! We may even allow our enemies to escape our beating, but cannot allow snakes from escaping, leave alone letting them run away peacefully! Much of our understanding about snakes is faulty and erroneous; and quite a bit of it is based on prejudice. We cannot think that the snakes also have the same right to live on earth as any of us is! We often claim that the earth belonged to us, and not to these, and so they can be dispensed with without any hesitation.

It is basically ignorance which make us conclude that all snakes are poisonous; even the harmless grass-snake are killed at the very first sight, and we have great pride in proclaiming to the whole world that we had killed a very poisonous snake! One of the environmentalists had recently announced that out of all the snakes commonly found in India, only two varies are really poisonous and so are fatal, and most others are not poisonous. They may bite others, but people cannot die due to poison. There may not be too many people who would bite this idea, even if it is based on facts and scientific data.

I have heard several stories in our village, where people had died due to snake bite, and have also heard about those men and women who recovered after snake bite! But generally the stories of the people who have succumbed to poisonous snakes had been doing extra rounds than those who had recovered from such a bite. Now the point I would like to propose is that it is time that we think twice before we look for sticks and rods to kill snakes. It is said that snakes would not deliberately harm anyone; until they are provoked, they would mind their own business! After all, they are not after human blood!

If the human race claims a rightful place on earth, then the snakes too have a rightful place here, and the fact is that these creatures are more friendly to the earth and the universe than humanity! It is time that we stop condemning all snakes as poisonous and kill them instantly. The number of snakes in our villages and gardens and fields have reduced considerably. If this situation were to continue, then after some years, we may not have any real snake to show to our children; the snakes might have then become like what dinausours are for us today. Let us give the snakes their rightful place on earth, and they too would honor us for that act of charity and kindness!

Passion with Com-passion

In the entertainment world, which is dominated by commercial films and videos, a film of this sort is rare and rather unheard of! I am not talking about the films of the sort which Indian film doyen Satyajit Ray made, which ran empty halls in the city, while acclaimed all over the world. I am talking about Bommalattam (Doll's play), a full-length feature film in Tamil made by the famous film director Bharati Raja! It is not that I am fond of the films of Bharati Raja, who always had a social issue to present in his films, but as I sat to relax in front of the television, I found something very different in this film, very different from the usual soap-operas and the tear-jerkers!

The fact that Nana Patekar, whom I consider as a serious actor, happened to act in a Tamil feature film meant that it was not going to be yet another love story! The theme looked so very complicated, but after the denoument, one realizes that the plot has been weaved in such a way that the story was hanging together, and one could vibrate with the hero fighting a fierce battle against a society which only knows how to condemn the vulnerable! The director had handled the characters in the film not only with the usual passion, but more with com-passion, and that made this film a very different sort for me!

I consider myself a person who has limited, selective memory! In certain cases, my memory is shart, though I cannot claim it is photographic, but fairly good; but when it comes to storylines, novels, and even blogs, I have a bad memory! Sometimes when I go back to some of my old writings, I feel amazed and ask myself if I had done it! I might have read a novel some years ago, but when I read it again, without realizing that I had read it earlier, I can vaguely remember some isolated characters, but not the story. I feel terrible when many of my friends can remember the storyline of a novel or a film they had read/seen many years ago. I even envy them.

In all walks of life today, the slogan is 'passion', and if there is one life-force which is keeping the present world alive, it is the passion of a handful of people, igniting the lives of others. Passion in life, passion in workplace, passion in relationships, and passion in being. What perhaps the today's world lacks is com-passion! I am not talking about charity or gift or obligatory social commitment corporate houses are expected to fulfil, in order to get the tax exemption! Compassion goes beyond all scales and measurements, and one gets countless number of opportunities to show one's compassion today: it would be wrong to consider that only the human beings demand our compassion, the plants and beasts, the earth and the universe - all are in need of human compassion.

Compassion also demands that we throw away our law-books in order to uphold humanity, or life in one form or other. If the law of the land becomes the most important criteria for judging people (and I would not belittle the importance of the law of the land in any way), then we would be forced to throttle true justice, which goes beyond laws and regulations. The Doll's Play fortunately upholds such a kind of compassionate justice, which can change the face of the world sooner than we think! Every human person is invited to become agents of compassion, and the day when even a toddler looks at the plants and beasts, other toddlers with compassion, then we can see a thousand suns and moons rising around us!