A journey called 'Life'

A journey called 'Life'

A visit to my village brought alive the memories of the wonderful summer holidays spent there as a child. Grandfather’s house was now old and worn out due to the winds of time. Yet my delightful eye saw its magnificence and the mind searched for the tale-tell signs of the chirpy childhood. “We played here and there used to be rows of flower beds, there’ ‘See these three trees, these were planted by my grandfather with instructions that the mangoes of these would not be sold’ ‘To this day we get to eat mangoes from our orchards’ ‘Grandma had sown chilies here’ Santosh a recent acquaintance , who had accompanied us and  a stranger to the past was listening to my chatter. However he just could not see what I ‘saw’ in that place.

I was amazed. The house was deserted years ago and yet Nature continued to untiringly weave and create patterns .There were the teak wood trees, the mango orchard, the chickoo tree, the ratambas all of them standing tall .Natural rain was the only source for their water. So all other young plants and bushes had dried up and yet Nature had not given up. I was seeing the tree but was it the same bark, I wondered. My young sister Tanvi pointed out to the window, which used to be the village post office. We could actually envision Sadhle Master giving away post cards and stamping the envelopes. A grazing cow passed by as we were walking back on the village street towards the school. Is the cow as old as us or is it the next generation, I said to myself. Images of the cows being milked and we kids getting to drink the warm hued milk, scurried past memory lane. All was so fresh as if it happened a moment ago.  

In the cycle of germination, growth, decay and death, Nature never halts. Be it famine or fire, Nature starts afresh untiringly continuing to create. Branches are cut only to find that they have again grown back in full steam by the next season.  Nature does not sit and lament the cutting of the branch. ‘Why did it happen to me, I so painstakingly created the branch and the woodcutter just axed it without my fault’ such waste thoughts have no place in the nature of Mother Nature. What applies to the vegetable and animal kingdom also applies to us human beings. Yet in our times of sorrow we forget to grow and stunt ourselves in the past. ‘Let go’ is what the seers tell us. ‘Forgive and forget’ and yet it all becomes so very difficult due to dogmas and fears.

Nature teaches us here as well. As a part of aging process, we may lose our teeth, our eyesight, hair turn grey and even there are marked changes in our hormones or procreation capacities a la menopause. Yet how is it that the intellect does not grow old? In fact with the passing time, years of experience hones our skill sets, makes us wiser and sharpens the brains. Then a time comes in each one’s life where one finds that had he known what he knows today, say twenty years back, he could have steered his destiny to  higher echelons.

Why does nature not numb our brains when it does so with our other faculties? The answer lies in the fact that we are the inheritors of our deeds or karma , which we take to our next birth. That explains child prodigies like Mozart or Picasso. Nature, in fact gives us a chance to do all those activities which one could not, due to domestic pre occupations. Whether it is creative arts like acting, dancing, painting, sculpting, music or writing each one of us has the potential and aptitude coupled with a secret desire.

It is said that even a blade of grass is progressing towards self realization through evolution across many births. Having evolved to the human kingdom is said to be getting closer to this journey and the phase of quiet is in fact to be utilized for self actualization  - Doing all those things which you would consider as a base or foundation to what one wants to become in the next birth. People who say that they have plenty of time with nothing to do, should in fact look within and find for themselves to satiate their yearnings -a sure step to hope, enthusiasm and progress to make life a meaningful journey rather than frittering time on wasteful thoughts and actions like watching T V for hours together, chitchatting and gossiping- what say?

In the words of Robert Frost -

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

and miles to go before I sleep

Anagha Hunnurkar

April 27, 2012