Bhagban Sri Satya Sai

Last night there was no electricity. In the darkness I slept a dreamless sleep. I slept comfortably even without fans because the night was cool.  A windy summer rain had lashed the evening. However, insects fluttered around the emergency light. I switched off the light, pulled up a mosquito net and cocooned myself inside it. 

When the night is dark and the trees look like shadows of mythological demons and flashes of thunder cast its heavenly blue on earth, the world becomes mysterious. The tiny speck of life bearing the consciousness of “I” fades. We start to think of the world, the universe and the principles and the guiding force that control them. It happens so because the wind, the thunderbolts and rain all defy human control. Man is but a powerless creature like the fluttering insects under the mercy of nature when the big powers of nature come into play.  

Before I could sleep I pondered over the sad demise of Bhagban Sri Satya Sai. He was a miracle man to many. He had prophesied that he would live in his mortal form till he was 96 years. And his early death convinced millions of his devotees of the uncertainty of life. Nobody knows when the wheels of life will stop. This uncertainty factor will prompt other mortals to live life meaningfully because life is so uncertain. 

In his life time BABA was a quintessence of human service. He illustrated how life can be lived on the principles of truth, righteousness, love, peace and non-violence. I missed his mortal form but as his contemporary I felt that I owe a moral responsibility to bring those basic human values into the frame work of my society in its unsullied form. 

The rain had almost stopped. Calmness prevailed everywhere. I curled on my bed to welcome a new morning and a new sun of enlightenment.

Let us feel the smile

Now-a-days most of us do not plant trees because it is a very slow process. Trees grow slowly absorbing years of sunlight and nutrients. They bear fruits after a long wait. But modern man is impatient and restless. He wants immediate return in a huge a scale. His desire for immediate gain and the tardy growth of trees are two antagonistic things. The trees cannot keep pace with the impatience of the greedy man. The relationship between tree and man is blurred in the thickness of materialism.

In the past man was a jungle dweller. He lived in the serenity of nature. But now he dwells in concrete jungles and hides from the realities of life in the name of progress. Surfing in the cyber space and browsing numerous television channels have pushed human minds into extreme artificiality. Most modern men are lost in a virtual world and when they wake up to reality they need to eat something. So they purchase packaged food and carry them home in polythene packs. These polythene packs choke the environment but they are least concerned about it.  They will soon slip into their virtual world of emails and computer-screen-existence. In the hectic rush of life we burn the world around. Gallons and gallons of fuel are daily burnt to maintain our pace of progress. We burn everything. We consume everything. We stripe the nature of its resources. We loot. In a nut shell we degenerate the world into a graveyard.

But the birth cries of each newborn pose a vital question on our selfish and reckless attitude towards Mother Nature. The smile of a baby is a strong signal to rethink our responsibilities and obligations. Each smile that sprouts on the toothless face of a newborn obliges us to plant a tree and rear that with that human child. So let us feel the smile before turning the world into an ash pond.

For a child father is a great security in life

For a child father is a great security in life and for a wife it is the husband- this feeling came to my mind yesterday when I was journeying from Jeypore to Govindapally. 

I was sitting in a 2/2 bus. Another row of seat which was close to mine was occupied by a young couple. I could see them bubbling happily in the joy of togetherness. They talked, giggled and held each other 's and lovingly. They were lost in their world of new love.

 At a bus stop the bus halted and the man got off for some reason. After a while when the bus blew horn to depart the women became frightened and worried as her husband had not returned. She looked expectantly through the windows. She could not sit patiently in her seat. She got up & rushed to the door and looked both the ways. Nervousness and panic was visible on her face. I consoled her not to worry. But she was so panicked that she could hardly believe my words. And in the mean time the man came with two bottles of cool drink. At his very sight the woman switched into a sunny smile. Her all anxiety calmed down and blushed because her behavior was a frightened reaction to the sound of the horn. 

This incident pushed me 25 years back. I was a boy of 5 years. I was traveling with my parents. My father left his seat and got down the bus to buy some orange for me. He had not yet got onto the bus and the bus started to roll ahead. I looked for my father but could not see. My heart started to beat faster and I burst into a deafening cry. The thought of separation from my father haunted me so deeply that all the consolation of my mother had became useless. My cry was so loud that almost all the passengers had got to their feet to see what happened. My mother was put in an awkward situation but I remember that my cry was for my father and it had come involuntarily because he was synonymous to my life’s security. 

I feel deeply sad for all those sons, daughters and wives who have lost their near and dear in accidents, plain hijack, terrorist attacks, wars or natural calamity.

Let the fall continue

Ego slips

Like rose petals

Lightly and gently

Swirling

Into depths of calmness.

The wobbling waves

Silence

And life sings a prayer

Happily

Beaming in the beams of nature.

And Eyes sleep

Under the lids

And I pray

“Let the fall continue

With openness of arms

And beatific smiles on lips.”

.

Let us be the change we want to see.

From 4^th April onwards my days are spent in scanning and awarding marks to the answer sheets of +2 council examinees. It is in the administrative block of V.D. Autonomous College at Jeypore. There I along with around 60 of other examiners am toiling hard to finish our valuation assignments as soon as possible and so that we can get relieved from the tedious work at the earliest. 

Valuation of answer sheets requires great concentration and persistent efforts. The long hours of valuation duty are naturally punctuated with visits to the washroom when the bladder gets full beyond toleration. But the entry into the washroom of that college will fill your nostrils with the worst kind of smell of stale urine as a result, if you are a male, reflexively you will hold your nostrils closed in one hand and the other hand will guide your penis to pass the urine. But if you are a female then perhaps the horrible alkaline smell of putrefied urine will call both of your hands to close your nostrils tightly to save your lungs & soul. The condition of the washroom becomes very unhygienic because everyday more than 200 bladders get emptied there for more than three times a day but no sanitary measures are taken by the college administration such as flushing the washroom with antiseptic………… 

I condemned the college administration for the washroom but to what extent is it logical and sensible?

In India Gandhi brought freedom and the whole country is indebted to him for all times to come. Most of the time, we fold our hands before the statue of Gandhi but shut our eyes to Gandhism. We never follow the ideals of Gandhi which says, “Do your work yourself”. We know to urinate but don’t know to flush it with antiseptic. We wait for Government provisions & schemes to solve our own problems.  

Let us be the change we want to see.