SWACHCH BHARAT !!!!!!! MY FOOT

SWACHCH BHARAT, MY FOOT

Today on return from evening walk saw a well heeled lady driving a SUV, a teenage girl, may be her daughter, sitting next to her, throwing an empty wafer packet with banana  peels  out of the window of the running car. She seemed to be saying “I am all powerful.  I can throw my dirt anywhere I want. I do not care as long as my own surrounding is clean”.

A few distance later, saw a Rickshaw puller throwing an empty tobacco sachet on the road. He seemed to be telling “I live in unhealthy squalor anyway. Why should I care if your surrounding is clean or not’?

I am just wondering who is responsible for all the dirt around us- the lady and her ilk or the Rickshaw puller and his folks.  

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that I am responsible for it.  I could not have run after the car and catch the lady and give a bit of my mind but I could have certainly admonished the rickshaw puller. But then I think why the rickshaw puller? Just because he is poor, lives in a filthy atmosphere and hence has no sense of cleanliness?

Again the more I think about it the more I am convinced that I am responsible for it. I could have the audacity to pull up the poor but have no guts to say a world to the powerful even if an opportunity falls in place.

The more I think about it the more I am convinced that I am responsible for it. It was only till yesterday (literally) that I used to do the same. Me the educated middle class preserver of moral values!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But somehow my middleclass values put me on the right path. But my middleclass values forces me to think about these abrasions in our society where the upper class and the downtrodden think similarly on certain vital issues. The yoke of reforms remains on the shoulders of the middleclass.

   

ON BEING A GIFT AND A GIFT WRAPPER

ON BEING A GIFT AND A GIFT WRAPPER

Most of us give or get occasional gifts on birthdays, weddings, anniversaries or festivals. The gifts are wrapped in bright sparkling wrappers. No matter how bright and sparkling the wrapper may be, it does not form part of the gift. In fact the receiver, mostly children, anxious to know what lies inside the packet, tears away the wrapper mercilessly and dumps it in the waste paper basket.  As we should not judge a book by its cover we should not judge a gift by its wrapper. Its job is to wrap the gift. It cannot add value to the gift itself. The value of the gift is judged by the receiver.    

There are many types of wrappers. Have you ever seen the heavily made up actors and celebrities without make up?  This make up wrapper not only hides the wrinkles or the hardened skin but also hides their emotions too. This also makes them fearful to present themselves in public without make up. It can be very depressing but it is not created by the wrapper. It is self created.   

In our day to day life we come across people wrapped in various shades of wrappers. There was this song from a Hindi movie ‘ek chehare pe kai chehare laga lete hain log’ (people wear many faces over a face). They wear masks to hide their true faces. The smile on their faces hides their true feelings. The words they utter may mean exactly the opposite. It is only after the false wrapper is removed that the truth comes out. The only problem is that unlike what we do with wrappers on the gift packets, we cannot tear their wrappers of falsehood apart. It is in the interest of both, the giver and the receiver, that decency is maintained. In fact it is a norm than exception to let the deception flourish. Calling a spade a spade is not considered civic.

And then who can forget the only wrapper, the creator preserved us with for full nine months. All of us were presented to this world in a beautiful wrapper. The wrapper was carefully removed and the gift inside opened in the presence of all concerned. Everyone danced with divine joy. The gift passed from hands to hands.

IT WAS NOW FOR THE GIFT TO PROVE ITS WORTH. WILL IT? THE WRAPPER COULD DO THIS MUCH ONLY.