I went for a trek today to a nearby hill. This is the site of the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, in Maharashtra, India. With me were an Indian and two German friends. On our way back we met this farmer who was very worried, because the incessant rainfall was destroying the tomatoes he had planted, and doubted whether he will get any return from the investment he had made on the crops. Nevertheless, we moved on, and were resting in front of the village school when this man caught up with us and gave us fresh peanuts from his fields. We had to stop him from going back and bringing more of them for us.
This is India, my country.
a few questions .. even fewer answers ...
..'resigned to fate'- that's what your farmer friend stands for...he's the typical icon of a class that has been raised since its childhood on the staple diet of obedience to the designs of the almighty....product of an aeon old feudal set up he has learned from his environs the inevetability of his inconsequential existence....slave to the supposed 'karmic' bondage that shapes up one's destiny, he's too meek to question the order that strangles him.....the plethora of uncertainties that plague his mind is however suprisingly not potent enough to rob him of his inherent 'goodness'....call it resilience or whatever you may he has learned to live with it all....altruism somehow was in-built into his being, apparently without any justification, logical or otherwise.....and aye, there lies the rub, for the unacquainted beholder....one simply cannot reconcile the dichotomy without certain discomfort...hail it, if you please, as the spirit of the marginalised, underpreviliged man who radiates simplicity in kindness...or mock him as an emotion fool.... the peasant has perhaps imbibed greater lessons of 'sharing' than that possibly conveyed through tomes of moral preaching....thank God, this is India....the kaleidoscope of myriad ever-evolving images....one is reminded of poet Iqbal musing on what might possibly be the 'thing' that prevents 'us' from being subdued by the ravages of time....as i understand, it's the spirit of my countrymen.....despite all their lacunae....
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