It has been a little over 20 years since the universe welcomed me. LIFE!!! Life was bestowed
upon me by the creator. And upon many others too. Every second, or may be every
millisecond, a new life is born, it can be a plant, an insect, or an animal,
but its life that throbs, that develops incessantly, since eternity.
Time
passes and everything starts to hold a specific meaning. Things that were
merely there, around, are assigned a purpose in our understanding. Now they are
there to fulfill a purpose. For a child, a newborn, all the world is same,
un-known, it can't understand anything except probably that the lady who holds
him always is someone or something quiet different than the rest, Someone
Special. But the rest of the things are all either his toys or his play-area.
Everything is treated with equality, fire and chocolate is the same for a
5month old until he has experienced them both, with an equal degree of
curiosity, accompanied with the effort to understand and memorize the
"Something" that has been encountered. When the number of these
"Some-things" increase, it becomes necessary to assign each one an
identity, to differentiate one from the other, and everything starts getting a
name, which is taught by the elders, an effect of the surroundings, one is in.
Language starts making sense, and instead of "Da-da" &
"ma-am" &"na-na" specific and clear sounds are put into
use, a different sound for every other thing. Thus slowly the world starts
making sense, and an understanding is developed of how the world functions.
For a
normal child being brought up in a typical urban life-style, the world mostly
has CARS, BIKES, TALL AND SHORT BULDINGS, ROADS, SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, CLUBS,
RESTAURANTS, HOTELS, THEATRES, GARDENS & PARKS, OTHER PEOPLE, COMPUTERS,
CELL PHONES, TELEVISIONS & INTERNET. And these are the most relevant things
for him. Even the parents are content, these are the things that form the
typical "CITY UNIVERSE". But in this "City Universe" the
only things those can be termed as
having life in them are the gardens, and other people. But then if one
sits and starts thinking over the liveliness of these, a feeling develops,
these things don’t feel Alive. The are all stagnant, not developing. The
gardens have plants but there are no birds or bees to feed on the nectar of
flowers or animals to eat the fruits. Though the plants are fresh, they don’t
encompass the cycle of LIFE, in the complete essence of the word. It’s an
artificial ecology, far from the natural, the perfect.
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| A pot of Gold in the mountain from venue.nu |
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| A Newfie, perfect companion |
On the
other hand, a kid raised in a rural set-up, life is more about the cattle and
farms, the sowing and the harvest, the summer, monsoon and winter, the nature
forms the basics, and human interference is to an extremely low extent. In the
words of a typical city lad, a purely mundane existence, a boring life in other
words, nothing to do, no INFRASTRUCTURE. It’s a very slow paced life, slow and
always calm, no one's running to catch the quarter to 6 bus or no one's keeping
up till late to prepare for the presentation the next day. The whole of the
society dwells on the earning and petty issues of farming, or small scale
cottage industries. But amid all these, there's life, a natural flow of things,
not artificially propelled or aided, changes taking place on their own accord,
on nature's accord. The tiniest of things teeming with life, full of reality.
Fireflies everywhere at night, lots of birds at dawn and dusk, the cool breeze
in the morning, carrying the sweet scent of the fields or the forests or
mountains beyond. The river flowing by, or the pond just on the outskirt. A
sense or truth in them all.
Many a
times I feel like running away from this city I live in, as it all seems too
artificial, where-in everything is made to look like something else. Everything
is nothing but an imitation of the perfect which is created by nature. I feel
like going to some distant place in the mountains, where I could farm enough
for me to eat, and have a pack of dogs and a herd of cattle. Where I don’t have to smell the nitric and
sulphuric fumes in the dawn and dusk, where it’s the pure morning breeze
scented with nature's flavour, which feels like the touch of a poppy petal, or
a beloved's kiss.
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| Castle in the mountains from wallconvert.com |
But then,
sometimes, it all feels just like a daydreamer's dream. I'm an engineer, a
Construction engineer, its not FEASIBLE. Then again, that’s the whole charm of
it, doing what isn’t feasible, or practical in the world I live in. Someday I
will, run into the mountains, and live my dream. That's my tryst with life.
That day, I shall have won over life.
