I wonder if you have heard what I hear, what it says to me. That call of the same old wrinkly nature- the whispers and sighs, buzzing and echoes, ‘o homo sapiens! Learn from me, learn from me’.
The whisper of the breeze and perfume of jasmine wandering under the moon and stars in the kingdom of night. Where there is the calling of night bird and, crickets chirp. I keep wallowing in nostalgia when I lie down to sleep.
Ah that wonderful childhood.
And I think, I want to retract to being a three years old again and quite frankly, it is that I want to be born again. But times have changed as the time itself is the witness of that change. So even if I get my most asked for wish and a stork leaves a gift wrapped basket on my mother’s doorstep containing a newly born sucking her thumb, do you think everything would be the same as it was in my precious childhood, no!
Thousands of desires, each worth dying for…
Many of them I have realized…yet I yearn for more…
(Ghalib)
Such a beautiful world we live in. May it be the small wonder like a dew drop, the flaming miracle like the sun or the muddy one, human…such textures, colours and perfumes, they just take my breath away.
Each and everything in this world is created for a purpose. I read a saying in one of my childhood books that nothing in this world is useless and, it continues to prove true and true as I advance in my age.
I have so much to share and every memory is priceless. One particular bit, there was the love of my childhood, the mulberry tree in our yard. Have you seen a hundred years old mulberry tree laden with fruit, a sight to behold! the fruit so delicious that my mouth is watering on seeing it again in my mind’s eye. In summer, it was the only shade someone could find in the yard and the afternoons, we would enjoy a siesta under it and let me tell you! I never slept better in my whole life. I remember learning months’ names under it, playing under it round and round while it was standing there bound, providing us with comfort. Yes, we had to water it, to keep it in a good condition but what it was taking was less than what it was giving us. We had to move on and leave it behind. The last I heard, it had been cut because they wanted to expand the football ground.
Nature cocoons us but we wreck it. Reject it while it is here for us to enjoy. You do not bully the weaker but protect and nurture them and, learn to live with the stronger. You don’t burn them, cut and abuse them, rather learn to love and cherish them.
Nature is like our beloved partner. I could not find a better teacher than that same old wrinkly nature. I learnt to be more curious than cautious, how to love, the passion, generosity, kindness and the equation of “give and take”, the time to cease even if you want to have your way. It makes you wise. People accuse me of having an antique soul but isn’t it the reality of a human being that he is indeed antique.
We have forgotten the rule of reconciliation in the equation of “give and take” in this world. If this suicidal behaviour of oppression does not alter, we might one day become few and scarce like those extinct and endangered species.
Why do we have to disrupt and destroy nature to feel satisfaction and ultimate success? A yacht will not stop a tsunami, materialism doesn’t equalise a safe future. Let our children play with nature. Nourish a bud of passion to flower. They will grow up in tune with it, learning to protect it and have a sustainable future, we so want for them.
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