The Vedic Period (III)

 Bangalore: Saturday, Dec 3, 1988. 11pm

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Today, was yet another gripping story told to us by Nehru. As the episodes of his great work flashes by, his character is instantly and gradually revealed to us.

Instantly, I say because, with the fund of knowledge that he portrays, he reveals his love for it, and ‘gradually’, I use , because the intensity of his character is shown to us very slowly and steadily. Nehru would have been better off as a dreamer, a philosopher or a poet. He tried to use his potential ingenuity in the harsh world of politics where the former and the latter have not been in harmony with each other.

Nehru, a man with a purpose in this life, who lived up to his principles and ideals and believed that ‘the mere act of aiming at something big makes up big’, tells us all that he felt and wants us to feel, very effectively in the little story of his episode. It is the story of one little boy who owes his debt to 3 men, one who is a traitor to the country, but has instilled in the boy and aim and a goal to live for; the second who was his mother’s husband – his father, and the third who reared him. Now, it is for this boy to acknowledge as to who his real father is. Whom does he owe his entire life to? For whom should he live, and whose aspirations and dying wishes should he fulfil? The answer comes to him from an old lady who tells him to follow then dictates of the first man – for after all he was responsible for the boy’s existence. There was a reason behind his action and thus one owes a great deal to him. The other two, on the other hand, claimed their right for their own selfish needs. The second one became the father, for he was driven by passion, and the king, adopted the child, for he was childless. Thus, it is the one who sets us up on achieving something who is our creator.

How relevant this is to human nature! We all strive to achieve something in our life. We keep on an on crossing obstacles to for gaining it, but how often have we not grumbled at these obstacles that cause us an hindrance. Have we ever bothered to stop and realise that there is someone who is with us in our journey towards achievement – who is worried about us, and who gets affected by every snort and groan that we utter?  They get affected because they have planned to have us, they have gone through untold sacrifices to set us upon the path of truth and that which is right. They have been guided by their own set of values and principles which have in-turn permeated into us. Thus, what right do we have to hurt them?

At such moments which puts me thinking, contemplating and brooding over stupid problems connected with me, which I can easily neglect, I feel like crying out
“Arise,Awake, Stop not till the goal is reached...”

But, which goal, where to lies the question....!