blazeofglory
01-02-2008, 10:59 AM
A couple of decades ago I had come across him at the bus station on my way to the office. Stretching out both of his thin little hands for a buck or something else, he epitomized human indignity. A skinny body lifting a weighty head with matted locks of hair partly concealing two deep, powerful & burning eyes which were all the time fixed on every passer by. His chest was stretched in; the whole skeletal make-up was exposed inside out, like the one a student of biology posters in his study room to study the anatomy of human being. The stomach was however a little ballooning, possibly stuffed with gases. The month was mid December; the atmosphere was hazy with the morning mist that usually envelops the city in winter. He was dragging his body with a tattered sack dangling on his back. There was an old unbuttoned jerkin wrapping his upper part with no under vest or short and with a piece of cloth shrouded down the waist. He was walking barefoot. The dewdrops in the mornings of Kathmandu pierce & prick if one walks shoeless, one of the worst sufferings, the poor in Kathmandu face.
Who bothers? Everyone is at a hustling & bustling pace, running to catch buses to reach their offices on time. No one can spare a little while to observe and be sensitive. What is the use of sensitivity? After all it does not pay & in fact does not unburden a little of the yoke of responsibilities one has to shoulder in his day to day affair be it his home or office. Life is lived day out day in with the rat race of running every time for meeting countless demands burdened on them by their family members or their bosses in their offices. This stampede virtually is deadening their life forces and benumbing their senses, turning them in effect into machines or in our lately coined diction, robots.
No one can care and for that matter no one is to blame. That is the circumstance one is hemmed in, in this start of the new millennium, no matter where we live in. We in Kathmandu are equally touched by what happens else where in the world, in this era of globalization and our life styles are in the same way impacted and our ambitious motives have grown many folds by comparison with our forefathers.
I for one am a bit different, not that it is my arrogance but that I am fairly sensitive to circumstances. Perhaps that is the reason I am presenting this story to you. Leave it at that. What matters is my story, not what I look like. I am also in the same stampede, crammed in a hustling bustling life style, with a mad rush to reach the office within a set time span or face a reprimand. However the observer in me photographed the image of the boy, the ill-fated tot.
***
Life is a coarse road for everyone coming of a middle class social stratum in Kathmandu . The biggest challenge one faces, particularly one who comes from a middle class family is to live up to a certain standard; precisely speaking he can not work like any labourer or nor he can live a luxuriant life of the wealthy. Wrought with social demands to meet and fulfill chains of requirements of his dependents he is stormed hard at all moments. With this excessive preoccupation with his own woes & worries, one will scarcely be considerate to see out of a periphery of his situation, his own complexities and an intricate modern living condition he is hard pressed to yoke. I talked with one of my close colleagues to start up a social work to raise some fund in order to salvage such hard core poor children out of their poverty.
“Let’s think up something to rescue these disadvantaged children”, I said with a little concern. “We live for ourselves only & this longing for self-interest goes unperturbed from one generation to another. Why not we break from this tradition where we always take cares & concerns for ourselves & reserve for us which are in essence common to all populating the earth.”
“You speak with an air of philosophy. Be practical in a world of strife & rivalry. Your sense of idealism does not pay in this world rent with an ever increasing tug of war. Be down to earth and who takes care of your family if charity is your motto. First be self sufficient and the rest thereafter”, Bipul said with an emphatic & realistic tone but not with a motive to exasperate me.
“I agree, but the matter is some thing different than you take. When I say social work to uplift these deprived ones I never indicate to carry out this mission at the expense of our familial or other social obligations. My idea is to take a little care & concern for others, rather than living a self-centred life at all times. Charity does not indicate to dedicate all that you have to a particular cause. You can do it with a very little portion of it dedicating to something you deem ideal in life”, I tried to put across my opinion with a rather forceful overtone.
“We have come to the bus stand. I must hurry up to catch the bus or else I will be late for my office”, uttering this he ran to catch the running bus.
This I talked with Bipul, one of my childhood friends whom I meet sometimes on the way to my office. This inkling is in substance is the boiling concern I have for the little boy in my mind. For I picture the image of the boy at all times & even today I vividly revisit the boy in my mental setup. Charity, social work, upliftment are catch words or a kind of pastime in our idyllic moments. Back to reality we take the usual rat race to make both ends meet.
***
After a couple of years I saw him near the busstand selling off newspapers & magazines. I bought a few of them, despite the fact that I did not intend to read all. And I made a habit of buying newspapers and developed the habit of reading them too.
Who bothers? Everyone is at a hustling & bustling pace, running to catch buses to reach their offices on time. No one can spare a little while to observe and be sensitive. What is the use of sensitivity? After all it does not pay & in fact does not unburden a little of the yoke of responsibilities one has to shoulder in his day to day affair be it his home or office. Life is lived day out day in with the rat race of running every time for meeting countless demands burdened on them by their family members or their bosses in their offices. This stampede virtually is deadening their life forces and benumbing their senses, turning them in effect into machines or in our lately coined diction, robots.
No one can care and for that matter no one is to blame. That is the circumstance one is hemmed in, in this start of the new millennium, no matter where we live in. We in Kathmandu are equally touched by what happens else where in the world, in this era of globalization and our life styles are in the same way impacted and our ambitious motives have grown many folds by comparison with our forefathers.
I for one am a bit different, not that it is my arrogance but that I am fairly sensitive to circumstances. Perhaps that is the reason I am presenting this story to you. Leave it at that. What matters is my story, not what I look like. I am also in the same stampede, crammed in a hustling bustling life style, with a mad rush to reach the office within a set time span or face a reprimand. However the observer in me photographed the image of the boy, the ill-fated tot.
***
Life is a coarse road for everyone coming of a middle class social stratum in Kathmandu . The biggest challenge one faces, particularly one who comes from a middle class family is to live up to a certain standard; precisely speaking he can not work like any labourer or nor he can live a luxuriant life of the wealthy. Wrought with social demands to meet and fulfill chains of requirements of his dependents he is stormed hard at all moments. With this excessive preoccupation with his own woes & worries, one will scarcely be considerate to see out of a periphery of his situation, his own complexities and an intricate modern living condition he is hard pressed to yoke. I talked with one of my close colleagues to start up a social work to raise some fund in order to salvage such hard core poor children out of their poverty.
“Let’s think up something to rescue these disadvantaged children”, I said with a little concern. “We live for ourselves only & this longing for self-interest goes unperturbed from one generation to another. Why not we break from this tradition where we always take cares & concerns for ourselves & reserve for us which are in essence common to all populating the earth.”
“You speak with an air of philosophy. Be practical in a world of strife & rivalry. Your sense of idealism does not pay in this world rent with an ever increasing tug of war. Be down to earth and who takes care of your family if charity is your motto. First be self sufficient and the rest thereafter”, Bipul said with an emphatic & realistic tone but not with a motive to exasperate me.
“I agree, but the matter is some thing different than you take. When I say social work to uplift these deprived ones I never indicate to carry out this mission at the expense of our familial or other social obligations. My idea is to take a little care & concern for others, rather than living a self-centred life at all times. Charity does not indicate to dedicate all that you have to a particular cause. You can do it with a very little portion of it dedicating to something you deem ideal in life”, I tried to put across my opinion with a rather forceful overtone.
“We have come to the bus stand. I must hurry up to catch the bus or else I will be late for my office”, uttering this he ran to catch the running bus.
This I talked with Bipul, one of my childhood friends whom I meet sometimes on the way to my office. This inkling is in substance is the boiling concern I have for the little boy in my mind. For I picture the image of the boy at all times & even today I vividly revisit the boy in my mental setup. Charity, social work, upliftment are catch words or a kind of pastime in our idyllic moments. Back to reality we take the usual rat race to make both ends meet.
***
After a couple of years I saw him near the busstand selling off newspapers & magazines. I bought a few of them, despite the fact that I did not intend to read all. And I made a habit of buying newspapers and developed the habit of reading them too.