ROSE ON GRAVE
Yesterday evening, as I was going back home from office, I planned to stop by Kiah’s showroom at Bandra, to glance through the diamond rings… Something on the way really touched my soul and made me stop and think… So this post is dedicated to that little girl… I’ll call her ‘Rose’.
Its almost dusk… The sky is embellished with streaks of red. More beauty one can’t find. My dear friend Jyoti offers to accompany me to the showroom… and who would not like to be accompanied! After all, it's so boring to go window shopping all alone!! Bandra is her domain. We fix an auto to go there. On the way, there’s a crossroad… four roads meet each other there… and but obvious, there’s a signal too… And just as it always is the case with me, all signals are always waiting for me… They welcome me with love… Simply speaking, they turn red!
Two girls… can’t remain quiet even for a second! But somewhere amidst our incessant talks, we hear an innocent voice saying, “Sis, please take these roses… only for twenty bucks”… Now that’s ‘Rose’. She’s a cute, little girl with a cherubic glow on her face. She minus her rags plus some riches would’ve definitely made her win those little Miss Mumbai contests. I looked into her twinkling eyes… filled to the brim with hope… Standing there with a bunch of roses, white, yellow and pink, which she must’ve picked up from somewhere, highly hopeful of earning those twenty bucks… My thoughts wandered into oblivion. Jyo in the meanwhile, bought those flowers. Though the flowers were not fresh, but she was glad that she brought a smile to that little girl’s face.
Well, after the window-shopping spree, Jyo gave the bunch of beautiful flowers to me to carry back home… as her mom wasn’t so fond of fresh flowers. That’s another school of thought that says… why decorate your house with something which won’t last forever?
Alright… I thanked her for the roses, wished her goodnight and took an auto to go back to the station. On my way back home, I kept looking at the roses… And my mind was filled with a thousand thoughts…
This world is really so unfair… On one hand, there are people like us, who have most of the luxuries in life. The fact that you are reading my post says, you have an access to a luxury – your computer! On the contrary, there are people like Rose, deprived of the basic necessities of life, who live hand-in-mouth, steal flowers from graveyards to earn a living… Well, I don’t justify jyo’s act of buying the flowers… because, in a way it encourages malpractices. I never believed in giving alms to beggars also, as they’ll otherwise never learn to earn for a living and become dependent on others for ever. However, still I some how cannot convince myself if I am right or wrong. We waste food… they beg for it. We waste water… they don’t have clean water to drink… We sleep on curl-on and yet complain that it is not soft enough… they sleep on footpaths without bed sheets and cushioned pillows. What an irony life is!
We are more concerned about big things like Arcelor takeover, Jet’s Sahara takeover… But we forget to look at the other picture where poverty has taken over a vast majority of our people. With our mad rush for money, and sick hurry for fame, world has almost become an insanity fair, thus increasing the divide between the rich and the poor and overall increasing the gap between man and God.
Well… It’s very easy to talk of things, and equally difficult to find a solution for them… I’m no one to preach, but I could just hold the torch and light the way. A rose is the best thing a lover can gift his beloved… It symbolises love and happiness. The same rose when on the grave signifies affection and grief. Life is really a conundrum… Even Afred Tennyson could not help but think about it when he wrote,
FLOWER in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
Little Rose is like any one of us… Let us befriend innocent kids like them and bestow them with love and care. Let us make an attempt to do something for them. Let us give them the joys of childhood. And I feel really happy to see people who actually go ahead and put things into action. I know of one such effort – Toybank. Visit http://www.toybank.co.in/ . Bravo people… Keep up the good work. Lets come together and make this world a heaven on earth.
Its almost dusk… The sky is embellished with streaks of red. More beauty one can’t find. My dear friend Jyoti offers to accompany me to the showroom… and who would not like to be accompanied! After all, it's so boring to go window shopping all alone!! Bandra is her domain. We fix an auto to go there. On the way, there’s a crossroad… four roads meet each other there… and but obvious, there’s a signal too… And just as it always is the case with me, all signals are always waiting for me… They welcome me with love…
Two girls… can’t remain quiet even for a second! But somewhere amidst our incessant talks, we hear an innocent voice saying, “Sis, please take these roses… only for twenty bucks”… Now that’s ‘Rose’. She’s a cute, little girl with a cherubic glow on her face. She minus her rags plus some riches would’ve definitely made her win those little Miss Mumbai contests. I looked into her twinkling eyes… filled to the brim with hope… Standing there with a bunch of roses, white, yellow and pink, which she must’ve picked up from somewhere, highly hopeful of earning those twenty bucks… My thoughts wandered into oblivion. Jyo in the meanwhile, bought those flowers. Though the flowers were not fresh, but she was glad that she brought a smile to that little girl’s face.
Well, after the window-shopping spree, Jyo gave the bunch of beautiful flowers to me to carry back home… as her mom wasn’t so fond of fresh flowers. That’s another school of thought that says… why decorate your house with something which won’t last forever?
Alright… I thanked her for the roses, wished her goodnight and took an auto to go back to the station. On my way back home, I kept looking at the roses… And my mind was filled with a thousand thoughts…
This world is really so unfair… On one hand, there are people like us, who have most of the luxuries in life. The fact that you are reading my post says, you have an access to a luxury – your computer! On the contrary, there are people like Rose, deprived of the basic necessities of life, who live hand-in-mouth, steal flowers from graveyards to earn a living… Well, I don’t justify jyo’s act of buying the flowers… because, in a way it encourages malpractices. I never believed in giving alms to beggars also, as they’ll otherwise never learn to earn for a living and become dependent on others for ever. However, still I some how cannot convince myself if I am right or wrong. We waste food… they beg for it. We waste water… they don’t have clean water to drink… We sleep on curl-on and yet complain that it is not soft enough… they sleep on footpaths without bed sheets and cushioned pillows. What an irony life is!
We are more concerned about big things like Arcelor takeover, Jet’s Sahara takeover… But we forget to look at the other picture where poverty has taken over a vast majority of our people. With our mad rush for money, and sick hurry for fame, world has almost become an insanity fair, thus increasing the divide between the rich and the poor and overall increasing the gap between man and God.
Well… It’s very easy to talk of things, and equally difficult to find a solution for them… I’m no one to preach, but I could just hold the torch and light the way. A rose is the best thing a lover can gift his beloved… It symbolises love and happiness. The same rose when on the grave signifies affection and grief. Life is really a conundrum… Even Afred Tennyson could not help but think about it when he wrote,
FLOWER in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
Little Rose is like any one of us… Let us befriend innocent kids like them and bestow them with love and care. Let us make an attempt to do something for them. Let us give them the joys of childhood. And I feel really happy to see people who actually go ahead and put things into action. I know of one such effort – Toybank. Visit http://www.toybank.co.in/ . Bravo people… Keep up the good work. Lets come together and make this world a heaven on earth.
posted by Ships at
12:43 AM
4 Comments:
I am definitely not agree with “Well, I don’t justify jyo’s act of buying the flowers… because, in a way it encourages malpractices.”
Apart from this I found the article really touching.
One more thing I like to add here is there are many people who think on this but only few who actualy act. We all need to bridge the gap between the THOUGHT and ACTION…I hope your post will helpful for this!!!
By
Rushikesh Humbe, at 1:41 AM, March 01, 2006
That one brought a tear to my eyes. it really is one of the greatest ironies of life. i think it is always better to help out the needy in kind bcos it not only gives them what they need, but also somewhere deep down they get disappointed that they didn't get cash and might someday decide to take life's reins into their own hands.
My personal point of view is that what they need is not money, they need a reason to LIVE and not exist.
I know this sounds hard hearted, but it's one of those ironical truths of life...
By
Spacegirl, at 3:36 AM, June 02, 2008
Spacegirl: "They need a reason to LIVE and not exist..." - Couldn't have been more apt. Thanks for dropping by..
By
Ships, at 10:24 AM, June 02, 2008
A very very nice post and did find a lot of common in perspective of our two minds.It was en richening to read the post.keep up the good wrk
By
sagnik, at 2:44 AM, November 24, 2008
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