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36
PRABUDDH JEEVAN
THE CONFLICT (AM)
Last week I was in my village in Kutch - a place I love, a place I am always happy in, a place that quietens me, makes my inside melt. This is the place that lets me think through and yet remain silent. It was just after Diwali, only a few houses were open. It was empty, quiet.... so quiet outside and inside me it was all peaceful, my own little heaven.
But... (with me there is always a but); if I find it so peaceful, beautiful, happy, why don't I make a lifestyle switch and shift there?
This need to constantly do something; where has that emerged from?
So; my subject this month is on conflict. The conflict within.
I am 39 years old and call myself a product of 'The transition generation'. Transition from the days of yore of depth and 'thehraav' of meaningful personal relationships and this impersonal fast paced and constantly changing 'yantra yug' [y]. (age of technology.)
Money was a means to uplift people who didnt have, it was about sharing effortlessly with all; conversations were always about 'Adarsh' [url] about good human beings and their conduct, about stories of Tirthankars, national leaders, philosophers and great thinkers. It was a time when creating the right frame to click a photo was a time consuming thing as the roll was only 24 pictures and we could not waste a picture. It was when the heart went fluttering when one received a trunk-call because trunk-call took effort and cost much and it was a time when the family would go to drop and
Why cannot I make a switch and stay in Deolali, more urban than Kutch and yet a place that fills my insides with equal joy.
another city for a day.
Why don't I stay more in Dharampur where days go by pick people to the airport even when one went to just in bliss atleast while Gurudev is there? Why are mountains and countryside and villages always a brief getaway to return eventually back to the frantic pace of a city?
What is this allure of a city?
It is pace, energy, the electrifying nature of city life; whatever other adjectives to describe it - but the ultimate truth is our minds constantly crave for the new, for something engaging, something novel, a means of distraction.
I grew up writing long letters, stayed in a joint family, and the communal joy of having the first radio, the first TV, the first colour TV, the first car, the first vilayat holiday, when in school a happy occasion meant splurging on a sev-puri which was available for 3 Rupees.
SEPTEMBER 2014
I actually grew up thinking that money grew on trees, not because we had too much of it but because money was not a point of discussion at home. Not because we spent so much but because it wasn't a pre occupation like it is today. Though my father worked hard and long,
money was never the topic - abundance was the feeling even when in reality we had much less.
It was not so long ago which means I am not from my father's generation of freedom fighters, life of simplicity and austerity but of this middle generation of pagers, and then the older more limited cell phones and awkward computers, when the economy was just opening up and dream education meant going to America, and going to Switzerland was the ideal holiday. Our pocket money was limited, all the decisions about us were made by our parents, teachers were next to God (never to be questioned), falling in love was still a taboo and God was always the ultimate truth. Within this framework, we rebelled, questioned, embraced life and a couple of decades rolled by. I fast forward to now - the 21st century - the 'yantra yug' as I write an article on my laptop, Skype with a friend overseas, while simultaneously reply to a text message, switch the channel on my bedroom TV, and talk on the phone pretty much in the same moment. In a sense we are reaching this state (in the wrong manner though) which our Tirthankars have already put forth centuries back; that - we are the all powerful ones as we are the only permanent ones [ as compared to Jad (%) and Chetan (dt)]. We are in a way super computers ourselves, we can think and process so much.
So why the conflict?
The conflict between the old and the new. Between silence and noise. Between people and solitude. Between multiple choices and a single pick.
