From March 2009, I had started walking to my office everyday. The reason was to reduce the flab that had begun to accumulate around my sweet big belly due to lack of physical activity. I found a short cut, through a small colony (“BASTI” in colloquial terms), which turned out to be just short of 2 km.
As days passed, I began observing the people living in that colony, their habits and their daily activities. I dare say that all families belong to lower income brackets. I could not help but adore them and enjoy their smiles and grievances day after day.
When I went past them at round about 8.30 am in the morning, all their children gathered near the small school that is the only centre of education in that small locality. There are approximately 200 children of ages 6-12, who chirp away outside the school building with their innocent smiles, eyes filled with dreams and blue uniforms. The mothers wash their utensils in a common tap on the street corner, having intermittent chats amongst themselves, the fathers take out their bicycles to leave for another long day’s work, and the grandmothers pour all their love and affection to the cows and calves. In fact I have also seen them bath the animals in the morning, clean them and provide them with lots of fodder, and believe me, be it animals or human beings, when you love them really well, tears come out from their eyes. Some kids are naughty too and don’t want to go to school and mothers start scolding them. The stray dogs are also part of their families and give an expression as if they also want the kid to go to school and learn. The tail just keeps wagging with a childish effervescence.
When I come back around 6.30 pm, darkness still does not set in here and its time for the children to have a ball with friends. There is not enough space to play cricket or football, but they just have a lot of fun. They run around with the dogs, run 30m sprints and the winner gets some extra milk from his mom. There is a big banyan tree under the shades of which the elderly sit for an evening conversation. Some children just run to their fathers and urge them to come home. That is also a very special sight. Sometimes I return at around 8.30 pm also, and at those times the picture is somewhat different. Everybody retires to their shanties and spend time with their families. There is just so much peace and happiness around, both among human beings and animals.
Sometimes I wish that I could also live a life like that, where you don’t just join the rat race to chase money and fame but be possessive towards peace and happiness, for they say, that it is in such places that God resides.
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