My dad always cites this example of an IAS aspirant who was in the interview room. The question thrown at him: Which is the place in this world where you feel all alone and can connect to your deep self. The lateral thinker’s answer was: the WC!I don’t know if my dad read it somewhere, as a piece of joke, or as a matter of fact. As far as I am concerned, some of the profound thoughts strike my mind, when I am taking bathJ.
It was a mid-September Thursday morning and I had just finished my jogging session along with my wife. Thanks to her constant persuasion, I had gotten up relatively early (7 a.m.J), to walk, jog and run, in-order to reduce the unwanted fat that I had un-intentionally accumulated over the previous couple of months. I drank my cup of milk and went into the bathroom to meet my very special person: my-self! J
No sooner did I start pouring the hot water onto my head, than my wife asked me to store a bucket for herself as well. I had never guessed that the idea which was due to strike me had taken its inception in a container of water!
Just think of the amount of water we use for taking bath – a bucket or two? And then, store another couple of pails for our dear ones, so that they also enjoy their bath with hot water, speaking silently to their own inner self. Come ‘on everybody does that or rather should do that if you ask me-speak with one‘s own self!
I prefer the phrase – ‘take bath’ to ‘have a shower’ because most of us use a plastic bucket and a mug rather than the bath-faucet, in this part of the world.
Coming back, I do not feel the need to store a 500L tank full of hot water for bathing purpose. That would be foolish and insane. We know our stay in the bathroom would be, say about 15 minutes which at the max might extend to half an hour! I finish my bath in 10 minutes on an average by the way ;). All we need here is a big bucket or two of water and we would say “Enough!” and stay happy in that moment.
At the same time it does not mean that I should not plan and store water at all for the household chores. Of course we need water for the next day and I am sure every one of us in this urbane era would have made proper water-storage arrangements with all those paraphernalia. But nobody would think of having a river in his backyard to fulfill his or his family’s aquatic requirementsJ.
After all, we do not consider storing water for the next twenty years, for the generations to come. Looking at it from a larger perspective, we leave it to the ‘system’ or the ‘government’ to think of the future. A good system will always ensure a well-planned structure - socially or financially.
By the way, I am not a ‘Save Water’ campaigner in any sense! My thoughts are a little more profound, least to mention.
Now, extrapolating the water-necessity to the food-requirements, just think of a buffet party. There would be loads of food items – starters, beverages, sweets, main courses, desserts and what not. Based on our preference, we would go in for a Vegetarian and/or J a Non-vegetarian menu. We might start drooling and our appetite might increase a little automatically but it cannot afford to become insatiable just because there are umpteen items available. I would have my share of food, say “Enough” and stay happy in that moment.
Again, we do not consider stacking food for eons to come, although we plan to store it for a couple of months at the max. We leave it to the ‘system’ yet again, to think of the future.
Luckily, God has created our tummies with a limited boundaryJ. But the same cannot be extended to the mind or the thought process of man. Fortunately or unfortunately there is no limit to our thoughts, the Gandhis and the Hazares use it for the well-being of the mankind and the Rajas and the Reddys use it for the ill-being!
I had never guessed that the idea which was due to strike me had taken its inception in the bucket of water! Black money it was!
I have always tried hard in vain to understand man’s unquenchable need for money or should I say greed for money. ‘They’ might argue that money doesn’t rot by catching fungus and so they want to stash as much cash as possible. How I wish the money had decayed like a radio-active element after a certain period of time!! J
I feel that beyond a point, we should all stop running behind money. The Ambanis, the Mallyas, the SRKs, the SRTs and all those Netas should come forward; show philanthropy and help the society at large.Some of our contemporaries like Sudha Murthy and even Bill Gates endorse this view, not only in their words but also through their deeds!
Ultimately, we are not going to carry any of this money into our after-life, if at all that exists, because the only account which counts there, is the balance of ‘virtues’. I do not want to sound like a saint here, for I am not one, yetJ. I too am materialistic and I too second the idea of ‘making good money’, but definitely not so much money that confuses me as to how to spend it, that snatches away my sleep, that embarrasses me in public, that disgraces me in front of my own people, supposedly for whom I had amassed all the wealth, that puts me behind bars and that kills me like a slow poison!
As far as I have seen and understood, in many of the developed countries, people do earn, live their life to the fullest, and sure create ‘some’ assets but they do not really scratch their heads about the lives of the generations to come. This kind of social structure sure existed in India, during the times of Kings of the Vijayanagar and the Gupta Empires, to mention a couple. I think, people in such cases just worry about themselves, invest in ‘systems’ at large like education and culture, depend on good governance for equality of wealth and law and order et al and try and lead a high quality life. Such people do understand the worth of money, do understand that money is just like water or food and they definitely do know - to say ‘Enough’ and stay happy in that momentJ.
