the power of hope and other mundane things in life

8/13/2019 The Power of Hope and Other Mundane Things in Life...

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It was a long time back, I was very young, 10-11 years of age, class 8/9.The power supply to

our house was severed as we couldnt pay the bill of about Rs. 80/.The flourishing business had

collapsed due to some misunderstandings ,Papa was not doing anything for last 2 years and Mummy

was too timid to go out and find a job, at least during the initial days. We were left to carry on with

very little except the hope and our faith in our capacity to overcome whatever it was or will be. We

were a family of Six. Papa, Mummy and four of us brothers and sisters. I was the eldest one, had a

premonition that some bad patch is about to start. The elder one of my two sisters , Smita also

understood what were we going through. The other two were too young to understand.

It would have been a very difficult and unpleasant period of our lives if it were not for Papa.

We hardly ever had enough to eat, there was no furniture except for a few wooden stools in the

house and 2-3 cots and we used old torn clothes and Raddi papers and Kandas as fuel for the

choolha. But never, for even a single moment, we had any doubts in the inevitability of all this or our

capabilities to defeat it all.

Papa was a graduate of Allahbad University, Political science class of 1968/69,one of the

finest brains and a voracious thinker, the best debater and persuader I have seen in my entire life (I

met so many of his friends, most of them in the administrative/police services and all said that he

was the best and could have easily cracked the Civil services exam had he cared to appear).Even

when we were eating 2 rotis a day with green chilli and Onion chutney, he made us firmly belief

that money does not matter at all, it is the most useless of all the possessions that humans can have,

and truth, righteousness, and our faith in ourselves are the greatest assets that we can possess and

also since we possess them, we are the richest.

In the cold winter nights, without proper clothes to cover us, and without any electricity or

food for the next day, we will all gather around him and listen to his views on truth and propriety

and what is right and what is wrong his unimaginable stories of faith and hope and will forget that

we have to arrange for tomorrows food.Abandoned by most of our relatives, and not having much


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social interaction with the society as such, our minds were largely unpolluted. We were fed on a

constant dose of an ideology which was incredibly simple and even more incredibly strong. Nothing

could move our faith from the truth and nothing could fog our sense of right and wrong. Financially,

things went from bad to worse, Papa shifted from Wills to Capstan and later Bidi and even that was

on credit most of the times. I used to cry when I watched him smoke a Bidi, the utter helplessness of

the situation will so many times take over, but my greatest sorrow was that a person like him is

smoking Bidis. That we did not have food did not bother me at all but him smoking a bidi shattered

me. Just 2 years back, he was a stylish and successful businessman, having a million dreams and

vision and capacity of fulfilling them and we were the aloof royalty in the small town where we lived.

Later, his health deteriorated very fast. I think he knew that he will not live for very long, he tried to

instill as much of him in me as he could do during the short lucid intervals that he had before my

departure to the Medical college.

I went to my old place a few days back. It is almost in ruins now and needs a lot of repair.

Clicked a few photographs. There was a narrow Barja,a balcony with Iron grill outside our room, that

opened out onto the street and the power cables were only half a feet away from there. Many of

our neighbors would put a kantiya (Illegal iron hooks type of devices attached to a cable to draw

power ) and I remember it very clearly, one day the local line man came and out of respect for Papa


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and sympathy or our poor condition, suggested that we might as well use a kantiya as the power

supply is so close , nobody would even notice it and that when people with so much of money can

do it to run ACs, why not us who have four kids studying. Papa felt so offended by the mere

suggestion, he called me and asked Kya Krsi han Avtar ka beta chori ki bijli se padega?There was

only one answer to that, a very firm No with so much of hate in the voice for the poor lineman to

have suggested it. And so it was.Class 9th

to 12th

, I studied in the light of small dhibaries(Made by

piercing the cap of a bottle and putting a batti in the kerosene oil inside)and so did my brothers and

sisters. But such unshakable was the value system then, that never did the thought of getting illegal.

As I look back on all those days, and then look around me, I often wonder would it be ever

possible for me to bring up my own kids in the same manner, with so much of conviction in the

power of Truth, righteousness and hopes and dreams, with so much of communication and

understanding . I dont think Im able to give to my children even 1% of what my father gave to me.

This often makes me feel inadequate and incomplete and I wonder over the strangeness of human

brain, how could he have so much of control over our lives and thinking even when he was a

penniless sage selling his vision to us and showing us all dreams through his eyes and how I fail to

achieve even a small fraction of it.


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My Old study Table : 2 legs gone,

but still holding on

the power of hope and other mundane things in life

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