A pinch of innocence

Since childhood, every essay we wrote on India, had one line for sure, “India is a land of villages”. I often used to wonder what it would be like to live in a village, away from the concrete jungle, not worried about the 8:06 local, not bothered about the crowds, a world where Gucci and Reebok would sound as alien as Saturn’s rings. What is it, that these people possess, that keeps them happy even in a life of hardships. Life had a turn waiting for me, while I travelled from Pune to Solapur in a bus recently.

It was an extremely hot afternoon, and as the temperature soared higher, there was mercury rising in people’s hearts too, after all, because of a silly mistake of mine, we were travelling by a non-AC bus on a hot afternoon after missing a comfortable, posh AC train. :P After glaring at me for a long time, my friend slept off, and as I waited for my guilt pangs to surpass, I kept staring out of the window. We passed through several barren lands, withered away shrubs, in the extreme heat, nothing scenic to watch, but still better than the rattle on the TV being shown. I was just thinking about how the heat was affecting this part of the city, when I saw a beautiful banyan tree and children playing swing on its branches, there was a small stream of water flowing nearby, and even in the hot sun, I could feel its chilled gurgle. I smiled at the thought of playing with these kids, it was then that I remembered a line again from school , which I would never forget, “Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest”.

Life doesn’t stop smiling or gifting you with its treasures if a certain amount of leisure is stolen away and it is a lesson I learnt on a hot Monday afternoon! It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a washing machine to wash your pile load, but you do get the pleasure of playing with your friends in the water as you wash. It doesn’t matter if you cant watch the latest movie on your television, as long as you get to spend evenings swinging and laughing with your friends. They don’t care about a dinner at a five star hotel, trying low calorie dessert, the meal which is shared with your loved ones, no matter how meagre, is the tastiest.

Life doesn’t stop with hardships, if it steals a handful of happiness then it returns the same amount in another form, I was jealous of those villagers. Even in their life of hardships, their smile was genuine, the happiness in their laugh was evident, and when they hugged their loved ones, it was genuine. We have grudges in our hearts, envy in our relationships and trust is a emotion unknown!!


If only we had more time to analyse life and sort it in a simpler way, if only in our recipe of life, there was a pinch of innocence!!