Skip to main content

Sensitivity

 


What, according to you, is the virtue that the world stands most in need of today? #NeededVirtue [Indispire Edition 403]

A little more sensitivity will make the world a far better place.

 

Can the wind kiss the leaves without shaking them so much as to make them fall? Green leaves quivering in the breeze that caresses them fondly fills my heart with romance.

Often they are like lovers in an embrace.

Sometimes like the infant in its mother’s arms.

 

The cool touch of the misty air on my face as I ride my scooter early in the morning. Sensitivity.

Palpable was the moisture of the moonlight that was asleep on the village road until it got up and walked away as the dawn broke. Sensitivity is ephemeral. Like the rainbow somewhere far, far away.

 

The sun begins to lash soon.

At the market junction, the loudspeaker blares charming slogans whose hollowness penetrates into the marrow of my bones.

Is it impossible for politics to be sensitive?

Is it impossible for the religious teachers to be sensitive?

Can the politician be a gentle breeze in Shaheen Bagh?

Can flowers replace the barbed wires in Singhu?

Can the gods in the temples on my way smile?

 

The sun is burning my skin.

I take U-Turn and go back home.

I’ll protect the smiles still left there.

From my leaders.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanJanuary 17, 2022 at 11:07 PM

    Hari OM
    ooohhh.... this lyrical piece reached out and wrapped itself around my little grey cells! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 18, 2022 at 5:24 AM

      And I'm glad it did. Your presence in this space has begun to mean something special for me.

      Delete
  2. parwatisingariJanuary 18, 2022 at 1:25 PM

    hmm... interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sandhya BhattaramJanuary 18, 2022 at 6:16 PM

    Beautifully expressed!

    ReplyDelete
  4. ArtiJanuary 19, 2022 at 11:23 AM

    Dear Tomichan,
    I've been away for a long time and coming back to your blog to read 'sensitivity' seems pre-destined. Like Yamini, your words, contrasting the hardness of politics with the softness of human sensitivity, engulf me.
    Warmly,
    Arti

    ReplyDelete
  5. JaiJanuary 23, 2022 at 7:48 AM

    This piece is tinged with poetic melody. I loved the way you have called the green leaves and the breeze lovers. The green leaves shaking in the gentle breeze. Wonderful words. Before that you have asked the question whether the wind can shake the leaves without making them fall on the ground. Gentleness and sensitivity are indeed two things that are the need of the hour. Very well written, Tom.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

The Vegetarian

Book Review Title: The Vegetarian Author: Han Kang Translator: Deborah Smith [from Korean] Publisher: Granta, London, 2018 Pages: 183 Insanity can provide infinite opportunities to a novelist. The protagonist of Nobel laureate Han Kang’s Booker-winner novel, The Vegetarian , thinks of herself as a tree. One can argue with ample logic and conviction that trees are far better than humans. “Trees are like brothers and sisters,” Yeong-hye, the protagonist, says. She identifies herself with the trees and turns vegetarian one day. Worse, she gives up all food eventually. Of course, she ends up in a mental hospital. The Vegetarian tells Yeong-hye’s tragic story on the surface. Below that surface, it raises too many questions that leave us pondering deeply. What does it mean to be human? Must humanity always entail violence? Is madness a form of truth, a more profound truth than sanity’s wisdom? In the disturbing world of this novel, trees represent peace, stillness, and nonviol...
6 comments
Read more

The RSS does not exist

An organisation that has 80,000 branches in India does not exist legally in any document. This is the cover story of The Caravan this month. By the way, The Caravan is one of the very few publications that still continues to exist in spite of being overtly critical of Narendra Modi and his Sangh Parivar. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not registered as an organisation under any of the usual Indian registration laws such as the Societies Registration Act or as a trust or company. It functions as an unregistered voluntary organisation, though it is arguably the largest public organisation in the country. This situation makes the organisation absolutely unaccountable to anyone, argues The Caravan . The RSS is not legally required to file annual returns to the Tax department or disclose its financial details publicly though it deals with thousands of crores of rupees every year especially after Modi became the Prime Minister of the country. The membership of the organisat...
12 comments
Read more

No Problems Only Opportunities

You’ve probably heard this joke. A young man walked into his office one morning and found a beautiful young lady sitting in his chair. He called the MD and said, “Sir, I have a problem.” The MD replied, “Don’t you know our company’s motto, young man? No Problems, Only Opportunities .” When Suchita of The Blogchatter sent me a mail with the topic of this week’s blog hop –  - the first thing that came to my mind was the above joke. I know many people – too many, in fact – who went through terrible problems. My own life was a series of problems in none of which was there the consolation of any beautiful woman. One essential lesson I learnt from life is that life is a series of problems. You solve one and then arises the next one. Now I have reached an age when problems are no more problems: they are life itself. If you ask me what was the biggest problem I ever dealt with, it was my last years in Shillong. I was a lecturer in a college drawing a fat salary stipulated by the U...
13 comments
Read more