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

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

      Delete
  2. 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
  3. 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

Break Your Barriers

  Guest Post Break Your Barriers : 10 Strategic Career Essentials to Grow in Value by Anu Sunil  A Review by Jose D. Maliekal SDB Anu Sunil’s Break Your Barriers is a refreshing guide for anyone seeking growth in life and work. It blends career strategy, personal philosophy, and practical management insights into a resource that speaks to educators, HR professionals, and leaders across both faith-based and secular settings. Having spent nearly four decades teaching philosophy and shaping human resources in Catholic seminaries, I found the book deeply enriching. Its central message is clear: most limitations are self-imposed, and imagination is the key to breaking through them. As the author reminds us, “The only limit to your success is your imagination.” The book’s strength lies in its transdisciplinary approach. It treats careers not just as jobs but as vocations, rooted in the dignity of labour and human development. Themes such as empathy, self-mastery, ethical le...

The Irony of Hindutva in Nagaland

“But we hear you take heads up there.” “Oh, yes, we do,” he replied, and seizing a boy by the head, gave us in a quite harmless way an object-lesson how they did it.” The above conversation took place between Mary Mead Clark, an American missionary in British India, and a Naga tribesman, and is quoted in Clark’s book, A Corner in India (1907). Nagaland is a tiny state in the Northeast of India: just twice the size of the Lakhimpur Kheri district in Uttar Pradesh. In that little corner of India live people belonging to 16 (if not more) distinct tribes who speak more than 30 dialects. These tribes “defy a common nomenclature,” writes Hokishe Sema, former chief minister of the state, in his book, Emergence of Nagaland . Each tribe is quite unique as far as culture and social setups are concerned. Even in physique and appearance, they vary significantly. The Nagas don’t like the common label given to them by outsiders, according to Sema. Nagaland is only 0.5% of India in area. T...

Rushing for Blessings

Pilgrims at Sabarimala Millions of devotees are praying in India’s temples every day. The rush increases year after year and becomes stampedes occasionally. Something similar is happening in the religious places of other faiths too: Christianity and Islam, particularly. It appears that Indians are becoming more and more religious or spiritual. Are they really? If all this religious faith is genuine, why do crimes keep increasing at an incredible rate? Why do people hate each other more and more? Isn’t something wrong seriously? This is the pilgrimage season in Kerala’s Sabarimala temple. Pilgrims are forced to leave the temple without getting a darshan (spiritual view) of the deity due to the rush. Kerala High Court has capped the permitted number of pilgrims there at 75,000 a day. Looking at the serpentine queues of devotees in scanty clothing under the hot sun of Kerala, one would think that India is becoming a land of ascetics and renouncers. If religion were a vaccine agains...

Ghost with a Cat

It was about midnight when Kuriako stopped his car near the roadside eatery known as thattukada in Kerala. He still had another 27 kilometres to go, according to Google Map. Since Google Map had taken him to nowhere lands many a time, Kuriako didn’t commit himself much to that technology. He would rather rely on wayside shopkeepers. Moreover, he needed a cup of lemon tea. ‘How far is Anakkad from here?’ Kuriako asked the tea-vendor. Anakkad is where his friend Varghese lived. The two friends would be meeting after many years now. Both had taken voluntary retirement five years ago from their tedious and rather absurd clerical jobs in a government industry and hadn’t met each other ever since. Varghese abandoned all connection with human civilisation, which he viewed as savagery of the most brutal sort, and went to live in a forest with only the hill tribe people in the neighbourhood. The tribal folk didn’t bother him at all; they had their own occupations. Varghese bought a plot ...