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

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts

Machiavelli the Reverend

Let us go today , you and I, through certain miasmic streets. Nothing will be quite clear along our way because this journey is through some delusions and illusions. You will meet people wearing holy robes and talking about morality and virtues. Some of them will claim to be god’s men and some will make taller claims. Some of them are just amorphous. Invisible. But omnipotent. You can feel their power around you. On you. Oppressing you. Stifling you. Reverend Machiavelli is one such oppressive power. You will meet Franz Kafka somewhere along the way. Joseph K’s ghost will pass by. Remember Joseph K who was arrested one fine morning for a crime that nobody knew anything about? Neither Joseph nor the men who arrest him know why Joseph K is arrested. The power that keeps Joseph K under arrest is invisible. He cannot get answers to his valid questions from the visible agents of that power. He cannot explain himself to that power. Finally, he is taken to a quarry outside the town wher

Levin the good shepherd

AI-generated image The lost sheep and its redeemer form a pet motif in Christianity. Jesus portrayed himself as a good shepherd many times. He said that the good shepherd will leave his 99 sheep in order to bring the lost sheep back to the fold. When he finds the lost sheep, the shepherd is happier about that one sheep than about the 99, Jesus claimed. He was speaking metaphorically. The lost sheep is the sinner in Jesus’ parable. Sin is a departure from the ‘right’ way. Angels raise a toast in heaven whenever a sinner returns to the ‘right’ path [Luke 15:10]. A lot of Catholic priests I know carry some sort of a Redeemer complex in their souls. They love the sinner so much that they cannot rest until they make the angels of God run for their cups of joy. I have also been fortunate to have one such priest-friend whom I shall call Levin in this post. He has befriended me right from the year 1976 when I was a blundering adolescent and he was just one year older than me. He possesse

Nakulan the Outcast

Nakulan was one of the many tenants of Hevendrea . A professor in the botany department of the North Eastern Hill University, he was a very lovable person. Some sense of inferiority complex that came from his caste status made him scoff the very idea of his lovability. He lived with his wife and three children in one of Heavendrea’s many cottages. When he wanted to have a drink, he would walk over to my hut. We sipped our whiskies and discussed Shillong’s intriguing politics or something of the sort while my cassette player crooned gently in the background. Nakulan was more than ten years my senior by age. He taught a subject which had never aroused my interest at any stage of my life. It made no difference to me whether a leaf was pinnately compound or palmately compound. You don’t need to know about anther and stigma in order to understand a flower. My friend Levin would have ascribed my lack of interest in Nakulan’s subject to my egomania. I always thought that Nakulan lived

Octavian the Guru

Octavian was one of my students in college. Being a student of English literature, he had reasons to establish a personal rapport with me. It took me months to realise that the rapport was fake. He was playing a role for the sake of Rev Machiavelli . Octavian was about 20 years old and I was nearly double his age. Yet he could deceive me too easily. The plain truth is that anyone can deceive me as easily even today. I haven’t learnt certain basic lessons of life. Sheer inability. Some people are like that. Levin would say that my egomania and the concomitant hubris prevented my learning of the essential lessons of life. That would have been true in those days when Octavian took me for a farcical ride. By the time that ride was over, I had learnt at least one thing: that my ego was pulped. More than 20 years have passed after that and I haven’t still learnt to manage affairs in the world of people. That’s why I admit my sheer inability to learn some fundamental lessons of life. Th